at the end of this blog is an excellent excerpt of literature that was NOT written by me…but first, i’ll share how it came back into my life at precisely the right moment, as all the best things do.
i moved recently. and by recently i mean the beginning of june. i like to say “recently” because of all the things i still have lying around in boxes. or the fact that a friend of my roommate came over last night and immediately pointed out that i had “a library” pretty much just sitting in piles in what is supposed to be a small hallway leading to my room. i think i mumbled something about “needing bookshelves” and then sheepishly noticed that i have two completely empty sets in eyesight…
at least part of the reason i leave things lying about the way i do is because everytime i move i have this obsession with going through all of my “old boxes”, which is what i call the countless rubbermaid containers which encase all of my memories….old pictures, scrapbooks, annuals, “love letters” and momentos (any exes of mine going back to the seventh grade…you’ve been warned!)… and then there’s just the occasional surprise. for instance, i have often found going through these boxes that i once considered myself quite the poet. it turns out, upon further consideration with each passing year, i was WRONG. =) i never kept any of these poems together, mind you, they are always some gem that i come across in an old notebook, or just a random, sometimes TINY piece of paper that i somehow held onto because of whatever GREAT SIGNIFICANCE it held to me at the time. the truly sad and hilarious thing about these poems is that almost all of them seem to involve a boy, and i can NEVER tell from reading them who in the hell i wrote this particular piece of literary genius about!!! which just goes to show, i seem to not have been as great of a girlfriend as my previous blog stated…or else i was an excellent girlfriend who just wrote crappy poetry and has a terrible memory. it really could go either way…
today i was “cleaning” (i.e. started dishes and ended up going through another box and thus ended up here on the computer with you fine folks…i’ll get to the dishes eventually…) and found this new and exciting gem (DON’T WORRY, I DIDN’T WRITE IT!!!). it’s a monologue i did in college, back in my theatre days, and i had completely forgotten about it (further proof of my crappy memory), but as soon as i read it i got such a thrill…i used to LOOOOOOVE performing this piece! and i’m sure, by now, you will all understand why….(p.s. it has probably been modified, or “cut” from the original version, since auditions always carried time constraints…)
The Roaring Girl
by Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton
Act III, Scene I
“What durst move you, sir, to
think me whorish? In thee
I defy all men, their worst
hates and their best flatteries,
all their golden witchcrafts,
with which they entangle the
poor spirits of fools, distressed
needlewomen and trade-fallen
wives. Fish that must needs
bite or themselves be bitten.
Such hungry things as these
may soon be took with a worm
fastened on a golden hook.
Am I thought meat for you,
that never yet had angling rod
cast towards me?
I scorn to prostitute myself to
a man, I that can prostitute
a man to me!
And so, i greet thee.”
did i find this particular gem on this particular day for a reason? time will tell…but i am a big believer in the boomerang effect, which i define as such: one can toss something (or someone) away without even knowing it, or throw it with all their might, purposefully and with passion, hoping that it will disappear from their hearts, minds, memories (in some cases from the planet itself, trust me, i have thrown that hard before), but there are simply some things that will ALWAYS come back…it could be something good, something seemingly insignificant or forgotten, or something that will try over and over again to rip you in half with the force of it’s shattering and unnannounced return, but it is inevitable that SOME things (or people) will always, ALWAYS come back. which can be both reassuring and terrifying, depending upon what stays in one’s orbit. little did i know that The Roaring Girl was still in mine, but i think it’s a good thing. =)
