Juliette Miranda

The fact that I just involved myself in an online message board smackdown over why Rob Zombie is an outstanding director (even with his flawed remake of Halloween) leads me to believe I should probably lighten up just a tad. Either that, or I seriously need another shot of whiskey.

Regardless, I find myself at odds with more issues than usual these days and the residual anger is radiating into too many of my daily activities. I’m already an elitist; I don’t need to be an outright bitch, too.

It’s times like these, when my irritation and indifference and conflicting desires hit a disturbing crescendo, that I sink into what I like to call a Bukowski Binge. It’s a black mood to be sure, and typically involves a bottle of Jack, well worn copies of my favorite Charles Bukowski books, and about 45 pages of word vomit that I’ll write just to write.

My guy knows well enough to leave me alone when I get this way. He’s learned it’s better to take on the role of unobtrusive zookeeper and slide bits of protein under my door than to disturb whatever battle I’m fighting in my head. He is a smart man.

But I can’t wallow as much as I’d like, because practicality is, above all else, my bitch. And that, my friends, is my problem.

Were I to revel in my latest black mood, it would be a month or more before I’d emerge. Me and Buk would be playing the piano drunk, writing verse and getting it on (metaphorically speaking, seeing as how Bukowski is dead and all) while the world continued to spin around us, without us.

Isolation is indeed a beautiful thing.

Unfortunately, it is also completely impractical. Somewhere along the way I picked up responsibilities the same way I have issues, and I find that in order to maintain some semblance of adulthood, I must cater to them. Bills must be paid, work must be done and energy must be put into progress when all I really want is to be left alone to write what I want. Functioning symbiotically is not my strongest suit.

Such is life, I do realize this. But it doesn’t make me resent the obligation any less. And lately, it feels as though there is considerably more obligation being heaped on me to join rank and file with the rest of society in order to maintain respectable adult status. Somehow, it’s come to seem that I am not complete until I marry.

I will never understand the importance society places on marriage. That’s not to say I’m against marriage or that I don’t support it. What I don’t understand is the insistence that I do it, and that I should do it soon, less I spoil like an overripe banana. My life is not so lacking in meaning and commitment that I need to legally foist myself on my guy to justify my existence as a woman.

Still, though the “everyone’s doing it” rationale has historically had little affect on me, now that I see so many of my friends and relations joining the team so to speak by getting married, I’m starting to feel much the same way I did back in grade school. “Odd girl out” and “last picked for the team” catcalls are hard to shake.

It’s annoying that I feel this way at all. But, practically speaking, there aren’t many women in similar situations as me (meaning, in a monogamous and long-term relationship) who aren’t somehow manipulating, cajoling, or otherwise pleading for marriage with their significant others.

Those few of us who are, uncomfortably or otherwise, on the sidelines really only have inaccurate caricatures for support. Forgive me, but should I ever get to the point where comparing myself to anyone from Sex and the City becomes a valid justification for my life, I give the first person to encounter me carte blanche to stab me in the eye with a fork. (Because at that point, a fork in my eye will be the least of my problems.)

I can see how this sense of singularity drives many women to desperate measures. My own means of dealing with the pressure are just as extreme: rather than embracing marriage, I’m doing my best to distance myself as far from the notion as possible.

Seems the most practical coping mechanism, if you ask me. I’ve always felt most safe left to my own devices. My mother assures me with that attitude, marriage is the last thing that would ever be proposed to me.

I imagine she’d be right, in any other circumstance. But I’m banking on the fact that my guy knows both me and himself well enough to appreciate my bravado.

And even if he doesn’t, and all else fails, practicality be damned. I’ll always have Bukowski.