beautiful mistakes
2006-07-29 2:21 a.m.

-today i had tea with my mom and christine's mom. so my two moms.

-tomorrow the first of my friends is getting married. i am not invited, i guess.

-i chopped cucumbers for my grandmother's cucumber salad (very good, very vinegar. you like vinegar?). my mom and i talked. i told her how and why i love people. i said a similar thing to rebecca. here is what i said.

i love people, i love painting people, i love writing about people, i love looking at people. a landscape is twice as interesting when a person is in the corner. i love people because they always, always, always fuck up.

we all know the laws, the right thing to do, the proper way to act. there are history books of all our previous mistakes. but we never, never learn.

there are advice columns in every paper. we all have wise friends and guides and people to help us. we all have choices to make and we all pick the wrong ones.

no one does the right thing always, no one says the right words. everyone is so painfully human.

and this is the most beautiful thing there is.

i like to look at people's faces when they drive. you know how you forget there are people in those cars? you start to think the cars run themselves? i like to look at people going through an intersection. go, go, go, go.

i think, everyone in this intersection has a history. everyone is regretting something. everyone wishes. everyone has done something terrible and has broken the spirit of another person--both willfully and unintentionally. everyone looks in the mirror and hates something about themselves. i want to know all those people.

the beautiful things people do:

people eat when they are depressed. people gossip when they know they shouldn't. people put their job first and their family second. people steal money from thousands so they can have a better car.

men give presents to women who hate them and call them "bear tits" behind their back.

women yell out "well, you have a small dick!" when they don't mean it at all.

women say, "i'm so fucking gross," to hear their friends say, "no you're not."

friends say, "no you're not," when they don't mean it at all.

taco bell employees spit in the 7-layer burritos of two college students. thus making an 8th layer.

a person drinks too much and cheats on her boyfriend; she blames the alcohol, as if it sprouted legs, ran up her body, and poured itself into her mouth.

men say, "i love you," when they mean to say, "i love owning you."

women say, "i love you," when they mean to say, "i love feeling valued."

children say, "are you a boy or a girl?" to a young girl with short curly brown hair. when she says, "a girl," they walk away because they wish she was a boy.

a married man has an affair for 18 years with a woman he has no intention of ever marrying.

a man sends troops to a foreign country knowing deep down he has made a mistake.

two young men seduce a young woman who is not in her right mind, knowing deep down she deserves better. they can't give it.

engaged couples throw dead opossum corpses into their neighbors' yards.

an over-the-hill english teacher makes five students cry by insulting their work.

women steal makeup from the bathrooms of their parents' acquaintances.

a principal fills out her time sheet for hours she was at the mall. she fires the teacher who reports her.

four boys burn a cross into the yard of a black woman.

young women miss their cruel lovers and psuedo-lovers.

a college student throws out the laxatives of her friend and urges her to seek help for her eating disorder. later, the friend has a wedding.

men kick dogs to make up for their own insecurities.

brothers say, "your legs are gross" to their sisters.

while her friend is in the bathroom, a young woman climbs into the lap and kisses the lips of a boy she knows her friend loves.

a man, convinced by his wife, kills the king. for hundreds of years afterwards, people say his flaw was ambition.

people watch video clips of QVC employees falling off ladders.

men jack off to pictures of underage girls wearing white panties.

countries of people fire missles at each other in endless retaliation, the way the girls on my bus in middle school would argue, "don't you tell me to shut up; YOU shut up." "oh no don't tell me to shut up, YOU SHUT UP." "oh no no one tells me to shut up. shut up."

teenagers shoplift from cinnabon.

men drop words about relationships, families, and the future in order to encourage the spreading of their female friends' legs.

tgi friday waiters fart near the tables of their customers and secretly watch their reactions.

a young man spouts off pro-war sentiments until he himself is drafted; he then gets unnecessary braces on his teeth to be disqualified from the draft.

an eye doctor makes lewd comments and grinds his penis against the knee of a young patient, while her brown eyes are looking through those big-ass lenses. he says, "which lens is better; one, or two?" she thinks, "that had fucking better be his knee."

isn't the world beautiful? no really, i mean it. isn't it?