Monologue Dialogue

August 22, 2010

I told myself, “you need to work on your dialogue. You don't talk enough to know how to write it.”

“What do you know? I talk.”

“Yeah, but you're alone the majority of the time.”

“I encounter the public, on average, for eight hours a day.”

“Would you stop arguing? You talk to them about contact lenses. And, quite honestly, you barely know what you're even talking about there.”

“Shut up.”

I bought this curling iron at the thrift store the other day and decided that now was the best possible time to try it out. So I stood there in the bathroom with a good half-hour head project ahead of me. Apply product, stick your head between your knees and give it a good shake. Stand up. Gather your bearings and then section by section make your way around. Love on those strands.

“Remember when Mandi said that we, as single girls, must curl our hair and keep our mascara fresh lest we run into the man that God has been preparing for us?”

Pause. Spray. Fluff.

“I feel silly for having ever bought into that--even if it was a thousand years ago.”

“If God is preparing for me a man who prefers a woman with curly hair, God doesn't know what the hell he's doing.”

“If God is preparing for me a man—I'll eat my own arm.”

I laughed. I thought I saw your face today but I just turned my head away... something something. And I couldn't help but fall in love again.

“I think a lot of girls feel bad for not having boyfriends and so they tell themselves and each other that it's because God has this big, mysterious, magnificent surprise party that he's planning. They say that so they don't have to actually take responsibility for themselves.”

“Like—you don't have a boyfriend because you're needy, not because of God.”

“You don't have a boyfriend because you're a little slutty.”

“You don't have a boyfriend because you're not a little slutty.” That was a good one.

“If they don't take responsibility for not having a boyfriend, then when a boy shows up, they just take him and don't even consider whether or not they like him. Just assume that's the one that God must have picked because he was the first one to show up.”

“Here's how I see it,” I said, drawing a diagram in soap on the mirror. “This square represents all of the men I know. This line indicates that of all of these men, there are about 70% that I even want to be friends with. Are you following me so far?”

“So far.”

“This line indicates that—and mind you I'm just making these numbers up off the top of my head—of all of those men that I would like to be friends with, there are probably about 12% that I would ever consider having sex with.”

“Woah. Woah. Woah. Who's talking about sex?”

“I am.”

“Fair enough.”

“May I? Anyway, of those 12% of the 70%, there's probably about 4% that I would care to have sex with and then still be friends with.”

“...I don't follow.”

“It's a small box. A tiny population from which to choose.”

“Oh—and consider that of the few, few people contained in that box, you have to be in their box, too.”

“And the population diminishes even more.”

“Give yourself some credit.”

“I am—trust me, I am. I know I'd end up in someone's box.”

“So what's your point?”

“My point is that I'm curling my hair but I'm not doing it for some guy I've never met that I hope wants to marry me someday.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Head between the legs, shake it out again. Spray it again. Damn, it turned out nice.