decisions, decisions

bottle in front of me vs. frontal lobotomy?

I fell down the spiral staircase from the third floor on thursday night and busted the inside of my lower lip. on the bright side, it's like free collagen for a couple of days, and I can put my eucalyptus plumping gloss on the shelf. on the other hand, I have a busted lip and a sprained nose. (it feels that way.) I spoke to rob about it and inquired as to whether he'd heard the commotion, and he replied, "oh, the other night around 3 when it sounded like someone pushed a water heater down the stairs?"

"ahh-ha. that would have been--"

he pointed at my bruised arm.

"me. yes."

rob continued, "yeah, I wasn't sure if it was an intruder or something so I just leaned over and locked my door. as if that dinky little hardware store lock was going to deter an intruder. maybe just keep them busy long enough to get my rocket ship fired up."

"yes, erstwhile I could've been lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairwell with a broken neck."

"it could've been an intruder. but I'm glad you didn't break your neck."

"me too."

experiments and truth, and consequences

okay. so this whole Spending Time With Me thing is progressing, and it seems to be grounding me a little. (no panic attacks today! huzzah!) I found out this morning that I got the room at the mcallister spot, so I gave my notice and I suppose that is just that. aside from having to worry about coming up with deposit money, of course. it's been too long a time coming for theatrics, but I will grieve the loss of my barbie dream house, this house that was in theory my very salvation from the last quarter life crisis. ironic that it only brought on another one rather prematurely. it's unbelievable... another era's end in less than a year.

in one of our countless hater's quarrels, jon had shouted that, "not everything had to be a god damn novel". I think that is where he's wrong. every day I write the book.

diamonds

I went to bed at three and woke up just before six, chest tight, eyes wide, muscles tensed, heart pounding. my room looks cumbersomely huge and empty, and the traffic on fell street is just beginning to take on its frenetic pace that usually stands between me and slumber in the dawn hours these days. after the bar closed I departed from my friends and went to the corner store, picking up a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of champagne, but when I went home I set them on the bedside table unopened and draped myself across my freshly fabric softened duvet, turning away from them apathetically. I read an article in the new vanity fair that depicted marilyn's last days and mysterious remaining personal effects, including filing cabinets of love letters and the 15 bottles of prescription pills that they found with her. I suppose that my fascination with her was a seed planted by my parents, and as a child I would fantasize more about growing up to be like ms. monroe than other little girls were dreaming of picket fences and a prince charming. I don't own a single diamond and I'm already too long in the tooth to make it to hollywood, so it turns out all we have in common is blonde hair, epic boobs and insomnia.

I know that things will get better, (they have to), but being at peace with being alone is incredibly hard for me right now. I hate that this blanket of discontent has landed so squarely. I'm at a loss for ideas. my words are even backed up, writing feels strained and unnatural to me, as alien as voluntarily eating vegetables or wearing sneakers. I've got a hunger to get myself out of this hole but not enough energy to do it. I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. and I can't sleep.

this photo of marilyn has been my favorite since I first saw it.



it was part of the reason that I became enamored with the vaguely out of reach fantasy of living in a big city. there's something so organically grand and simple about gazing off of rooftops surrounded by tall buildings at a city whom you love despite its trespasses who loves you back in spite of yours. that look that she has is like a freeze frame of falling in love, but resignedly so. I saw the same expression on jorge's face years ago on a different rooftop, 26 floors above sutter street, with his soft cuban tresses being tossed by the wind from the bay. it had unnerved and elated me to witness such childlike wonder overtake an old soul, to see a full grown man humbled and reverent to a skyline. I miss him terribly, and in times of such duress, I constantly wish that there was some way that I could pick up a phone and hear his voice on the other end, calming in such an unbelievable capacity, regardless of what was being said. the loss is heavy and palpable, and I'm frustrated with its seemingly vengeful flare up. it leads me to wonder, will it ever get better? two and a half years later and I'm still feeling like there's a gaping hole in my life, and nothing can fill it. is this the same gaping hole that killed him?

even if fate had dealt a different hand, we'd either have had a catastrophic supernova of a heart shattering break up, or have eloped to morocco. in any case, he'd have been my best friend for the rest of my life. so, I've had this band-aid on an exit wound. every time I feel this way I numb myself, either with substances or just by a calculated method of distraction. maybe it is time to sit with it. and then, this way, maybe it will be easier to get back up and keep going.

I love you, jorge. I still can't believe you're not here.

it keeps coming 'til the day it stops

I can't stop with the god damned crying. this had better go away with the full moon.

oh no, not another learning experience!

my cat makes the funniest faces when he's taking a shit. is that juvenile of me to say?

so far in 2008, I've learned that nothing is quite as it seems and free will is an unfunny joke. good intentions are well and fine, but they're often different than what people actually do. I am guilty but my bleeding heart is good, for all intensive purposes. all of this life inventory brouhaha is something I usually save for the new year, but I can't wait that long to feel better. my anxiety has bled into my dreams, previously the only time I had free from it, and now the resulting nightmares have me exhausted and looking like a zombie and all the chainsmoking leaving my vocal chords sharing a charming intonation with jennifer tilly and then perhaps next week, satan. I'm shaky and unsure, and being startled by opening my front door to find myself vis a vis with constance and jon in an accidental mexican standoff yesterday morning made me realize that I am in no way okay, and thus obviously not over it. I literally felt my heart seize up and shrink in my ribcage as I passed her in the doorway and she looked me right in the eye with a snide smirk turning up only one corner of her mouth. (she sure does have an startlingly aggressive glare for a boring jezebel who is half my size.) I really wish I didn't care... and I am fairly certain that I would care a whole lot less if I didn't feel like my home environment was a war zone. jennifer aniston and vince vaughn made it moderately funny in that shitty straight to dvd movie. well guess what, vinny. it's not fucking funny. it fucking sucks. and there's not going to be a happy song in the credits to my movie. it's going to be "famous blue raincoat" or "pitseleh" or fucking... I don't know... a medley of the entire album "exile in guyville"! it's my movie, but I'm not crying because I want to. you might cry too if it happened to you.



I've got this giant novelty eraser that says "BIG mistake" on it that I bought as a gag gift for some e-tard jamboree hotel party from days of yore, and I today I wish it worked like that children's book, harold and his purple crayon. I need an "undo" button for life. a mulligan magic wand. I want a do over. this was not the summer of love I had planned. I've got to report to work in 15 minutes and every time I go in wearing jeans I get asked repeatedly if everything is alright. the funny part is, it's usually not.

leaving, well alone

I'm not sure if my summer cold is a manifestation of all of the shit clogged up in my head, or a hangover, or both. likely F, all of the above. at any rate, I just went down the street to thai place for some tom kha soup to cheer myself up and just ended up burning the shit out of my tongue. things at home are terse, the boys are on no uncertain annoyed terms with me for reasons I am too anxious to analyze and almost every time I see jon I am unable to resist the urge to pick a fight. why? I suppose it must be for the adrenaline rush of emotion, a testing-testing one two three of whether or not he cares enough to engage in such juvenile silliness with me. we are not friends, we are not lovers, and all of the good memories haunt the hallways, eerie intangible remnants that send me spiraling into aching reveries with daily frequency. I'm addicted to beating myself up and jon is my favorite battering ram.

it's hard for me to be alone... there's always something stimulating me, keeping me from examining myself. a tv, a phone, a stupid social networking site, a bar, many bars, boys, work, etc. jon was my main distraction for 6 months, and when we finally made the real break (after a lot of waffling around and waking up in the wrong bedroom more often than I woke up in my own), I filled that space with more impertinent, inconsequential crap. here's the rub: I need to learn to be by myself, sometimes. not all the time, just some of the time. I never write anymore, I hardly read, all of the things I used to enjoy feel bothersome as taking the trash out to that piss scented crack alley behind the bar below. (christ, I sound like that rolling egg prozac commercial, but it's true.) I feel like I need a soul enema.

to be single is one thing, to be alone is quite another. I have no romantic prospects for the first time in years. jon cited one of his main problems with me as an inability to trust because he knew that before I had made a career out of juggling a collection of love interests, an art I perfected after my first nuclear heartbreak. well, there I was, a reformed woman. I was most certainly on the shelf. nowadays, hookups don't make me feel liberated or fulfilled, but rather empty, sad and skanky. next time I am tempted, I am going to remember that feeling, put down the jaeger bomb and go rent a movie and paint my nails with zebra stripes.

I am twenty-three and I have no idea what the hell I am doing. I went to AA and just ended up hitting on a gay guy and returning with some pastel pamphlets that I hid deep in the recesses of my dresser. I've been waiting for someone to get me outta here, already, turn me around, show me the light, put some fire beneath my arse. I just figured out that that person is me.

cell phone project revival

I know. I slack. I'm trying to get this re-started.

Andrew Astro (415)

andrew works at the cafe adjacent to my sushi slinging dungeon and I regularly visit him behind the counter next to the espresso machine, thus breaking a cardinal rule of the fascist regime at what the employees of DG have come to affectionately call, "the citadel". andrew is slight in stature with bright eyes that pop when he gets excited and as he behaves as the resident thespian of our employment operation, they're always wide and seeking to hold someone's gaze. he's 44 and hails from africa, "god's country", as he likes to call it, and will make no bones about tearing anyone to shreds that inquires as to what part of the UK he is from. he's also flamboyantly gay and obsessed with jimi hendrix as well as astrology, and remembers everyone's birthday that he has ever met. (seriously). on the computer at the counter every barista's name is listed off on the touch screen quite unremarkably; lillian, rollin, kan, nick, summer, and then andrew's button says "FLAMING HORSE" to reference his fire sign birth year, but the entendre ties in nicely with his charming theatrics.

andrew also has a tendency to innocently tread into topics that perhaps are best saved for a later date behind closed doors with one's most trusted confidante. from day trips to the std clinic to sexcapades with his roommate who is 24 years his junior, there just doesn't seem to be anywhere he will not direct a conversation. one day there was a considerable line of customers that were being helped by one barista while andrew made the drinks, and I stood idly by, sticking my fingers in the powdered chocolate. andrew loudly launched into an epic tale of his greatest and most true love affair, it was rife with passion and drama, controversy and romance, and how it just happened to be with his cousin, jeff.

I choked a little and looked up at the line of customers, all of whom were now staring.

"oh, what's the big deal, anyway? why is it such a taboo?! we were in love, and two men obviously can't produce a child together, so there's no chance of 6th toes or mongoloid children."

"andrew." I said, smiling uncontrollably.

"really, now, I just think it's ridiculous that our parents condemned us. what's wrong with a man loving a man in his own family? he was a gemini dog... awful moody that one, but gorgeous, and let me tell you, in the sack...."

"an-DREW."

"what is it, ox-ox?" he turned the milk steamer off and reached over to pet my head.

"there's a time and a place for familial incest, and this may not be it." I gestured to the uniformly horrified faces in the queue.

"fine, you big-breasted bigot." he sighed, pretending to be offended, even though he may have been the only person in the cafe that wasn't. "double mocha with whip!" he yelled, slamming a paper cup onto the counter that was snatched up by a blue haired older woman whose sneer went completely unnoticed by andrew.

he leaned in close to me and raised one of his eyebrows mischievously before whispering, "you know, he's married with kids, now."

redirect

as much as the drawing board terrifies me more than the idea of lazily reclining in my stagnant pool of misery, I'm ready to go back to it. now it's time to forget all that I thought I knew (which was everything,) and re-learn the basics. things on the checklist: a. find a safe, stable place to live that I look forward to coming home to. b. boozing is for weekends, not for all waking hours. health going wrong can make everything follow suit, just as being a belligerent drunk doesn't make new friends or keep the old. c. make the best of my night job, and excel at my internship with faith and confidence. d. forgive myself for blunders and foibles and learn from them.

this stuff is not as easy as it sounds when I look back over it.

I'm ready to try, though, and I'm done attempting to rescue my emotionally abusive roller coaster relationship whose death rattle has lasted 3 months. loneliness is a hell of a drug, but it hurts less than trying to be with him when fully aware that I'm being played like an romantically caustic game of scrabble. (how many points would I get for: slimylyingbastard?) I'm calling on all of the break-up gods to grant me a favor and help me flee the treehouse as fast as I can. don't I have something in my karma savings account? anything? I once rescued a little girl who was being attacked by a gang of cholas on the 24! I practice random acts of kindness! I always tip baristas! I tell my friends the truth when they ask me if those jeans make their ass look fat! throw me a bone here! does anyone know the patron saint of jilted suckers who can't get craigslist to come through for the life of them?