I'm desperately trying to shirk the responsibly of writing an update on R, but he's not having it. I could use some sort of bogus excuse like 'I'M EMOTIONALLY FRAIL AFTER THE PREGNANCY SCARE' if I could, but A) I've never been good at lying, B) it happened earlier this week and C) I was the one berating him for even considering there was a chance I was knocked up. Now that I've already written one whole paragraph I might as well write the rest of this fucking entry and get it over with.
I admit it; I have a blas� attitude towards pregnancy. After eight hardcore sex-driven years I've yet to experience the sort of 'accident' that seems to plague the teenage demographic now ('the condom broke!' - yeah, whatever.) That's the sort of track record that cements my belief that I'm nothing less than a living God (FEAR ME, WORSHIP ME, AND SEND ME MILK DUDS) who can control TIME, ENERGY, and EVERYTHING ELSE.
...so, things like 'mother's unexpected death due to fractured ankle' and 'blood clots appearing 11 days after period' come as a shock sometimes; I suppose they might prove that I'm not infallible - but don't tell anyone else, I have a reputation to uphold. Either that or those same things just prove (once again) that my mother was a crackwhore whose only calling was to completely fuck with my outlook on life. Everything I did, no matter how insignificant, was because R knocked me up.
I decided to clean the chaos formerly known as a teenager's bedroom? Pregnant! ('You're subconsciously nesting to make room for a baby'). I felt remotely sick after eating any sort of dairy because I used to be lactose intolerant? Pregnant! ('It's morning sickness'). Blood stains two weeks after my period? Pregnant! ('the embryo has attached itself to the uterus!')
Most parents come from beyond the grave to divulge some super huge secret that usually involves MONEY or TREASURE or at least A MAP TO EITHER OF THE ABOVE. Those LESS lucky they get told things like 'WE ALWAYS LOVED YOU EVEN IF WE BEAT YOU DAILY' and 'WE WERE HARD ON YOU BECAUSE WE KNEW YOUR SIBLING WOULDN'T AMOUNT TO ANYTHING'. I'm at the very bottom of the ladder for this particular spiritual experience; my mother's voice crosses time and space so she can continue pushing her pregnancy propaganda on me.
Seeing how I've begun dispensing advice on writing and living in every entry now (said tongue-in-cheek, TONGUE-IN-CHEEK DAMMIT!) I might as well offer this little gem (GIRLS - pay attention, you'll thank me for this later.):
If you get a kit with TWO pregnancy tests, DO NOT THROW OUT THE INSTRUCTIONS, no matter HOW AMAZING YOUR MEMORY IS, and NO MATTER HOW OBVIOUS THE RESULTS SHOULD BE. Trust me - two years later you'll be fishing for the extra test (that's been expired for a month) in the back of your underwear drawer and realise YOU HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT TWO PINK DOTS MEAN.
You'll try and be logical. You'll say 'well, the cap is pink, and the indicator that says you've taken the test correctly is pink, so clearly the other pink dot means NO YOU AREN'T, NOW STOP BEING A WHORE because for it to be positive the result should really stand out instead of blending in'. You'll try and convince your significant other you're right, then you'll go to bed and out of no where he'll say something like 'BUT PINK IS ASSOCIATED WITH BEING PREGNANT.'
So the next morning you'll take ANOTHER test - one that isn't expired and uses a plus and minus result system - and after it shows up negative you'll complain about the waste of money, how you got urine all over your hands, feet, bathroom floor and opposite wall, and how even thinking you could be knocked up was the stupidest thing in the entire world and how the experience cut into valuable Dr. Mario time.
This is the point where I try to bridge the gap between 'personal life' and 'professional life' with a tenuous link so Benway Bunnies can continue being listed as a 'journal, diary, blog' in various directories for increased traffic (joke's on THEM!). I fail to see a connection between PREGNANCY CRISIS and MAGDALENA so I'll confuse you with MORE WORDS IN CAPS and then jump into the topic of this week's story as if a link existed that you could only have missed if you were stupid.
Magdalena (hear the chorus of 'awww!' from regular readers and visitors)! If you're somewhat new to Benway Bunnies fiction then all you need to do is think of the cutest, most endearing thing in the entire world...and then multiply it by a million. That's Magdalena. She's MORE adorable than a cardboard box filled with fluffy baby animals with Precious Places eyes, and possibly a psychopath on top of it.
Not entirely satisfied with my previous story attempt (Hopelessly Devoted), I decided to take another stab with her. Bad Traffic, this week's story, was a conscious effort to focus on Magdalena's voice by subtracting something I find easy - dialogue, or most of it, which has been a recurring trend in a lot of stories I've recently written. Whatever reservations I had about working without my conversational safety net disappeared after a thousand words or so.
In Bad Traffic we find Magdalena, once again, obsessing over Friday (yes - new and uncharted territory!). While there IS more to Magdalena than that, I like to seize on the concept since it lends itself to extreme emotions, which in turn lend themselves to more effective first person narrative practice. Until now work with Magdalena could be considered 'light, occasionally X-rated comedy', so with this one I tried to unearth some emotional depth and show the more heartbreaking side of silent, obsessive love.
I know I'm slightly biased since I have an emotional attachment to my characters, but I couldn't help but experience just a twinge of sympathy for her while rereading the story. R said the same thing - and THAT'S coming from someone who's known the character for years, and knows exactly where she's headed.
Bad Traffic is, so far, one of my absolute favourite stories. I wouldn't say it was PERFECT, but it does exactly what I wanted it to - it gives a clearer, more defined personality with a visceral sense of the agony and ecstasy of unrequited love. I'm even willing to wager that YOU DON'T HAVE A FUCKING SOUL if you don't find yourself wanting to comfort poor Magdalena at some point during it - although I suppose I'll also accept 'I want to bang her!', since that isn't too far off Rocky's method of trying to cheer her up.
To read this week's new story, Bad Traffic, simply click here. Or you could go the involved route and worship at the temple of desperation (the Co-Ed Witches area within the Fiction section) where Magdalena acts as high priestess. Bad Traffic is located under the 2005 header. To read about more of her (mis)adventures, be sure to look her up in the Character Index.
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