My Postcards

“In the future, in the wind, in the dark on the observation deck at the top of the Space Needle, Brandy Alexander, that brand-name queen supreme that she is, Brandy comes out to Seth and I with souvenirs of the future. These are postcards so faded and dog-eared and picked over and ignored that they've survived in the back of a revolving wire rack for years. Here are pictures of the future with clean, sun-bleached skies behind an opening-day Space Needle. Here's the Monorail full of smiling babes in Jackie O pink mohair suits with three huge cloth-covered buttons down the front. Children in striped T-shirts and blonde astronaut crew cuts run through a Science Center where all the fountains still work.
‘Tell the world what scares you most,’ says Brandy. She gives us each an Aubergine Dreams eyebrow pencil and says, ‘Save the world with some advice from the future.’
Seth writes on the back of a card and hands it to Brandy for her to read.
On game shows, Brandy reads, some people will take the trip to France, but most will take the wash dryer pair.
Brandy puts a big Plumbago kiss on the little square for the stamp and lets the wind lift the card and sail it off toward the towers of downtown Seattle.
Seth hands her another, and Brandy reads:
Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.
A kiss, and the card’s on its way toward Lake Washington.
From Seth:
When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?
A kiss, and it’s off on the wind toward Ballard.
Only when we eat up this planet will God give us another. We’ll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.
Interstate 5 sneaks by in the distance. From high atop the Space Needle, the southbound lanes are red chase lights, and the northbound lanes are white chase lights. I take a card and write:
I love Seth Thomas so much I have to destroy him. I over-compensate by worshipping the queen supreme. Seth will never love me. No one will ever love me again.
Brandy is waiting to take the card and read it out loud. Brandy’s waiting to read my worst fears to the world, but I don’t give her the card. I kiss it myself with the lips I don’t have and let the wind take it out of my hand. The card flies up, up, up to the stars and then falls down to land in the suicide net.
While I watch my future trapped in the suicide net, Brandy reads another card from Seth.
We are all self-composting.
I write on another card from the future, and Brandy reads it,
When we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves.
An updraft lifts my worst fears from the suicide net and sails them away.
Seth writes and Brandy reads.
You have to keep recycling yourself.
I write and Brandy reads.
Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I’ve ever known.
I write and Brandy reads.The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.”
- taken from Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk


This book was originally given to me by a great friend, and as promised, one of the better I have read. I have to admit that I have actually read this twice now. And after some time passing, am truly inspired by the passage above. Maybe a little lengthy to share in a blog, but important for you to read, even if you never read the book.

By the way, read the book.

As I reflect on what this passage means to me, I must confess, it definitely has a different meaning the 2nd time around. Funny how that works. I sit and think about what I would tell my past self, if I could, if with my own time capsule. I take out my own set of postcards, and I write from the future. I write not on top of the Space Needle. I write not to be read by Brandy Alexander. Birds did not eat my face. I write from my own future. And I write with such great hope:

Cancer will not affect your children, the way it has affected the children of each generation.

Do not give the man that tore everything from you power over you, especially after 13 long years. Take the power back.

Girls can no longer think being dumb is cute. Women are their own destiny. Relationships are success’ mere accessory.

Don’t complain about what government doesn’t do for you. Become part of the movement. Better yet, start the movement.

Insecurities and fear are best fought with perseverance and humility.

Love comes from the corners in which your best support stands in.

Letting someone in and telling them your story is the best form of therapy.

99.9% of people are full of shit. Finding the .1% that aren’t, are worth it.

Men make girls crazy, and girls make men assholes. It’s a vicious circle. Welcome to the party.

Fighting back is worth it. Even if the best you can do is a split lip. Never let a man put his hands on you again.

Credit cards are fashioned by the devil. Its been said she wears Prada.

It isn’t about finding the perfect person to start a relationship with; it’s about finding the person that doesn’t make you want to jump off a building.

Before you whine about how the good of America helps the less fortunate, ask yourself if you would fight for the good of America that has been handed to you on a silver platter.

Spend an afternoon with someone you think is too old to be coherent. Spend an afternoon with someone you think is too young to have an opinion. You’ll be reminded of what you allow to be lost.

Every woman should have a killer set of heels, a sexy black dress, a suit that makes her feel like she can run the world, a recipe that can be executed with little shown effort, and a passion of her own.

Rape and terrorism is fueled by the same power: fear. Stop being afraid.

A checklist is never a bad thing, no matter what anyone says.

Laugh until it hurts. If you don’t laugh enough, find new friends.

If given the chance to write your own postcard, what would you say?



And to the one that challenged me to write my own....thank you.