I am Finally Seeing that I Was the One Worth Leaving

How I feel most of the time.

But odd. I don't know.

State of Being often self-imposed. You're not anything unless you allow yourself to feel a certain way.

I see him and we don't look at each other and we don't hug goodbye and I miss the days when we were friends.

I'm getting over the other stuff, I imagine these things take time. I have an interesting prospect on the horizon.

Doesn't take the sting away though. Some of us were born to feel too much.

Some of us are hard-wired wrong. Some of us are the practice for something more normal and healthy.

Some. All. None.

But we don't look at each other, we sit far apart on the futon. You wouldn't even know we ever even knew the other existed.

Stings, it does. I wonder when it won't. I wonder if it will ever feel normal again.

I crawled into bed and I wanted to cry, but I haven't allowed myself to cry in a really long time. I'm afraid I won't be able to stop.

This is not to say I'm in a horrible place, because I'm not, just a little nostalgic for a time in my life that seemed a lot simpler and happier. But that doesn't mean that I'm not getting there.

I am blessed with wonderful friends and family. I am OKAY. I'm working on it.

Please be patient.

And I think this is really cute:



ADDENDUM:

I have decided that most of my melancholy can be blamed on the fact that I do not think a lot during the day getting my work done, and so my mind becomes occupied with all the depressing thoughts that I have. I realize I work about 11 hours each day and my mind has nothing to focus on but all the problems that still exist in my world.

I will try to blog from home when I feel more peaceful and at ease with things.

Like today, a lovely day, went for a quick walk to the bank to deposit my paycheck. And every once in a while, I will be going about my business and I stop for a second and go,

"Whoa. I live in New York. That's neat."

And I feel slightly warm and fuzzy about it. So you see, all is not lost and everything is not fucked up and I am reading really great books and on days like this, I need to get out of my head for a while and stop being such a whiney mcwhinerson.

That is all. Carry on.

Death Becomes Her...

Quote from lunch:

"Yeah, you'd better cremate me. Cremate me, then spread my ashes over a bowl and smoke that shit."

You can Always Pull Out if You Like it Too Much

Tomorrow evening I have a date with Gwen to find my Power Animal.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Serious Problems call for Serious People and Your Fifteen Minutes are Up.

[15 points to whoever can name where I pulled that from]

Nature of the Beast

Really, crazy busy today.

I took a sick day on Friday, and the catch-up has been a bit...overwhelming.

Eh. These things happen. My body done broke. Like I wasn't broken already. Or at least put together wrong. I was assembled from an IKEA catalogue. I don't know if you know that.

At the end of the day, I imagine every issue you face come down to faith, and what you put your faith in. I liked how in A Million Little Pieces, James relates people's recovery by using the Twelve Steps as just replacing one addiction for another. I understand that an addiction to God or some other Higher Power is at least healthier than, say, crack or whatnot; but there has to be an awareness that you are filling one hole of one need with something else. Even Anne Rice has both lost and found her faith. Her newfound faith has made my roomie Devon lose his.

But I guess that's what we all do. What is habit? ritual? addiction?

Speaking as a fairly compulsive person myself, I struggle with the idea. I never go through physical withdrawl when I stop smoking, but the habits I develop around smoking are fairly fixed and in place. I wouldn't know what to do with the five minutes after I eat. Or when I need to escape a bar after a drink. And then there's that drink in the first place.

We are addicted to drinking, drugs, smoking, shopping, sex, money, each other...

Is there a single thing that we do that we are not inexplicably drawn to by some sort of need beyond the very basic? And to what degree does it become unhealthy? You could say that it's unhealthy when it starts to affect other areas of our lives, but if you've structured your life around certain habits (take a "harmless" one--like shopping, or something), is there ever a gauge of when it turns to the unhealthy?

Habit. Hobby. Addiction.

Withdrawl.

We're all trying desperately to fill the void. Ritual. Substance. Substances. Pattern.

I am in withdrawl. I don't know for what, but I have felt almost desperate about clinging to everything around me, and I haven't figured out what I lost in the first place that makes me feel this way. I am trying to replace something with anything, but I have nothing more to modify and clarify other than those general terms.

I am missing Something. I have lost Something. I am looking for Anything.

Rinse. Repeat.

These are the rituals and addictions that help us sleep. They bring us dreams from the Big Empty and seek to fill it with something else.

Sleep well. The void is lonely and wants some company.

Intermission

So much to process with this book. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I picked it up.

I'll have to get back to you.

But big night tonight. Hopefully, a fun one. Which, I have to say, is long overdue. This morning I woke up with a good feeling. And seeing as how I usually wake up with a thousand bad ones, I'll take what I can get.

I have a GREAT dress. Maybe that's all a girl needs.

From the Porn and Chocolate Book Club...

Dru's been working at Barnes and Noble. I asked him if he had anything to recommend to me, having finished with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (one I recommend as well--thanks, Kristen). He wrote me saying that while he wasn't quite sure what my literary tastes were, knowing me he thought I'd like the book he just finished.

I go up after work, though in the opposite direction of home, to meet him, get the book, and do a 2-cigarette-break's worth of catch up on our lives (it's weird, if I don't see him one weekend, I feel like we have so much to catch up on--maybe because we generally have such chaotic weekends).

We chat. We talk about the show and who's on-deck to visit this weekend and sports. Yup. I've gotten a little into the Astros/UT stuff. Frightening, I know. But I think it's a little bit of Texan homesickness and the fact that these, my home teams, seem to be kicking ass. Apparently, they can only do that when I don't reside in the state.

I love the way Dru hugs me. He hugs everyone like that, at least the short girls. He's a big bear of a guy and he'll always wrap you up in a big hug and lift you off your feet. It has yet to not fill me with comfort. He's been a very good friend to me here in New York, and we get each other. I love Dru. And I love how odd it is between us and how sometimes we don't know how to look at each other, but being around him is always comforting.

He gives me this book. I have yet to put it down (except for the fact that I am at work, but I even bring it down for my smoke breaks so I can fit five more minutes and a page or two more in). It's this guy's memoir and if you've thought you've ever hit rock bottom, read this guy's story and it seems like dress-up for little girls. The way he writes it isn't preachy or condescending. It's just painful and clear and true. Go out and get it, folks. You won't be sorry.

Two of my favorite excerpts up until now:

"My face has gotten worse and it is hideously swollen. I have trouble speaking, eating, drinking, smoking. I have yet to look in a mirror. We stop in Minneapolis to see my older Brother. He moved there after getting divorced and he knows how to get to the Clinic. He sits with me in the backseat and he holds my hand and it helps because I'm scared. We pull into the Parking Lot and park the car and I finish a bottle and we get out and we start walking toward the Entrance of the Clinic. Me and my Brother and my Mother and my Father. My entire Family. Going to the Clinic. I stop and they stop with me. I stare at the Buildings. Low and long and connected. Functional. Simple. Menacing.
I want to run or die or get fucked up. I want to be blind and dumb and have no heart. I want to crawl in a hole and never come out. I want to wipe my existence off the map. Straight off the fucking map. I take a deep breath.
Let's go."

and

"The streams are lucid and clear and they run back and through and back and through and they meet and they lose empty forget and there is is is something something something I hardly know perfect calm. Clarity. Serenity. Peace.
My urges are gone. My heart is slow and steady. Everything I know and I am and I have seen felt done past present past now then before now seen felt done hurt felt focus into something beyond words beyond beyond beyond and it speaks now and it says.
Stay.
Fight.
Live.
Take it.
Cry.
Cry.
Cry."

And THAT people, is what the call the good shit.

The way I see myself anyway

Pictures Courtesy of Marina

Though I will say, I am disgusted by how broken out I am in the photos.

Whatever. I'm jumping out the window later, so I won't even HAVE a face to be broken out.



Cliff lives in this shirt. It's really very remarkable.



Cliff and Blythe, looking thick as thieves. How thick are thieves, by the way?



It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the freakishly small hands holding a cigarette must be me.



Who's the cute couple? Well, that would be my oh-so-charming roommate Derek with the lovely Becca.



Looks like Derek has a little competition from my other roomie. Apparently, our whole household loves Becca to an extreme degree.



Look everybody! I'm eating my own shoulder!



Look! I'm trying to eat other people's shoulders! [I, apparently, am never satisfied with just ONE of anything]



I don't know what Blythe's doing, but I like it. Work with it, girl.



This would be a cute picture if I wasn't a broken-out troll. And clearly indicative of my compulsive nature.



I am clearly SHOCKED that I am not breaking Marina's camera with my hideousness.

There's a bunch more. I shall post when...well, my blog. Whenever I damn well want to. So get off my back, already! Sheesh. Where's the chips?

It's no Dorothy Parker...

But I feel it suffices.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

Just when I thought it was getting desperate

Kristen jumps to the rescue with this little piece of gold.

Carry on.

Seasoned Season

I feel like I should write something
But it could be all lies
The thing with everything turning colors
Is that nothing stays the same
And as things change, as summer ends
What is real becomes elusive
And so everything is misrepresented
Everything is a lie
That tree is not green, it is dying
You are not smiling
Neither am I
Though my pearly whites glare back at you
I have scraped from the skin of my teeth
The tears in the back of my mind
But it could just be something in my eye
I divulge my secrets
[this being my letter to the world]
But you don't know what I keep from you
What I have done to get by
Where I have sought comfort and annihilation
But 'tis the season for secrets
Because that tree is not green, my darling
It is just waiting to die.

My Ode to Dorothy Parker

When the rain had started
I was not awake to see
And when the clouds were parted
My darling, so were we

And now for something completely different...

So this comes from the irrepressible Caleb, whose searches of the internet never cease to amaze me.

It's called The Bubble Project. And in New York, you can see it everywhere. I just thought it was graffiti. But, apparently, it's a movement.

So enjoy. If you're too lazy to look through the link, here's my favorite:





Brilliant. Thanks, Caleb.

So Much Better on Holiday

My temper at work has gotten a little out of control. I need some more self-restraint.

Self-restraint has never been one of my stronger qualities. Pure id, I am.

Granted, I haven't had a single day off in two weeks. That could be a part of it. But I really think they should put a dartboard in my cubicle because then at least, I'd have something to aim for when I throw stuff.

Professional, I know. But to be fair, I never throw anything before 8pm.

Robert's heading back to Texas for the weekend. The rest of us have to come in tomorrow. I have no idea what to do without my work BFF suffering through this with me. Excessively email him on my BlackBerry, I suppose.

It's Buck-Up time, folks. Again.

Said come on, kick me again
Said, I'm so drunk
I don't mind if you kill me
Come on you gutless
I'm alive
I'm alive
I'm alive
and how I know it
But for chips and for freedom
I could die

--Franz Ferdinand

Choking on The Ashes of Her Enemy

Yesterday, I was so depressed I could hardly lift my head without wanting to cry.

Many reasons, but mainly because I can't seem to build credit. You need good credit to build credit and if you have NO credit, it's just as bad. I don't see the logic of that. I've managed to pay everything without using credit at all, that should make me seem responsible-ish, wouldn't you think?

Anyway, I was kicking myself because Dad always told me I needed to have a credit card and just buy little things and pay them off so that I could start building good credit. But that seemed to me to be stuff that adults do, and I have never considered myself one of those.

Trying to buy a computer without adult-type credit was a rude awakening to just how adult I've become. And still how childishly I deal with everything. Like wanting to cry when Dell turned me down for a line of credit.

Julie and I always used to joke [during the time we were both teaching] about how adults need to incorporate tantrums more into their daily life.

"BUT I DON'T WANNA GO TO WORK!!! WA WA WA!!! [stomps on floor, rolls around, clings to leg]"

Mine yesterday would have been:

"BUT I WANT A COMPUTER AND I DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR IT ALL AT ONCE!!! I WANT CREDIT!!! BOO! WAAAAAAAAAA....!"

Anyway, it was pretty disheartening and I felt more rejected than I ever have before. And believe me, I sprinkle rejection on my Corn Flakes in the morning--I am well versed in the feeling.

******

I've been listening to a lot of Nirvana lately. I smile because it completely takes me back to a time in my life where I was just so full of angst. I was Generation X, Jr. [being too young to really be considered part of the official Generation X]. I guess it fits me again since I'm fairly angsty these days as well. But I remember I couldn't listen to it for years after Kurt Cobain died.

I remember my sister playing me Nirvana and Pearl Jam for the first time. We were in the back of the Golden Chariot (our affectionate term for our nasty-ass station wagon) and Amy never liked to listen to whatever Mom had on the radio (being an angsty teen herself) and she leaned over to me with her headphones and said, "Here, listen to this--"

It was Pearl Jam's "Alive," followed by "Smells like Teen Spirit" and then "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails.

And I was totally blown away. These songs hadn't made their way onto the radio yet, and I felt that I had just gained entrance to a secret world where THEY GOT IT. They understood how frustrating it was to grow up and feel jaded and weird and out of place and kinda pissed about it all.

Mom (not really accepting anything Amy had to offer)--

"You're not letting her listen to that Devil Music, are you?"

"No."

And it was our little secret. Cut to everyone liking that music (including Mom) and I could listen to it without shame or secret. Doing dishes in the kitchen with my long blonde mane and using every once of energy to head bang to it all. I spent hours a day gracefully placing my arms in first, second, third, and fifth positions; spending all my time thinking about my turnout, my hip placement, my posture, my body...and this stuff was RELEASE. It was alive. And different. And dirty. And I never felt more satisfied to be that dissatisfied.

My favorite Nirvana song of all time is on the Unplugged in New York album. It was the height of their popularity and my family sat around together and watched it. And the last song that they played, after bleeding out of their acoustic guitars was "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" And at the very end of the song, Kurt sighs. Later, I feel that little sigh spoke volumes about what was happening within him. The exhaustion of it all. The desire to be done and gone. The desire to disappear like the little sigh that had just escaped him, magnified by microphone and pained expression. This is what I consider to be the defining moment of how I see Kurt Cobain. Powerful and captivating, and yet uncomfortable and reclusive about it. Tired. Sore. Pained. Exhausted. Beautiful.

When Cobain died, I felt the first real concept of loss sink in. I wore all black to school. I became known as The Girl Who Wears All Black. But I can't really remember other than a Friday the 13th that I actually wore all black to school.

I'm still mad at Kurt for dying. I'm still searching for that music that just gets it. And that releases it in me. Ani comes close, but I guess they're right about what they say--

You'll always remember the first.

I Really Don't Want to Live in This Skin

Dear Lord, today SUCKED.

Sometimes you can't turn your music up loud enough. I feel like bursting my ear drums.

Empty Picture Frame

And as the summers ending the cool air rush your hard heart away.
You were so condescending,
and this is all that's left
scraping paper to document.
I've packed a change of clothes and it's time to move on.

I often wonder how much I am misunderstood versus how much I misunderstand myself. Perhaps the poor perceptions of me are the ones that are the most truthful. What is it that makes ourselves? How we are perceived, or what we think those perceptions are missing?

Although my behavior makes it clear that I obviously don't like myself very much, perhaps I am mistaken in this. Or more justified than I allow myself to think.

A wrench was thrown into my romantic works a few weeks ago and I'm still trying to sort that out. Add on top of that, the same old romantic bullshit and I really can't tell what's up or down anymore.

Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures

I'm really annoyed with being me right now. I'd try to be someone else, but this damn hair keeps identifying me. Maybe I'll just shave it all off, and if they ask me at work, tell them I have cancer or something. I wouldn't use it to get out of work, but just to have people back off my case for a while. Of course, if I did that, there would be so much bad karma to work off, I'd totally come back as a cockroach.

The way my life kinda is right now, perhaps that's not such a bad thing. What do cockroaches think about?--

"Ummm, I hope I don't get stepped on today..."

Sounds blissfully simplistic. All they do is couch surf, so they don't worry about rent. Every cockroach looks the same, so it doesn't matter which one you fall in love with. In fact, your husband cockroach might have already died and you just think it's the same old one, when really, unbeknownst to you, you've had 5 cockroach husbands already.

I think there might be some delightfully peaceful about being at the bottom of the food chain. And yet, long after we've given up our "supremacy" of the planet, those little roaches will be having an atomic barbeque and laughing at us. If they had the ability to laugh at all. Maybe that's what cockroaches are. People who can't bring themselves to laugh or feel anymore so they develop an exoskeleton and four more legs to run away with.

"It was never just a question of escape. It was also a question of transformation."

--The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

They Broke the Mold On Me

The sinister "they."

I already have a pre-hangover. There are many social obligations I have, and I have to work Saturday AND Sunday. Full days. Sucks, but I could use the overtime. I need to get a computer and stuff. And pretty things. Let's not forget the pretty things.

I don't have much time. I'm working still and I have to run home and get all rock-stared up for the evening. I bought a fedora. It's, like, super awesome and makes me feel totally rad and like, pretty, and stuff.

It's so hipster I can hardly stand it. But Kristen informs me if you admit your fear of becoming a hipster, than you sir, are no hipster. So I'm safe.

Plus, I'm a paralegal and I think that exempts me from the hipster category altogether.

But I will share this quick story because it's the kind of thing that can only happen in New York. Well, no, not really, but I feel I must be becoming a real New Yorker because I consider New York to actually be the Center of the Universe.

Robert wanted to go to Duane Reade. I wanted to smoke a cigarette. So basically, we needed a midday field trip out of our building. I wasn't finished smoking so Robert went in without me. I stood by the bookstore that's next door. I was looking at all the books, seeing if any interested me.

Not that I was particularly interested in this one, but it just so happened I was staring at it.

Someone taps my shoulder. Jeez, Robert, that was fast.

No, not Robert. It's a woman jogging.

"Hey, that's me! That's me! I wrote that!"

Holy shit, she's right. She's right on her own cover. And I'm looking at her sweating and looking at the cover with her all empowered and stuff...

What do you say to this?

I just look at her and smile.

"CONGRATULATIONS!"

And off she runs, apparently there was a damsel in distress she needed to attend to. Godspeed, my dear superhero. I have a cigarette to finish and then I'm gonna go buy condoms.

Happy Weekend, kids!

Borrowing this from Spring...

But if this can't make you happy, nothing can.

I am Anything but Soft

Okay. Been thinking heavy for a few days.

And yet, on LiveJournal, as playful as always.

So something to entertain you, until I get back with some of the sorting out of my brain.