slaying the villain

All it took was a phone call. It helped that I was a little drunk. I picked up the phone and I called them and asked them to go to dinner with us, which turned into a grill out at their place. He could have done it, but I did it instead.

This is significant because I spent a good deal of time trying to hate these people. I actually went out of my way to loathe them on the sly--while living with them, which is probably one of the most stressful things I've ever done to myself. I can't say if I was successful at the attempt, but they still seem to have some fondness towards me or perhaps they have the better poker face.

In my tyranny, liking them was not allowable because they were just so awful to live with. Now that I don't live with them and neither does he, dealing with them isn't so bad and I've actually discovered that I don't mind them too much.

Mind you, she is still a drooling cesspool of desire around him and I hate her for the way she captivates him. I hate him for being captivated. My cover was almost blown in one disgusting moment in which they exchanged their completely out-of-place platitudes and another friend of theirs bore witness to the emotional tsunami brewing inside me.

As I grow more and more comfortable in my own skin, I am finding that I stand my ground and interrupt her attempts at captivation. I assert my place next to him, after she somehow manages the feat of sitting down right beside him; several times I've asked her to move over or switch places with me.

And maybe it is that I realize that my anger and fear were so irrational, so illogical that I needn't worry anymore. She can throw herself at his feet as much as she likes, for that matter, any of them can, because he is mine and I am his and everything else is just what happens until we are together again.

community garden

planted

new phone love:

I wish I could take a photo of my new cell phone. It is silver and sleek and cool. It's a motorola Krazr. I'm no longer embarassed to take out my phone in front of people and make calls!

I switched providers. I got on the family plan with Eric. [I know, big commitment, right?!] I feel a little heady with the change of it all.

It has a camera so I'll finally be able to continue taking random photos and posting them here with vaguely loquacious yet nonsensical captions.

The irony is that not too long ago I could live without a cell phone and now you would have to pry it from my cold dead hands. I just hope I don't lose the damn thing.

currently:

I've picked up smoking again. We still don't agree with each other, the cigarettes and I, but here we go again. It's been a month or so. I haven't really been wild with it, but I'm hoping to diffuse it before it gets out of control. Oddly enough, the smoking ban has made it worse because when I'm at a bar with my friends and they all go outside to smoke, I feel silly sitting all by myself. I haven't been drinking as much, maybe because of the winter, or maybe because I've been broke, or maybe because I've been busy with Eric, but I'm glad that I've slowed down. When I was in England I drank maybe three pints in three weeks. I know that my friends are drinky-drunks, but they are good friends.

I'm in the middle of reading The Book Thief. It always amazes me when people are practically buying the book for me and then I read it and it's not very good. This also happened with Water for Elephants. Maybe I'm just getting highbrow or something, but nothing thrills me more than reading Faulkner or Nabokov. I'm reading Lolita again and it's just as stunning as I remembered it to be. During writing sessions I pull out As I Lay Dying, which was the first Faulkner book I ever tried to read and quickly failed to get past the first few--what seemed to me then--strange chapters. Now I have to resist reading it on the sly. I have gotten out of the habit of reading on the train, which resulted in my reading about a book a week for most of last year. I also still have six or seven of the birthday books left to finish.

I've really begun to realize how lazy I am and how I cover up for it by working a lot. That way, when I am tired from working I simply don't have to do anything I should be doing because I'm just so tired. I've been trying to push past it, but it is a bad habit. Since I've started working at the cafe again my feet have begun to exhibit signs of the foot pain that I was just beginning to recover from. When I was in England I walked so much, but my feet didn't hurt as much. The standing around for six hours is what does hurt. Due to the lack of my only accepted form of exercise (long distance walks), I have slowly been creeping up the scale again. I am back up to a size 16 and there is nothing more saddening to have that once vanquished insecurity best me again.

I have absolutely no idea what I want to do about grad school. I suppose I could keep applying to Iowa until they set a limit on how many times you can apply. Helpful others have mentioned lots of alternatives, but that is the only place I want to go. Of course I have considered my options, but that is my decision to make. I've thought about possibly doing freelance, but I don't know if I want to go into non-fiction writing at this point. I don't know if I care enough about it to do it. Also, there's something happening with non-fiction writing, things are changing, formats are changing, people can read reviews online by "real" people and I suspect that the sort of writing I would be good at (reviews, namely) will someday be obsolete unless I am extremely well educated on the subject. This may just be some of that laziness talking though...

I am really tired of my working situation. And yet, I like the unconventionality of my jobs, and according to my attempts at budget making, I should be in the plus, but I'm often scrounging for money, avoiding going out for anything over five bucks and paying my bills late. I seemed to be doing okay with my finances for a while and then suddenly around the holidays things went badly even though I did not buy a single Christmas present for anyone (I made gifts or gave away things I had). I even gave my brother and his wife a Target gift card that someone gave me, because I knew they wanted something more tangible than a craft project or a book they'd never read. Before I left for England I put my loan payments on hold, so I'm not even paying those now, but there's still no relief.

Every day there is a blissful respite from the world at large, whether it is in his words, his gaze, his arms, his bed; I find that I have no fight left when he is in my mind. I wonder if this is a good thing when we are apart, but I forget about it all when we are together and maybe that is all I need.

a bitter taste lingers

[Forgive me for turning this blog into a once-a-month-update page. I am also disgusted.]

Six weeks later, the physical wounds from England have healed; a splinter from the parqay floors finally exited the toughened skin on the bottom of my foot and gone are the blisters I accumulated while walking excessively. Slowly the rest of it is healing too, until one day maybe I'll forget that I ever loved someone else's children as if they were my own. There is no tidiness in this breach, it overlaps other friendships, put things into jeopardy, caused me to wonder if I shouldn't be friends with anyone that knew them.

I realize that when I am hurt or wronged or mad at someone I pull out the guillotine and let it fall without thinking. Leafing through a photo album of my previous birthdays revealed the faces of those long dead ghosts, who keep haunting me. I hear of them, people think I want to know things and I languish in that knowledge. It's not that I don't care what they're up to, it's that I care too much.

Today it was Marilyn, who is getting married. Last week it was Laura, who confronted me in person and I ducked away. Recently I learned that Deanna is back in town and done with school.

I don't regret the loss of these friends. I imagine every day is a cleaner, fresher, more stable day because they aren't in it. I know that I am a happier person for their absence. I am absolutely complete with how things ended with each of them and I can't say there's anything to repair or fix or say or apologize for.

And yet, somehow hearing of their lives, both successes and failures, I feel an urge to rekindle what good parts I have allowed to remain in the muck of my memory. I feel like congratulating them, supporting them, but there's something about the decision I made in not being friends with them that is so strong it holds me back from even bothering. It's been over a year since I talked to two of them in person and I only feel this way when I hear about them.

There is something special in having someone around you that knows you for who you really are, somehow who cares for you no matter what you do, it's just too bad that it was not always there from me or them.

As I've survived the emotional fallout from those situations, I find that I am less likely to readily accept the offer of friendship. I used to gobble up any attention anyone gave me. No more. I'm friendly, but not open for business. I have hibernated this winter and come out leaner and feeling better than I have in a long time. Those that I want to know and be on good terms with I've tried to be in touch with to let them know I'm still interested. I've rarely chosen my friends and I'm still revelling in the greatness of it.

I worry that I keep cutting off my older friends and that it's a bad sign if someone doesn't have any friends from childhood or school, but I'm fairly sure if I met Val or Walter ten years ago we'd be close today.

Apparently Laura announced to everyone at the coffee shop that she was disappointed in me because she thought we were "friends for life." I guess all break-ups are hard, even if you treated the person like shit. And what a better life I get to have now!