charmed, i'm sure

couple
Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

i was having beers in the afternoon sun with a friend, lamenting our relationship strike outs.

“i want something magical to happen to me, like in the movies,” i said.

“people aren’t fantasies, people are real,” he said. “we’re faulty. so far from perfect.”

“it’s true,” i nodded as i for some reason remembered how the creator of ren and stimpy said that anyone was gross if you looked at them up close.


when my sister and i were young, we lived in a tiny house on a military base. it looked like the kind of house kids draw. square. with a chimney on the roof. this chimney had a tiny door in the basement that i guess was to clean the soot or dead squirrels or something. this iron door was about 6 inches wide and 4 inches high. we were decorating the christmas tree when i wondered how santa could make his way through this tiny door.

i asked my parents.

my mom replied with something like, “santa’s magic. if he can visit every single house in the world in one night, he can squeeze through our chimney.”

i bought it.

but my dad replied with, “there’s no such thing as santa clause.”

i immediately felt very stupid. really foolish that i had been duped into believing in something that was not real. and then i realized that there must not be any easter bunny either.

my dad’s excuse was that he didn’t like lying to children.


in trying to regain the lost enchantment of my youth, i get choked up when reading or watching anything fantastical. “one hundred years of solitude” destroyed me. and i always get chocked up when watching people’s reactions to magic tricks. and you may remember that pulling a rabbit out of a box on the subway was one of the more memorable moments in my life.

i recently opted to go to a yoga class instead of joining a friend for a movie. while he waited, david blaine just happened to be shooting a video.

“what!?” i exclaimed. i was just blogging about him.*

“really? that’s so funny. well, he took my dollar and gave it back to me backwards. he also set half of it on fire. in a girl’s hand.”

i stared blankly. “i love david blaine, you know.”

“well, you missed him.”


i’m slowly and sadly realizing that i have to let go of my fantasy. we are not characters in the sex in the city movie. big is not going to show up and build me a closet. people are imperfect and are subject to moods. they also often have hair growing out of their ears.

trouble is, not matter how often i get spurned, i still cry when i watch david blaine turn a homeless man’s cup of coffee into money.


* i had been blogging about him, but changed it to the more generic “magic” so that you wouldn’t have to read “david blaine” 900 times.