back to one time I remember with my father. we were watching full house on television and during the opening credits my dad, he says, look, her last name is Loughlin. You are related to her somewhere in your family tree. it took me several years before i learned that our family tree reads more like a doctors chart for the mentally unstable. and a rehab. a psyche ward for addicts. that's where our tree would grow. and everyone could look at it with its gnarled branches and knotted trunk and all of their ugliness and hatred would melt, because, really, who would want to be something so stationary and awful to the eye?
Lori, I think her first name was. I'm sure she's a major Lifetime actress by now. that's what always happens to the attractive, -but not too attractive- comedic relief female on your hit tv shows. the show gets canceled and Lifetime swoops them out of their shattered careers by giving them a second chance. only no one you know would want to watch these shows. maybe that's part of the appeal. you know it's bad. but it's ok maybe. these women, they get beaten, raped, assaulted, stalked by crazed boyfriends. this is television for women. what women, i don't know. Ask Valerie Bertanelli. Or that one with the real life eating disorder. The Seaver girl. Her, she's all over the place, throwing up after meals, being beaten. if only i had her agent.
but back to the full house moment. I think my father wanted me to feel connected with her. anyone. everyone in the world, perhaps? I'm sure he had good intentions. me growing up believing that everything is connected and how i'm a part of some bigger plan. it sounds wonderful in theory, but when you're told your connected to all of these strangers, which is what they are, by the very people that were supposed to be connecting with you, guiding you, it leaves an idea that, yes, these people exist. but you won't be getting any of that here. so go connect. elsewhere.
but more and more i feel like i'm just art imitating life, imitating art, until the circle closes in on itself and the original is too far gone. only the side effects remain. the reactions, the pain, the inappropriate happiness. sometimes it takes up so much room you can actually feel the oxygen being sucked out of your lungs and a feeling of immediate deflation impending. and then you inhale. now repeat. this is life.
