something borrowed & W1L 014: Write one leaf about your phone.

I don't know what I'll do if I ever come up with an outfit where every item is something I bought for myself.

Strip and run around in celebration, maybe.

Which I guess would defeat the purpose.

Jacket thing: mother's, H&M. Cardigan: secondhand, gift. Polo: American Eagle, brother's, secondhand. Skirt: secondhand, gift. Tights: generic. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.

TO MY DARLING HUGO:

I fucking missed you.

(I should never be a mom.)



W1L 014: Write one leaf about your phone.

PERSONAL CHALLENGE #5: Write in second person, and not addressed to yourself.

My first response to this prompt was awful. I don't know if this is better, but it has more structure. My original response to this personal challenge was also of questionable quality, but I'm pretty sure I disliked the associated prompt enough to not want to write a whole new response. So there might be another Personal Challenge #5 coming.

You always thought that by the time you were ready to enter the workforce, cell phones would have shrunken to the size of dominoes or Scrabble tiles, given the rate at which computers had reduced in size since the 1970s, but now your phone barely fits in the back pocket of your skinny jeans, and while it's certainly an improvement on the brick-like dimensions of early car phones, you can't say much for its compatibility with the curvature of your pasty white ass, which you seem to have a lot of for a white girl.

Then again, you never thought that you’d be addicted to a website that lets you scope out potential hookups and rule them out by their favorite TV shows before meeting them in person. Which, come to think of it, makes the process so much more efficient, especially since you can do it from your phone, and nobody needs to know about the quality stalking you get done on the toilet.

That’s part of your secret life, the one where you occasionally watch bizarre interracial fetish porn that usually makes you feel sick, and where you mentally glance back every few minutes to erase the invisible footprints you’re leaving, just in case anyone’s looking.

It’s separate from the private life you lead, peppered with that guy who could only come when you called him Daddy, the test you and your friends all cheated on in high school, the number of times you showed up for work completely baked.

And neither of those has anything to do with your public life, the one that ends up online, with a list of books that you like, plus a few that you know are good but would never read again because they were so fricking boring the first time around, and your carefully tagged party photos, and your birthday, because you like the attention, even if it’s obligatory and despite what you say.

But this phone, your phone, your very own block of plastic and silicon bits, your phone is all of your lives at once, your status updates shouting into the void and your morning-after texts to your best friend and your carefully autocorrect-checked comments on Cute English Major #3’s creative writing blog, which he describes as being “about a girl” and which he links you to every week asking what you think, and which you hesitantly fawn over because part of you suspects his writing is vague and immaturely dramatic, not artistically deconstructed, but the part of you that really wants to hit that is perched atop a toilet typing out things like “I love love love the symbolism” and “this is so Faulkner!”

Nobody needs to know this. They only need to know about your public life, your relationship status, your year, your major, the quotes you live by, the combination of semi-indie and Top 40 music that makes you seem quirky without being pretentious. That’s all you let them see, except for the select few you allow into the inner sanctum that is your private life, wherein you snark about other girls who are complete bitches behind your back and miss a spot shaving your legs.

But nobody sees your secret life. Nobody witnesses the momentary rush of childhood fear as you walk back upstairs and suppress the urge to run, or the time your mom made fun of your eyebrows and the miniature complex you’ve developed as a result. Nobody sees it but your phone, your vibrating pocket companion, and your phone can’t judge you for it.

Maybe that’s why your phone is so big…

It’s full of secrets.