I May Have Just Made My Life's Work

I'm not a socially awkward introvert. I'm a socially awkward extrovert. I am perfectly capable of carrying a conversation, but I'll carry it like a seagull carries a french fry. Snatching it from your fingers and flying off faster than you can process, and then taking it somewhere weird.

I had such high expectations for the finale and they were still all surpassed. The drama of Tula almost killing Jaysohn only for Viola to crit twice and completely wreck everyone. An absolutely insane last battle followed by an even crazier epilogue. Jaysohn deserves his airbud moment. I can’t wait for Lila to solve climate change. Thorn really was a prophet. I still need an update on the status of hats. What an amazing story the whole way through.

As soon as something good happened to Gilear my friends and I were screaming at the tv. Something is so wrong. And now Fig is getting Gilear luck. Oh my god. Poor Fig. Give her a break

Having a breakdown, texting my therapist like: can you call me? No worries if not.

The main problem with owning a Pizza John shirt is that now everyone knows when I’ve done the laundry because it will be the first thing I wear.

That and the fact that it’s 20 degrees outside and I will be wearing the t shirt anyway

they should have me on the complicated women podcast

Love Brennan preparing to say Gorgug’s name as Telemaine and surprising himself at what comes out. Love watching the other players be surprised. The pronunciation is great. The shock is better

Don’t understand how John Green could write something like “I’m stressed about work, even though my work is absurdly inessential.”

There’s a reason I return again and again to all of his work. I deeply feel that my life has been saved with the hope and wonder and joy he has given me. Art is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

Paper Towns is an amazing deconstruction of the manic pixie dream girl trope.

I don’t understand how anyone could read “The fundamental mistake I had always made…was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl,” and not understand that the whole of point the book is that Margo is not a mpdg and that Q is wrong for treating her like one. The whole of the book is that Margo wanted to cultivate this image and persona but ultimately it just makes her feel worse.

This quote from Margo summarizes a lot of it: “I was the flimsy-foldable person, not everyone else. And here’s the thing about it. People love the idea of a paper girl. They always have…Because it’s kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way.”

Growing up, I felt this so much. All of this pressure to be funny and smart and pretty and perfect, but the truth is that no one can be all of those things all the time. We are all people, with all of the complexity that that entails. When we pretend not to be, we lose out on having people love us for all the parts of ourselves.

So much of it is related to being a woman too. This pressure to make ourselves smaller so that we can be a supporting character. Every time I show a man that I know something he doesn’t, I can feel how uncomfortable (at best) and angry (more likely) they are. Paper towns is a great reminder that I am not here for anyone else’s development. I am my own story.