the leak

Call it grounds for termination of my lease, I call it a moldy rendition of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It certainly looked like that from my bed.

when the south pole is around:

he loves me, he loves me not, I want to not care, I want to forget, I want to pretend that he doesn't exist, but he's always around and lately, he's been hovering, pulled in, even in the presence of others, my eyes are the eyes he meets, the eyes he's smiling at, the eyes he wants to see staring back at him.

I want to not be there, not be staring, but I can't help it, he's hard to ignore, even if his eyes weren't seeking out mine, his laugh, a big huge boisterous thing that can be heard everywhere, completely undoes me, I can't even have a conversation with anyone, because I want to see who it is that is delighting him. It is never me. When we talk, he is a nervous, twitchy mess, trying so hard to figure out what I might be thinking or maybe trying to convince me he's really cooler than he thinks he is. I don't know, I want not to care.

I know when he leaves it will all be all right and a year from now I will laugh about this whole thing and it's sweeping ridiculous hold on me.

because of his ineptitude, he won't be leaving soon as promised, and now the resolve I had is fading and the only solution is his quick departure. There is enough knowledge of his character for me to stay away, but in the moment, when he shines, when he is magnetic and wonderful, I find it hard to resist.

So maybe I will have to leave, to find excuses not to go there, to avoid him as long as necessary, because really the distance is what makes it all palatable, and when we are in close proximity to each other, it is obvious and sad and painful. I want him and he wants me and it can never happen.

The boats are in:

Summer arrives at the yacht club.

soak fest '09

caught in a thunderstorm

about a week ago:

Sunset begins in Lakeview; view from my apt.

the dodged bullets:

One by one those failed attempts at relationships have wandered into my scope in ways small and large and my perspective is so different and this has happened before, that I realize with some amusement that it was never going to be and I feel some slight embarrassment for the girl I was (and still am to a less dramatic, obsessive degree):

[the man of the year] At a party, a friend of a friend told me what really happened that night, that new year's eve when I balked at his attentions being placed elsewhere (some blonde older woman). He apparently got her number, tried to date her, unsuccessfully, and it turned out he was not a good guy to date after all. Then with a delicious smile, I was informed that he has become fat and ugly.

[the drunken ambusher] Walked by the bar, not noticed by me, pointed out to me, I looked up at his disappearing figure and cackled; laughed the kind of big fat laugh that makes people turn around, but he didn't. Everyone else did. He is such a fucking coward. And then, I forgot about him completely, instantly, poof. An hour later, coincidence prevailed in a way that planning and timing would never have contrived to have us meet on the street and I realized that even though he smiles and cajoles, he is a panicky mess constantly and I never noticed before because I never saw him objectively.

[the city] I found him. I have decided to forget the past, the pain of him choosing her over me, the further pain of forgetting me completely, and I saw that he has gotten pulled into the first woman who he spent any time with, so good for them, that they are cut from the same cloth and can be geeky about what they love, but I noted with some slight pleasure that she is a strange looking one.

[the triple alliterative] I haven't written about him here, because there's not much to say, he doesn't have many impressive qualities and I can't really tell what direction things were going in, but I've decided no one gets to date me via loopholes and arrangements that are like dates but aren't dates and make me wonder too much. He is like one of those people who you never notice until a lot of time goes by, whose presence makes no difference, whose personality is stuck in a vault and no one knows the right combination.

[the singer] he randomly called and I randomly answered and there were good times, but now that the time is stretching out between us I am starting to lose my faith. He made some attempt today to maintain my interest, but it was so half hearted and so poorly managed that all I could do was laugh and escape as quickly as possible. And I hardly ever push the eject button that early. Oh well.

[the magnetic disc] this one is most painful, the most intriguing, because we both mutually stepped away from each other out of some code of decency; him to a love he couldn't forget, me to the knowledge that I was trying to board a sinking ship and sensing the futility and imminent frustration I would bear, I swam away. The distance from my absence has created confusion for him, he speaks of me when drunk, he blathers on and on about the nothing that didn't happen between us, he projects his pining, awkward behavior and unrequited mess onto my good name, and all I feel for him is sadness, mixed with pity. I know what he is going through, because I do still have an immense attraction to him, but I would never never never promenade it out in public to his friends.

I want to relish in the poor choices these men have made, but more than that, I'm so glad they didn't choose me.

indeed

I want it all to be nothing, I can feel the ground under me trembling, I keep on trying not to admit it. I can pretend, it's easy, I am getting better at pretending, but there it was again, that palpability, that crackle.

His eyes sought me out, and in them I could see his joy, his gladness, his pleasure at my company and instead of reflecting that back, I looked away, looked down, hid my joy.

I don't want it all to be nothing, so I will fervently pretend it is until there's no more room for denials. Thankfully we are light years apart; the fabric of time has a firm grip on each of us and it is difficult to shake loose. It will take a long time to find each other in the same room again, and then I fear I won't be able to resist him.

His hands couldn't stay away from me, those fingertips that had produced such beautiful music were trying to coax vibrations from mine and where there have been walls was just air, he is one of the rare men that propel the best of me into the light; I was witty and beautiful, smart and graceful, radiant and delightful. And even though the timer had long gone off ("He finishes his set at 10, I'll say hello, chit chat and leave by 10:30," I insisted to Walter); I was snared in his orbit and didn't want to leave it anyway.

So I stayed.

And I let myself believe that maybe the crackle, the vibrations, the magic he waved in front of me might be real.

And then I woke up and remembered that there is nothing that anyone can do to please me. Especially them. So it is with great relish that I thrashed through the night with a machete and tore up the love letters we will never write and deposited that dream back into the deepest recesses of my brain.

It's not time yet.

The pig that keeps on giving:

This is why I love my bar!

goodbye studio

a new car in the neighborhood:

Punch buggy mint! No rebounds!

the troublemaker:

Brain

the brown elephant venture:

If only they weren't Burger King glasses, I might have bought them.

no thanks

He languished in his decision, and looking back I realized I already knew. Adept at reading the signs, deciphering body language, too keenly aware of every fucking thing, I already knew.

It's not the lack of interest that makes me derisive, or angry, or in a mood to delete everything, all the words, all the waste. It was the lack of response to my understanding and kind words; he simply didn't care. He'd already moved on, and I knew that already.

As I wipe away that experience, I don't understand what the point of making a connection is anymore. It always seems so easy for them to step away from, to wander away from, and I am left with my jaw hitting the floor, wondering how I gave myself away again even though I keep trying not to.

I guess I can't help giving myself away.

Monday; or the day the earth stood still:

How can I deny that the only thing in the world I've ever been really good at is that stupid fucking cafe, the place that has made me cry, sweat, hate, change, love, expand, seen every layer of my onion peeled away so that all that remains is the core of who I am, not the people I thought I should be, the people I wanted to be, instead I've been reduced to the pearl nestled inside all that mess. It's where I spend the little bits of free time I have, it's what I call my home base, it is where I go when everything is wrong. I have said it better and more thoroughly before. Now it could all be different and what terrifies me most is not the stretch of time, the inevitable hard work, the endless opportunities to embarrass myself; it is simply that I would have to, be forced to, grow the fuck up.

As this was happening, as this was being presented to me, I was reeling from the discovery that my hopes for the fire were all empty and without meaning, that any connection I felt was maybe completely one sided, or that absence of proximity had prevailed in completely dousing whatever interest might have once been present. And I was surprised that even though I knew things were dwindling, my interest (due to an endless array of evidence that he was just a cardboard cutout) and my patience (the game is so tiresome), it still took my heart and hollowed it out like a blasted mine. Instant and heavy hollowness fell over me. It was not about the failure, or the loss, it was about the not knowing and hoping and then having it all blown away like nothing. And truly, it can always be construed as nothing, but maybe all that it provided was the lesson that I need a three dimensional man and not a flat beautiful thing to carry around.

And before all that, there was the frustration that no matter how hard I love people, despite their flaws, with a generosity that I deem them worthy of, they disappoint me by not returning that kindness, by holding my every movement and dialogue as evidence of my betrayal (or imminent betrayal) and it is like I am swimming, trying to tread water, in a vastness with no land and he pushed my head under water for no good reason. Of course I am sad that I hurt his feelings, but how many times have I stroked his ego, joined his causes, rallied in his name, and given him the most valuable commodity I have to offer anyone I love: my time?

So I went home, to that shoebox, to that place he drove me to, to that rat infested shithole and I made the calls I'd been putting off all day, the hard calls, the difficult calls, the calls that will propel me out of that place, away from that hate. I am the worst at doing the things I need to do but find difficult, and that was when the gears of the world began to shift, like a giant machine suddenly turned back on, first it was a hum in my ears and then it was a whirring of everything making sense again and the knowing that it was all going to be fine. As usual. Somehow that reassurance that lives for me like a constant pulse point was silent during that half hour.

So I am moving again. For the third time in little over a year. This time it will be the kind of soul assuaging environment I need to thrive again, to unfurl my limbs from the orbit I've been catapulted into. It happened the way everything I've ever been destined to do happened; I succumbed to the sweeping wave of fate and it was like putting a puzzle together, finding that all along I've been holding that last piece upside down and backwards and when I finally stopped and took a closer look, it dawned on me that I'd been making it harder than it had to be all along.

I resisted the urge to be extreme, I wanted to wipe it all away, the tentacles of me that spread and gotten bigger than I expected, started the fire, which died out; that led to the singer, which was an accident anyway, and finally gave me the joyful experience of being gotten by the brain. So instead of pulling in, pulling away, hiding, I sent them both messages that were friendly and open and without expectation. It didn't surprise me that the brain was prompt in his response, for he has nothing to lose and has done this before, showing his expertise again and again. I am enjoying that he is so good at the game, because I need someone right now who can play the game with me. It doesn't hurt that I love love love that brain of his. His vocabulary alone could set ships sailing.

It took the singer a couple days to report back to me, and it may very well be that he is busy with projects (the two buzzwords most oft used to impose distance and disrupt the landslide). I realize at this point there is no one perfect man for me anyhow, and it will certainly not be someone who can't do the work of getting to know me. So rather than let the moments we shared fester in my mind to grow into an apparition that will never match him, I've let it go, let him go, let that urgency sit it out. I find the more I do this the less painful the disappointments are, because I never give too much of me. At least not without some inspiration.

In the end, I don't regret the risks I've taken because I know I would've regretted not taking them. And each disappointment teaches me something new about what I need.

exploring solitude

When I went to see the band play, there was only me. I travelled there in solitude, my ears plugged up by my own music, the bus bright and garish. I arrived to a series of familiar faces (the ghost from long ago was among them) but I settled into a spot toward the front of the stage so that I could enjoy the music without being distracted by anyone else. I casually sipped my beer and wondered if it would be odd if I put my earphones back in when, not five minutes of my being alone, a guy came over and clinked beer cans with me.

We had a great time, another interesting thing to note, that I could have a great time with a stranger and never know his name. We danced, we sang along to the lyrics, we pummeled the arms of those hipsters around us who purported to be too cool to dance by standing steady and nodding their heads to the drum beat. We sweated, we laughed, we twirled and when the band was done, he left and I stayed behind to get another beer. I had no buoy waiting for me other than the bar and a can of beer, and I comfortably headed there with no qualms; no worries of what I might look like alone.

And as I look back at the stretch of days and months of my single-dom, I realize that I've become comfortable with myself. I no longer need a life raft, an oasis, a set of ears and eyes to meet, a pair of hands to hold, which I have always desperately clung to, which is probably why I held on to him so long. I drowned and now I am free to swim alone.

It was the same at the party this weekend, where I knew I might not know anyone, seeing the singer last week, meeting a friend of a friend. Before, I might have not done these things out of deference to my own insecurities, the fear that I would have no one to talk to, the worry that I might look out of place. The last two weeks I did them all without any security blankets, no one at my side, and no concerns. I suppose it is the living alone that has helped this develop. Also, the getting older. The being comfortable with myself. The knowing who I am.

Interestingly enough, the universe has conspired to deliver me roommates, a home more suitable to me and the challenge of finding new ways to enjoy my solitude. I suspect this will be a good move for me in many ways, but it will also be wonderful to have a new pair of people to spend a moment or two with in passing.