Patches

Excerpts from a patchwork piece I'm attempting to compile.

1. I don't write words anymore. I sit and I knit and watch old films and provide critical analysis more thorough than anything I could have accomplished in graduate school.

2.I stopped checking my Facebook once I realized that everyone was light years ahead of me. Watching as friends who had not yet graduated continued to bask in the safety net of higher education. Watching those that have graduated go on to do noteworthy things. There is nothing noteworthy I can say about myself unless I want to count the lovely personalized rejection letters I've received from numerous publications (eight and holding).

3. I cut and crop and dye my hair a spectrum of colors on what seems to be a weekly basis. There are gaps, but I do not realize this since I have lost all concept of time.

4. Stuck in snowstorm traffic I hear Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" a total of seven times in an hour on various radio frequencies. All I can think of is that the sucker punch "Last Christmas" provides is more befitting of my season.

5. I get your text messages but I cannot bring myself to respond to them.

6. Reading Jane Eyre this winter allows me to indulge my melancholia. I debate whether I am Jane or the Madwoman in the Attic. Perhaps I am Rochester, a man so consumed by his physical desires that his house is engulfed in flames.