she looks at herself in any reflection she sees: bus or car or store windows, her computer screen put to sleep, and at night, as a passenger, she looks out of her window, looking at and seeing through herself. she remembers when she was a little girl, her mother’s passenger, saddened by her life in that car, with that mother.
she likes to organize things. from the dishes in her cupboards to the messages in her inbox, she needs thing organized, removed, stored, or discarded when not in use. this rule is harder for her to apply to some things than others, but for the most part, she removes the things from her life that she is unable to organize.
she scrubs too hard. always has. her mother told her many times while growing up that she was heavy-handed, but she still does not realize her own impact. she walks hard, whispers too loudly, and likes to wring towels bone dry. she does not understand why other people do not put as much strength into things as she does. for her, when she’s working hard on such things, it’s a matter of efficiency. she values efficiency above most else.
she is open-minded. she loves that people come in so many different varieties. even thought she hates people, if she could, she would taste more flavors of them. she has not figured out an efficient or organized way of doing so, so she settles for images of them via art, the internet, photography, and stories from friends. she loves looking at others and into their lives as much as she loves looking at herself and into her own. she can’t help but stare, but tries to be careful about being caught. she is very careful, but she likes to watch. men, women, bus drivers, lovers, haters, junkies, homeless, tourists, and especially small children. with them, she doesn’t feel she has to stop staring. with them, she is warm. to them, she offers smiles and friendly games of admiration. with adults, she mostly just pretends she is not looking when she definitely is.
she finds it hard to believe in god, but is deeply impressed by babies. she feels a sense of spirituality when she is in the presence of them. babies are as close as she gets to god. or heaven. she would have more herself, but she has not found a way to efficiently do so. people ask her all the time when will she, and she just points the digits of her right hand toward the heavens while rubbing her thumb across the fingerprints of her three longest fingers. she has considered donating her love to charity and probably will when the way to do so becomes clear to her.
sometimes she takes too long to do things she would be good at doing. she does not always know her own power. this is why she sometimes speaks too loudly, or too bluntly, or is too obvious when someone tells her to secretly look at the person right next to her, or tries to make small talk with her. she sucks at small talk. she wants to get to the nitty gritty.
in the past, she drank way too much and too fast. she has learned the value of moving slower. of savoring. she savors food and love naturally and slowly, but in the past, she drank to get drunk. the things she said while drinking were unpredictable. sometimes angry. mean. she is fortunate to have friends who love and protect her. from herself. she can become another person at times. it must be who she really is beneath her many efficiencies.
she is an honest person. she is not good at lying and tends to avoid it at all costs. she’d rather deal with the consequences of her truths than those of her lies. the discomfort associated with lying, for her, are far too many to bear. she dislikes psychological discomfort because it is an inefficient use of her energy. peace is preferable because she likes to sleep deeply at night. she likes to dream of worlds in which she can see everything all the time. each of the choices she makes in her dreams reveals more information to her. she often wakes wondering what to do with all she has experienced while sleeping. she escapes trouble frequently in her dreams because she believes the choices made in real life are often a reflection of those made while asleep. she refuses to die while dreaming because for her, it signals trouble and failure in her daytime life.
she does not like being in any kind of trouble, so she is very careful with the risks she takes. usually. she does not fear the things that you fear.
she believes in fate, and so, even though planning is her religion, she always leaves room for improvisation and chance. she gave up trying to believe in god in favor of probability. she found planning her afterlife inefficient because she couldn’t get solid answers from anyone living. so far, she has not been able to commune with the dead in a way that make her certain. she respects voodoo and ghosts and the unliving from a distance, in the same way she approaches the elderly–with reverence and wonder that they have existed for so long and remain intact.
she enjoys being both the voyeur and the muse. her own muse and voyeur, she is as curious about death and mortality as she is about life and birth. she would have made a fine doula. or painter, or detective, or rich man’s wife. she is still taking her time to decide what she wants though. she hates to be rushed. because rushing is inefficient.
Nonfiction Woman 