Sunday Morning



As I sat in front of my iMac on Sunday morning watching movie trailers at apple.com in the plaid chair I stole from my last year’s English teacher, I began to wonder just what exactly it was that drove me to this absolute level of utter worthlessness. I did have better things I could have been doing, I could have been working on my mock trial defense for civics class, I could have been cleaning my room, I could have been popping the snot zits under my nose from my recovering cold in my mirror and then held a piece of toilet paper on the new wounds until they scabbed to the point that the bleeding was slow enough that I could just wipe the blood away discreetly with my index finger when the necessity called—but instead I was lethargically stationed at my post watching movie trailers while in a window behind my browser AOL Instant Messenger was connecting my secret screen-name to the AIM network so that I could stalk all those who I stalk without them being any the wiser that I knew they were online as well.

My days have begun to melt together into one long, sticky glob, hardly separated by only a few hours each night of restless deliberation and occasional attempts of sleep. If I were so inclined to ever leave my chair, it would possibly be only to go for a run, which, at the state that I am currently in, is not very likely. To attempt aerobic movement, I think that the mucus, having no possible escape out my nose because it would be used by my lungs to breathe, would go right out my ears. No, no, instead I will just sit in my chair, checking my email on a bi-minute schedule, glancing over every thirty seconds at my cell phone to make sure the light indicating a message isn’t going off, hoping that someone, any acquaintance, will find it in themselves the urge to contact me at this moment in time and perhaps even inquire if I would like to spend part of this afternoon accompanying them and providing them with joy. With my computer speakers turned up high there is no way I that will miss the lovely door-opening sound of a person signing on to Instant Messenger, and if such a sound is heard I will quickly change windows and see if it was anybody worth talking to. I have two lists of “buddies”: my Buddies list and my Others list. The Others list is people I either don’t talk to yet don’t have the heart to delete off my list, or people whose screen-names I know yet they don’t know I know them, or just people I am too intimidated to instant message so they will remain on the Others list until some day they instant message me, at which point the name will then be moved to the Buddies list. However, without question the most beautiful sound in the world is that of my phone ringing. No matter where I am in my house I can hear it and bolt to its call within three rings.

Cluttered to the point of even my own nausea is my desk. About half of our family supply of spoons, cups, and bowls are scattered under layers of papers, magazines, and crap or have fallen onto my floor where the last un-drunken sip of Wildwood chocolate soy milk has become a moldy puddle on my floor. To preserve the hopeless serenity of my room, I have hung a blanket that my mom crocheted for me when I was born between my desk-area and the rest of my living quarters.

I’ll flip from trailer to trailer; in the process switching my heart from horror to lust to sympathy as the producers of the previews target the different levels of my emotions that will ultimately make them rich. These days, the fundamental goal of any particular film is to appeal to all audiences. A “successful” movie is one that upon evaluation, 25% of its viewers were teenage males, 25% were teenage girls, 25% were adult males, and 25% were adult females. This is harder to do than one may think. In order to accomplish such a spread of viewers, the filmmakers must make 25% of the movie about sex, 25% of the movie about high school relationships, and 25% of the movie scary enough so that the last 25% of viewers will take refuge in the arms (and hopefully eventually a bit lower) of the testosterone-rich audience members. After a morning full of Hollywood-induced emotional turmoil, once again it will become time for me to remember my real feelings and go into a state of anger and rage lasting anywhere from three hours to the rest of the week. Life doesn’t happen the way it does in movie trailers. In real life when times get hard or frustrating and you are paralyzed with suspense and don’t know what will happen next, you can’t rush to the theater and pay $8.50 for a matinee to reassure yourself that the nerd does in fact get the girl at the end. There is no such thing as a sneak preview to existence, no gala premiere at Mann’s Chinese Theater of anyone’s sincere story. The reel of time will spin and project your life until you die and stop mattering and only then will the production truly be over.

Everyone always assumes that there will be a happy conclusion. But there isn’t. Things won’t always wind up the way that you would like, and you will not always win. Staying true to yourself will ultimately be life’s unerring victory. Disappointment, that seems to have become the only guarantee I can offer. I have always heard that it is part of life, a part of learning. I don’t really know anymore whether I am learning or just making the same errors over and over again. I guess that mistakes will be made, hearts will be broken, but in the end all you can say is that you have lived another day as a teenager.

David Lempert