Status Updates From The Name Curse

It wasn’t as if the house was a prison for those memories, and if she escaped it, they would all vanish when someone new took it over and repainted the walls.

She’d still had those memories in Alaska when she’d talked to Matthew about her dad. Or when she thought about selling the house.

I thought you didn’t want to remember him.

What? How could I forget him?

Somehow it was these annoying, random things you missed about people. Not necessarily his smile or the shine of his eyes. How he annoyed her by messing up her hair and calling her Ragamuffin.

She felt marooned on the sofa. Her personal Gilligan’s Island in her own home.

The particular bouquet of the hospital, the cleaning products, the sterility - even the burnt electrical smell of those bright-@$$ lights seemed to be stuck in his nose.

If there’s anything TV has taught me, it’s that you have to talk about these things. That’s why shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” have been on for a hundred years. It’s just people and their problems. It’s cathartic.

Sometimes he’d wished he had been abusive so he’d have concrete reasons to hate him. Hating someone for being pathetic was harder. It felt less legitimate.

I like the foresight you had. “Let me commit all my crimes before I turn eighteen so my record is clean.”

At least chocolate pudding, you can pretend it’s mousse … But those weird tapioca balls? They’re unnatural.

Yeah, and why do people drink it? Like, take a sip and then this giant mucous-like ball slides down your throat on purpose?

The sterile white walls of the hospital were such a weird contrast to her life the past several days. … The brightest lights she’d ever seen, even though she’d essentially been in terminal sunshine nonstop. It was all so constructed and electronic …

I just can’t imagine. Day after day with other person. In the tundra. No city ever. Like, they can never eat good tacos.

That’s your concern? Tacos?

Have you had tacos in LA? If you had, you’d know what I mean.

This isn’t a Starbucks.

What?

You’ve got to chug that coffee and get on with the female version of the three S’s.

Three S’s?

Sh!t, shower, and shave.

I don’t know why my mummified feet need ancient Egyptian names. Why can’t the names of mummies be Matilda and Byron?

“I thought you were going to bed?”

“I would call it ‘going to bag’. That’s more appropriate, don’t you think?”

“Going to bag” sounded like some new trendy slang that meant you were going to steal someone away in a sack to have $ex with them.

Everyone else started popcorning up to go to bed.

(Popcorning - I like that description.)

You have to leave to get lost. But you can always come home to find yourself.

Bernie used to take her dolls and stuffed animals apart and then mix them up so she had new species of creatures that were all hers.

Why are we living like homeless people?

My parents worked hard to send me to college so I could have a good job and provide for my family, and now we don’t even have beds!

Canned food and fires in dirt are what people rely on in times of war. We have microwave technology for a reason, people!

The air-to-smog ratio in Los Angeles, California, is 3.25 to 1.4 parts. A precarious mix of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and celebrity vegan excrement.

I think my inner beast is a squirrel.

That’s like the worst inner beast ever. Squirrels are like rats of the city.

Um, I think rats are the rats of the city. Squirrels are woodland creatures that have slipped into the city realm.

So you fancy yourself a woodland creature?

Aspiring woodland creature. I’m trying.

Once his mom told him that if he just stopped thinking about something, it would help him process it. That his brain would do the work for him when he wasn’t paying attention.

Alaska in the summer was twenty hours of daylight.

Two single omens. Reminders to the couples of what could happen to them if they broke up and were forced on lone vacations.

She was stuck on her back like one of those poor summer beetles, legs flailing on the sidewalk, unable to flip over, dooming themselves to a pathetic, embarrassing death. She would definitely help one of them next time she saw one.

The word Dad still felt weird coming off his lips, like it was something between a curse and a Royal title for someone who’d cheated his way to the throne.

Matthew is 28 and 6’ 2”.

Bernie (Bernice) is 27. Her father passed away 5 years ago.