Scarf: H&M. Jacket: gift. Shorts: Spoon Jeans via Alloy. Tights: generic. Legwarmers: some Asian brand. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.#reverb10 prompts after the jump.
PROMPT FOR DECEMBER 22, 2010: Travel. How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?
So obviously I can’t take this prompt literally, because my entry would say this:
I DIDN’T.
So here is my metaphorical movement from 2010.
I went…
- from 19 to 20
- from humanities major to computer science major to humanities major
- from 90 subscribers to 150
- from 3000 pageviews per month to 10,000
- from “Girl or guy?” to “Male or female?”
- from mullet-bob to shoulder-length hair
- from bootless to booty
- from painfully new leather to broken-soft
- from grasping at straws to letting them go
- from thinking about change to change
- from cotton underwear to lace to cotton
- from movie-deprived to movie-indulgent
- from Glee-obsessed to Glee-skeptical
- from Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-less to Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-love
- from favorite-movie-less to favorite-movied
- from Facebooked to Facebookless
- from afraid of failing to failing
- from prickly to soft underbelly
- from an open book to a blurb
- from English to Scheme to Java to Python to English
- from intimidated to indifferent
- from an island to an archipelago
- from questioning to questioned
- from the tipping point to a splatter mark on the floor
- from acrylic to cashmere
- from self-doubt to self-love to self-doubt to self-love and self-trust
- from resolutions to goals
- from naysayers to kindred spirits
- from lurker to commenter
- from MLIA to DYAC
- from Sony Ericsson to HTC Aria
- from Dwinelle to Soda to Dwinelle
For a little while, I thought that in 2011, I wanted to go to the UK. Now I think that in 2011, I want to go…
- from Point A to Point B
- from Point B to Point C, and so on
- from here to infinity and beyond
- from crayons to perfume
- from 150 subscribers to 200
- from 10,000 pageviews per month to 15,000
- from embarrassing hobby to legitimate use of time
- from waiting for external validation to seeking external feedback
- from T9 to Swype (and if Gordon is reading this… I haven’t bothered yet because my internet connection is too slow at home)
- from considering the distance between the deck and the waves to being peaceful with drifting at sea
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PROMPT FOR DECEMBER 23, 2010: New Name. Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?
After clicking through the first few search results to see what other people wrote for this prompt (which is what I’ve been doing when I’m out of ideas), it appears that I’m not the only one who dislikes this prompt. But anyway.
Something slightly unusual, preferably a literary reference, definitely male. Candidates include Atticus, Barnaby, and Melchior.
Because I’m marginally curious about what people think of females with unambiguously male names, but I don’t like the idea of answering to David or Adam or Bryan, even though I like all of those names a lot. (I guess I have a thing for Biblical male names. The only non-Biblical male names I like a lot are Roger and Charles, the latter only because it shortens to Charlie.)
And I’d like to see how many people make stupid name jokes upon meeting me. (My friend Sunshine gets them a lot.) Although if I were an Atticus, Barnaby, or Melchior, I’d probably want to get to know anyone who recognized and made good jokes about my name.
And I wonder if a person’s name colors the first impressions they give. Like if you meet a Wilbur, do you automatically look for pig-like qualities? Are Charlottes maternal? Do Zeldas like being treated like royalty? Is every Quentin neurotic? Are Daisies and Bretts total bitches? Are Elizabeths spunky and attracted to handsome, brooding men? Are Clarices destined to develop complicated relationships with cannibals? Are Ariadnes inclined to be architects? Are Jacobs hairy and hot-headed? Do Freds and Georges tell better jokes? IS CARRIE ON HER PERIOD?
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PROMPT FOR DECEMBER 24, 2010: Everything’s OK. What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?
My eyelids were still red and swollen from crying all night and into the morning, despite at least twenty minutes of rubbing frozen spoons against them so as not to alarm my little cousin, whom I found out I would be babysitting at eight that morning, after two hours of restless sleep. We spent a few hours watching TV, playing cards, cutting snowflakes, drawing dresses, and gluing sequins before her mom took off from work early and picked her up. Then I was alone again, in my grandma’s very empty house, wailing on my knees in the hallway cradling a yellow plastic bag filled with the clothes I peeled off my grandmother in the emergency room so she could put on a hospital gown, and her “It’s so cold, so cold” while my mom fixed the gown around her and I pulled my sleeves over my icy hands to rub her shoulders. She was sweating, and everybody was moving too, too slowly.
A little while after I removed myself from the ER feeling completely useless and helpless, my ever-resourceful cousin arrived and tried to calm me down by showing me a photo of his knee wound. The edges were black and the center of it consisted of congealed pus and blood, and I asked if he’d gotten it checked out by a doctor yet.
I don’t know when 5 AM came, but it did, while I was crouched on a waiting room chair with a soaked paper towel under my nose, too much of a traffic jam in my throat for me to articulate, “Is she in pain?” to the doctor whose footsteps we were desperate to hear, whose “We’re trying our best” and “She’s having trouble breathing” we desperately didn’t want to hear. Our parents suggested that the kids go home.
After babysitting, I was shuttled back to the hospital. A few hours later, a carful of relatives from a six hours’ drive away arrived.
We pressed into the elevator, daughters, sons, in-laws, and grandchildren, one mass of silent tension. I felt my brother press his left shoulder against the back of my right. I pressed back, in balance.
In 2011, I will give good to my first and strongest support system: my family.
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