Rock Star Hour

Day Three

So ... we cut down to six a day on the weekdays for a week.

Then, we did four a day for a week.

Then, we practically gave up, until we changed our minds.

I got really drunk on Halloween. Mostly, on accident. We forgot to eat dinner, and had a beer at a friend's house while getting ready. Then, we stopped by a party. We were supposed to hit up one of my friend's band's shows. A bunch of people were going to be there. Really missed out on seeing my friend BeckySue in her Sarah Palin costume. :( But anyway, I had one drink at the party. Top shelf, Goose in fact, but too much in one, and not enough food. I was finished for the night.

***

It is so lovely, I don't mind saying, to have someone take care of you. A part of me twinges to say that, but to have someone who cares for you in ways you didn't even know you needed.

I have only felt that once before, and not nearly in the same capacity. I once had someone who was older and seemed to know more, and was there for me financially, but less and less emotionally. And less and less physically, and by that, I mean he just was not around. He got a promotion and had to travel more and more for his job. It got to the point where the money he gave me before he left felt like allowance. And when he was gone it was five-minute conversations on the phone and good night. And when he was back it would be fighting or he wanted to hang out with the guys or he wanted to relax after working in Los Angeles, or Dallas or San Antonio or Denver or Phoenix, or wherever else.

It got to the point where wanting to spend time with the person put me in the "needy" category. I'm not saying I didn't whine. I probably didn't handle it in the most mature fashion.

I've been on both sides of that argument -- the needy one, the wanting time one, and the other.

Do you know that feeling where you recite something someone older once told you? Something maybe you didn't believe at the time, or think about since until you hear yourself saying it?

That's how I feel when I have that argument.

***

Lately, the thing I've been realizing, though, is how much work it takes to maintain something, even so wonderful.

I once wrote or believed or came to defend the idea that happiness takes work. I decided at some point, though, that I would rather work to be happy than to stay miserable, because neither is automatic. I just got used to one over the other.

The same is true for relationships, except it's three-fold, because there is you, and the other person, and the relationship. It's best to remind myself of all these layers, just in that all three involve work. To some that may sound simple as well, but I've spent so much time healing on the individual level; it helps to remember.

Omg, though, I swear sometime I will write about something else, but it is the most wonderful feeling to love and be loved, to feel understood, to be excited about everyday things, and the future. It is truly overwhelming, in the best way one could imagine.

I'm just happy.

I'm dying for a cigarette, and I am happy as fucking hell.

Labels: Drinking, Happiness, Quitting Smoking, Relationships

Delete

So, mostly I've been on Facebook more than MySpace or this. I had to switch because my friends did. I kept Myspace for the friends who had not switched, and also for the blog preferred list, which I nearly never used, but now I'm limiting access to this as well.

I am sick of being identifiable. I want to delete both my Facebook and my music account on Myspace. Part of the problem is they are both under my real name, which was a really dumb decision.

There's another one, though, I can't quite put my finger on -- another reason.

Just before my high school reunion, as expected, I got in touch with a lot people. On one hand, it was cool. On another, the reunion is over.

Facebook is different in that everything is broadcast through the newsreel, although Myspace has recently tried to emulate it with the whole "subscriptions" thing.

There's also this "People You May Know" tool, which is less cool than one might think. What happens is, say I'm friends with somebody, but not friends with someone they know. The site knows two people may know each other through one person, so mostly what happens is it keeps asking if you know someone you can't stand, or someone you recognize but don't know, or someone who, say, dated one of your friends, or maybe an ex-boyfriend, and to use a word a friend and I recently coined, it gets all "tangly."

I'm sick of it. I'm so sick of the tanglies. It's not wrong to want to start over. It's not wrong to not want to be fake, or to not like fake people. It's not. It's not wrong to not talk to people you knew 10 years ago, either. It's not wrong to not desire to talk to exes.

I knew that already, but something in me thought it necessary to learn again.

I went to the reunion, and saw some people in person, but besides a handful of them, the majority have gone back to what they were: faces in a background of my life, part of a past I don't really care to revisit.

I'm healed from the embarrassing awkward parts of high school mostly; it no longer has to do with adolescent angst so much as comfort with where I am. I just hate feeling like I have to justify that to myself, but I guess I do.

I feel guilty, like part of me is not a good person somehow, for not feeling like I have to be friends with everybody, and maybe that dates back to the same period, because around high school, I really did want to be friends with everybody. Maybe part of the tanglies is just leftover things like that.

Labels: Facebook, MySpace, Privacy, Relationships, Tanglies

Longwinded jollynessness

Nothing like narrating your life to validate, make sense of your own experience.

Lately, I just haven't felt like doing that. Lately I've been for the most part comfortable with my past, barring a couple mistakes that still sting a little when I think about them. I'm pretty damned happy in the present, and when I think about the future, I don't really know, but it looks pretty good.

Maybe the whole narrating thing isn't completely wrong. I just know that I used to do it a lot. I also know doing so helped me out in a lot of ways, and maybe that's why for now I can't do it. It did as much as it could for me, analyzing all the old stuff, and maybe there's just not enough new stuff, and maybe it's harder to see the new stuff if you're so focused on the old stuff.

Point is I guess that although I don't feel like saying much, there's something to be said for how awesome it is when other people say things for you. 'Cause I pretty much feel like this right here.

Thanks, Belle,

Signed,

The friend of a friend who checks out your blog occasionally.

Labels: Blogs, Mistakes, Relationships

Ah, just thought I'd clarify

I recently received a detailed response to an argument I made in what I would be the first to point out began as a silly blog, but I believe had some redeeming points anyway.

Then, I read something else, which most likely has not much to do with me directly, but got me thinking again about the same subject altogether.

So, now, I'm just going to tell you something I haven't told anyone except all my friends, and anyone else who would listen:

IT EXISTS.

And yes, I know the ridiculousness the CAPS lock implies, but it does.

A long time ago my big sis told me a story. Once, after a sub-par, three-year relationship had ended, she made a list for herself, and solely for therapeutic purposes.

I have to admit, I'm a listmaker myself, but I've never made one of these lists. It was a list of things, characteristics, her ideal mate would possess. I'm not sure she thought it existed either. Many people don't believe in that, and that's why they spend years trying to hammer puzzle pieces together that do not, nor will ever, fit.

It's not a bad way to go. You can adapt over time. You can be better people. You can still have a life and be happy.

The alternative, one doesn't often prefer to think about, especially while holding the hammer and bringing it down time and time again with all her might, and bending and twisting and turning, and trying again, is that the dream does not have to remain a dream. It can be real.

People do fall in love. People do belong to people.

Back to the list. She made the list, and completely forgot about it, for some length of time. And years later, after she had already been with the man who is now her husband, she found it. She unfolded it, and read it, and even astonished herself at the fact that he was everything on that list and more.

He was more than she could hope for, and she was more than she could hope for, and together they are more than they ever hoped for.

For. For. For. Yes. And for can be a beautiful word as well. For what? For everything that has ever mattered to you, even when you were the first one to say it didn't, and that you couldn't plan it, and that you couldn't want it.

Not everyone finds it, and if not I'm by no means saying it is impossible to be happy. Maybe you don't even find it in every life.

But it exists. Fuck, it does.

***

This isn't really about what it was supposed to be about. I was going to say something about the what you like vs. are like thing once again, and lay it to rest.

And although I said what I did, and although I was somewhat bitter, and although I was also making fun of myself a little, and although I was writing about a conversation I had with some friends while I was still drunk the morning after an amazing night, and drinking a bloody Mary, and although we laughed our asses off ('cause I think my ultimate test at that moment was wanting someone to play Ms. Pacman with me), it was a joke. It was a friendly conversation. It was something fun to be silly about.

What I really wanted even then -- and what I have always wanted, and wouldn't be surprised if it's what plenty have wanted -- is someone to be excited about life with me.

This is incredibly different from what it sounds like, but I will try to articulate:

It's not someone to make you excited about life.

That is the defining difference.

It is, as someone recently put it, something else. It's when all the sudden this thing that was on the back burner ... it was this tiny voice, and everything else was louder. Everything you could imagine. Everything you had experienced.

They switch. Everything flips, and all the sudden the quietest part is the loudest and everything else is just stuff. It still matters, things still happen, but it's different.

I wouldn't want someone to like exactly all the music I like. For one thing, other than reviewing things, how would I hear something new? But what I would like is for someone to be open to things, or at least when I review an album and it's awesome, and I'm in that excited, telling all my friends about it mode, and talking about the artist I interviewed mode, they want to hear it, too.

You know how sometimes you want to go somewhere and you ask someone to come with you? Some people will ask who is going, and what time, and all kinds of other details, which you provide, only to make your way to one huge, heavy Maybe.

Others, others just say Yes. That's what I want. I want someone to come with me. (And not in that coming with you because they are obligated sort of way, but in a coming with you way that says, "I want to come with you because you are you, and you're awesome, and so going places with you is awesome.)

Someone else told me something else recently. He said something about the Yes, and I knew exactly what he meant, because I had already done it.

Good timing does not exist. It does not. I have not believed that for some time. Instead, I believe in recognizing things that are good (you know, like the birdie and the sugar packet). As for the other thing I mentioned, the other It, I'm a Believer, and if you ever find it, take The Tenth Road, man. I swear. Say yes.

So, maybe saying yes isn't ridiculous at all. Maybe the ridiculous part is the maybe, or maybe it's everything else.

This is a long-winded way of saying at once, I was wrong.

Sometimes, no matter who you are, you've got to admit you are wrong, or at least there are some things you would love to be wrong about.

Well, that's all, except you know what else? I'm cool with that.

Labels: Love, Relationships, Timing

Remember Pancakes?

I love going out for breakfast. I have to go just about every weekend. During the week, I roll out of bed, get ready for work, and I bring Pop Tarts and eat them at my desk every day around 9:00 like clockwork. I make coffee with my boss, and sip on it.

But on the weekend, I always wake up already energized, excited about what to do, and the first thing I want to do is go get some breakfast -- preferably some damn tasty greasy breakfast, especially if it's a Saturday, 'cause Friday's usually my one drinking night of the week.

So, I've been thinking about breakfast. Ellen and I used to say something about how good love is like pancakes. I even once told someone I loved him like pancakes.

But love isn't much like pancakes entirely. At least, it isn't always pancakes, and I might have gotten greedy as far as breakfast is concerned, but I want so much more than pancakes.

You know how when you go out to breakfast there is never one meal with everything? It's like you can have eggs and pancakes, but then you have to order hash browns on the side. Or you can get eggs and hash browns with pancakes, but what if you want a biscuit?

It seems like no matter what you order you have to get a side of something, or you'll be lacking. Only, you don't want to order that side of something, because a) you are already spending so much, and b) if you got even more you know you wouldn't finish your plate. In light of this generally something you're craving just won't be there.

I don't even eat meat, and I still feel that. Can't imagine how much more complicated it might be for people who want sausage and bacon and ham. Damn. Now, that would be a dilemma.

I know it's out there, though, someplace. Someplace there's a breakfast on the menu that has everything I could ever want. Would I waste my life trying to find it, not being happy with the standard IHOP, House of Pies, or Chapultepec breakfast menu? Or can I just find one thing that satisfies me enough for now and eat that every week?

Labels: Marriage, Pancakes, Relationships

Blogs I Want to Write

1. I want to write my personal credo. Someone told me to do that once. He said everybody should do it.

2. I want to share some of my recipes with you, and particularly, I would love to write a book for college students, or a cookbook about vegetarian recipes for the single person living below the poverty line. Thing is, the recipes aren't always the most nutritious, but they do get you more bang for your buck. Not sure who else would be interested, tho. The key is when you're poor you've got to at least take vitamins. If you can't always afford vegetables and fruit, that is.

3. I've been wanting to write an essay about what it is like to be a feminist in 2008: to participate in heated debates on women's work, the economy, pornography, sexuality, fashion, the portrayal of men and women in the media, the changing and stagnation of values in modern American society, and what it is like to come away from these arguments, or decades-old writings from Esquire, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice, and still feel much like you are trapped in the 60s or 70s, or tangled up in a backlash so many insist is over.

4. I would like to write a blog about some monumental lesson I've learned, except I always think of a) whom I will offend; b) how childish I could make myself out to be or c) what I am still learning, and d) that it would turn out trite, pointless, an oversimplification of a complex issue, or a combination of these.

5. I want to write a poem or a song or a story again.

6. I want to write something about reunions: either the ones I've had on Facebook; or this night out I had with an old friend weeks ago; or the wedding reception I went to last night after a friend I've known for 10 years got married, and seeing how much so many of us changed; or how an old classmate sent me an email off our reunion web site. I hadn't seen her in forever; all it said was, "You're beautiful."

7. I want to write something about music and relationships: like how I listened to this CD someone burned me several years ago after seeing this local Dallas band in concert, and how I hadn't listened to it much since then. How it's this relic from another point in time. Same for mixtapes. I want to write something about the song and the feeling and mixtapes. And write about what it would be like to see a track listing where someone had put one of your favorite songs on a mixtape he made for someone else, and how on the same CD he had put a song that someone had put on a CD for you several years ago as well, and how you then realized you even put one of the songs on a tape that even you had once made for someone else. Because that happened to me recently, and it stung as much as the music ever did on its own.

8. I want to write about what it's like to be equal parts determined as well as terrified about the future. To be shaking in your boots while smiling on the outside and making a laundry list of goals and feeling overwhelmed yet empowered, and asking yourself if you bite off more than you can chew, and then replying in wonder that you've ever been able to live any other way.

9. I want to write something about Katrina or Iraq, two very real and ongoing stories that seem often shut off by the press, in the way that we try to tie things up in neat little packages and not talk about them, not use dirty negative words, not acknowledge the crisis we still face as a nation. I met a woman last night who had been born and raised there, had cleaned out the sludge as she described it from her own home and reclaimed it, but how she doesn't really have any new neighbors yet because so many who lost everything are still rebuilding, slowly.

10. I want to write an ode to Nora Ephron's movies, and many other romantic comedies in general, and how I love them not only for their happy endings; I love them for their subtlety and intelligent humor, for their scenery, for their "alone in your room scenes," for the amazing three-dimensional characters, for the fact that they are hidden jewels under the dusty blanket of the whole "chick flick" genre. Then again, maybe other than blood, guts, explosions, and beautiful women, there's a man out there who wants to write an ode to dick flicks as well. Maybe.

Labels: Movies, Nora Ephron, Relationships, Writing

While I was Asleep

Last night I watched like a million episodes of Smallville. I finally got Season V. I'm sort of a fanatic. I've also been sick lately, so takin' Nyquil and watching Smallville has been fine for me the last couple nights.

Anyway, there's this episode where Chloe thinks she's going crazy, and she keeps telling everyone she doesn't want to be like her mom, and she's not like her mom. And then she tells Clark that after her mom left when she was 12 she ended up in a mental institution.

"Have you ever seen her or talked to her since?" Clark asked.

"No."

"But you know where she is?"

"Yes," she says.

And Clark says something about how she's still her mother, and didn't Chloe think about seeing her before it was too late?

It was like this voice in my head was saying Clark's lines and Chloe's. Because I have been having that discussion with myself for years, about my biological father.

The episode ended with Chloe going to see her mother. A woman stood at the end of the large sterile room Chloe entered, full of people meandering aimlessly. The woman stared out a window. You never see her face. Chloe goes to her and says, "Mom?" And the woman touches her arm and they hug, and that's the end.

It was an overwhelming scene, and nicely done. But I know it would never work the same way in my own life.

My cousin wrote me recently and said he had heard my father had a heart attack. A 90 percent blockage, but came out okay. When I spoke to my father for a brief time, six or seven years ago, he told me he had been in the VA hospital for a time because of some heart attacks. He still smoked two packs of Luckies a day and drank a whole pot of coffee, though. He was still an insomniac.

He tried writing to me when he found my music page, months ago. It was the same week my mother had her first surgery for the cancer, and the same week my house was broken into while I was asleep.

Another episode of Smallville. Jonathan Kent has died. Martha has gone to Metropolis to donate some of his old shirts to charity. She can't keep them in the house anymore. She can still smell his aftershave. Instead, she is attacked and mugged by gangbangers. They even snap the watch right off of her wrist. Jonathan's old watch. The one he had used to teach Clark how to tell time. Clark was too grief-stricken to accept the watch when she offered it. The thief made off with it.

When Clark finally tracked down the mugger he held him high up against a fence and was choking him. He told him it was his father's watch. The man didn't care. And Clark yelled, enraged, something about how he didn't understand how his father had to die while people like him still roamed the earth freely, taking.

Clark's words could have been my own: The rage I felt having to see my mother go through what she did, all the while my father still out and about, breaking the law, manipulating himself and others, still trying to sneak his way under my skin and into my life.

I couldn't handle everything at once, so I just did not respond. After all, why should he have all the power in our relationship? If you ever knew what his actions as well as absences has done to already determine the course of my life, you would understand. Or maybe you wouldn't. But for once, I had enough. He kept writing, and I kept not answering, and the last few ones, I didn't even read them. And I took my songs down because I didn't even want him to hear them. Because so much of the pain he caused me is in my voice.

Labels: Cancer, Deadbeat Dads, Relationships, Smallville

Superhero

That song's been in my head for about the last hour today, and I haven't listened to that CD in forever. I've got some things to say, but before I do, I just want to say that on the whole I have been doing very well lately. Staying very busy. Grades are good. Graduation is coming. Home is home. But I've got some things I need to say, for the fact that maybe writing them could make sense of them in my own mind.

My grandpa was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer a few weeks ago. I'm doing OK, but I'm not. I haven't called my grandma in two weeks. I want to call, but I'm afraid to because I am afraid of bad news, I'm afraid of the tone in her voice that has of course changed, and most of all, I'm afraid of crying.

First off, my family has this issue with crying. We have to bear our pain on our own. It's not that we can't talk about it. We, meaning my sisters and I, sometimes me and my dad, my grandmother and I, would talk about things in solitary phone calls.

At least, that's what we would do after my mom got sick. And it would help. But now with my grandfather things are even more difficult. I can't look to my grandmother for strength and comfort, and to be able to just talk, and cry if I need to, about my mother, because now it's my grandfather too, and everyone is so sad.

I can't imagine how she must feel. How everyone individually must feel. And my mother, trying to stay strong through all the chemo and remain positive and heal, has suddenly taken this emotional turn, where she knows exactly, more than anyone, what her own father is about to experience.

Do you know what it is like to go home and not even recognize your own mother?

I don't know how to talk about it, to explain it enough. Only a few of my friends who have gone through it can truly understand, and even then, everyone has their own story of grieving and coping and healing, and what it feels like to stand on the sidelines and feeling so helpless in the face of seeing someone weakened and put through all this agony, someone you love so much.

My mother, last I heard, weighed 108 lbs. That was a couple weeks ago, and judging by how quickly the weight has been dropping, she probably weighs even less. And that's less than what I weigh also, and she is two-and-a-half inches taller than me and has had three kids.

Her hair is less and less. The light in her eyes, less. They say the cancer did not show up on her last radiology report, so I'm trying to keep a positive perspective, but she still has to brave two more months of chemo. In the beginning, six months of chemo did not sound so long.

But in the beginning, I had no idea what to expect. How much she would change. Instead of looking forward to the end of the therapy, it is hard not to be so scared of what can happen in that seemingly short time.

The chemo causes ulcers to form in the throat. It also changes her nerves and the way things taste. So, she can't eat, really. She refuses to try new things, but does, when pressed. She watches food shows on tv, though, and talks about what she's going to eat and where, when she gets better. It makes her happy, and gives her something else to look forward to.

A couple weeks ago I went to visit her, and she had gone to the store earlier that day. She's not really supposed to go anywhere or drive, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that she is so weak, no one thinks driving would be a good activity for her.

Second, her immune system is so low she has been advised to go out in public as little as possible. She cannot be around school-aged children. She can't even go to church, too many people there.

She had gone to the store and she was so weak when she got home, just from that. She said she did the best she could. She carried all the food in so that it wouldn't go bad, but could I get the rest of the things she bought, out in the car?

Of course. I brought the items in and put them away. It just broke my heart, though.

Yesterday, I went to the house and we all watched a movie. My mom switched the TV mode from Satellite so we could watch the DVD. When it was over, my dad gave me the remote to turn it back, but I did something wrong.

I haven't thought about this much. It didn't really bother me, but my mom got frustrated and snapped at me for a second. She got on the phone with the Satellite company to figure out how to fix it, and within a few minutes it was back on.

My dad said it happened all the time, so that's why he didn't even try anymore.

And my mom kept apologizing to me. She kept saying, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. I shouldn't have said ..."

But it didn't even matter to me. It didn't even phase me. I just told her it was all right, and okay.

I guess that story to me just didn't add up. She just seemed overly apologetic. I didn't understand. Maybe it would just take a lot more than that to make me upset with my mother right now.

I don't know.

***

I remember a few years ago, I wrote this blog about a couple of friends that I knew, who were slightly older -- the town mouse and the city mouse -- and how they were trying to have a relationship, but knew they weren't willing to compromise.

I actually admired it at the time. I thought they knew something I didn't. I thought things were lighter than they actually were. Looking back, I remember them each talking to me about it, and I remember the expressions on their faces, both when they were together, and when they were apart.

There's different kinds of heartbreak, you know. There's the all-encompassing, tear your heart out, lose your shit, drink too much kind. There's the cut off from the world and throw yourself into a book kind. There's the grab a new instrument and play it six hours a day, or whenever your not asleep or at work kind. There's the black coffee and cigarettes kind. There's the shrug your shoulders and hang out with your friends kind.

I guess there's no point in trying to figure out which ones are better, or easier to get over. For me, I'm trying to figure out what I'd like to do with the present.

I asked myself and the other person in question several, several months ago.

I told him about volunteering in order to take care of my community service as part of my sentence. I told him how, not everyone was just parties and hanging out. Some people work out. Some people volunteer. Some people find passions and causes. And I said, "How do you want to spend your time?" I asked myself the same thing.

I'm still asking myself the same thing.

So many things point to "No," in this situation. But it's not just been a relationship for a year. He's been my best friend for this whole year. And it hasn't always been great, but it's never been bad. Yes, we've fought. We've disappointed each other. He's let me down countless times. Flaking on plans. Not taking much of what I say as important. Not considering my feelings in certain situations. If I keep listing these I won't be able to continue my point, so I just won't.

But for some reason, it is beyond me why something that seems so doomed to work does work. We don't have anything in common. Very little. That does become more and more apparent.

At the same time, I make compromises. I'll go places to be with him, or I'll watch movies he wants to watch, or I'll listen to the music he wants to listen to. I've gotten to know all of his friends pretty well. I've been to lots of the major social things, and countless times for the mundane. He does not do any of these things on his side, nor does he see them as important, or relevant to our relationship.

I know all this, and more, and yet I still persist to spend time with him. And when we do spend time together, things are okay. We had a lot of fun together over the weekend. We did spend a Saturday together, the whole day, for the first time in since as long as I can remember. We ran errands, we had lunch, we saw a movie. It was pretty good.

But overall, I keep asking myself if this is healthy. There's no pressure anymore, because he knows and I know that the relationship is over. And from that perspective I can rest easy, because I don't make a point to depend on him or have expectations about anything. And when I catch myself doing so, and if he does disappoint me, or if we disagree like we do about many, many things, I just tell myself I made the right decision.

But what decision have I made really, when we still see each other or at least talk nearly every day?

I'm confused. I go in and out of thinking things are right and wrong. Right for now. Wrong for later. Better now. Unhealthy now. I know once again, I'm going to have to figure it out for myself. And I know when I feel I can be more articulate about it, a conversation will take place. I feel almost like writing this is not right. A long time ago I wouldn't have batted an eye. But as I said, if it will help me make things make sense a little more, I'm all for that.

Labels: Ani Difranco, Breaking Up, Cancer, Relationships

So, I'm sitting here, listening to Jill Scott, and getting ready to go to work.

But something's on my mind. Well, many things, actually. Yesterday was a test to get through. I had a final. My sister called me to inform me she was in the hospital. She ended up getting out at 5:30, but that had me a wreck for a little while, considering my future niece in her little belly had a high heart rate, and they were monitoring her and renee all night while they waited for the fever to go down.

I had to call my mother and tell her the news. There has been a lot of this lately. Phone calls. They are one of the most real parts about being a grown up. All these calls. Like last time Renee was in the hospital, or when my mother had the surgery and I had to call people and tell them how it went.

And people calling me asking how my mother is doing. And I talk about the chemo, which I don't fully understand. She uses words like the pump, and the oncologist, and medications and side effects, and talks about medical bills flowing in like what seems like a tidal wave, and fighting with the insurance company, and how wigs aren't covered by insurance even though you're losing all your hair through the treatment of your disease. Pshhh. They're considered cosmetic.

And then I'm thinking about how I've been feeling lately. How I walk around with all this weight. Like how last night I looked forward to hanging out with good friends all day, but found myself stepping outside to make a phone call and then ended up crying quietly to myself on the ground for a minute.

Just keeping composure is so hard. I try to keep things in line, like things I need to do, and save my feelings for when I'm with specific people, or when I'm alone, or when I'm in therapy.

But I just started, needed to let a little out, and all the sudden I was worried that I wasn't going to stop. And I didn't want to make a scene. And I calmed down, went back inside, so drained and void.

On top of this, a few months ago I was debating High Fidelity love versus An Affair to Remember Love. I decided something, to take some advice both my grandmother and sister gave me: "Relationships are work, but it's worth it to you in the end."

But sometimes when you fall in love, you make excuses for people. You can do it over and over without even noticing it. You can sacrifice principles that are so important to you. You can keep things, or allow things or people to be brought into your life that you never really wanted in the first place. Or at least, things you had learned to let go of in order to personally evolve.

Evolve. That's all I want to do.

To fall in love and be able to do that with someone would be incredibly wonderful. Sometimes you can backslide, but you can help each other out, you know, if you've got similar vision, priorities, and ideas.

But what do you do when you wake up and realize you've bended yourself so far that you just don't know what to do anymore? And you just want that person for once, to see your side of things, and to validate it, and appreciate it, and respect it, but they just don't?

And then you think about all the other compromises you've ever made.

And you start to ask yourself again, the initial questions. But you know the only person who can truly answer that is yourself.

Labels: Cancer, College, Jill Scott, Love, Music, Relationships

Reader's Poll

1. You and your girlfriend really want to see a movie. You are really excited about this movie, and have been talking about it since before it came out. Well, the movie is released and you are out with some friends. They are all going in a group to see the movie. Your girlfriend is not available at the time. She had some important, very stressful things to do that day, which you knew about. In fact, she probably had a bad day. Do you:

a) tell your friends you'll pass and then wait for another time when the two of you can go see it together.
b) go to the movie.
c) go to the movie, but tell her when she calls and is obviously upset that it's okay, because you'll go see it AGAIN with her.

2. You and your girlfriend really want to see a movie. You are really excited about this movie, and have been talking about it since before it came out. Well, the movie is released and she is out with some friends. They are all going in a group to see the movie. You can't go because you just got home after a long day of doing some important, very stressful things, which she knew about. In fact, you probably had a bad day. Would you be upset about this?

a) no
b) yes
c) no, because she said she'd go see it AGAIN with you.


That's all.

Labels: Relationships

Paura delle

I once wrote this blog about how men and women could never truly be friends, quoting Rob Reiner's philosophy beneath Harry's healthily cynical character in When Harry Met Sally, because "the sex part always gets in the way."

And I was feeling quite cynical at the time, I will admit. Because I had just slept with one of my long-time friends and already felt the beginning of that friendship disappearing beneath me.

More than a year later, I was right, or at least in that case.

But it has me thinking about something else, too.

My buddy Dave and I've had quite a few conversations about this. He's the one that coined the term, "the getting weird." He said it wasn't the sex that got in the way, it was the getting weird, and the key to figuring out how to avoid that I guess would be something else, not taking out the sex part, haha. Of course not.

I know a few things about myself, at least, on this subject, but some information is useless unless you know what to do with it, you know what I mean? Shah.

I've had very little sleep, and my head's all cloudy, but anyway ...

Once, in another conversation with Dave he told me I sought different things from my relationships than I did from my friendships. I disagreed at the time. It's true I very seldom get involved with my friends, and prefer to meet people outside of my own circles.

The reason behind that, you know, I'm not really sure about, except that I love the excitement that comes along with just meeting someone completely knew and different, and randomly establishing some sensational connection.

Then again, the problem with sensational connections is that they can be burnt out almost as fast as they light up, only, at least at the end of that you could say you had a really good time, and didn't really lose much, except that there have been times when I've been through breakups and felt like I lost my best friend, even if the person was new to me.

So back to the getting weird part. I compartmentalize. I see it more and more in myself. Chris was the first person to point this out to me and use that term, because he saw in me so much of what he saw in himself, which is funny because in the end, our similarities are what broke us up, but anyway ...

I compartmentalize. I keep several blogs, and I know who reads what. And I love to tell stories, true stories, but I'll tell some people the stories in their entirety, and edit out some of the most important parts to others, telling myself they're still true, in their own way, and sometimes they're even nice little packages of entertaining anecdotes, good things to have over coffee and cigarettes, or letters, or late night conversations on the telephone.

And then I have this other running argument in my mind that is more like an enormous fear, that I'm sure dictates my actions here and there.

When you establish a relationship with someone, or start dating them, usually you talk about the things that matter, or at least, I do.

And you're the funniest and wittiest and smartest you have ever been, and can be on demand, like the way you can turn on a light switch, and you've got so much to talk about and none of it's all that cliche bull shit you've talked about 8,000 times either, and if it is, you gain some new perspective from this new person and it just feels new, and is new.

A few months down the road, you talk all the time, and you watch movies, and you lie down and cuddle on couches, and you might even go for some drives, but its so routine and this person is just there, and things change somehow, following, for what I could think of right now, down one of two possible paths.

The first one is the idea of the person you had when you first met and/or started dating. And all the things you loved about them, and all the things you used to talk about, and maybe the chills you felt the first time they laid a hand on you. And you miss that, and you miss those things. Because the conversation has gone from once being so much and meaning so much to what seems so mundane, those daily life things that get in the way, those daily life things that become so apparent when you spend so much time with anyone as you are spending with each other.

The other way things can go is that all of those things can still be there, but you somehow don't appreciate them as much, plain and simple.

And they both suck.

So now I'm writing this and I'm thinking about the whole compartmentalizing thing, and pairing that up with how much I've been thinking lately that I'm a seriously closet case of that whole fear of intimacy thing, all the while asking myself how I could've even a few days ago referred to myself in a conversation as "emotionally unavailable," and cursing this paradoxical hypocrisy running through me, because obviously if you know me at all and read this or talk to me or listen to my songs you would know I'm overwhelmingly chock full of emotions and thoughts, so how could this be?

I don't know, man, but I'm trying so hard to work it out. And then part of me thinks I'm trying too hard.

Like that one time I wrote the blog about logic and emotion and was thinking about that for months and decided they are the same thing, just like how I think right brain and left brain are the same thing, and science, math, art, and music, are the same thing.

And maybe they are, when you're thinking in ten dimensions, but maybe as a human being, a mere animal blessed or cursed, however you look at it, with rational thought and a posable thumb so that you can think about all these things while doing other things, including trying to sleep, which is sure as fuck what I did last night.

And I don't really have a real way to conclude this, because I've only drawn a tip of an iceberg of conclusions, but it is on my mind very, very much. Fuck, it is.

And what trips me up even more, is that I can know all this and know that what I want and what most people want is to someday be able to go home to a person and be greeted with a kiss and hug and be asked how their day was. And that's as simple as it gets.

Labels: Movies, Relationships

Last Night

The best part of my entire day was doing nothing. Doing nothing except one of the most important things one needs to do in order to exist. To exist on some level where you can deal with everything, and be part of it, and allow it to be part of you.

Last night, the best part of my night was lying on the couch with Nikki and talking about nothing and everything and letting our streams of consciousness run and listening and offering thoughts back and forth.

She just moved to her new apartment, and it's nice and cozy, but she doesn't have electricity yet, you know, that whole five business day thing, so it was cold and rainy outside, and dark and cold inside, with the exception of a blanket we shared and a couple of battery-powered lamps her father gave her.

We bundled up on her couch across from each other, and covered up, huddling with the pillows, and just let our minds unwind.

Nikki and I have seen each other through so much. We've loved each other; we've hated it each other. We've been roommates, we've fought; we've ordered pizza and french fries and watched Smallville episodes one after another; we've spent entire days drinking scotch; we've read each other our poetry; we've cried together about boys; we've gone out to Chapultey and split Nachos and a veggie burger so we could have the best of both worlds; we've shared an umbrella; we've taken substances together and acted a fool, making stories in the present we could laugh about in the future; we've confided in each other about so many things; we've encouraged each other; we call each other up just to see how life is going; we once were in a band together, and every time I play an open mic she is there to cheer me on; we talk about all our dreams and fears and idiosyncrasies; we've talked about the worst things we've ever done, and the worst things we've ever thought; we've forgiven each other for things when we could not even forgive ourselves; we remind each other that we are human even when we are feeling the most painful measures of what it is to be human; we've had coffee and tea, and spent entire days watching crime shows or the history channel; and we're there for each other no matter what.

No matter what. That is the point we have gotten to. The kind of love that is like family. It IS family. It's a feeling of intimacy and history and love that is almost too much to comprehend, because this kind of thing can seem so inevitable and simple yet bigger than ourselves.

What is it in the universe that brings some people together, and what is it about human beings that makes us need it so much, even in times when we want to deny it from ourselves.

I felt so grateful for life and my friends, and love in every sense that it comes to you in life. And what a lucky thing it is for any number of people to get to know each other that well, and to still be interested, and caring and compassionate, taking in all the good and bad with an indescribable empathy and acceptance so beyond wonder it is as much a miracle as it is a fact. A fact worth remembering, seeking, and finding over and over again, because these little discoveries, as Nikki once said, are what keep us so young through all the many lives we lead.

Labels: Friendship, Relationships, Smallville

Hearts Gravitate

I miss people. Goddamn, I really, really do. I miss a lot of people. For some, it's a new missing. For others, it's old. And sometimes you can miss someone when he or she is right next to you, while others it can take months or years and years until it sneaks up on you like some horrible flu you can't shake.

Sometimes the missing can take hold of you so tight you don't know what to do with yourself.

Otherwise, it's just thoughts.

It's funny about people, connecting, disconnecting, and misconnecting. Because things are always so seemingly different from what meets the eye.

Like time, and how its relative. I'm learning about Einstein's theory of special relativity. It's tricky ... a sidebar, but not.

My heart hurts this moment, and I'm probably listening to the wrong music, but goddamn, sometimes you just need to feel, you know? Sometimes you can be so far past denial that you've come around the other end, like all the way around some Mobius Strip, and you've met yourself, and you're all inside out and queasy, but you are only you, same one in the mirror, nothing on the outside has changed but your insides are all flipped around, changed forever.

For what seems like forever ...

And sometimes forever means later, and sometimes forever means someday, and sometimes forever only means until tomorrow, and it's percentage-wise so hard to tell which is which.

I'm not sad, actually. Only when I think about this, I guess. Only it's even sadder that I've moved past sadness and denial to acceptance, and I cannot tell if that's a form of giving up or being realistic.

Time. All you need is time. All you need is time. All you nee-eed is ... time.

You know what's funny? How lyrics can enter your brain, or some song or quote like it's your own for only a few seconds, and how suddenly you come back into the world from wherever you've been and you realize they weren't your words at all ... another sidebar.

God, I've been thinking about last words a lot, last words that weren't known to be the last words, and neurotic tendencies and the neverending struggle for who gets the last words, and how sometimes last words are not words at all but silence, or sentiments, or memories repeating like songs, over and over.

Missing hurts so much. Right or wrong, it does. Sometimes you can miss someone and it's okay, because things are so much better, and you know they wouldn't be better if you were in any situation different from missing them.

Maybe that's where time comes in; it does help heal a little -- distance, and time.

I think everyone has them, though. I really do; even if they are just lying in the back of your brain taking a nap they are there to be woken up with the smallest, most random reminder.

I'm so tired. I'm so tired of missing. And suddenly I wonder what we really miss. The person, or the part of ourselves they brought out into the air never to be seen or heard from again.

(Then again, what's the difference?)

I think that's percentages too. Because people come along as much as they go, but the pieces always create a different picture, don't they?

It's fascinating, and bittersweet, all the same.

Labels: Bloc Party, Change, Relationships

Everyone dies alone.

These things I will do, next time I love, and am loved in return:

I would talk about things that matter. I would want the person I love to truly know me, and where I came from. A lot of ugly things happened to me when I was young; A lot of ugly things happened to me later -- such is life. Sometimes I can be ugly. I can do and say ugly things. Sometimes I say them when I don't mean them; sometimes I mean them, at least for a moment, and should learn to bite my tongue.

I would participate in the little everyday things that mean so much more than a little:

Like listening;
Like being more sensitive;
Like not expecting my lover to be anything other than what he is,
And being my own person at the same time.

I would take him out.
I would do more nice things -- just because.
I would trust him; sometimes the hardest part is to trust and be trusted.

I told a friend the other night that I'm confused about the future. I had been creating these dreams, about this and that, this place I want to be, or with this job or education, blah, blah, blah .... And that, my friends, is hearsay from my own mind, for me to believe whenever I needed to.

The truth is, I've been alone for most of my life. Even when I'm not alone, I'm alone.

I dream up all these ideas in order to persuade myself that this is who I am, and I don't need anyone.

But my heart tells a different story, and no song or book or dream or words aloud can change it. It's reflected back at me in lines from some of my favorite movies:

"Everyone dies alone."

"People do belong to people."

"Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of your time."

And that last line, maybe it wasn't just about relationships and kissing dating goodbye. Maybe it was about life, because at this place in my life, it's hard to see a point in most things.

I have made a horrible mistake.

I have lost a great deal of my footing.

But the greatest loss is not the present one; it's something else.

Money isn't real.

A car and an apartment are things.

People matter, love matters, and everything else doesn't have to define me.

These things may not change overnight, but at least I've found out what is most important to me.

It is immaterial ...

If everyone dies alone, then maybe life isn't meant to be lived alone ...

Labels: Love, Regret, Relationships

Yes, I've been to the rodeo before.

My heart's got a guard, and baby, he's all in
All in, guarding my heart
He's got knives and guns and swords and shields,
He's got the drive to fight
To protect what's mine.
My heart's got a guard, baby,
My heart's got a guard
To fight for me in the night.
With the armor closing in,
There's no need for any arms
To wrap around what they can't touch.
And if I wake up lonely,
My heart'll beat within me,
And my soul won't wilter
But only strengthen,
And my brain won't stray,
But remain in tact,
While the guardian of my heart waits to attack.

***

When we first got together it took me a long time to open up. it was one of few times I hesitated with the whole love thing. I'm pretty guarded now. You know, it's not like the first or second time. You get to feeling these things have an end.

It's okay, though. because i think i am happier without him, although i miss him sometimes.

He used to tell me he wanted me to be all in, because he was all in. and that we needed to be honest with each other and talk about everything. He said he liked it when i told him the things i didn't want to tell him. you know, the things about yourself you keep close to you.

And i used to say that i was scared. That as soon as I was all in he would change his mind. And I'd be all in, and alone.

And sometimes i think i was right. a lot of the time.

Labels: Love, Relationships

Thursday, never looking back ...

It's not Thursday, but I did write this on Thursday and became leary of posting it. Also found the Cure lyric suitable in a way ...

...


I'm not a yo-yo.

Or a boomerang that's just caught in a tree.

I have breaking points just like everyone else.

It's almost too much to take. It is too much to take, for a sane person.

How much are you supposed to give when you really love somebody?

It really is a delicate balance, the pendulum swinging from my needs to his.

Lately I've been thinking of my own again.

You can't help it.

I might get angry sometimes. I might screw up. That's part of a relationship. We're talking about human beings here.

But you can't just be in a relationship and go back and forth about how you feel. Or how you need space. You need this. You need that. You have this and that on your plate. And the other person is just supposed to deal with it.

I don't care if the moon is full.

This is about the least fair thing ever.

So I'm up at five a.m. again. Have to work 10 hours tomorrow. I'll sleep it off soon. I almost always do.

...

Now today I am alone. Tonight and tomorrow. I got home after a long day and night, too much coffee and pictures of words and faces and memories and conversations blurring beyond comprehension because i would rather type and try not to think.

I walked in the door and they all stared at me.

"We broke up. I don't feel like talking. I'm going to bed," I said.

And then it was goodnight. But not goodnight 'cause it's almost morning. And here I am.

...

My grandmother is in town. She is my hero. I'm going to see her tomorrow at my mom's house. My mom just had surgery on her shoulder. She's got physical therapy three times a week for now, until it heals some more. I haven't even seen my mom since she went in. I was working tons of hours and my phone broke, but she assured me I didn't need to go with her. My dad went with her.

...

I'm going back to school, and I'm excited and scared. For one thing, all the classes are fucking full. I still have to pay UH some money, and the semester starts in less than two weeks.

I'm also trying to think of a way to go full time and not go crazy.

I'm also thinking about going back to the Cougar to edit copy, if they would have me. Because I miss it.

Oh, yeah, some other things too: Speaking of Thursday, I played open mic at Helios again. I hadn't gone in awhile with moving and work and drama and bull shit, but I'm so glad I went.

I had a really late spot, because I didn't show up till like 10 p.m. to get on the list, but of the people who were still there, the majority loved my stuff. I offered up free copies of my demo. I only brought a few, and I ran out. So I'm getting more copies made to bring next week.

The responses I got were overwhelmingly positive. People really liked and identified with my songs, not to mention musically, they liked it.

I now feel even more empowered to do more. To try harder. To put myself out there ...

What else can I tell you?

I'm done. I think it's Smallville time, then bedtime.

Oh, and the blogging's picking up now that I have internet at home. It's pretty sweet.

Labels: Breaking Up, Insomnia, Relationships, Smallville

All the Way.

So I've been e-mailing an old friend back in forth. We bitch to each other, encourage each other, talk about "things", you know, shit that friends do.

He recently asked me if I saw a pattern in my past relationships. I thought about it quite a bit. Am still thinking about it.

The one thing I did say, and I happened to be in a certain frame of mind when I wrote it because Chris and I were on "hiatus," was that I never seemed to let things effing die.

It's true. I've always sort of been that way. Van and I broke up two or three times. I broke up with Jeff three times. I thought I was in love with someone for years, and did the make-up/break-up thing (in my head) with him over and over.

But this time's different. This time I'm really not trying to make something impossible work. This time it is worth the work. This time it is worth fighting for.

The only problem is that maybe that is just how I feel every time about love.

You know what I'm talking about? How every time seems like the first time. Or better. Not that that's what this feels like exactly. Because I remember the other times. I remember them as times of many things, good and bad. I look at them as things in the past, but things that are not exclusive from the way I may act and react and think from time to time.

I've probably said this before, but my first roommate in college was the first person who taught me, or at least planted the seed of thought, that love does not have to be unconditional.

I'm a very forgiving person. I have forgiven so many for so many things. It was easier, so much easier, when I was younger. Call it inexperience. Call it idealism. Call it the belief I once held that people can change (haven't tried to even sort that issue out recently). Sometimes I even think back and wonder if forgiveness was what was left of my religion, since I was so involved in church during adolescence, when so much of me came to be.

I forgave Van for sleeping with another girl. For lying about it to me. For lying to me about other things. We got back together for a little while before he broke my heart again.

I wasn't the innocent one. I did my share of things too. Van forgave me for some things. So did some other people ...

Fuck. Van and I even had beers with his best friend Justin seven years later. At Agora. Cause for some reason last Christmas Van started messaging me on MySpace.

(MySpace is the devil, but anyway ...)

This isn't about Van, obviously. Just an example.

I don't know what this is about, but at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, does it really matter?

But what I told my friend was, that all the me's I've been and all the we's I've been a part of, they were all different. We were all different. It was a different time. But I know one thing: When I love somebody, I love 'em all the way.

Frank Sinatra understood that. The Man himself said it. He didn't write it, but he sang it like he meant it.

"All the Way"
By Frank Sinatra

When somebody loves you
It's no good unless he loves you - all the way
Happy to be near you
When you need someone to cheer you - all the way

Taller than the tallest tree is
That's how its got to feel
Deeper than the deep blue sea is
That's how deep it goes - if it's real

When somebody needs you
It's no good unless he needs you - all the way
Through the good or lean years
And for all the in between years - come what may

Who knows where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say
But if you'll let me love you
It's for sure I'm gonna love you - all the way, all the way

Labels: Breaking Up, Frank Sinatra, Relationships

Hi: A few things.

Feels like every time I want to write I don't have time or thoughts or privacy -- one of the three.

I've been writing regularly in my private diary, so I'm getting it out, but I haven't had the opportunity to translate all this shit into a blog.

Dig: I've been at this job for two months, so I've got plenty to say about that.

I've got plenty to say about lots of things.

Oh, yeah, and I've fallen in love. With a guy I believe I referred to as crazy on this thing a few months ago -- "or at least, on par with me."

Turns out we are crazy. But the good crazy. I believe there is good and bad crazy. And we're crazy about each other, and that can't be bad.

I feel like so much in my life has changed I wouldn't be able to begin, while so many things are, at least in the fact that they are somehow tangible to all the old things, the same.

I think about so many millions of things a day that I either stay up having long talks about them, or fall fast asleep and wake up unrested, like I've had nightmares, only I can never remember them.

I'm reading The Basketball Diaries. It's rad. And I think Jim Carroll is my hero in a way, even though he wrote it when he was a self-admitted junkie.

He says in the book he's doing all the junk, dope, codeine, uppers downers, grass, and drinking just to stay sane.

And I can relate to a lot of the things he is thinking, except I don't really do that stuff, and most of it I've never done. It's funny how people can come to the same conclusions through different experiences, while some can reach completely different conclusions through the same experience.

My sisters are my best and oldest friends. No one I will ever know in my entire life will ever know what we have known and experienced together. At least, I've felt that way in-and-out of years when I've seen friendships come and go that I thought would last, even years deep into them.

But as my dad was telling my boyfriend, Chris, the other day, we all grew up in the same house and came out completely different. With our own individual minds and opinions and quirks and hobbies and ideas and just, differences. Then Chris told me he saw it like maybe we all took different pieces of my mother with us in life. Something like that.

I do know that a lot of times I feel restless, and helpless. Like the world is so big and there's so much I want to do other than to get by. And I know there is so much more I want to do than copy someone's shit. Or The Man's invitation to a Gala so it can be copied and filed.

Or dropping some monkey paper trail crap into some secretary's inbox. And yes, I said "secretary." I know in some circles it's not proper to say that word in social circles.

I also never thought I'd know a secretary to turn down her nose at a mailroom girl.

Guess there's some sort of hierarchy in everything. A pecking order.

The other day this guy I work with quoted James Dean, or prolly misquoted him because this guy's a fucking idiot. But anyway, he said he had an epiphany, and asked us if we knew what an epiphany was, what the fuck, and then said he decided his purpose in life was to drive across the country and live like he was going to die tomorrow.

So this girlfriend of mine and I started joking about he could run a travelling hot dog stand. Hahaha, fuckin A.

Then he says, no, but that's what he's going to do. He just needs a few more years to plan for it first. Maybe somewhere around '09 he can start living today like he's going to die tomorrow.

Pfff. What a motherfucker.

Anyway, as you can see I'm a little jaded, but damnit if I don't find the humor in all this fake ass shit with all these self-important people who are just somebody's bitch. A spoke in the wheel.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how I ended up in this mess, and trying to forge a plan to not be like them. To see if that's possible, while reminiscing back about the time before I crossed some line and started thinking about insurance and evenings off and bonuses, when all I want to do is roll out of bed and shower and take a ride somewhere in my torn jeans with my wet hair dripping down my shirt like I just don't give a fuck.

I miss it, man.

Labels: Change, Relationships, Restlessness, Writing

End-alls, Be-alls, schmee-alls

OK, so things aren't that bad. At least, I've calmed down a little. I picked up shifts at Slicks this week. I can do that for awhile to float me until I figure out what I'm going to do.

I rode my bike today for the first time in awhile. I got a mountain bike for Christmas. Did I tell you that? It's a 21-speed red Huffy. Having a mountain bike is great in Houston because the sidewalks and streets are so shitty. My tires have taken plenty of blows, whereas a regular street bike would've fed me 8,000 tons of concrete by now, I think.

Rethinking the job situation. I got hired by a couple temp agencies. But I have to start with short-term jobs first, which means I'll have to quit Chuy's. The thing is, I love working there.

As a host, I wouldn't be worse off if they paid me in pounds of peanuts. The problem is, it pays so little that even if I worked full time I'd still barely make it. The hosting shifts are short, so that would require lots of doubles. If I wanted to do that I may as well pack a lunch and a sleeping bag for work. Not to mention the fact that part time at any job is just enough so that you don't hate it, you know?

I explained my situation to my boss there. She asked me why I didn't try to be a server. Two reasons. The first is that before they'd even let me do that, I'd have to work To-Go, which pays only 50 cents an hour more than hosting. The other is a combination of laziness, and that I'm stubborn. I've seen how they work. The restaurant is crowded 99 percent of the time. The servers bust their asses. I'm feeling too tired and old for that. My back already hurts constantly. I don't even know how the waiters do it half the time. I feel like if I were to serve there full time I'd be as physically and mentally tired as I was working full time at Slicks and part time there, with school. It would take that much out of me.

And I would hate the customers. Not all of them. A nice mixture of folks, rich and poor, laid-back and uptight, from in town and out of town, come there. Lots of different people. But dealing with them as a server? Fuck that. I'm tired of serving food. I don't really give a shit about knowing the menu anywhere anymore. Plus, you have all the people that come in there thinking they're Nora Ephron, ordering this without this with a side of this, and this other thing not on it, but on the side. Pfff. Whatever. Even vegetarians do it. Chuy's is one of my favorite restaurants because of the menu's many vegetarian options. But Nikki works there too, and she's told me people still come in there and make up their own shit. They'll get some combo that comes with like beef tacos and chalupas and enchiladas and modify it all to hell.

I'm at that point where my experience in the service industy has me walking a fine line between "Yes, sir," and "Fuck right off!"

So there you have it.

***

I'm trying to reconstruct my dreams. I'm trying for new goals. Hobbies. Friends. I feel like a life without them would be lifeless. Maybe it's fear of failure. Anxiety. Laziness. But I'm trying to get those back.

It's like when I go on these interviews, and people ask me what I want to be doing in five years. I don't fucking know. Or Office Space, the part when they're talking about what job you would do for fun if you had a million dollars already.

Fuck man.

So, I've got two tentative dreams. One is teaching English in Japan when I graduate. The other is to be a musician. An actual one. You know, one who records, and plays shows, even if they're small.

I was talking to Nikki about all this the other night. Because I'm always thinking about being someone else: like how I used to imagine what it would be like to be Ellen, when she got her degree and a new job in a new city. And how I'm always telling Nikki how she's young and beautiful and has no debt and could do anything or go anywhere right now, if she really wanted. Why can't I just be happy with myself and where I'm going? Why can't I see in myself what my friends see in me, or even strangers?

Nikki said when I sing, I don't hear myself. I hear all my mistakes, or I think about how I could belt it out when I was just a little kid, and how I've neglected this part of me for so long I feel like it's fading away.

But it doesn't have to. No one says when you are 25 years old you have to stop dreaming.

It's not the end-all, be-all. This doesn't have to be.

***

I've had so many job interviews. They make me so uncomfortable. All I can think about, when I think of where I want to be -- when I'm staring at the cookie-cutter artwork, and the functional yet uncomfortable office furniture, their tacky carpets, and fake office folks, with ladies wearing pantyhose and pumps, walking around like they're in costume -- is this for an answer: "Not. Fucking. Here."

A few months ago, just before I began my boycott of sex and dating, I went out a few times with this crazy guy. He was in his thirties. A businessman. Very intelligent. And funny. But nonetheless, crazy, or at least on par with me.

He used to tell me everything was compromise. He was so fun with his friends. Talkative, hilarious. He could start a conversation with anyone and make them laugh, or at least smile, in 30 seconds. Hands down. He had a great smile too.

But he'd sit across from me, in our more serious conversations over coffee, and tell me, "Everything in life is compromise."

Giving a little to get a little -- like how he hated his business life, when the fact that how phoney he could be to get what he wanted and to motivate people wasn't actually entertaining him. Everything was bending and folding things to make them fit.

I'm too much of an idealist for that, maybe. Even as low as I feel right now. I take the hopeful line. The one Dave and I are always talking about. The reason that I'm still fucking emo, no matter how close to the edge I get to making the jump to goth. Hah.

Problem is, half of me says that compromises are necessary in the beginning to get what you want: like giving up Chuy's even though I like it there, to pick up shifts at Slicks. Only, sometimes my body just carries so much shit from that place it feels like it might collapse: People I don't feel like seeing, songs I don't want to hear, assholes I don't want to deal with, drugs and money passing right in front of me, or memories of this friend or that lover even, and hanging out at this table or that table. Even the tables we played on when I had my going away parties. Or people coming in saying, "I thought you left." And me saying, "I did."

I have long conversations with people and then I don't remember them. I don't remember them because I don't remember the people. I don't remember the people because I never actually see them. I don't see them because I'm not looking. I'm not looking because I don't care.

So, back to compromise. I have to think that if I'll work hard and make some compromises now, I'll eventually get what I want. But then I wonder if he was right. What if that's what happens? And I'll learn that I have to keep doing this for the rest of my life?

I don't want to settle for that. I don't want to compromise my way through. I don't want to be wrong.

Labels: Anxiety, Goals, Relationships, Work

Fucccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

I just saw Aaron. Like 10 minutes ago. This is the worst feeling I've had in a long time. My stomach dropped. My whole body tensed up. Like a defense. Like how you feel right before a car wreck when you know there's nothing you can do about it.

Conversation was mechanical. Not even the how are you bull shit. Just me rambling. But in this cold way underneath. I was short and unfriendly. I wasn't happy to see him.

Why should I have been? It's impossible to pretend someone doesn't exist when they're standing right in front of you.

And I had begun to do that. I had begun to accept things months ago. I stopped the phone calls. I gave up hope on being friends. Decided that if there could be five years between our meetings I wouldn't have to worry about seeing him for a long, long time. We travel in different circles. We frequent different bars. The beauty of Houston. How you can lead a small life in such a big city. And cut others out by just arranging a few small pieces, if needed.

What am I going to do with this information? The information being that he still has the ability to break my heart with just one glance.

Off to class. Fuck.

Labels: Breaking Up, Relationships