How I Failed At Being A Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG)

I've been contemplating the MPDG. That's Manic Pixie Dream Girl to you. Who or what is she? Think Zooey Deschanel, think, Natalie Portman, think Holly Golightly. Yes folks, she's that crazy but seriously lovable, impossibly pretty breath of fresh air and bringer of light and hope to all those lovely Lost Boys.

Read more about the MPDG ...HERE

I've been thinking about her a lot. In fact, I've been thinking about her my whole life and I've figured that my whole life has led up to my failing at being the MPDG.

How I failed at becoming an MPDG...a step by step analysis:

STEP 1: I was ugly. I didn't start off being this impossibly pretty thing (well actually I did, I was a really pretty child if I do say so myself) but then braces, bad eyesight and a butch haircut happened. Also, there was a brief period where I did actually look like an old Chinese/Bhutanese peasant lady complete with permed frizz, scarf wrapped around my face and really pale reddish skin. Not good to the ego and certainly not good to be made acutely aware of your ugliness when you are supposed to be an unaffectedly beautiful MPDG. 

STEP 2: I got emo. When I sorted my 'petty pretty' troubles out (ie. straightened hair, learned the use of eye makeup & contact lenses), I decided to revamp myself into being a Grunge/Goth Chick and got all existential and emo and decided to stay indoors writing my own eulogies. 

STEP 3: I got too dreamy. I actually got really cool at one point and pretty much as close to a MPDG as I possibly could. I lived for nothing in a really cool really posh apartment with a big cat, I partied in all the cool places, I was quite artsy and frequented little record stores, went out with a DJ boy, I even had a cool hobby like writing poetry about people I saw on trains. Yeah! But...being so cool, I started to believe I was a MPDG a little bit TOO MUCH. To the point, I became so oblivious to the real world and decided that I was in fact a character in a film. In other words, the dream girl started to live IN the dream...not good.

STEP 4: I got busy. See, what happened was, I got a job. It was an impossibly cool one at that, but the thing about really cool jobs? You actually have to work to keep 'em. So I started to wake up from the dream and get practical. I didn't have much time to be flighty and carefree and was too tired to be manic.

STEP 5: I met a boy. Then obviously, I had to meet the Dream Boy. Oh you know, that boy lost girls dream about. Tall, beardy, funny, rode a bicycle, read books and played the guitar. So I became the boring girl who had the Dream Boy breath life into my boring life. Figures.

STEP 6: I got angry. Yeah, MPDGs are happy, fun loving people. I on the other hand, wanted very much to put my fist through a wall at any given moment. MPDG + Anger management issues = Plain ol' crazy bitch. 

STEP 7: I got real. Decidedly, I sort of realised that I couldn't ever compete with an MPDG nor could I be one. So I decided that if I couldn't be any boy's dream girl, then I had to be my own dream girl. As in, I'd take steps to becoming the sort of girl I dreamt about becoming. And I realised that that girl, wasn't some flighty, manic ingenue...she was someone who wanted very much to do more with her life. A girl with a plan. A girl who actually helped the people that needed help... So I worked and am working on becoming that instead.

And there you have it. How I failed at being the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Failing though, made me realise I didn't want to be some sad writer boy's fantasy. I wanted to be my own dream girl. The girl who lives her OWN dreams, becomes somebody SHE wants to be.

So to all you fabulous women who have failed at being an MPDG or are in competition with one, don't you worry. You can be a dream girl. It just depends on whose dreams you want to live/be. And hey, being a Real Girl just means you've got more chances with REAL Men. Heehee. ;)

Russian Doll Situations

It's all very well to have an imaginary husband but you know, imaginary marriages do come with their own set of issues. Here are some of the issues that one encounters with an imaginary hubby.

>> People are always assuming that you are single.

>> Setting aside actual time to spend with your husband and having to justify spending a Friday night in being antisocial.

>> You can't bite his buns.

>> Conversations with him make you look like a crazy person.

>> Imaginary distractions such as pale, blonde, 1000 year old sex on legs vampires and scandalous sexy indie band frontmen.

>> You don't get to spend much time with your imaginary children.

>> Rogue unicorns.

The Unicorn Under Your Bed

I was reading a tranny's blog when I found myself suddenly in a flutter of panic. This 'tranny' (who isn't really a tranny but a real girl who, try as I might can't be convinced ISN'T one) was getting more action than I'd ever seen this side of the Old Mother Hubbard cupboard.

Pages and pages went on about her past relationships and her potential conquests and knowing that these aren't particular gnomes or trolls of men got me wondering, wow, what does this tranny have that I don't have...subsequently, I thought to myself, OMG, Has it finally come to this? Am I, the last happy single girl, so desperate that I am in competition with a tranny?

To gather my wits about me, I started to make a list of why I am more awesome than this 'tranny'..Call it the Perfect Girl List. I suggest anyone who finds themselves feeling down and feeling jealous of either zit infested sluts, overweight hobags or well, ambiguous She-men, should make their own Perfect Girl list.

Happsgirl's Perfect Girl List:
(alternatively: Reasons I Am Perfect and A Billion Zillion Times More Awesome Than A Tranny List)

1) People don't generally get a fright when they see my face.
2) I have class. This is because I was not raised a hobag and I haven't been caught sucking someone's balls in the toilet of a really seedy club somewhere along a highway (a story that I KNOW is true for some). 
3) I am pretty smart and I don't pretend to be smart. I always own up when I don't know what the hell people are talking about.
4) I know who I am. None of this I'm lost and need to be saved business unless of course, you're Eric Northman and you need to protect me from your big 'bad' sexy self. Teeheeheehee.
5) Literatti Glitteratti.
6) I can be quite funny. Like, some people have told me I can be TOO funny. Yah yah, like I can talk about farting quite a lot.
 7) I am happy. As in it takes quite little to make me laugh. Like, for instance, 'HERE'S A PUG!'...and I start laughing. See? Easy.
8) I am not precious. I am perfectly capable of cleaning toilets and ironing my own clothes.I don't whine a lot. This is because I was raised by a mother who told me there is nothing tackier than a woman who doesn't wash her own underwear.
9) I like what I do. My job inspires me and I like to think I inspire other people. I secretly also think my job validates me as being better than most people. HAHA.
10) And this is very important, I am better than a 'tranny' because...I do not hide unicorns under my bed.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be derogatory to any real trans-gender women. The term 'tranny' here is simply being used as a derogatory term for women I have little respect for. I think real trans-gender women are a lot more awesome than the type of women I brand 'trannies' and for whom I originally intended this list for. 

On Love.

Let me tell you something. Up until not so many years ago, I didn't know what Love was. I couldn't say I knew what it was because, I really wasn't sure. I had not felt it, and I was pretty sure I did not receive it. I didn't witness Love. I thought, maybe Love was just something that happened in fairytales. That Love which makes the world go round, where was it? WHAT was it? I didn't know.

Then one day, I experienced grief. The sort of grief that makes you feel as if you would give up your own life just to make sure someone else got to experience the stuff they missed out on. Grief that makes you realise how fragile your universe is and how much you were willing to give up in the place of someone else. Knowing just how much you're willing to give up was the first component of love I learnt.

Later on, I experienced loss. Not the kind of loss that makes you grieve but the kind of loss that makes you always search for something because you'll never feel quite complete again. When you lose something that made you feel complete, you realise that the thing that made you whole was also a component that made you love.

Later on still, I experienced disappointment and regret which led to disarray. Feeling as if your whole world is crumbling makes you hold on to the things that matter most. I realised from this, Love doesn't always have to apply to the things you thought it applied to. Love was bigger than that.

Recently, I experienced loss again. It is strange to lose someone you thought never loved you. Never figured in your life much. Was always thought of with resentment. Someone whom you were told you should love but whom you couldn't love because you didn't quite know how to. Someone you didn't know how to love because you weren't sure they even wanted your love.

Then one day, that person is gone. Just like that. And you go through the motions of trying to grieve, to mourn, cry a little but you can't because you're still unsure if you love or were loved at all. All there is, is space and you don't really know what to do with that space.

But then it hits you. When you're standing in a room of people who were never quite sure if they were ever loved by this one person and yet there they were, filling up the room and filling up the space, when you watch them mourn something they're not even sure about...it hits you.

It's about filling the sudden space that gets left behind. It is understanding, that after all the wrongs done unto you, that you're still here, and they aren't and that your life is yours and in order to leave something behind, you must be good and kind and grateful to those who make you up. You must Love. Because it is the only thing worthwhile that you can leave behind.

And so I think, after all this, I finally found out what Love is. Love isn't about writing it down or saying it. Love isn't about expression. Love isn't even about feeling tingly or having people in your thoughts. Real Love, the Love that transcends everything else and makes your time on earth worthwhile, that Love...is a verb that fills up space.