Less Than Three

Chapter 41: In Which I Become Someone Else

Monday, July 7,  9:02 PM

Welcome to Madame Irene's new Zoolio Web Log!

Term of the Day: Ponder - To meditate on something that has great weight

I was surprised to find a computer at our beach house. I figured I probably wouldn't use it much. I mean, I was at the beach. Why would I want to be stuck inside, spilling my guts all over the internet? Hadn't I done enough of that already?

There was something about it that was just so appealing though. New location. New blog. No one who knew what a disaster I'd made of things. I could choose to be anyone.

So I chose to be madame_irene.

If you could see into the future, would you do it? I used to think I would, but now I'm not so sure. If I only knew then what I know now ... but then, I wouldn't really know it, now would I? Sheesh, I am confusing myself. That's just one of a long list of things I planned to ponder that week.

Tuesday, July 8, 6:54 AM Term of the Day: In Medias Res - In, or into, the middle

I suppose most people would start this story at the beginning. How else will you know who's important and why? Or how I got to the place where I leave little piles of scabs everywhere I step? But I prefer to start in medias res; I think it hurts a little less that way.

Once upon a time I saw a psychic ...

She told me I had made a choice. She said I wouldn't believe her, that I would fight against it and pretend the decision was yet to be made. I would make it harder than it had to be (except it had to be that way). There would be false starts and even falser endings. She told me I would say I was picking one thing, but every step I took would lead me closer to an inevitable conclusion ... right back to the choice I had already made ... to face the consequences of what I'd started before I even knew I was ready to begin.

It's funny how changing one thing changes everything. My brother and I barely talked when we were home. His friend Trinh hadn't said 100 words to me in months. There by the sea though, we took time to catch up. And they really listened (instead of yelling at me to get off the computer or develop better taste in music).

We sat on the sand and talked about Brady. I told them the whole story and they told me to quit worrying about it so much. Boys and girls break up. It hurts but that's how it goes.

It was wired/weird hearing Tim philosophizing on the nature of Love. He was surprisingly good at it. Here's one of the things he asked me to consider:

If things were really that perfect with Brady, would I have been so vulnerable to swashbuckling from Dave? Maybe, he said, I was lucky my pirate came along when he did. If he hadn't, I probably would have had to come up with some other reason to dump Brady, some reason that wasn't nearly as much fun.

The thing to do, Trinh added, was to make sure I gave the relationship a proper amount of respect. Ponder it, figure out what I learned from it, mourn it a little if I had to, then move on. I <3 those guys.

Wednesday, July 9, 6:27 AM Term of the Day: Fermentation - The decomposition of complex compounds into simpler substances.

I've been fermenting on things and, instead of decomposing, I've decided to compose something ... a letter. There are things you can say in writing that you could never, ever, get away with face to face. Here's proof: I don't care HOW MUCH some guy Loves you, if you spring (sprang? sprung?) something like this on him in person, he'd run away screaming: