"Take me out tonight
Oh, take me anywhere,
I dont care
I dont care,
I dont care
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I havent got one,
da ...Oh, I havent got one
And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die"
-There is a Light That Never Goes Out, The Smiths
“I pledge allegiance to United Turtles of America and to the fruit bats of Borne, one planet in the Milky Way, incredible, with justice and black bean burritos for all.”
- Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli
Harry Edward London London Oranges!
Today is a bright new day in the continued saga of Miss Art Nouveau.As the (non existant) devout followers of the Grand Nouveau teachings, may have noticed, my blogger identity has now changed. After so long of being Catcher, I'm starting to wonder what I'm waiting for, who can catch me, who ever would even try
And then, wondering around my basement in my socks, watching Buffy on DVD, I found my old copy of Stargirl, the classic of Young Adult lit about refusing to conform.
The back of the book provacably reads
"She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and she flew away."
- Stargirl
Yet again, everything I've always hoped someone would say about me when I'm not around. Everything they never will.
The title character, Stargirl Caraway (born Susan) does strange things like dressing in costumes and personas (which I so plan to do), connecting with nature, and random kind actions (pre- Pay It Forward, and Post Secret {which is addictive}), like singing happy birthday to everyone, waving to people in the hall, sending homemade cards and presents for special occcassions (like Porcupine neckties), keeping records on people, and just completely refusing to crae what anyone else thinks of her (until she is sort of forced to, which makes her the most unhappy she's ever been, until she becomes herself again).
Most important, she has the courage to tell the boy she likes, that she loves him, something I may never be able to do.
This book, goes right up there with The Lorax on my classics shelf.
The front pages of my book read a message across time, penned by my childhood self, in case I lost my way. A real gem in my childish, slanted writing, the I's dotted with hearts.
"Don't forget.
You are Stargirl. You are whoever YOU want.
But I'm just stuck on Susan. I try so hard to fit, but I just don't wear normal well. It doesn't suit me. I'm contrainiess, cynicism, hopes, dreams and scandal. I'm one of a million, yet I am only one. Be that person, stop worrying what others think, stop being good, stop the hypocrite. You may not be accepted, but at least you'll like yourself.
For once..."
Clearly, my childhood self was going through some terrible stuff. I complain now about pain and lonliness, but today I can't even remember how hurt I felt then, it feels so distant, it's as if it's a memory from another life. I really haven't changed much where it counts. I'm still me. Somewhere deep inside, I'm still me.
No one can take that away.
Baby.
(sidenote: I've retitled my poetry book, it's now called Artifical Sweetener)
I cannot even begin to explain how much my childhood self loved this book. When my eight year old self first read this, I decided that one day I would be like Stargirl, finally having the courage to be myself, weird and unapologetic for it. As I'm always assuring my ragtag band of misfits (and myself), the idea of normlacy is relative (and throughly boring!!).
What if we're the normal ones, and everyone else is weird?
But I'm still too shy to accept my own ideals, hiding behind my fringe of frizzy hair and my baggy uniform sweater, and a sullen frown. I'm still waiting to be myself, but I have to wonder if I'll ever actually stop, and let myself live.
To quote Stargirl herself, “I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.”
So, now I'm Stargirl, to remind myself that I have the power to be remembered, the power to refuse to fit into some lame cookie cutter image of what a girl should be.
Remember, I'm The Art Nouveau Girl, I'm just better than that.
These days, I'm discovering more and more, that nothing of me is truly original, but rather, tiny pieces stolen from each person I have met in my seventeen short years of life. I would be something unique if I only I could just let myself be, rather than wasting my time rambling on in extremely long blog posts about how miserable it is to be invisible (like that Buffy episode with the invisible girl).
The only really unique things about me are my mutations.
I am a genetic freak, but not where it counts, or count possibly be interesting. Slightly webbed toes, a Gene Simmons tongue that I can reach up to my nose (if I wanted to I could actually pick it with my tongue, but of couse i wouldn't), and a heart shaped birthmark (which I kind of love-actually) on the back of my right upper thigh.
Official Segway.......
There are two anthropological experiments I want to do :
1. Asking random strangers I met in my daily life, to tell me a story and then recording them into a book, which would reveal profound differences between people and how they see the world. What is most important to each person, revealed by thier answear to the simple question: tell me a story...(although, most people wouldn't cooperate., which is really sad...)
2. Inspired by an episode off my brand new season one Supernatural DVDs (a blast from the past, as I watched it religiously in grade nine, and then somehow fell out of it)(also, Dean Winchester is so freaking hot!!! How did I not notice this in grade nine?), the episode with the ghost guy that adapts with the retallings of his legend and becomes something new: The idea of starting a new urban legend, like renting out a rundown house and making it look haunted, and then spreading the legend and watching how it changes with retellings and is altered over time to suit the morals and values needed at the time.
Like a game of broken telephone.
Some days, you just want to run. Just want to get into the car or on a train, and just drive until there's nothing left, just drove until you're anywhere but here (if you lived here, you'd be home by now) . I'm so aimless and bored and yes, lonliness snuck in there too, as always.
And today yet again, I came out of the book closet, when it was again exposed (this time to my entire writer's craft class) that I've conqured the literary hurdle, that is War and Peace. I really don't know why everyone is so impressed, though.... It was just four snowy days in January of grade ten, one weekday, three a weekend and PA day, of shuffling around through work , to and from the Regional building, with the huge 1,450 page book in hand and reading it when ever I had the chance (mostly in and out of taxis). Nothing to be impressed over. I barely remember it, but I remember it fondly.
I love you...
And as always, more later.
- Stargirl
P.S. remind me to get a tape recorder sometime, and catch some evidence on my sister's dark side. Truly I think this is demonic possession at work, either that, or pure unadulterated evil.
