The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy: The Antics of an Aspiring Writer

I want to be looked at. And no, I don't mean I want someone to stare at me nor do I wish to be leered at by creepy guys who haven't yet learned that 95% of women don't enjoy being treated like a sexual object. What I want is eye contact. Silent eye contact that could last for hours without creating an awkward separation between me and the other person. I want a connection so deep, it leaves you feeling a little dazed and weak and breathless. I want someone to look at me and see how my face lights up whenever my nieces are around.  I want someone to look at me and see the most beautiful thing he's ever laid his eyes on. I   want someone to look at me, acknowledging my chair and seeing it as a sign of character and strength, not incompetence and something to pity.  I want someone who will take me out somewhere and ask if I want to get out of my chair because he knows that my ass isn't glued to the thing and I am perfectly capable of sitting on something else if I so c...

Self-flagellating. Or rather just flagellating. That's the word I wanted to look up. Even though my director had defined it for everyone, a part of me just couldn't believe that it meant to hit oneself. I guess it sort of sounds like flogging, which is punishment by way of having things thrown at you, but flagellating just didn't sound like it meant to hit oneself. So, when I returned to my room after rehearsal, I decided to look up the word myself. Just as I reached for my phone, I glanced at my bookshelf. The bookshelf in which half of one shelf is taken up by two large, hardcover Merriam-Webster books: a red dictionary and a yellow thesaurus. I bought both prior to my freshman year at Wagner because I knew I'd no longer have my family's decades old dictionary to reference when I was at school. The sad truth: I think I've used both books, collectively, 3 or 4 times in the last four years... As kids, when my sister or I asked about the definition of a word,...