the disappearing act

[I didn't mean to disappear. I love writing here, having done it for so long, knowing I can look back and see how far I've come. It's the last day of 2011, and while I don't normally fall prey to such conventions, I know I wouldn't forgive myself if I let this year end without some summation of what's happened.]

This has probably been one of the hardest years of my life, which coincided with the experience of growing the fuck up. It's been swell, young adulthood, it's been great. I had some amazing times with good friends. Some of them are gone, finding themselves in other parts of the world, some of them I've outgrown and some of them I've rediscovered again.

For me, it has been the year of being missing, everyone is saying, where are you? where have you been? where have you gotten back from? All the while I've been working and traveling and trying very hard to make sense of what is happening to me, like if I just pay close enough attention to every single thing maybe it will all make sense somehow and get better, but then there are so many things.

So many factors go into a disappearing act. It's not just one thing. They are all here, transcribed already. Money, family, love, sobering up, finding out that who I am is nothing without love.

And then there's this:

My family has never been close. It's just understood that the love is there and that's that. We don't talk, we don't see each other much except for holidays and we look forward to seeing my brother who has three cheerful wild children. We started to talk more, I won't get into the painful teary why, when you talk to someone who loves you and really wants to talk to you and they are kids it is a big gushy good feeling.

I wrote a story this year. One story. It is part of my novel, the seemingly never-ending source of mockery of my own making. It was an embarrassing story, difficult to write, hard to get out, a cringing unwelcome peeling of something unpleasant over and over again trying to find a way to make something of the effort of trying to figure out the magnet. Sometimes I am asked to explain why I write. This story made me realize that it is less about wanting to and more about needing to, because there was never a story I wanted to write less than that one.

Maybe because it turned out it was time to write some of Peter's story and remember what a presence he was. We miss him. Things haven't been the same since he left. His presence comes to me in strange visions, the sort of thing I've never experienced, I feel a little terrified of them, but grateful all the same because it never feels like the message or whatever I interpret the message to be is a bad one. He appeared to me in a dream, smiling, happy to see me, even though seeing him made me realize I had died and gone to heaven.

As some of my friends have disappeared, either to moves, marriages, or school; I find I am lonesome. I miss Siena, talking to people, discussing things, elaborating on things, remarking on things and there is no one I can do that with anymore. It makes me disappointed and dismayed. Recently, I saw some old friends and I realize I never want to see them again. She doesn't forgive me for saying she wears grandma sweaters (she does) and he can't see me without seeing the burnham. So even though there is time and love and there was some joy, it doesn't mean anything anymore. I can't keep spending time trying to line up and sort out the details of my past. Because somehow, without my realizing it, I have a future.

Being me, and living day to day, surviving, trying to see where I went wrong back there to avoid getting in the same spot again is why I had no future. You can't look forward if you're always looking back. Except the future isn't much clearer, an even murkier pond with a few spots of reflection and no clear view.

This year the moon reached out and grabbed me. He took my hand and helped me out of the darkness. He made the world seem small and simple. He holds a future for me, except to have it, I have to make a difficult decision, but for me it is not difficult. He is what I've been waiting for. So I will bide my time and wait, but I already know I am going to pack up and move one more time. It will be the best move of my life, it will be the best year of my life. I am ready for what will come and excited to share life with him.

I am glad for this year of struggle and sadness and fear. I learned that I can do anything as long as I take care of myself and am true to my own morals and ideals. I am also glad for it to be over.

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present. ” Lao Tzu, Daoist philosopher

the gall/incomprehensibilities

It began with a gut feeling. After years of serving the general public, seeing countless personalities flash themselves at me in an instant, using those experiences to accurately gauge the beginning, middle and end of many relationships, I knew within five minutes that she was not for me.

I can tell you it was a number of things she did that left a pungent distaste in my mouth. Things that perhaps no one else would see for weeks, months, years, I could see just like that.

She is internally distracted, as if gnats were flying in a cloud in front of her eyes, her eyes held nothing and looked nowhere until she was spoken to. Her body is a long lean skeleton with some skin and clothes attached. Her skin was the gray of sun-hazed, overripe peaches, except it had nothing to do with the sun. Her hand came to shake mine in a limp dainty gesture that had no form and no urgency; she let me shake it and then slowly reeled it back.

And then, from this strange creature, came insincere greetings that floated away like a long dead pile of Fall leaves. They meant nothing, they had no substance and responding to them, trying to corral them into understanding was a useless endeavor.

It wouldn't be the first time I'd found a soul that was hollow. Her vacancy was not surprising or alarming except that she belonged to my good friend and it seemed out of place that my friend had allowed her to live there with another of our good friends.

And then, the idea that I should live there arose. At first it was a great joyous thing, but then I thought of her and that was my only concern. They assured me that she was just fine. Alright, yes, she was a little odd, perhaps, but mostly just sweet and nice. So I relented.

The day I moved in, she was on the phone and brusquely tabled my cheerful hello. Right then I knew I had made a mistake. I moved in all my things and set them down and went for a ride filled with foreboding thoughts I tried to shake off.

As the days progressed, I saw more of it. There was no room for anyone, she'd filled every available surface with her crap. She had piles everywhere. Her room was disgusting. She was disgusting. She belched, she stomped, she chewed, she clanged, she sang, she cried, I saw a year of emotions overtake her in a week's time. I had never lived with someone so physically and mentally intolerable. She had not a single consideration for anyone other than herself, and she often disguised kind gestures that ultimately benefitted herself.

Her actions were bizarrely incongruent: upon entering the house she would call out a hello from another room, but moments later ignore me as I passed, she would wake up earlier than everyone in the house, eat breakfast, do whatever for an hour and then take a shower when the rest of us were rising, she seemed very into growing her own herbs and plants yet she rarely used them and hardly watered them, she would watch television with rapt absorption but often chat during anything that we attempted to watch, driving me into the confines of my room.

As the weight of this sank into my days, I felt some relief in the other who lived with us. We two were inseparable and that only made her worse. Somehow, us two being friends, good great friends managed to push that buried button inside her that turned her into a sniveling version of her high school self, insecure and unpopular and misunderstood.

And I kept wanting to scream at her, if you want to be liked, you have to be likeable.

She was the furthest thing from it. I would often wipe her slate clean, forgive the errant belching (which seemed more a way to garner attention than to relieve her full stomach), ignore the strange mood swings, look past the promises made and not kept, try to see the human being in that walking deadness and every time I let things go, she'd add another intolerable element into my days, hair on the shower wall, battering others for things she was often guilty of, being a big giant bitch, getting a dog and not cleaning up after him or attempting to learn how to properly discipline him as she promised.

The arrival of the dog changed things from mostly unpleasant to dismal. He was noisy, so the level of noise she forced us to suffer through was added to; she traveled a lot and often requested we take care of the dog; he shed a lot of hair which meant the living room was full of dog hair and not really a place you wanted to spend any time in and she didn't bother to sweep his hair ever, not once, in almost a year. His presence underlined the fact that she is a disgusting person with disgusting personal habits and she didn't care at all how it affected anyone else.

I tried various actions over the course of year to alert her to these transgressions and each was met with a puzzled look (sometimes with tears and a litany of excuses), a gloss of understanding and a promise to correct the behavior, which ultimately never got corrected.

And so, it was with great pleasure and much relief that I departed that place, and now I hope to never cross paths with her again.

As the misery I submitted to begins to fade, the small stretches of delight in not having to wake up to her noise, not having to share anything with her, not having to see that glum face every morning animate itself to speak with me, I find that I have learned the lesson to trust my instincts, to know that what I feel is true, to honor that deep down place of mysterious but certain intuition.

Had I trusted myself, I could have spared us both, for I am sure it was a misery to live with me, as we were as opposite in as many ways as we could be. To constantly attempt to make her understand how unpleasant she was left me extremely frustrated and unhappy. In my heart, I do not want to hate; though my mind finds many ways to loathe, my heart was heavy in its sadness for the situation.

unionizations/"the only exception"

I've always been alone.

Even in a crowd of people, there is always something that sets me apart, makes me different, makes me unable to be part of whatever group I am around, I'm too tall, too old, too young, too something.

I spent the years of my childhood, the oldest of four, the gray sheep in the bunch, always different somehow, it started that long ago, I always felt misunderstood and apart from them, from everyone. I careened through the rest of my life with the anger of those years behind me, expecting to be barred for being different, anticipating being misunderstood, cringing for the moment of expulsion.

I made the best of it, preferring to spend time with my nose in a book or finding solace in stringing words together, observing people from the distance we created in our differences; I accepted that I was just an outsider.

It is a strange thing to spend so much time feeling that way and suddenly find myself belonging to people. And not just any people, but ones that I am proud and privileged to know.

It began a few years ago with my group of friends, we found each other in the cafe, disappointed by life, artistically gifted but stifled by life, we found commiseration in each other, and joy; the first time in the span of my life that I had friends who knew me, understood me and loved me, for everything I was and everything I was not. These few gave me hope that life was worth living, because at last, finally, I was not alone.

They helped me shed the anger I had for so long, because love and time are the strongest balms for healing pain.

From there I found another friend, I remember when we first sat together and talked, I offered him my chair and within ten minutes I knew he was another kindred spirit who had experienced a similar disappointment in life and we became fast friends. There was no work, it was not hard the way it had been with other people, I looked forward to seeing him and spending time with him. And now we are living together and it makes me very glad. He thinks of me as a sister, he says, and I know what he means with the closeness and comfort we share.

He loves one who is another of us, a misunderstood and aching soul, and we three have become a trio. We have adventures, we have easy good times and it is a relief to live with them, to realize we are all happy to see each other, even early in the morning when seeing and speaking to anyone is a chore, it is good.

And then there is him. I don't even know how to say it all. I pretended for a long time that it didn't matter that I was alone that way. I filled my time and wasted my energies well enough, fell into bed with exhaustion, but for the ten minutes before and after sleep that empty bed could not be ignored.

I consoled myself with my friends and alcohol and the gladness I felt that I no longer had to feel like I was forcing myself into relationships that didn't suit me. Men had always been a bad solution to feeling alone, being an outsider, feeling misunderstood. They didn't know me, they only knew my body and who I tried to be in an effort to please them. I remembered that no matter what good times I'd had with them, there were plenty of times when were angry and fighting stupid useless fights. We fought to prove ourselves to each other; from our own deep wells of doubt and there was nothing that could get us past those wells, not even wanting love more than anything.

I spent two years single. I had men in my life, but they were temporary, and we knew it, so it was just a way to pass the time. I enjoyed the time, finding that being alone, choosing to be alone, restored me somehow, reminded me who I was, not for anyone, not because of anyone, I was always defined by who I was in relation to someone else, but for the first time in a long time, maybe since I was very young, I was able to be myself for myself. It helped that I had friends who coaxed me away from the anger that defined my life, who appreciated things about me others found strange, things that I appreciate about myself. I learned to trust myself, my intuition, my choices, my ideas, my desires, my wants, I learned myself, got to know myself and I enjoyed being me. I stopped holding up the past for scrutiny: all the failures, all the bad things, all the guilt, let those things be part of my experiences with life and I started to enjoy life newly.

I wasn't looking for another relationship. I was open to one, but I was not searching or hoping or wondering or waiting or wanting one. It's not like I didn't care, but I had reached a point where I'd spent a majority of my adulthood in a relationship, usually one I was unhappy in, so I reasoned it was better to just be alone for a while.

It's so funny that I can't just say the good things without explaining why it feels so good. Where I've been, how disappointed I was, how resigned I was, and that I wasn't looking or desperate for it, that's what makes a good thing better, greater than good. And to find someone who matches me, suits me, appreciates all the little quirks and things that made me an outsider for so long, it's a wonderful feeling. I have to admit I find it harder to believe than I do with my friends, because it is a deeper level of intimacy, the road to becoming an "us." I am out of practice, but I am glad because my practices back then were bad and this is a chance to have better habits and routines, to learn how to be in a good relationship. Believe me when I say I have never been in one I wanted to be in before this one and it is an unsettling but delightful feeling.

As I get used to enjoying the people in my life, I find that my smile is never buried and I am nearly always glad. It has been a good time.

It's been a while/at the dawn of hope

Ah, Winter. That time in everyone's life where things seem to slow down to a snail's pace. Probably one of my most favorite times of the year, to sit inside and read, to work on knitting projects, to bake breads and muffins. This winter I tried a puzzle (but gave up on it after too many long absences from dogsitting), got back into my arts and crafts, made a lot of homemade soups and tried very hard to do sun salutations on a regular basis (which requires I be home, which means I spent more time at home; which is new and different).

My world has slowed down somewhat, and it's strange, it took me a long time to notice it and stranger, I'm noticing it takes me a long time to do anything these days. I used to gulp at life like a fish out of water, clumsy, awkward, uncertain, but lately, I've become very methodical, extremely careful and begun to savor everything I encounter. It is a lovely change that perhaps age has brought to me, which most people would shun and be angry over, but I am grateful to slow down and lose that coltish skittishness I've always had.

Another move looms on my horizon and all I can say is I hope it will be a good one, I'd like to have the things I need and want, space to unfurl, a place to truly feel home, where I can wake up every morning free of bother. It's been a very long time that I've tolerated things in my current place and borne the brunt of her unrelenting obnoxiousness. I wasn't sure how I was going to escape it, but some good friends extended an opportunity to live with them and now I am moving again.

There is a man in my life who has been so many things to me, the moon, he is. It is an indescribable feeling to have discovered him and be discovered by him. He is full of contradictions, something I recognize. We have shared long talks, books, music, movies, photography and culinary magic. It is a strange thing, because he lives far away, so it is hard, and there is the large shadow of the future looming over us, except we enjoy it day by day and try not to prick the joyful balloon with pins of doubt. It will go the way it will go and we hope for the best. It's hard enough without asking questions that only lie in the future, anyway, the future is always a lie believed.

Then there is my writing, which has settled into a dry desert. I haven't met with my writing partner in a long time. I don't know why. She is busy. I am busy. I should be more worried, but I know myself, I am finally in a place where I know myself, I need lapses and lulls, I need time to mull and ruminate over the next thing and then when I am ready it will come. A thunderstorm of words. Until then, I am slowly editing the pieces that are close to completion, taking out words, tightening screws, reading and getting caught up in the story and starting over to examine it closely. It makes me proud sometimes, when I see how solid it is, how well it has all held up, how clear it is. It may not be much more than a puddle of words, but at least it is not murky. I still feel that I am close to finishing this project and that means I can move on to something new.

As much as I love Winter, I am ready for Spring, ready for the warmth, ready for the sun, ready for new life and new things to emerge. As much as I am loathe to change, I see it is arriving and I am ready to embrace it fully.

the knock at the door

They assume I'll stay. I suppose it is because I haven't said I don't want to. I play out each scenario in my mind and it always ends with the devastation of disappointment and hurt feelings. I know that part of the reason I'm saddled in a groaning misery that is difficult to shake off has to do with this situation and my inability to do anything about it (it is a daily barrage of noises, that the dog has only exacerbated, the clinking of the fork against his bowl, his rampant barking and nails clicking on the hardwood floor, his awareness that amplifies her awareness that underlines the feeling I'm always being watched, it is nearly unbearable after all this time and to imagine another year here tolerating the brunt of her insecurities and her rules and regulations among her chronic hypocrisy makes it worse). So I plunge my head further into the sand, telling myself I'm not in a place to take care of this problem, not right now, so I have to do the thing that proves to me that I'm a grown-up now, the one thing that children cannot do well; I will wait. I will be patient. I will hope for the best.

The dust here is stupendous. It settles along just wiped surfaces quickly, grows into thick gray strands, and I know the dust is affecting me, bringing sneezes in the morning, pounding my lungs and lining my nose and throat. I have never been sicker, so many colds in this year and a half, coupled with quitting smoking and starting smoking again and quitting again because you get so sick of being sick that the idea of putting a thing that you love that makes you both happy and sad anywhere near you becomes a chant stop doing that to yourself. I haven't smoked for two months, except for some reason, out of some defiance, out of some feeling of unfairness, I had a cigarette with them, standing outside with the men, feeling equal to them, making jokes with them. And then I resolved to never smoke again, again. I feel I am constant state of regaining ground after being sick and losing it by getting sick again.

Never before I have enjoyed the freedom of a light work schedule, weekends off, sometimes days off during the week, but with it comes less money, and with less money comes the terror and panic of not having enough, of struggling, of resorting to a constant mental anguish, a constant calculation of what money may be coming my way and what work I can do to get more of it to come my way. I was working a lot before but I had a lot of money to show for it; now I work a lot less and worry over paying the rent (another reason moving away from here isn't feasible, because even paying this low rent is tough, how can I afford to live alone?). Being broke for the last three months has cast a pallor over my social life and it is beginning to take its toll on me. I miss doing things like going out to dinner, being able to see a movie with a friend or doing a spur of the moment activity. I don't miss the drinking; the stupid brain cell bashing waste of time and money, but the rest of it, it is frustrating how bound I feel by the lack of money.

And then there is them, to imagine not being within walking distance of him, so that it feels easy to go there and give my cheerfulness and optimism and smiles to him, I see the benefits of it, that he is not a happy person and I infuse him with joy, I feel glad that I can be there for him, even if it is nothing more than watching sports games or bad tv shows together, because it is just being there for him, sitting next to him, not shirking from his wan and gaunt figure, not scared of the man he's become, a man he constantly insists is not the kind and gentle and intelligent soul I know (he would say knew) him as. It is probably one of the more difficult things in my life, that I must pretend is just fine. To do that, to constantly dull the shock and sharp point of despair, to grin and bear it, it takes up nearly all the energy I can muster. I weep when I walk home, I have to remove the clothes that reek of cigarettes and shower the smell of stale smoke out of my skin.

So there is the constant flipping of these two columns, that it is cheap and near them (and the park, I must mention the lovely park next door) and stifling and obnoxious.

Somehow, despite that, I've managed to find peace in being broke, because it means I can return to the solitary activities that bring me joy. Whether it is the finishing of the fingerless gloves for Daniel, or the necklace I started in spring, or to watch the exhilarating television series Deadwood; I have been enjoying my return to creative endeavors and see that I could spend this time of fruitless indecision productively. I might have something to show for myself. I haven't had the opportunity to revive my summer's challenge of participating in the Artist's Way, but I see that these small spurts of inclination come from the wellspring that program pointed me to, and all there is to do is remove the boarded opening and let the geyser erupt. A part of me is holding back, because it would mean that I would have to alter somehow the life I've become familiar with and used to, even though it doesn't serve me fully.

I already knew there was change coming, change was necessary, but I'm tired of change, tired of constantly turning the puzzle pieces over and fitting them into another place. I want to be done changing and being put together, but I also want to enjoy the things I have always wanted for myself, so I will do the work it takes to have the life I want. Live the life you want and want the life you live, they said.

Three years ago I began working with my writing partner and doing the bare minimum of work to develop my novel. I had hoped that I would be able to go to grad school to give me better focus and a greater discipline. Fitting my writing into my busy life is hard, harder than just about anything I spend time doing (because it is something I actually would rather do more than anything else, I try to find a large piece of time that I can really enjoy it). I come to each meeting with my inner artist bound and gagged, and I carefully release her, bathe her in reassurances and then she talks to me.

As of late, my writing partner is absorbed with her own stories, capturing them, crafting them, so in the meantime, instead of wringing my hands at the writing I cannot do alone (I could write an entire entry about the reasons why, suffice it to say, I would be easily distracted when left to my own devices), I decided to print out the entirety of what I have crafted and attempt to do a thorough edit. The distance of time will help, as each sentence is no longer imprinted in my mind, so that I can view it all objectively. I printed out one document with 179 pages (double spaced, manuscript style) and even though I knew it was 179 pages, to see them, to feel the weight of one hundred and seventy nine pages (and know that there is more of it not included and more to write), I felt the pleasure one must feel when showing off their growing infant. My how it's grown.

And then there is my quest, seen to many as arbitrary and unnecessary, but to me, reading the Snopes Trilogy by William Faulkner was my way of creating one safe haven to rest, one less decision to make, one less door to worry about whether or not to open. I have another hundred and more pages before I leave the world he made, and I have stayed in it, lingered there, loved it these many months, I think it has been more than a year; each book stretched into a cluster of pages that I mentally excavate, aware of every word, thrilling in every shift and whorl, examining the structure of the writing while being hypnotized by the words themselves. I sometimes wonder why it took me so long to find him, but realize that I would not have been prepared for him, which is why it took me so long to get through what I now see is his most deceptively simple novel, As I Lay Dying. A part of me would like to reread all of his novels I've previously blundered through with this attentive appreciation, because I know I did not give them enough careful consideration and I know that I would be a happy reader for it.

And then, there is them. It is strange. I had completely reduced the urge to be with someone, put on the mask of unloneliness, pretended that being single hasn't bothered me. I even went so far as to allow one (who is not enough) to try and make that emptiness seem a little less empty, but it only seems to shine the light on all the corners, all the openness, all that's missing. It makes me feel more alone, which I hadn't expected and now wonder what to do about them. For a long time, I was not ready for the task of dealing with them, of navigating the senseless and often difficult waters, like a ship trudging through glaciers in Antartica, trying to find a place with waters free enough to sail and weather less difficult to maneuver through. And now I see that just like everything in my life, it requires not that I be perfect, not that I know ahead of time what to do, not to be more patient and less anxious, it is a matter of being as prepared as I already am and able to choose to open the door when the knock arrives.

pressings

[the imperceptible furrow]

I have begun to notice the telltale signs of a burgeoning furrow in my brow. It has always been in the same spot, but now, now there is a shadow there when my face is still because it must rest in the muscles of my face more when I am not paying attention, and it troubles me that my recent state of mind means that I sit with a crease between my eyebrows, a skeptical glance, a puzzlement and soon, it will be permanent. Sometimes I get up and go the bathroom and when I catch sight of myself, almost like a surprise, because I don't always recognize the face that stares out from that glass, I see it, the furrow, and I force my face to relax until it is gone.

Also, there is the recent exhaustion I face on a nearly daily basis, where I want nothing more than to crawl into bed at nine o clock and sleep until the next time it is nine o clock and hope that no one notices that I am hiding away from them, haven't been to a bar in over two weeks, haven't talked about myself in two weeks, haven't cared in two weeks, just want to sleep. I'd guess that I might be depressed but there's nothing really to be depressed about. And if there was, it would have began sooner than two weeks ago. Two weeks ago (and just a bit longer) I had The Fall, which has become an important event in my world and I suspect the marker of my getting older, because I have not been the same girl since then.

It is cold here now and unlike before, I must have gloves and a hat and a scarf and I am a whiny baby without them, my coat snuggled under my chin, three layers on top, two layers on bottom, I am a bundled mass attempting to block out any chills. I used to be immune to the cold. I used to laugh at the cold. Now it laughs at me.

When did I begin to enjoy prunes? Really, prunes? I remember when he offered me one. It was the first time I had ever seen a prune up close. He kept his in the refrigerator, in a plastic container and when he peeled open the lid the smell offended me. It was like if you could smell wetness, if wetness had a smell mixed with a sickly sweet forgery of raisins. They had a similar wrinkle, but they were so big. And some of them were puckered and dimpled and others were like grotesque belly buttons and he shoved the bucket under my nose to make me see them up close and that smell filled my nostrils and I was so grossed out. He thought I was just grossed out because they were prunes and prunes aren't cool. He asked me, the way he asked me everything, the reason I loved him so, if I had actually ever eaten a prune because I might find that I quite liked them. He smiled and I ate one and he was right, I did quite like it. Now, I don't keep my prunes in the fridge, I keep them in my pantry and I try to eat five a day.

[time passing]

"She's been sober for a year," she told me. I can't quite say why this statement has been pinballing through my mind and setting off all the bumpers. The initial ones were all typical, shock, alarm, awe. Then as the details emerged, I felt a sense of affirmation, a prim nodding of the secretary in my mind who manages all the affronts incurred against my good name and even in that moment I could not resist saying, see, this is why I stopped being her friend. After that, I just felt kind of sad for her, that she's obviously looking for something and still hasn't found it yet, and maybe this is it for her. I hope so.

there was a suggestion that sobriety was part of growing up. I don't know what that means. I wish I did. I wish I hadn't held on to a semblance of what felt good for so long because I'm stuck now, this is it, I'm in the rut, I look up from the curb and see everyone passing me by, I'm in that last group of marathon runners who trained for nine months only to end up walking it, bathed in sweat which makes the perfect mask for tears. If I ever grow up it might be because I leave Chicago, because I'll be forced to do something else, anything else. Or it might be a slow steady crawl toward adulthood that I've already seen the signs of and once again I will know it's because I'm a late bloomer.

I want to be steered, to be shown what to do, because the ways that I used to do things haven't been working for me anymore. The impetuous decisions based on nothing more than a whim, it has failed me two years in a row. That has been my saving grace for two years, the one thing I could rest my fucking laurels on when cornered about what exactly I was doing with my life, I could say, with a sense of smugness and pretentiousness, I'm applying to grad school. Or, I'm applying for a master's degree. Even just the idea that I could say such a thing was a novelty, so I said it as often as possible. And now, it seems I've been bested, having failed to win those odds two years in a row, maybe I will not bother this year. Even then I could not say I will not bother. Part of me still wants to apply, part of me still considers it, and probably will until January 4th passes and I can say with a sigh of relief, maybe next year. And maybe the year after, ad infinitum until I die.

[them]

He comes to me at night for assurances. It has a pattern now, like everything; a couple weeks go by, I haven't heard a word, and I usually break my vow of silence. Lately it's him that wanders into my scope, greedy with questions, searching for love, wanting someone to tell him it's all gonna be alright. I do the best I can, for my heart is not for him and my answers seem to drop into an endless well of his own narcissistic making. I imagine all the good times we could have had if this well was absent, but even then, I was never someone he wanted that way, though somehow he desires the mother hen in me and I love soothing him. It makes no sense to anyone else, and so he will remain an enigmatic stain on my subconscious.

The day is arriving that I will meet him again, he only knows my past self from years ago, and I wonder what he will see in my future self, if he will have the same lure to me he once had, I am terrified that he will and even more concerned that I will not be able to deny him. Meeting him again has loomed over me these past two weeks (strangely coincided with my abrupt descent into exhaustion) and I know it's not worth the effort of trying to imagine how it will go, what I should wear, how much of a wall to hold up, but I endlessly find myself scraping away at those thoughts, even when I reprimand myself I still wander back absentmindedly and imagine it all. And it might seriously turn out to be nothing. A joke.

Except there is him and he has captured me with so many moments, so many reasons, but this one in particular might be the exact moment I fell like a great thunderous tree, boom! he was sitting in my kitchen and we were talking, talking about nothing, which we seem to do so well, and he was smiling and happy and we had already spent two hours next to each other, but there was no rush, and my roommate was in the other room unaware, but in the middle of saying something, he was struck by me and he whispered that I looked wonderful and me, typical me, I shied away and refused the compliment, even waved my hand as if to bat it away, but his sincerity in that moment, his carefulness in that moment was exceptional and I crashed.

the lure of November

It seems odd, that my year in review occurs in November, and not, in say, January, or perhaps in March, around my birthday. I cannot find a reason for this, other than every couple years or so, usually around the end of October, my life seems to upend itself and unravel to nothingness, and then I spend two years on a blog detailing the reshaping, the weaving of the new life that began in November.

It dawned on me recently that I started this blog about a year ago. I won't go through the tedious work of listing what's changed and hasn't changed, since you have been here with me for the last year and lately I've talked a lot about my emotional state. Let me just say that it has been a very interesting year and I have learned about myself and who I want to be and how those two beings aren't so separate and distinct anymore. This year I really learned how to be comfortable in my own skin.

There is something to tell you. There is a man who shares my bed with me sometimes and I haven't talked about him because I didn't know what to tell you. He's not my next boyfriend, he's not going to be my husband, he may not be a long lasting part of my life. And yet, he has already had a huge impact on me in just a couple month's time. He's helping me get over the love of my lifetime and he is fulfilling a wish I made over the summer to have a man in my life.

He has this amazing solid huge body and I find myself fascinated by the way his muscles drape over his limbs, the way the shadows fall across his arms, the way his shoulders feel under my palms. I am amazed by his arms, huge heavy things I can barely wrap my fingers around and I am pleased to be given permission to touch and hold him. He sits next to me, afraid to disrupt my motions, while I explore his body as if on a topographical mission. I love watching the tree trunks of his legs move through the world, he is like a centaur and his body is sensual, suggestive, and he isn't even aware that it might be. He travels through the day in a tangle of awkward mentally induced bindings, but I get to see him unbound and it is the most beautiful thing.

As if the pleasure I derive from his physical being isn't enough, he has a brain that would stir envy in the hearts of most men and he shares it with me, in short bursts throughout the day, in occasional long conversations on the phone (which is rare for me) and I am constantly intrigued by what he has to say, how he views the world, what new piece of knowledge he happens to be dissecting every day. This is the part I fear the most. I could easily not fall in love with a body, but I find it hard not to love his brain. I relish in just about every interaction and constantly long for more, knowing full well that I could wring a wet rag out to stiffness and still not be satiated, so I try to leave him be sometimes.

I think more than anything, this year, I have finally found the freedom to be pleased, to have pleasure, to seek out pleasant things. As a kid, as I grew up, I was very careful not to have too much fun. Having fun was how you got hurt. This summer and my friends have helped me learn how to reap a joyous pleasure from life as a adult.

So I will spend the next year continuing on this libertine path, I hope I will learn how to relish with words what I have learned to do so well in person. I have never been able to celebrate the good things and always been better at moping over the miserable aspects of my life, especially in my writing. It'd be nice if I could find the words to celebrate my life. If that is the case, perhaps that means I will blog more often...

as always, thank you for being here with me.

swallowed whole

When I was living alone, I was desperately lonely. Now that I have roommates I am desperate to be alone. It's not just that though, it's a seemingly unending demand on my time, a whirl of Things To Do starting with work and ending with sleep. I am experiencing a toxic overload and I am suffocating under the weight of it all.

It began innocently enough when my days off began to dwindle. I was experiencing two days off a week, a first in my working career, a novelty. I spent one of the days off doing the things you do on your day off, laundry, grocery shopping, maybe some tedious personal grooming. The other day off I spent in a totally frivolous manner, perhaps an afternoon reading a book, or wandering around the park or spending time with a friend. Life was good. I smiled for no good reason.

When my jobs demanded I work another day, I relented with good cheer, certain that having at least one day off was enough, since I had been enjoying myself so much.

Then I got a cold, which happened sometime around Labor Day, and typical of me, I ignored the thing until it knocked me into submission and I missed nearly two weeks of work. Since then, playing the game of getting back to normal, both physically, mentally and work wise has just about ground me down to numbness.

Now I can't remember the last day I had off, I haven't been doing my writing or any of the things that bring me joy, reading, knitting, making things, even having fun with my friends...it's like the only thing I do day in and day out is work and then I go home and sometimes I have the most fun I've ever had in my life with my roommate and now good friend, the sort of friend who I will always be able to resume where we left off, no matter how much time has passed between us. The thing is, I need some time to recharge, to unfurl the stress of the day and I don't get to do that if I'm doing disco lights in the stairwell, giggling over music or enjoying being playful with someone just for the sake of fun.

This weekend and the next will be full of good times; a grown up pizza party at Siena, Gary's studio walk; halloween, Jessica's going away party. I don't have to work as much next week and I'm planning on taking a couple days off to catch up and climb out of the quicksand. There are letters to write, a dinner to make, the book to read, phone calls to make, a haircut to have, a knitting project to finish and at the end of it all, my sanity to reclaim.

the land and its lies

It has been way too long.

Here goes nothing:

I am fine. Nothing is wrong here. It is the strangest sense of clarity I have ever purported to have. Sometimes it even sits with me for days and days. The urgency I once had; gone. The guilt over not doing everything I ought to be doing; gone. The sadness I felt for time passed and lost; also gone. It is strange. I have reached some sort of mega zenith in which I know that exactly where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be. I know that all the things I have surrounding me are things I want nearby. I know that everything my thoughts turn to is good.

I miss a lot of things. I miss my father tremendously. I haven't spoken to him in some time and I find there is no better reason than I simply lack the time I would like to give him. I cannot seem to muster it up in some chunk enough to supply him my absolute attention (which is want I want to give him) and so I keep saying, tomorrow, next week, next month; and I think of him in the way that someone tries to see stars, that seeing them seems to rest on so many things coinciding on one perfect point, by following the routines, and I have lost that routine.

I never expected my routines to be so disrupted by my moving in with people. I've lived with people before and treated those people as if they revolved around me, as if they were mere entities in my way, obstacles, mosquitos. I would like to pretend it has nothing to do with moving, but it is apparent, if you look back, that my life has not been quite the same since I obliged myself to moving in with them.

And oddly, I love it. I love them. I love the feeling she gives me. She as a friend is like having a twin sister, someone who knows you and your movements and their meanings so completely and finds them so enjoyable because they are the same. And then there is him, who I've inherited, who I cannot imagine never having known, the absolute best person I have yet to meet, for all of his giddy statements bring me joy, all of our interactions make me smile. I love the appreciation they give me. I have never had people in my life I so fully enjoyed who so fully enjoyed me that it is almost tiring, the being with them, because I don't want to stop, I get exhausted. And generally, this involves nothing more than their presence. I languish in their words, in their laughs, in their company like a contented cat, fattened with cream and tuna. For the first time in my life, I understand a love given entirely from friendship. They make my heart happy.

I miss my writing. Around the time I moved, my writing partner disappeared into other projects on a temporary basis that has turned nearly permanent. I remember our meetings in past tense and it troubles me briefly until I am whisked away into the throes of pleasure (the summer, the activities, the food, the conversations, the smiles). I remember how for almost three months, we met three times a week (or attempted to), that in one of those months I completed a short story, a solid, well written piece of my novel and I remember how alive I felt. Even though Iowa had turned me down, I would not stop writing. I existed like a well run machine for those three months, churning day after day, each day of the week already known to me through the handshake of routine.

I went to the bar more then. It was part of my routine, part of my emotional rut, that I had nothing better to do and nowhere better to go than there. And maybe I needed to go there, to fuel myself, or find myself, or something. And he was there, the magnetic disk and I kept going there trying to find the answer and once I found it, I found I could not keep going there because I hadn't realized it before but I was embarrassing myself. I saw it the last time I was there when I approached him and everyone else's eyes met and lowered in embarrassment for me. There was a moment of tension, they quieted to hear what I had to say and resumed talking when it was obvious I wasn't professing my love for him. I can't deny their concern, but I still shudder over that moment.

And yet, we had so many good times; argued over a point in the sky (venus? no, jupiter), I gave him my favorite book with all the earnestness and delight of a child and he accepted it with the same pleasure, we ran into each other one especially warm day when I was wearing my cute summer dress and he was wearing a hangover and the displeasure of being punished for being late, when his eyes lifted at the sound of my voice, the excitement on his face was undeniable, he reached over to me and kissed my cheek and hugged me, bringing me close to him, feeling my back, and I know it was just a habit, but it was one that righted his demeanor instantly. Or the time he realized I'd been smoking again, his face mocking and skewed with fake shock as he pointed it out. Or that he still remembered all the things he told me that night, but carefully avoided the most important thing (that he still wanted to be my friend). It is all nothing and will never be anything more than a confusing series of circumstances; a mystery never solved.

I miss men. I didn't realize it until I recently hugged my friend, a well made man (who only loves men). He has a bulkiness and heavy strength I forgot. I generally feel so big and huge, but next to him, I am soft, frail and malleable. Having moved, I have a bed now, whereas before I slept on the floor; now--and again--I sleep with pillows next to me, to simulate the body that I'm so used to being next to. Before it was him (the love of my lifetime) that I missed, now I recognize that it is just the form and the warmth and the support of a body next to me that I long for. I don't know why I haven't had any men in my life in the last year. I think I am just beginning to get over the shock of what happened with him, but I still think I carry a sign around that may as well be visible and shouting out loudly GET AWAY FROM ME. Based on my results I can only guess that's what the sign says.

The random texter turned out to be the singer. I knew it was all along, but there was some part of me that doubted just for doubting's sake. He wanted to continue in the manner in which he'd been going, where he'd invite me to be a part of his life every three weeks or a month or so and leave the lapses in between us empty of explanations. He wanted me to be someone he could dump and pick up whenever he felt like it, but I didn't want that. So we have sorted that out, shared the necessary pieces of the puzzles that we mixed up and I have moved on. I am not interested in wasting any more time, at least not wasteful wastes of time. If we spent two weeks together only to have him depart, that would be one thing, but I won't sit for three weeks waiting.

the drunken ambusher returned to my scope for a brief moment in which I was able to fervently recapture the depth of my joy and passion for him, but it was still not enough for him and once again we are strangers. It is good to see that we still have something, that there is something between us that always been there and I think will always be there.

It is also good to see that I no longer prattle on and on about what could be when I very well know there is nothing. I spent a week wearing that old behavior (having a crush on someone, anyone, having someone to gush about, having a permanent grin on my face because all I need is a man to make me happy). And then I got rid of it. Let it go. I haven't thought about him in two weeks and today I was at work and it was the first time he crossed my mind and I was so proud of myself. I really am learning what aspects of my behavior are useful and harmful and unnecessary. My brain has a lot of idle power and it gets wasted on these ridiculous prospects (who might be better prospects if only one key, but unchangeable, element was in place).

I long to be in love again, to have that joy, that pleasure, but I understand now that it was sometimes contrived before and this time I don't want to settle for anyone less than worthy of my company. So if that means I will be single for five more years before I meet someone who is capable of meeting me eye to eye physically, emotionally and intellectually, I will savor those five years or however long it may be.

I miss my family. It is strange, but the summer months mean that I don't see them as much, for the family get-togethers are thanksgiving, christmas and easter. I generally don't see my mother very often, or my brothers, or his children. I sometimes have contact with them, but not often. I got to see my brother's family at the birthday party for his daughters and it was a delight as always, but it feels so far away now, that Sunday just six weeks ago, with the pool in the backyard, the kids running around, the presents, the pinatas, the drawings with chalk on the cement.

I've started thinking about if that will ever be my life, having kids, making parties for them, kissing their heads when they fall, and wondering if I've used up my time taking care of other people's children, if I've missed my chance, if it's too late for me. I suppose there's no way of knowing that until it is certain that I cannot have children, but some part of me doesn't seem too concerned about the absence of children from my life. I have seen so many children take their first step, say their first word, and even had one child give me the tenderest most absolute love I have ever received from a child.

Mostly, I think I am sitting at a point in my life where I don't know what's next. I have always known, or had an idea, or wanted something, and now, I have this vastness ahead of me and opportunities worth accepting, but I don't know what's next for me. I think this is what's given me the sense of peace and lack of struggle, because if you want to get away from something you have to have somewhere in mind that you're headed. It's not enough to want freedom, it must exist somewhere.

I know that I have an immense freedom in a lot of ways, because I am single and childless and without debt. I am still at the mercy of my routines and my cost of living and until there is a release in that, I will not feel free.

p.s. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but given that all I've offered here for the last month is a couple entries and a bunch of pictures, I hope they were at least worth a hundred words. When I don't write or can't write here, I try, for the very smallest effort, to communicate through pictures and let you know that I am okay, if quiet.

seriously, where does the time go?

I look up at the calendar and August is nearly gone. I know I have had days that were chock full, either of work or fun, and I look around the table and their smiling faces bring a smile to my face. It has been a long time since I was able to just succumb to pleasure, to have it waiting and at the ready for me, and to have it be an offering I wanted to partake of, to share, to have.

I worry though, that my fun is taking over, that there's no time for me, that my writing is suffering (I haven't met with my partners in over two months), that I am losing myself in pleasure.

So for the first time in a while, rather than worry that my absences here mean I am spiralling down into darkness, it is a sign that I have been happily soaking up the joy around me.

I miss this, and the thoughts that get emptied out, but one of the benefits of spending time solely with people who bring joy is I have nothing to ruminate over and no puzzlements to work out. And, when those moments do occur (seeing him in the street, getting a text from noel, finding pictures of him with her) they weigh nothing against that joy.

termination of lease

So, three weeks after abandoning my apartment, I guess it's safe to say I may have successfully terminated my lease. I am a little cautious still, but worried enough to write about it, I guess. I actually tried not to write about it so as not to jinx it (it would not surprise me one bit if tomorrow I received a letter in the mail informing me that I owe my leasing company twelve hundred dollars, because that is just how things work for me sometimes).

I have to admit, I had valid reasons for terminating my lease, but I didn't exactly go about dealing with the proper "legal" way. I looked online at the tenant's board association and I was supposed to let my leasing company know two weeks before I was going to move out that there were repairs needed and if they weren't done in two weeks time, I could effectively terminate my lease. I sent a letter after I moved out.

It's strange, but I really did love that apartment when I first moved in, and maybe it was just because it was so quiet and it had such a nice view and I could sit at the window and smoke cigarettes and be depressed without feeling like I was a mess (even though I was). Oh, and there wasn't a slimy cheating snake around, that probably had a lot to do with it.

Slowly, its issues began to annoy me. First it was discovering that my kitchen sink leaked. I didn't wash a single dish in that place for ten months. Yeah, urban camping. I had to blowdry my hair at my only available outlet (which was at the opposite end of the apartment) in front of my window. Then the outlet that was in the bathroom (the blow dryer has that big chunky plug with the built in reset buttons and didn't fit) didn't hold any plugs for very long, so when I flat ironed my hair, the plug would fall out without my realizing and I had to start all over and wait for it to heat up again.

Then there was that time I closed my bathroom door and the handle came out of place while I was inside. I panicked, feeling a sense of horrendous and irrational doom. I was running late, I began to sweat, I had my phone so I called Val and she laughed at me in sympathy. Finally I was able to turn the handle against the lock enough to catch the levers to open the door and I could never close the door fully again. Whenever people visited I would forget to tell them and they would find themselves stuck in my bathroom, but only for a moment, because I was there to rescue them.

And the list went on of little things that began to wear down the veneer of my pretense that the apartment was just fine. So I think because I tolerated its limits for so long, I should be able to get it all wrong about leaving it. I hope. We'll see.

I survived. I breathed air. And that was all.

The truth is, you don't recognize failure until it is behind you. You can't smell the stink of horror until it is a dying memory. You don't know how bad it was until you get out of the hole.

The hole was my old apartment, the one I took as an effort to stop sleeping in the beds or other generosities of my friends. The apartment that was at once a monk-like retreat (with its sparsity, it's lack of things, it's need to have me generating action for there to be any action). I spent the last eight months there like a robotic husk of myself. I woke up. I went to work. I drank myself into a stupor. I collapsed into bed. Rinse, repeat, with the occasional variable. I spent as little time there as possible. I went through the motions of a life. Not my life. Just some life. I survived. I breathed air. And that was all.

The only true moments of clarity and inspiration I had in that apartment involved the cleanse, in which I had to force myself to find something to do with this newfound time on my hands--it turns out that when you don't eat or drink for three weeks you have an amazing amount of time to waste. Also, I could sometimes stimulate myself into doing yoga, if a friend was involved or if I felt particularly in need of yoga.

Oddly enough, what really made me aware of just how wrong my apartment was for me was the addition of the two kittens. They took up my space with great joy and I felt trapped in their path, in that tiny shoebox of an apartment, feeling like I was part of the obstacle course they formed where they catapulted (heh heh "cat"-apulted) themselves in an oblong circle like a race track, starting with the bathroom, they chased each other through the shower curtain and in the tub and out the other end and out the bathroom and past the kitchenette and over the chair and leapt onto the hamper and skidded across the window sill and dived into the bed, where I was laying and attempting some forgery of sleep, and then raced to the hall and back into the bathroom where it began all over again.

I had never imagined that there was something wrong with my place until I was under siege by two kittens and I realized there was no where for me to hide.

In my new apartment, I have a door to my room. I feel good about this. This makes me happy. Even though I can hear the other people who live in my apartment and are a part of me now, if my door is closed there is nothing they can do, nothing they can say, they cannot bother me and even if they knock I can say, hey, I'm busy. And I couldn't do that before, I couldn't lock the cats in the bathroom, because the doorknob was broken and they would probably just yelp at the door.

Also, there was the issue of confinement, that everything was in one space, that I was sleeping a mere five feet away from my refrigerator and it was a loud refrigerator that frequently hummed itself into my consciousness every night. I got so used to that noise that the last night I slept there with that thing unplugged (because it was empty and unnecessary) I couldn't sleep.

But what that apartment taught me is that no matter how bad it got, no matter how horrendous it looked, no matter how sad and pathetic it all seemed, I wasn't with him and that was all that mattered. I didn't go back to him, I didn't beg him to love me again, I didn't once wonder if it could ever be again.

Okay, I felt like a burn victim and every day was a measure of just how much I was getting back to "normal" and every single day I spent there was like a salve, a totally needed part of my life where I needed to feel that lack, that disparity, that hopelessness. I had to face the facts that maybe I wasn't a bad person despite what happened, because I had really put my entire self into that relationship, it was the first time I had actually given a fair amount of effort to being a good girlfriend. I had to realize that I didn't fail entirely, because he set up blockades at every opportunity and I swiftly swam past them all; he was a contrary worm. I had my faults. Maybe I was a little too fluid, a little too loose. Being the opposite of what I had been maybe seem a little fishy, a little suspect and maybe he was waiting for that horrid woman he had known to rear her ugly head and maybe it was not too hard for him to lure her to the light.

I needed time and space and air to breathe to get over that failure. It is no surprise to me that people I haven't seen in months have suddenly appeared in my scope. He forced me to be small. The failure forced me to be tiny. I hate that I had to pull myself inward and shrink. I have missed so much of my friends, but I feel like I am waking up from a thing I didn't know I had, that I thought moving out and being on my own had solved and I had no idea that it was not over. Today was the first day I could talk about it without being upset or crying or being mad at him. I fucked up. He fucked up. We fucked each other up. And now, we don't have to worry about that anymore. He wanted me to be happy, but he had no idea it involved him not being in my life anymore.

And now: I don't know his number, I don't know his stories, I don't know his world anymore and it is all because I set myself away into that apartment where I didn't have anything except myself.

And I learned there, in that place, that there is nothing I need except myself.

the week in review

Saturday: spent the entire day indoors. Watched the emotional divide occur between me and val; realized one day we won't belong to each other anymore. wondered why I haven't heard from walter and then I consider...

Friday: spent most of evening indoors getting my buttons pushed by walter. He has a special talent for being a doddering oaf around me and I have a list of pet peeves and indiscretions as long as my arm. I just cannot fathom why someone so capable can be so profoundly obtuse. The worst offense: we've eaten dinner, he has something stuck in his teeth. He asks me for floss. I give him some. He proceeds to floss in front of everyone, smacking his lips and twisting his tongue around even though I handed him the floss in the bathroom. I object. He treats me like a crazy person and continues to floss in the presence of three people who are his friends. No one says anything. He then dangles the floss in my face on his way to the garbage.

Also on Friday: I receive a text message from a number not in my phone book and I wonder who it could be from. Rather than respond immediately, I think about it and eventually forget it. If it was someone I wanted to talk to, I'd know their number. I suspect it may have been the singer who I've basically deleted from my life and I don't care if it was him or not. I feel a strange sense of freedom I don't recognize. Usually I would clamor and fuss over such an event, instead I let it pass.

Thursday: spend the morning languishing in bed, then cleaning my newly acquired bathroom. It is a big bathroom and has a lot of nooks and crannies that are all beyond filthy. I hunker down for a long clean and then shower in the sparkling white tub. I clean even though I won't be there for three days. I clean even though I don't have to. I want to be a good roommate this time around.

Wednesday: I spend almost the entire day trying to rid my newly acquired bedroom of dust bunnies and boxes from my move. I am successful in managing to squeeze my life into one small space and it doesn't look half bad. There is a strange kind of energy in that room that is good, vibrant stuff, but totally different than any other room I've ever had. It has a window facing north, I will sleep with my head facing west and it is in the middle of the apartment rather than the front or back.

Tuesday: I work for eleven hours straight. I am barely able to stand upright at the end of it, but I know what awaits me at the end is worth it; getting together with an old friend of his, who has become a friend of mine and the promise that we will go to taqueria moran. I am enthralled by a visit to his work studio and his endeavors and saddened by the hipsters at taqueria moran. More saddened by the fact that I look more like a hipster to unscrutinizing eyes than I'd like to. I go home, filled up to bursting by my friend's presence and I spend the night festering in happiness again (the second time in a week!).

Monday: The dog walking stint comes to a thankful close. I negotiate like a mad woman via text about keys, times and information regarding the dog. I get mosquito bites, I meet dog parents, I stand around while the dog chases others dogs. I find out after work that my bartender has named walter my "fusband," a combination of the words "fake" and "husband" and I wonder when the firing squad will ever relent and if my absence from that place will be enough.

In essence, my week was as full as it always is, but there was something different about this week and it was me.

the general store:

It is already home and I am already immensely happier in so many ways, though disappointed in some overshadowing ways (and really, is that a surprise) but I'd rather shine my light on the better side, that it is already home, that I have already had great good times with her, my new roommate who I should have roomed with long ago; and it is only been a week. She is a glow and I am a moth. I fit in here, I like it here, I am happy here. This makes sense. The last place did not make sense. I don't miss being there at all, there is no confusion over which bus to take, and it is good.

I experienced this weekend, a moment of satisfaction, which was explained as drunkenness--but I wasn't drunk, I was happy. That's how rare it is that I'm happy. The fireworks were plentiful, my friends were there, and I was glad. I didn't care about where I had to be and how I had to get there, for at least a little bit.

All this weekend I had to resist him and it felt easy, really, I was just across the street from him, the magnetic disc, and I noticed and walked away, and then, of course, it was arranged in a way I could never plan well enough, by coincidence, by the magnestism, boom, we crashed and there was nothing we could do differently and no pulling away that would work, everyone fell away until there was just us and when will he go away? Just leave. The sting of his earnest conversation, the politeness, the wretched sense of fakery, I hate hate hate it and him. Even more I hate that I get caught in his pull, but this time, this time I managed to walk away and it was the most natural part of the exchange for me..

And then there was today, having had yesterday, trying to prove that I didn't care, but it was all I could do not to look up at every figure that neared, every face that passed, and it was never his. And when it was, it was a cheerful, polite hello with nothing else, because I was in a spot that forced him to be distant, and I was there on purpose. When I left, I didn't say goodbye and I felt his eyes on me, burying themselves into my back and I dared myself not to look back and then I promised myself never to go in there again. It is a promise I will break because I have broken it before.

Even though I worked all weekend it felt like a vacation, because things were slow at work, because I wasn't at home, because I am putting off the important parts for now.

I feel the draw to things I cannot control, and I am more okay with it than I have ever been, though now I am putting the leash on that one area I let run rampant and no longer actively pursue and just a couple weeks in, with the whirlwind of Other Things to Do, men remain a mysterious enigma I worry I will never figure out, but I feel no dire sense of panic from this.

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.

on being a weirdo

The dating world has opened my eyes to something I suppose I've always known but never really considered was a problem before. I'm weird. And not just weird, but kind of goofy, strange, awkward, pretty much any synonym of weird you can muster, I would probably nod my head in accordance.

I suppose it's not really a bad thing, and of course it's not a bad thing to me, but it is interesting to try and quantify myself and my life to others. In the last week, I've had two dates with two fairly random men and it was like a social experiment on just how much I was willing to reveal about myself, lest I send them running for the hills.

My weirdo-ness is relatively harmless, and I feel, fairly non-threatening. For the most part I have a set of values that dictates my life in different ways. I live a very minimalistic life in a shoebox of a studio. I'm environmentally conscious to an obnoxious degree. I'm devoted to my family and will answer the phone if my brother calls no matter what's going on. I have a group of friends that are like my version of the Seinfeld gang. We seem to migrate to the same spot every day to check in with each other and we often spend our evenings together without planning to. I have these strange jobs that require me to do what might be considered demeaning things, but I enjoy them. I like to have a good time, be happy and I don't really think about important things like my budget or saving or health insurance.

In the end, despite the weirdo tendencies I have, I feel I could pass for normal. Of course, I'd spend the entire time worried that someone was going to figure me out, and point and scream, "She doesn't belong here!" Still, I'd pass. The more time that went by on my dates, I realized the two men I went out with last week would not pass for normal. And as I look back on my dating life, most of them wouldn't, with a few exceptions of course. I guess I never realized that I was attracted to weirdos because I myself am kind of weird.

Sometimes I suspect that people have figured me out and it makes me uncomfortable, because I don't want to be seen as weird. But as I get older I find that what other people (at least those in the periphery of my life) think of me matters less and less.

the lay of the land

One fire has been put out. The easy one, the flammable one, the one who I actually really liked, he's pulled himself out of my scope, of course in the most polite and well mannered way possible. It is all well and good that nothing really got started between us and no one's feelings were hurt. I am largely disappointed, but I think it is for the best. The good news is that we will still remain on friendly terms. His company is boisterous and engaging, which delights me very much.

As for the other one, things have been lagging a bit. I think primarily it's a matter of both of us being busy and perhaps secondarily, neither of us are certain that there is anything to do about the other. Of course I can't speak for him, but I do know he's neglected to respond to me in kind, and it's quite possible I overwhelmed him into silence. Thankfully, I have been remarkably unhurried about him, and I don't feel any sense of despair.

I think what I learned from the disaster that was eric (and subsequently, any guy I've ever really liked) is that no matter what the circumstances or coincidences or my feelings on the matter, attempting to force a person who isn't ready willing and able into a relationship doesn't work. And realizing that has given me a sense of freedom I've never had before in this area. In fact, I can't even say for sure that I fall into the able to deal with a relationship category or that I'm ready to deal rigors of dating right now.

And yet, I realize that it is time to start the process, because this is a part of my life that is important to me and always has been. Why else would I moon so heavily about each potential whisper of a relationship if I was not hopelessly optimistic and desperately romantic?

I'm noticing this time around that my criteria is still the map I use to determine my next steps and that I'm a lot more realistic about whether or not there is a genuine connection. Even in the case of the easy fire, I could see that things between us might not go very well, but I was willing to negotiate because of his excellent personality and our obvious enjoyment of each other's company. The truth is, his aimless existence troubled me, his excessive drinking and partying was worrisome and our schedules were nearly impossible to line up.

As if that wasn't enough, a couple months ago I joined an online dating service with nary a date to speak of til now. We're due to meet tomorrow. I don't quite know what he looks like and I can't quite tell what sort of personality he's got. We seem to be good at the emailing, but that doesn't always translate into real life. The one thing I do know is that he's excited about me, which is a good start. I don't even want to go through the speculation process. As my friend Annie said to me today, we'll both know the minute we see each other if it's a yes or no. So I'll let that moment speak for itself when it comes.

And so that is what has been occupying my mind for the last week or so, along with the endless parade of work, stories, dishes to wash, laundry to do, etc.

tickled pink

Unsolicited messages have stoked my fires.

I am glad for them, that they have responded to me, and that my patience has not been worn so thin that I haven't just walked away, that I could let two days expire and not fret myself into a frenzy, but just let it be.

Hmmm. It's nice to have something to be excited about again.

welcome to 32

I spent the first week of my thirty second year fighting off the worst sickness I've experienced. It was prefaced by a week of heavy immune system suppressing drinking. I noticed a burgeoning sore throat and bought some cough drops and figured a cold was on its way. The next morning at work I noticed my chest was a tightening fissure of pain. I sensed the impending doom with unusual presentiment. Uncharacteristically, I headed to the store for medicine and settled in for the night at one in the afternoon.

The cold became a rapid decline into a three day blur of fevers, sleeping off and on, a migraine that felt like my teeth were going to erupt from their sockets and the concern that maybe I wasn't gonna have another birthday. The signal that I was improving was just as frightening, I experienced horrific hacking coughs that produced some loosening phelgm. The next morning I was aware of being alive and felt slightly antsy. All good signs that death was not imminent.

I've always considered myself lucky to have a set of caring people in my life, people who insist on my doing something better for myself than whatever it is I'm currently subscribing to. I had no sense of exactly how sick I was until these people called me to check in on me and sounded completely appalled at my condition. It's true, I was barely able to speak or form sentences. And I found it hard to rise out of bed. I guess the survivor in me was just certain I was just going to do whatever it is I had to do. Thankfully I managed to wriggle out of work with ease and was able to spend a good chunk of time recovering.

I was given a package of antibiotics by my boss that would squelch the strep throat virus out of my system. I didn't know if I had strep throat, but it certainly seemed possible. And I'd just gotten news that my niece had it and got sick just a couple days before I did. I'm not a big antibiotics taker (thanks to the lack of health insurance) so I figured why not. I got through the meds and I am still not feeling well, so it turns out I didn''t have strep. I just have some other mega virus chest cold thing that walloped me into bed for four days.

So as I look ahead to more recovering and hoping that I don't have walking pneumonia, at least I have a reason to take it easy these days, and it's not just cause I'm 32...

the proven pudding

It came as no surprise. I turned the corner and remembered suddenly that this has happened before. And his figure was there, the streets empty of cars, the sidewalks quiet and wide, and he stood out among the cement, a lone man with his perpetual baseball cap, his long lean body, the man that I thought was going to be mine someday.

How wrong I was. It all seems so silly to me now, a waste of time, an obvious mess. The last time I saw the drunken ambusher I was a giddy thrilled caricature of myself. This time there was the lack of his pull on me. I had no need to fall into his orbit, he had no power over me. In fact, I barely broke my stride as I approached him, said hello, and continued on.

Of course, I am still impressed by our banter, which has never wavered from top shelf quality exchanges the sort worthy of another era where puns, words and wittiness were prized above all else. It is rare that I muster up the verbal enthusiasm needed for those exchanges with people, but he brings that out in me. I am always trying to impress him, I guess.

My eyes were tearing up from a host of different things, I had just put on makeup, I'm allergic to the cats, I was saddened by the typical morning glumness of the kid, when I turned the corner. I rolled my eyes. I had to walk past him to get to the cafe, I had to wipe away the streaming tears. And they wouldn't stop. By the time I reached him, I looked up to see him expecting my approach, resigned to speaking to me, a little concern in his eyes.

He asked if I was crying. I said I was just allergic to being outside. We laughed. We said other things, pleasantries, and then I turned and kept walking.

When I arrived at the cafe I realized that clarification was needed, that our encounter was awkward in some ways, that it may have seemed like I was trying to get away from his as fast as possible. I texted him, which I haven't done in about a week and a half. And even that was a fluke. Mostly it's been three weeks, since the brit's arrival on my horizons, since I realized that feeling and having a mutual attraction was so much more worthwhile.

Our texts were still friendly, because we're more comfortable there, in words, than face to face, and I told him about not getting in to Iowa. And he didn't respond. And for an hour or so I figured he was just busy arriving to work in the cab that he stood waiting in the barren street for. After that, I realized that he didn't register it, because it was sandwiched in between two unrelated sentences. No one could be that self absorbed and insensitive. Well, I didn't think he had it in him, despite his track record.

And I didn't hound him, or wonder or care. I actually forgot all about it until I saw him again this morning, except this time I was already at the cafe, walked down the empty street figuring he'd been and gone, but an hour later his figure ambled into my peripheral vision and my eyes were drawn up from the newspaper to see who was there. And he waved, smiled, and I did the same in return and he kept walking in search of his cab.

My eyes went back to the paper, but the memory of his ignoring my news returned, so I launched up out of my chair and headed out after him. His eyes were desperately scanning the streets and he welcomed my arrival at his side with those eyes, the kind of sad sick eyes that you never want to see, the sort of eyes that glaze over you as an obstacle blocking the road ahead.

I tried to tell him, but he was too frantic, too stressed about being late to work, too freaked out. When it finally broke in, he actually stopped, he actually lost that distant faraway look and looked me in the eye, not afraid of me anymore, and gave me his sorrows, offered me a hug and mourned with me. And I told him, what I've tried to tell the rest of them, but it felt real telling him, not like a defense mechanism, that it's okay, because it doesn't matter, and now, the now is so much more exciting than that.

And the cab he needed arrived and he said it, he knew it, he said that the world was mine now.

And even though in my heart I've never loved him more than I did in that moment, when he was able to step out of himself and really be with me even just for a moment, and not just be with me, but get me completely, I don't feel like there's anything more to do or say with him. I don't feel the need to chase him into my life again. And that is what the brit gave me. And I am so glad.