C'est facile, non? Not Really.

Much time has passed since my last entry. Probably because I spend most of it with a wonderful man who fulfills me. 

There are no complaints—except one, from him: my drinking. This has resurfaced into a potential detriment to a relationship. 

He told me to fix it or he would leave. It wasn’t as so much a threat as it was a testament to what he is able to tolerate.

I appreciate his honesty and wonder why I am so reluctant to undergo this change that I so badly want myself. 

Things That Happen in the Past Only Happen in Your Mind

Ziggy Stardust is playing at the Red Vic the day after tomorrow. I probably won’t go. The Divine Comedy of Mr. Alighieri waits patiently for my eyeballs on the nightstand. I know I won’t read it. Cognizance of my idleness will definitely be key to the melancholy of my later years. I can only say to start now. NOW. For a project. A reason. An amusement. I go search. Now. A reason to wake up tomorrow. 

Radical Face

So, the long awaited rise of the phoenix, results in waiting for phone calls from men while practicing a false version of self-preservation. Where did she go? That broken-hearted girl equipped with the confidence to play the heart-breaker. To suck them in and discard them when she’s through. It’s humorous: to recover from a man who didn’t care enough by turning to the arms of a man who doesn’t care enough.

Waits by the phone. Checks it frantically. Sadly realizes that her enjoyment of life is directly linked to male attention. Not friends, education, travels or wit. Men. With this she realizes how she compromises self-respect…but will stop this destructive pattern tomorrow, because he might call today. Her concept of self-worth is made, molded and stripped by men. In a world of sadness, she turns to masturbation…if only to continue the fantasy. 

The Present is Your Present, Idiot

 “An intense, a vivid present was the best exorcist of the past”

-Anais Nin

So is my present tense, pregnant with intensity and vividness. I exorcised his demon and now live in a healthy world devoid of fantasies. The present is vivid, indeed. I was betrayed by a man who didn’t believe in me or our union. And now I encounter men who stumble or glide into my life…and actually recognize a future tense with me. However much I resist playing the role of the fatalist, I look to these men as symbols of progression, transition and enlightenment. Like the phoenix I so often laud and valorize, I rise. 

Baby New Year

New Year’s resolutions:

1-maintain unavailability to men
2-Not hook up with anyone younger than me
3-Not hook-up with anyone I met in a bar

The 38 Geary...Unlimited

Last night was stupendously alcoholic, as my nights often are. From arriving to late to work, getting abadoned at an indie lesbian bar, and then stuck in downtown SF with no money and no way of getting home at 3 am. I ended up speaking to a very heart-broken homeless man until the 38 Geary showed up at 3:30 and I begged the driver to let me board.

I called him during all of this. He didn’t answer, which was good. My therapist called this victimizing myself. He called this morning and we actually had a civil conversation. I was not trying to be anything but myself. I didn’t try to be wonderful or funny super-girlfriend. Ironically, this resulted in me being all of these things. The during was fine, as was the immediate after. It’s this 12 hours later I’m battling. There are two people inside of me now. the one who picks apart and analyzes to the point of nausea, and the rational one who accepts the varied phases of her mending heart and that they will lead to her recovery from all this. 

Scott-free

Not in a family way. In an empty-womb way, gladly accepted. The conclusion to this scare has also led to the his conclusion. Better. He has the most obsessive effect on me. I’ll take this lonely feeling, and so will my womb. It’s better than the false security developed from having a handsome boyfriend. 

Smoking Made Me Shorter

Could there be a reason, however justifiable, to stunt one’s own growth? Is masochism too simple an excuse? Could it really just be that an individual prefers to dwell in the stagnant mires of the present moment?

It’s too easy to judge. Perhaps I am just not ready to develop, to continue, to let go of the past. This focus on all the yesterdays obviates prospects for a full and lively future…which couldn’t affect me less. I’m a past-dweller, and I’m comfortable with that.  

When You're Expecting

I might be pregnant. The whole thing suspends me in shock…that I may be opening my legs to…a machine that cleans you out.

If this is the case, it means the return of him in my life. I debated not telling him. I fear that all of the strength I’ve gained will flitter. A semblance of hope has grown inside me…but maybe that’s the baby.

No, this hope centers on the idea of another. Somewhere out there, with whom to laugh and have sex with, in a more phenomenal way…probably because we’ll be sober more than 10% of the time during intercourse. We spent more than half our nights together drunk. Alcohol rushed, escalated, heightened everything; from our first kiss, to our first fuck, to our break-up. I may be in a family way from one such encounter. A drunken encounter with my ex-boyfriend could have been the night I got pregnant with the fetus I will inevitably abort. What the fuck happened to my life?

Ebenezer

Christmas? Bah Humbug. I don’t care that it’s cliché. Why do I feel the incessant need to ‘expose’ a cliché? Anytime anyone ever uses one, it needs to be pointed out as if part of some spy novel and one found the dirty secret the butler had been hiding.

Well, Christmas was lack-luster. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I should pinpoint it so as to avoid expecting it for next year… Perhaps my melancholia is attributed to the fact that I didn’t watch the Peanuts Christmas Special. More on New Year’s and the Y2K-Millennium craze later—but one thing is for sure: I’m not buying bars of fucking gold or  building a Panic Room. 

Hide and Seek

I have so much hope for the man whose only hope was getting rid of me. I can’t keep him around anymore. He chose this. What we are now, and I…I pause for the first time, my fervently wicked hand doesn’t know what to dictate next…and that’s the problem. It’s directly reflexive of my mind. I just need to stop making him the focus. Where do I go in all this?  

His Hangover

I don’t want to catalogue all of the emotions that I have endured this month, but it was a lot. One of the most difficult months of my life. I went through every stage of mourning:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Denial: the night we split up I went to bed with a ridiculous smile thinking of how fortunate things had turned out and concluding that it was all for the best, as the freedom of single life may offer time to apply to grad school. And I woke up that next morning with my whole face covered in tears.

Anger: for cheating on me, not believing in me or us, not taking a chance, and of course in perfect Scott fashion, putting himself first.

Bargaining: prayer at China Beach, out the apartment window, in the car at the Golden Gate, anywhere. Everywhere. The streets of San Francisco are saturated with my prayers. I'll do anything to get him back, dear God. 

Depression: going strong, all winter long.

Acceptance: this is recent, so I don't trust it. I hope that every time it creeps in and goes away a bit of it remains. Like a hangover. He is a hangover: the terrible present remnant of a past joy. 

Not Perfection

Hopefully this will make sense one day. We are through. He is my ex, and I his. I entered this relationship with no expectations and exited feeling that I had lost out on being his wife and somebody’s mother. But I also left loving a wonderful man. And he loved me too. And he does not love easily. He claims to not be ‘fit to be anybody’s boyfriend right now’. I told him that he just let the best woman of his life go and he claimed that I was probably right.

He needs to be alone right now. And honestly, that sounds lovely. Being without him is degrees more pleasant than being with him. I really mean this. That’s nice to know. 

If is successfully make it through the next 22 minutes I would have survived one day in three weeks without crying. My progress is slow, but I suppose that’s the nature of progress. 

Update:  I didn’t make it the 22 minutes.

Your love life's DOA

The bubble bath went wrong last night; I lost the initial solace it was meant to deliver and instead tried to drown myself. I’d be free, at least. But it’s too erratic, and I’d ultimately be running away from my problems. I must remember that everything won’t always be easy. This is what people mean when they say that relationships are work. Here’s what I need to remember to maintain healthy perspective:

1.     He cannot be the source of my happiness. If he is, I will end up in the bathtub again

2.     I am not a priority in his life and he shouldn’t be one in mine

3.     I have a million more important things to do than think about him

4.     Let it happen, don’t control

So there’s the bullshit wish list. Time will tell all. Thanks for the idea, Monica. 

Pole Position

This is written by the hand of a woman who has gained far greater clarity than she’d ever hoped. I realize that it wasn’t me he broke up with—but the version of me I chose to present to him every day. He never knew me because I was a totally different person around him, and one that she happened to dislike.

All of my relationships go sour when I switch over like this. It’s when I starting expecting, which leads to getting let down which leads to playing silent sulky games out of disappointment. I hate this version of myself, but I can’t get her to go the fuck away. I call this the hurricane. It swoops me up and I get dizzy and enthralled in its cyclone of shit. Instead of communicating in a healthy and normal way, which I am capable of doing, I resort to pouting and bitchiness. So, I become super Persian. No, that’s not fair. It’s more truthful and fair to say that I become my mother.

I need this behavior to stop. The Taoist mentality is vital here. Don’t analyze, just exercise patience. Things always end up working out the way that they’re supposed to. Eh, fuck fatalism. Just BE ME. But who the hell is that? I can only say that the game is over. Prepare to disqualify. 

The Break-up Blues

A broken heart cannot function. The main organ to survival has been pulverized and made its host immobile. So is me. I anxiously await days when smile and curiosity are genuine, when I stray from the self-absorbed obsessive organism of myself and bask in something else. Something more human. More humane. I stopped listening to people’s words weeks ago. I can’t even hear them.

Hope is the only sustenance for an otherwise hollow and emaciated heart. With this it scrambles for its other pieces albeit solely, and fixes itself back. I end with this hope for hope. 

Pussywillow

Tonight for the first time in four years I told a boy that I was falling in love with him, and I even meant it. There are many ways of concluding this, but as history and experience have suggested the best way to measure love is to evaluate one’s feeling around the person. And around him, I feel like the most important, smartest, prettiest girl in history. And though previous lovers naturally lead to skepticisms, I feel totally confident in my feelings.

He stated earlier that he holds back saying things because he doesn’t want to scare me off, I told him that the first three months of any relationship are the greatest because of those feelings which he is afraid to express, and so he should communicate them. As naïve as they may be. And then I reminded him that there won’t be a ‘first three months’ to our relationship ever again after this so we should live it up. 

Time Takes Time

36 years-old and the sweet dream of playing the poet in the sonnet of my life has lost its airy nature. I have realized that I spend a lot of time planning. Despite the usual (budget, work, random beauty secret of the week) I then plan a time to be happy. And it never comes. It’s very waiting for Godot. And I’m very much sitting atop that fictional hill and thinking that something better will come along any moment and fix everything. What was that thing about carpe diem, again? 

Download Spirals

I met a boy named D* who lives in Prescott, AZ. He is funny and smart and laughs at my jokes and he’s cute. I think. That’s the only thing, I have to go by the pictures. Internet dating…where can it all go? All I know is that we’ve talked on the phone every night for a month and I’m not bored. That’s good enough for me. It’s the newness I love. My newness. Let's wait till my novelty wears off, but until then...let's carpe the fuck out of this diem. 

His Verb Tense is Present

He held my hand, and while letting it go advised me to write a poem. A boy who likes my poetry…amazing. “You are magic,” I once wrote in a letter which I never intended to give him. Because what came after that sentence was sabotage.

He was the first person to hold my hand in this way. He was infatuated with every finger and made sure not to miss a single nail-scrape with our respective digits along the way. Holden Caulfield once said that you can tell a lot about a person (or was it a relationship?) by how they hold your hand.  I think he was talking about Jane.

While he affectionately—although obsessively—took heed of the tactile prowess of each knuckle, I gently took my hand away. Thinking about the letter. Thinking I should give it to him. I took my hand away before I could notice the perfect fit of our hands…enough to make Ronin angry for dying before sculpting this perfect fit. These nails are knives and my hand, when departing his, cut a little of his hand. “That’ll scab nicely,” I reassured him.

He smiled. And I realized the toxicity of giving that letter. What was once my Shakespearian truth isn’t any longer: “where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles.” This isn’t mine anymore. They don’t cut, they heal. In his world of linguistic genius, he would shudder at this syntax. But somehow I doubt it, for he told me never to doubt myself.  So, at least for today, he will not be recognized as a ‘was’. He is an ‘is’. I may get used to it…maybe.

Carpe This Fucking Diem

My nerves have been unmanageable when I think about revealing a certain message to the boyfriend. I believe I am falling in love with him. Why would I be afraid to say this to him? I mean, I could die tomorrow and he would hypothetically never know. Maybe his response to the words scares me. This is, however, the elixir of life. Falling in love is what makes it worthwhile to think of being 80 years old and not having stuck a bullet in your head. Maybe I’m just not ready. Bullshit. I’m just scared. Carpe diem, carpe diem, carpe diem.  Blerg.

Big Fun

For the first time in years I considered putting a bullet in my head. I mean this metaphorically, of course; really, I’m just talking about killing myself.  Then I remember something I wrote in high school. It wasn’t important at the time or profound, but it ended up summing up my thoughts exactly: “I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to drive”.  The extremist sometimes becomes the problem-solver who sometimes becomes the drunk. It’s about control either way. 

What is Love?

Sometimes it feels as though I’m one of the horny guys from ‘Night at the Roxbury’. As if the whole of my existence or at least the goal of the night is to have a throw with someone. Anyone. It makes me wonder, though. Do the boys make the night or do I? Is the success of the night contingent on this attention from men? At 2am I called two boys about after hours and was let down. But the mornings with these boys are imminent and this is when self-reflection prevails. So perhaps it is best my night at the Roxbury was unfulfilling. 

Ani

He told me I was beautiful, then asked if I believed him. “It depends,” I responded “do you mean it”? He did, and there were no doubts in my mind.

My penmanship has regressed to that of a very organized middle school student. I suppose, like this imaginary tween, I too am changing every day. Mutually exclusive of my recently transformed font is that way in which I perceive my surroundings. They are new, yet the same. The point of view is new…that ‘s the secret to it. I read a lot about this in literary handbooks which I deemed futile at the time, but now I live the definition. Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right, and this beauty which was once haunting now captivates me in a newly painted world. One that, strangely, never actually changed. 

Network

"You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays"

Mr. Lyon and Signs

My room is surrounded with water that I don’t drink. Bottles that won’t think and that I won’t drink.  The 2:1 ratio of hydrogen to oxygen is supposed to be good for me. My high school chemistry teacher once referred to water as “the ultimate solvent”. So why can’t it solve anything right now? This teacher also had a picture of his wife swimming in a hotel pool with Ozzy Osbourne, so maybe I shouldn’t count on his judgment.

I often adopt new theories or idioms to live by. I try and I fail. Ironically, they make me feel worse. But why scramble to find a life motto? What exactly do I need to take guardianship over in order to help me? A proverb can only go so far.

Maybe a good friend…fair and, yet, invisible friend. I turn to you, and how I would cry…and your smile would turn to bite. In the spirit of self-healing, since wisdom and companionship have failed, I turn [appropriately] to myself. But, the pain and confusion reigns. What am I looking for? A new speed or mode. Modes are simply that—same in the Persian ‘mod’—a transient thing. Suggesting the universality of languages. And that I’m really confused.

Some of the water bottles are halfway empty [I know]. I’ll keep drinking to see if it helps. If it ultimately solves as the teacher said. I’ll hold on while I can muster the energy to grip the bottle. 

The Cold Floor Kids

This disconnect is hard to explain. It isn’t familiar or irritating. It isn’t offering any cold comfort nor is it pulling me into a vortex of self-destruction. It’s just an unmagnetic feeling taken over me in relation to everything: writing, breathing, fucking, laughing…

This could be due to the absence of a real hobby, a real love, a real reason. I just know that I sit on this kitchen floor and debate what to do next. I attempt living by the refrigerator-poetry I have affixed to the door: you are only as deep as the depth of your interests. 

Where’s the proverb and wisdom about the ones with no interests? Forever in search for the poem telling me that it’s ok to feel nothing.

Jigsaw

He told me that he liked me because of the happy sound in his voice—apparently I put it there, and he appreciates that. “You bring me quite a bit of happiness,” he admitted. He is totally the puzzle piece. He fits. His sense of humor and conversation make sense. Even I can’t complain…well….

And while this may be read many years from now through the eyes of ‘The ex-girlfriend,’ his girlfriend is writing things now. Why this constant battle with pessimism? Because it’s all I know. But , pessimism is for the weak. It’s too easy. I’ll try and enjoy the beauty in all this while ignoring the searing expiration date stamped across our dynamic in neon-ink. 

Yesteryear with Bowie

*By lingering on who you were, you prevent who you have become

A pot calls the kettle black. The pot wants to take it back. One can’t find more wrong in anything like they can with the past. It’s so reliable. And things that happen in there—only happen in your mind. 

Daggers

Although I am a writer, I have nothing to write. Perhaps I’ve pumped dry the wells of the past. I’ve grown weary of my past as a writer. Perhaps it can serve as the subject for someone else’s poem.

The present is simple and here. It is almost too simple to be written about. At the very least, too fleeting. Besides, as compared to the past, it can be controlled and manipulated right NOW, adding that much more pressure to achieve and succeed. 

Write that poem, idiot!

Alas, the present bores me. So naturally, I’ll turn to the future. Pregnant with dreams, possibilities and…other boring things like that. I’ve lost interest in time, I think. Each mode, moment, state inspires me to put two letter Xs on my eyes and take a nap for a while. But, I must find something in all this. Some beauty here [to write on]. [dangling parti....who cares]

Ephemera

Borges, someone told me, realized his own mortality when entering a gigantic library filled with thousands upon thousands of books and suddenly put the fact together that he cannot possibly live long enough to read all of them. 

What does this have to do with anything? I should fucking read more. But I don’t like Borges. 

Hide and Peek

I suppose there’s a ball. One that I could crawl into. I wonder, however, if this tale entails my body’s distortion, because I just don’t feel up for it. 

Your breath

 I spend my nights creating tomorrow’s hangover. 

I spent all of my 20s waiting for someone to call me. And in my waiting, I kept leaving. The time that passes hits me like bad breath and my reaction is the same: turn the other way. 

Taming

Regrettably, inspiration escaped hours ago. But I, being the stubborn fighter that I am, picked up my pen (sword, bla) to attempt the amazing.

I wonder why I’m scared. Love. I try to convince myself I don’t believe in it, nor in its calculated numbing tendencies. That’s what love does, or at least the notion of it; love makes everything better. Before it makes everything worse.

But, I feel it now. Suddenly. Thrusting towards me. His hands are a companion. His hands I want to hold. One would think I’d cry more. He’s definitely one to cry over. He is magic.

I will allow him to penetrate into every drop of existence I can possibly tolerate. Says the shrew. But I don’t want to fall in love with him. The departure would be too painful. Love is fleeting. Is this wise or ignorant? Am I hurling the cup of life to the ground? Shattering it intentionally? Have I, as the old knight would disappointingly testify, chosen poorly? Is the unexamined life not worth living or the unlived one. Precautions can sometimes ruin the beauty that could be. 

Descartes

The more one thinks about something the more they understand it.
-Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

...and yet

Analysis is Paralysis
-Something I heard once and continuously say to calm myself down

...and yet

The unexamined life is not worth living 

...and yet

Ignorance is Bliss

Enter: lemniscate

There are No Stupid Questions

I scared off another one and currently berating myself for my incessant need to know what’s going on. Instant replays, flashbacks, split seconds and detailed play-by-plays are what drive me to the brink of asking this question. For fear of being led on and the fact that I’m super confused and it took this guy 9 texts to ask me out, I asked.

Instead of berating myself for inability to ‘go with the flow’ I must accept instead the fact that I will never be able to ‘go with the flow’ and the only time I’ve ever come close is when I have the assurance of his interest. Ten years of dating and I just figured it out…yet I still feel that I know nothing. 

Rivers in Egypt

It isn’t surprising that a month has gone by since my last entry. It feels unnatural to do anything ever since I decided…that I had a drinking problem. I suppose it’s incorrect and misleading to recognize this problem in the past tense. I have a very real present tense problem. I can’t only have one glass of wine yet I assume, at the check stand every night, which it is feasible. And then I sneak the bottles out so that my amazingly centered and drink-free boyfriend remains unaware. But I know that he knows. We both pretend. So, in the end, I hope I remember how happy I was on in my last sober entry and that it could have been the start of a truly beautiful thing. 

Tryst

Nine hours after the first one of our pack got married. Depressing. Not for the newly married but for the hopeless spectator who views love with the utmost skepticism. The love that my friend feels for and receives from her husband shows that I can at least see a semblance of good in marriage. I just don’t think I’d be happy if they were my nuptials. I can’t hang around one person for too long—we’d mutually annoy each other to no end. I don’t feel inclined to fall into this institution; certain people are good mothers, while more than the majority are capable of bearing children. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And what are the odds that you and that kid will be complementary to the husband/man in your life?

A friend earlier tried to emphasize the errors of my perspective arguing that I should get married as “everyone is put on this planet for a reason.” "Yeah," I replied, "mine is to write books." That shut him up. I guess my priorities weren't what he expected. 

Felicity

Somehow I’ve changed and I’m skeptical believing that it’s for the better. For a girl with no expectations, I seem to get disappointed fairly easy. Getting a PhD meant redefining myself, and showing that person off…whoever she is…in whatever light I chose. Why didn’t I realize the absurdity in this expectation? Why did I want to ‘redefine’ myself when I had never actually been defined at all. I still have no idea who I am, ironically less so than before. 

Cutting

“Deafening my pillow with the screams I throw into it.” A perfect way to begin a poem, I thought. But poetry has become an intimidating word. I once leaped to embrace it, not caring where I fell but I now fear it with all my life. I do to the words now what I am guilty of doing to myself: force beauty out of nothing.

Fiery passion, which once filled pages and books with a passionate fury, couldn’t even light a cigarette now. Rhymes are for nursery tales…and I’m the jaded scholar…tired of poems because I’ve read too many. I can no longer take heed to dactylic meter, nor do I care much for alliteration. What was art to me is now hanging in “drafty museums.” Plath? How fitting, yet not fitting at all.

My verbal embrace has lost its edge. It used to cut. I would scream—not into pillows, but unto paper. Blank, hollow, virgin sheets of paper—impregnated by my pen. Is this what happens to old whores? They fade away? Forever? Perhaps this is the beginning. Perhaps I’ll take control of what’s mine again. 

Misanthrope?

Somewhere, people are talking for hours. Somewhere, people are interesting. Somewhere I’m not.

Blaming others in this feels petty. It’s too easy. Others are none of my doing or responsibility. To talk, no— to converse, is to be alive. So, I suppose, I am guilty of a daily suicide. Carpe diem? If only someone would write a book about it…again. I should probably go talk to someone. That is the first step to conversing, after all. But these steps sound exhausting. I’ll just blame others. 

I am Blue and Unwell

I am blue and unwell                   -J. Newsom

....now it’s done. A boy. Don’t meet them at bars. I have to accept the fact that I’m cursed. I should stop trying. Three dates, sex once. Dinner, cocktails and the realization that he’s ‘just not that into me’.

I am not upset that we won’t be moving forward—he’s a frat boy who spit all the time and interrupted me constantly. I’m upset that I fucked it up by my aggressive behavior. He says my bossiness was the deal breaker. Is it time to change now? I really don’t want to. I genuinely like myself. But let’s face facts. Something needs to happen because whatever I’m doing isn’t working; perhaps tweaking some dating behavior wouldn’t be so bad…actually…No.  Now that I’ve come to think of it, I’ve had plenty of men in my life who loved my personality. He’s just an over-sensitive wuss. 

The Purge

Right now I am drunk and about to throw up the pizza that the delivery man just brought me. I would like to believe that this will one day end. That I won’t be haunted by alcohol or food. That I can get a glass of wine at dinner with friend and be free from neurotic behavior.

But today I am eating alone. And drinking alone. And purging alone. It wasn’t so bad sober. So why did I go back? One reason, one answer: it’s easier. It’s not my style, but I took the easy way. Even though I have learned the hard way, that what comes easy, comes wrong. 

Vampira

I celebrate myself. I found joy—at least for one night. I celebrate myself because I’m not searching for the destroyer of beauty. I cease to lurk in dark corners of my mind for things left unsaid and undone—or even worst—for those things actually spoken and acted on. If this feeling of complete acceptance be for only one night, so be it. I do not claim perfection, nor do I savor consistency. I am imperfect and progressive. I celebrate the night. This night. But reaching further than this, I celebrate myself for allowing the night to permeate through me. 

The Gashlycrumb Tinies-Ed Gorey

A is for awesome, all over my heart.

Neon

The eager blinking of the answering machine light which jubilantly indicates a message of hope only crushes you when the voice coming out of the machine isn’t his. 

Homeless

This Spring Break bears the anti-climaticism of New Year’s Eve. Time with my family is misspent—if spent at all. Most friends seem to have flittered away—withered, as opposed to the live flowers I came to enjoy. I find myself explaining my current rite of passage to these now-strangers over cups of coffee. Every time I come back it seems to get worse. I feel like I’ve changed, or maybe it’s this city. Whatever it is, being here disorients me. I want to be happy—pray, eat, smile, laugh, karaoke, dance…I just want to feel at home in my hometown. 

Peppered In

The past two weeks would tell the story of a girl trying to get through the day—and in-between the times he’s calling or texting, she squeezes in the mundane and petty activities she had formerly known as ‘her life’. These include working out, drinking water, not boozing during the week, tanning, school, playing with dog, avoiding annoying roommate, cleaning/thinking about cleaning my room, teaching, working at the curriculum development place, smelling good, and keeping up with friends. These are the things I ‘fill my time up with’ in the between his texts and calls which occur about every two days.

It’s gotten better than it was in the past. I’m maintaining my sense of self. Making him not the whole pie but just a few pieces. Now to reduce the size of his pie in my life, really not to realize that that catalogue of activities is what gives my meaning, value, color and purpose. 

Homesick

I feel ungrateful for failing to see my hometown as heaven but it feels so terrible here. Everyone is unhappy and confused. About directions and themselves. I guess the six little words in the cliché are true: you can never go home again. 

Home

Though I am on vacation, ironically I’m also at home. Referring to where I am now as ‘home’ however, feels forced. I’m inclined to employ purgatorial vocabulary and metaphors  to explain the phenomenon. Both hometown and college town feel like home, so I don’t know which would be the heaven and which the hell were I to truly execute the metaphor.  

Bound

I wish to be freed from the mental shackle of men—keeping me bound to myself and causing more calamity than I thought possible. When the cycles and waves in my mind, patterns of my soul, and movements of my body loafe together in balance, I may then share these internal and external forces with one another set them to song. But, my trinity is unable to hum let alone sing, and only solitude may aid in their harmony. 

Hale-Bop

I had a lovely conversation with a comet earlier this evening. A dazzling and breathtaking comet at that. Before we encountered one another, I had one hundred million tense muscles—each bearing a small pulse, beating, haunting me through my skin. After our exchange, I felt without bones let alone muscles.

Perhaps I healed myself, but this recovery is often sought and rarely found. My star spangle in the sky simultaneously inspired welcome words to my mind and heart. The gas and dust of the comet has cleared my mind, and even stranger, increased my appreciation for whatever falls below it. 

Changes

One such day could ruin the rest. The one when you realize there’s no way to change the things about you that you’d like to change. To live in the course of nature and accept things is far too simple…and absurd. Simpleton notions are ones I need to breathe in like the spores of a pollinating flower. This is me, who I am, what I say and how I live. I need to accept that these aspects may be unattractive but beautiful, as is their bearer. 

Bittersweet

Goodbyes are so bittersweet no matter what the circumstance. I use ‘sweet’ only under which the context of goodbyes should be put; I use ‘bitter’ for what they actually are. Whether short and sweet or endless and tear-bearing, the hurt creates a piercable and meek shield around me, which I try to strengthen but unfortunately know of its weaknesses. I feel like these awkward embraces are slowly becoming less awkward, only because I know it’s not really goodbye. 

Elm St.

I’ve realized many things in the past—and upon discovery, threw them in a box, never considering to uncover their details. Tonight one such realization occurred to me, ancient yet important. The one of my happiness—or whatever closest to it I can attain—disappearing for no good reason when in the mode of ‘crush’. I fall apart only because I am undoing the seams and lose my voice because I thrown all my dongs into the sea. All of this is in my hands. The hopelessness of it torturing me then, and partially now, can die through the hands of its possessor. I am the girl who killed the dream and replaced it with a nightmare. I sleep now to face this. 

Splicing

There are nights I miss him more than others. Tonight is one such night. The brooding, or shall I say longing, began earlier this evening when a friend asked if he was my "first true love." I stumble when trying to answer such Romantic questions, often posed by little girls...but it's a real question. I'll try to answer it attributing a separate concept to each word in the trilogy.


"First": So ideal and childish. Why does order matter so much for lovers? Does the first really indicate the primary? Does it imply the truer and more special love than any i will [hopefully] ever have in the future?

And "Love": Pregnant. I, as a lover, don't know what it means or symbolizes. Many languages don't even have a word--implying its surreal nature (word?). I can't grasp the poetry or the science of it. Emotion and pragmatism lie buried under a dirty heap of ignorance. It is a question fit for the great scholars and philosophers at the time when fat women reigned. These philosophers would only answer questions with more questions, in the form of hyperbolic syllogisms. Further giving their audience of lovers more to muse.



"True": Is not as childish as the prior term when it pertains to love, but a source of pressure for the lover. How can one ever affirm that it's real? As if it's a home appliance or a mountain. Lovers cannot tangibly see or manipulate, only feel and think. With the overabundance of peril and unknowing contained in those last two acts, how can one judge anything based on them?

So, while standing in front of a pool table, with a Bud Light in hand--for it was not to be taken outside--and a cigarette between my unmanicured fingertips, it was difficult to answer my friend's question. I stalled while trying though, assuming that perhaps an acute moment of bravado may appear and bring wisdom with it...allowing me to answer. But I just replied with "yeah," because the latter would have taken too long.
X

Away We Go!

Friends and myself=group. I despise groups=self-ostracism. There is, however, one personal goal which is challenged by my feelings towards people: I wish to be good. How can I expect to exercise…or even contain virtue when the idea of intermingling with the people repulses me? This aggressively independent one: trapped between herself and what she wants.

Being alone doesn’t mean lonely, but it’s starting to. Holding hands with oneself loses that element of spontaneity, and one tires of laughing at her own jokes. So…do I change? Overrated. Acceptance? I’m too jaded. Normalcy? Invisible. Honestly, answers are boring when the question isn’t interesting. 

Just Enjoying the Sunshine

My life has become so easy to live that it makes me sick. I’ve realized the futility of lists and declarations, while self-loathing has failed to provide a stimulus. I have reached a point of deep, deep lowness. I think of doing nothing interesting while the days are filled [in an attempt to pass time] [only to do the same thing tomorrow] with TV, food, booze and cigarettes. Somewhere in that mix I squeeze in some phone calls. And that’s literally all I do. I can’t make another list preparing for such things as sobriety, exercise, sewing, and early slumber. But I also can’t continue like this. I will seriously die. Either from depression, substance, boredom or all three. 

Letter-Writing is a Dead Art No More

Dear Farrah,

One drink is never one drink. You are not able to live that lifestyle—no matter how much you want it. It’s not because you’re weak, but because you’re human and all humans have imperfections. I don’t want yours to be where you put a shotgun to your head.

It was boring sober, but it was livable, feasible, and functional. Besides to be totally honest, you were happier too. If anything, everything feels so much worse right now. 

Last Page of My Diary

In the spirit of total disclosure: I feel no interest in filling this page. While packing my home in this dusty desert town, I came across this book and thought it fit to fill what I assumed was the last page with thoughts, fears, trepidations and hopes of the future. These include Wisconsin to learn Turkish, Turkey to research, Tucson to collect belongings, back to CA to return car, DC to write dissertation, and London to continue on with lovely and incredible man named J*. 

Running with Scissors--review

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Has anyone ever noticed the prominence of incest and fellatio which manages to slither into creative non-fiction pieces set in the 1970s? What is that?

And why is every girl in these stories pregnant with such incredible urgency and quirkiness? It's fucking exhausting.


View all my reviews

Getting Turked

I am cognizant of the fact that upon its perusal in coming years, the following sentence will be met with disappointment and a devilish grin, but I will still write it: I have to go to Istanbul in five weeks and I’m scared to death.

The anxiety stems from lack of language/knowledge of culture, having to find somewhere to live for a month, and—ever so frightful—being by myself. Although there will be a friend living there and a girl travelling with me part of the time, I feel helpless and without any sense of control.

Again, I’m sure it will be fine. And I hope (maybe tomorrow?) to start looking at this as an adventure rather than the scary monster haunting my head and disturbing my wake.

Rainbows and Dragons

I embarked in a grand gesture of hope today: to start the pill after you meet someone. Today it’s a 33 year old handsome Midwesterner. I still carry around the possibility that I’m cursed. A few months ago I realized that I’m actually just a bitch. So, I stopped being a bitch. Then I met him. 

It’s not going to stop/till you wise up

I don’t know where to start. Maybe a list:

Family: Two grandmothers and my favorite uncle have died in the last two months. I miss my mom and have suddenly become conscious of my dad’s mortality. I’m fairly convinced that my sister thinks I’m the worst.

Friends: I want a buddy.

School: I may go to Turkey to study the Iranian trans community. For fear of governmental repercussions opted out of Iran. In all honesty though, I want to drop out. I’m suddenly aware of how futile this is and can’t help from asking myself “who cares”?

Boys: I’ve been waiting for a boy to call me since my early 20s. I’m bored and defeated. Today is a casual and dirty boy named Dan.

Me: Great, but slightly jaded from all this. 

My Ex-boyfriend's Baby

Strange to be in Tucson again sometimes. I’ve been overly conscious of my loneliness lately. If only to have a companion. At this time last year, Will and I were preparing for Vegas. His baby will be born any day now. He seems a million miles ago. I miss the friend not the boyfriend. We hated the same people and found absurdity in the same things. That’s friendship to me. That’s what I miss. 

The Owl's Graduation Cap

There are milestones that represent metamorphosis and growth, and one reaches such a stance that causes their recluse. I am at such a point. Reality is irritating me. My friends depress me. Their small lives and small dreams bore me. I refuse to admit the comparison being made between them and me, but I don’t admit something rotten is going on. I am Denmark.

My academic career is fascinating me lately; is the most acute case of a love-hate relationship. I want to drop out of the doctoral program but that presents itself as the most nauseating and rancid thing I could ever do. Where the hell would I go and why? Some people are destined or made for it. And I am not. Education is my field, and I will undergo all the steps it takes to reach my scholarly pursuits, I set them and will continue to learn every step of the way. 

Beauty in All This

summer as a season is still with us. Summer as a vacation has excused itself and I am happy to say that I sodomized the fucker. After a notorious battle resulting in self-defeat (I was bound to win or lose the fight against myself), I realize that my ammunition and artillery of wine, cigarettes and unrealistic romantic expectations was illogical. So, I went to CA. it would be more appropriate to describe the departure as getting the hell out of Tucson. The past six weeks in SJ were a mish-mash of sobriety, an intense isogenix cleanse, exercise, friends and dad.

Luckily, the good habits followed me back to Tucson. I guess what they say about 30 days to create a habit is true. I’m exercising every day, eating well, drinking only on weekends and most importantly, deal with the boredom which used to lead to my excessive drinking by remember Jung’s statement that “neurosis stems from man’s attempt to escape life’s legitimate suffering”. So, I finally realize, this is as good as it gets. And I’m finally trying to settle in and make the most of it. 

Copperstar

I live in Tucson again. In a condo that comes equipped with a gym, two parking spots and fun neighbors. What I brought from Monterey was two dogs, some clothes, a car and a drinking problem. It is the last which I wish to discuss now.

My every night is entangled and enmeshed and enraptured with drink. This has resulted in a complete lack of productivity and confidence.  Consequently, I have received an Incomplete for film class and played mistress with an engaged man. A friend reminded me of my abilities and my potential to triumph. She said to have faith in myself. Now it’s the girl in the mirror I need to convince. 

Balding Ivy

I forgot the year earlier today. How tacky would it be to write “that is so me”? For the sake of remaining original, I digress. Life is a strange kind of topsy-turvy. I just realized that I’m really silly, but I get so serious. Or maybe I’m just serious and I sometimes get silly. Hmmm.

Grad school research has taken me on an interesting path the past few days. It originated as a search for schools/profs, but resulted in my current murky mire: scouting out a new topic. Khayyam apparently wasn’t cutting the scholarly cheese. It’s overdone and boring. I have a Princeton prof. sending me untouched material in the canons of Persian literature. How cheesy to shop buy in reality I did jump to the Rubaiyaat without considering any other works. My reasoning was that I’d read so much of the works in Hagigi’s class that I’d “been there, done that” (how horrible). But, I was really just being an asshole. An assuming (assumptive?) asshole. I didn’t research my research field. I took the first idea that was offered. Usually it is a wonderful and instinctive quality that draws one to that sort of thing, but it was just laziness and ignorance. I took, at first what I was given and Romanticized it. Hopefully, Princeton will tickle my fancy, even though he’s bald and lives in Jersey. 

Hailstorm

We broke up. This seems less than surprising, and I am less than impressed with his or my behavior. He claimed to no longer be ‘stoked’ as his 23 year-old mentality is wont to do and I finally had to face the fact that it hasn’t been good for months. The handsomeness and party kept me entangled in his mess. I realize now that it is not enough. 

Just the Facts, Ma'am

I will not focus on the things I neglect. I will not abuse myself for the things I ‘don’t do’ which I believe may make me happier. I will instead post facts:

1-     I am dating a 23 year old man.

2-     He acts 23

3-     I am 32 years-old

4-     I am moving to AZ in two months and will, consequently, be apart from him

5-     My faith is shaken by relationships past

6-     I have received discouraging words from friends

7-     Taking away someone’s hope is tragic and unfair

So, what to do? This boy can’t handle a woman. He’s not a man yet, and I’m not interested in being the one who teaches him how to be one…or to wait until he is. At this point I wonder why I even bother; most of the relationship is a disappointment and I’m exhausted from feeling second best—to his friends. I am SO available because I don’t know how else to be. 

What it was like: Monterey & Tucson

8 September 2008

I have quit drinking during the week and all it took was some mild brain-washing from a life coach neighbor—former NYPD. Somehow, while speaking with him, something clicked and I realized that I am a slave to my desires and ignore intelligent forces within. And last weekend, I drank like a normal person. I never needed Dumbo’s feather. It’s within me.

13 October 2008
Something strange has taken over. I can be honest about the pervasive loneliness of my days and nights—but honestly it makes me feel defeated. As a single, successful 31 year-old woman I’m supposed to bask in my achievements in independence, or so the magazines tell me, but instead I find myself reliving moments with men who eventually chose anything but to have me in their lives. It’s easy to feel sorry for myself, but it’s just as easy to declare a change. Either effort is futily exerted effort. 

21 October 2008
Last night I made out with four boys. Tonight I am alone and incredibly sad. Of the four it is the one who seems to show the least interest to which I have taken a shine. Of course. 

11 November 2008
Farrah: I’m gonna get you to tell me your secret.
Alex: I’m in love with you. 

And that was that. 

23 February 2009
Much time has passed since my last entry. Probably because I spend most of it with a wonderful man who fulfills me. There are no complaints—except one, from him: my drinking. This has resurfaced into a potential detriment to a relationship. He told me to fix it or he would leave. It wasn’t as so much a threat as it was a testament to what he is able to tolerate. I appreciate his honesty and wonder why I am so reluctant to undergo this change that I so badly want myself. 

21 May 2009
I will not focus on the things I neglect. I will not abuse myself for the things I ‘don’t do’ which I believe may make me happier. I will instead post facts:

1. I am dating a 23 year old man. 

2. He acts 23

3. I am 32 years-old

4. I am moving to AZ in two months and will, consequently, be apart from him

5. My faith is shaken by relationships past

6. I have received discouraging words from friends

7. Taking away someone’s hope is tragic and unfair

So, what to do? This boy can’t handle a woman. He’s not a man yet, and I’m not interested in being the one who teaches him how to be one…or to wait until he is. At this point I wonder why I even bother; most of the relationship is a disappointment and I’m exhausted from feeling second best—to his friends. I am SO available because I don’t know how else to be. 

10 June 2009
We broke up. This seems less than surprising, and I am less than impressed with his or my behavior. He claimed to no longer be ‘stoked’ as his 23 year-old mentality is wont to do and I finally had to face the fact that it hasn’t been good for months. The handsomeness and party kept me entangled in his mess. I realize now that it is not enough. 

25 June 2009
Last night would have marked our 10 months. And in the big picture, what does that mean? Ten months of misery, cheating, questioning every text message. He was a bad guy. Still is. Yet I keep him around sexually. It’s a balance that I’m trying to establish. It will most definitely end in tears and destruction. 

1 December 2009
I live in Tucson again. In a condo that comes equipped with a gym, two parking spots and interesting neighbors. What I brought from Monterey was two dogs, some clothes, a car and a drinking problem. It is the last which I wish to discuss now. 

My every night is entangled and enmeshed and enraptured with drink. This has resulted in a complete lack of productivity and confidence.  Consequently, I have received an Incomplete for film class and played mistress with an engaged man. A friend reminded me of my abilities and my potential to triumph. She said to have faith in myself. Now it’s the girl in the mirror I need to convince. 

3 December 2009
I am mad at myself for getting involved with an unavailable man. It hurts to let him go because I will never meet such a person who made me laugh ever again. Although Dave made me laugh…so I’ve met this person in theory twice. Hmmm. 

I really dislike Will's reaction to all this. He has purposely isolated himself from me because of potential sex—even though sex wasn’t a prevalent part of our relationship—he remains scared of the potential. But that just sums it all up when it comes to all things Will: fear motivated every decision he made. Why should he stop now?  

23 February 2010
He’s like the sad silence
immediately following masturbation
That moment when the warmth and intensity
quickly escape (where do they go?)
And you’re suddenly aware—on your back, vulnerable—
Just how alone and pathetic you are.

I’m also raw to the touch, saturated
in thoughts of him,
Mentally fighting the same face
the one that delivered so much pleasure seconds prior.

He is no longer welcome in my thoughts. I’ve gotten what I needed.
Punching him in the mouth with my thoughts
Trying to escape his tortuous gaze,
His cruel smile
His light eyes…blinding sparkle causing unrest.
Now he rests uneasily upon me—
that barren silence only interrupted
by the space heater on the nightstand—
still perfectly aligned to my breasts,
but failing to serve its masturbatory purposes of sound and sensation,
It’s just a space heater. On my naked chest. That’s the thing after masturbation:
When you’re done,
Things go back
to what they are. 

25 February 2010
It wasn’t the words of an old friend who helped me tonight, but what I realized after he’d said them: I could never comfortably date Will because he did a very bad thing to his fiancée. And as much as I’d like to revel in the fact that his infidelity was not as bad because it wasn’t with a different girl from a different bar every night, but with one girl, it was still deceptive and easy. That’s the gross part. It was all too easy for him. 

19 June 2010
“I am blue and unwell”
-J. Newsom

now it’s done. A boy. Don’t meet them at bars. I have to accept the fact that I’m cursed. I should stop trying. Three dates, sex once. Dinner, cocktails and the realization that he’s ‘just not that into me’. I am not upset that we won’t be moving forward—he was a baby-carrot dick who spit all the time and interrupted me constantly. I’m upset that I fucked it up by my aggressive behavior. He says my bossiness was the deal breaker. Is it time to change now? I really don’t want to. I genuinely like myself. But let’s face facts. Something needs to happen because whatever I’m doing isn’t working; perhaps tweaking some dating behavior wouldn’t be so bad…actually…No.  Now that I’ve come to think of it, I’ve had plenty of men in my life who loved my personality. He’s just an over-sensitive pussy. 

24 August 2010
Beauty in all this

Summer as a season is still with us. Summer as a vacation has excused itself and I am happy to say that I sodomized the fucker. After a notorious battle resulting in self-defeat (I was bound to win or lose the fight against myself), I realize that my ammunition and artillery of wine, cigarettes and unrealistic romantic expectations was illogical. So, I went to CA. it would be more appropriate to describe the departure as getting the hell out of Tucson. The past six weeks in SJ were a mish-mash of sobriety, an intense isogenix cleanse, exercise, friends and dad. 

Luckily, the good habits followed me back to Tucson. I guess what they say about 30 days to create a habit is true. I’m exercising every day, eating well, drinking only on weekends and most importantly, deal with the boredom which used to lead to my excessive drinking by remember Jung’s statement that “neurosis stems from man’s attempt to escape life’s legitimate suffering”. So, I finally realize, this is as good as it gets. And I’m finally trying to settle in and make the most of it. 

27 October 2010
Strange to be in Tucson again sometimes. I’ve been overly conscious of my loneliness lately. If only to have a companion. At this time last year, Will and I were preparing for Vegas. His baby will be born any day now. He seems a million miles ago. I miss the friend, not the boyfriend. We hated the same people. We found absurdity in the same things. That’s friendship to me. That’s what I miss. 

21 February 2011
It’s not going to stop/till you wise up
-Aimee Mann

I don’t know where to start. Maybe a list:

Family: Two grandmothers and my favorite uncle have died in the last two months. I miss my mom and have suddenly become conscious of my dad’s mortality. I’m fairly convinced that my sister thinks I’m the worst. 

Friends: I want a buddy. 

School: I may go to Turkey to study the Iranian trans community. For fear of governmental repercussions opted out of Iran. In all honesty though, I want to drop out. I’m suddenly aware of how futile this is and can’t help from asking myself “who cares”?

Boys: I’ve been waiting for a boy to call me since my early 20s. I’m bored and defeated. Today is a casual and dirty boy named Dan. 

Me: Great, but slightly jaded from all this. 

10 March 2011
My new philosophy on dating: do what you want, just don’t overstay your welcome. 

5 April 2011
The grand gesture of hope: start the pill after you meet someone. Today it’s a 33 year old handsome Midwesterner. I still carry around the possibility that I’m cursed. A few months ago I realized that I’m actually just a bitch. So, I stopped being a bitch. Then I met him. 

19 April 2011
The past two weeks would tell the story of a girl trying to get through the day—and in-between the times he’s calling or texting, she squeezes in the mundane and petty activities she had formerly known as ‘her life’. These include working out, drinking water, not boozing during the week, tanning, school, playing with dog, avoiding annoying roommate, cleaning/thinking about cleaning my room, teaching, working at the curriculum development place, smelling good, and keeping up with friends back home. These are the things I ‘fill my time up with’ in the between his texts and calls which occur about every two days. 

It’s gotten better than it was in the past. I’m maintaining my sense of self. Making him not the whole pie but just a few pieces. Now to reduce the size of his pie in my life--If only to live life based on the realization that that catalogue of activities is what gives my meaning, value, color and purpose. 

2 May 2011
I scared off another one and currently berating myself for my incessant need to know what’s going on. Instant replays, flashbacks, split seconds and detailed play-by-plays are what drive me to the brink of asking this question. For fear of being led on and the fact that I’m super confused and it took this guy 9 texts to ask me out, I asked. 

Instead of berating myself for my inability to ‘go with the flow’ I must accept instead the fact that I will never be able to ‘go with the flow’ and the only time I’ve ever come close is when I have the assurance of his interest. Ten years with this book and I just figured it out…yet I still feel that I know nothing. 

5 May 2011
I am cognizant of the fact that upon its perusal in the coming years, the following sentence will be met with disappointment and a devilish grin, but I will still write it: I have to go to Istanbul in five weeks and I’m scared to death. 

The anxiety stems from lack of language/knowledge of culture, having to find somewhere to live for a month, and—ever so frightful—being by myself. Although there will be a friend living there and a girl travelling with me part of the time, I feel helpless and without any sense of control. 

Again, I’m sure it will be fine. And I hope (maybe tomorrow?) to start looking at this as an adventure rather than the scary monster haunting my head and disturbing my wake.

13 June 2012
In the spirit of total disclosure: I feel no interest in filling this page. While packing my home in this dusty desert town, I came across this book and thought it fit to fill what I assumed was the last page with thoughts, fears, trepidations and hopes of the future. this includes Wisconsin to learn Turkish, Turkey to research, Tucson to collect belongings, back to CA to return car, DC to write dissertation, and London to continue on with a lovely and incredible man named Johann. 

But this wasn’t the last page, so I’ll leave it. 

Sep 4, 2012
One drink is never one drink. You are not able to live that lifestyle—no matter how much you want it. It’s not because you’re weak, but because you’re human and all humans have imperfections. I don’t want yours to be where you put a shotgun to your head.

It was boring sober, but it was livable, feasible, and functional. Besides to be totally honest, you were happier too. If anything, everything feels so much worse right now.