cut-it-out.

my friend riley has a cardboard cut-out of himself. i am jealous. this cut-out has found its way into our closet, showers, around corners, in our beds and other equally disturbing places. as we speak it's in the hallway by the bathroom with one of those sleeping masks over its eyes like he's on a 16 hour flight to Korea--business class.

but why have a cut-out of yourself when you can BE a cut-out? i've spared myself the trouble of blowing up a really flattering picture of myself and pasting it on reinforcing paper. lately i've just been a cut-out. you'd be surprised how few emotions cut-outs have, how little they own their actions, and how much they like to sleep. you can see riley's cut-out is a very congenial generous guy; a broad smile across his face and a gift in tow for whomever he encounters. my cut-out's (there are no synonyms for cut-out) choice of emotion is numb mixed with frustrated: frumbstrated, and i think i look like i'm looking at the sun, brow furrowed, eyes squinting, chewing my day-old gum hard. people keep asking me what's wrong and i want to say, "i'm not achieving my goals and i have no discipline!" but the paper-thin version of me says, "nothing." the paper-thin version of me is telling me to erase that last line, that i shouldn't be so confessional on such a forum, that such vulnerability is for tweens on myspace bulletins. but, the paper-thin version of me has bad breath, so i'm not listening to her anymore.

so here i am, hoping that if i am still a cut-out next week that i can at least be a more charitable one. most of all, i'm hoping i will discipline myself back into emotion, into motion, into fulfillment and look to the right source for these things... and if not, i'm flying to Korea for my twenty second birthday--business class!