time to pull up stakes again

The very first entry I wrote here was about meeting him for lunch again, after so many months had passed, after I'd practically lived another life in just six months. I'd had two disappointing relationships, two places to live, and an ache for him that was bigger than I could have imagined. I wouldn't say that I was hoping for more, just that we had encountered each other and it went well.

Almost two years have passed since that entry and it is time to bury that relationship in the ground. I am done. It is dead. There is no more to say. I cannot write here anymore and see his name or read about the things we've done. I can't even feel tempted to peruse this collection of memories.

If you want my new blog address, feel free to email me, leave your email in a comment, or let me know somehow.

Thanks for being here with me and attempting to feel what I've felt for the last two years.

here I am

What an amazing three, four (I seem to have lost count) weeks it has been.

I don't have the internet as freely as I did before, so forgive my absence. I hope I didn't worry anyone.

Basically, I have found out that the love of my lifetime is a slimy snake who has been charmed by someone else. It was a concern I had throughout our relationship and the second I stopped worrying about it and just let him be, he was gone. Rather interesting that I accused him time and time again of wanting to be with someone else, anyone else, and he was always stubbornly refuting that claim. I became secure in myself and in his assurances, and then he was gone into another woman's bed.

Upon learning this information (a good two weeks after it happened, I might add) I left immediately. I began packing that day. I stayed with friends. I walked through my life like a trauma victim. I felt like a fool. I felt like a giant asshole. I felt like the world's biggest loser.

Two weeks later (on the first of the month, after I pulled my head out of the sand) I moved into my new apartment. It is in boystown. It is very close to where I used to live before I met him, before he dazzled me with his flashy heart and empty promises. I like to think that it is my way of taking myself to that time, to who I was before I met him, to a fork in the road that I made a promising, but ultimately erroneous turn.

We made three trips back and forth from my new apartment to his place. I couldn't believe I had so much stuff. I gave a lot of stuff to salvation army before moving in and there were still three car loads worth of crap. I still have a dresser there that I need to retrieve. On the third ride back, I saw him riding his bike away from his place. He had likely walked in to find that my piles of boxes were gone, and a scattered array of the things that were meant for the third trip cluttered his living room. He immediately got on his bike to find solace with his friends, I presume, as he was heading in their direction. I am glad we did not encounter each other.

Looking back, I see the signs, I see the old issues ripping open scar tissue, I see how I was. Again, I probably accused him so fiercely because I myself wanted something more, someone else, and one night I found it in someone else's bed. I didn't tell him about it until we broke up, because I knew it was wrong and I knew that what I really wanted, what I didn't want to sacrifice or lose was us. I have a terrible habit of destroying my relationships when I don't know what to do about them, and I also have an incessant need to be adored. This mixed with a night of heaving drinking led me to another man's bed. We did not have sex, but we were intimate with each other. And I wrote it off as a mistake I would never make again.

I feel the need to say this here because I don't want the scales to be improperly balanced. I don't want to make him the bad guy. We both fucked up. We both fucked each other up. Sometimes that is what love looks like.

As I begin the transition of living alone again, of finding things to do with my time, of looking myself in the mirror, I feel that things will work out somehow and I will be just fine. I will probably always wonder about him and miss him, but for now, I am just enjoying the feeling of being by myself and it feels pretty good.

I reckon

Breaking up is like sky diving.

The free fall is at once terrifying and exhilarating. I have no idea where I'm going and no idea where I'm gonna land. But I do know that the ground is coming, the fall will stop and I will be just fine.

Besides, I've had my parachute on for a long time.

interference

I thought we were past of all the past. I thought we could deal with anything. I thought we'd figured it all out.

As for them, they became peripheral, part of the landscape, part of the deal, but not the deal breaker. We'd see them periodically, but with some angst, especially for me. That I've seen them less than the fingers on my hand in the last year makes it a smaller pill to swallow.

Somehow, maybe because I've loosened up a little and decided that being friends with them didn't matter anymore, that it wasn't ever gonna happen, we actually have had some good times. There was that grown-upish dinner night, and the fourth of july party where all our friends convened, and there was that birthday party we had, but she wasn't there. Most of them when I see them it's bad. I hate it. But I tolerate it, them, him and them, because that's what people have to do. That's what I have to do to love him.

Lately, it's been getting harder for me to make nice. Maybe because we've been seeing them more often. Maybe because the mere mention of her name makes us rabid, to the death fighters.

The last one was the worst yet, and I really felt like she wasn't even trying to make nice either, which made me want to give up my half of the charade. It made me want to decree that she's not welcome in my house. Ever. I didn't tell him that, just let that fester inside. I figured, I was snarky from having my day off snatched away from me. I figured, she was bitchy cause she had to put the cat down.

Now it's another weekend, another day, another opportunity to be the better woman. And I was up for it, to a point, until he picked a fight with me about it. And then he did something was was out of line. Deciding that I needed a personal invitation, he asked her to call me and invite me. What the fuck? I'd just told him I hate her. And now she's involved. If I don't go, she knows something is up. If I go, I have to pander to these fucks all night.

So I say fuck it, I don't care anymore. It's time for war and truth. At the end of it, there may not be an us, but at least I never have to see that face of hers again.

hair today...

As a person with an ample head of hair, I have the luxury of being able to alter my hairstyle with dramatic results. I have been a redhead, a blonde, a brunette, a bob, a sleek shoulder length, a mop of wavy curls. This time, my criteria was simple. No more ponytail.

Now that summer is over and I don't have to worry about humidity for at least six months, I figure it's time to commit to blow drying and flat ironing. I don't even really work that early in the morning anymore. And it was raining yesterday when I got my haircut, so we left it curly and it looked pretty good. It actually looked better curly than it did today all blown out and straight.

Strangely, my hair cut has done something I did not expect. It makes me look kind of grown up. And it sort of really suits me.

Most of the time when I have a hair style it's just not quite right. I envy those women who have found their cut, the one that is wash and go, looks great every day; good for them, I say. I still don't think this is the hair for me (it feels a little soccer mom), but I'm happy for the change.

the trucking life

Sometimes I wonder why the stars aligned to bring my father into my life. He has caused a lot of heartache in his time. A lot of it is derived from the sort of misunderstandings that sensitive people collect along the way, but some of it is downright dirty lashing out on his part.

I have never condoned the actions of my father; both present or past. To say that I understand them, that I can have empathy for the sort of pain he feels first, well that would be closer to it.

As he faces another incredible struggle with his health, one that amazes and astounds doctors at his stubbornness, his sheer will to survive, his ability to tolerate so much physical pain. He can do it because he has suffered so many pains in his heart and mind, the body is just a thing. His heart is a black hole of hate and desperation and profound and complicated love.

I worry for him. I love him. I feel guilty sometimes for doing so, but I can't help myself.

As I contemplated applying to Iowa again, I realized that my manuscript had to be material that was a bit more universal than a goth girl working in a liquor store on clark st (not that there's anything wrong with that...). As I sifted through some of my notes and half told stories, I found a beautiful piece I'd written to accompany a photograph my father gave me on one of my rare visits with him. The piece itself was ignored by my instructor at the time, a guy who writes light hearted fiction who thoroughly enjoyed the goth girl. I assumed that must mean the piece about my father wasn't very good.

Most of the time when I read things I've written all I can see is a terrible writer. I cringe at every awkward metaphor, each lengthy sentence, poor use of grammar, etc. This piece, despite flaws of those kind really still had a sense of life, a sense of awe, a sense of curiosity. I wanted to know more. I wanted to write more.

Has my father come into my life to give me the one thing I have always wanted? His stories of living the trucking life, traveling with a carnival, trying to make it big somehow, is this his gift to me? In my heart I know that what kept me journalling for so long was knowing he was there to read it. I always thought I got my sense of writing from my mom, but in a lot of ways, it's my dad that has nourished my writing.

a weekend alone to ponder

he has travelled and I love him, fuck I love him

but. Yes, there is always one of those.

I feel guilty for saying this but I'm glad he's gone.

I never realized how much I liked living alone. No one to chide. No one to question. No one to wonder about. A freedom from worrying about people.

Anyone who knows me fairly well has noticed I like to take care of people. Some might say I have a insatiable urge to take care of people. A select few might have some psycho babble as to why.

I used to hate to be alone, probably because I needed to feel needed. My entire existence was contingent on someone else's feelings. If someone didn't like me, it might be the end of my world.

I guess I didn't realize that aspect of me has changed. I saw the effects of it, being less angry with people, feeling less fear of others, cutting off people who always needed me. I never imagined that my true angst was never being happy with being alone. I used to be guilty; who I am ignoring now? What friend have I not called in a while? How can I opt out of this Halloween party two years in a row? Now, I don't care. Very often the best days I have involve no humans at all. Except for television humans, who are in a different class of "people" from those you might "see" on your day off. After all, they don't demand your complete attention; just the television stations do.

Spending time alone feels like a long ago memory. The kind you might still retain that heavy physical memory of. Or as they say, "It's like riding a bike." As a kid, I loved to read. Some of my fondest memories are tied into books. In a house with four other people, people who were needy and wanted attention, reading was seen as anti-social behavior. But you know, not said that way, more like, "You always have your nose stuck in a book." And then the eye rolling, to let me know that wasn't as cool as I seemed to pretend it might be.

Once, since I've lived here with him, I read a book in his presence. It was the sort of book that demanded to be read, that lured as I walked past, that I did not resist. I wonder if he knows that he has his own versions of this, diluted so that his attentions can oscillate toward me after my repetition of the question. Lately, I've begun to enjoy our together/alone time. Sometimes we both sit here with laptops in each lap and something better to do, but we futz around, I play sudoku on my dashboard, he surfs the message boards of some geekboy review site. And we get to pretend that no one else needs us and no one is going to bother us. Maybe someday we will funnel our energies into something collaborative. For now, we are still feeling out the mine field and wondering where to step next.

Today it was the out of sight beauty routines women should avoid sharing with their mate. That whole face mask stuff. I mean, seriously do you think the goo on your face is cute? At all? Not so much. Plucking the eyebrows. Another thing that cannot be fun to watch. Hairs pulled. Pain. Ice. Numbness. Redness. Eww. Clipping your toenails. I still can hardly stand when he does it in front of me. I try not to do it when he's around because I hate that noise and imposing it one someone else seems horrrible. (Once I was on the bus and someone was clipping their nails. On the bus. Shudder.)

And I then I spent a long time zoning out to television that he would never let me watch, even though I watch tons of his dumb shit just because it's his tv and he's more pushy like it matters and I know they rerun my shows all the time and a week from now it'll be on again; hell half of the reruns I've seen already. In fact I avoided watching anything he would want to watch that I've become used to and half enjoy and watched horrible things instead, like: What Not To Wear, The Oprah Show, and recent emmy winner (they'll give any one emmy these days, won't they?) The Tyra Banks Show. I like to imagine I'm watching the part that will end up as a clip on The Soup. But I digress.

Sometimes I spend my days spinning like a top from person to person. Even when I wasn't dating him, there was that feeling. Sometimes I forget to slow down, I forget to let my limbs out, and then I lose myself in trying to keep everyone else in focus while I spin. So here's to stretching out in the bed, taking up the couch, and leaving my stuff laying all around. In a few days he'll come back to a refreshed me. Then I'll be glad he's back.

when he was well

goodybe Pablito

Pablo spent the last days of his short life outside, where he enjoyed listening to the sounds of the night, with the people who loved him petting and brushing his decimated body with a soft brush.

His family and friends gathered the night before he was to be euthanized at the veterinarian’s office. To many people who have never experienced a pet relationship, this get together might not be understood, but for the people who loved Pablo, it made perfect sense.

It was a way to say goodbye and share our grief with each other. It was our way of coping with the loss of such a vibrant cat.

The Lint Graveyard

This is the kind of thing I find fascinating!