Mirror, Mirror: Unearthing Facades

I just read this book Beastly by Alex Flinn in which, let’s just get to the point here, there’s this magic mirror.

Not magic mirror as in Sleeping Beauty (or is it Snow White?) where the witch/queen talks to the mirror and it tells her, “You’re the most gorgeous, sexy, divine woman I’ve ever seen and I can predict men will come crawling on all fours to get to you,” or “You are a horrendous piece of cracked metal and look like you just got ran over by a meteorite and got dumped by the ‘love of your life’.”

Nope. Not at all.

This is a mirror which you tell it a name of someone that just happens to cross your mind, and the mirror shows you in all its five-inch glory what the person is doing at that precise moment… (I know. Perfect for a serial stalker…not the point, though).

What I’m getting to is, what would you give to see what the so-called celebrities, the stereotyped loners, the gorgeous playboys, your next door neighbor, your secret (or not-so-secret crush): what they all do when nobody’s watching…

In clearer terms: Who are they for real?

When it’s a Friday night, does the Maxim's Top Hottest Male actor choose to stay home with his nephew watching cartoons and playing in the back yard instead of going to some crazy Hollywood after-party?

Is it true the supposedly ‘perfect’ million-dollar teenage actress rarely drinks? Or is that all proven false when you see her using up the secret stash hidden at the bottom of the concealer in the close confines of her bedroom?

Does that guy that seems like a jerk everyday in the school hallway really like to tease, hug his mom, and tell her how beautiful she is?

Is that girl you’ve had your eye on, you know, the one with the straight-A’s, the gorgeous looks, and the killer body, not all she seems? That may be when you sneak a peak of her making out in the janitor’s closet with the ass/jock senior.

These may all sound pretty stupid. But I can’t help the curiosity that builds up in me whenever I see someone remotely interesting. Or someone you might not even spare a second glance to.


For example, in the book the guy is looking up girls in Myspace (don’t ask), whose profiles clearly state they are, indeed girls:

You know, the typical, “I love long walks on the beach, I go to UCLA and love the dorms, skinny-dipping, flat stomachs, etc,ect.”

So Kyle, the guy, says to the mirror

“Show me Stardancer112.” (The girl stated above)…and the mirror shows him a forty year old woman…right.

After trolling around some more he came up with several ‘teenage girls’ that really turned out to be, and I qoute:

“
- A forty-something housewife who asked for a naked picture
- An old guy
- A ten year old girl
- A police officer
"

They all said they were his age and female…

So maybe if you really don’t care about the true lives of some the hottest guys in school or are not interested in getting a “Jessica Alba” personal EXCLUSIVE, it could atleast be useful to protect yourself from internet stalkers and lurking pedophiles.

Either way, effective it is.

So forgive me for wanting to see past a person’s put-up façade and see them for who they truly are and what they go through… when they think no one’s watching.

Think of it as a personal experiment: Who are they really?

Don’t say I didn’t leave you with the hope that you had your own personal mirror: to see the truth, the facts concealed, the lies revealed…

So now, when I try to end world hunger and global warming, I’ll go ahead and unearth the secret recipe for the vital construction of this mind-blowing creation…until then, I’ll put it first on my Christmas list.

I love you, Santa

Unmistakable Talent

I never really finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

That would probably be because I’m not very into deep, emotional, ‘heartbreaking’ books.

And, I’m sorry if this beginning:

“It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.”

failed to keep me hooked.

But, rather letting that tiny ineffective encounter with her writing for the second time (Prom was pretty good, actually) go, I came across this quote in her book Wintergirls, which seriously made me cringe (not at her writing) , all the while realizing this woman has some serious talent:

"Why? You want to know why?

Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After our skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.

Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl inside your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all "a disappointment." Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and cut and drink because you need the anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's too late because you are mainlining it now, straight to your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.

Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you.

"Why?" is the wrong question.

Ask "Why not?' "

Maybe it’s just her way with wrapping words together so they flow in a creepy and yet artistic way.

Creepy in the way that I really will try to postpone the day I have to fry in what people call a tanning booth (but ‘baking oven’ fits the term SO much better) and having my flesh stripped from my body leaving me dreadfully naked.

Artistic in the way she describes getting struck on crack, snorting a grating amount of cocaine, and piercing yourself with needles stuffed with heroine all the while dealing with today’s idiot human race constantly shattering and breaking down the wall you have worked so hard to put up.

Eerie in the way she says that:
- constantly heaving out your stomach
- repudiating the only source of energy to the haven of your body
- and assuming the role of burning your liver by tolerating the smolder of alchohol down your throat

Helps relieve the pain, if only for a second.

Amazing in the way that she gets the message across that something we see every day in desperate teenagers and inconsolable runway models is actually as bad as it sounds.

She makes you feel the pain, sense the dread, undergo the agony….


With only a couple of words:

Now THAT’s talent.

Blowdryers and Curling Irons= Power

What is it about hairdressers that gives them total control over the fate of what you call your hair? It’s like no matter how many times you tell them you want it cut THIS short and not THAT short, they seemingly end up going against your wishes in a battle for complete domination over the dead skin cells taking up your scalp.

They say their work is a form of art. No one can tell them what to do or what looks right, because they have an inquisitive insight to the ‘Do’s and Dont’s’ of hairdos installed inside their brain. They just know. ‘Know’ in the sense that they can take whatever unruly measures to permanently damage your already non-attractive hair.

So when you think about it, it would never really be wise to piss off a hair stylist. It would be like throwing digitized bombs at Batman and then having him go all ninja-star on your ass, pardon the French. The comparison is anything if not a corresponding assessment. In Batman’s case, getting on his bad side could seriously damage your life, if not terminate it or leave you suffering with the perpetual after-effects of his massive fist in your gut; Not pretty, but completely plausible.

Irritating a hairstylist, at the risk of sounding misguided, could also be the cause of your eventual downfall and doom in a similar and creepier way.

They start doing something you don’t like and you actually have the indecency to complain? Strike One. See something you don’t like and do the Helen Keller, witnessing the massacre and abolition of your hair silently with no pleas for mercy? Strike Two. (Might as well give up, you are already doomed). Suggest they start brushing at the bottom and not at the top to help the tangles (Or mention they should get a hair job too) and actually question their credibility and natural qualities? DING DING DING! Strike Three.

This all leads to the undeniable: These people have the power to make you look as if you have a bird's-nest implanted in your head, like a raccoon tail has suddenly made way and sprouted from your skull, or worse, they have the power to dictate your future by making sure you never get a pick-up-line, or a phone call from the opposite sex again.

So yes: Those cute little hairdressers with blow-dryers and curling irons as their only source of income? They’re a powerful sort. So take my advice and a draw on the following,

Vital life-lesson # 1:
- Never piss off a hairdresser…EVER.

Meet: The Daydreamer

I can never really shut up. It seems as if the part of my brain specifically designed to say, "HEY, shut up! You're embarrasing yourself!” fails to function or was never really there in the first place.

I feel as if that’s introduction enough, and suffice to say what I wanted to get through to all you (or lack thereof) wondering readers: which, blatantly put is:

My mind tends to wonder…A LOT.

I’m the type of girl that seemingly drifts off into space during Spanish class because she’s too busy daydreaming of how she will come to meet that one guy like Lord Blackmoore in The Season by Sarah McLean or all the male protagonists in all the Nora Roberts novels (YES, I have indeed read all of her books... sue me). Or I just blank off in an attempt to picture myself ruling the world, renewing our over-carbonized atmosphere, and making sure people like Hitler and Chavez never reproduce…
that last one may sound evil in its own twisted way, but, really, it would be for the greater common good.

Unfortunately, those images in my head are purely figments and hopes in my over-indulged imagination and will never come upon to my eager reality. So I have all these things to complain about such as:

- Why the reasoning behind my obsession with fictional guys and not those that actually exist is actually pretty standard

- How being nice for the barest hint of a second will undoubtedly leave you with a love-struck Asian following your every move

- Why Suzanne Collins should hurry the hell up and publish the third book in the Hunger Games, because if I don’t know what happens with Katniss soon, I’ll jump off a bridge and die…haha…joke… Suicidal, I am not.

- Why I should develop psychic powers so the next time someone decides they want to go ahead and steal my phone (BLACKBERRY, nonetheless), I can instantly know when they are going to do it and be like, “Hey YOU! Yes, YOU: the repulsive, sticky-fingered, immoral, depraved, idiotic, sorry excuse for a human being with the hideous haircut!” And then I'll resort to pummeling him with my shoe…Oh, If only.

Either way, I think enough’s said to be able to intelligently infer how it’s going to be like from now on.

Think of it as: Random Thoughts meets Blog Posts, in a revolution to unleash the Chaos that is my mind. God Knows I could never Control it.