Throwback: How to Become a Monster

I don't usually hang onto old things. In fact, I get kind of a buzz from deleting things or throwing them away. When I go through my closet and bag up old clothes for Goodwill, I have to make sure I tie the bags shut immediately, or else my mom will go through them and put clothes back in my closet when I'm not around (she says I get rid of things prematurely, and sometimes she's right. Now I only have one pair of Wal-Mart khakis to spill turkey juice on at work).

Anyway, despite my tendency to throw things away, I saved one post from my old blog before I deleted the whole thing. I've re-posted it below, an illustration of what can happen when you try to give everyone your time at once. Also, speaking of throwbacks (and monsters), here's a notebook doodle from 12th grade:

We were talking about Watergate in AP US History, so I tried to draw Richard Nixon.
Then I drew a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Anyway, here's my post from last fall, "How to Become a Monster":

The secret is to spread yourself thin. Really thin. Like the last blob of peanut butter, scraped from the sides of the jar and spread on the last crust of bread in your kitchen because grocery shopping, despite man's considerable need for food, is not a high priority in your weekly schedule. This will remove the buffer of tolerance, patience, and empathy between you and your fellow humans, because these things will be sprinkled over so many commitments that when the day comes where someone pushes just one of your buttons, you will react like a kicked rattlesnake. Even when a friend tiptoes into your dark, smoky dragon-cave, and innocently asks for that last spare minute you keep tucked in the coil of your scaly tail, you will expectorate fire at their face and burn any bridges of kindness or mutual understanding between your two souls. If you've achieved these results, congratulations. You've become a monster. If you're unhappy with this transformation, good luck. You could try sticking a knife in the peanut butter jar of your heart, scraping out any bits of tolerance, patience, or empathy still stuck to its walls, and using it to glue Popsicle sticks together for a replacement bridge between you and the person whose face you just incinerated (hopefully they've a jar or two of forgiveness in the cupboard of their soul). But it’s so much easier being a monster.