Unfinished

Preface:
I am currently working on an essay for some unmentionable class. Essays are quite an extensive process for me and don't materialize until the brink of hallucination at four o'clock in the morning when the birds start chirping and The O.C Register violently smacks the garage, scaring the living demons out of my dead soul. At this moment, my left eye twitches and my body is surged with a euphoric feeling very similar to that of a caffeine high. My fingers finally connect with my brain, and the words start a-flowin' from the depths of my consciousness. Out comes an array of beautiful sentences that form into a beautiful essay about whatever academic flavor of the week I have been assigned to. Before this happens though, I start every essay by reading everything I've ever fucking written, for reassurance that I am, in fact, capable of literacy. Or I do a bit of personal creative writing so that I can give myself the smallest increment of pleasure before I pump out the most mundane of research essays that reduce my mind to mush and muck. Tonight I will do the latter, in desperate hopes that it will spawn some sort of genius in my collegiate writings. It probably won't, if I know myself.

Prologue:
I've come to a slightly alarming realization just now whilst staring at one blurring sentence in Times New Roman size 12 font - eleven words surround by a white space waiting to swallow it into the abyss that is Microsoft Word. The cursor taunts me, adding to the all-encompassing anxiety that is my persona during finals week. This sentence looks lonely, and I wish I could think up some friends to join it - preferably 18 fucking paragraphs. My train of thought leaves this companion-less sentence and takes another form. I think of piles of my unfinished short stories, unfinished free verse poems, and even diary entries that trailed off into the unknown. I conjure up an image of my future-self: I'm pulling my eyelashes out in a furniture-less cabin in Idaho, with only a tabby cat and bottle of gin to keep me company, trying to finish said unfinished writing (I secretly love the drunk-tortured-writer image that every great literary giant can be associated with). I come back to reality after such a prophecy/fantasy, and I notice a tall bookcase in the corner of my room which holds a twenty year-old collection of books, most of which I never finished either.

Introduction:
Contestants on American Idol will show home videos of themselves as small children singing like little harmonious cherubs, and all of America will melt into their sunken-in sofas, which fit the mold of their massive derriere's perfectly. "I've been singing ever since I could talk," each contestant will say with an earnest shit-grin as the video shows them solo-ing as a small child in the gospel choir of their Southern Baptist church. America loves that kind of shit. America eats that shit right up. We see it every time because it's such an endearing scene that compliments a melodious vocal chord quite well, and no one ever tires of it. Well, I'm fucking tired of it. The video I'd really like to see is the parent behind the camera overdosing on exuberance while coaxing their little prodigy with hand signals and mouthing the words to 'Amazing Grace'. I want to see that video set to Dubstep. That I would watch, and enjoy. Each spring, I cringe with disgust as I come home to discover my divorced parents sitting together on the sofa critiquing each contestant and commenting on the hilarity of Ryan Seacrest. "He's soooooo shawt," my mother drawls softy with her Floridian twang. "Randy sure lost a lot of weight...shit," observes my Father with his Mid-Western nasal-y accent (We're not quite sure where this accent came from - He grew up in the Valley, just outside of Los Angeles). Unfortunately for me, American Idol has been running for ten years, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. I could carry on this incredible rant forever, but I would never reach my point.

"I've been reading ever since I could read," I say with a sincere shit-grin when someone asks what draws me to English Literature as a major, and then I walk away and let that statement settle in. I usually come back and ask if they want some more coffee, or if they'd like ice with their water. I ask them this because they are old, and this is my job. Only the elderly care about why I chose English as a major, and are just as stoked, for lack of better words, as I, on my choice. My peers don't really give two fucks, and I don't rightly blame them - I don't imagine that literature sends a thrill down very many young knickers in Southern California. Middle-class white adult men like to ask me what I plan to do with such a degree, and usually respond with an, "Oh, that's nice…", after I slam them politely with my earnest truth. I pretend to loathe the 'What's your major?' question, but I secretly love it. I like recognizing the subtle disapproval of most who ask this question. The look on their smug faces usually says something like this: "What in the fuck are you gonna do with a degree in English - teach?" Hopefully they can recognize the smug look on my face that says something like this: "Middle-class White Motherfucker, I know you think it's not an economically practical major, but who the fuck are you? You probably have a college degree in engineering, and what the fuck did you do with that? You work in a cubicle, presumably, and hate your boss, your wife, and your life, for that matter. So don't sit here and patronize me. I know you're going to check out my ass when I walk away."

I chose English because I slightly like the idea of teaching a classroom of 32 fifteen year-old fucks Romeo and Juliet as they snap their technology gum and text in their brains. No, are you fucking crazy? I don't believe I have the ability to make children, high schoolers, college students, or anyone, for that matter, love the thing that I love. I don't have that kind of confidence in myself or American youth. I chose English with no future occupation in mind. Fuck practicality. How smart is that?

Frankly, Nancy even if I wanted to be practical, I couldn't. I'm not good at anything else. I'm not very bright when it comes to math or science, so what does that leave me? Two weekends ago, my friend, a Chemistry major, and I, drunkenly conjured up an image of ourselves moving into together if I hypothetically decided to transfer to the local university. She gushed something normal like, "Oh my gawsh, it would be so much fun! We can get a place in Newport Beach!" I said something intelligent and academically relevant like, "You can write your science in the garage, it could be great!"Really? Write her science in the garage? What in the fuck. I think that I utterly failed at establishing anything other than snorty laughter. Lexi, Full-of-Wit.

In all actuality, I chose English because I feel a burning passion within my black heart for it, and have since I was youngin'. Like the aforementioned American Idol saps (I always reach my point eventually), I, too, have many home videos of my baby-self doing shit that I was destined to do - reading books. My mother has a collection of really amusing snapshots of me as an 18 month-old chillin' on a Florida beach in a miniature lawn chair doing something really extraordinary and prodigy-like - reading a book upside down.

Whether I knew what that fucking novel said or not is not what concerns me. What concerns me is that I probably didn't finish 'reading' it. That photograph signifies the beginning of my lifelong struggle of not being able to finish a fucking book. I've 'read' hundreds and hundreds of books since then, but probably actually finished about 100 books, cover to cover, in my lifetime. I've been living a lie. Are you shocked? Horrified? Have you stopped reading yet? Do you care? Do you like me? Am I pretty? Seriously though, what kind of an English major doesn't finish reading a book? I don't rightly know. I usually leave the last fifteen pages of each book unread. After all these years, I'm finally ready to confront the problem and try to understand what on earth is wrong with me. The breaking point came after pouring through 700 pages of Moby Dick, frothing at the mouth and completely engulfed in every word Melville wrote. At the 700th page, I gave up. On the last fucking chapter I put the book down. Ahab could be alive, for all I know. Queequeg could have risen from the dead and finally had some steamy gay sex with Ishmael while Ahab and the White Whale watched, for all I know. Moby Dick was the last straw, and it was sickening to finally admit that I am the worst English major on this earth. The last straw should have been in third grade when I lay awake in my twin bed at night wondering how the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe ended. It should have been, but it wasn't. Hundreds of classic tales exist vividly in my mind, but I can't rightly tell you what happened to Oliver Twist, Mowgli from the Jungle Book, MR. FUCKING POPPER and his FUCKING PENGUINS, or Robinson Crusoe. Whatever became of the B.F.G? Did the Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles become extinct?

What should I do? Should I speak with a therapist? Should I be alarmed?

At this point, I've since forgotten where I was going with this. And I think that this is best left unfinished, like everything else.