I didn’t do what you think I did; at least, I didn’t do it for the reasons you thought I did. No malice involved. Also “disorientated” is not the word you think it is.
I would’ve accepted your kiss that one drunk black light night in the apartments, but we would both have been doing it for the wrong reasons, so it’s fortunate that never happened. Remember that moment, however. He just took it one step further than you did.
The blow-off was only semi-personal. I dream about you once a week. I just don’t do well with people outside family and roommates lately. That might be an excuse.
You intrigue me because you’re so bent on quietly disliking me when you don’t know me. I’d like to take you out for a drink, get giggly and pull a confession out of you. Either way, please don’t marry him.
I’ve convinced myself you were boring, but that wasn’t the case. That’s the easy way out of things, to think it was dull and didn’t matter. It did. Boring people don’t make out under the mirrors in the Kirby Ballroom.
You’re one of those kids in their 20s who think they know everything. Sometimes, I think you do. But then I watched you cry when the gorilla in Instinct was poached, and I knew better.
. . .
Tomorrow I fly back to Minneapolis.
My wedding fever has passed. It was like watching The X-Files and thinking, “Man, I could totally be an FBI agent. How hard could it be?” I have too many other things to focus on without getting my panties in wads about marriage. I don’t even know if I believe in the whole marriage idea. However: once Yoko was asked why she married John Lennon when the couple was known to be anti institution and she replied with a wave of her hand, “Oh, the romance, of course.” Exactly.
Virginia is busy, rainy and more peaceful than I first thought. It doesn’t, however, (at least in my part of town), have the prettiest October in all the 50 states as previously believed. I have yet to see a tree stun me as those in my Minneapolis neighborhood have.
Today is fragmented, as I feel like keeping up with my writing, but my head is elsewhere. The generic black licorice Nyquil I took last night can be attributed to this hazy spacey feeling, but it’s also because hometowns are time warps. In the bookstore today I saw a girl perched up at the coffee counter, blushing and talking excitedly to the teenage boy behind the counter. That was once me with my very first high school boyfriend, pre-Nick, pre-everything. I would make excuses to go into the bookstore, and then sit for hours until my coffee got cold, having beautifully awkward conversations with the boy behind the counter.
But that’s the extent of my reminiscing. Gray rainy days mean hot chocolate and new books, a calm before the evening action begins. This is lovely, this taste of warm coffee and southern rain.
I wasn’t nervous on the plane at all. I’m sure my double whiskey at the airport bar had nothing to do with that. But even with whiskey, I get frantic and this time, I wasn’t. I thought Very Deep Thoughts as I calmly sat with my legs stretched out on the open seat next to me, reading my book and glancing out the window. I was on the right wing (a plane ride being the only instance in which this would happen. Har. Har), and a pale blue light kept flashing in the horizon, lighting the sky. I assume this was lightening, but I convinced myself it was the Northern Lights and then pretended to be Elly from Contact: “No words – they should’ve sent a poet – ”
My best friend from the growing-up years got married today. She was gorgeous and I stifled sobs through the entire ceremony. Of course, as tears at weddings often are (or so I’ve read; this was my first wedding), my weeping came from mixed emotions: Oh, God, she’s beautiful! Oh, shit, I’m getting old. Oh, I want to get married! Right this instant!
The last thought was a complete surprise since, if you’ve been reading, I’ve been having a minor outrage against marriage since I’ve been bombarded with it in the past few months. And like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City I’m going to find a way to make this all about me. After the wedding, I cheerfully chattered with my parents, telling them I expected myself, if everything continued on the path it’s going, to be married in the next two years. Um, what? Exactly. That statement is news to me and I’m sure news to my boyfriend, though I know the both of us have gotten caught up in the wedding brouhaha and since we think we are the Best Couple On The Planet, I’m sure we think we could kick a marriage’s ass. In the sense that we could get married and be fantastic at it. Like it’s a sport.
But, no worries, no wedding plans in the near future. The power of advertising is immense, but I am an intelligent and informed consumer; I have the gift of fear; before I marry anyone, we need to have a joint dog first, and that hasn’t happened yet.
Now, I’m nursing a sore throat (being plummeted into smoke and dog hair will do that) and drinking Christmas herb tea out of an Atlanta Falcons mug. I’m wearing new blue pajamas that are a little too warm for the house. I’ll be going to bed within the next few hours because I am tired. I’ve done more today than I’ve done in months. And though I’m not quite happy or at peace (those are Big Words), I am content and calm. Progress! In the form of adjectives and the Northern Lights.
Since two schmoopey pictures on the front page would be schmoopey overkill, here’s a picture of Chris and I from last night. (Ignore the dumb look on my face.)
I’m still wearing my dress, as it was the first thing I grabbed when I woke up. Over that, since our house is perpetually tomb-cold, is the Infamous Stolen Sweatshirt I’m going to pack, eat, find my lost wallet and then I’ll be flying to Virginia. Hopefully, my plane won’t fall out of the sky. I’m not quite as spastic about the trip as I usually am – in fact, not spastic at all – which probably means this is going to be the time the plane will malfunction since that’s totally how it works in movies and Alanis Morrissette songs.
I’ll be updating here, but if that malfunctions for some reason, I’ll update my Livejournal.
The Mormon Wedding Reception went well. My dress fit right in and the bride and groom sang each other adorable songs that made everyone cry. After that, the bride accidentally set her veil on fire. Fun was had by all
I’ve been busier than usual, which is definitely a good thing. Yesterday, Abbey actually convinced me to go shopping and I came home with three (on sale, of course) smokin’ hot dresses, one of which I’ll be wearing to a Mormon wedding reception tonight. I’m a little nervous, as this dress is strapless and sassy, and I don’t know how well that goes down with Mormons. I keep having these scenarios of someone taking me aside and saying, “Dear girl, that dress is highly inappropriate.” I haven’t thought of a comeback yet.
And then! Tomorrow night, I’ll be flying to Virginia where I’ll be attending my first wedding in which I will also wear the inappropriate strapless dress, but it will be okay as the bride showed me my first Hustler when we were 13, among other things, so I’m thinking there will be no lectures. After the wedding, there’ll be lots of family time, plus possible dates with two old friends I adore (both of whom I used to date), and then back to Minnesota on Thursday for a weekend full of Halloween and birthday parties.
I’ve started applying to actual day jobs, as well, so I suppose I’m getting my kicks in while I can.
I’ll have a picture up later tonight of http://www.zosiablue.com/chrisf.php”>Chris and I in our fabulous Mormon wedding reception attire because we’re young and hot and for once not spending a Friday night eating Jalapeno Cheez-Its and playing Planescape Torment.
You are not the first person to the notice the stars. I can guarantee it. It’s a common misconception when one first notices the stars – really really notices them – that no one else in the entire world has ever seen them before. You think – if anyone else in the world had seen these stars and felt the way I feel right now, they’d never stop talking about it! They’d take out ads in the Tribune saying: people, you will not believe what I saw tonight. Stars! Millions of them! In the sky! Can you believe it?
But people don’t talk about these things unless the moment is right. Instead there is: How are you? and: oh, I’m fine, just running a few errands, do you know how long the bank is open on Fridays? People can’t go around talking about stars all day. You can’t live in that type of intensity 24 hours a day and be able to breathe properly.
You are not the first person to notice the stars. And I am not the first to be in love, and he isn’t the first person I’ve been in love with, but he might as well be. We argue, a lot, about music and dirty dishes and constellations. There are times when I storm out of his bedroom and sulk on the couch thinking intelligible thoughts that sound like, “ARGH.” But mostly there is the whispering before sleep, the glances from across rooms that can mean, “Can you believe she just said that?” and “Let’s get out of here.” There are the smells, the exciting familiarity.
Last night he said: “I’m so glad I stole you away.” I said: nothing. If I spoke, I would shatter.
You are not the first person to notice the stars. But you are the first person the stars have noticed.
I was going to write a list of things I learned this weekend, but I suppose I really only learned one thing: I am the modern-day pseudo-bohemian I always wanted to be and suburban life won’t satisfy me.
This is bittersweet, in a strange way. I’ve cultivated the pseudo-bohemian status almost by accident. In high school, I was artsy enough, but I secretly believed I would end up suburban, with an office day job, a big house, a husband, a few kids, a set of copper-bottomed pans, etc. Even into college, I’d have moments where I longed for that sort of life because it seemed so orderly and easy. But now I’m out of college for all intents and purposes (my education isn’t completed yet, but my life in the “college scene” is certainly over), yet I’m still living with four of my closest friends: one theatre person and three musicians. Their day jobs are the hobbies; the music and theatre are the real things. I’m not starving or poor, but I’m living the artist’s lifestyle.
Last night, an old friend and his fiancee dropped by. This friend is someone I love to pieces, and he was in our nerd group, though he was the only one not involved in the arts. His fiancee is equally as lovable and cute. They told us about their life and my stomach began to get weirdly clenched. He’s in a high end job, right out of college, making more money than some of our parents make. He’s going on business trips and buying his fiancee a car. The corny suburban middle-aged jokes are already appearing and everything is “we.” I felt like a complete jerk because the entire conversation reminded me of exactly what I didn’t want with my life. I thought I would be envious hearing of their fortune and their normalcy; instead, Chris and I left the group early to eat dinner, and when we were out of earshot, we looked at each other and nodded. There was an understanding I’m so thankful to have.
I’m not sure how to deal with these feelings. I don’t want it to seem like I felt elitist and cocky in my “artsy” lifestyle. Certainly, we’re not true artists. We live in a nice neighborhood, have cars and food and clothes. But there’s a different energy in the air, one where small talk about blenders and business trips doesn’t exist, and I love that. At first, my gut reaction was, “I’m never getting married! Ever! Eww!” But that’s not the issue.
The issue is even if I’m married and I’m making money and I have nice things, I still want to sit around in my jeans and ratty t-shirts with my bare feet curled under me, drinking drugstore coffee, cracking crude jokes, listening to old folk records. Is that possible? Can you be grown-up and still wrestle with your lover in the middle of the living room? Will I be able to tolerate the constant noise of drums in the basement and the TV blaring at 2 AM and midnight runs to the grocery store? Will I want that when I’m grown up and responsible?
I think my friend and his fiancee are wonderful, but I don’t want to be them. I want my rockstars and my arts and unbrushed hair and bare feet. I wanted this life for so long, and now I’m in it. I didn’t even realize it. Maybe I’ll get married, shoeless, in my jeans, during a rock concert. Maybe I’ll have a beautiful house in Suburbia, with guitars littering the hallways and the Variety section strewn on the sofa. Maybe I’ll make tons of money, working in the theatre, writing novels, singing in an 80s cover band. I hope so. And I hope all my friends are with me. No small talk allowed.
I never finished this story, mostly because there wasn’t an exciting ending and the only reason I mentioned it was because I realized I don’t have the red plastic apple anymore. Erik and I did, indeed, end up getting back together after that summer and he returned the top section of the apple.
For a long while, it held stamps and pencils. Then one night I couldn’t find my contact case and in laziness, it held my contacts, thus getting gunked with salt residue. But where did it go? I lose my keys and wallet and shoes at least 62 times a day, but I never lose sentimental sappy shit like red plastic apples. I have this packet of sweet corn the same boyfriend gave me as a joke and a clay lemur my old roommate made me and a small container of lotion the director of a play I was in gave me, but no red plastic apple.
That doesn’t really matter. The cool thing is this now: it looks like my new source of income will be from dressing up in go-go boots and fishnet stockings and singing in the cover band three-fourths of Sunny Wicked put together to make some extra cash. I wasn’t sure whether to mention it because I might jinx myself (I never seem to end up doing what I want to do), but, damn, I’m excited. Not only will I make a fair amount of money, but I’ll be performing again. My drama queen diva side has been sheltered far too long. I’ll be Debbie Harry and Madonna in smoky bars where three middle-aged men sit around drinking PBR and playing Golden Tee. I can’t wait!
1. I start getting annoyingly obsessive about my appearance. This doesn’t mean I dress any better because we all know that’s never happening (hi, ketchup-colored Adidas zip up track shirt and blue plaid pants!). This means I try my roommate’s new “skin brightening” face wash, and think, I must have this. Right this very instant. Because even though my skin goes back to blotchy hickey red in under five minutes, those four and a half minutes of bright, radiant skin convince me this cleanser is the answer to my life.
I also start to examine my stubby, never-been-above-my-fingertips nails and think I should grow them. I apply an unsuccessful coat of clear nail polish to them, the nail polish, which I might add, doesn’t even belong to me, but to my boyfriend. I think he uses it for warts or runs in his pantyhose or something. Kidding about the pantyhose. This isn’t my high school boyfriend we’re talking about. Kidding. Sort of.
2. I get fixated on either a book, movie or television show. The last two ruts, I splooged over Dirty Dancing and then The English Patient At the time, I thought my fixation on the latter was as bad as it could get. I watched that movie three times in less than 48 hours and I even became pathetic enough to download English Patient wallpaper. Hello, 1995! I stretched out the wallpaper like a novice until Ralph’s beautiful nostrils were the size of all the holes to China I tried to dig when I was younger.
This rut, it’s been Sex and the City. I will not admit publicly how many hours of that show I’ve watched this week. My dear friend and roommateSex and the City recaps on Television Without Pity and then watching Chris “buy” things like Chain Lightening and a Heartgrinder (+2). Getting back on my feet was too hard this week; I blame junk food and Carrie Bradshaw.
Well. I got an invitation in the mail to my best friend from middle school/high school’s wedding, so I decided to be all spontaneous and shit and book a flight home for a few days at the end of this month. I haven’t seen her in years and am a little nervous, as I have no idea what to expect. I’ve also never been to a wedding before, so there goes that streak.
I’m feeling a little insecure about almost everything today, so it’s time to curl up in the bizarre outfit I concocted (a black lacy slip and a red plaid shirt) and read good things and nibble the edges of my pinky. I just really wish I was better at being smooth and relaxed with people that make me nervous like, oh I don’t know, ex-boyfriends. Or the general public. I’m a nerd. That can’t be forgotten. I trick myself sometimes because I don’t look like your average nerd, but my shyness and awkwardness haven’t lessened over the years. They’ve just manifested into the high pitched old-lady-on-a-mechanical-bull voice I get when I talk to someone who isn’t a parent or a roommate.
I just shouldn’t be allowed on the phone. Every phone within a twenty mile radius should be disconnected. Alexander Graham Bell should be shot. Or I should be shot. Okay. Time for the pinky-chewing.
Reasons I had to pinch myself because I thought it might be plausible I was, in fact, dreaming:
1. There was an actual pirate behind me in the bank line. He was short, stumpy and leering. He had three teeth, all black, and an eyepatch. He smelled like salt. When he got up to the counter, he actually said, “Aye, there.”
2. Charles Manson, or someone who looked very much like him, was sneaking around the alleyway in the back of our house. Andrew and I watched in horror/fascination as Manson downed beer after beer from a six pack he was carrying. After the last beer, he look furtively from side to side with a huge cross-eyed grin and then started advancing towards the house. Andrew and I ducked down, and watched him walk past the garbage can and to the recycling bin, where he tossed the beer cans. An environmentalist psycho!
3. My therapist uttering the phrase, “Dese bitches ain’t my hoes.”
4. Me beginning a sentence with, “My therapist…”
5. The Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs. I mean, for God’s sake.
You fall in love with your sadness. That line has been going through my head for the past few days, and I couldn’t decide if it was hokey or if it was a truth. It’s a truth. You do. Sadness – real, prolonged, in-depth, fuckingholyshit sadness – is an addiction like any other, and like addictions, you don’t realize you’re in love until you try to leave it. When you’ve been sad for a very very long time, it’s much easier to relax into to it, to sigh and blow the air out of your cheeks, resign yourself. When you’re struggling (and not always struggling – sometimes it comes easy) to be something different and better, sadness looks so easy and inviting. The hole is already there and your grooves are still fresh. And it feels so good, the first slide in it, the first click into the niche. It’s like a relaxation, a familiarity – here are the songs and the facial expressions, here is the brainspace and the cadence of voice. But, like any high, it only feels good for a moment and the moment is over quickly, a blink, a flash, a note.
I’m in love with my sadness. It’s so present. I’m blushing, happy, at a tree with red leaves and my fortune to be able to enjoy it with someone I love dearly, and a few hours later, there’s the sadness, in the doorframe, slouched, like a jilted lover. I don’t want to push the metaphor – but how do you not let it in? An old lover you curled into on more nights than you can recall is asking for just a second, a split second really, of your time, it will only take a moment promise and you lean back, you extend an arm and there you are.
I wish I had the patience to describe this to you, this mourning I feel for, well, mourning, I suppose. In Caroline Knapp’s book, Drinking: A Love Story, she describes the evening before she went into rehab. She got disgustingly drunk off a bottle of white wine, passed out in her bedroom and never drank again. That’s how it feels, sort of. I want one binge of self-pity, one night of panic and a four-hankie Winamp playlist and a head full of ugly gremlin desperate things. And then I want to get on with it.
Here’s a little of the white wine, not enough to be drunk, but enough to feel the horror and relief of the last bottle.
I’m still breaking old habits.
This absurdly orange tree is a placeholder until tonight when I can figure out what I want to write next. I’m either dry, or have too many things to say. But the tree is cool, isn’t it? I was walking to the gas station to get creamer for coffee yesterday when I spotted this on the road. I ran back to the house, and made Chris go see it and take pictures. At one point, a car in the road stopped so it wouldn’t ruin our picture. Autumn means automotive courtesy.
Andrew and Chris went on a self prescribed thrift store shopping spree, self prescribed because Andrew quit his job at the bakery earlier in the day and decided shopping was the only cure for his unemployment blues. There are no gender stereotypes in this household.
After their spree, they bounded into the house like giddy Supermarket Sweep contestants and showed me their goods, hence the picture above. Andrew the Drummer has turned into a slick businessman, while Chris the Lead Singer can officially be a rockstar now that he has his hipster wardrobe complete. After the fashion show, we all went to Starbuck’s so people would look at us, which they did, especially when we ordered frou-frou drinks, which is where the “yuppie” part of the bohemian-yuppie fabulous comes in.
Then, yesterday, Andrew and I ruined our Bohemia vision by spending four hours Fall cleaning the house. It wasn’t gross or disgusting (and believe me, I know gross/disgusting. Remind me to tell you the horrors of my house in Duluth sometime), but it was in need of a scrubbing, so we threw on sissy aprons and bleached everything.
Then, to top it off, our entire household, minus Abbey, plus Chris’s buddy from high school, Tim (who is now my buddy because he gives me the gossip Chris refuses to share), went to see School of Rock at the local cinema, which was crawling with 12-year-olds with rockhard abs and cellphones. And, holmes, that movie was good because Jack Black tickles my fancy. You either love him or you despise him, and I love him to the bones.
There’s no reason for this diary-like entry except that suddenly it seems like things are happening, everywhere and in technicolor (well, not that pastel garish). Things were happening before, but somehow I managed to not notice them or I refused to notice them. It’s the whole “getting back on your feet” thing I spoke of earlier. Suddenly the world burst at the seams, or, if that’s not your thing, the seams were unburst and rehemmed. Whatev.
And I am still sick, and yes, I know I’m always sick lately, but ever since the Great Mono Debacle of Summer 2003, I have been constantly catching diseases. Fortunately, this sickness hasn’t progressed beyond a weird headache and a general feeling of “shit, yuck.” I am drinking the dreaded orange juice (Low-Acid – you’re welcome, ulcer), and trying to keep my sudden energy on a tight leash.
I’m sick, I think, but so far it’s a functional sickness where I can traipse around the house in big clothes and sniffling without my traipsing becoming too impeded. I’m drinking orange juice and wearing a winter hat, so I am destined to be well soon, though hopefully not too soon. Sometimes I like being given an excuse to be a raggedy homebody.
And speaking of these big clothes, I realize how little of my ensemble actually belongs to me. The blue winter hat with the yellow and white tassels is Erik’s, given to me or possibly filched by me. The red plaid lumberjack shirt and the gray shirt underneath, my father’s. The jeans are mine, but the holey, too-long-in-the-toe socks are also Erik’s, most definitely filched and not given. I am almost entirely dressed by men, which could have some cultural significance if I was in the mood to wax on that, but, really, all I’m in the mood for is this orange juice and this bedroom and my music, cranked and deafening in the empty house.
On another note, I’m in the process of “getting back on my feet,” which is an interesting phrase that denotes either falling or pushing, and I really think neither happened to me. But by getting back on my feet, I mean looking into going back to school and work, two life elements that would’ve been nearly impossible to think about, much less “look into” a month ago. I suppose I’ve withheld a gigantic chunk of information from this site, and while the gigantic chunk will get told eventually, hopefully in some cutesy chapter-by-chapter story style, today you’ll just have to know I’m making progress, whatever that means.
Also: on a less self-help note, I rearranged my bedroom and now it looks very deathbed-ish, with a quilt and an old ugly chair for weeping relatives at the foot of the bed. As someone pointed out, if it weren’t for the adorable snowflake comforter, I’d have to start renting out my room to invalids and dying people.
Happy October, my favorite month. Yesterday was a fabulous day, the best in eons and eons, full of geese and green sweaters and old friends and warm blankets. I’m a feeling a little bluer today, not quite crappy, but maybe on the edge of it. Nothing serious, however, and it will pass because I’ve decided this October is going to be the best month of the universe. The universe and I have a special bond like that, or bondage. But I’ll turn the comments on so you can tell me things: what you’re doing this weekend, what I should change about the site, what you like about it, what your favorite color is and etc. Go forth.
