I have a problem with reality. It's not a problem with deciphering what's real from what's make believe. I'm just not very fond of reality. Reality's yucky, sticky, messy, and smells funny. Fake is soft and pretty, light and airy which, in all honesty, I find more repulsive than the words I used to describe reality. Maybe I just hate everything, but I don't think that's the case. At least, I hope it's not. Maybe I'm just trying to find a balance between what is real and what is fake. Fake has gotten a bad rap - what with its association with lying, pretension, and all. But it's also the imagination. It's taking flight from the rim of a canyon, even though you really don't have wings. What's bad about that? I could live a happy life in that world, no problem. My best friend and I have overactive fantasy lives. When she's feeling dark and morbid, she likes to tell people she's Charles Manson's love child, conceived during a conjugal visit at San Quentin. She follows this statement with a wide-brown-eyed stare that almost makes you notice a family resemblance. Sometimes I jump in, talking about Uncle Charlie as if I'd be proud to have such a demon in my lineage. It just seems easier for us to create a fake situation that's linked to the bleakest of realities instead of facing what's really bothering us. "I fake it so real I am beyond fake" That's not really mine. I didn't write it - it's from a song someone else wrote. I try not to fake anything, since it makes me nauseous, like I've been cooped up in the backseat of a car without any air for too long. I always feel like I'm faking, and the more honest I am, the faker I feel, which isn't good, since I can't lie for shit. Writing this right now, I feel like a faker, even thought I believe everything I'm saying. Of course, at this point in the game, it's next to impossible to be 100 percent original. Everything's been done before - I'm just regurgitating a mosaic of ideas that somehow found their way into my head from various unknown sources. Maybe there's some undiscovered Truth out there I don't know about, but I'm too lazy to look for it. At least I know what to expect if I stay right here. Happy and content - that's me. Coasting. Just along for the ride. Hanging my head out the car window like a dog, hoping I don't smack into a telephone pole. See - that's not even a new, original thought. I wrote that dog analogy in my journal several months ago. It was real and true then, and I guess it still is, but it feels fake,since I made a conscious effort to find that journal passage and copy it, verbatim, into this essay. I just plagiarized myself. "We all invent ourselves" That's not mine, either. Another song lyric. It's one of the truest, most real things I've ever heard. We fake and fake and fake until we become and boom! we're invented - we're real. Not that it matters much. I'm convinced that reality doesn't exist. My reality doesn't exist for anyone else, so how can I prove that it's real? How do I know I'm not hallucinating? You can't prove that I'm not, and I sure as hell am not sure. When I was a little kid, I could sit wide-awake and convince myself that I was asleep and dreaming - sometimes I could even hold my breath and believe I was dead. What does it feel like to be real and alive? I think I've felt it before, usually in moments of sudden fear, shock, or pleasure. My heart slamming into my ribs, incoherent thoughts colliding in my brain, a spin cycle in my gut. Those moments don't last long - the pounding heart is slowed by denial or guilt, depending on what kind of event caused the realism rush. I'm hiding behind my keyboard. I've started to reveal too much about myself without giving much thought to how my audience is going to perceive me after this has been read. Guess I'm used to that journal I mentioned before, where there's just an audience of one - me. What's revealing too much? What would you never, ever want to know about me? What would frighten or embarrass you? What difference does it make? I've already talked about my role as Charles Manson's neice. What if I dropped all pretenses right now and started making revelations? - I still have imaginary friends I talk to on a daily basis. - I've flunked both French and German. - I'm not a real redhead. - I'm never going to call Greg again, even though I promised him I would. Real and creepy! Ugh! None of these truths are really earth-shattering. Still, I can't deny the gooseflesh that's creeping up my back right now at the thought of anyone knowing these truths about me. If I was speaking to you right now, I would be staring at my shoes, wishing they would get the message from my brain telling them to run away. Eye contact would be out of the question, and if I tried to tell you more, chances are I would stammer and stutter, unable to speak with any confidence in myself at all. Brutal truth can do that to you - it makes you look like you're lying. What's my reality right now? I'm sitting at my kitchen table, squinting against the winter-bright sun filtering through the dirty white mini-blinds, highly aware of the pungent stench of garlic and tuna that lingers from my lunch as blue cold tickles my bare feet on the gritty linoleum. I should be in class right now, but the peacefulness that comes from sitting around the house all day in a sweatshirt I stole from my ex-boyfriend overrides my guilt as the bitter wind rattles the loose window in my back door. The Stones blasting in the other room...running a finger over my slightly chapped lips...wiggling my toes as my foot falls asleep... That's not all that's real right now, just the things that seem important for some reason. I'm not faking at this point - no reason to.

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