Skip to main content

it's as plain as the food on my face


There’s that old saying, you know the one, something about wearing your heart on your sleeve.

I guess, you know, it’s supposed to describe a certain type of sad sack sentimentalist who advertises their most cringe-worthy feelings for all to see. Those feelings we’ve all been taught it’s common decency to stuff away and hide forever until we die alone taking our regrets and our unspoken declarations of love with us to the grave where they will decay along with our tangible bits. Those feelings.

But some of us are even more pathetic than sleeve-heart wearers. Some of us wear our hearts all over our faces, like we’re babies just learning to feed ourselves. We wear our desires and tragedies all over our faces like mashed peas and pureed sweet potato and prune whip. This heart all over the face type is gauche and far more uncivilized and our dirty faces are so much more obvious to the beholder than heart shaped badges ironed or sewn on to a sleeve like a Girl Scout. I mean, that’s sort of cute, isn’t it? But the food? All over the face? If you saw someone with a little heart on their sleeve you might go, aww…but if you saw a grown adult woman with food all over her face, you’d run in the opposite direction. You would. Especially if she was looking directly at you.

The heart on the sleeve crowd, it could be said, is guilty of nothing more than an endearing emotional fashion faux pas while the heart shmeared on the face folks are committing what is essentially gross emotional hygiene.

This is what I’m trying to say: I’ve rubbed my face in a plate of pre-masticated and gelatinous feelings. My emotions are in my eyes, in my hair, congealed behind my ears. I know I should just go wash my face, but honestly, I don’t want to.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Just don't call me Late to Dinner

A friend recently asked if I was ever called Maggie or if I'd always been a Margaret. That got me thinking about my name. I hate my name.  Hate it. I have never liked my name. It seems fine to call other people Margaret. It sounds agreeable enough when I say hello to another Margaret. "Hello, Margaret!" I might say. And the name doesn't offend me. It doesn't make me recoil or wretch. It's just a name. And a fine name at that. But it's not for me. I don't feel like a Margaret. It doesn't fit me well.  Hangs off me all funny and weird. Can't ever seem to wear it comfortably. I don't like to be called by name. Frankly, it makes me feel sort of sick.  When I was a chubby 3rd grader I decided I wanted to go by a nickname.   Peggy. I wrote it in my clumsy curly cursive on the front inside cover of my books.   I said it out loud to myself in the mirror. Peggy. Peggy! I liked it. First of all Peg...

possible blog material

possible blog posts for blogtober: 15 things you don't know about my left nut: 1. I don't have a left nut 2.  I do not even have a right nut As I can only get to #2, this idea needs fleshing out before I commit to it. Hahaha...fleshing out.  some things you don't know about my cat 1. I have a cat 2. she's a cat  3. she does cat things 4. she shits in a box   15 things I want to change about myself 1. fuck this shit 2. seriously 3. back off 4. you do not want to go down this path 5. really One billion (maybe this is too ambitious) observations made while sitting on the toilet  1. someone should really mop the floor  2. I need to get some new reading material in here,   3. I think the new Oprah magazine was in yesterday's mail  4. there are only so many times you can read about living your best life while sitting on the shitter  5. reading recipes while using the bathroom is sort of we...

We're in a horrible mess and I feel like I owe folks an explanation

Hey there friends. In the past, I haven't been shy about talking about my bipolar II, my near constant depression, and anxiety. Writing about my experiences has been a mixed bag. Sometimes I feel I am reveling too much and that I'm embarrassing myself.  Then there are times when people reach out and thank me for being honest about my mental health struggles. Some folks find comfort or solidarity in the stuff I write and that's good, because that's my hope and intention.  I've been mostly silent though about this most recent episode. It's been so dire I felt foolish discussing it much. It just felt too big to be real. I worried that people would think I was being overly dramatic. I have been tempted to dump it all out there like a bag of old garbage, but I though, who needs that. And frankly, at a certain point it felt like who cares, why bother, it's all a load of shit and in the long run, who gives a fuck. At this point though, I feel like I owe...