Diese ist mich

Sometimes I sit down and think about myself. I wax entirely selfish and think about all the little things that are squished together inside me to make me Emily. I think it sort of stems from the fact that I have proof I am unique: as far as I’m aware, there is only one Emily Llewellyn Dabczynski living on this earth, and I am she. The Dabczynskis themselves in the United States are a dying breed and I’m lucky to know each of them by name—Dad, Mom, Elizabeth, and Aunt Debby. It’s an unusual surname, even in Poland, and I’d be surprised to find an Emily Dabczynski running around in Poland whose middle name happens to be the Welsh Llewellyn. She probably would be called Emilia, anyway.

But this Emily, me Emily, by any other name would still be pretty distinctive. I don’t necessarily mean that in a celebratory way because there are parts of me that don’t really give cause for people to be jealous. As a for instance, my little friend I call Madame Thyroid. She lives in my neck, she is obese, and when a few mgs of fancy European medicine don’t keep her in check, she rules over the rest of me with a curiously omnipresent fury. Once, a pretty smart endocrinologist and I threatened to cut her out of her cozy lodging for good. We decided that might be a bit drastic for the time being. I kind of picture her like Ben Stiller in that movie Heavyweights—eccentric, a little bit manic, confined to a hard plastic chair in a makeshift prison. She even attempts to entice her guards—Willpower and Determination—with proverbial Hershey’s chocolate kisses. She’s like, “Hey there, Will. Wouldn’t it be more fun to stay up late, drink caffeine, and eat lots of dairy products?” with her voice all smooth and seducing. She looks like a butterfly, so I bet she’d flap her wings in an attempt to flirt, because thyroids don’t have eyelashes to bat. Luckily Will laughs and explains, “Of course not! Emily needs regular sleep in order to function like a normal person! Dairy introduces animal hormones into her body that cause the metabolism to freak out a little, and you add caffeine to that mix? Forget about it! Besides, caffeine affects the eyeballs too, and I’m sure you’d love it for Emily’s eyes to bulge out. I mean, it would be convenient if she ever needed to give someone the fish eye, but really? Nooooo thank you!”

You see? My thyroid is having an argument with an abstract sense of resolve. My guess is that’s pretty atypical, particularly because I go ahead and record snippets of their discussion.

I like to talk, and I think I’m relatively easy to talk to. I’m also pretty easy to get in touch with—Gmail, BYU standard issue email, Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, two accounts on Blogspot, AIM, MSN, Gmail chat, my cell phone (texting and calling, but mostly texting)—should I be unavailable in person. I’m not sure what it says about me that I’m so “connected.” I could try to defend myself by insisting I don’t use every single one of those forms of communication every single day, and that a lot of people I talk to are common through most of those forms, but the damage is done. I wouldn’t say I’m desperate for attention and communication, but the list speaks for itself!

I dare say people enjoy talking to me. I wouldn’t stay registered for most of those services if I wasn’t getting anything from them. People like talking to me in person too—at least I hope they do. I think a small part of me would like to be Dr. Johnson and make a living as a sparkling conversationalist (though he was tattered and melancholy all his life, despite the company he kept. I don’t think I would like that part). For all intents and purposes, that’s what Tyra Banks has become. She has a talk show now and she, a former Victoria’s Secret supermodel, spends an hour every day pontificating about social issues and dishing out “advice.” What if I could have Samuel Johnson’s wit and Tyra Banks’ body? I wonder if Tyra has Facebook?