Today's Assignment: Write about a time you did something you didn't want to do.


It's never clean cut like the razor slice of paper that always seems to know just the right place to scissor open my skin. But even if the things I've done weren't cut and dry like those bloodless paper-cuts, they still annoy the heck hell fuck out of me. For instance, look at what I just did. I swore. I'm not comfortable with swearing the way I'm not comfortable with my reflection. But I keep singing Mary Prankster songs out loud and I keep looking at myself in the mirror. Because hopefully, one day, I'll be able to say "damn" or "shit" or "fuck" without blushing and the word won't hang in the air like that annoying green alien on The Flintstones. I'll give the word a kind of dignity, the way Sean Connery sounds when he cusses on screen. He tell me all about fucking prom queens, as long as his voice is smooth and honey-glazed. The accent doesn't hurt, either.


I didn't want to wear make-up, but I do because my skin breaks out now. I went all through my adolescence without so much as a pimple, and now that I'm an adult, I have a breakout around "that time of the month."


I didn't want to get married. And it's still hard to reconcile in my mind. Because I used to be this big anti-marriage-anti-institutional-prone-to-questioning-everything-kind-of-person. And now, I'm not. Well, I still question everything, but now that I'm married, it feels like I let myself down. Like I sold out. Like I'm not really allowed to question things, because who am I to question when I allowed a piece of paper to cage me?


If I ever met someone, I wanted our relationship to transcend the tradition of marriage. And back when I thought I was going to be a famous writer, I wanted stories of me in classrooms to be accompanied by nervous laughter about the times I read Shakespeare scenes in the nude with the love of my life. Or how I was in love one glorious, magnificent time, and he (I was even open to the possibility of she) got me to settle down and we had seven children, all named for our favorite writers, and so none of them would be named Joseph or Conrad or Edmund or Spencer.


But instead, I allowed myself be institutionalized.


I try to rationalize and think that it's okay. This is the one glorious and magnificent love of my life. And who am I allow one piece of paper dictate my sense of self? It's okay to change your mind. You're supposed to grow. "The sun shines to-day also."


It's a slow process. But who photo-synthesis was a snap?

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