Phoenician

I.               I think my body is getting sick. I know my mind is already infested with something, at least lately. Love is looking fairly bleak and my tendencies towards the dramatic heavily contribute to this conclusion. I envy the Phoenix’s rise—where did it find the courage? To burn in your own fire and in those ashes sounds comforting. Self-pity has comfortably and marvelously settled upon, instead of the ashes of my rebirth. It triggers no reaction. I fail to rise.

II.              That was the coward’s half. This half I will give to the heroes. Their rise. Surviving and strengthening from their own wounds. They grow from the ability to stretch it out, cleanse it off and discuss this warrior’s rise in all its stages. This is the introduction to their story, and I now depart to set fire to this first half, so as to rise at the end with the other warriors. 

Periods or Commas

I suppose too that this is an important facet: S*, the boy I’m dating became a statistic tonight; another one who bit the dust to declare his love for me—for the first time—drunk from a battle of whiskey. In an email…he wrote “I’ve had trouble avoiding punctuating each sentence with I love you, I love you, I love you..” and I freaked out. He didn’t fall in love with me, but my persona. The concept of me. And I’ll continue to present her until her novelty wears off. Until the pleasure gained from the charm and  the wit enervate and my reality creeps in. Then I’ll watch him run. 

Bridal Veils

I despumated him—from my life and my thoughts. We arrived at the overrated conifers of Yosemite and while feigning enthusiasm for its towering mountaintops and shooting waterfalls, I ceased feigning affections. It had reached its end much earlier, but I was not yet ready to say goodbye. A road trip was a bad time to reach that point, but so is life. I was tired of playing a game I hated for a prize I didn’t care for—but time worked in my favor, as time is wont to do. I was neglected and devalued to the point that I bid him farewell and asked for a rescue from my sister while I sat on a suitcase on a street corner like a hobo. He called three times to apologize and I responded with ‘OK. But this really doesn’t matter anymore’.

So that’s that and it’s ok. I feel great. It’s sad when I think about his beautiful arms or the one time he served me breakfast in bed. But a nice body and a nice gesture don’t erase all the aggressive persistence in telling me his doubts and that he didn’t want me around. He denied my person, as I was willing to offer and it made me doubt my self-worth…because of how easy his rejection was. 

Man Plans, God...is There Sometimes

He called last night. We broke up 3 months ago—a fact I realized at a very traumatic and interesting two weeks ago. When mastering numbing myself I wonder as to the psychological mind-fuck of which the individual is incapable.

The situation is messy and exhausting. I still don’t know why we broke up—realizing only after he told me that he’s commissioned into the army that we were never going to be together again. The secret fairy tale wish of Columbia and the East Coast cease to conjure any truth—not that they ever did. But there was a hope and I being incredibly good at this, made this hope into a reality.

The point is: what? Just what the fuck do I do with the man I could still be in love with moving to Monterey for specialized training in the military. Do I start dating a man I broke up with? I’ve already done that with mark and john and this is not a habit I’d wish to discuss in therapy. The topics are so numerous that developing another issue would only burden.

I look in the mirror—directly into the peepers and repeated; I don’t love Jeremy”. It felt wrong. It felt like a lie. But my last sentence also felt like one. So…

Coroner at the Corner

Surprisingly, my mother offered solace tonight; she reminded me of the seriousness by which I approach life…myself…everything. I am successfully and consistently unsuccessful at just ‘being’. My head is jumbled and school is secondary to the ever so prevalent idea of ‘boy’. I’ve been seriously considering ending things with the unsure and detached B*. He told me that I was ‘incapable of hurting’ him, and since one person is bound to be hurt in the end it’s going to be me. Soothsayer is what he is?

My mother in her indefatigable efforts of nurturing me reminded me that I tend to be rotten, difficult and serious which launched negative reactions. He told me that he ‘already threw in the towel’ of us. So what the fuck am I doing? 

Rain on your Wedding Day

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. Define irony. 

The Ides of March

I live in a different state than a man whom I was dating in a mediocre relationship in the first place. Do I want to continue this bullshit masquerade of a relationship? The head-fuck part is that we’re not in a relationship when we’re in different cities; yet when our geographies are aligned, we practice monogamy, communication, and good-heartedness. This is so fucking hard to keep straight. Maybe I need to stop dissecting this and just end it. All of this arranging and planning how to be with someone shouldn’t be so hard. 

Dollface/Barbreath

I realized that to write was to do the extraordinary, and it makes me sad. Really, I am so bored., I can’t think of the last time I did or heard about anything interesting; reading the Communist Manifesto has saved me a bit. But one can’t expect the Marx/Engels spark in everything.

I was worshiped in an SF bar Saturday night. I was flattered to be called ‘gorgeous’ by the handsome friend of a friend. He made the statement ‘my god, you’re beautiful,’ by what seemed like an incredibly-surprised-to-see-a-pretty-girl-guy from Seattle, and ‘dollface’ by a man to whom I humorously referred as ‘Green’.

My ego is expanding. I have fallen in love with myself and with those facets which make me so fucking charming. 

Solutions

Some twists and turns. Goods and evils. We have started a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ dynamic…which is headed straight for Doomsday. My girlfriendly insecurities linger; I know that if he sleeps with another, he’ll be safe. But will I, in the end? The drive of maintaining the purity of our relationship is obsolete. There is no purity. We’re both smudged. In this tacit fuck-other-people-in-silence dynamic, I am incapable of movement.  

Guttenberg

My controlling nature has erupted. All over everyone around me. I can’t accept that things can be good even if they aren’t living up to my expected design.

I position my relationship against a pattern of perfection, and even though I don’t live up to that pattern, I continually continue to continuously fail. I forced open the doors of communication with B* and faced imperfection head on. When will I find the man who isn’t afraid to let his guard down…who won’t resent me for expressing myself. When I said that I had the right to do so, he responded that he had the right to be withholding. He’s right.

He claims that I am a confusing part of his life. That we won’t last another two months. That this only works because I’m in far away and that he wouldn’t want a full time girlfriend. He asked me to try treating him the way he wanted to be treated and that he questions us all the time.

My mother told me to stop putting him in uncomfortable and unfair situations. That the more I push the farther he’ll run. She called me out on my control issues. What the hell am I doing all this for anyway? Is the gray, stringy gross nebulous cocoon of our relationship  going to metamorphose  into a butterfly? Idealism. That’s all this is. 

Affected? Moi?

“Mirror, mirror, what do I see?” 

“A familiar image in love with thee”

What could come of egoism? An invitation to hell, really. I have self-love oozing from every pore on my perfectly smooth, hairless skin, and confidence coats the soft, shining locks of magnificence streaming from my head....

And then there’s truth: ego and bravado are not self-esteem. I have a hunch that what I savor in the mirror is actually glossed over in lies. This ugly duckling put swan-shaped glasses on and turned quickly to the looking glass, where she was greeted with ecstasy. And the rave reviews she gets for ivory feathers and slender necks, all became a dazzling dream. She will fly close to earth however, yes, as close to ground as possible, in order to hear all the comments about her remarkable wing span. There is always a body part untapped. Waiting to be described with a wonderful and fresh adjective. And she will continue to base her self-worth on these adjectives. Because it took a long time to leave the Ugly Pond, and going back, while always an option, is terrifying. She likes the lake of Beautiful People. But she doesn’t know the rules. Swimming is different here. She mistakenly assumes that she can glide atop these beautiful waters in front of anyone…but can’t really copy that effortless glide of all the other swans, as they’ve been here for years already.

Self-love is beautiful and stems from acceptance and candor. Ego is ugly and feeds on the opinion of others.  Now that I'm pretty, how do i do this?

All the World

I asked B* if he ever refers to me as his girlfriend, and in typical B* fashion he mumbled something vague so as not to surrender or betray emotion and keep him firmly set to earth. And I realized…I can’t control his response. I can’t expect the reaction I’ve laid out in my head. In short, and again, I don’t write the scripts. 

Long Distance is the Wrong Distance

My relationship is more work than suspected. In my set of expectations was realistic longing, sure. It ended there. It’s actually developed into a mental brain fuck which is fed by all the physical distance. Fulfilling him in order to compensate for this distance is exhausting…and how can I fulfill if I’m not fulfilled? Intellectually, emotionally, carnally…but I made this space between us. At least the physical one. And he’s retaliating by making an even bigger and bleaker emotional one. So I continue this charade…

Another Roosevelt Bomb

Moments like now make me wonder if leisure time means idleness. I have so many projects that I visit sporadically. It’s not enough. It’s not consistent. I spend more time thinking about calligraphy and writing my thoughts than the time spent actually doing it. 

Underachievers—how I always avoided it. The funny thing is that I’ve achieved more than most people my age. Sort of well I should, or at least I have. I’m feeling really hard on myself. 

"It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan"

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Irregardless

This is what I’ve realized whilst rereading former posts:

1.     I don’t write the scripts

2.     I like men (not love) with too much intensity

3.     I’m incapable of successfully dating unless I’m comfortable and satisfied with my everyday goings-on

4.     I make myself easy and available

Ad Policy

We discussed our situation tonight and decided that breaking up would be the cowardly thing to do. We developed a kiss and don’t tell policy that will fill the self-satisfying hedonist in both of us. I was once told that once a relationship moves into ‘open waters’ it’s doomed. It’s what’s best for now though. As I told him, “life is about risks. I can’t go on meeting guys at bars and burning out after five months. I’m ready for the next step”. I was scared that he was scared. He wasn’t. Now my job is letting things happen around me. Good advice. The worst vice is advice, though. 

Tearjerk[er]

I made a decision based on experience and self-reliance. Personal happiness and free-will fueled me to break up with the man I love, the one who still has the gift I gave him, and I still have his: virginity.

My heart keeps doing something...my brain something else. I'm just afraid of my eyes and what they'll do.

X

Samsonite

Where did it all go? The passion, the friends, the satisfaction. It seems like everything has a stigma. It isn’t coincidence that I haven’t written since late May—I met a new boy: B*

To quote a mediocre poet “I threw him in a fire”. Because it the pain was starting; I was beginning to like him in an incredibly unreciprocated dynamic. I began to see the parts of the ex in him that I hated: fear, hesitation, deficient of communication, withholding emotion—he isn’t ready.

I’ve realized that people in their 30s will always enter a new relationship with a full set of luggage. Every time I date a new guy I’m dating a slew of women with whom he’s fucked. Women who taught him, fought with him, loved and hated him. Then (depending on the break-up) they become memories of a flawless goddess or a winged serpent devil of a woman. Bradley has the former.  I spent all of my time competing with the memory of his four year long relationship, and one cannot compete with a memory. Memories are perfect. My imperfections reek. So in an effort to obviate another  heartbreak, I withdrew. Let’s see if she’s got any staying power, folks. 

Dickensonian

Dickinson used a carriage metaphor to symbolize the motion and verity of death, “the Carriage held but just Ourselves –  And Immortality.” 

With respect to our pasty and suicidal poet, I will re-appropriate the carriage to symbolize fate.  

This metaphor is contingent on the reader being willing to give this author a bit of wiggle room to state the following:  when it arrives, greet it and do a ride-along. This metaphor is crap. 

As i get older, however, I wonder--could my body continue its ascension towards the sun, while my will combats the naturally developing maturity? 

Will I continue to grow up, but reject the responsibilities of adulthood? Can this frog please, oh please, remain a tadpole? 

It feels so blasé and bourgeois to worry about the future, especially when the focus is financial. 

Why do I minimize it, though? This is real. 

Because…this was never mine. I never owned a bit of this before, and it’s all I encompass: grown-up worry. Another one bites the dust. 

"Sheeted" is a Word

Our conversations are like chess games. I methodically plan my next statement, then his and twenty versions of the latter. All at the same time. Ten steps ahead, that’s what I am. And miserable. 

I leave nothing to anyone else, control everything, and then realize that the moment is passing me by. And the glimpses of it I see are actually just perfectionist paragons of ‘us’ in all of our youthful and carefree love. These glimpses are lies. I’ve filled my moment up with deception and ridiculous expectations.

So, taking my understanding of self-preservation too far, and maybe even in an attempt to work towards that relationship paradigm, I explained my feelings of being a non-priority to him. Friends and work have always been the gods to which he prays. He was hit with pangs of depression upon hearing this and now lies in his bed, sheeted with self-wallow. He weeps for not being perfect. I dream about the perfection that could be if only I could make it. So I try to make it by telling him and then he weeps for not being perfect. Chess games don’t go on forever though…so how does this end? I was always terrible at chess. Perhaps a bit more defense than offense? Perhaps just let things happen. Perhaps I’ll switch to backgammon. My people did something right. 

Making Beds

He always said I was a "passing" anyway. That he knew I wouldn't be around forever; "you can't even take the same way home two days in a row," he'd say, "so how could I be sure you'll stay with me for a sustained amount of time?" I guess he was right. Whether it was the distance--LA to San Jose--the imperfections, my insanity, fear of commitment and what will be--he was right.

He said he never took me for granted. I believe him. I don't think he ever got bored. I did. I began wishing we'd break-up and get back together when we were 30--well, he'd be 28. Maybe we'd be compatible still. He wasn't buying it. He said I was being an idealist. I called him a pessimistic Realist. He just said Realist.

He said it was bound to happen sooner or later. The break-up because of the distance. And then San Diego. And then Argentina. And then east coast. And then, and then, and then.

So many hopes, that's why I wished to have met him later. He's settle down material. I have all this life to live, all these boys to kiss and fuck, all these jobs in all these different towns to live in.

I made my bed, I'll lie in it. I'll lie in my made bed. Alone, yet in company of great thought.

X

Regress and Press

We are in a relationship again. What happened? I’ve been wondering about needs. How everyone has them and how their ubiquity trickles into different facets of life. Needs from friends, boyfriend, self…although the role of the boyfriend is always played by a man on the stage of my life, there is always, and there always will be, an understudy. The one currently playing the role is S*. And when we arrive at my needs, he makes me feel guilty for having them. I need to feel important to him. I need to feel like an excellent version of myself. But these needs are not met and now I need to stop thinking about him. 

Feelings Are Not Facts

In a letter to L*:

"I am, as they say, single. It's a liberating and morose feeling, really. I realized that 23 + long distance relationship = not cool. So I did something about it. Now I'm seated with a Hesse book in hand wondering what to do with all these notions of forever."

X

August Moons

This is the year I turn August from what is typically the most uneventful month of the year to one in which I thrive. I have begun to establish closure with the ex. While he has yet to be seen completely in the past (I recycle memories and instant replays), I’ve gone minutes building up to hours without thinking of him.

My days are mundane and regular; I no longer try to escape from the suffering of everyday life. I embrace the days, sometimes idly flittering them away, and sometimes fucking them hard in the ass. Either way, Eleanor and therapy have helped tremendously and I am in an amazing state of mental and psychological health. Could this all be because I’m sober and actually allowing myself to feel process emotions and thoughts? Just could be. 

Regress and Try Again

It’s strange reading past excerpts. The days of confusion and dissatisfaction began to haunt me as my perusal went on—so I stopped reading. I needed to stop. I fear abandoning the clarity and satisfaction gained in the past six months. Truth is, whether I read my past words or not, I am regressing.

I haven’t written, studied or painted for a month. This was what the beginning of he and I was. We’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. Again. I can’t call it a relationship…because we’ve already failed at that. So I’ll call it a dynamic. ‘We have a great post-break up dynamic’. But, when facing up to this brain-fuck I realize that no matter how I put it, it equals regression. 

Happy Heart Day

This used to be my favorite holiday, but its novelty has expired. The time of making valentines is over. The days have passed, only to be replaced with drunken declarations explaining the inevitable solitude of what will be my twilight years.

I’m tired of the nights; the bar scene is stale and boring. And all the cutest boys, for their own respective reasons, are unappealing. Indeed, I vie for the attention from boys who aren’t as smart or fun as I am, who don’t get me or make me laugh, while in addition to never making me happy make me miserable. These laws of property surround me and I fall victim. But I am ever so eager for gravity to take its course and for one of them to fall for me. 

One Foot in Yesterday and One in Today

I hesitate writing this for I fear its dissipation upon recognition...His ghost has been exorcised. I have serenity. All the events of the past year have led to a sense of peace in the present moment. The prospect of fulfilling my life with things that don’t involve him elate me. I regret not having cut men out of the equation of my ultimate fulfillment sooner, but that’s the thing about the past, it’s always mocking you. 

Saved

There's nothing that I wish I was doing right now. Not even this act of scribble helps me find a place to mentally belong. I am homeless.

So much for the poor little rich girl. 

What happens when scholarly pursuits don't suffice? What the fuck am I supposed to do with all this education? 

I just add more; and in between learning German and perfecting Persian calligraphy, an annoying little bug starts biting my ass to let me know it's not enough. It's never enough..."there's never enough time."
-Jesse Spano

X

The Heineken Factory Is across the Street

I hear my Swatch ticking. The one my dad bought me in the Amsterdam airport during our nine hour layover heading to Iran. 

Time surrounds the room—every room I enter. I feel so conscious of time—in the sense that I’m always waiting for something. It’s the classic waiting for Godot act: awaiting that which makes us happy. Constantly waiting. Unlike the protagonist in Beckett’s masterpiece however, I do know what my Godot’s are—too many to count. 

The point is that “here and now” offers more than ‘there and then’. Because they are real. I want to stop waiting and simply see that I have found Godot and I am wasting my time with this longing. Wait, maybe that was Beckett’s point? Fucking genius. Fucking Estragon. 

Unleaded

I see my reflection through a most disturbing object: a pair of men’s eyes. 

These noxious and deceiving things have superseded mirrors, and in addition to my less than expected reflection bring with them disturbing realizations. It is only through male perception that I conceptualize myself; they suggest my beauty, my intelligence, my ability to love, my self-worth. Without them, perhaps I don’t exist. And without this notion, if only I could rid myself of it, I may be able to live a semblance of a fulfilled life. 

Time, Again?

The man I love, that I lost my virginity to, is gone. Almost dead in my active thought process. I do think of him, but the feelings that erupt inside of me are hardly explanatory. I can't say that I'm in a horrible amount of pain or totally remorseful. It's almost like my wounds are scabbing. After 8 days.

What baffles me is how stable I am. Why fight it? Because it's eeriness is killing me. 

The idea of us getting back together becomes more fantasy than realistic fiction...if that's even a genre. It offered an insecure and dependent hope at the initial moment, but is now an incredible event indeed. Fantastical really.

I don't know where I'll be in ten years. Maybe in his arms, maybe in a woman's or maybe just my own. Wherever it is, I would just like to accept it. Appreciate the future as something so trivial and vain upon which to muse, because in turn I lose moments in the present.

Now, today and at this moment I'm OK. To think of him doesn't offer comfort as much as it does fear. The ugliness might just start the next time we talk. Deciding to 'maintain' the friendship that never existed could cause the negative repurcussions I've been avoiding. Maybe all this bad shit will unleash then...the badness between he and I, I and I, and maybe just I. Oh, how self-absorbed is the writer to assume somebody cares. I refer to the self more often than not.

Fearing the future won't get me anywhere except to a very tired point. So I enjoy the moment and don't question it, realizing this multi-faceted thing called 'Eleanor.'

X

Sculpture

He thought that he, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while their artist-created images remained unchangeable the same.

-Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

Plexiglass

The ‘platonic friendship’ (possible or not) is slowly developing. He came over—even brought a pizza. We laughed, played video games, and then I went to bed. I won’t say that there wasn’t sexual tension…it could have shattered glass. Maybe even Plexiglas. I can’t say that I didn’t attempt to suggest myself, but then I realized the futility in the long run of such a task. This is the wrong time for us. We’ve already tried twice. One must learn. Experience can’t just be the anthem of the loser. How about putting it to some use?

Belly full of Jelly

I know now that idealism distorted my relationship with the ex. When he cheated everything shattered and this realism flooded in. I wish it could have been a trickle, but there was no way. Every day I recover and strengthen from this malnourished relationship. Since the nucleus of our relationship was attraction, I think now about self-absorption and how to achieve fulfillment with no connection to men. 

It's a Boat Metaphor

He is the “wind in my sail,” my sister once said of a friend who is very close to her. Who isn’t here anymore. So do I.

At one point, when the freshness of discovering facts and tastes about the other person was magical, he made me feel so free. I found a way to soar in our little boat which we, mistakenly, assumed was sturdily built. Suddenly, it leaks. Holes welcome water and my new skirt: water damage, water damage, water damage. What do I do with the notions of Cyprus? Or Spain? These notions…I amused myself with them. And he amused me with his. To learn foreign tongues among our foreign tongues, until irregular verbs were the most regular parts of our vocabulary. We made promises of forever. We swore it to each other.

And now: leaks, holes, wet dress, wrinkly crinkly fingers, stupid tongues. Like prunes. We were supposed to turn to prunes together, but in a different way. There is the hope, I realize, when we reach shore and get out of the water. Nevertheless, the sea is big and so are our hearts and our hammers. Hope and reconstruction lie everywhere. But to keep building and mending old holes, to dry off only to be immersed again, to drown while learning the breast stroke, to learn to swim at all will not achieve the ‘forever’ dream. It just perpetuates the fantasy and the pain. One must realize their ability to survive in the deep waters without that ‘reliable and sturdy’ boat locked into the notion of forever. 

Clicking

Today I was very conscious of my lack of boyfriend. Perhaps it’s because I’ve taken up masturbation again…or maybe it’s the natural wanderings of rumination during quiet summer afternoons. They are having an ill-effect on me. 

Humps

I talked to a llama a month ago at the zoo. I remember how I expected this to heal me. The sporadic and carefree grown-up heartbroken girl takes herself to the zoo in the middle of a SF winter afternoon, and figures it all out. Because the sad little girl version of herself shared a moment with this animal. I am so tired of these fantasies. 

S.O.S.

Who is this girl seated here--waiting for an answer? If only to explain her.

Swimming within my head are thousands of toils and heartaches 
Coming ashore on a daily basis to torment and greet; 
They do the former with great insensitivity and
the latter with a mocking tone. 
I only wish to drown them, but they are such good swimmers.

I can see my need for perspective; 
that I'll always be coping with some problem or another. 
It feels though that now, it's all at once.

If only to have a mother,
a lover, 
a sister, 
a job, 
an education, 
a friend, 
a novel, 
a religion, 
and a self. To have myself would supersede the desire for any of the latter. 
But, that is the most difficult to attain.

Someone could approach me now with the will to repair my broken life
And I would deem it a miracle,
Because, you see, 
it's too much work for me.

My apathy arrived unexpectedly and without viable references. 
For this reason, I don't know whether or not to take it seriously. 
Ask not for weakness to accept you, but for you to accept it. 
After X amount of fighting, 
my fatigue reaches relentlessness, 
my apathy is astronomical
and only matched by my insatiable misanthropy.
They're all swimming within the current of bullshit in my river of self-induced suffering

and so I surrender to weakness. 
Let's see where I end up from here.

X

"Wonderments" Isn't a Word

Therapy has welcomed unannounced visitors:

-the realization that the complete version of myself is obsolete unless there is a man to complete it

-the necessity to stop approaching the death of my relationship as the death of the man with whom I was in the relationship

-it’s not him I miss, but being in a relationship with someone to whom I was so attracted

-The comfort in knowing that all of this is ok

The first one fucked with me most, as it means that I have become the woman I hate. So now, enter the forced self-accolades and lauding of my wonderments in order to gain perspective. Fuck that. It’s easier for a man to just tell me how pretty I am. 

It Doesn't Add Up

To feel with a heart: a desire; to think with the mind: a goal. Performing each action reflexively with the other creates confusion. The mind works much better pragmatically—so why do I muddle it in emotion? Not to mention the breathtaking role of the heart as ‘feeler’ which positions the individual as a disrespectful host. 

I am hosting these guests of heart and mind and by not allowing them to play their respective and designated roles, I am insulting my guests. I have created havoc within the home, dirtying the dishes on which are served the foods for thought.

Indeed, I have lost the ability to correctly assess and process—even recognize thoughts vs. feelings. I have surrendered to my guests of heart and mind, hoping they can just figure out how the rest of the party should go. Maybe they can find sense in the havoc. I scramble. Not seeing myself from the mirror, or maybe just concluding I am that reflection I see in the pupils of others’ eyes, I have arrived at a quasi-reality. What should be truth is muddled and stagnancy pervades every version of reality. The factors to achieving a unity in this mind-heart conundrum…well, it is, at the very least, an algebraic nightmare. 

Emotional Surgery

Djuna was intrepid in awareness, in painful exposures of the self, and dared more than most in the matter of emotional surgery, but she had a fear of violence.

-Anais Nin 

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.