Me and Hannah Horvath

The other morning I wrote “I was recently re-inspired to write. Maybe it was falling asleep before 12 and waking up as the clock struck eight. “ This is all I managed to type out as I in fact did not wake up at 8. Right after finishing that sentence I drifted back to sleep.

I feel like Hannah in Girls right before she popped her eardrum. Maybe this is a different season but I am thinking of after she gets her book deal and cannot write a single word. 

Humility doesn’t suit me. I am confident this was the same episode. 

This scene has always been a hard one to watch. When I was a child a deep fear of q-tips was instilled in me. Even now, I wouldn’t even consider using one. To me, the second it goes in my ear something dire will happen and my hearing will never be the same. 

When I first watched that episode, I knew something was afoot the second she pulled the q-tip into view. I felt my body tense and even after it happened I could barely finish the episode. Visions of q-tips haunted my mind. I had the same reaction when I rewatched the episode with Georgia a year later. 

It’s kind of like when you imagine something scratching your eye and you have to squeeze your eyelids shut until the image fades. It doesn’t really work the same but after the episode ended I still felt my body tense as if it was trying to somehow close my ear canal.

Sometimes I wonder if I am missing out; people seem to love cleaning out their ears with a passion. My hearing isn’t always the best, maybe that would change if I could gather up the courage to do something about it. 

To those of you with a similar fear, don’t worry. This is a change I am not really willing to make even in my year of bravery. (Especially when you consider the year of bravery is coming to a close, it is already over halfway through October).

Also, a couple of years ago my grandmother gave each member of my family a value sized pack of q-tips. She is dead now, and I have no idea where those q-tips went. An omen? Or a sign? 

In my mid high school (short-lived) eco-warrior phase, one Christmas I asked my mom for reusable q-tips. I’m not sure what use I thought they would bring me. I was using a lot of very unflattering eyeliner at the time and sometimes used cotton q-tips to get the extra makeup off from under my eye. 

Something I could have easily realized in my search for reusable q-tips is that the specific ones I asked for were made of hard plastic. This plastic is not a material very useful for makeup remover, especially from the skin under your eye. 

Anyway, after seeing one too many pictures of myself I decided the eyeliner had to go, so this issue solved itself. 

My life in New York this week is even more like Girls, if you can believe it. On Saturday, I am going to a gallery opening where Mia works. 

She is my Marnie and I am crossing my fingers that while I am there I will see some Booth Johnathans. Ideally, Mia would try and steal the attention from the artist by singing Stronger but I am trying to manage my expectations. 

I am trying to think of other similarities my life has to Girls because it seems a bit pathetic (?) to make such a statement with only two examples to back it up but I don’t think I have any more. 

My cousin Nell (who guest wrote a while back) lived in Japan for about a year, just like Shoshanna. Ella Greene goes to Oberlin. Chloe works at a coffee shop. I have had a UTI. I have been inside a house in Brooklyn Heights. 

I take back what I just said, the similarities are endless.