Wednesday, April 07, 2004
200 Word Wednesday:
How to Become a Stalker
1. Have an unsuccessful adolescence. Be awkward. Go home and watch Mister Rogers when you’re fourteen and know you shouldn’t. Like boys. Wear stirrup pants and long sweaters. Make sure the boys don’t like you back.
2. In high school, find the boy who sums up the whole of everything you will ever want in a man. Place too much value on popularity, athleticism, and shiny dark hair. Perfect the after-school-drive-by with the help of your mom. On your way to Wal-Mart, pray that you will see him there and that he will suddenly realize you’re cool.
3. In college, fall in love with a professor or three. Have vast, vivid sexual fantasies about them. Be too shy to answer questions in class, but take notes furiously. Graduate summa cum laude.
4. After college, continue to fall in love with the wrong type of man. Don’t give someone the time of day if you think they’d actually call the morning after. Write poetry about trysts you thought were love but were actually little more than sweat and boredom. Perfect the art of sounding vapid and intelligent via voice mail. Learn the magical chemistry of being emotionally unavailable yet insistent.
Much thanks to Lorrie Moore and "How to Become a Writer."
Heather at 7:34 PM
