underqualified as f_ck

I’m driving back home today, thoughts whizzing through my brain, connecting one thing to the next to the next until I’m thinking about what my favorite flower is when I started off by thinking about gas prices.

Don’t date a writer or an English major.

The thing is that we think too quickly, and things connect, and it seems normal, but the truth is that our minds move too fast.

The thing is that our thoughts connect too quickly and no one understands this except ourselves and our little pink brains.

Don’t date a writer or an English major.

I’m pondering about things, all different things:

Why did I do that?

Why doesn’t he talk to me?

Why does she seriously think we hate her?

Did she tell him that?

Wait, is he mad?

Why can’t I do this?

Why was that so funny to me?

Don’t date a writer or an English major. 

I think differently. I think things are awfully funny or clever or rude or unimportant. You’re thinking, “Fool, everyone thinks differently. You’re not that special. Let alone it’s not something that is justified by being a writer or an English major. I’m an engineer. I think about shit too.”

Ok then let me rephrase myself please!

I think like an author. I think like an essayist, a writer, a speaker. I think in good grammar and structured sentences, loaded with appositives and parallel structures. I think with symbolism, and I think with metaphors.

“That doesn’t make sense, you psycho.”

Of course it doesn’t.

Don’t date a writer or an English major.

Inhale. An example? If you catch me in an impromptu argument, I’ll need to collect my thoughts. Once they’re collected into my basket of knowledge, I’ll introduce my thought, and hit you with a bad ass thesis or grip of my argument. I’ll most likely have two or three good points and reasons to support myself, and sprinkle some anecdotes to support my points, and, if time permits, I might analyze them, contrast them, or just expand on them. I’ll wrap things up and end them dramatically, sometimes with a twist. Maybe a joke, or a thought to keep you interested, or just something unnecessarily dramatic. Either way, you just got served with a basic verbal five paragraph essay. Exhale.

Don’t date a writer or an English major.

Something a little more?

Deep inhale. A last example. If you see me on campus, I’m usually walking alone with sunglasses on and headphones blasting whatever myPhone feels like.

“Alone. Is that significant?”

To you, maybe not. To me, a little. I walk alone so I can look at everything around me, the people around me. When I listen to music, I walk with the beat, making sure that it’s more or less fitting to the setting. I walk alone because when I walk with people, we talk and I get out of breath because I’m out of shape. I walk alone because maybe that’s just what I’m destined to be doing my whole life. My future could just be me, walking alone to a certain destination that I know is there, whether it be home or to a friend or to something fun. I’m just trying to prepare myself for the future.

I smile at strangers because I like smiling. I untangle my hair and part it down the center from the back, collecting it to the front of my shoulders, tucking a side behind my left ear because that’s the side I have a dimple on and all my piercings. Piercings? Yeah, I have 8 on my left side and 1 on my right. Usually I part my hair to the left, resulting in most of my hair on my right side, leaving me feeling unbalanced. I got my piercings on my left to balance out the heaviness of my hair on the right, and my dimple helps even it out. I wanted an odd number of piercings on my ear because I felt like an odd number was more fitting regarding my equilibrium for some reason, but my 8th piercing was so spontaneous that I forgive it. It’s my only silver earring too. “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”

I’m not making any sense, am I?

Don’t date a writer or an English major,

because you’ll be trying to color a world in colored pencils while she’ll be taking the time to think about why that tree should be colored maroon, not green. She’ll be purchasing white out to alter the outlines of the pictures. She’ll make sure that the colored pencils we’re all sharing are water color pencils, and she’ll bring water and a few brushes to the scene.

Huge exhale.