Igneous, Wanton & Veritas

Current state of the cookie

2011-02-27T12:16:00.004-06:00

Two blogginations in one day. How delighted you must be, my faithful constituents of, dare I approximate, ten in number.

Which really is not the point. I offer my whimsical observations and lighter hearted photos/videos/interests over at http://sarahmoeding.tumblr.com, over here is journal-town. It's good to keep the numbers small.

Yesterday, I was to have a date. As is the custom on the day of a date these days, I spent the pre-date time panicking, feeling as if I could vomit at any time, crying just a bit on two or three occasions. But it's never like this when I meet a person, it's only when it comes time for an actual, set down date that I start to lose it. Why? Well, obviously, I shouldn't be dating. I'm in love with Andy, have known I want to spend my life with him since about the time we met; I had a year with him to affirm that notion, which was affirmed and reaffirmed at every turn, and now, six months after breaking up, each dating scenario just, again, reaffirms what I've known now for a year and a half. Until something shifts, I can only imagine repetitions of this situation, ad nauseum.

Which is a damn shame. In theory, a new person should be exciting; even if I know I want Andy, I could delight in the entertainment of a new person, right? Perhaps not.

Anyway. The date fell through. This fellow, "New Dan" as he's been dubbed ("Old Dan" is not super enthused about his title, he prefers "Original Dan" but that's just too damned long) phoned at the time he was supposed to be arriving in Minneapolis (he lives an hour away) to tell me he'd decided to not come as he's leaving for Alaska (!) in three weeks and feels it's unwise to try and start anything which might leave both of us upset in a short period of time.

Okay, sure, I get that. I just wish he'd informed me of this Alaska thing, which he's done now for four years, apparently. I'd have been completely content hanging out with him a couple of times before he left. We met about three weeks ago, and really, really hit it off. He's so much fun. A positive, funny, energetic person. Something I could really use right now. Our meeting was drunken and hilarious, involving the ratting of his hair, followed by him asking me to help him with his too many beverages problem. "You can have the the Crispin or the Summit. Or you can kiss me." I chose the latter, and the kiss was electric and tender and he put his drinks down and dragged me out onto the now empty dancefloor (we were at a big party that was closing down), and proceeded to cut one hell of a rug, spinning me around and making me laugh...

So, really, despite yesterday's crying and nausea, I guess I wish the date had gone down anyway. Or that something had been different. And frankly, now that I know he's leaving anyway, that takes so much pressure off of the idea of him; he doesn't have to be anything more than Fun Dan, not Future Husband Dan. He said, on the phone, that he felt like he was breaking up with me before we'd even gone on a date, that he wasn't saying he'd been planning our kids names or anything, but I seemed like a lot of fun and a good person to know, but ultimately, the timing seemed impossible. And he's right, of course, but that kind of pragmatism goes against my beliefs regarding love; always try. Try, if you want it, see how it sticks, and if it fails, it fails.

But, maybe I am, for the first time, genuinely not in a position to try. I don't know. I do know that New Dan has perfect circumference of thigh (I've got a thing for man-thighs), that he's got joy in his eyes, and freckles and a furry chest and a great beard. I know he makes me laugh and that he's already good at handling my more strident, high strung personality quirks--in a joking, cutely mocking tone; "Oh, look at you, with your moral high ground! Knock it off, be a happy bunny."

I know he took to calling me Happy Bunny right away after getting that from my outgoing voice mail message "This is Sarah, and I'd be one happy bunny if you left me a message". I liked that about him.

Bah.

In other news, the job that previously seemed a foregone conclusion to become full-time and permanent, fell through. I'm back to unemployment and inconsistent temp work. I've realised I'm terrified to try and find a job. I have no interest in going back to serving, but it's all I know, and I have no idea how to find a job otherwise. I put off going to the WorkForce center, despite knowing they hold all of these answers. I know I'm screwing myself, and I could be employed and going to school right now if I'd just get there. Jesus, I type that out and feel like I should probably slap myself across the face a few times.

I'm just in a great transition. I don't operate the way I used to in regard to love/relationships, career, lifestyle, anything. I may be 32, but I definitely feel as if I'm going through the growing pains of a person about five years younger.

I guess I'm a late bloomer.

Dream in which my ex introduces me to his girlfriend, "Randy".

2011-02-27T11:20:00.005-06:00

It's narcissistic to be so awed by my own dreams, but I am. Particularly when they're so linearly constructed, so basic, so realistic, peppered with true behaviour (and internal monologue) from myself and others, by appearances of folks I'd be likely to see in such a scenario. It is genuinely hard for me, when I have dreams like this, which have almost no function of "dream" contained within them, to not believe I am privvy to some glimpse into an alternate reality.

I had one of these dreams last night, and I feel like something's been corrected in the waking by it, because of this real, basic quality it has. Namely, that Andy wanted me to meet his new girlfriend, in order to reduce tensions between he and I, and to aid me in facillitating less internal drama in regard to him. The logic: I'll meet her, like her, see that he's happy with her, and it will help me move on. And, if he were to do such a thing, that is exactly what would happen--the only major problem being that both of us are far too neurotic for it to happen (why make a situation easier when you can make it complicaaaaated?). Secrecy and distance only serve to make me feel I'm being lied to or treated like persona non grata. I thrive on inclusion, and while I understand it is not always, or even frequently possible, given that people do want to keep things for themselves, it does tend to grease the wheels quite a lot in my process of working through any situation which is of high emotional content.

In any case, the dream went thusly:

Andy picked me up, there was another girl in tow, a friend of the girlfriend (clever, no? Now I'm not only not alone with Andy, but one of her friends is there, so I can't even ask questions about her or show emotion toward him). Andy was wearing the shirt I first saw him in, and the shorts I last saw him in (clever, too, you silly brain). We drove through a college campus/New England-y looking area, where we stopped to pick her up; at this point I asked Andy what her name was, and he mumbled, or there was too much noise from the radio, so I barely got it, "Randy? Like 'I like to fuck?'" and he looked at me, disapprovingly, for my crassness; "You'll note that there IS someone new in the car." And there she was, and suddenly, I was sitting next to her in the back seat, and her friend was in the front (the one dream function that took place). Randy. She was like a plain-pretty version of Mila Kunis (Andy is fond of plain-pretty), long dark hair, olive complected, all slight of build, long-limbed, dainty, but with an obvious internal strength, and...a sweetness. She smiled, we shook hands, and I mentioned that she looked familiar; she said something about how that was possible, though she'd been out of town for the past three months off in Europe studying for her graduate degree (of course! My god, how cunning my brain is to provide the details for all the things which would be exactly what Andy craves in a woman; in a woman who is not me--though the only detail I do know is that he thinks she's "sweet"; her physical looks, her name, what she does, who she is, all unknown).

We drove to a large, old stone building, where we were to enjoy various presentations on various things--it was some kind of multi-roomed conference on the campus of this university that both Andy and Randy were attending, which was of interest to all of us, where we'd wander at our leisure and listen to important people tell us important things about important topics, all within this large building, built somewhere in the late 19th century, with marble floors and long, echoing hallways. We split up relatively quickly, and I gathered info on the things of interest to me, but soon hours had passed and I was ready to reconvene with the group. I began to search for them, hoping to not come upon Andy and Randy having some sweet, intimate moment, seeing in my mind's eye how they'd look in an embrace. I eventually wound up in a student lounge (how gorgeous these old buildings are, with student lounges filled with large leather couches and velvet drapes over their floor to ceiling windows) where a girl I've known for years sat with a computer on her lap (she's one of a set of twins, and as always when coming across her, I looked for what makes her Lindsey and separates her from her sister, Taryn). I approached her, and she gave me a soft high five; I sat next to her and asked what she was up to, "Just email," she said, and closed the laptop to pay attention to me. There were other girls on the couch, and I noticed that Taryn sat at the opposite end; we acknowledged one another, and I moved to sit in a more central location on the couch. "Why are you here?" Lindsey asked, an obvious question, since we were not in Minneapolis (and yet why they were there seemed clear, though I know they're not anywhere but Minneapolis). I told them, and then lowered my head and voice a bit to convey the greater reason; to meet the girlfriend of the man I want to marry. An audible sigh/gasp came from the girls around me, and remarks of pity began to be made.

"No, no, it's okay," I said. "She seems really sweet."

I wandered back out into the hallway after a bit, and looked out the window (at a building, which I knew housed a woman on the third floor that I'd assisted moving a few months earlier). The trees were bare of leaves, and it was chilly, not cold, and there was no snow on the ground. I would guess it was November. I heard someone behind me; I turned, it was Andy, leaning against the wall. He looked crestfallen, and he was alone.

Something, I understood, had happened between he and Randy.

And that was where the dream ended.

See how banal that is? It definitely serves a purpose for me, because even though it didn't happen in any reality I know of, the effect is somewhat like if it had. Of course, if I ever do meet the girlfriend, it will be a total mindfuck because she almost certainly will be nothing like "Randy".

Beautiful! The searches that have led people to my blog.

2011-01-25T20:39:00.003-06:00

"ancient skepticism" birds

"gallo" "frusciante" "not friends"

big cocks in worthington mn

The Way The Cookie Crumbles

2011-01-16T13:34:00.003-06:00

DATA

Employed: Working a secretarial gig at the management office of a property rental company in downtown Minneapolis with four crass, lovely women, ranging in ages from 26 to 60-something. F-bombs drop like crazy, and laughter is a constant. We have fun. It is through the temp agency, but it seems a foregone conclusion that they will hire me on full time. It is a good fit all around. The building is small, and used to be where coal was housed for the original properties on the lot, which were built in the late 19th century. I work 9:30-6, which is ideal. I'm a mere ten minutes away from home by car, probably less by bike once the weather warms. It's decent enough money to continue to get my shit together financially, while also being a stable environment wherein I can continue to get my shit together in all other areas.

In love: With a man who says he's falling in love/has fallen in love (that distinction was not clarified) with someone else. A someone else, who is, predictably, "everything I'm not", who is "sweet" (why does that word rub me so the wrong way, as if, in this kind of conversation, it's very meaning is geared to rub me the wrong way? Perhaps because that's its very design.), and who he can speak with on matters of art and music and literature without my platform of insecurity. An insecurity, mind you, that he brought about in me by treating each thing he wished to discuss like I had nothing to bring to the table. He says, now, that he realises he does want a wife and kids one day, a notion that he insisted was not even imaginable while he and I were together. All of this, despite his insistence that he's "over me" seems a fairly deeply subconscious psychological effort to stick it to me, which makes no sense, since I know, in my bones, in my heart of hearts, that the one thing he's wholly honest in every way about is that he loved/loves me less than I ever loved him. Why, then, does he feel the need for such a brittle distance, if my not being in his life leaves him so happy?

I can't help but believe there's still an us in the far-flung future. I'm a chronic romantic, you can't beat any sense into me there.

Dating: A fair amount. All of it dull. Even the ones who spark something in me initially turn out boring or flaky and while a different, more chaotic me would have welcomed the flaky if the flake himself were hot enough, this Sarah just cannot give less of a fig about you if you're not going to treat me right. I won't do half-assed any more.

Fucking: Getting none of that whatsoever. The last person I slept with was Andy, in October. Had a taste of the makeout flavour on Friday, and it was so hot I cried (being aroused, well, sometimes, I shed a tear or two it can be so intense), but I'm quickly losing faith that this will end in sexual intercourse for all the prickliness of the man it happened with. He's got no room in his life for anyone but himself and his dog. Which we knew already four months ago when we first did this pretty immediately post-Andy. Our attraction to one another is hella strong, but he won't even budge enough to give me a casual dating scenario, once, twice a week. You're 26, honey. Stop acting like you're 40 and have been living the bachelor life for two decades. Let someone in. Get laid. Have a laugh or two. Snuggle.

I promise it'll be okay.

Pets: I have four cats. I took in two baby kitties and they're...sickly. One just spewed a LOT of pus from his useless, cataracted eye this morning, and, well, it seems to be for the best, his eye looks a lot better now and he's acting fine. I really, really need to get them well and find a home for them. Unfortunately, I don't have the money to get them to a vet to expedite this process. But, as my dear friend Leland said the other day, "You've done right by them". I fret because people tsk tsk at me when I say I can't take them to a vet. I can't. They're not dying. They're happy, they are living super fun lives, and despite their fucked up eyes and the day they shat out worms all over my apartment, I'm taking care of them the best I can, on the cheap. If I hadn't taken them in from my parents' place, they'd surely be dead by now. Coyote food. Instead, they sleep, they play, and they are as loved as the best loved kitties in the whole world.

Peace out.

A Middling Poem On My Current Goings On

2010-12-19T16:45:00.004-06:00

I'm afraid I've not much to say.
The demons are at bay;
I ache from work*, not from play.

I see my friends, I drink a little wine,
I catch the eye of a cutie from time to time**.

It's all nice, it proves to suffice,
And I sleep soundly in the winter's rime.

*Temp job at a hospital through the end of the month; will at least pay my bills for the rest of this month and rent for next, methinks.
**As a function of said job, I was at a hardware store with a medical supply rep trying to get 504 plastic dividers cut to spec. Cutie was cutting our dividers. Definitely a spark there, we smiled and made googly eyes at one another. Medical rep took me back to the hospital so I could get started on assembly, and he told me he was gonna get me a date with this guy. ha. In the end, he wound up cutting his finger and had to be taken to get a stitch by his boss. So med rep guy asked the lad's coworkers about him; 31 and single. I've got an apology bottle of Rogue's Dead Guy Ale in my fridge to take him tomorrow, along with a note including my phone number. He makes me wish I had an Econoline van. He's definitely "If this van's a rockin' don't come knockin'" material.

I think it's time to get back on the old saddle and have a proper shag partner.

I'll Tumbl For Ya

2010-11-17T11:50:00.002-06:00

I've made a Tumblr account on a whim and I think I might enjoy it. Brief blogging, but not Twitter bullshit brief, and I can utilise it to post photos from all my archives of art, friends, lovers, nostalgia, pretty and creeping things...

Thumbs up.

Beast Mastery

2010-11-06T13:32:00.004-05:00

I've always strongly identified with Beastmaster. Sure, it's funny.

But can you talk to animals? Like, not just with your mouth, but with your brains? Cuz I can.

Or, at least, I do all the time in my dreams and sometimes in the really real world.

Like the time I met a wolf in the woods outside my grandparents' cabin. I was what, 11 or so? I gave him the 11 year old in the late 80s version of a nod and "'sup" and we just looked at one another for a while. I told him with my brains, "nah dude, we cool" and he gave me a wolf nod and turned to walk back into the woods.

That was one time in real life.

But in dream life, animals talk to me more often than humans, especially the past year, and there are definitely far more animals just running around in my dreams than humans, too.

Up until recently, I never dreamed about animals. What does it MEAAAAAAN!?!?!

After speaking with the capybera like spokesperson for the forest creatures Thursday night, last night I hung out with the feathered (?) hatchlings of a large iguana, who were sitting on the front stoop of the humble small-town Mexican home I was passing by on my way to get some sundries. The hatchlings were chillin' out with chickens and bunnies, and the folks who lived in this home could not have been more tender or proud. I obviously knew them well, and called them by name, gleefully shouting, "Oh, they've hatched!" The iguana mama and I exchanged knowing glances.

Then I wound up in my maternal grandmother's old house in Worthington, MN, a place I've found myself twice in dreams the past week (I took refuge there after being raped by a man in his 70s in full view of a gazebo full of people who ignored my cries). This time, I was watching America's Next Top Model after my family went to church (prior to that moment, the house was a huge, modern farmhouse and it was raining heavily; I was talking to my father about buying me a horse and also explained to him that I did not want to go to church and would instead prefer to worship in my own way, outside in the rain--the fact that I segued into watching America's Next Top Model is a little unsettling to that end), and a young, fat girl was there. She went outside, and when she came back in...

There was a great big farkin' OWL in the living room. I looked at her, standing in the doorway, "Did you let that owl in here?!!"

And then my cat Odin, stupid dummy that he is, walked right up to the owl and of course the owl went for him and cut him all up with his talons and flesh ripping beak, and then me in the process as I tried to separate them. My calves and ankles bleeding, I yelled at my sister in the kitchen (she was, for some reason, about 14 in the dream, she's currently 25) to grab a blanket and wrap Odin in it until I could get the owl out. Instead, she stared dumbly at me and went into the cupboards in the kitchen, rummaging for something.

I ran into the kitchen, screaming at her to do what I'd told her to do, and she stood up, holding something in her hand, looking proud. I slapped her across the face soundly and told her to do what I'd told her to, that this owl was going to kill Odin if we didn't act immediately.

And then I saw what was in her hands; potato chips.

Suddenly, in my mind's eye, what should have transpired unfolded: I'm feeding the owl potato chips, luring it away from Odin, Rachael is folding Odin up into a blanket and keeping him safe.

The world slowed, and I began to weep; "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have hit you if you'd told me..."

Beastmaster always made me cry.

The Fall & Bad Dates Before Bed (And Val Kilmer & The Mini Deer)

2010-11-05T15:09:00.007-05:00

Last night's dream brain produced the following:

Washed up on the shore, floating in the water of some large woodland lake which felt Lake Superior-ish, fifteen or so dead mini deer (think about six inches tall) plus one regular sized deer, their legs chopped off, their stomachs lacerated with short, deep cuts. I spoke with the forest creatures, who were all afraid; "Who did this to the mini deer?" "Well, you know about Val, don't you?" said the forest creatures' spokesperson, a large, upright rodent-like creature (capybera?) with a white belly. I nodded, and looked at my human companion (who had heretofore been the forest creatures' translator, until they realised that I was not in need of an interpreter and then won their trust), "Yes, Val Kilmer. He's in town to do an episode of Law & Order: SVU." The forest creatures' spokesperson nodded, "Yes, we think he's done it."

I investigated the situation, finding that the regular sized deer had been found like that and was used as a prop in the episode, but that Val had an alibi (he was shooting) when all the other, miniature, deer had been murdered. Val Kilmer was not responsible for killing any of the deer, mini or no.

The mystery of who had so brutally killed the mini deer remained unsolved.

This dream segued into a large house, where I lived with a woman who represents many qualities I'd like to have; physically athletic of build, with olive skin, dark, wide eyes (doe eyes? This idea was not unnoticed even in the dream), effortlessly beautiful, stylish, confident.

(It should be noted at this point that I had a date last night that went very, very wrong; the first two hours were fine, even great--talk of our various approaches to various art mediums, life goals, how we'd watch any movie starring Vincent Cassel or Vincent Gallo even if they were largely featured stapling papers or watching paint dry, tattoo ideals, my pulling away entirely from Facebook and text messaging, which he soundly commended and said he respected, and the various strangenesses of people we know mutually.

It was after I'd said I'd just watched The Fall with a friend, and had made dinner at his place that things took a dark turn. He asked what my relationship was with this friend, and when I explained we'd dated but had broken up over two years ago he started to grind his teeth. He went into a lengthy monologue about how his brother [his twin] had just broken up with his girlfriend of six years and how he [happily] felt he'd had a part in that because she was a "cold bitch" to him and "bad" for his brother. This segued deeper into how this girl withheld sex from his brother and that it was probably because she was cheating on him and didn't want "two cocks in her holiest of holies". His language veered consistently toward crass and I calmly expressed my discomfort at it which only incensed him more. He said something about how I'd "already told [him] about everyone [I'd] fucked" [untrue; we'd talked about one person we know mutually that he's been aware I dated since the night we'd met, and of the aforementioned friend] he couldn't be "worried about all my exes showing up at my door" when he and I were together and when I said that 90% of my male friends are exes, his eyes quite literally bulged at the news. Conversation continued to grow darker and it ended with him informing me that he'd been attracted to me but there was now no chance [as if any interest in him lingered other than in psychological case study on my end at that point], and he then spat out several invectives including belittling all the people we know mutually [insinuating some of them had herpes, implicating that I probably did too] and calling me a bitch, then said that he "disagreed with almost everything" I'd been saying including distancing from Facebook and texts. He quoted Oscar Wilde to this end. He seemed to want to make me feel pointless. I found myself acknowledging the futility of the situation and despite feeling actual fear [there were two points at which I thought he might hit me], I laughed lightly and told him it was time for him to leave. He told me to "continue with the popularity contest" [a reference, apparently, to my earlier statement to him that I have little drive to make myself successful artistically, unfortunately, despite having made many helpful connections the eight plus years I've lived in Minneapolis] and got up from the table. He went to the bathroom. Then he stood at the bar, awkwardly, for a couple of minutes. I busied myself signing the credit card slip for my drinks and didn't watch him go.

To his credit, and oddly, he stated several times that he knew he was being an asshole, and when I said that he was behaving a bit crazy, he agreed with me. He seemed incapable of stopping himself once he'd gotten started. He never raised his voice, and was polite to the server when he asked for the tab. I told him he seems to have a hair trigger when it comes to trust and jealousy with women and he agreed with this too. And yet he was still conveying to me that his action was my fault.

All of this is a damn shame, of course. He's a very, very physically attractive lad with perfect fashion sense [last night's outfit: pea coat, light long sleeved v-neck tee with navy stripes with a white thermal shirt layered underneath, dark grey jeans with belt, and tan loafers]. He's about 5'11", slender, but not thin, with slightly shaggy dark hair, intense blue eyes and thick eyebrows. By and large, he's a darker, Slavic-looking version of Lee Pace [a fact observed while watching The Fall earlier]. And until things took their dark turn, we were aptly flirtatious and got along quite well [it should also be noted that we'd kissed several times at the bar on two previous occasions, but in our relative sobriety last night were enjoying flirtation mixed with the proper kiss pre-cursor of staring briefly at one another's lips instead of actual kissing]. It seems charmingly fitting that the entire time we were being serenaded by live music called the Bookhouse Trio doing string/brass versions of Twin Peaks songs at Café Barbette, a candlelit and intimate setting.

A damn, damn shame.

And, in writing this out, I now feel less completely shaken by the experience. So, I shall commence with the dream [if you're still with me].)

This girl and I were not friends, just housemates. I'd just slept with The Mexican Who Does Not Want Me (a frequent topic of this blog, who at this point I am over but apparently my brain likes to use him as a dream archetype), and I think he lived with us too. Knowing what was going to happen, I went upstairs to clean and hours later, I found them together lying naked under a blanket. I attempted to explain to them why this was a little fucked up, but they just laughed coy, post-coital laughs. Things jumped to TMWDNWM coming downstairs with a slightly decomposing, bloated rodent corpse, which he said his mother had found in the ducts. He looked at me pointedly, as if it were my fault a thing like that had gone unnoticed. (His mother, notably, died recently.) The girl took this corpse, and we determined that it was a ferret. She skinned it, and we found that it was possessing a biomechanical jaw (I recently injured my own jaw with an electric drill). Through an elaborate process, she removed the bones one by one for me and placed them in a bowl. Then she replaced each bone with a metal, mechanical counterpart. I could smell that the ferret's flesh was rotting. I got the impression that the end goal was to bring the ferret back to life.

Dream jump to a Gothic architecture version of The Fall's Labyrinth of Despair (where everything had a blue tinge like we were in Underworld) and me being a 22-year-old me in Paris; long dark blonde hair, ankle length beautifully tailored black wool trench coat, Doc Martens with black jeans and black sweater. I was being chased by a very strong vampire (who feels like a proxy for last night's date); there were trickeries with an elevator, and when I finally reached the highest point of the Labyrinth, where, in The Fall, the woman trapped there realised she could only escape by jumping and therefore killing herself, I jumped and found that by grabbing the voluminous lower portion of my coat and flapping, I could fly. The vampire was bound to the Labyrinth of Despair and thus I was free of him.

I landed safely on the ground, next to a very nice dog I know named Oxford (who, incidentally, could also fly). Oxford is owned by a pretty incredible fellow I was dating briefly a month ago. Ox and I went off down the path to find him, together.

Scrabble-less

2010-11-01T17:04:00.004-05:00

This gal can't play Scrabble anymore. It was such an intrinsic part of mine and Andy's relationship, it feels like a betrayal to engage in it with anyone else. He beat me every time of probably a hundred games in a year, excepting four. He was a shitty loser, blaming bad tiles or a failed strategy for his loss, which pretty much made my wins moot since it had nothing to do with my own skill and everything to do with his lack of it, obviously. But I went into every game with him knowing that's the way it would be, and I didn't play to win, I played to play with him. Because it was two, three, four hours of listening to records, sipping coffee or wine, with breaks for lingering love looks and smooch breaks.

He's got in his custody our Scrabble score book, which has the scoring of each one of our games since mid-October, 2009. Sometimes, while the other would be taking his turn, the other would start a drawing, and we'd take turns adding to it. The book is full of our insane doodles, some sweet, some creepy, some a commentary on the relationship at large. Last we discussed the book, post breakup, he said he'd been playing Scrabble with friends, but hadn't, and wouldn't, use the book with anyone else. I hope that remains true. In that book, and its designated use, and the fact that he's still got it in his possession, even though we currently cannot bear to be around one another, well, in that book is something akin to hope.

I miss Scrabble so much. And by Scrabble, I mean Andy.

...

2010-10-23T02:58:00.005-05:00

It's 3 a.m. and I cannot sleep. I find myself mostly fine all day, excited, hopeful at the opportunities which surely await me, one day, soon, which will once again alleviate my stresses and find me going to sleep peacefully.

But when my head hits the pillow, and darkness comes over my computer as it too attempts to sleep, I just start sobbing. Quietly, if Lief is home, loudly if he is not, for sobbing silently has less a purging effect than just letting it all loose. And then I fear the couple upstairs will hear me, and I stifle myself once again.

I have genuinely not ever felt more alone. I could rattle off fifteen reasons for this, but it would hardly elucidate the situation any more than simply saying that I feel really, truly alone. I have, in the past, felt that the Universe has ceased to be present, and even then, felt less alone than now, for there was hope. Hope which is scarily absent. Instead of my usual get-out-of-this-mindset-mindset, which is that things always get better, I've realised a bone-deep truth, and that is that things always get worse again, too. Thoughts of offing myself are less and less what they've always been, which is, impossible, but comforting. Instead, it feels like something to sincerely work out a plan for. A contingency. Because, truly, I haven't got it in me to weather another swipe like this, like it seems to be, on all levels. I've no lover, no prospect of a lover, and most definitely, no prospect of anyone who wishes to keep me as their confidante and lover for the rest of our lives, have children with me, grow old. My friendships are in varying degrees of disarray, and with Andy being the only person I've allowed to see me vulnerable for some time, I'm ill equipped to even try and discuss anything with anyone. I feel that in person, with people I care for, I come off distant and cold. I feel I've worn out my welcome, and that it is best for everyone if I just don't try and reach out.

And there is the matter of my lack of job, the again ruinous state of my finances, which so precariously relied on the job I was quite easily terminated from, without warning. A job I loved, a job I really, really needed. In the dark, when I try to sleep, it's this fact that causes the sobbing more than any other. I wrote letters to my former manager and one of the owners. Neither has been met with any reply. I find this so rude, and hurtful.

I just can't do this anymore. I'm just hoping having written this, I can maybe fall asleep. I've got to get up in five hours to go to my parents' to work off a small sum advanced to me to pay bills, where I'll face guilt trips and badgering instead of support and love.

Killing Two Birds With One Blog

2010-10-19T10:47:00.006-05:00

The goal of late has been to write one blog a week, and make one piece of art per month. Well, I've made two pieces of art this past week, and this blog is three days late. Ah well. I am very happy with both, which is a giant milestone since there has not been a whit of creative energy in me for the past six months, maybe more. Worse, these are pieces fulfilling obligations to lovely, patient people; i.e. they were paid for last...JANUARY.

Housewife, Sans House or Husband

2010-10-09T20:54:00.006-05:00

As my brownies-from-a-mix were baking (sub olive oil for vegetable oil, add peppermint bark chips) just an hour ago, a thought occured to me:

Perhaps I am not meant to have a career per se. Perhaps all this beating my head against the wall, all this existential ennui is just silliness, like women in the middle of the last century getting Home Ec degrees at Brown to pass time until they got a husband. Maybe I'm just biding my time until marriage.

Of course, this is complete rubbish. Well, except for the minutiae which are not. Facts:

I am an incredible cook.
I keep a clean home.
I am organised, and detail oriented.
I am terrific with children.

In short, I could quite excel at being a housewife.

That is, were it not for a persistent gnawing at my gut for change, for personal control, and the fact that I know ennui, existential or no, would not fully abate, then I could quite excel at being a housewife.

What I could be, though, is a woman who works from home in the sort of job that would not need to be relied upon wholly for stability, or to do something in which I was relatively autonomous. Carpentry, I think, could fulfill this need, both as personal fulfillment, as well as providing finances to the home.

I think a lot about marriage. I just got out of a serious relationship, or at least a relationship which seemed more serious than any I'd been in previously, and most definitely one I'd wanted to turn toward marriage, and thus am currently in no position to be handing over that level of commitment to anyone. And yet, when I am out and about, I'm looking at people no longer as potential playmates, but as partners. Given my lifestyle, there is a dearth of options.

A friend joked last week, "You're going to have to spend a lot more time at Target Field."

The Most Dangerous Game

2010-09-15T13:42:00.005-05:00

In 1997, Conor Shenk introduced me to Japanese Rock.
In 1998, I found Renaud Martin in a Japanese Rock chat room, in a discussion about the Cure.
Renaud Martin introduced me to Clan of Xymox, The Legendary Pink Dots, and Einsürzende Neubauten.
In 1999, I read Venus in Furs.
In 2001, I went to see a band called Venus in Furs, in Fargo. I fell instantly for Tom Haugen, a member of the band, and gave him my phone number. A couple of days later, he called, and amongst other conversation topics, he asked me to tell him about the posters on my wall. One, of Nick Cave, sparked the query, "Is he smoking? Is he handsome?" (the answer being yes, to both) which remains a favourite quote to this day (another great one of Tom's, out of context: "Thanks for the pants news!")
Tom introduced me to 16 Horsepower, to the New Yorker, to ecstasy, and deepened my interest in Tom Waits. We shared a love of Einstürzende Neubauten, of literature, of arguing--he was the first to accuse me of arguing in "lawyer speak". He was a terrible, and incredible boyfriend. Passionate, literate, astoundingly beautiful in vocabulary, both in conversation and writing ("Your scent lingers to function as an invisible periapt, I never wish it to disseminate." He also wrote the phrase which seems to continue to curse me, "You emanate permanence, a permanence I have brazenly taken for granted.") He was also a petulant addict who I was fairly positive would end up dead one way or another before his 21st birthday (he was 19 at the time). He has since proved me wrong, and continues to be a close friend, recently giving me yet another couple of quotes for the book; "You're the perfect woman, though I would prefer you were a little more domesticated," and "You're autonomous as fuck."

In my head, this is an example of the timeline of my development. When I seek to remember dates, events of import, places I've been, I rifle through the catalog in my brain, and this is how the continuum is set up, and it is largely based around people I've been involved with romantically. Yesterday, I was accused of having my identity being completely tied up in my relationships, or more to the point, identifying myself solely through these relationships. There is truth to this, and it makes me feel defensive, so I find myself writing this here in order to sort out the facts. Mostly, I find that while it may not be the conventional way to store information, there's also nothing unhealthy about it. I'm not identifying myself through these relationships as much as I'm noting how one event/symbol/life lesson feeds into the next, and that, frankly, I'm a terrific romantic in all areas of my life, behaving very religiously toward all things I find dear. I don't discard any memory, and I take life's winding road and all the treasures along its way very, very seriously in regard to that. What is more serious than love? Were it not so serious, the great canon of word and song would be reduced to a mere trifle.

June 2010, I met Jorge Castro. As we ordered our respective whiskeys, moments after meeting (I saw him at a party across the street, waggled my finger at him for being a man who trims his glorious chest hair, then told him he was to come to the Herkimer to have a drink with me), we found out we shared a birthday (though he's three years my junior).
Jorge's half-Mexican, muscular, hairy looks paired with his drunk, tattooed, stoner ways were made only more impossibly attractive to me with a gentle North Carolinian twang in his voice. Already a year and a half deep into one serious bender post-Dan Kane heartbreak, I jumped headlong into even more chaos revelry with Jorge, made all the worse by the fact that despite him only being interested in getting laid, he was also a kind gentleman (Southern breeding will do that to you), so the bond had some knotty ties I had considerable difficulties disentangling myself from--a fact those of you following these writings will recall as the point this blog started from, excepting a one-off blog in the 2007 Dan-times. One such bond with Jorge had me immersing myself full-time in Kings of Leon, who made me feel a closeness to the things Jorge had to offer but wasn't offering me, without being as obsessive as I really was toward him at the time. Tattooed, chaotic, hairy southern boys who drink too much = a downright Pavlovian response. Somewhere in this, catching Sex on Fire or Use Somebody on the radio at least three times a day, in this summer of Leon, I consciously decided to seek out a lad who looked like Nathan Followill. And lo, not even a week after this, in the middle of August, 2010, there was Andy.

So, Andy, if I didn't think this way, if things were not catalogued on this romantic continuum, where one experience feeds into the next, almost seamlessly, and most definitely beautifully, I more than likely would not have stared at you for two and a half hours, so frightened by your beauty my normally forward, cocky self could find no footing. I would not have seen you again two weeks later (because I wouldn't have noticed you two weeks before), and I would not have drank enough Canadian to bolster my faltering ego, I would not have allowed myself to just jump in with you and really let a series of failsafes falter.

And if those things hadn't happened, I wouldn't have now learned that a feeling of cosmic certainty must not mean shit, nor would I have spent a year hoping you'd just chill the fuck out and allow yourself to love me the way I know you can instead of whine about the terror of having someone love you that knows you're the one, and I certainly wouldn't be listening to Kings of Leon right now, a sweet feeling of bitter irony in my gut.

I love(d) you as best I could, and you failed me, and failed us over and over again in your entitled (yes, there's that word again) way, in your stupid belief that an emotionally, intellectually fulfilling relationship that functions happily is best kicked to the curb because you are incapable of looking at what you have in any real way, choosing instead to focus on the deficits. You are truly playing a very dangerous game with love, with me, and the simple fact that you'd do this, still in love with me, still wanting to do things with me, to enjoy things that we enjoy, but feeling you somehow deserve more, that there's some reality out there, outside of us... Well, fuck you.

Fuck you.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Sock It To me.

2010-07-18T17:09:00.004-05:00

I'm getting older. This becomes apparent not very much in my form--thankfully, I'm sporting a hotter body than ever (albeit slightly squishified in the midsection compared to last summer, but once I get the punching bag up in the garage it'll only take a few sessions to be bikini-ready again) and I am always assumed to be about 24 years of age. These things are highly agreeable in the aging department. No, how I feel mildly offended by men I don't know speaking coarsely or just using overtly blue language with me before they know a single thing about me. Specifically, this comes working at a bar; approaching a table full of half-drunk men in their 20s who are dropping f-bombs more than any other word, I want to admonish them soundly for their language in front of a lady before I ask them what sort of domestic swill they'd like to ingest. But would it make any sense to them? I'm feeling that the understanding of this is rapidly slipping in those currently younger than 25.

Who would have ever thought that once a gal reached a certain age, she'd want respect. The curious thing is, outside of those brash f-bomb dropping men, I'm getting it. This may be the most telltale sign of all regarding my aging. It's not that anyone calls me ma'am now, but that a certain level of courteousness has crept into my social interactions. And maybe it is just as much me, my personality, as it is my age; I feel now I no longer need to apologise for my actions, I do what I wish, and I will not be repentant (this comes also with an inherent lack of doing things I should need to feel apologetic for, of course). My tolerance for putting up with other people's day-to-day bullshit is at a low. It all feels a little chicken or the egg. I am still the brassy, mostly unfiltered woman those who know me (hopefully) love, but somehow, in the growing pains of the last two years, a distillation process has also occured which finds me getting what I want from people with minimal fuss (and also finds me offering compromises with minimal fuss).

And these last two years, well, that is perhaps another thing. It's only become clear to me the past three or four months what it's been about. A chain of events put me into a chaos spiral which was ultimately incredibly beneficial, but lost in the whorl of it, it was hard to see a way out. A failed relationship, loving, tender, flawed, came to a necessary end spring of 2008. Hindsight shows me that up until approximately five months into my current loving, tender, flawed relationship, I was battling with the fallout of that failure two years ago. A two year bender came in its wake, both Liquor and Dick. Couldn't really get enough of either, and neither (or none) of it was right. I met Andy and still none of it was right, despite Little Brain Voice telling me it was. I was ready to be done with the bender, but a little more chaos was in store. I think once I reached the point of complete financial ruin, it all became clear: This Is Not What I Want. Of course, I'm a long way off from realising anything I do want, but it feels like I am making strides toward where those things exist. I'm making enough money right now to have myself almost debt free by 2012 (just in time for the apocalypse, wherein debt will not matter, hee haw). The student loans will remain, to the tune of about $5,000, hopefully down from their current standing of nearly $15,000. I'll have paid off my credit cards, my car, all outstanding small debts owed friends and the like. Once the student loans are paid, that frees up almost $700/month which can go toward a downpayment on a house. Or a lengthy move to Tennessee. Or both. Things with Andy continue to be difficult, but I know he's the one for me. It's odd to be in a relationship that's toeing it's strongest period more than 10 months in.

All things are always in flux, but it does feel that a future I want is on the horizon.

The Twins Speak: When Full House Meets Twin Peaks

2010-05-20T19:33:00.005-05:00

This is what I get for reading the John Stamos Wikipedia entry in the hours before I go bed...

I only recall snippets, but I know that this dream was a fully formulated mash-up of Full House and Twin Peaks with Mary-Kate and Ashley caper film-style plot for good measure. I know it was titled, "The Twins Speak". And I know, most assuredly, that it was amazing.

Bob Saget was "Agent Cooper", dressed in a sleek, slim, black suit. He owned a diner, one that only served damn fine cups of coffee and cherry pie. Sadly, no doughnuts. My view was external, reminiscent of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks painting (shown above, in crafty Lego styling), but more head on. He was speaking with a huge crow that sat on the counter, who had with him several talismans. He and the crow had been friends since the Middle Ages, when the crow, who was a shapeshifter, was human and owned a pub called The Stick and Cauldron. They were quietly, jovially reminiscing about some bawdy evening at the pub and were the only creatures in sight.

Meanwhile, Nicky and Alex, John Stamos's character Uncle Jesse's twins (who you may recall from the latter seasons of Full House), were out solving a mystery. They were aged about six, with long curly hair falling about their shoulders, wearing little pinkerton suits and ties. They were mute, and spoke to one another telepathically. I recall them running through a mall parking lot, into the mall, trying to apprehend their suspect.

Unfortunately, this is all I recall. But it is enough.

My dream brains beat your dream brains every goddamned night.

Boo yah.

Someday, I'll be a real girl

2010-05-16T01:54:00.003-05:00

I am struggling a ton with the future.

IT IS FUCKING TERRIFYING.

I want to make music. Very specific music. But I do not know musicians who could assist me, and I feel, more and more, that perhaps this is something I will have to do very much on my own. In a house. In the country. In Tennessee. The urge to flee comes on strong about every three weeks, and each time it's a little stronger, more desperate, than the first.

But, perhaps more desperate, is the complete lack of actual creative drive. I feel that there is shit working in there, and that one day I'll paint, or write or put together a tune, but fuck all if it ain't just dust right now.

Things I want in my future (projection of this "future" about three years from now):

At least half if not all debt eradicated (current: approx. $18,000)
Not being a waitress
A complicated, loving relationship that constantly keeps me on my toes; i.e. Andy
At least something resembling a firm plot to have a child
At least something resembling a firm plot to own a house
One solid showing of my art not in a coffee shop or middling gallery
A second book of poetry published (I think next year's the year for that; the first, Chaos to Grace, was published in 2001)
The completion or at least major progress on my novel(la), Sumtime Silver Snippety
At the very least, preliminary work on music project, A Deceit of Lapwings, which will include learning how to record music, accumulating instruments, taking voice lessons to regain my high range and hone tone
A stint in Tennessee of about 6 months to 1 year to refine/do most of the above

Careers I could take on/would enjoy doing to make a living which I'll likely never get in creative pursuits:

carpentry and framing
landscaping
anthropological work in the fields of Christianity and/or pop culture

Now that I've put all that down on "paper", how the fuck do I get there? It's that question which brought me to tears today. So I decided to figure out what I want, put a reasonable timeframe on it, and get crackin'. The debt goes first, and at the close of this year, I expect to have a solid dent in it.

Someday, I'll be a real girl.

"I want the heavy fork..."

2010-05-07T12:43:00.003-05:00

Something kind of magickal happened the other night with Andy. See, I was tired. Hella exhausted. Speaking softly, unable to muster volume, and words were escaping me. He'd come over to my place and was making us dinner, a lovely couscous with fresh asparagus, ramps and morel mushrooms; a spring vegetable heaven. He'd put out the plates and had just finished pouring the vinaigrette over the salad (vinaigrette: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dill, shallots, stone ground mustard and honey--his papa's honey at that). I mumbled to him that I wanted "the heavy fork" and that it was in the dishwasher. He pulled open the door, and within seconds pulled out the right fork.

He pays attention. He knows these things, and he knows that I'm very particular about what things I eat and drink with, so he'll ask if I have a preference of coffee mug, or salad bowl, and it's without any chiding or condescension about how silly it really is. He knows what the heavy fork is. He loves me.

In Which I Dream An Idyll, In Which I Dream The Primordial Battle

2010-04-16T23:43:00.003-05:00

My dreams have been absent from waking memory for more than a month, a fact which is highly unusual. I can recall only one other time in my life where this occured. It was eight years ago exactly, and that was because the man I was dating at the time, commonly known as The Devil, was stealing them. He was also causing me to bleed each time we had sex, regardless of the force or tenderness we engaged in the act with. Upon being told that I felt he was stealing my dreams and that I was bleeding each time we had sex, my dreams returned and the bleeding stopped. There are other reasons he was known to us as The Devil, and those reasons, while important, hold little bearing here. Just understand, that it is not easily my dreams should slip away from me in the daylight hours.

Knowing this, though, sheds little light on why it should have been occuring the past month. My stressors have all but disappeared. Money, love, life are finding a pleasant equilibrium. My lover, Andy, is not stealing my dreams, we in fact rarely sleep in the same place together. No, this time it is a mystery.

What there has been to recall is little. There's the brief snippet of Michael J. Fox shambling toward me with heavily cataracted eyes, an image unsettling enough to have me wake with the certainty that I'd dreamt his death into being, and there's the dream last week I recall swipes of, a Grey Gardens-like duo of women who were my "aunts", and pails of ranch dressing being flung at a large crowd of people who wished them harm, one member of this masse being my friend Hilary Davis, whom I recognised from behind by her red hair, just seconds after the dressing hit her. There's also the brochure which featured a Korean restaurant called Babi, which served pizza with a Sriracha cream sauce and artfully cut, cold, raw vegetables placed aesthetically over the surface of the Sriracha slathered crust. But none of these dream snippets add up to a whole, nor have they provided me any insight to deeper brain goo.

In other words, these dreams are not like my dreams. They are inferiour imitations of what I know to be my dreams and praise the lord, it would appear that the real dreaming is back as of two nights ago.

I dreamed of a huge old pale yellow house, which sat on a hill that slipped gently into a cliff which overlooked a large lake. It was surrounded by thick woods of elm and oak, with a private drive not easily seen from the main road. The house was run down, as if it had not been tended to in a decade or more, but its build was solid, and its foundation crafted from natural stone. I had found out that this house was an heirloom, passed down for generations, but kept secret; the previous owner had cared little for it and spent no time there. Thus, my time had come to make it my own, lest the house fall further into disrepair. I stood on a higher hill which overlooked this house and took photos with my cell phone. I'd been unprepared for this gift and the elation had made me weepy, heady with possibility. I sent these photos to Andy with the understanding that he was to keep it secret. He was welcome to live with me here, of course, but it had to be tended to before that was possible.

What is curious, then, is the course the dream took after this. Being as religiously romantic as I am, I find myself wont to believe that this house is real, and that it is a place I have been, in a life long past. I've had dreams like what this dream turned into before, where people I've never knowingly met have names and rich lives of their own, and understanding of the dream landscape, technically foreign territory, is as known to me as my own life.

I arrived at the house in the early afternoon hours as people bustled about tending to tables and wreaths and streamers. Signs of festivity, of celebration. I wore a cotton dress, in the style common to women in the mid 1950's. This was not the house of the first portion of the dream, but that same house, decades earlier. In pristine condition. Full of people, of life, of love. These woods were somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon, and the inhabitants were lifelong, old money Southerners. Happy, genteel folks. And I was one of them. But, in pondering this in the waking, it was not a me that I know, but yet a me no less familiar than the me that is now. My hair dusted my shoulders, a dark blonde which shone with shades of red. I wore a small white veil upon my head. My dress was perfectly tailored to my shape. I kept looking down, to my stomach, touching it gently. I was pregnant, and it was my wedding day.

I dashed upstairs, to the servants' quarters, where I spoke with my dear friend, our black head servant, Albert. He was the only one who knew that I was pregnant, but it was not something we spoke of, or indicated. In the dream, I just knew it to be true. He sat at a small table in a nook just off a children's playroom, eating a simple sandwich. His eyes shone with happiness and pride that I was back home, and that the reason for my return was my wedding. I knew that there was much to prepare for, and bid him adieu.

This is where the dream ends. I find it curious that despite Andy being prominently on my mind in the first portion of the dream, he is absent from the second portion, and that I've no impression of who my groom and father of my child was to be at all, other than the understanding that he was the right choice.

Last night's dream is less worthy of detail, so I shall summarise:

Connor, an ex quite possibly least likely to ever interest me again, wound up interesting me again, and things were vaguely rekindled. I moved to Madrid, and he followed me there. It was shortly after this that I became suspicious when I noted him frequently talking to large groups of people. I realised he was proselytising them to be in his army for Satan, and when he couldn't convince them on the simple merit of his words, he would resort to casting a glamour upon them. This fact raised my hackles and caused latent messianic powers within me to come to the fore and thus an epic battle of good versus evil began.

The end.

I'm sure I won. Connor's a putz.

Get A Land Line.

2010-02-19T14:01:00.008-06:00

Something is slipping in me. Slipping rapidly. I am depressed. I am unhappy. But it is more than that. I feel it's the foundation I stand on. It is the use of a cell phone. It is the internet. It is living without feeling the sunshine daily. It's money. It's the boyfriend and the understanding that we are likely not long for this world as a union (but we are trying, my god, are we trying).

This panic is bestial.

I (we, everyone) are not meant to live this way.

I've ended internet on my phone. I've stopped getting Twitters via my phone. I will end text messaging on my phone next week. Then I will get a land line. One step at a time, folks.

And somehow I need to get money rolling in. Fast.

Receipts: New Orleans Bus Trip, 2006

2010-01-06T19:52:00.004-06:00

Series of receipts found in my copy of Lies My Teacher Told Me, from a Greyhound Bus Trip to and From New Orleans in 2006:

Greyhound Food Service
Louisville, KY
726 Muhammed Ali Blvd.
Louisville, KY 40203
502-5853909

Order 1043

Host: Donald 02/23/2006
Order 1043 9:49 AM

Grilled Cheese 1.49

Sub Total 1.49
Tax 0.09

DINE IN Total 1.58

Cash 2.00

Change 0.42

Thank you for your patronage
Hope to see you again soon

--Check Closed--

I remember that grilled cheese, and that man. He was a jovial, roly poly smiling black man, and that grilled cheese was heaven, made on thick white bread, a piece of cheap-assed american cheese on each slice, grilled separately and lovingly on the flat iron grill. That man, Donald, wanted to please me, and please me he did.

I remember I went for a little walk afterward, admiring the very old houses along the Boulevard, occupied by some very poor people. The midwest just isn't old enough for me, and the east coast is too stuffy. The south is where I belong; it's warm, the food is amazing, the architecture solid and beautiful, even when it's near to ruin.

Greyhound Food Service
Nashville, TN
200 8th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 259-2740

Order 1196

Host: Fred 02/23/2006
Order 1196 2:43 PM

Chicken Dinner Special 4.99
1/4 Chicken Dark
Roll

Sub Total 4.99
Tax 0.46

DINE IN Total 5.45

Cash 20.00

Change 14.55

Thank you for your patronage
Hope to see you again soon

--Check Closed--

I remember this meal too. Not so much the man, though I do recall being asked if I wanted light or dark meat and being very excited that I got the choice. It was a right delicious meal.

Now I am craving fried chicken, and hard. So good with a bit of creamy coleslaw, a nice white dinner roll and cold butter, and maybe some corn (on the cob or off, ain't no matter). Mmm.

Greyhound Food Service
Tulsa, OK
317 Detroit Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74120
(918) 587-5434

Order 1025

Host: Gandhy 02/27/2006
Order 1025 12:33 PM

Turk/Chz Sandw 2.79

Sub Total 2.79
Tax 0.24

DINE IN Total 3.03

Cash 5.00

Change 1.97

Thank you for your patronage
Hope to see you again soon

--Check Closed--

It's only in the deep(er) south that Greyhound stations have cafeterias. Most places, and I've traveled through almost all of the upper states and most of the southeastern states, just have vending machines. I really appreciate these cafeterias, as the food is hot, it's simple comfort food, and it's better for you than what you'd have to settle for at the McDonald's or gas station you're invariably given twenty minutes to find something to eat at. Another of hundreds of reasons I love the south and love the Greyhound bus ride through there.

I do remember this sandwich, too. At this particular Greyhound station, the cafeteria was just a basic sandwich line, with pre-prepared fare that you could add lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo and mustard to. I took all but the mayo and it was a satisfying little meal. What was to follow, however, was rather ugly.

I finished my sandwich after enjoying the sunny, cool Tulsa day sitting on the stoop of the bus station. It was late February, so this was a mid-60s kind of cool, not a mid-40s if we're lucky kind of cool up here in Minneapolis. It was just a really beautiful, enjoy a sandwich outside on the stoop sort of day.

I got on the bus. Chose a window seat, and snuggled into my usual hoodie up, blanket on my lap, happy as a clam lookin' out the window position. Generally, the busses aren't too full, and because I appear surly, I wind up having the two seats to myself. Today was different. Today, the bus was gettin' all full up. Today, a giant she-beast was about to sit next to me.

She had breath like Grendel's mom, which she draped over me repeatedly in a moist stench cloud as she asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?" and other such brilliant questions. Her children were also on the bus, one far to the front (the girl) and the other far to the back (the boy) as there was nowhere else for them to sit by the time they got on. So of course, being the gnarly she-beast that she was, was determined to yell at these children every three minutes (inbetween harassing me about my gender) about some completely useless thing, and, well, I suppose this is where I should mention the little girl's name, or what I approximate her name to be in Normal Human English, vs. She-Beast English.

Thick-thee. Thick-thi. I have no idea how one spells such a thing. Or what the fuck such a thing means. Or why the hell someone would name a child something so gross. I just know that this woman's breath, and that child's name are forever imprinted upon me.

Thankfully, it was about and hour and a half only with them, and then they were gone.

Greyhound Food Service
Kansas City, MO
1101 Troost
Kansas City, Mo 64106

Order 1160

Host: Cierra 02/27/2006
Order 1160 5:48 PM

Maru Chix Soup 1.39

Sub Total 1.39
Tax 0.13

DINE IN Total 1.52

Change 3.48

Thank you for your patronage
Hope to see you again soon

--Check Closed--

Greyhound Food Service
Kansas City, MO
1101 Troost
Kansas City, Mo 64106

Order 1209

Host: Cierra 02/27/2006
Order 1209 6:49 PM

Pie-Apple 1.99

Sub Total 1.99
Tax 0.19

DINE IN Total 2.18

Cash 3.00

Change 0.82

Thank you for your patronage
Hope to see you again soon

--Check Closed--

It's strange to me how I really remember all of these meals. That soup was a cup of soup that you added hot water to, as this cafeteria was more vending machine fare than anything and that seemed my healthiest (and cheapest option).

There was a girl at that stop who chatted with me a little about a man that seemed suspicious to her because he was a hispanic man with middle eastern features (I assumed she simply thought him to be middle eastern because of her reaction). The girl was young, seventeen, and black. In the south, that just has too many layers of wrong. She continued to chat with me, and soon I found out she'd thought we were the same age.

So what did she know, anyway.

I miss the bus.

Virgin Boy Blood, Anecdote #1

2010-01-06T00:12:00.012-06:00

I was about to retire to sleep when the vagaries of my life closed in on my little brain and I became so incensed I had to get up and take care of some business. Namely, move a bookshelf. Why I felt so incensed that I had to move this bookshelf is unimportant, as the new location of the bookshelf is actually much better than the first. It is now sitting next to my desk, with my lamp upon it instead of my desk, thus freeing valuable desk space. There is also, upon this bookshelf, a photo of my boyfriend, Andy.

Yes, Andy is once again my boyfriend; it happened officially on December 14th. Things are as they should be, yays all around.

But, this is not what I wanted to come and write about. No, I came to write about a scrap of cloth lying upon my desk that I've had upon my desk for months, intending to write a blog about it. I want to write about it because, you see, it is SOAKED WITH VIRGIN BOY BLOOD.

There was no rite performed to extract this blood. Okay, that's not true. Making out is a rite of some kind, yes? Yes.

The skinny is this: When I was 21, I dated a 17 year old. A soft skinned, dark eyed, mullet sporting (a good five years before the ironic mullet at least) beautiful 17 year old who drank too much Mountain Dew and played too many video games, but who got dewy eyed when I talked about things that moved me, would leave flowers taped to my apartment door, who was a virgin in nearly every way. I gave him his first blow job at the lake cabin of a mutual friend, as we laid drunkenly on the bottom bunk on a set of bunk beds. Little did we know, our friends downstairs were about to mount a paparazzi onslaught and would soon bust in with a video camera and bright-as-shit light. I still haven't seen that tape...

A week or two later, this boy and I were making out in my bedroom. I'd just moved into my first apartment and didn't yet have a bed, so our fondling went down on a weird fold out chair device (it was basically like sleeping on couch cushions) on the floor. The lighting was dim to non-existent, and suddenly, everything became very wet.

I couldn't believe he'd have come so quickly, he said he hadn't, so I got up and turned on the light.

There was blood. Blood everywhere. All over what I was wearing, all over my boyfriend, all over the quilt my grandmother had made from my father's baby clothes (irony?).

Turns out the lad had had an improperly done circumcision and the skin was too tight, and when there is vigorous making out, rubbing, or anything of that sort, the skin rips a little and bleeds like a mother fucker cuz the dick be full o' bloods. He said, "This happens sometimes. It doesn't hurt." That's the sort of thing a gal might wanna hear about before the making out occurs, kiddo.

Aaaaah!

Anyhoo. We had sex a week or so later. It was his first time. For me it was meh. Except for the virginity eatin'.

A couple years later, we had sex again, at the very same cabin this all started. He'd learned a few things in that time. It was no longer meh.

He stopped talking to me shortly after. But that's a different anecdote altogether.

Therapy, it turns out, is therapeutic.

2009-12-08T01:02:00.003-06:00

This morning I was feeling solidly fucked up. 30 Rock viewing did not help me, as even the slightest similarity to my current situation is liable to give me false hope which is subsequently dashed by the vagaries and whims of television writing, which then causes some kind of fissure in any semblance of rational thought I have put together for myself, made of tenuous, fragile bonds.

It doesn't help, either, that practically everything is somehow related to Andy. He'd become so completely, comfortably enmeshed in my life so quickly, and then just as quickly, completely ripped from it. It's been almost a month now. A whole, sad, month.

And so, I walked to therapy today, which I've been excited about for the past few days, which, having been in and out of therapy for the last 20 years, I am fully aware of how beneficial a session can be, but I cried as I walked, somehow still able to be sad despite the Lady GaGa thumping in my ears.

And I cried in my session, with a perfect stranger. Three times. I saw my previous therapist, Monica, for about four months and didn't cry once. The eyes welled up, but no actual loss of saline was made. Monica pointed out numerous times that I seemed to be detached from the tales and problems in my life, that I could talk about very emotional situations and express no emotion about them at all. Which was curious, since I was genuinely feeling emotion, and I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable with her; I was, somehow, detached, though. But not today! No, the waterworks flowed with ease. I went from feeling borderline hysterical, considering rushing over to Andy's today so I could see him, to feeling quite calm and centered, considering.

I like this new girl. She seems to be of similar demeanor to Monica, but Katie is a touch younger, prettier, and she's got a sense of humour. Monica wasn't a wet blanket, but she was also not the sort of gal that I'd ever go out and have a glass of wine with. Which was what I liked about her. She was completely non-judgemental, honest, even blunt with me. Katie's a bit more laid back. She dropped an F-bomb at one point, which I respected. And she laughed at my jokes.

I told her how I'd never cried with Monica, and how Monica had pointed out my detachment. I feel it's Andy that's changed this. I became better with Andy. The best version of myself. I need to get back to that, without Andy. And I think I can. Deciding against Drunk, Slutty Sarah, against casual smooches, against heavy drinking at all, that's a huge step. As is the realisation that I need to begin putting myself in the position to be ready for marriage and a child. I'm two, three years away from that, and that's if I pull it together as of yesterday and make dramatic life changes. Maybe Andy doesn't fit into this plan in the greater sense, but he's certainly been the catalyst for it.

Why do my hands smell like meat?

All The Things She Said, Running Through My Head.

2009-12-06T22:43:00.005-06:00

Could the internal monologue just shut up?

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

And then I'm crying, sobbing, in my car with my head against the steering wheel.

What do you do to get over the best thing that's ever happened to you? What do you do when the person who seemed to have read the manual on how to love you, make you laugh, talk to you, be there for you just up and runs? How can you move on from that?

Everything in the opposite sex pales in comparison. I lose myself for a few hours in the Gilmore Girls and swooning over Milo Ventimiglia and then it's all stabby stab in my heart because he's not the face I could or want to wake up to every morning, which is to say nothing of the general populace, who actually make me feel without hope. Andy came into my life and it was a god damn pop song. Halo, by Beyoncé, to be exact. My walls came crumbling down. I let him in without any hesitation.

But no, it didn't last.

And so, when a 23 year old texts me some nasty things after he's been out with me and I've been a bit coquettish and something of a tease and the texts go on about wanting me wrapped around his cock and how someday, he's happily going to listen to me scream, yes, I get turned on, and yes, I imagine him touching me and yes, I rub one out and it's perfectly sexy, but then it just turns terribly sour and I'm feeling ill in the morning (just like when this charming child and I kissed two weeks prior), and the VERY SIMPLE FACT is that the only person I have any interest in is Andy. I can't just fuck someone anymore, no matter how dirty they talk to me. I never was very good at it to begin with, I don't fuck to fuck, I fuck to feel, and what I want to feel when I'm fucking is LOVE.

And my god, Andy loved to fuck me and I loved to fuck him and he made me feel amazing, like the sexiest woman to ever cross his path, and he touched me better than anyone ever has, and he cared, he cared to make me happy, not only in bed but in every way, and now it's been almost two weeks since I've heard a single word from him and it's not okay. I'm not okay.

I found one of his hair ties on my desk last night, and it's been a rapid degradation ever since, I have it wrapped around my fingers, I slept with it last night.

Hence, head against the steering wheel, sobbing about half an hour ago.

And I found a band I love. Liars. Oh, how I've taken to them, like Dirty Projectors a couple of weeks ago, and what do I do? Andy, Andy, Andy, you're the one I want to gleefully present this music to, to talk about it, and maybe you've heard them already and have an opinion to present, and maybe, like we often do with music, we will have completely different ways of appreciating it, philosophising it, and then there'd be laughter and kisses and love making and sleep.

I love you Andy and god damn it, I just don't think that's going to change. In fact, distance, this time, instead of bringing me to a point where I can breathe and pull away from you, is in fact, making the heart grow fonder. I can breathe better now that I'm not in a constant panic spiral, and I'm thankful for the realisations I've had (that I want you, that I'm bored with Drunk, Slutty Sarah), but I want it to be over now. I miss you. I remember the few annoying tics you have with ardor now. I want to kiss every square inch of you and read books and make dinner and go for walks where I complain about how cold it is and you smoke your cigarette, always blowing the smoke straight up, away from me because you're sweet and polite like that, and you make fun of me because I'm cold, and I want to sip whiskey with you, and get into arguments that make me realise I'm being an ass. I want to love you, actively.

I never needed you, I never felt panicked about you. Do you realise how different that is for me? And I know I was different for you, too. I made you feel strong, like a man.

But baby, you let the chaos win, and it scares the hell out of me.

The Most Miserable Woman In The World

2009-12-02T13:23:00.003-06:00

Is a woman I served yesterday. She gained this title even before she started crying at her table, making her son and parents visibly uncomfortable.

Which brings cause to point out that this was not a young woman. She was not some mewling lass in her early thirties with the kid she'd obviously birthed in her late teens. No, this was a woman in her fifties, with a son in his mid-twenties, and her elderly parents.

This title, The Most Miserable Woman In The World, she earned almost immediately. It was the way she awkwardly ordered her glass of sparkling wine, fumbling around at the notion that perhaps her father should buy a whole bottle for the table. His response, with quickly eroding patience? "Order for yourself. I'm having a beer."

Then, when it was time to order dinner, each option presented to her was rife with pain. Initially, she wanted a greek salad (which she tried to order when I was taking the drink order). Then, she rambled on about how she'd been thinking about shrimp all day, and did the shrimp skewers come with a vegetable? (All of this said in the most pained, belabored voice one could muster on a Tuesday evening). I informed her that the shrimp skewers were just an appetizer so they did not come with any vegetable, but she could put together shrimp skewers and a vegetable from the build your own section of the menu. So she ordered a salmon filet with spinach. (!?)

As their dinner wound down and her sparkling wine took hold (it really seemed she deteriorated exponentially from a single glass of the stuff), and I passed by the table as she was crying, about something related to her son getting a room but grandma being willing to let him come over or something, I heard him utter, "Mom, you've been crowding me for a long time now..."

I scurried out of the room right quick after that. Christ.

Later, after I'd said something to my boss about this being The Most Miserable Woman In The World with his response being that I had no heart, she walked by him cussing on her way to the bathroom and said loudly to him, "Oh, I'm just mad at my dad, he's breaking every promise he ever made to me."

Which might make you think she's maybe just batshit crazy or something. But I didn't get that impression either. Maybe in the sense of being super pathological, like borderline personality, but no genuine loss of sanity. Just bone-deep insistance on being The Most Miserable Woman In The World. Forever. No matter how embarassing or uncomfortable or energy draining she is to everyone around her. I felt sapped spending less than ten minutes directly interacting with her. A lifetime? Being the child raised by that? This is why I think parents should be able to kill off defective young... (after a lengthy process, of course).

The super amazing final straw, which I missed, but was relayed to me by my coworkers (she had the wherewithal to alienate each of us in turn which was nice) went as follows:

Woman looking at floor, which is a mix of tile and cement, trying to talk to my boss, who is on the phone--"What kind of art is this? I'm an artist! Do you call it post-modern? Modern trash? Modern ghetto?"

OMFG.

Most Miserable Woman In The World, I salute you.

Suicide Machines.

2009-12-02T02:23:00.003-06:00

When I am depressed, or freaking out, and I can't sleep, I fantacise about facets of suicide. (Let's not blow a gasket thinking I might be contemplating a move towards worm food--as much as there are some moments when these fantacies seem a solution, those moments pass and I've experienced enough of life to be wholly aware that things get better. And worse. And better again.) I was pondering, the other night, a theoretical machine that could replicate the physical feelings of various methods of suicide without the actual act. For instance, I think it would be quite soothing to go through the process of loosing the blood from my wrists. Or to ingest a million sleeping pills. There would be a problem, though, and that is for it to work fully, the brain would have to believe it were happening; be tricked into the pain, seeing the blood, etc. This could cause some pretty serious psychological trauma, I'm sure. And some Flatliners shit would probably go down. I do not want to have to face any of my demons in that manner, no thank you.

Last night I dreamt (that somebody loved me [titter]), in that lucid almost dreaming phase where you still have full control but you're so on the cusp of sleep it feels like it's actually happening, that Andy was in bed with me. That he died, for no obvious reason, in his sleep. I woke to his cooling, stiffening body, and had the clearest of mind about it. Got up, went to several stores where I purchased otc sleeping pills, came home, took a shower, wrote a blog that doubled as my will (which I think I'm actually going to do cuz it super freaks me out that there's nothing written down that indicates my wishes and I definitely don't want my mother taking the reins on that; she's already stated if I go before her she's gonna put me in a pink frilly dress and curl my hair, and I know for damn sure she isn't interested in who I am as a person or what would be a meaningful funeral/burial/wake for the people closest to me--it would all be ceremony for HER), then took a shit ton of pills and curled up next to Andy. Of course, this would turn into some kind of Sylvia Plath debacle, waking up moaning, covered in spiders in some god forsaken root cellar (are there god forsaken root cellars?), or I'd wake up in the emergency room with a giant fucking tube down my throat.

My idea of the perfect suicide involves months, even years with no sign of remains. A disappearing act. Crawling into a cave in the Arizona desert with a .38. Pills on an uninhabited island, somewhere. Or maybe no suicide at all, just the disappearing act.

I wouldn't want to kill myself because there's not a single person who would understand the motivation. My mother would take it incredibly personally. It would absolutely break my father's heart. I would be called horribly selfish, and that would be true. It's just not viable without upsetting everyone you love who loves you, and even a few who loathe you too (Christ, the people who loathe me, feeling guilty, like they had some hand in my demise [would that happen, or would they just nod and say they always expected it?], that would be disgusting). It's the escape that's tantalising. The freedom. But then there's the nagging, "What if there's an afterlife?" problem. God damn it.

Well, I guess I just won't be offing myself today.

My preferred way of dying involves being 85, in bed with my husband of fifty years and a carbon monoxide leak, btw. No one can get upset about that. Grandkids knew gran and pap pap well, we saw them through college, they've got kids of their own and we even kissed the foreheads of a few of 'em. A full life.

But then, it's times like this I wonder if that will ever be my life. And boy, that's a downer.

Chad.

2009-11-30T12:48:00.009-06:00

On Wednesday, I went to the airport to pick up Chad. I don't talk about Chad enough. I don't give Chad enough credit. Every now and again, I mention Chad to people, and they look back blankly. "Who's Chad?" Who's Chad. hm.

Chad will be my Dude of Honour if I ever get married, and this is why: On Wednesday, in the first five minutes riding to my place from the airport, Chad boiled down the Andy situation in a manner that pulled me back from the ledge, soothed me, and gave me hope all at once. When Chad and I have conversations, I always feel that my heart has opened up and positivity, energy and love have crawled into spaces that had previously been dark. And maybe most tellingly, despite Chad and I being very attractive, interesting, exciting, sexually potent people, we've never been interested in one another. After fifteen years, unlike a single other male in my life that meets that criteria, we remain, simply, 100% friends.

After detailing the nutshell version of the Sarah Andy saga, Chad put a spin on it no one else has. My friends, lovely people that they are, can be jaded, bitter, and distrustful of those around them, and often do not take what a person has to say at face value, looking for the lie in everything. Some of the people I've looked to for comfort and support the past year have in fact done the opposite by inspiring fear and paranoia in me, by tearing down the person I love in the hopes that it will make me feel better. It doesn't. Chad, on the other hand, immediately identified with Andy's struggle, and felt, emotionally, that Andy must be quite like him. I was terrifically amused by this because on my first date with Andy, I commented (or maybe just made note to myself, I'm hazy on that) on how Andy's hand gestures reminded me of my friend Chad, and then once I came to know Andy, I found his emotional spikes and fluttery way of panicking and letting things get out of control to be reminiscent of a young Chad as well. And while that emotional opera still exists within Chad, he's harnessed it, and he's settled into a beautiful life in Portland with his wife Junie and their two gorgeous children Ariana and Jarvi.

What Chad had to say about Andy's actions took all of my anger away. Instantly. As I rambled about how angry this all makes me, how it's unfair and how it's unecessary, Chad stilled me by saying, "Sarah, be angry if you want, but I think what Andy's doing is brave. He sees what he has to do, and knows he has to do it without your needs or influence getting in the way, knowing that in the process, he might lose you." This, and a few other well-put observations just took the piss right out of me.

So now it's been six days, almost, since I've had any contact with Andy. I want to text him, to say I miss him. But I don't want to disturb whatever bubble he's made for himself the past few days and I don't want to do that to myself either; no response would be upsetting, but a reply of "I'm sorry, but I don't feel the same way" would bring immeasurable ruin to the current state of my mind palace. No, best to just let things alone. I don't see myself contacting him at all, frankly. Even a month from now, any rejection would set back my emotional progress by weeks. I'm now in the position of pointedly avoiding bars or events he might be at. I hate this phase.

God, is it really the end? Please, no. I've done terrible things to people over the years, and I believe in karma, and I believe my romantic troubles the past five years are an atonement for all of the wrong I did before. But I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not. A little peace, in a time of war, Universe. Please.

Chad and I sat by the river in Montevideo and chatted whilst drinking chai tea. He says I've taught him more about the female mind than anyone else has. It makes me chuckle to hear this, since he's been with me for the bulk of the development of my female mind. He has born witness to nearly all the phases of me which were important as a woman coming of age. He's been through the giddiness and love and heartache brought on by probably one hundred boys over these years. Which made it particularly telling when he said this:

"You talk about Andy differently than anyone else."

I know Chad. I know.

R.I.P. Drunk, Slutty Sarah

2009-11-29T19:28:00.004-06:00

This is the time of day I miss him most. About two hours after sundown, until about midnight. The time, if things were not as they are, that we'd likely be making dinner, drinking tea, having kisses, embraces, flopped on a couch, lazing on a bed, listening to music, reading books, gabbing about music and books and pop culture and the lives we live and want to live and the people we love and have loved. It would be nice. It would be cozy. It would be the life I want to live. But, this is not the life I am living. Well, I am, but it is without him. Without Andy.

It has been five days, two hours and eight minutes since I last contacted him. Obviously, since I know this to the minute, it has not been easy, and the time has moved with something of the quality of sludge. But he asked this of me, and it's necessary. The level of drama was driving him insane and he couldn't sustain it any longer. I don't blame him, nor do I disagree with him. After this request and the subsequent indignation/fear of losing him that completely sent me into a fever pitch/tailspin/feedback loop of my own--while at work which actually makes it much easier to manage as I've got something physical to focus on and thus cannot curl into the fetal position and give into the feeling as I would likely do were I not at work--a very clear voice in my brainpan gave me what I recognised as my only two options, of which only one was viable: 1.) Continue falling apart, letting the beams holding me together and all the work I've done the past year to be better at this than this just crumble to nothing, refuse to stop contacting him, allow sheer panic to make me behave like an idiot, driving him further and further away, or 2.) Calm the fuck down and just let the boy go because I HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.

I chose number 2.

And my lord, I'm a good decision maker. Seems I couldn't sustain the drama any longer either. The nausea is gone. I can drink coffee again without the caffeine making my heart thump directly out of my chest. Hell, my heart isn't even trying a little bit to thump out of my chest, it actually appears to be in a resting state! I mean, there are little spikes of fear, but mostly, I feel good, I'm no longer feeling like a crazy person, and logic has found a roost once again.

Other realisations come to based on my fruit loop actions the past two weeks: 1.) I don't give a fuck about either of the residual crushes/loves that were doing a bit of haunting me while with Andy. The first showed up at the bar the night of my previous blog. He started texting me at 4 a.m. about how we should talk. The next day, we "talked" via text, as that's really the only way he knows how to communicate with any profusion and even at that he's terrifically poor as nearly every emotion he manifests is somewhere along the rage-fear continuum. He wanted to apologise for accusing me of raping him, isn't that nice? You see, he'd felt "trapped" before, and that seemed a truly logical way of pushing me out of his life and so he's sorry! It was just a whoopsie. He also made horrifically disparaging remarks about the girl he was supposedly in love with while he and I were "friends", and claimed that she'd made him a misogynist. Of course, he always was. But... turns out I didn't really give a shit about any of this. Sure, I appreciate the apology, however weak it is, but mostly I didn't care to engage him in my life, felt no pangs of anything other than knowledge of the past and indifference. Huh. And here I thought I'd be stuck with that one for another five years before I muddled through it completely.

The other one, the Mexican Who Don't Want Me, well, he popped back up on my facebook friends last week. After I'd deleted him a month ago. How this internet chicanery went down I do not know, but it was as if the Universe had decided to say, "Hey, are you sure? You think maybe you wanna write him a 'Are you sure you don't wanna fuck me?' letter? Or perhaps something brief and witty about how you'd deleted him but hey, there he was again, what an amusing thing!?!? I mean, we have the same birthday, so probably there's some kind of cosmic alliance, right?" Nope. There was confusion and mild revulsion. Delete button pressed again, this time, hopefully, for good.

2.) In the same vein as the Mexican Who Don't Want Me, the Universe also put a tiny, baby crush dating back to August in my path again. I, shitfaced Drunk, Slutty Sarah, smooched on him and it was lovely and all and he and I made plans to canoodle and fuck about in the near future. Except the next day I just felt like puking (a combination of the act and the liquor, but psychologically, the act). And I went over to Andy's that night to drop off some things I had for him, distraught, not wanting to see him as I knew my then-tenuous equilibrium would be smashed, but he insinuated we should talk, so we did, and lo, equilibrium decimation, with a mother fucking boulder, anvil, Mack truck, a dumpster and a small handful of metaphorical coffee beans.

Andy misses me! Andy's uncertain about his decision!

FUCK.

My brain does some serious spiraling out of control and by the next night, I'm texting him about how he's robbed me, how he's shitting on love, and mostly, how it was completely fucking UNFAIR of him to say that to me without having any intention of acting on it. My panicked rage via text, email and phone call onslaught led to last Tuesday's request that I just leave him alone. Which, as previously stated, I have done, and it's been good.

Anyway. This brings me to 3.) I have zero interest in being Drunk, Slutty Sarah anymore. I reverted to her last week, and despite being greeted with applause by everyone who has been lonely without me during the past couple dating Andy months, I find she really fucking sucks. She has to sleep 'til 2 to get over the bulk of the drunk, and then she feels like shit the whole god damned day. She acts without thinking, she speaks without thinking, she is a lot of fun to be around, but she is not who I want to be. Not anymore.

Which, while with Andy, I lamented her passing. Was uncertain I was ready to throw in the towel on her. Felt a little trapped not being her.

Turns out she's quite the bore to be anymore. Not interested.

All of this information just comes back to the same spot.

I'm in love with Andy. I am comfortable with Andy.

I hope like hell his path brings him to the conclusion of the same toward me. And if he doesn't, then I've made some solid progress on myself that I will continue to build upon. I'm starting therapy again. Something has rattled loose these past couple weeks, and while I could parse it out myself, I'm certain an impartial party can only be beneficial.

It's all good, it's all growth. And little of it would have happened if Andy and I had remained together, awkwardly dealing with separate but equal panics.

/end blog

Fuck You Meteor Shower, Fuck You In Your Beautiful, Romantic Fucking Ass

2009-11-16T21:35:00.004-06:00

As the day trucks on into night I become more and more unstable. I've had a shit fucking day. I've found myself despondent, staring at the floor for half an hour at a time, literally having to tell myself to blink. I'm so FUCKING MAD at him.

The Leonid meteor shower starts in about an hour. It'll be at it's peak around one a.m. If all were right with the world, I'd be in my lover's arms then, parked on some country side road, awaiting the great black sky's meteoric spray.

But no.

I had a pretty good weekend, considering. Spent most of my time in my room. Worked on various projects including, but not limited to: completing the window pane piece, cleaning the kitchen, making a sadly cobbled beans and rice concoction which is surprisingly winning, and beginning a short story mystically related to all that is currently happening.

No tears all weekend. Not a single one. Not really a tear since Wednesday really. I told him I'd leave him alone all weekend, and I did, save the email I doubt he read til today about him learning to combat panic attacks. But this afternoon has been a mess on my psyche; I went from Saturday night lying in bed, feeling nothing was likely to be recaptured and that I wasn't sure I wanted it to be, to missing him terribly last night, which has only degraded emotionally since. Not as many tears as Wednesday, but those were filled with shock and panic. Today's tears are made of pure depression.

At 8:11 tonight, I sent him the following melodramatic text:

"In a world where our romance flourished instead of being trod upon like so many dying leaves, I believe we'd likely be readying ourselves for meteors."

I immediately went downstairs and polished off my remaining whiskey (approximately an ounce and a half) while talking out my drama with Russ and Kat (housemate and housemate's girlfriend/my friend). I'm feeling less prone to burst into tears now.

I think listening to Luna Sea's first album is helping. Silly butt rock glam punk.

Dream in which I am a nascent badass

2009-11-16T12:32:00.004-06:00

My dreams the past few days are really giving me quite a show. There is a school I often dream of which has parts of Sioux Valley (a building that is elementary, jr. high and high school in one, and where I attended sixth through ninth grade), parts of my elementary school Henry Neill (which has been torn down and now the lot is occupied by an Arby's and a video store; gross), and nothing of my high school in Montevideo. Mostly, though, it is not like these places I know at all. Great arbors of trees, long perfectly angled sidewalks, impeccable green grass. In other words, the school is far more well-to-do than any place of education I've ever attended.

Of course, I was thinking about matters of learning and inferiority yesterday; I come from such a working class family (my father's side of the tree is significantly more middle class, but I was not raised with their artful, intellectual pursuits, I was raised on fart jokes, mockery and bigotry; well-mocked for my own, independently artful and intellectual pursuits [I remembered the other day how I read The Age of Innocence and a biographical book on Anton Mesmer when I was fourteen and felt I deserved a metorphorical pat on the back for that]), that recently, with my accumulation of a small cadre of friends who come from a far more leisure class existence, I think it's bothering me significantly. I was raised on Velveeta in the spaghetti sauce (sauce made from a packet and home-canned tomato sauce), Cool Whip or pistachio pudding made up the bulk of desserts at holidays, and I didn't have butter until I went to college. I used to be amused by this, but lately I feel sick. But then that thought makes me sick. My childhood, my upbringing, with it's glorified white trash dichotomy of love and fucked-up-ed-ness, made me who I am. And I love who I am. I am comfortable with me. I suppose I'm just engaging in some useless, fruitless, frustrating "what if" thinking. I think I'm just angry that I keep hearing about the tween-aged versions of people I know galavanting about Paris with their only marginally older siblings and no adult supervision, getting drunk on rooftops eating McDonald's (yes, in the last month, I've heard this tween-run-free scenario TWICE).

The idea of meeting Andy's family fills me with a powerful dread; my ex, Dan, came from similar background and his mother absolutely HATED me and let me know exactly how inferior I was to her son every time she saw me. I get the impression Andy's family is wonderfully warm and lovely so I'm not sure why I'm wrapped up in this right now, especially since it's highly unlikely it'll ever happen that I meet them. And then there's the idea of Andy meeting my family; it makes me feel like it would be like stepping into an episode of Roseanne for him, which also fills me with dread. My family has done increasingly well financially over the last ten years, but I'm sure they're still eating Velveeta. We do have butter now at holidays, though.

The dream I started to speak of, well my intent was to simply describe how there was a taco bar on the lawn in it. And that one of the girls I used to date was there, and when I undressed her, her breasts were impossibly long, flat, pointy pancakes that tasted like sweat. I had to apply some decorum to the situation and not gag.

Because really, I came here to write about another dream. Which now seems less important.

Suffice to say I was a man wearing an oil cloth duster and I had a collection of various sizes of crucifixes under this coat, one of which was a silver-plated filigree shotgun that I'd "rented" and showed up to a college lecture with it in tow. There was murder on my mind. But I was a little dorky. Probably wasn't gonna murder nobody.

(post-posting editorial note: obvious as all get out, but everything in the crucifix and gun dream is an item of protection. I'm a man--strong, theoretically impervious; I'm dressed basically as a cowboy; I'm covered in crucifixes, and I have a fucking GUN that's a crucifix too. I know Andy was in this dream, I can't remember where or why. It wasn't him I was aiming to kill. I knew I wasn't going to kill anyone.)

I miss you Andy. I think you're in a place now which means we can never return to the place that was ours.

Dream in which my happiness is nearly obliterated by a submarine.

2009-11-15T00:34:00.004-06:00

In my dreams last night there was a submarine, sinking to depths right in front of the window at our former cabin on White Iron Lake outside of Ely. The water was clear, but black. The submarine was hematite in tone. The second it was completely under water, there was something like a sonic boom, and the cabin rocketed into the air and spun around (curiously, it was as if it were attached to the earth with rubber, so it never fully separated, and the whole structure bent like bubble gum), landing back on it's moorings shakily and with the foundation far from intact. My grandfather and father were there, and women that must have been my mother and grandmother. My grandfather, in his always calm, rational manner, plainly stated the the submarines were not to submerge so close to shore (in the dream, the cabin was directly on the water line, however, and there was no shore; to the right out the window were large, craggy cliffs, and the water lapped at the pane directly in front of me) and repairs to the structural damage must be attended to immediately. That was when I noticed the crack under the window before me, which I nudged with my toe as water began to seep in.

And there were airplanes that I missed, happily, as panic set in the second I realised I was supposed to get on a plane (something I will not be doing for a good long while). There was also a boat, made of corrugated plastic, like the bins the Postal Service uses for mail, that I rowed over to the craggy cliffs, where David and Brad were living some variety of sad, crazy Peter Pan life.

Though I can't quite make sense of it all, I've thought about it all day and I think it accurately portrays almost every facet of my life. But, as dreams are wont to be, this fact is not possible to articulate. Curious, though, that a dream which details my current love situation offers no appearance of the love in question.

I do adore me some dreamings.

Futile.

2009-11-14T16:53:00.006-06:00

I feel like I must keep writing as there is so much I want to say to Andy. About my day. About observations. About life. About the food I ate. About how loving Gaia's been lately, even asking for belly kisses when I get home, her little black furry body writhing about on my bed simply desperate for belly kisses from mommmy. As I wrote that, she lept on my lap, and oh, how she looks at me with pure love.

I miss lighthearted Andy, who even though since day one he's freaked out about the intensity of what's gone on between us, was full of adoration and certainty that I was to be his lady. "I want to spend as much time with you as possible." "I want you all to myself."

The latter when I was combatting residual feelings for The Mexican Who Don't Want Me and continued, probably eternal love/in love for the lad who has been making my life nothing but complicated since April 2008. I didn't feel it was unfair, I knew I was dealing with it and I knew they had and have no influence on my feelings for Andy, but his particular ghost, having throwing him into a tailspinspinspin, well, his love's been reawakened and confusion emotion bears down hard. He thinks it's unfair to deal with this and be with me, or he feels he needs to work it out by himself. And I fucking GET IT. Exes are god damn hurricanes and they don't give two shits about the new relationship. I wonder if I'm the only lady who thinks about that; if someone is dating someone, I don't fuck with that, no matter the circumstances. NEVER. My feelings take a back seat. My needs are put on hold. I know if it's meant to work, it will, when there aren't brain and heart exploding complications afoot. And when it's from the other direction, and I know someone has feelings for me, or I want to pay attention to someone while I'm in a relationship, I continue the situation I am in to its logical end and I put the other feelings away as much as I can. I don't try to fuck myself or anyone else up in the scenario, and it's probably because I'm so often in the position I am in right now.

I need to ramble and ramble because my brain is running at high speed with all these thoughts and my fingers have a case of sober TMT and I've already sent an email today to him on the topic of how he can combat panic attacks, and I promised I'd leave him be this weekend and I know there is no try, only do (thanks, Yoda), so I'm just muscling through all these urges and sating them by writing these meandering blogs. Thanks be to Jesus that I think there are only about four people who are reading them regularly.

I miss him. I hate this current him, whiny, sweeping dramatics, flailing gestures, and it looks like he's having an aneurysm when he tells me he loves me. Pull it together man, none of this is anywhere near as big a deal as you're making it, the "what if" thought process is bullshit and will only make you crazy. You have me. Enjoy me. It'll work out or it won't.

Pleas into the ether, he doesn't read this. Quaintly, he doesn't even have a computer right now.

Honestly, and I feel like somehow I should whisper this in text form (smaller font?): I don't think it's going to work. Not for me and him, not for she and him. Not for any of us.

I Told You So (Panic Attack)

2009-11-14T12:23:00.006-06:00

The poem came immediately after stating that poetry was coming. That's two poems now in a month, and several art pieces. This, for me, is highly productive. The previous poem written on a page of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, while on the curvaceous, scenic road from Ely to Duluth that always makes me have a bit of a panic, despite it's loveliness, if I am not constantly sipping water and/or singing. When I was younger, when the particular problem first began, I remember Celine Dion on the radio. Then it was my Tori's Under the Pink on cassette, foisted upon my parents lest they have to deal with a freaking out teenager. It should be noted that I had no idea I was having a panic attack, something that had begun intermittently before puberty that my mother would hand me a paper bag for and send me outside to breathe. In late teen years, she resorted to giving me Xanax (while also telling me to go outside and breathe). It was always very matter of fact. I never understood why she failed to inform me that what was happening to me, the I can't breathe feeling, the overwhelming head-maelstrom, the sense of total doom, that it was something silly that I could plainly understand; my body producing too much epinephrine. This being a facet, evolutionarily speaking, of the "flight or flight" ha "FIGHT or flight" response. Which, it's been argued in some of the things I've read, is not the accurate interpretation as invariably, when someone experiences such a rush of epinephrine, they are somewhat immobilised by their panic. So what purpose, exactly, does a panic attack have?

I don't know. Writing this has put that old familiar feeling in my chest, a firm grip in a negative way, on the old blood pumper. I will get the fuck out of this house once I'm done with this blog (and a shower). Sarah needs some Cheerios and the dishes won't get done if there ain't no dishwasher detergent.

But the poem(s). Without further ado, poem one is about Andy, written on the road.

He wears his neurosis on his sleeve,
by an invention of his heart.
With a tug on one,
the other falls apart.
It is not foolproof,
this failsafe he's set;
He's already told me he loves me,
He just hasn't said the words yet.

10.18.09

And last night's, with a first couplet that's been in my head since Andy chose to take the route he has with us:

Any who run from love
be hung from the rafters
Any who stifle love
crucified on the mantle
Any who lie to love
dragged behind a truck
Any who "deserve" love
a shard of broken mirror
Any who ignore love
murder murder murder

11.14.09

Aquí, Viernes.

2009-11-14T01:37:00.003-06:00

I laid in bed til nearly 1 p.m.
Donned red plaid dress, red hoop earrings, red lipstick.
All are talismans.
Lunch with the lovely Alexis McKinnis at Bryant Lake Bowl(despite numerous email conversations of some intensity, not once had we enjoyed one another's company one on one). She had a breakfast sandwich, I the cream of asparagus...with peas...soup. The soup appears to have contained no actual asparagus. It may have been hiding, knowing already of my voracious affection for it.
A nervous belly (quelled somewhat by one glass of malbec with lunch) awaited phone call from Andy.
A trip to NE (that's northeast, not Nebraska).
He was, by comparison, perhaps an entire solar system calmer.
Love expressed. Panic expressed. Confusion expressed.
No resolutions, but I didn't come for those; I came to understand, to feel safer, to be able to put myself in a position to set my needs aside and allow him the space he needs to put his head together.
Sex was had and it was physically satisfying, emotionally confusing. I would like to not do that again while things are as they stand. But I do feel it had to happen as it did.
It was raining when I left his place.
Rented Doubt at Blockbuster. The cashier, a handsome fellow named Jason according to his nametag, shared a cute moment with me over a strange-acting child which was communicated almost entirely non-verbally. My favourite sort of casual interaction, most especially when it involves a heart-squeezing sort of smile like the kind Jason and I exchanged. These things make me remember that I am wholly married to the joy of living.
Jason provided me with some sort of promotional coupon that will get me half off a new release in the coming week. Win.
Made a pesto cheddar duck confit grilled sandwich thing, as well as a cup of tea. All was delicious.
Doubt was less stirring than I'd expected, but acting by Meryl, Amy Adams, Velma Davis and PSH were unerringly top notch. I marvel, sometimes, when viewing such things, at how in command an actor can be, doling out facial expressions that with the slightest tic convey much more than can possibly be expressed verbally. This was one of those films, throughout.
Ate some pot roast my housemate, Russ, prepared. He used Mountain Crest as a "moistener". It was, despite being soaked in beer that costs $9 a 24-pack, quite delicious.
Downloaded albums by Dirty Projectors and Mount Eerie. I am immediately fond of both upon first listen, and I was about to say that the former will likely root itself more firmly in my oft-played discs, but that seems like a lie. Mount Eerie has qualities of Bon Iver. Dirty Projectors makes me feel that can't-wipe-smile-off-my-face feeling that comes from the first day of spring, or new love. Except without the actual smiling, if that makes sense. There is too much going on to simply smile; it must be paid attention to.
Made some art, or rather, began a piece while listening to Dirty Projectors, for now involving a window pane, tea from tea bags I saved for a year, and my best friend, Mod Podge. Piece will later involve polyurethane and fox fur.
Lamented having not seen Dirty Projectors this past Wednesday, which might have been surprisingly easy, given it may have been possible to be guest listed through a small series of connections. Further night time marveling at the random coterie of art rock and Pitchfork darlings I seem to be finding myself associating with these days.
Plans to read a bit of The God Delusion before retiring put on hold by blogging.
But I'll do that now.

All in all, a productive, beneficial, positive day. Let's hope the forward motion does not sway.

I feel poetry coming.

Oh god, I didn't even realise when I typed that sentence that the previous two rhymed.

I'm ridiculous.

And now I'm just pissed.

2009-11-11T23:11:00.004-06:00

I cried for hours. Hours today. Hour after hour, tears just welled up and tumbled out my eyeballs. I'm sure it'll change shortly, but around seven o' clock, I realised he's just being a fucking drama queen.

I understand the need to be alone and sort out the bullshit that's causing a quagmire.

But we are in love. He is the best thing that's ever happened to me, and he's told me the same thing. With him, I am a better person, the best person I've ever been. I've wrestled with some weighty heart-issues since we first got together, muddling through them knowing he's the right man for me to be with, knowing I needed to settle these things in order to continue being this better, higher quality version of myself, the one that doesn't hold onto lust and love in others just in case the current doesn't work out. I know what I want from him, and that is, very simply, him. I've never been with someone who is both good for me and doesn't bore me. Nor have I been with anyone that causes no anxiety in me whatsoever; I trusted him from day one and have received no input that makes me believe I should act otherwise. I do not feel that I need him, only that I enjoy having him around. I know I have responded in kind and that I've been a loving, trustworthy girlfriend.

But he's let this lovely thing get all fouled up. He works himself into an absolute fit and can't see a way out of it. So he's pushed me away and somehow this is supposed to be less drama for him, and better for me cuz he's freaked out about dealing with an ex girlfriend who only has to text him about an outstanding vet bill to put him into a tailspin.

Just fucking get over it already, move on with your life. Yeah, it's fucking scary to be in love. Oh no! It's way scarier to drive a fucking car; that can actually kill you. And yeah, exes popping up out of the blue frequently cause a general collapse of whatever happiness you've put together for yourself. The point is you see this and you give that chaos the finger and enjoy what you've got. The best thing that's ever happened to you. The woman you think is beautiful and incredible who gives you amazing blow jobs. You get over it, or at least take productive steps to do so, and you celebrate the wonderful things you have. You don't work your own personal feedback loop until you're brittle and wild-eyed.

Unless, of course, with your fascination with ruin and with death, and your admitted interest in craving drama, you wish to make things worse for yourself so you can spout out bullshit like, "Oh, there's that familiar feeling; the feeling of hurting people." And you can avoid eye contact because it just "makes it harder". You can let chaos win and revel in the misery of it all. Maybe you'll get a song out of it, this paralyzing emotional intensity you're feeling that you want to "calm down" by breaking up with ME.

And that's something close to the conclusion I've come to, after crying myself dry today (lying in a puddle of tears, wet tear slicked neck, while watching All That Jazz is a bit surreal). He responded to one of my frantic texts, on the general topic of WTF, ANDY, and he told me, knowing he could offer no solace, to "take care of [my] beautiful self" and I responded that taking care of myself means loving him.

I wish in all of this I weren't feeling that he's coming off as total emo douchebag. I know how beautiful he is, how strong, how elegant and magickal. Where did that Andy go?

Wherever he is, I want to wring his god damn drama queen neck.

Ex Implosion.

2009-11-11T10:27:00.008-06:00

And as quickly as I was pulled in, and he was pulled in, the feedback loop gained fever pitch and now the whole damn thing's ex/imploded.

Ex-Imploded.

That is one thing I should definitely know better about. The ex always wins.

I lose.

Which isn't to say he's gone back to her. That's what she'd like, but it hasn't happened...yet. He wants to be alone to be upset about the aftermath of her, he doesn't feel it's fair for me to be around when he's got to deal with it. She cropped up on Halloween, wearing no costume, but she may well have been sporting some mask with warts and her long red hair filled with bats and spiders; she continues to bewitch him. Double, double, toil and trouble...

My head hurts trying to wrap itself around this, which shouldn't be hard since I've been through this half a dozen times already. "I'm over it" becomes "I don't want to be with her" once she's appeared somewhere out of the blue--and in this case, began texting/calling/emailing and finally lured him to their old place, a place of comfort and nostalgia and memory to tell him she loves him dearly and would do anything to get him back--and despite insisting no interest in returning to that past, it always turns into some level of not being able to handle it, "it" being my relationship with them, or their scattered, damaged feelings for that now proverbial...her.

And it's galling because I go through that constantly. I'm always muddling through the leftovers for an ex, to varying degrees, and it's often the new, differently loving relationship that makes it possible for me to sort those feelings out. There's safety in the walls of an embrace that lets my brain seek out the dark corners where some as of yet unrifled memory lies. I know the panic, and the torturous detritus, I know that it doesn't mean I want them back.

But I lose.

He and I haven't been as connected the past two weeks. Shortly after we got back from our magickal Ely weekend playing Scrabble in the woods, I went a bit dead. Got all distance-y, felt little more than the concept of feelings other than a general sickness in the gut. It is telling that the ex showed up just a few days after this feeling set in; it seems to me a bit of pre-cognition was on the wind and the universe was letting me know something was shortly to become amiss. But, I was also, somewhere deep in the subconscious layers of this love, freaking the fuck out. We began so hard and fast, I told him I loved him on the third date, I spoke of marriage and babies and life forever. I got so excited because it seemed...possible. For once. Really, truly possible. We get excited about the same houses, the same neighborhoods, the same way of living, the same home decor; old things, dead things, weird things, dilapidated things. Walking or driving about is a homey adventure with him; calling out houses we're going to take over and make our own. I've thought I was bound to marry a couple other people, but in hindsight, and even in the course of the relationship, I could have given you a hundred reasons why it shouldn't happen. One didn't believe in love; wanted to raise his children without the word. The other found very little more than a passing interest in all things sexual (a champion snuggler, though). Both of those should have been known deal breakers from the start, but I'm stubborn, and I was deeply heartbroken by the dissolution of both of those relationships, which were both my decision to end. The only red flag in this current love has been the ex, which is always a red flag, but again, I'm stubborn, and I fell for him, with all his Sarah-Manual reading/knowing/intuiting ways. And neither of us has been much like anyone else we've ever been with, which adds a sparkle to it--New! Improved! love. But I did freak out, and I felt myself reigning in previous Big Statements of Marriage, Kids, and Forever. Of course, this was happening simultaneous to the ex wreaking emotional havoc on him, and the past couple days he and I have been working a disastrous feedback loop, which feels like a sort of heaven in comparison to the dead, distanced feelings I've had the past couple weeks, but I don't much like this opera either.

A walk down by Minnehaha Creek, discussing how rad it would be to come across a dead body down there but how it would be unlikely given the fact that the hoi polloi would be unlikely to dump a body in the land of the bourgeoisie. That was ideal, that was Andy n me, that was Friday. Hot chocolate, snuggled under a blanket, reading our respective books (2666-his, the God Delusion-mine) was lovely too. That was only Sunday. Monday night we had a fight over the phone, due mostly to my menstrual state, which led me to get my panties in a bunch quite a lot more than I likely would have; I just wanted to fight. Well, it sent him into another tailspin.

Too much can happen in a day.

An Onerous Blog

2009-10-22T13:55:00.005-05:00

I struggle with issues of intellect constantly. It becomes quite bare each time I get involved with someone, as unless I truly believe them to be idiots, I feel they believe my smarts to be lacking. It gets worse the more I respect my lover's brain, though I have been with a person I considered my equal despite also believing them to be the most brilliant mind I'd yet come across. This neurosis is complex, of course, and the tic again came to the fore after a dinner party last night when conversation veered enormously toward a decidedly academic ken. I sat, mostly quietly, feeling envious of knowledge I will never have, listening to a way of speaking that will never be mine. These are good friends Andy and I broke bread with, people I love and trust, and whom I knew would immediately find much common ground with him. But it is this common ground that separates me from them. I barely catalogue where I learned something, only that I learned it. Philosophers are of little interest in name and I find myself withering a bit to know or have to listen to people name-drop when what's important to me are the philosophies themselves. I almost never describe a situation in terms of a writer's work; for instance, I've read a lot of work on the history of Christianity--not once, nor likely ever, have I said something like, "Elaine Pagels says of the Gnostic Gospels...." because it's just not in my brain that way. It's filed under Gnostic Gospels and includes texts and postulates by many writers whose names have long been forgotten. The facts remain. Life and its situations are generally judged, described and catalogued of their own merit, in an increasingly complex file that mostly draws off of experience vs. academia.

Which leaves me feeling wanting. Experiential discussions inherently seem less intellectual than academic ones. Which does also make me feel a bit indignant. It should not be so. Each person has a different brand of smarts, but we all know how we are subtly and not so subtly told to feel about "street smarts" or "he's really good with his hands". INFERIORITY. Except I don't feel that way. Not at all. The aforementioned intellectual equal excelled in physical intellect (an oxymoron?), in the most carnal, base knowledge of survival (trust no one, lash out 'til they're all bleeding and you stand, alone, unscathed), in how-to handiness, in mathematical/money and understanding/manipulation of others skill unlike anyone I've ever seen. In Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper says of Windom Earle, "his mind is like a diamond; hard, cold, and brilliant." This was/is David. (Quoting/referencing pop culture, on the other hand, I do constantly--another strike against me.) And I'm not saying he couldn't hold his own in an academic discussion, but that's just not where his excellence was couched. No, he floored me daily with these other things, these other things I don't possess, but which I didn't envy, did not feel inferior by, just took in and relished, admired, and above all, respected. He is a survivor of some of the most horrifying life-experiences I've ever been privvy to hear first hand, and because of this, or to spite it, he makes it through every single day a warrior. All of this said, by necessity, he is a genuinely terrible person. As a survivor, he fails at human connection on every level. Damaged beyond repair, he seems hard wired to fuck over or fuck up any healthy, beneficial human situation he comes into contact with. Which, of course, is why he is no longer a part of my life. I will always love him unconditionally and weep for his circumstance, but he is responsible for how he's responded to what's happened to him, and that response, despite being smart on a survival level, is sheer idiocy in a dozen other ways which would leave him vulnerable but would save him otherwise. Sooo, in a discussion of his brilliance, I've also demonstrated that he's a fucking retard.

The pendulum swings both ways.

I had felt intellectually vindicated over the weekend, when Andy pointed to a word in his book, unsure of the meaning. Certainly, I thought, he'd not ask me this if he felt I was not his equal. Oneiric was the word. The closest like-term I could come up with was onerous, which fit into the context of his book, so we were both satisfied. Turns out I was wrong; oneiric means dreamlike, onerous refers to something heavy and taxing. Not the same, but I did my best.

I wish I consistently did not feel as if my best was secretly derided in some quiet closet of the more academic minds around me. My skills are with language, street smarts, emotional fortitude in the presence of the sorts of threats which are made to emotional fortitude, lovemaking, and general skill understanding why people do what they do.

I might already know the philosophical stance of Kierkegaard, but I'd never know that that belief system was Kierkegaardian (now there's a band name, kids). I've been told my way of thinking is "very James Joyce", but fuck-all if I know what that means. If I name-drop any writers, it's Daniel Quinn and Leonard Cohen and that's pretty much it.

Sigh. Should I be sighing? I don't know. I can't tell if this neurosis is confidence or culture. Or straight up bullshit.

Like sands through the hourglass...

2009-10-19T22:09:00.005-05:00

I'm so in love with this man. And I'm not afraid. I'm not confused. I'm not overwhelmed, I'm not searching, I'm not looking for a way out. I'm just in it, in the thick of it, enjoying the lengthy conversations about music, the games of Scrabble, the sips of whiskey and puffs of smoke, the reading together and sharing favourite sentences, the gazing, the intimate lovemaking, the dinners we each make for the other to enjoy, the silly voices, the mutual love of mounted deer skulls and pelts, the taking in a view over a cup of coffee, the disagreements over Tom Cruise, the agreements over all the right parts of everything that is everything else. What I'm hoping is that eventually, looking back, there is aggregate data of all these things, constituting, canonically, Our Lives Together.

A Blog That Was And Is Just A Comment On My Friend's Blog, But I Think It's a Pretty Good One So Shut Up

2009-09-28T22:29:00.002-05:00

(In response to the ever-lovely Sweet Bird of Mischief's blog on lametards)

I have found the most perfect man I have ever had the pleasure of having, purely by accident, that is, by galavanting about in the exactly the same manner as you have with the craptardedest dudes (but having fantastic sex all the while because you and I both know what's how these douchebags really lure us in) and lamenting to the heavens that I have poor taste.

Turns out I don't have poor taste. I just had to weather some bullshit (and fantastic sex) for a while. My god, this boy makes me full of swoon. He's already made me a hand painted mix cd with a picture of a cemetery on the front. He's told me I get more and more beautiful every time he sees me. He puts his hand on my knee when he's driving. He wants to see me as often as possible, but it's not clingy or intense or weird. Our second date was his choice; an art gallery. He sings like an angel. He isn't an alcoholic, has a Lit degree and works with autistic kids in the same job he's had for four years. I could go on and on. It's been nearly a month since our first date and he still shows no sign of being a shitprick even a little bit, nor does he show any sign of boring me even a little bit anytime soon. Plus, he fucks like a champion and has one of the most beautiful dicks I've had the joy of fellating.

In other words, just do what feels right, your various kinks that make you a potentially suck girlfriend will work themselves out as you continue to date retards, and then one day, you'll be sitting at your favourite bar and see a lad so overwhelmingly magnetic to you all you can do is stare at him for two hours. And then, to continue this "theoretical" scenario, you'll see him again two weeks later and stare at him another hour before enough whiskey is in your system to get up the gumption to hand him your number, hastily written on a bar napkin. You'll chuck said napkin at him, tell him you find him attractive, shake hands, then run away, assuming he'll never, ever call you and the only relationship you've got in the future is the complete avoidance of him the next time you see him a month later, both of you knowing he wasn't interested in calling your weird napkin flinging ass. But he'll call. And you'll go on a date to your favourite little dive bar that the hipsters honestly haven't discovered yet, and everything that comes out of his mouth will be kind of like looking at a list of all you've ever wanted, checking items off one by one, to the point that it's like somewhere, there's got to be a manual that was written about you and this dude read it cover to cover. And then when you go outside with him so he can smoke, you'll tell him you want to kiss him because you know that's the last checkmark and you assume he's gonna be an awful or dull kisser or it's just not gonna spark, but it does, and it does in a way that's like crashing planets and Jerry Bruckheimer explosions, and a pleasant little voice in your head will say, "My, you're a goner; you're done for," and you'll give that voice a smirk and a little nod and go home with the boy, absolutely hating that you've got to remove yourself from his embrace to drive the mile to his house, and you'll get to his house and it's an honest to god adult house that he lives in with two other dudes and the place isn't trashed, and he'll take you to his room, and though he's got a twin bed, he makes self-depracating mention of that fact immediately, and then puts on some absolutely lovely music you've never heard. So it stands to reason, then, that he's gonna fuck up somewhere in the making out process, pull some shit you don't like, but he doesn't. In fact, his caresses are heated and passionate but not pawing, he's graceful and purposeful and treats you like you are a woman to be treasured. And then, you've got to assume that no one is this perfect, so he's definitely gonna have a small dick. But shit son, he doesn't! Aw hell. Hell hell hell.

And yes, you'll be a goner too and you'll have nothing for that little voice in your head but a smirk.

He reminds me of Jesus

2009-09-13T01:32:00.003-05:00

His face reminds me of John Frusciante, of Nathan Followill, and of Jesus. Yes, Jesus, and anyone who has known me in any meaningful way over the past fifteen years or so knows I'm kind of in love with the dude. Not the pasty blue-eyed near to blonde Jesus who seems primed to star in some 70s soft-focus porn excursion with a curvaceous, afroed, Nubian goddess (or just a rock opera primed for vocal histrionics), but the more mildly Semitic brand who is a bit wild-eyed and commanding. My Jesus. The one I read about in historical studies and apocryphal texts, the one that used Salome to get John the Baptist's head, who loves Mary Magdalene and wishes her to carry on his teachings, the one that, in a poem by me at age 20, licks my cunt and loves it, whispering between my legs that I had been his thirst all along.

But, that might make it sound as if I've put this man on a pedestal. To the contrary; instead, I find the comparison makes him even more meaty and earthy to the Sarah brain. He has, this man, already demonstrated nuanced humanity. He is strong, but vulnerable. Admirably intelligent, but not intimidating. He listens at length, but also speaks at length. He remembers names, the myriad names I rattle off in any conversation, and he's got them logged and annotated with the appropriate information. He tells tales of his life and puts me into his heart with them when he talks; it is not a distant, removed story he is telling me, it is His Life. When he touches me, he makes me shudder and convulse in the most electric way. Literally, it is as if I feel currents running through me as he strokes my skin. His mouth, when on mine, or upon any other place on my body, makes me remember that sex and sexual intimacy are direct lines to the Godhead.

When he's nervous, or feels out of place, he holds his hand to his mouth, his fingers fluttering against his lips. When he's upset, he rubs his forehead, causing a punk-rock formation of his quite perfectly formed eyebrows, hairs standing tall, at defiant attention. When he looks at me, his expression drifts from something like lovestruck to stricken in the span of seconds. I am afraid of him but not afraid. My fear seems conceptual, seeming to be more that now that I am again aware that love and tender feelings are not beyond me, it would just be silly to do something stupid and lose track of such a worthy human being to explore.

And perhaps I have. I told him I loved him last night. You know, prime third date material. I mean it, however, and I do not regret it. I've pondered this all day. Better to have loved and lost? The eternal question (but not as hard to answer as beaten in vs. sexed in, in my opinion). He did some hearty freaking last night after these words passed my lips. I talked him down from the ledge, but I know what things the brain does in the hours after. I have, in the hours since I dropped him at home this afternoon, come to accept that I may have been too much. But, in an unusual twist, the fact that I've been made aware again that I can feel this way, and maybe even better that there are amazing, beautiful, gritty, sexy, potent people who can make me feel this way, then maybe it's not so bad to have acted on my feelings. That being said, I hope I've not been too much. He is one to fight for.

This Is What Happens When You Roll Into SA With A Hammer

2009-09-04T21:32:00.004-05:00

Shit gets fucked up, yo.

Dudes try and talk to me when I'm enjoying my Kings of Leon, "Why you got a hammer, girl?" People buzz with WTF a little lady like me is doing with a hammer. The counter woman leans over, exclaiming, "Hell, she does have a hammer! I thought you were pulling my leg!" I smile coyly as I choose my milk chocolate Hershey's.

"Sincerely, folks, I was just hanging my art across the street at Caffetto. I'm not here to give anyone a beat down."

But counter woman is flustered, joking with me about my hammer, unable to properly execute the transaction with the lad in front of me purchasing two Powerades (so cute in the face, such terrible clothing, that one), and she winds up inadvertently cancelling his purchase. So he has to come back and do it again. And then she charges him for my Hersey bar. Lol. I wind up handing him a dollar just to keep shit simple.

Don't bring a hammer into the SA, kids. Shit gets fucked up.

Oh, I've Been Bad.

2009-08-24T16:25:00.004-05:00

Real bad. I'm not happy about it. Too much liquor, too many boys. Nothing solid to drag home with me, just misses, swing batta batta, ouch, FAIL. I fell for one of you lads, fell pretty hard. But he doesn't want me. I fell for another more than a year ago, and he wants me, but he loathes me, and he loves me, and he is reactionary and unkind; he is too much trouble.

And what's with the Mexicans?
I don't want the Indie Rock Hipster Revolutionary Mexican.

I don't want Flakey Fucker Artist Mexican (though I did initially feel quite warmly toward him after he lured me in post-spending an hour pretending he was gay, graphically hitting on my friend Joe only to follow it up with the statement, "You know I'm not gay, right? I think you're gorgeous and I want to take you out sometime." Turns out one great date was all he could handle and after two flake-dates I told him he could funk off.)

I do want thick, hairy, sexy, masculine, truck driving, smart, sweet and sensitive in private, total obnoxious douchebag in public, wife beater wearing, tattooed, music obsessed, hip hop loving, slight southern drawl having, intimate, intense eye contact in the sack giving Mexican. But, I done telled you already; he don't want me.

With the way I've been acting, I wouldn't want me neither. I've been bad. Impulse control with that latter one is an extreme low. Put a little whiskey in me and TMT sets in. He's been a sweetheart, considering, but that only exacerbates the situation. If he'd just say, "Hey, little batshit girl, it just ain't gonna happen," then I'd give up the ghost and move on. Instead, he throws nuggets at me my brain holds onto. That he wants me to know him. That there's so much more inside him than anyone sees, implying he wishes for me to see those soft, squishy bits. But... I haven't spent any quality time with the lad in close to two months. AND YET I STILL CAN'T LET IT GO.

I've been bad. I need to shut the fuck up.

But damnit all, I just want someone to love. Who loves me.

Manizer

2009-08-16T16:33:00.004-05:00

I'm a Manizer. But I'm not. The term Womanizer implies, to me, deceit, manipulation, bullshit. Doing anything one can to get into someone's pants. That ain't me, babe. But I will be completely straightforward about my intentions, and I will be trying to get into your pants. Those are my intentions. I generally also require some kind of emotional attachment, but it is by no means emotional attachment on an exclusive level. I am capable of loving, and giving love to many. Okay, perhaps "many" is a bit much. Two. Three people at a time. Maximum. Minimum, really. Which does not negate the previous blog's statement about seeking a committed relationship. Until that happens, this is what happens: I collect, sample, discard, compute, understand, probe, adore, worship, obsess, roll around in, burrow, lick, suck, sniff, compile, arrange, make mental spreadsheets, love, hate, like and enjoy the presence of people I want to enjoy the presence of. It's not complicated, but for some goddamned reason, everyone wants to make it complicated.

It's science, it's biology. Just roll with it.

On How I Am Hilarious

2009-08-07T01:37:00.003-05:00

Text from last night, not from Texts From Last Night.

"I found a replacement crush. You're off the hook."

See... I write shit like that when I'm shit-bombed and some people get it, some people don't. I suspect the lad who received said text is in the latter party.

HE HAS NO IDEA I GIGGLE LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL WHEN I WRITE SHIT LIKE THAT.

lulz.

Short blog, said shit three times.

Good work, me.

Fuck microblogging.

2009-08-02T16:01:00.005-05:00

Let's see if I can do this anymore. Twitter and Facebook updating have wreaked havoc upon the long-format thought. I ponder in 140 characters, or in witticisms or charms that might cause clever jabs and parries. I need a typewriter and a week long stay in a remote location. Before wifi is literally in every god damn nook and cranny of this planet...

Leaping in--

I've been thinking a lot about the nature of masculinity and how terrifically hard the balance must be. The alpha male. The leader of the pack. I have some experience here, as I am often the alpha in situations, co-ed or no. That comes with its own problems, but as a woman, my concerns are not with how blunt, vulgar or brash I am--all that's implied by this is that I have masculine qualities, which are dominant, in control, strong. But for a man, especially one who wishes to be in control, and to give the impression of stoicism, the opposite is true; show emotion, give insightful commentary, and suddenly you are not viewed as much as the Lothario, but as something soft, weak, feminine. I think this may be the hardest thing about being a man. It takes a truly confident male to strut about like a peacock giving off heady fumes of lust, but who can also meaningfully impart his thoughts, unabashedly displaying emotion, daring anyone to question the veracity of the meat dangling between his legs. In truth, of the men I have the fortune of being close to, I can think of only one who has achieved such a thing, and I know it's been a hard road for him to get there. I'd put money on him in any bar fight, but he cries like a bitch (See? Cries like a bitch; even I do it) at the Notebook. He'll be there for you for any genuine need, but he will not hesitate to tell you you're actin' a fool. He inspires strength of all kinds because he is offensive, sensitive, loving and cruel. Spending time with him is always fulfilling. Our relationship is not sexual, but our interaction is sexually potent, a reminder of our youth and fertility; I feel healthy and... yes, I think engorged is the right word, in his presence. I recently told him I wanted to find someone to love me the way he does, except, you know, with all the boyfriendy parts.

Which brings me to my next thought:

I would like a boyfriend. I want to be in love.

There, I said it. Now, the disclaimer: The above statement is not technically true. What I want on that front is still in the gestation phase, and after months now of being casually, but emotionally involved with one to three people at once, I think I'm ready for a committed phase. I miss having someone to cook for. I miss the assumption of someone next to me as I sleep. I miss the tedious things that are part and parcel of a romantic, one on one relationship. But, like many things that are a big step, I've got to say it out loud, talk about it, if you will, in order to become comfortable with it.

It's all a work in progress.

The Inimitable Queef

2007-06-06T14:36:00.001-05:00

I woke this morning, exhausted, as has become the de rigueur state of my being upon waking from the boyfriend's bed. His mattress has an uncomfortable slant, after (or so we surmise), three years of regularly being slept in by only his person, and despite attempts at flipping (might we have just somehow put it back in its original position?), the slant persists. This slant may also be a manufacturing defect never detected by the boyfriend because he never slept on that side of the bed.

So, this morning, like every other morning, I awakened with sore back and achy, dry eyeballs (presumably not an effect of The Slant), only to stretch vigorously and hear the unmistakable sound of air being forced out of my vagina.

This is a phenomenon I've often tried to replicate intentionally, to little or no avail. I cannot be blamed, I don't think, for rather enjoying the way it feels. It offers less overall relief than a regular, from the ass fart, but it's a fart. from. my. vagina.

Which makes it inherently awesome.

Long-ish story short; waking sore and cranky only to queef is an excellent way to start my day off right.