Male Burial

My blog is a year old today.

My parents have agreed to buy me a new camera for my birthday. They are actually the ones who proposed it, which makes me happy, because I wasn't about to go begging them for a new one even though one tiny piece of grit working its way into the lens of my old one would cost $60 to repair and hells no am I going to spend that kind of money. So, I went and retrieved my old friend from the repair shop today, planning to give him a proper burial--or at least I meant to, but they told me I could sell him to them for parts. No more honorable burial for Male--his body has now been donated to science. I actually patted him a couple times, thought about it, and agreed...because I need gas money, and a haircut. I took the little nubbly smiley-faced star sticker off of his face, popped out my memory card (Rhonda) and left him on the counter, cold and alone, leaving with my check. Male was a nice boy. He went to Christmas Carol three times, Disneyland, graduation, a handful of choir concerts, a few Shakespeare festivals, on my first road trip, to Vegas with my family, made a half-dozen trips to San Diego, and did a lot of other really important things. He filmed Zach Power opening his mission call, Alex saying I love you to me before he left on HIS mission, and my lying-in-the-street escapade with Davie and Casey. His little wrist cord was dyed permanently pink from the time I went to the Holi festival with Jenny. He lived through seven or eight boyfriends. He went with me from the beginning of my senior year in high school to partway through my sophomore year in college.

I don't know why he was a boy, but he was, and my new camera is going to be a girl, and her name is going to be Susan. My first American Girl doll was named Susan, and looking back, I find it to be a very practical name. No-nonsense. She was always a very practical doll. I picked her name out before she was even born, because it was practical. That was probably the last preemptively practical thing I ever did in my whole life. Susan was never even properly rumpled, as all dolls who are properly loved probably should be. She still lays pristine, hair perfectly combed, in her gold-wire Samantha bed in a box in the basement of my parents' house.

Hopefully, this camera will not become rumpled either, being a girl, and being named Susan. Male was properly rumpled--a huge dent in his face, scratches all over, but it gave him character, and he lasted me for all of two years and five months.
Susan will also be named and gendered as such because I must now embark on a new and experimental stage of my life. Last Wednesday, when my shrink asked how I felt about a no-men policy for a month or so, I audibly gasped, and he smiled, and I REALLY realized for the first time how much of my life has been solely riveted upon the opposite sex. He asked how long I had been this fixated, and I said something like, "About the eighth grade (Michael Stroud). Well, seventh (Jordon Sorenson). Actually, probably about the fifth grade (Eric Sackett!)." and then I trailed off in amazement, because I could name love interests, SERIOUS love interests, back into preschool.

I, Julie Ann Garbutt, the man eater, the Delilah, the serial dater, the Judith-to-the-masses-of-Holofernes', the Maggie Carpenter, the breaker of bleedy hearts everywhere, am not going to date. Now, when I say date, let me make something clear. I don't really go on dates. In fact, I hate dates. Unless I am with someone like Eric, or Wes, or someone who in some way is not the "date" type, I don't go on them. I "date" a lot of people in the fact that I have many boyfriends, but I do not go on the proverbial "date" with any of them. People that I DO go on the proverbial date with never end up actually being my boyfriend.
So, anyway, I am going to cut them out of my life completely. No superfluous texts to Kyle about kissing me, no need-you-needy texts to Kevin about going to lunch. No letters to Davie or Tom throbbing with love, no going out with a (divulgent description) boy from high school who just happened to call me up AFTER I made my death-defying decision and mention kissing me twice. I have done pretty well the past week, with a few emotional breakdowns and a few cheater phone conversations involving someone I love, but can't see, but can call at any time to get a reaffirmation of said love. So, I've cheated, but hey, I'm proud of myself for getting this far without leeching myself onto anyone new.

So, for my monumental no-longer-a-teenager-birthday, I am getting a subscription to InStyle magazine, so I stop buying it instead of milk, and a new camera. I feel like I should be receiving some oak hope chest, or a veil that covers half my face, or lipstick, or something that girls in their twenties have that girls in their teens don't, but in reality, I am receiving a magazine, a camera, and a death sentence. Yesssssss.

Wish me luck.