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There’s actually two of them. One is in French . . . talk about redundant.

So the thing is, I exhumed and re-animated this blog as the final project for my Women, Writing and Memoir class (or . . . I just started a literate version of the Zombie Apocalypse).

I’m actually earning credit writing this thing! (I KNOW, RIGHT!!)

But it has come to my attention, which is a hard thing to do sometimes, that there isn’t a whole lot of “Me” in my memoir-slash-bloggie-thing. Correction: There’s plenty OF me, but not a whole lot ABOUT me.

~holds hand to forehead, peers into the balcony section and utters a dramatic sigh~

Not getting out of it that easily, huh? (argh)

TARDIS2Well then, I suppose I’ll have to start feeding quarters to the old way-back machine and get it to dredge the channel for Bits of Miki. I hope they haven’t decomposed too much; otherwise I’m liable to get all sappy and serious, which makes me break out in hives.

But first, this message on the medium of “memoir”:

There’s Biography, right? And then there’s Memoir. ~looks closely~ okay, not quite conveying it.

The two are both wonderfully entertaining methods of telling a life’s story, but they are very different critters: Like Dogs and Octopusseses. Dogs will research, finding reliable dates to tell a story as History. Whereas Octopi (wait, an Octopi* is 8 x π, right?) will tell you a story from personal perspective–where the same event will happen slightly differently for each Octopus present based on their emotional focus at that moment. Octopi are all about emotion, where Dogs deal in events. Octopi can write poetically, where Dogs must keep it real. Octopi can be squidgy with the facts, as long as the meaning is authentic. Dogs just walked off in a fit of jealousy and disgust.

I don’t know why animals keep taking over my blog. ~sigh~

Anyway . . . what the octopi was trying to say was: the stories you are about to hear are true; the names, heights, genders, diets, occupations and shoe sizes may have changed to protect the innocent.

Stay tuned and buckle those seat belts . . . because it’s the law. ~giggle~

[ *My mathematician says that Octopi is = 25.13274122871835(…). My biologist seems to think that me and my mathematician are both three steps away from the loony bin. I’m more inclined to side with the math here. I think my biologist is still upset I set her poor cramped pet octopus free to live in nature . . . . how was I to know they can’t survive in the forest. I don’t want to talk about it. ]

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As a beginning–or rebeginning (yes, I’m allowed to make up words, tyvm)–of my hapless blog addiction, I thought I’d share an apropos piece from my Women, Writing & Memoir class. It goes something like this . . .

Why are beginnings so hard?

Middles, that comfy popcorn-spilling-as-we-ignore-yet-another-movie-entwined-on-the-couch, seem so simple and inevitable. That so-perfect-we-can-just-let-it-happen practice at foreverness. Why don’t they give up on beginnings and just start relationships in the middle? I’m really good at middles, if I can only get past the beginnings.

Usually Zen and relaxed in the presence of other women, all it takes is an unexpected smile or a mysterious look from the right eyes and suddenly I find myself walking into the last interview of my dream job missing a shoe.

girl car breakdownIn the moments that follow, something goes clank under the hood: my speech centers misfire and stall, or wind up to a fever pitch with no direction to go. My eyes, once trusted to navigate the depths of a friend’s angst-ridden soul and plot a course to comfort, now seem out-of-balance gyros verging on gimbal-lock. And although I can’t see it from where I’m standing, I sense my body language has switched to an ancient form of semaphore, signaling to this lovely woman:

“The runway is open. The tower is aflame! Make your takeoff roll now!!”

Soon her enchanting smile dims to uncertainty, conversation veers from the fast lane to the pedestrian crosswalk, and then so does she. If only she could have seen who I really was.

If only we carried resumes, crisp off-white pages confirming the years of romantic service and exemplary skills in the face of love, detailed accounts of rendered kisses, massaged shoulders and feet, seemingly endless cuddles, misplaced Saturday mornings, laundry and dishes and meals joyfully created, giggling to tears and overlooked mistakes, races to say I’m sorry first, sunset walks holding hands, high fidelity and low maintenance and promises kept regardless, tallies of unexpected embraces, and turning to listen when she talks.

My resume is missing. Once more I’m ON …and no words can say what I’m wanting to say that won’t sound cheesy or crude, or perhaps even creepy. The First Impression monster has crept in, already checking off the destruction on a clipboard, shaking its head over the lost opportunity, another moment of life left unlived. Crime scene tape is unfurled as two souls part, wondering why life had no rewind button.

It’s not always this way. Strangers traipse into my life every day. But when the chemistry is missing my shyness lays sleeping, relaxed that nothing of importance is happening here. My true self wanders out and says hello, smiling and chatty and happy for the connection. The First Impression monster is observed daydreaming over coffee.

If ever I do see Love again, I’m sure it will have to sneak up on me, like in the movies, in the guise of someone so totally wrong for me that Shyness and First Impression run off to the beach together for the duration, giggling as they splash in the waves. And in moments of disinterested mundanity we let slip random anecdotes from our romantic resumes …

And it dawns on us: We can truly see each other—and the view is amazing!

Is it any wonder I’m majoring in making movies? I’m the perfectly hopeless protagonist of my own romantic comedy of errors. Or perhaps I’m just the pratfalling comedy sidekick.