Ghosts of Hyde

Lost

2005-06-13T11:39:00.000-04:00

I'm going to go buy a new journal today. I need to say goodbye to this year. The day or two after I ended the pregnancy I felt better-- like my old self. Now I feel disconnected from everything. Like I can feel the burning out embers of life inside of me. And I'm so sick of loving Narc. I'm so sick of feeling lovesick all the time-- because it's not love that's making me feel that way. It's confusion and frustration. And I feel lost.

Waiting for Anxious

2005-06-07T16:30:00.000-04:00

Waiting for Anxious at "Forty Carrots." She's half an hour late and I'm pissed. It's already 1:30 and I have to be at NYU for my blood-work at 2:45. This is bullshit. As if I weren't pissed off enough today already! This is absolute bullshit. I'm tempted to leave. Total bitch. I wonder if I should call Narc tonight or if I should wait for tomorrow. I totally have to go to the library tomorrow. I totally can't believe what he wrote on his blog though... I just can't believe it. After everything... I am so mad at her with every minute that goes by.

Benefit:
Ooh la lift
Eye Bright
Lyin' Eyes

Pregnant

2005-06-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

I'm pregnant.

I've known for two days now. And Each day that passes, the less I want to have this abortion. I don't know if I can go through with it. Who would this child be? He or she needs my nurturing and protection right now and I'm the one who's going to suck its life away. But I could I manage it? What would happen to everything I want for myself? Is that just selfish? I'm 26 years old. Haven't I had enough years to myself? The big question for me right now is whether I should tell BigSis. I feel like she could talk me through this, but I also feel like it would infinitely complicate things. Am I being absurd for even entertaining the notion of having it?

Narc was cold and a little distant on the phone today. But at least he called and maybe it's because he's home with his mom. I was surprised at Sunshine's reaction. If I thought she would react that way I wouldn't have told her. She made me feel worse-- like this baby might be a miracle. Something that will never happen again. I just wish Narc would make me feel loved. It would make me feel better about whatever decision I ultimately make...

I have to just make myself stop thinking. Just accept it and do it and have it be over. And don't think about potential. The whole universe is unlived potential. Why is this such a crime? (Because it's depending on YOU.) Even Narc can't understand that-- it's not depending on him. His body is not sustaining its life. It's depending on you. And you want to kill your own child. You're not a drug addict or homeless. You're not 15. You could find a way to do this if it's what mattered to you most. And Narc wouldn't have to have anything to do with it...

What would he say though? I just really want him to come back already... really want to see him. I feel like it would make everything so much clearer. I feel like I'll have a felt sense of what to do as soon as I see him. IrishBird surprised me the other night. She just said "it's a big decision for you. Only you can decide." I thought she would be so dead set against it and tell me so too...

Silence.

2005-05-21T11:53:00.000-04:00

One of those control moments... wish I could call him, but knowing there will be only silence. And that will be even worse than what I have right now. That would be death.

The Bad Girl

2005-05-07T18:54:00.000-04:00

B is mad at me now. What did I do? Things fall apart already? He only got here an hour ago. I'm bad, I tell you. Bad. Sometimes I hate myself so much. I don't deserve anything. And today was to remind me of that. He says he doesn't feel good. Well, I don't either. I bet it's because I require something today. I bet.

At the Bar

2005-05-04T02:55:00.000-04:00

Too funny...

I'm at Cheers and the day waitress just told me that they went to Manchester the other night and said they work at Cheers and Maeve asked if they knew me. Guess things get around, you know?

Anyway, I'm in a weird mood today. Don't know what to do about the whole Stallion situation. I can't believe the feelings he has for me. Half of me wants to pursue it, but then I remember what Dr. G asked me this afternoon-- if he were single would I want to go out with him? I think the answer would be know.

So, my mind is still on Narc and on the personal as political. I feel a little weird/ nervous about hanging out with Bezoukhoff tonight. Things are too clear, you know? Too clear to ignore.

Ex-Libris (no known author, mystery section)
Book is called "Ex Libris" ("Rose")

$40,00--Bezoukhoff owes you!

Notes

2005-05-03T19:00:00.000-04:00

"Socialist pricks with bourgeois dicks"

The personal as political problem.

Mon-Sat 9-5:00

The Exchange

2005-04-27T05:01:00.000-04:00

"What are you up to?"

"Barely alive. Tuesdays are @(#!)@! Too much time with nasty cheap tourists. Y tu, Hyde? Perhaps Schtirlitz some time this week?"

"Yes! Imbibing and talking to a 53 year old. Missing Narc and you!"

"That's good-- 'cept for Narc... Careful with 53 year old. I had an old hag hit on me last night."

"Okay. I'm in a weird mood. Want adventure but not trouble."

"Please be careful with imbibing too. So says Bezoukhoff. Keep it in a bottle. Release slowly. That way you know where adventure ends and trouble begins. Be careful... you know I need you."

"You need me?"

"Da. Didn't notice? Heck. You saved me from a fever."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Did you read my blog? I should tell you I'm drunk now. Care no more and say no more.."

"If I upset you, I'm sorrier than you think. I need you-- you save me from much and my life is so much the better for it. It's just that text message isn't good for expressing it all. Sorry for being so unclear now."

"Huh? In fact, I should say no more. Nite!"

"I knew I was unclear. Tomorrow will be a better day. Maybe let's meet Thursday?"

Finding Myself (on Coke)

2005-04-21T04:07:00.000-04:00

Ok.

So, here I am trying to do my "homework." Therapy homework. Who would have ever thought that journaling would become homework? I don't know... I'm sitting way too close to the door. It's pretty fucking cold. Hold on. I don't like this pen. I want to see if I can switch.

Ok.

Found another. Now I'm using my "Sha-Barbara McDaniel" pen. Weird. I'm not feeling right right now. Even after just a little bit. I have to remember this feeling. Even if I can't (or don't want to) remember it, I have to know it as a fact-- to always embrace it as a maxim-- that in the end, I REALLY DON'T LIKE THIS STUFF. It's all about being afraid of the come-down off this whole crazy trip that I've been on for the past nine months-- a lifetime lived, it seems (albeit a depraved one!). But I have to remind myself-- to keep telling myself-- I WILL survive this. Something WILL follow.

Today is "shorts and longs sleeves" weather. Of course, I'm wearing jeans, but it reminds me of that party so many years ago at Uncle N's house-- and I wore white denim shorts (they were kind of long) and that teal green hooded long-sleeved t-shirt from the Gap.

It's so fucking crowded in here tonight and I don't like it. I think it's for the Baseball. The Yankees are on. I guess no one gets the YES network at home. I had a good time with Bezoukhoff last night. It's too bad I can't find a guy who is caring and who I can talk to like that. Bezoukhoff and I are too much alike. He actually seemed to want to hear and share things that came from me. To see me. Would Narc have ever tolerated (even for two minutes) looking at an old album, hearing my compositions or seeing my sketchbook? Dr. G. was right, what she said today-- that I must feel degraded from the whole experience. And you know what? I do.

Just took a really long break from this. NDN came by and we talked for quite a while. We talked about all of my crazy stories from the fall. He told me that my life is quite "colorful" (to say the least.) What's going to happen to me though if (when!) it's not that way anymore?

Sometimes I think I don't even know what there is of me under all of this. How pathetic that seems, but how true! Maybe I've just hit on something big here-- that beneath the chaos, I don't know who I am. I used to feel that way about my "artistic gloominess." That if I gave up my "depression," I wouldn't be me. Well, of course I'd be me, but I couldn't (can't) imagine who that would be. I think it's important to get external validation from people. (BarMan just said that his dad died of lung cancer). I never expose the true me. So, how can it be reinforced to me at all? Maybe that's why I feel so isolated? Maybe that's why it's not at all strange to me that Narc had no interest in knowing me or seeing me-- hardly anyone knows me and sees me. All of that stupid shit that I post up on my blog-- that's not me. I'm not Hyde. I'm not Jekyll either. I'm a mermaid. I'm a Romanov princess. I'm a fiercely loyal lover who wants to be a family to my love. I'll fight like I lioness for those I love. It breaks my heart to hurt people's feelings. I get a thrill from danger. I get joy in life from kitsch. I love doing things to make those I love smile. I want a boy to do things for-- but one who will see me in return-- not just drain me. I love the Song to the Moon for so many reasons. I'm not embarrassed of loving cheesy sweeping melodies. I pay such careful attention to color and setting. I see the world expressionistically. My feelings are hurt very easily. I am crazy stubborn. I can't accept failure. I can be emotionally manipulative but I always lost in the end anyway because I'd rather give in than be abandoned. I compromise myself and it hurts. It hurts so much that I can't ever let anynoe see it. It would shatter me I would feel the degradation then. I wouldn't be able to tolerate it. I would be so embarrassed. I have a lot of pride and false bravado. I feel unacknowledged and under-appreciated.

Is this who I am?

I believe in love fiercely and passionately. I'm willing to try almost everything. I notice details. I write my life like a book-- once something happens, it's etched in memory. Even if I forgive, I certainly never forget. I am my past. I miss Narc because I failed. I don't really believe dreams will come true. But I madly indulge in my dreams anyway. I don't reallbelieve in God, but I believe in ghosts, fate, ritual and pray by instinct. I'm obsessed with relics, traditions and magic. The only things that measures near to my emotions are the sea ad sky. I love to aestheticize life and then laugh at myself for being pretentious. Then I laugh at myself for being so self-aware and then so aware of being self-aware and then again for my whole foolish po-mo quandary. I have more crushes than anyone I know and I thoroughly enjoy them. I'm very concerned that I will disappoint my parents and my ancestors. I know something must be wrong with me that I haven't found someone to love me. I feel like I am disgusting to most people in this world. Why did B leave me? Where did I go wrong? If I can figure out why I wasn't good enough, maybe I can fix it and find someone to take me. Until then, I'll have to continue to accept what I have.

The whole world is a market-place, bottom line. And whatever assets I do have, they must have very low market value. How did I win Narc? Would he ever have talked to me to begin with if I hadn't been doing coke that night? I doubt it. In fact, it was probably James' idea. He's the one that is so into coke. I can just imagine their whole conversation. Why couldn't I hold him though? I've always gone on the premise that once someone bothered to see me, I'd be loved. B left me anyway though. I wasn't pretty enough. I wouldn't impress his family or friends or make him feel good about himself. Lesson learned/ That even if you do manage to find someone, he'll toss you back. Non one wants you as "the one." You'll never have anyone to love unless you have a child... a fatherless child. That's just what we need... more fatherless children.

Doesn't Narc know I would have been willing to do anything for him? I think he does. It just wasn't enough. I never will be, so why bother? Right? Just drown it out.

"Shut the fuck up!" he said.

Drown it all out.

**********************
Still here...

Just hung up with Anxious. Pissed off. "Just let it go," she said. And implied I was competitive and fucked up compartmentalized. Fuck that.

Spaghetti

2005-02-28T23:16:00.000-05:00

@ Cheers and waiting for B to finish with French class. Making spaghetti and meatballs tonight...

On Death's Door

2005-02-24T12:30:00.000-05:00

One month... It all seems so stupiud. All I can do now is pray for my stepbrother. Pray, pray, pray that he'll be strong enough.

Mama Said...

2005-01-24T17:31:00.000-05:00

Lost and then found...

Today unsettled all day and then amazingly attacked by my mom, as if I were Jewel. I feel like it's so unfair. But what if she's right? She acknowledged that I am living up to my responsibilities, but not to my potential. As if she's only going to help me out if I do certain things. With "health" as a priority. But what about room for my own choices? To figure out who I want to be as a person?

What about happiness?

What if that's not the same as living to one's potential? Shouldn't I be able to choose?

I feel like this is something I'd want to talk to Narc about because he would understand where she's coming from in terms of ambition and potential and maybe put it to me differently. I miss him. Missing something I never had. I just hate that my mom did this to me. It's so unfair when I'm only doing my best.

Narc's TV

2005-01-20T21:18:00.000-05:00

Later- much. Next day.

Flying Daggers, volleyball game, waiting in snow, High low, didn't change, lunch with Bezoukhoff, flood of texts, two quick glasses at Cheers and a night that bled into 6:00 pm the next day. (It's 6:18 now, to be exact). And Cutting Edge is on TV. Narc is getting ready to go to his improv class (now on Thursdays) and I guess I should go to. We watch too much TV together. I wonder if it makes him think I'm uninteresting.

No sex today. I wonder why about that too. Does it mean I'm uninteresting? Sometimes I'm not sure how to be. And I think I have to meet NV tonight. Kind of want to go back to Cheers in the interim, but have to fix my hair first.

adventuresociety.com

"The World is Made of Glass" -Morris West

Tom L.

2005-01-19T14:38:00.000-05:00

(Tom L.)

Last night I totally fucked up. Didn't keep a single one of my New Year's Resolutions! Now my throat is burning from coke and I can't sleep and Narc is snoring next to me. Last night was definitely weird. At the very end of the night, at Cheers, two things happened. One-- that guy, Tom L. came in. Second (or I suppose, "Two")-- I decided to start drinking. This has to stop. I need to just set a number of days and decide to stop drinking.

Anyway, Cheers closed and the guy and I left together (sort of discreetly). We walked up towards Thaddy Con's (which was closed). I think it was around 2:00 am. Then we went to Manchester with a bartender named Willy. They promised to stay open until 4:00 am.

Tom and I got increasingly drunk and at some point the decision was made to go back to my place to "hang out" a la "a very medicinal evening." He didn't do very much coke, which left a shitload for me. He pretty much passed out, leaving me bored, restless and still lovesick.

I ended up talking to Liu on the phone for a while. She really came through for me. Then Narc came up on my call waiting. I haven't yet processed the rest of the night enough to write about it. I'm lying next to him right now, freezing my ass off...

Self-Control

2005-01-19T00:43:00.000-05:00

Sill waiting for him to call. Still waiting for him to call. Still waiting for him to call. This is absolutely mind-numbing, mind fucking torture. Absolute fucking torture. I will give this until Thursday and then I will have to use every ounce of discipline and self-control that I have to not only not call him, but to not return any of his contacts either...

If and when he ever does.

He's going to do it just when I've started to heal from it.

Why can't I stop thinking about him? Why are dreams of that closeness from the Summer with me at every moment????

Arghhh!!!!

Ok--

PLAN A:
Take all of my self-punishment energy and put it into not eating. I'm going to empty myself of all of this. Purge my system of all this excess. No more whiskey seeping through my pores. No more coke binges. And no more heavy meals. It's going to be a lashing for everything about me that's me-- that he can't love.

I don't care if this means I'm fucking crazy. At least it gives me something to do with myself. Discipline. And I'm going to throw myself into impressing ProfPP with my paper. Only need to find a topic now...

God, I wish I had somewhere else to go.

New Year, New Me.

2005-01-17T01:30:00.000-05:00

At B's place in Astoria. Just finished an awesome episode of 24. Jack is about to enter the compound to save his love, even as the Marines are preparing a strike on it. Arghh! Eeeek! Yaow! I am so hyped over it. That and the fact that I'm all anxious from my most recent encounter with Narc.

I feel so fucking lovesick. My stomach feels so queasy when I think about it although I don't know why. It just doesn't make any fucking sense. I guess I should backtrack a little though.

Last week I was stuck in bed with the flu. The week before that I was in Puerto Rico with my family and Hammer. Not a super-eventful trip except that it filled me with wanderlust and some bourgeois self-hatred.

The trip started off New Year's Day. Liu was here for New Year's Eve and the two days prior. It was a very coked up visit. December 30th was the "Billy-boy" encounter. He was so cute-- a British boy. He fucked so hard. It was awesome. Two days later I glimpsed myself naked in the mirror and I had two enormous purple bruises on my belly from getting banged against the kitchen counter. On top of that, I found out later that he's only 19-- a fucking baby! Oh well... It was fun. He was so sweet. Bought me flowers and kept trying to impress me. Left me $100 to pay for his coke too... a sweet guy.

Anyway, the only weirdness for me was that he's the only guy besides Narc that I slept with since I told Narc in November that I love him. It confused me and I definitely felt guilty and torn about it. But, what could I do? Narc made it pretty clear that there's "nothing more for us" and that he doesn't want me because my "life is shit" and I don't even approximate the "muse" that he's looking for.

So... I was resolved to forget about Narc. And what better way than with the adorable (and excitable) Brit? All of that life is meant for 2004, though. I'm determined to get my shit together in the new year. No more drugs, and the drinking has to get under control. Puerto Rico was good for me in that way. In some ways, so was the flu. But then there was Narc this weekend. He texted me on Friday: Out and about tonight? I wrote back the next afternoon that I was asleep-- taking it easy lately.

Went to the Frick and saw the new Raphael. Brilliant.

That night I stopped in at Cheers to say hi to IrishBird. Stayed for too many drinks-- my first real debauchery of 2005. Took myself home by midnight.

Narc had texted me around 9:30:
Thought we might catch up at some point.

I wrote back:
New Year. New me. Don't want to fall into the same old, same old.

Then I called him. He called back, said we don't have to sleep together and offered to come up by me. WHAT?!?! Is this the same guy??? Ok. He won me over with that-- big time. I felt heard. So nice.

Anyway, I went down there. Got wasted. Probably embarrassed myself big time. I can't worry about that too much. But, I woke up with him the next morning. It was so sweet to be held by him. I just love that feeling more than anything. So much so, I don't care how fucked up everything else is. The only thing that makes me nervous is how I can't get it off my my mind now. Well, not exactly-- he's not really on my mind. It's more like he's on my chest. And I feel so anxious. I feel so out of control with him. I hate the anxiety that comes with feeling out of control. But, maybe that's the very feeling that I'm seeking because I always end up in situations that create that dynamic for me.

Last night I couldn't sleep at all. I wanted so badly to call him, but I didn't. I have to be okay with all of these space, you know? Even if I'm not. I called today though, and asked if he wants to go to the Whitney. If he doesn't call back soon, or if he avoids the issue or says no, I'll know that nothing has changed and I really am just a "call girl" of sorts for him. My fingers are crossed on this one.

I finally fell asleep last night with him in my dreams. I kept thinking about kissing him. About how we used to kiss in the Summer. Just so much kissing. And the sweetness of the thought enveloped me and at around 4:00 am, I was finally lulled into sleep.

Today the nervousness (or anxiety) is back. I'm nervous being at B's tonight. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep and I can't watch TV all night. I might have to take some sleeping pills. It's 10:30 and I still feel so wound up.

God damn it. I just need him to give me a chance. I hate the way he thinks of me. It's hard for me to be myself. And I miss myself so much. I so badly need to get my singing back in shape. I cried about that all afternoon. I sang my mezzo arias really well, but that stupid vocal chink is making my passagio really difficult. Parts of "Donde Lieta" were just unbearably exhausting. And my diaphragm is so fucking weak that everything wobbles way too much. I just don't know if I have the energy to jump in and fix all this, but I have no choice. I have to try because I don't know who I am when I'm not singing. I want my voice to be free again. It's the only time I feel purely happy. It relieves all this anxiety. And I have to stop burying my anxiety in the bottle.

I won't die like my dad.

I'll never let it happen.

I Won't Apologize

2004-12-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

In St. Bart's with B. Just got here a few minutes late and he greeted me by yelling at me, even though it was just a few minutes late and even though I left him a message. I hate feeling like nothing that I do is good enough. I'm sick of apologizing for who I am. That's just not enough for me anymore. I don't ever want to apologize for who I am again. I don't have to please anyone beyond what I know to be my best. I hate Narc and I hate everyone who's ever made me feel like I have to change myself and apologize for who I am. I won't do it.

Losing It

2004-12-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

I can't believe what Narc said to me last night... that I have a tremendous heart and that someone will want it, just not him. And that I'm just not healthy and it's why he doesn't want to associate with me.

And I'm sick of drinking and I want to change. I just don't want this anymore. And I'm so angry about what happened last night at Cheers and the way it played out. I don't ever want to go back there. I don't even want to go back on New Year's. I'm going to write him a letter...

Dear PumpedUp,

I don't want to dwell on the specifics of the situation, but I still feel very uncomfortable and since it's your bar, I think you should know why.

Whether or not, that guy, RedFacedLawyer, was any kind of threat, or just kidding around, there was absolutely no reason for him to be physical with me and grab my arms. Once he did, I asked him several times to let me go and there is absolutely no excuse for him to have not done so. The reasons why I'm particularly uncomfortable having someone grab me in a forceful way shouldn't matter at all. Whether or not I over-reacted, it should never have gotten to that point to begin with. I came back to the bar to apologize and in retrospect, I don't think I owed anyone an apology. He should have apologized to me.

In the future, I would advise you to be alerted when anyone says something like "get your hands off me" repeatedly. If he had complied, or if you had asked him to leave me alone, the situation wouldn't have taken the turn that it did. I feel very uncomfortable with what happened and even more uncomfortable that I had to apologize for and explain my reaction. I don't owe anyone an explanation for why I don't want to be touched like that.

You know how much I love Cheers and you guys have always been good to me, so I owe it to you to tell you this so you can avoid any similar problems in the future.

Merry Christmas.

All the best,
Hyde

The Colored Fizz

2004-12-18T01:17:00.000-05:00

Months have passed... And the story has become too complicated and trailed off...

At Cheers a few minutes before leaving to hear Amy P's concert. (French Carols). I feel sick with Narc in my throat like this. He texted on Wednesday night and I didn't respond because I still didn't have my new phone. But he said he would email me the next day and he hasn't. And this is maddening. I never should have told him that his silence is deafening to me like this because this is the worst punishment of all...

I'm scared of being here on a Friday too... after last week. I feel so sick about what happened. I hope that guy dies. I mean it. No wait... I don't. I guess he doesn't deserve death. I just need some peace right now. My right hand is tingling and I hope it's not some sort of circulation problem. I'm gonna wait a minute or two and then see if there's any space at the bar. I'm so going to be late for this concert... but that's okay. I feel brave enough already that I'm going to spend some time with myself again. I need some hours alone tonight... to face the quiet space. To pierce through what Grosz would call the "colored fizz" frothing at the top and see what this is really about for me. I think it will be sweet... and Catholic in a way I haven't tasted in a while... Anyway, I'll close for now...

***************************

Ok.

In the church now. A gorgeous church. (76th and Lex). The pale blue and yellow gold of a Russian Art Nouveau icon, all accented in pink marble with alabaster cherubs and veins of sea green. The altar is magnificent with red and orange accents, the most brightly colored piece in the room. God curling leaves peel atop the pillars. I feel as if I'm inside the whip-lashing curve of that Obrist tapestry (God, I hope I did okay on that exam...).

Even here, Narc is close in my ear. So much closer now that I've read that text, and I hate him for it. Two sapphire and tonics are dulling my eyes. I hope they don't give me a headache. I'm wondering if I should have called Bezoukhoff about tonight, but in retrospect, it's better that I'm alone. I hate the silence though, and want the music to start and fill me and relieve me. I want him to fill me too... in the same way. I miss him for that, even though the last week or two, since he called me that Sunday night and said he doesn't know what he wants, he's been distant and so unfulfilling. And I want the rape to go away too. I can never tell him about that. Thank God Bezoukhoff was there to save me from that on my birthday.

I wish I could share something like tonight with him... that Narc weren't the worst kind of bad for me That this ache would go away and I would stop wanting to punish myself. I know why he's not writing back to my emails.... because there's nothing he can say (except "sorry"). Because every single word I've said there is true and he still can't offer me anything even remotely acceptable. I'm tired of giving a shit about any o fit. I need a sacred space to go to so I can be reminded of how love can be in the world-- a religious love that acknowledges that it can't know anything and is all the more comforting because of that.

Singing Ave Maria. I finally feel like Narc means nothing when there's God.

***************************

Ok.

That's over again for the moment and now I'm back at Cheers. It's loud and I'm only drinking diet cokes and I"m totally alone and feeling the strangeness of ghosts of a life past having just come from talking to Amy P and Stephen. But how do I explain to them that I'm still the same? They still think of me as a great singer. I remember Amy in New Orleans. She's just not cute like that anymore. I remember the three boys with green beer and my cowboy, Weston, and the hot dog man and my smeared eye-makeup from those hallucinogens, as if it were yesterday. I'm still the same as I've always been-- cleaning the bathroom for them here, the same way I cleaned up the classroom for Mr. S. Only, he knew about it and I'm not even going to bother to tell them about it here.

I see FightingMensch and his brother and Lindsor here, but I'm pretending that I don't, and they're pretending that they don't see me. There's a man with glasses here who's acting like he knows me, only I don't know him.

And Narc is back only two seconds from my mind, although there's no denying at this point that he's an asshole. What I feel can't be love-- only some fucked up Freudian compulsion. This guy singing... Phil... I've seen him here a million times, but I never knew that was his name.

Feeling at home enough that I'm not weird and mysterious for sitting in the corner alone and writing in my journal... I'm only me. I guess it's ok. There's no ignoring someone you see every day. I think I should just screw over what I was thinking last week.

God, I can't believe that rape incident was only a week ago. PumpedUp is looking over here now... Whatever. I think I'll draw, instead of write.

***************************

Later, and drunk, drunk, drunk!

Ok.

So, I fucking gave in and wrote to him. And now I am stuck on the raw end of hell waiting for him to call me back and feeling like I love him and all sorts of shit that I know not to be true and sine I can't say it to anyone in any way that approximates comprehension, it will have to remain a "Platonic Blue." A feeling of death. Or nominalism, right? If all I am is sensation (a la Ernst, or Husserl, phenomenology), what's to say that being drunk isn't the perfect way to be all the time?

WHERE IS NARC?

Fall Promiscuity: Part III

2004-10-11T13:54:00.000-04:00

Ok... I'm several days post-surgery now, and my throat still hurts!

Anyway, I'll try to finish the whole story and fill in all the gaps the best I can.

So... back to 14thFloorBoy (who I just passed the elevator again today, by the way). I left off with our text exchange on Thursday, September 16th.

The next night I went out to Cheers by myself and met two girls (one named Jennifer, the other I don't remember) from Westchester and this guy--MarriedGuy. He said he was 46 years old, married with 17 year old twin daughters. I think I already mentioned him in an earlier entry, right?

The bar was closing around 3:00 AM, so we moved down to McFadden's where we met two other guys. We all wanted to stay out later, so I told them that I knew a bouncer on the West Side who would let us in for after-hours. That's when I called Stallion's friend, the Bouncer.

We all piled into cabs and I arrived with the guys, but the girls never showed up. I kind of ignored MarriedGuy, even though he had been flirting with me all night. Instead, I talked to the Bouncer.

I was super drunk-- falling down drunk. Eventually, they kicked us out and MarriedGuy took me home. I kept saying "I'm not going to fuck you," and so he just walked me to the door. Then I checked my messages, and guess who had left me a message asking if I wanted to hang out and "burn one down?" 14thFloorBoy!!!

I went to his place and TOTALLY made a fool out of myself. I brought down my huge tray of coke and smoked weed and was wearing some totally slutty shirt and was way too loud-mouthed.

At about 6:00 AM (back to the original point of this digression), Narc called me, back from his five-day Dominican hiatus.

I must have told 14thFloorBoy and his roommate about my affair with Narc-- bottom line-- I blew it. Narc wanted me to come over and was shocked that I was hanging out with other guys at 6:00 AM. It was a little delicious because he never tosses me a crumb.

Anyway, 14thFloorBoy went to sleep. I think at that point, he wrote me off (which I still haven't recovered from, and feel a little heartsick about) and I went upstairs with my coke. I called Narc back and said that I would come down there but that I could only stay for 3 hours or so because I had to meet my mom and Dr. G for a 10:00 AM therapy appointment.

I texted 14thFloorBoy an apology in the cab on the way down to Narc's...

Anyway, I'm a little bit tired, so I'll finish this story later.

Fall Promiscuity: Part II

2004-10-05T13:37:00.000-04:00

Anyway, I'll try to finish the story now...

Let me try to go back before Friday. I guess the last disaster before that was on Tuesday-- the day I had that date with TerBoy. That whole think was supposed to be about new beginnings. At least, I thought so. On Sunday-- the day I left Narc's in such a good mood (but more on that later), and went to see Hero with B (an intensely gorgeous movie!).

Anyway, I had procrastinated doing my lesson plans all day that day and was finally getting to them later that night when my cell phone rang. Of course, I was all suspicious picking it up and it was TerBoy who I had met the previous Thursday (more on that later too). He asked me out for a date on Tuesday. So, that was the day that it poured out and I was running around frantically all day. (It was also the day that I met with ProfBerk at her place).

We had decided to meet at Cheers and I got there on time-- 7:30, but he wasn't there. I honestly thought I had been stood up, but he finally got there by 7:45-- he just got stuck unable to get a cab because of the rain.

It was so awkward because MarriedGuy was there at the bar and there was so much tension in the air about that, but I ignored it the best I could. TerBoy and I had a pretty nice time, but I already had my first drink before he got there.

After diner, we had a few more drinks. I must have had at least 4-5 more. Maybe even 6. I have no idea why I did it. Sometimes I feel like I just do everything wrong.

Anyway, after that, we went back to my apartment and things got bad. I had some Baileys and started doing coke. He obviously wanted to have sex, but I didn't want to. I just wanted to keep drinking and doing drugs and was already pretty messed up at that point and I got all emotional. At least I didn't let the sex happen, but God knows what I said to him. I obviously fucked things up beyond repair because after a few hours, back out into the rain he went, and I never heard from him again.

The next day, I felt suicidally crappy about it, but I feel much better sine because IrishBird told me that he and his friends were being rude to her at the bar on Thursday before I got there. So, at this point, all I have to say to TerBoy is "good riddance!"

So, let's go back a few more days, if I can even remember...

This brings me to the whole Narc saga. I guess I might as well do a recount now.

Ok...

Things were going along fine between me and Narc until I started to miss him when I wasn't with him and feel more than a "one-night-stand" type of feeling.

I told him about this a few weeks ago and said we had to try to be friends "outside of bed" but he still treated me very badly--refusing to wake up with me in the morning, etc. I tried to "break up" with him, but we ended up reconciling-- going to see Vanity Fair, etc. It was a real date and he was very sweet to me and I felt like we left things off okay.

After that, I didn't hear from him for a long time. I texted him when I found out that I passed my exam and he told me that he would be in the Dominican Republic for five days but that he would call me when he got back. (This was on September 9th).

Anyway, that Saturday was the night of Pitch's party. After that party busted up, Contessa, her new man and their friends and I headed to Cheers. I ended up meeting 14thFloorBoy there, who I thought was so cute and nice and into music too-- even though we were both trashed.

I ended up going back to his place-- he had just moved onto the 14th floor of my building, and his friends were there too. (He's a Second Grade teacher, by the way). Anyway, we ended up smoking weed together and his friend had homegrown tomatoes and basil and we were listening to some strange music. I don't remember what we talked about though.

After a while, his friends left and it was just the two of us and we ended up having sex. When I left, I told him "oh, you're probably not going to want to talk to me again." And he said "No! That's so not true!" etc.

Anyway, the following Thursday on my way to tutor, I bumped into him in the elevator (this was September 16th). He was super friendly to me and even apologetic about how drunk he was the other night. Then, he texted me saying that he may have met my dad in the laundry room. I wrote back to him telling him that it couldn't have been my dad.

(Uh oh. I have to go. I have been writing all this in the waiting room for pre-surgery testing waiting to do my EKG. I'm having my tonsils out...)

Fall Promiscuity: Part I

2004-10-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

A lot, a lot, a lot has been happening. Too much to get everything down, so I guess I'll try to work backwards. First of all, though, let me say that I've been much better... only two nights of debauchery this week!

Yesterday I went up to the Bronx with IrishBird (from Cheers) to meet her spiritual advisor, Gilda. It was a strange experience-- she lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. She said that she can help me get rid of the "negative spirits" that are haunting me, but she couldn't say how without meditating with candles first for eight days (which of course, would cost me $10 per candle!)>

The night before all that, we went out for Anxious' birthday-- me, BigSis, GoldenFinch, Contessa and Contessa's new boy. Anxious was driving me NUTS! So manic and so passive-aggressive and hostile and competitive with me. Ugh!!!

Anyway, still working backwards, I went out with BigSis and my cousin Jail and her sorority sisters so "Hunkmania" for Jail's birthday on Friday night. It was totally obscene. Honestly, and so unnecessary, and all about equating sex with money, which I hate.

After that, I went to Cheers and had an amazing karaoke night-- over the course of the night singing "Bewitched," "Maybe This Time," and "Over the Rainbow." I just hung with these two older guys (Sheldon and ?) and they were sweet.

Then I met that guy who sang the "Thong song." I totally inappropriately flirted with him (as in I expressed interest when I wasn't really interested AT ALL) and I promised him I would see him not this Friday, but the Friday after.

After that, DateRapeGuy annoyed me for a long time, challenging me on matters of history. I remember telling him that he is not a friend, but "only an acquaintance."

Then I was talking to those two guys who worked for TV news-- one from Stanford who worked for ESPN and one from Harvard who worked for NBC. Then, that guy who went to Brown asked if he could take me home. He was wasted and I laughed and pretended to be offended and said "no."

I don't remember how I met the last two, or even what the second guy's name was, but we ended up back at my place to watch Paul Newman movies and do coke (my suggestion-- my idea for a perfect night, right?). One of the two guys left early-- at around 3:00 am. I remember giving him pretzels. The second guy, BostonBoy, started acting all dreamy and saying how he really wanted to get to know me and to hold me, etc.

We ended up sort of having sex for hours, but he kept going soft because of all the coke. (Poor guy!)

Anyway, at 4:00 am, the phone rang. I was sure it was Narc, so I answered (even though I was literally in the middle of having sex), but it wasn't Narc-- it was MarriedGuy!

Later, IrishBird told me that the MarriedGuy had stayed until closing time looking for me and was back the following night until closing time looking for me too. Crazy!

But, I'll have to write about that story later.

Anyway, the next morning, BostonBoy wanted to have sex again because he was all hard, but I didn't want to-- too much light of day. Besides, I had to go buy Anxious a present and meet B for brunch before the opera. (Walkure starring Domingo!!!)

Men in Suits

2004-09-14T01:20:00.000-04:00

So, once again a million and one things have happened that I don't have the energy or care to recount (fight and a DATE with Narc; kissing Druggie's friend Caleb, sleeping with the Irish guy in 14-B, getting drunk in front of cousin Tony and worse-- Mom!) Anyway, I'm sick of being in a bar and pretending to read about the French Revolution. I don't even have any crushes anymore (except Narc), which only indicates the kind of deranged tricks the mind can play on you.

There are so many men in suits in here right now. None of them give a shit about me and I'm depressed. So... I don't know... Suits... Suits... Suits.... and me. Am I going to die like my dad? Is that my fate? I know why I think about him all the time. I wonder if BigSis and LilSis think about him half as much.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to me... if there's some secret hidden in my past. Or if I was just made-- designed to be this way by God. Made to be alcoholic. Made to be unacceptable. I feel myself slipping into a bad train of thought... I think I should go back to reading the fucking Woloch article about Furet and the French Revolution.

On the Circle Line

2004-09-02T14:26:00.000-04:00

September is supposed to be about rebirth. That's why I'm back here on the Circle Line. There are a lot of people here alone.

You know what... I can't do this.

I thought I wanted to write, but I can't even face my pen.

I am a coward.

End of Summer Celebrations

2004-08-30T14:27:00.000-04:00

So, thank God... I finished my comps and I think I did fine. I'm sitting in class @ (the school where I teach)... It's the first day of teaching and I already let everyone go. I think I talk way too fast. Anyway, I think I should stay here another few minutes in case there are some stragglers. Then I have to dash to Duane Reade to get my "emergency contraception." I hope it doesn't make me puke.

Anyway, this past week was totally dramatic. Tuesday after my exam, I bumped into Druggie at Duane Reade (Actually, he saw me going in there and came back to "buy cigarettes.") Anyway, he asked if I wanted to go smoke with him up on the roof. His brother was up there smoking weed. It was kind of weird, but kind of nice. I don't know what he thought went down between us a few weeks ago, but he kept on calling me "hon" or "honey." It was so not justified.

Anyway, we went down to my place and put on the Beloved DVD he had left under my door. I totally didn't know that was from him. So, I asked him "why didn't you leave me a note?"

"What? A love note?" he said.

SO WEIRD!!!

Anyway, I told him that I had no coke and so he asked if he could have a drink. I told him only if he didn't get drunk. I mean, the last time we hung out he was okay, but maybe he wasn't and I was just too messed up to notice.

Anyway, VJ kept calling me and eventually just showed up an my building. At first I was totally annoyed, but later relieved that I didn't have to be alone with Druggie. He cracked open a Unisom and drank the gel on the inside and ended up puking. I don't know how anyone can be so into sedatives. Anyway, I had to clean up the puke. It was a rather strange night.

On Wednesday, after tutoring, I went to MusicMngr's house with IronChef. It was really fun. After, I went to Cheers and some totally drunk Scottish guy (merchant marine) was spouting all of this pro-Bush shit and asking me what my breasts feel like, etc. IrishBird cut him off and I wouldn't go with him, so eventually he just left. I was also to talking to T-- such a sweet guy (his dad is friends with PumpedUp's dad) and then to that D.J. who has a crush on IrishBird and then to the Bulgarian guy. He ended up taking me home and I did coke and we made out all night until he started acting sexist and racist and I got grossed out and I wanted him to leave.

On Thursday... God, I don't even remember that day at all. Oh yeah-- I got my hair done and then NiS and his girlfriend came over and we watched King Creole. I think I just crashed that night because I hadn't even slept one hour the night before.

Friday night was Jake's party. This, I am so embarrassed about. Afterwards we all were headed home, but his friend Alex came up with me to Cheers. Then we went up to my roof and I did coke and kept telling him to kiss me (which he did). But Narc called me (because I had called him) and so I ditched Alex at 4:00 am and went downtown.

When I got to the bar, Narc was ignoring me, so this guy at the end of the bar was talking to me and telling me to go home with him. Then Narc started paying more attention. I confronted him in the street about why he never asks me out on dates and he said "because he's been really hurt before and he really likes me." (I'm not sure whether or not to believe him...)

Regardless, we were kissing in the street and when we got home and had sex, I let him go down on me, which I wish I hadn't done because I still don't feel comfortable with it and I hope he doesn't assume he can do it every time now...

I don't even know when we got to bed, but I missed my train to Long Island the next day. I stayed at his place until 6:00 PM (and had sex a few more times) and then we both had to go-- me to my study group party and him to some art gallery thing with his friend M. Right before we left, he masturbated and came all over me "one last time," as he put it.

Anyway, the study group thing was at Sara's house. I had such a good time. It is soooo nice to be friends with other smart history-obsessed people. We must have drunk about six bottles of wine. Then Hammer, Bezoukhoff, EF and I went back to my place for some pizza and more booze.

I think I embarrassed myself and disclosed way too much about my sex life (and mistakenly left out my mirror and razor-- oh God!). But, whatever... With enough time and if I am smart in class, it will erase it all.

Then I went back to meet Narc (at around 3:30 am) and we met at a bar downtown and I bought him drinks and it was weird-- much less of a connection than the night before. I think he's really insecure. He was telling me that women like men "on stage" and that's why girls get crushes on their teachers. He said that my professors aren't the "brilliant ones," but that he's the "brilliant one" and that he is going to be the next Nietzsche or Jung. ..

We went home and had sex in the shower. We had anal sex for the millionth time that weekend and it started to hurt. I passed out either from the sex or the drinking, but I don't remember going to bed.

The next day I left early-- well, around 1:00 pm, but right when I woke up. I went up and met B where he teaches. I finished my syllabus and we went to eat at Krystal's in Jackson Heights.

Today I'm back in school-- it's the end of this insane summer. I'm rediscovering my productive self and trying to move on.

(So why am I forever wondering when Narc will call me again???)

The Writtens

2004-08-22T16:40:00.000-04:00

My head is spinning from studying. I feel like if I had just one more week I would really have a good grasp on everything and I feel so guilty for fucking up earlier this summer. Plus, Narc has totally been blowing me off all week and it's making me depressed because I blew off my summer to spend my time with people like him...

Right now I'm at Balucchi's, somewhere on First Avenue. Just came from cat-sitting Babe who is totally adorable. I have to finish all my book reviews and all my index cards tonight even if I have to stay up really late to do it. And tomorrow I'll just drill my flash cards over and over. I'm not worried about figuring out my essay themes in advance because that part always comes really naturally to me. I just need to make sure I have the authors and arguments at my fingertips.

Tomorrow I should go to school and find the room in advance and double check my password.

I feel so down right now. I mean, I know it's probably just from hunger, but sometimes it's hard to distinguish that from depression. I am really hungry.

PS: Went to Narc's last night.

Resolutions

2004-08-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

At the Comfort Diner. It's a quarter to one. Last night I went to the Ute Lemper concert with B-- the one Narc wouldn't go with me to.

B is most likely going to break up with J. I'm glad because I think she's bad for him...

Anyway, the comps are around the corner and I don't have enough time left. I'm just going to have to cram like crazy and count on my good memory. I'm not quite sure how to best spend my time though. I can't imagine failing, but with a test this big I also can't imagine passing, given how I've been behaving all summer...

I wonder when Nipkins is getting back from San Diego.

Anyway, my medication is making me nauseous today, but OI know that with the way I've been eating, I've put on a few pounds.

I might try to see if there's somewhere else I can take German-- on a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon.

I don't know why I felt so bad yesterday about this whole Narc thing. I feel like since I don't love him it will only take a few days to forget him-- but it will have to be a few days of really being with myself. Once school starts, I'm going to forget everything about this summer...

I'm going to be totally back on track and do things right this time.

Summer Fling

2004-08-17T16:49:00.000-04:00

Things are so strange... I feel like I don't remember the last time I wrote.

I had coffee with Hammer today after our study group's meeting with ProfFascism and she told me that ProfPP is getting a divorce. Weird, right?

Anyway, I called Narc this morning and left a message on his machine asking him to go to the concert and told him to call me back today. He never called me back, so I just called him again (around 12:30) and he said that he has writing to do , so he has to "blow me off" because he's blowing off "all of his friends."

Well, I'm sure not all of his friends are "blowing" him, and for the first time, I'm starting to feel bad about this thing.

A week and a half ago (the day I went over there naked under my trench coat) and stayed over, I asked him why we don't do anything besides have sex.

"Well, wouldn't that mean we're in a relationship, then?" he said.

"Well, no. But, can't we just be friends?" I asked.

I mean, he called us "fuck buddies," but I told him that we're NOT "buddies." He told me that he doesn't want to fall in love with me.

The next day, I left (I had plans with B) and the day after that, Anxious, GoldenFinch and Contessa came over. Anxious and Buke broke up that same Friday. (The girls were here on Saturday). We got smashed together-- at least I did. I also smoked some weed. Then, later everyone wanted to go home (at around 2:00 am) but I still wanted to be out. I went to Cheers alone and ended up bringing some guy home. (All I remember about him was that I think he's from Ecuador.) I didn't sleep with him or anything. We tried to make out on the roof, but I kept falling down. The girls were really mad at me.

Tuesday I did coke all day again, even though I had promised to stop. I went to my study group in my pajamas totally crashing from an 8 hour high. I told them that it was my tonsillitis. They were all really concerned. (Especially EF!) They said that I looked like I was at death's door. By the end of that meeting, I really felt like I was!

Anyway, I sower that was the end, but ended up doing even more coke on Friday and coming down with I met B to go see Collateral. I told him it was my medication because I felt too embarrassed and guilty and ashamed to say I was high. I never lie to him, so I was sure he'd be able to see through it... Maybe he did, but he didn't say so.

It was raining that afternoon and B and I got into a fight while waiting for a table at the Gemini Diner. (See? Not much changes!)

Anyway, after that I had to go home and change for English's dressy "girl's night" party. I wore the chiffon beaded dress that I bought for my grandma's unveiling. After a little while at her place, we went to the bar at the Gramercy Hotel (me, BigSis, English, RGrub and his girlfriend). It was fun. I felt pretty. Afterwards, I didn't want to go home (already at that level of drunk!) so, I went to Cheers by myself. I bumped into JFig there... weird, right? She was with other friends though, so eventually she left with them.

After that, I called Narc. It must have been around 4:00 AM. He told me to come over, so I did. I brought some coke and a bottle of Jack with me and wore my beautiful dress. We had really good sex that night, finally falling asleep at around 9:00 AM.

The next day I woke up at around 1:00 PM and did some work, waiting for him to wake up. It seemed as if he never would, so around 3:30 or 4:00 PM, I packed my stuff to leave. He finally rolled out of bed to walk me to the door and started making out with me. So... I agreed to stay. We had sex again and I stayed to order dinner (Thai food). Then we watched some TV (Bill Mahr) and decided to go for a walk.

It was raining out, so we had to go back upstairs for umbrellas. We walked over to the water at Battery Park. The water was as black as ink and it looked like the water in the opening scene of The Little Mermaid.

Once back home, I fell asleep in his lap while watching Mrs. Doubtfire. The next day I had to leave to meet Contessa for lunch.

I felt so close to him that weekend. It's like I finally let my defenses collapse and took comfort in being near him. I know he sensed the shift. All of a sudden, I've lost my power. So, I thought maybe something was starting... I even felt safe for a little while... He made me feel safe! I thought he was maybe just scared to take things the next step. So, I asked him to the Ute Lemper concert. And not only did he not call me back all day, but when I finally did talk to him, he told me "no." And so once again, I feel the first pang on my heart. Why does everything always end up like this? No matter how hard I try to protect myself... no matter how tough I am... whenever I start to let my guard down, the pain flows in.

On top of that, there's B. B wants to break up with J tomorrow. I wonder if he actually will. He keeps calling me for reassurance, being needy and saying how "bad" he is and I am starting to feel resentful. He didn't want to hear it when I had the coke problem two weeks ago, and now he's coming to me. Who will ever be there to catch me when I fall? I feel so unsafe and so vulnerable. I want to call the drug-dealer back so badly, but know I have to wait until after my exam.

God... why couldn't Narc have said "yes" to tomorrow? He said he'd call me in a little while (as in when he feels like it) and once again, I find myself in a relationship completely on someone else's terms... I think I need to end this thing here, but somehow after this weekend, it already seems hard...

PS: I saw that I never wrote about my last night with the Stallion (August 1, 2004). It was SO fucking amazing... I passed out on the kitchen counter... the now infamous flashlight... and all the coke. I have the bruises though. He lied so many times about why he wasn't home and risked his relationship to stay the night with me. I want him back to fuck me again.

The Cokehead

2004-08-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

Anyway, I didn't have time to even do or say anything about the Stallion's passing... or that other amazing night. All I know is that somehow I got addicted to coke and yet somehow (again!) I end up letting myself get fucked and lied to.

I don't know how all of this is going to eventually turn out. All I know is that I hate myself. I forget myself all the time and more than anything, I want some more coke!!!

Thursday, 6:30-- Cafe Shasha, Hudson & Christopher, just north of christopher

From the Stallion

2004-08-03T17:11:00.000-04:00

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands

You seek problems because you need their gifts

Just a Voice in the Night

2004-07-30T14:45:00.000-04:00

So... More craziness ensues.

The Stallion called me yesterday to come over and we made a plan and he came over after I tutored-- around 7:30. There is just something crazy between us. I couldn't stop thinking abut him and he said that he couldn't stop thinking about me-- even while he was having sex with his girlfriend. Apparently, she was pissed though, that he disappeared for two nights last week, so they went up to New Paltz for the weekend. (Weird, right? Because B was just there...)

The worst part of it is that he told me he's moving back to the West Coast ASAP because he's having issues with his family and his girlfriend hates it here. I sooooo don't want him to go because I really like being with him, even though I can't tell if he's playing me. Of course, the sex was amazing again... only one scary point when I actually fainted and hit the floor, but he got me ice and took care of me and was very sweet about it.

We finished with a shower. I felt very sad at the end because I didn't want him to leave, even though I knew from the start what I was getting myself into. I was so coked up, but tried to sleep anyway. (This was around 1:00 AM). I watched the replay of John Edwards' convention speech on C-Span and then a few episodes of Three's a Company on "Nick at Night."

The Stallion had said something about calling me when he got home. I assumed he meant in a few days, so when the phone rang at 4:00 AM, I was surprised, but sure it was him. It wasn't him... It was Narc! He said that he wanted to hear a "human voice in the night."

We talked about life and a bunch of other random things and he gave me a lecture about sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend, which I thought was unfair. Anyway, eventually he asked me to come over, so I did just a few more lines and left, getting to his place at around 5:00 AM.

I don't know what it is with this guy, but he seems to intentionally play with my head. I told him I'm weird about the closeness thing, but he kept wanting the sex to be so tender and he just wanted to hold me tight and cuddle me and at one point, he called me "My Hyde" which really freaked me out. He didn't even really want to fuck all that much... I think because he was so tired. But I still feel like such a whore, being with two guys in the same night, and in a way, I think that's exactly what I'm trying to make myself feel like.

I must be a whore because neither of these guys intends to care about me or my life or my feelings at all and I know it's because somehow I'm not good enough to deserve it.

The Stallion made me feel good, though, when he said "I can't believe B gave this up... what's WRONG with him???" I don't think B could ever fully appreciate me in that way, though. I don't know... I feel like this diary is getting more and more crass and outrageous all the time.

Right now I'm sitting in Narc's living room. It's about 11:30 AM and he's still asleep. I'm debating whether or not I should just pack my things and go. I just hate departures. I do have a lot to do today, though...

I still throbbing on the inside from what he did and wonder if it's going to fuck things up even more with this UTI. The city air sounds like an ocean outside today and the passing car horns are like the call of seagulls. There's a whisper in it and it's calming me a little. There's a big American flag outside the window too, and it's draped limply and gently around the pole and I wish I could feel like that. I wish I were at the beach right now-- my secret spot in the Hamptons-- on a late twilight in August or September with my toes curling into the cold packed sand just at the edge of the water. Then I would remember where I came from and maybe who I am.

I just can't believe the Stallion is going back to California when we've only had these few weeks. I hate that, but maybe it's for the better... Maybe it's better for me...

I can't seem to get the thought out of my head that as much as an asshole that AIR7 was to me, maybe he loved me after all. I know it's a weird thing to be thinking about, but when I was reading back those old journals, it seemed kind of genuine, only painfully limited. Part of me wants to call him and apologize. But then, I just think that would be the ultimate form of degrading myself. And so, maybe that's why I want to do it.

I've been wanting to get in touch with OldChoirMan too and have to remind myself that he killed a big piece of me and knew that he was playing with fire. I think I am just grasping backwards because everything is so ungrounded and confusing right now. Like it was so good to talk to Liu the other day, but also sad. She claims she hasn't changed, but she has... She has to have if she has chosen the life that she has chosen. I could never live that life, and we used to be so much the same. Maybe now we just aren't...

(The flag is waving now.)

I guess Narc's not going to get up anytime soon, so maybe I should just get out of here...

It's 11:45 AM and I don't want to be here if his friend comes home. So... more later.

(Hey... at least one thing-- I still haven't cut myself since December, so I can't let myself feel like a total failure! Just a drug-addled whore, as B and I would say...)

Some Kind of Whore

2004-07-29T21:25:00.000-04:00

Getting a pedicure on Lex near the endocrinologist. I feel so much better now that I've told someone "official" about my coke problem-- a Doctor, I mean. He really surprised me with his response. I'm sure that Dr. G. would too if I gave her the chance. I just get so angry at myself and feel guilty and I'm sure everyone else would hate me. I don't know...

The Stallion called me this morning and this afternoon. We're supposed to meet up later, although what Buke said the other day is making me nervous. Plus, I have a UTI-- blood in the urine and all. I'm going to see Dr. M tomorrow, but I'm not sure if I can have sex with this bad of a UTI. I'm not sure if he even wants to have sex after the way we left it off. I just don't know what he wants.

I so don't want to go tutor Bill today, but I think it will be good for me-- sort of keep me in reality. I don't know... Being with Narc on Sunday was so strange for me. We hung out for a few hours watching TV as if we were friends. Then, that weird meditation thing... I think he was afraid to make a move because of what I said on the phone about how I hoped he wasn't just calling me over for sex. But I knew from the minute I got there that I as going to end up sleeping with him. I feel like I am making that old mistake of "letting life happen to me." I hate the way he operates because he was being so tender and kissing and cuddling and stuff, but all of those messages are lies. He doesn't give a hist about me. I said that to him too-- that he doesn't even care about me. His reply?

"Well... it's more complicated than that."

Somehow, I don't' think so.

I just wish that VJ weren't in Florida right now. I have so much to process.

Anyway, that thing with Druggie was weird on Saturday night too. I got so messed up that night that I'm embarrassed. The hours from 4:30 AM-6:30 AM or so flash in and out of memory. What was I thinking ringing their bell? What kind of judgement was that??? I don't remember what led to him trying to kiss me, but I remember telling him "not to go there." It was hanging in the air all night and all day the next day. It's like at some point the air between us was so thick you could cut it was a knife (the orange ice pops!). He kept wanting to say it to me at the end, but I didn't let him. He knew that I heard the message loud and clear anyway.

When he left the next day at around 3:00 (only 5 hours before I got the call from Narc) we agreed never to speak of it again. Anyway, I feel really sleepy now and my head hurts. I think I should probably eat something after this...

****************

Later...

You know what else I have to say about Narc? Fuck him for not asking me out on a date and for making this whole ambiguous thing where we're fucking but not dating and not friends, but not strangers. I mean... really! It takes a certain amount of gall... Did I make him think he could do that because of the way that I behaved? And furthermore, he didn't walk me to the door on either day I slept with him... Seriously... he's treating me like some kind of whore. I think this should be the end of him...

(Maybe I am)...

Reality Bites

2004-07-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

Dying of exhaustion during the German break...

I have to remember to write about the strangeness with Druggie later and then sleeping with Narc on Sunday night and having lunch with B on Monday and calling the Stallion back today and besides that, the two phone calls to the drug dealer (for a fucking $320!)... How much wrong can one girl do in a week? Should I just "fuck it" and be okay with all of this? Or am I forgetting myself? Why isn't the green calcite working? Plus, now I think I have a UTI

The Insatiable Stallion

2004-07-24T21:36:00.000-04:00

Anyway, I really screwed up yesterday. I let it get to me. (Like chasing a love gone bad!) How do you describe or even resist something like that?

Anyway, I guess I'll recount the Stallion story now.

He called me on Tuesday afternoon-- right when I was leaving to go do that writing workshop. He asked if I wanted to meet up later, so I told him to give me a call after German class. HE called and asked if I wanted to meet up for a drink. I told him that I was having dinner with VJ and that I would call him when we were done. I convinced VJ to come with me because I didn't want it to be an automatic hookup.

We went down and met him at Dojo. We went across the street to Bull McCabe's for drinks. It was weird to see him at first-- I felt like it assumed a friendship had been there or that we knew each other better, or something, than we ever had. Anyway, I knew right away that we were going to hook up. I just feel like I can't resist him.

We had a few drinks. I could tell that VJ was tired, so I told her she could go. She kept asking if I were sure and I told her "yes."

After she left, things got more flirty. At one point, he was behind my bar chair and started massaging my neck and shoulders and he put his arms around me from behind and it felt so good. I don't remember at exactly what point, but we started kissing. I loved kissing him. He kept telling me how beautiful I am and his lips were full and soft. I didn't want to be making out at the bar, though, and told him that, so he suggested we go back to my place. (Typical...)

Anyway, we stopped at a deli to get some mixers and came back here. A lot of what happened is a blur-- not because I was drunk, but because so much happened so fast. We just had the most amazing sex over and over and over. It was better than I ever imagined sex could be. This guy was magic-- he knew how to do absolutely everything and our energies and "proclivities" were perfectly matched. At one point, we moved from the living room to the bedroom. At another point, int he hall up against the wall. We must have had sex at least 12 times total over the 13 hours or so that he was here. He was entirely insatiable and now, even four days later, I still have bruises on my forehead and neck.

We used up all of my stuff by Wednesday morning, so I called for more-- feeling safe for the delivery because the Stallion was here. I wish I had the energy or audacity to record what happened in more detail, but I just don't.

He stayed until 8:00 PM the next day, when I left for my study group. He walked me up to EF's apartment (hand in hand) and we kissed a long goodbye.

After study group, the bunch of us went to a pub, but I was exhausted and couldn't stay long. The Stallion called me and asked if he could come over again, and I said yes, but this time we both fell asleep right away.

I woke up at around 4:00 AM to him fucking me and he flipped me over and I was so sleepy that I could barely stay on my knees, but it was still amazing.

I'm never going to forget this week. I fell like if something like this never happens to me again, it's okay, because it probably doesn't happen to most people even once.

Anyway... I have to go dry my hair.

Afternoon Blow

2004-07-23T17:47:00.000-04:00

It was weird reading through old journals this morning. I feel too high to write right now. Yesterday I couldn't get this whole thing with the Stallion off my mind. Today, I feel silly for feeling like that. Because, no matter how good it was, it was just sex and it doesn't mean anything else. All of that talk about "fate" and "being evolved" really has nothing to do with what happened. It's too much to recount right now-- I don't' have the energy for it (ironic that I'm on all this coke, right?). But, I do want to record it here eventually. It was just the most amazing sex I can ever imagine-- about 12 times in 13 hours or so.

I feel so split though-- so compartmentalized. I think that's why it's hard for me to tell Dr. G. everything. God, that was fast-- I already feel myself coming down.

BigSis is supposed to call me in 15 minutes, after her facial to see if I want to go shoe shopping. I don't want to go outside today because it's raining, but I feel like I should go to stay sane.

I haven't eaten anything since Tuesday except an apple, one chicken finger and one mozzarella stick (it's Friday now). I really want to lose more weight by the next time I go to the endocrinologist. I think I have to move my appointment because Tuesday I am going to do the writing workshop at the Youth Counseling League again.

It was weird last night. BigSis, English and I went to live '80's karaoke-- invited by her friend from work, L, and there were a lot of cute guys there, but I didn't care about any of them because I kept thinking of the Stallion.

The phone just rang. It was LilSis telling me to call or write to Nana because Nana just called her. I will definitely do it tomorrow. AND I have to edit IronChef's thing tomorrow and go to the library and really organize my studying.

God, I haven't taken an exam since the GRE and before that, the LSAT and before that, college... It's like I don't know how to study anymore. I am getting nervous about the comps because I'm not doing anything to prepare (besides study group) and I feel the date creeping up on me.

I am starting to feel a little feverish and sleepy and wired all at the same time. I feel like I can't focus on anything. The TV is even stressing me out, so I just shut it off. I really don't want to go out. Maybe I should just tell BigSis that I'll see her tomorrow... I feel so lazy. Well, not lazy, but just like I need a day to be with myself. I mean, since the Stallion left on Thursday morning I had two hours alone before I had to go pick up VJ's little sister in Newark and then I had about 45 minutes before meeting BigSis and English to go out last night. I guess I had this morning too, but I was so sleepy and in such a fog that it didn't really feel like real time.

I have to figure out a plan tomorrow night-- splitting time between NiS's birthday party and AGrub's party. The Stallion left Being and Time here when he came back. I wonder if that means he's never going to call me again.

Ok.

So, BigSis just called and I told her that I don't want to go out. Now I feel relieved.

Anyway, as I was saying-- it was a little weird when he left. I mean, if he doesn't want to see me again, it's fine and I understand because he has a girlfriend. But, I wish he would just say that, so I wouldn't be hanging. Plus, he owes me $50. I just want to be treated with respect, I guess.

Anyway, my brain feels like it's getting slow, so I don't want to write anymore right now. I just want to sit in silence

No Arrivals

2004-07-16T22:02:00.000-04:00

I've emerged from my sickroom. My throat is still killing from these swollen tonsils but at least I feel like I'll be able to eat today. Here at Morning Star... I spoke to B for a while this morning. We are on such different tracks right now that i"m sure that he doesn't get it. It's weird listening to the Hope Floats CD right now because I used to hear all these songs as being about him. I guess nothing is ever permanent. We will never have "arrived."

Torrential Downpours

2004-07-14T22:04:00.000-04:00

So, things continued to be strange...

Sunday I went out with Nipkins for her going away thing. (She is going to San Diego for the summer). We went to dba which is actually a really cute place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon. They have a garden in the back where you can drink beer, play scrabble and read the Times.

I got a little wasted. Why? I don't know.

After that (about 7 Jack and diets later), we went for Pizza where I had a few beers. Then we went to a bar called "Rudy's" on the West Side.

I freaked out when we got there because guess who was at the door? The Bouncer! That guy from the threesome three years ago. I asked him if he remembered me and he said that the Stallion was inside. What?!??!

The Stallion is totally hot, but he was there with a girlfriend. I felt so weird about it that I told Nipkins and her friend Dave (who I'm sure thinks I'm totally crazy AND a slut). But anyway, the Stallion gave me his number which I put in my phone, but I lost my phone later that night.

I kissed some other guy at the bar (who's in his 40's) and also thought I was nuts. You know what? Maybe I am.

And seeing the Bouncer and the Stallion was even more strange after what happened on Friday night.

I went out with VJ to Karma (where we met up with English and "the Kid" and his friend). VJ was wasted the whole night. It started out just the two of us and I was smoking the "hubbly bubbly." By the end of the night, she was kissing "the Kid's" engaged friend and i had to drag her out of there.

When she got home I told her to call me. She was talking to some guy who told me his name was "Alan J. Morgan." Apparently, he found her fumbling with the key, falling down on the stoop of the wrong building. The name sounded so familiar to me and it turns out that it's the same guy I made out with a year and a half ago at Jewel's party. I still have his business card. So to run into him on Friday and then the Stallion and the Bouncer on Sunday is just really too weird!!!

Sine then, I've been doing coke all week From the stuff that JFig gave me. Narc (that guy from last Wednesday) called me on Friday, but we've been playing phone tag ever since. For a while I thought he was blowing me off and got a little down about it.

Last night I felt really sick. My study group came over here and by the end of the evening, I felt so feverish and my throat was hurting. I think it's from the coke I did that afternoon, but I can't be sure.

I got sicker and sicker, sweating and with the chills. I felt so weak and like everything in the world is so upside down and inside out and crazy. (Did I mention that I had spoke to Anxious for two hours that morning and she told me that she's cheating on Buke?)

Anyway, I couldn't help myself, so I called B. We talked for about an hour and a half and made each other laugh. I love him so much! Yet even still, there was the same tension and pain underneath everything between us. I have to keep reminding myself how much he hurts me. Why is it so easy for me to block all of that out and feel only love? I work up this morning feeling even sicker still. When I went to the doctor she told me that I probably have a viral tonsillitis and that my right tonsil is incredibly inflamed.

I feel like shit.

Anyway, I guess that's it for now. There are thunderstorms tonight-- Torrential downpours coming down on all those suckers in Central Park who are there for the New York Phil concert.

Oh well...

Hyde meets Narc

2004-07-09T18:21:00.000-04:00

Ok. So the past two days (or was it only one day?) have been so strange. I doubt I'll have time to record the whole story now, but at least I can start.

It began in Cheers, when I last wrote. After I put down my pen, I went to sit at the bar. A blond woman in her early 40's came in and sat next to me and we started talking. Some man named Peter Alan bought us drinks. She seemed a little drunk already. I know that I was!

Anyway, she wanted to go dancing, and I'm not sure why (it was a Wednesday night and I wasn't dressed for it) but I agreed. So, I left all my stuff with the doorman (except cash and cards) and we walked up to 52nd street. After that, we got in cab and went downtown. Webster Hall was closed, so we headed into the West Village. She told me that she had once dated Dmitri from All My Children back when he had his drug problems and had to leave the show a few years ago. I remember when that happened.

Anyway, we went to a club where she knew the owner. Somehow we had started talking about cocaine (passing Tompkins Square Park) and she had some on her, so we did some in the bathroom of the club.

After that we went out and were dancing for a while. I danced with a few guys, but it wasn't packed (being a Wednesday night) and so, we got a little bored and left.

We walked over to another bar she used to go to-- she lived down there when she first moved to the city. We passed "Off the Wagon" (or whatever it's called) on MacDougal Street and I told her about the Long Island Iced Teas and the night I "lost my virginity."

Anyway, the bartender was cute and friendly in the next place we went to, although I have no idea where exactly we were or what it was called. The bartender said we couldn't go into the bathroom together, so she went first and left me a few lines on the back of the toilet (on the tank).

We were sitting next to two guys who noticed and started talking to me about it-- one and actor and one director, but both kids-- a few years older than me. We hung out there for a long time. I don't' remember the details.

A crowd of other guys came in-- all hipsters and probably drunk, although I couldn't' tell. JFig called a friend to buy more blow. The actor and directory guys got excited about it. After a while, she left and they went outside to look for her (I think). One of the hipster guys was telling me he had a recording studio. He told me that was beautiful, and so I kissed him.

But first, the director guy came back in and told me that JFig was waiting and we had to go. I think he was there when I was kissing the hipster.

When we got outside, JFig wasn't there. They didn't know where she went. That's why they pulled me out of the bar-- they wanted me to call her. I told them that I had just met her that night and that I didn't have her number.

She finally came back and said that her friend was coming to get her in a car and sell her some. At first, she wanted me to go with her, but I refused to get into a drug dealer's car. She wanted Rolling Rock, so I went with the boys (Narc and James were their names) to the deli to get some and to use the ATM.

JFig came back and met us there. The grocer was Korean and she was saying something to him about "the Chinese." James seemed embarrassed. (We later found out that his wife is Korean).

Anyway, we got a cab back to their place in Tribeca. It's Narc's apartment, but James is staying there because he's on the "outs" with his wife.

JFig had gotten an 8-ball. We drank wine and chain smoked and did lines for hours. Somehow Narc and I kept having these side conversations about Schoenberg, spirituality, etc. JFig kept saying we should "get married." I felt embarrassed because I wasn't sure that he was interested in me.

Anyway, at some point-- at around 8:00 AM Thursday morning, the coke ran out and it seemed almost time to leave, but Narc wanted to "show me his room." We ended up having sex three times (the third time he ran out of condoms, so he had to finish himself). He told me that he was really into me the minute I started talking about Schoenberg. (I wonder if that's true). He just waned to kiss for hours and told me that I'm an amazing kisser. I felt weird afterwards (for obvious reasons) and he could tell and tried to make it better by cuddling me, which made me feel even stranger. I didn't feel okay until I was dressed again and hanging out in the living room. I was kind of annoyed because he stayed in his bedroom and went to sleep, which I can totally understand because we were all crashing-- coming down from the coke. But, I still don't think it was the "right thing" to do.

Anyway, I hung out with James and JFig for a while. They were both crashing and flirting like crazy, but apparently it remained unconsummated as they're both married.

I started doing the dishes. I didn't know what to do with myself. JFig wanted me to come back and hang out with her, but I totally didn't' want to. We left together-- totally strung out at 11:30 AM, into the bustling downtown Manhattan sun.

She was embarrassed that someone her husband works with might see her. We were right by City Hall and I later found out that her husband is big in city politics. So... she hung back while I hailed us a cab. She said that she couldn't walk into her building wearing "hooker shoes" (which were platform braided sandals with ankle ties) so we had to sop at a shoe store and get shoes while I waited in the cab.

The cab driver thought we were nuts. I looked like absolute hell. When she came back in the cab she told him that I had "just fucked someone." I was mortified, but too tired to care. I convinced her to "let me" go home by promising that I would call her and come over after showering and changing-- which I did, although God knows where I got the energy from. She lives on 38th Street--that fancy building with the huge curved windows.

I went up and she was shocked to see my "transformation." She was fiddling with her computers-- she had three or four and was erasing programs from the "settings," etc. She ordered us Middle Eastern food, but neither of us could eat much.

Then she took out some more coke. She smashed it with a credit card, which to me looked messy and not very economical, but I guess she didn't care because she has it easily accessible. She had been drinking bud light all morning and smoking weed. We used up almost all her coke-- I stayed until about 6:00 PM and she had some more delivered so I could take some home. The whole 24 hours was totally surreal. I really felt like I was existing in some sort of twilight zone.

I wonder if this guy is going to call me though... What's the time period before which I should mentally write him off?

JFig called me at 7:30 this morning, but "forgot" why she was going to call. She still sounded high to me.

Sometimes I don't know where I am... I feel like I'm living too much in my head and that's when strange things start to happen.. strange.

Anyway, I'm just coming from a voice lesson that went really well and I'm on my way to meet VJ and get my eyebrows done.

More later...

That Fateful Day...

2004-07-08T02:47:00.000-04:00

It's humid today. I'm on a bench on Riverside, one eye on the skinny-necked pigeons that I dread. Singing to myself (a dreadfully slow "Over the Rainbow" recorded a few weeks ago) seeming to be in sync with the dragging of everything lately. My shirt matches the trees and this peeling bench and the chunk of green calcite around my neck.

A breeze at last.

VJ and I had lunch earlier. Now she's at Scott Jay getting her hair cut and waiting for me to finish my voice lesson (which doesn't start for another 20 minutes).

*******************

Ok.

Much later and in Cheers. IrishBird just gave me a big greeting... kisses and lots of attention. I wonder if it's weird to be here drinking alone on a Wednesday. The last day I did this was a few weeks ago when Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup. I'm just back from dinner at NiS and Sarah's. Being up by the Medical School was strange... it was all still there... even Coogan's. Except there was a big "Washington Mutual" where the corner bodega used to be. I couldn't even remember the name of Fort Washington. Haven? Haven Hall? Was that the name of the dorm there?

Why do I miss that time so much? Why did AIR7 have to turn out to be such an asshole? Why can't I call B on a night like tonight? He's supposed to love me-- to protect me from all of my feelings. He's supposed to be my friend. Where is Paul Newman?

I'm sitting here drinking alone and tyring to look alluring. Hell...I'll settle for a "Paul Kramer."

Sometimes I think about when AIR7 said that he HATED OldChoirMan. I knew that he loved me then. He loved me because he wanted to protect me.

I had a dream about OldChoirMan the other day-- about kissing him and about how soft his flesh felt. Eww... I remember that about him-- his flesh-- his cheeks and lips were soft with age and cold. And his fingers were pudgy and wandered along my back. And AIR7 hated him like a lion, but later was so cruel to me.

But, it all felt fresh being up there on 168th. I hope I didn't freak out NiS and Sarah tonight.

Is it wrong to admit how good alcohol makes me feel and that I can't stop myself once I start drinking? Is that in bad form to say? Did I talk too much about Brando?

I feel so desperately alone fight now-- like in that nightclub in the middle of the farm fields in France. God, I was so young then! I remember meeting that guy and being afraid and slightly horrified-- not even sure of how to talk to him! How old was I then? 16: How much changed just three years later!

God, I miss B! I want him to come into this bar and hug me and kiss my cheeks and cuddle me and put me to bed. I at least want someone to talk to.

I better not drink too much tonight, though.

I sense my handwriting beginning to blur. I wonder how much longer it will hold up.

It's 12:10 AM. IrishBird just looked at me.

I wonder what she's thinking...

Stella!!!!!

2004-07-06T22:58:00.000-04:00

Procrastinating while I finish lunch at the Morning Star. I'm supposed to be working on Nineteenth Century stuff before study group tonight, which I will eventually get to...

This past weekend was good for me. I spoke to B on Thursday but held my gorund. Friday I went to the beach with BigSis, Jail and Jol. Saturday I ran around doing errands for with my mom. We went to the Gap and I'm down 4 jeans sizes! Sunday we went to a July 4th BBQ at her partner's place.

The whole weekend was shaded by Brando's death on Friday. It makes me feel afraid that Nanny's generation is dying. It is the first time I am feeling the passing of a generation like that and it makes me scared.

Yesterday I went to see Spiderman 2 with BigSis and Bro-in-Law instead of doing my work, and then to a dinner party at IronChef's. It was weird because it was a whole group of women in their 30's and then me. Melanie said that by the time you are dating in your thirties, everyone is walking around with baggage (of the relationship kind) because everyone has been hurt at least once in a big way. They are all so much more "rational" about love than I am... making checklists of compatibility and stuff like that. I wonder if I'll every be that way.

In any case, I've now been hurt in a big way and although I feel stronger and wiser than every before, I feel like the ghost of my life with B has taken away a piece of me with it.

I remember for a few years after graduating, I mourned that whole "choir-life" and I never felt like myself. It hovered near me always-- a true ghost! My life with B feels something like that, so I have to have faith that this will pass. Both Dr. G and IronChef said yesterday that I was being "emotionally abused." I wonder if they are right. I wonder what made me stay... I just can't stand the passing (especially now, listening to Elvis and John Gary!)

Anyway, if I don't start my work now, I never will, so I should go...

Just one more word--

I'm sending my love and thanks to the spirit and gifts of the beautiful, late Marlon Brando-- an angel on this earth.

PS: I spoke to B again last night (he called me) and he said there's no one like me and I'm special and irreplaceable. And that was after he spent the entire weekend with J...

PPS: Kerry announced Edwards as his VP today (Good. Because I like to crush on Edwards! ) The New York Post published too early and annoucned Gephardt. I bought the paper. Maybe it'll be worth something someday...

I Wanna Be Sedated

2004-07-01T18:09:00.000-04:00

Ok... So, I finally left the house.

Last night I drank two bottles of wine and took some codeine. I don't' know what's wrong with me. I haven't done anything like that in so long. I can't let myself regress. I have to keep my head above water right now. I am only responsible and accountable to myself, and that has to be enough.

Now it's 2:00 PM and I haven't eaten yet today and feel like vomiting, but at least I left the house.

Going to the beach with BigSis tomorrow will be good for me... And tutoring today.

He wrote back to me today "I love you too." But what does that mean???

"I love you too, but too bad?"

Why is he bothering to tell me, then?

Ugh... My lunch is here, but I don't want to eat it. It was good talking to Joseph last night. Although I think that we're both crazy. But, he's good to talk to because he has perspective that my other friends don't-- he doesn't see things as clear cut. Whatever... I have no choice in all of this. NO choice, but to let B go and to keep doing what I have to do one day at a time.

And that's life.

Love

2004-06-30T23:13:00.000-04:00

Awakened by your love

I flicker like a candle's light

trying to hold on in the dark

Yet, you spare me no blows and keep asking

"Why do you complain?"

Blood Test

2004-06-29T17:14:00.000-04:00

Waiting in the endocrinologist's office... Blood test today. I didn't exercise this morning because I had to get up too early, but I'm not hungry anyway and not happy about it. I have to go in...

Hindu Hyde

2004-06-27T16:15:00.000-04:00

So, it looks like my chapter of life with B is over. It seems like we're not even going to be friends anymore. But, I'm proud of myself. I told him that I don't want to be treated like shit anymore... even if it took me five years to say it and mean it.

I'm glad I called my mom last night instead of him when it got bad and that I feel the strength to take life up in my hands. I took one of those "spirituality" quizzes today. It told me that I am a "Skeptical-Contemplative" type and should take up Hinduism. I guess Bhakti Yoga is similar to my "Religion of Love."

Anyway, Zoolander is on TV and I haven't eaten all day, so I'll write more later.

I Saw Elvis

2004-06-24T23:18:00.000-04:00

Sitting in the Border's near the movie theater in a cold sweat with a sore throat. Maybe I've been doing too much lately... a week of celebrity.

Last night was the Madonna concert-- Re-invent Yourself. It was an amazing show. She rewrote her past into her present. Even the parts that seemed to have only one meaning were revised... "revisioned," and I wonder if I can do that with my past too.

The night before (Tuesday), I went to see Bill Clinton. It was a moment I will never forget. He radiated with an energy and a magnetism as sparkling as his gleaming white hair and clear eyes... along with a softness. Although the four and a half hours on the humid Harlem street was exhausting and it was Wednesday morning that I woke up as sick as I am today.

On Monday I went to see the Elvis '68 Comeback Special at the movies with my mom and B. It was a one-day release to promote the special edition DVD release that came out on Tuesday. Also, truly amazing. His heart is on his face and it is so striking when he becomes transformed from that narcissistic little boy into an angel of emotion. I love him.

Anyway, a lot has happened since I've written in any journal. I lost 40 lbs, I finished my research paper and B got a girlfriend. The last point is the hardest for me (obviously), although I've had a hard time figuring out why.

Last night we talked for a long time. He told me that I won't find the answers outside myself. I don't know if I'm ready to believe that though. I am always so afraid of falling apart... of "falling..." of the dissolving of my existence that lurks in all of the empty spaces. And the meaninglessness of everything when I'm too weak (or tired) to maintain the illusion of love.

Bill Clinton said last night (on Charlie Rose) that he became (purposely) what he feared the most. So do I, but I'm not yet sure how that works as a coping mechanism.

I'm really too tired to think right now. My yes feel sore and my neck is stiff and I'm hungry. I'm supposed to be working on stuff for the comps, so I better get some work done... Before I have to go tutor Bill.

Library Park

2004-04-27T13:27:00.000-04:00

It's just about the most perfect weather I can imagine right now. My curls are sparkling red and sticky at the end when they wind in front my my eyes. And the tulips are pink, staring at me with black eyes, reminding me of their days in Amsterdam... and Turkey... Ahead the tangled black branches cast a map onto the pavement that a fat pigeon is trying to navigate. An old woman in a blue sweater clutches a magazine and looks bewildered as she walks towards me. To my right, the tulips burst into coral and the green is the brightest I have ever seen. Ahead a lion rests beyond the trees-- too proud to turn and see me, sweetly cold in its stone silence.

Now the sun is beating stronger. It's not perfect anymore and I wish I didn't have my jacket on. My curls aren't dancing and the wisps of hair around my temples slowly stick to my ears. I know I should go into the library soon... now. But the weather doesn't want me to. And the sun has faded all at once, as if there's a blue filter that's been cast over the world that my eyes will not adjust to.

Ok. It's back. And strong.

And a man smells of cigars. And a girl eats her lunch and looks beautiful in long dangling black earrings and a draped white shirt and I feel jealous.

It's weird to see my hands without nail polish. My fingers look like a child's.

I need to take the Circle Line soon. Maybe I can go next week, some weekday...

Ok. At 1:45 I'll go inside to work. For now, I'll simply sit.

Notes and WWI

2004-03-27T11:24:00.000-05:00

Fussell's The Great War

Expressions from WWI:

Over the top
No-Man's Land
French 75
Trench coat
Lousy
Crummy (Itchy, becoming lousy)
Rank and File
"Old" (as in "good old...")
Fuckin' (as an intensifier)

"April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land..."

Thomas Pynchon-- Gravity's Rainbow
John Keegan-- The First World War

Fall 2004: M/W 8:15-9:30, 2087 and M/W 9:40-10:55, 2505N
Appt with Dr. G-- 2:30, Wednesday, 3/31

"Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one." --Martin Heidegger

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi

Whiskey Skin

2004-03-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

Okay... So last night was a total slip-up. I got way too drunk-- ended up with whiskey and alone. I still feel it in my skin. Whiskey does that like no other alcohol-- it stays in your pores and haunts your breath no matter how many times you brush your teeth.

God, I have such a fucking headache today... I can't even deal with the neighbors wanting to go to "Little Manila." The difficult thing with them is that they're not planners-- I have consistently had a hard time making "plans" with them.

Anyway, I don't' feel like writing anymore right now...

Fruit

2004-03-18T11:31:00.000-05:00

Les oiseaux qu'on met en cage
Peuvent-ils encore voler?
Les enfants que l'on outrage
Peuvent-ils encore aimer?

I feel really sleepy right now. Sleepy and full.
I just ate fruit and cottage cheese. And jello... here at Morning Star.

There's something about fruit... precious medieval fruit. Rotting, decadent fruit.

It makes me feel cosmically indulgent.

MEMORY

2004-03-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

"Is memory most of miseries miserable,
Or the one flower of ease in the bitterest hell?"

(Rossetti, Works I, 226).

How to Become Artifice

2004-03-16T13:41:00.000-05:00

Vernon Lee: MacMillan's "On Modern Traveling" (1894)-- "HONOR THE TOURIST, HE WALKS IN A HALO OF ROMANCE." (311)

"As we shall see, this aesthetic logic impacts in the nature of autobiography in the last years of the 19th century; the mode ceases to be merely a way of relating a soul's fruitless search for eternal beauty; it aestheticizes the self by transforming concrete being into artifice. Autobiography becomes the most effective way of living one's art and dying one's life; it corresponds, on the personal, physical level, to the metaphoric eras of Unity of Being on the level of historical consciousness."

"Decadent Spaces" in Decadence in the 1890s. by Jan B. Gordon. Ed: Bradbury and Palmer.

(Explanation for why I cut. Explanation for why I save things.)

Conventional Happiness

2004-03-16T11:35:00.000-05:00

Sitting in my office at ------ killing time before going to class. I have to give my M/W class their midterm today. It snowed yesterday and the streets are full of slush today-- St. Patrick's Day. The five year anniversary of that St. Patrick's Day-- that day of striving for an "artful" life. And today I'm in my dark bell-bottomed jeans (with the button fly I don't like), my maroon velor shirt and my gold "TCB" charm with painted red "sex-star" lips.

Why? I think I write for posterity. I think that's why mediocrity scares me. I learned when Iw as 16 that it can't really be achieved by "achievement"-- there's way too much anxiety and raw talent needed to achieve immortality that way. I have tried to 6tn life to art, but that seems to be largely incompatible with the everydayness of things-- the quotidian requirements and the eye of "das man." That won't allow one to live artfully and conventionally at the same time.

I wanted to ask that in class the other day- if Heidegger's conscious beings (da sein) are being-toward-death and evade the everydayness through consciousness, then how can they be happy? I think that I've learned that most of the joy in life comes in "conventional" packages. Happy people are conventional people. I've always known that, but now by wanting to be happy, I'm sacrificing that other part of myself-- the part that fused art and life so fully that I started to hallucinate self-constructed visions.

It was desperate, aching, lonely and miserable but so very beautiful. Beautiful and TRUE and I knew it.

The Triumph of Song

2004-03-08T16:45:00.000-05:00

Ok... Well, all of that has sort of settled away. We're talking again, although I'm not really sure how long this moment will last.

Right now I'm sitting in the school's cafe in between German and Existentialism. This laryngitis is driving me mad... Monday now and I've had it since Friday. I realized today that if I had to choose between never singing a note again and never finding the love of my life, I would choose to keep on singing. I feel empty and depressed without it. These past few days have been torture-- unbearable not even being able to hum. I hope it disappears fast and that the doctor can patch me all up on Thursday.

How am I going to teach tomorrow and Wednesday, though? I can't keep doing this photocopying thing.

Anyway, listening to Cabaret is making me think I should study my German. So, I will do that now...

Where Has He Gone?

2004-02-27T11:49:00.000-05:00

In the Starbucks at 71st street. I feel a blood sugar sleep sinking over me as I try to stick to reading Notes from Underground. It must be from the Bi Bim Bop and the fact that I practically didn't eat yesterday.

I still can't believe what went down with B... That this is the way it might all end... That I may never speak to him again. I certainly am not going to call him, but it will hurt like hell if he never tries to contact me.

How could I have not known him at all? How can he really be this selfish at the core?

I feel like what happened between us is the exact same thing that happened between me and GoldenFinch...that was three years ago and my heart still hurts from it and I'm still so angry and will never, ever be able to think of her as a best friend. I thought B was my best friend... I really did. I gave him everything I had and it turns out that he is no kind of friend at all-- not even willing to make the most minimal sacrifices. (Like GoldenFinch). I WOULD NEVER HAVE DENIED HIM ANYTHING HE ASKED. Now, I never want to give him anything ever again.

Suddenly, I remember the girl in the computer lab and wonder why I went through all of this suffering. I hope that girl is dead. I hope she died a horrible death. That makes me a horrible person, but I don't care... Maybe I am.

All I know is that he took my dreams away from me... and wouldn't even stay late at a party in return... Where has he gone?

Cancelled Quebec

2004-02-26T13:54:00.000-05:00

So, here I am... dumbfounded (on the day that my draft is due and 10 minutes before a trip to the nutritionist). I was holding back tears all morning until I got to teaching-- who would ever have thought that "Industrialization" could keep me from crying!

I just can't believe that conversation that B and I had last night. I just can't believe it. He's mad at me for "cornering" in to chipping in for Kuting, even when she was sick... and for wanting him to stay at my party. I have done nothing but give to him every ounce of myself... of my soul... holding back no spark of it for myself, foolish or not-- and he is telling me that I am asking him for too much, by paying for part of Kuting's treatment and asking him to stay at my party! He didn't even stay at the party, so it's not that I asked him to stay... he didn't even want me to ask! Ultimately, he is a selfish person. What he said to me last night has suddenly made him so unattractive to me that I don't even want to be his friend anymore. I don't want to be his friend!

I am going to call my mom and ask her to go to Quebec with me and give him my ticket to the Ring in exchange and that will be that.

I feel like I'm going to throw up right now, but I really don't want to go into the bathroom in Starbucks. If I have to spit up, I'll try to do it into my iced tea.

I'm glad he said those things to me. I see him and he can give me nothing.

I still WANT, but I don't want him anymore.

Todd's Trial

2004-02-15T11:59:00.000-05:00

I can't remember the last time that I wrote and whether it was good or bad. All I know is that I'm currently consumed by an all-encompassing choke because I fucked up the tape of the soap-- or rather, I didn't fuck it up-- SoapNet did with their "Tad the Cad" special and now I've missed the first two days of Todd's trial-- again!!

I am fucking miserable.

I guess I haven't written in here since Prem's party either-- luckily I survived this year-- got wasted, danced and danced and had a great time, although I wish I hadn't embarrassed myself in front of K and Richard at the end... oh well.

Anyway, I better get to reading. I just want to see Todd again!

Abstract Mysterious

2004-02-04T12:02:00.000-05:00

Back in Morning Star (not the one near me) and feeling so nervous-- so, so nervous, like I want to lower my eyes... Depressed, I guess... A sense of disorientation. Abstraction from everything around me. Lost. And floating.

This all seems vaguely familiar and right. To feel this way, I mean. (Pour la fete de Rameau!). I guess I just feel mysterious and like it.

Ham and Cheese is here, so I must pause.

An Open Throat

2004-02-03T12:04:00.000-05:00

Well, that long talk with B last night made all the difference in the world. I sooooo want to keep him close to me forever and I love having him so much. But part of me still hates him so much at the same time, and then I feel awfully alone.

Back in the school cafe (near the library) and sinking with exhaustion. Teaching this mornign went really well. I feel completely run down and I hope it's not from all this kissing.

I was exhausted at voice today too and my voice was so sticky. I really have to go to bed early tonight.

Listening to Judy Garland sing "Over the Rainbow." Her voice is so free-- you can just hear the openness of her throat.

Hungry for Life (My First "Cheers")

2004-02-02T12:07:00.000-05:00

An interesting weekend all around. Right now in the Morning Star Restaurant on 57th and 9th. I just had my first M/W class. I was less nervous, but also had less to say (If that's possible).

Anyway, back to the weekend...

I think B is mad at me-- mad at me for having fun, if that makes any sense. Friday night with VJ was typical and not all that fun... I kissed the bouncer and danced in that vestibule and he said something about me being "thick" and it annoyed me. Then I went across the street to that bar by myself and remember the eyes of a woman laughing at me, but I didn't care.

Anyway, my favorite part of the night was sucking on those blow pops all night long.

The next day I went to see Boris Godunov with my mom. The singing was great, but I didn't have the stamina for it after the previous night.

The next night (I mean Saturday-- the day of the opera), I got a call from my Super (who I am sort of crushing on) and he asked me if I wanted to go to Cheers to sing. So, I waited for VJ and we were off.

Anyway, so much happened that I don't have the energy to write right now. Maybe I will write it later. I felt so good, the way they responded to me. Both VJ and my Super left and I met so many people... and then that guy-- I thought he looked like Walker. I was so attracted to him and kissed him and it was so thrilling... even if he was a little psycho prick!

("Fucking brilliant! You are so brilliant!" "Only YOU understand me... not my ex who I'm obsessed with.").

God! My insides are flipping just thinking of it and I feel really nervous. I just hope I didn't embarrass myself too much. VJ said I wanted to fuck him in the bathroom. I think I've set a bad precedent for myself with sex in public places-- Raj, B (at the movies and the bathroom at Buke's party and at VnY's place), the Stallion, that guy at Brother Jimmy's, the guys in New Orleans, that "almost" time at the Pyramid. Am I forgetting anything? That's got to be at least 8 times.

I am out of control and don't want to go there, but it was so good... His face felt rough-- just like W/T's and his eyes had the same hardness.

Now I just don't know what to do with myself... I mean, part of me is lapping up the positive feedback and feeling untangled from B's crap. But another part is worried about being out of control, embarrassing myself and ruining my friendship with B in the process... It makes me feel nauseated inside.

*******************

Later... (Still 2/2/4) and still feeling uneasy about everything that happened.

(My blood will be a cloud... Under here, I'm made ready!)

I feel like there's been some kind of shift. Like that thing with Raj made me feel different about everything... like I feel awake again-- seeing people freshly-- hungry for life again. And it's a good feeling.

(I just took a sip of tea and it washed so warmly down into me-- like a first sip of whiskey for the night. This tea swished down, burning in a space under my breasts).

Anyway... back to my anxiety--

I can't believe I tried to lead him into the bathroom. It's mortifying on so many levels, and yet, did I really do anything wrong? What if that's just who I am? Is that so bad? Should I worry what those people think of me now, or should I just let it go?

That long talk with Anxious yesterday about the bruising and the cravings for violence really made me feel better because she didn't think it was so weird or wrong and maybe I am just much harder on myself than everyone else...

But i hope they don't think I'm a drunk and a slut at Cheers. I had fun there and want to be able to go back with out too much pain.

Anyway, I should head to class now. It starts in 5 minutes. The first day of "Existentialism."

Consuming the Past

2004-01-29T12:21:00.000-05:00

First day teaching-- done. Although, it wasn't a real first day, being that I only held them for 15-20 minutes. I am disappointed in myself. I was better prepared. I should have overcome that nervous energy and done better.

I'm killing time right now in the history lounge. I just spent a few hours in the library working on lesson plans and thinking about my paper. I think I might have sort of a handle on a new angle-- the consumption of the past being similar to the consumption of Imperialism as already set forth by authors like Anne McClintock. That would tie in both tourism, fashion and decorating the home-- processing an idea into commodities for a lifestyle-- expressing an idea through consumption despite opposing "mass" anything...

I think I may be getting somewhere with this idea.

To do:
1.) Look over arguments about Imperialism before meeting with BritProf.
2.) Cull some stuff from articles.

Schedule:
Friday: Lesson plans, IronChef/Voice, Articles, Party
Saturday: Books, Opera
Sunday: Anxious, Superbowl Party

WEATHERED. (That's the burn and scab on my left hand).

The Dean Scream

2004-01-22T12:25:00.000-05:00

"GENIUS DOES WHAT IT MUST, BUT TALENT DOES WHAT IT CAN."
--Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)

Sitting in Starbucks reading Symonds articles and working on my syllabus... A group of men sitting behind me are talking about the Howard Dean speech and their mid-life crises. They thing Dean is a "loose cannon"-- too angry, arrogant and leftist.

But my B doesn't think Dean is really that far left at all! So, who is right? I guess it doesn't matter. I've pretty much decided that he's not my candidate.

Anyway, I am sleepy-- still run down from my strep throat, I guess. It feels like I've been here forever... It's going to be a really long day today before I end up in Florida tonight!

Sore Throat

2004-01-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

More time still has passed and I feel differently about it all again... Sitting in the Doctor's office on East 34th street, waiting to have this sore throat checked out. I really hope it's the kind that can be fixed with medicine... Anyway, I don't feel like writing right now...

Raj

2004-01-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

Later. And last night was so weird. I feel like it should have been exciting, but I feel so numb and deadened to everything. I mean, he is a stranger-- telling me that I am the most beautiful girl in the world, kissing me and touching me. And I just felt so cynical about it and not present and like the whole evening was for him and I was just passing time.

Maybe I'm changing. It was not as thrilling as it would be for me if something happened with someone I cared about. Is that just weird?

I used to think that sex was always more thrilling with strangers, but I don't think that anymore. It only makes me miss him so much more. I feel like this whole break up thing was supposed to make me love him less, but instead I love him more every day.

Last night on the phone he was wonderful... so wonderful. I never imagined that I could be as honest with anyone as I am with him and he still sees me and loves me.

I am so fucking confused.

"In this cruel and lonely world, I've found one love."

On Drinking

2004-01-09T12:33:00.000-05:00

"He drank, not as an epicure, but barbarously, with a speed and dispatch altogether American, as if he were performing a homicidal function, as if he had to kill something inside himself, a worm that would not die."
-Baudelaire on E. Allen Poe

"Indeed, I believe if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any class."
-Abraham Lincoln

"First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man."
-Japanese Proverb

"And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man"
-A.E. Housman (1894)

"Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea... Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The glom of an external mourning enwraps every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe."
-Henri-Frederick Amiel (1893)

Dream-O-Meter: Todd Manning

2004-01-08T22:50:00.000-05:00

Todd Todd Todd Todd Todd

On the roof.

We got to the house first (after a wedding) and I admired the read bricks and the flowers. Inside there was a tunnel with a ladder up through the ceiling to get to the roof (like at JKid's apartment). When we went up there, we thought no one else would arrive for a while. I loved the house and he said I could have it. There was a little girl up there. I don't remember her name. But guests showed up immediately and he disappeared in the crowd.

Later, I was looking for him. Someone told me people were pissed off at him and I wanted to tell him that I wasn't mad. I went down through the tunnel to look for him in the backyard. It was the backyard of the house where I grew up (on Long Island). I tried to go back up to the roof carrying a six-pack of Guinness, but I couldn't make it up the ladder with the Guinness. My mom was at the bottom of the ladder and yelled at me not to carry them up because I would fall.

When I got back up to the top, I still couldn't find Todd. I saw B on the roof talking with a group of people and laughing. He was wearing his navy blue fleece shirt.

Finally, I found Todd. It was hard to get him alone because a lot of people wanted his attention and I felt nervous. I managed to get him aside for a moment. He promised to stay at the house after everyone else left and talk to me then.

Suddenly, the dream changes...

I was on 42nd Street in front of the Public Library waiting for a bus to go to a High School reunion. Katie, Corrine, Christina and BigSis were there. Everyone seemed older and more "sure of themselves"-- grounded and changed. I didn't want to go to the reunion though. I felt like I had to go find Todd and felt pressured to get on the bus with them.

Growing Up

2004-01-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, Elvis!

I've been waiting here in Dr. Gg's office for half an hour already (with some very strange people!) (Feva'!)

I feel a strange pressing on my chest. It's the weight of loneliness. But, I suppose that it's in large part because I've been on vacation for a few weeks already. I hope B will have dinner with me tonight. Although I really do have a lot to do.

****************
Anyway, after and in the Skylight Cafe (the place where I fell on the stop when I was on my crutches.) I'm glad GoldenFinch called me last night. I feel like she cares about me after all. It's weird... we've been "broken up" longer than we were best friends (well, just about as long) but although I feel really changed, my anger and sadness about it are still fresh. Of course, I forgive her. I'm not even sure she did anything wrong. But it's hard to forget.

Sitting here at the counter of a diner reminds me of the time I sat at the counter at Tom's and lost my journal.

Food here. Must go.

****************
Further down the road in the day (by about an hour) and sitting in Starbucks with a mint tea because I'm early for my voice lesson.

I lost two pounds this time, so lets hope my voice is in better shape too. Realizing how expensive all of this is, I wonder if I'll ever make it worth it. I never would have imagined how much it could cost-- like feeding a whole other person for a year1 I guess I hope I'm worth it and that I don't end up disappointing.

Why am I so afraid of disappointing?

There's a girl in here with a Tales of Hoffman score and I'm jealous.

Just now I remembered that brown coat I bought in France. I loved that coat. Bob Dylan is playing. It reminds me of New Orleans and cocaine. That reminds me... I need to write back to Singrl.

I keep thinking about what Buke said on the phone the other day about "choosing" someone. Maybe that's been my problem. I've never though of it so much as choosing. It makes me feel bad that BigSis has never tried to set me up with anyone... or Bro-in-Law. But I see them looking for people for English all the time. I guess I can't blame them... Maybe it's not for the reasons I think. Maybe they just don't know anyone else like me... I want to know someone else like me though.

I feel like I have very little patience and then I somehow miraculously wait forever. Just like I always feel like I'll have to die from this broken heart and somehow keep on living. My heart will stay broken though. To me, it is my youth. I feel so much more like an adult now even if I don't act like one. The ghosts that have been haunting me for the past few years are finally feeling a little more comfortable... at least today they are.

It's weird when I think that only a year ago, RH was there as Todd... The year seems infinite when I think of it that way... That only a year ago, I got Rochie. He is so exasperating sometimes, but I love him so much. My whole way of thinking has to change because of this damn broken heart and I think that's why my brain feels so fractured now... Like that song "to get me to you" or HW's wedding song-- "At Last." I used to be waiting for an arrival. Now I don't believe that I will ever arrive. Even more than before, I understand Grandma L's "work in progress."

And when I think of my dad, I still get that choke of tears. How can something hurt so badly 14 years later? It's almost as if he never had a chance. I want him back. I want to see him one more time and not feel scared this time. I want to hug him and tell him how much I love him. As an adult now. Without fear.

Second Chances

2004-01-07T22:58:00.000-05:00

Is this what they call a second chance?
'Cause you know that you've been here before.
Things settle back to the way they've always been.
An unbearable equilibrium

There's nothing wrong here.
There's just nothing wrong but the emptiness.

You had a lot to do today
But stayed inside yourself
Frozen, frozen, frozen, frozen in your veins
A thick gray parts the sky

So this is your second chance...
A second chance at loneliness.

What happened to the chances at love?

I used to try to color my life and call it love.
But the colors have long since bled away.

The Voice Lesson

2003-12-18T13:01:00.000-05:00

Voice Assignment (until January 6th):

Practice staccati EVERY DAY
Warm Ups:
Jaw Exercise
Hiss
Trills
Hum
Stretch-- me/meh/ma, etc.
o/ee (coming down)
Vey/Fey, Mo/Lo
aaa (flexibility one)

Wanders Nachtlied/ Am die Musik

Naming Nails

2003-12-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

Red Nailpolish-- OPI Kennebunk-port: "Mistletoe kiss"

OPI Belize it or Not: "Berry Boy"

Esse Boca Rattaned: "Soulmate Kiss"

Remembering

2003-12-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!

"I began with the desire to speak with the dead."
-Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations, Pg. 1

"Work is the curse of the drinking class."
-Oscar Wilde

Apart From (on the LIRR)

2003-11-29T22:12:00.000-05:00

Why does being on the Long Island Rail Road always make me so depressed?

Maybe it's staring at my eyes reflecting specks of light of the world with my forehead pressed against the cold window.

Whatever it is, it stretches my heart too thin and my blood feels like water and my veins throb-- longing for a thickness again-- for something sweet and thick and right.

And always, it's on the return-- the return to a life not a part of anything... an isolated life that I've felt since I began to write... perhaps even to think.

My eyes looked beautiful on that video-- ringed and sinking, sparkling but glazed over. As if everything was imbued with the meaning that I've always seen there...

The train is shaking, so I have to pause.

***********************

Anyway, I just changed trains at Jamaica, but it's too cold to write!

A New Journal (The Japanese Sea)

2003-11-25T11:06:00.000-05:00

It's kind of strange to be starting a brand new journal (if this page will even stay straight!) but this is the perfect day to do it. It's chilly and crisp today-- in the 40's somewhere and I'm sitting on the cold marble steps of the NYPL. It's 10:40 and it's not open yet.

A lot of people are here, standing apart (like in "City of Angels" or that Prilosec commercial) and one guy keeps looking at me.

I feel the coffee and cigarettes on my breath and feel content in these, my favorite jeans, my Columbia sweatshirt and gray wool coat.

And it is good and right that I don't have to go back to K-house.

But now that I've christened this journal, I should probably try to get some reading done... Here in the morning air (perfect).

***************************

Ok... An hour and five minutes later and my eyes are already tired of reading... Or maybe it's my head. David Bell's The Cult of the Nation in France. And I should (would) like it because it's about "identity"... I don't know why I'm so tired now that I've been sleeping in a bit. Maybe that's why. Maybe it's all come crashing down around me.

It's strange to write on a page without margins... I feel like I could go on writing clear across the binding. But somehow I stop myself. Is that education?

Anyway, I want to rest my eyes for a bit before I keep reading.

The Old Young Woman

2003-11-17T18:12:00.000-05:00

Back at Columbia in the undergrad reading room on the ground floor of Butler. I have a horrendous knot in my neck that makes it basically impossible to read because it hurts to put my head down. It almost feels like a gland, except that I don't think I have a gland back there. And besides, I really shouldn't make any excuses about not doing my reading because I just flipped through the whole of Musical America (with the flier that IronChef and I designed still on the back).

Everyone here looks so young. They are all so fucking young, and I feel so old. I feel like the four years that I spent here were the truest age-- making the closest and most raw friendships and acting on every impulse.

I used to laugh at VJ when she said she's rather die than get old and I don't feel like my friends in their late 20's or early 30's are old at all... but now, as for myself, I feel a panic-- that I am so very old. It feels compounded by what my voice teacher said-- that if I wait too long, I'll be too old for singing too.

Going back to choir is going to be weird tonight. I'm really nervous about it. I'm not sure how to act. Now I"m extra nervous because I left my music at K-house. I'm starting to feel burnt out from this semester. I know there's only three more weeks of this reading and the papers, but it doesn't feel like anything is going to really let up until after the comps in August.

Anyway, it's almost 6:15. I suppose I should try to get through this book in the next hour and a half.

Later...

Dreamless

2003-11-12T23:21:00.000-05:00

Listening to this is making me miss G-school. Sometimes I miss those kids so much... It's weird. They're like the last real connections that I made. And I liked the way that teaching made me feel. Maybe that's a good sign.

Anyway, I feel weird right now... so angry at B. Like I hate him more than anything for betraying me... for betraying my trust. And every time I let it come out, he says "I'm terrible. I know I'm a bad person," and so I say "no, you're not. You're a good person and I love you." And although I mean it, I also don't mean it at all. And part of me wishes that his dreams will never come true... the way he robbed me of my dreams.

Is it possible for someone else to take away your dreams? The answer is definitely "yes" and it hurts even more =when they're what you're relying on to get you through life on a day to day basis...

And now I feel broken and it's not getting better at all.

In fact, the sinking permanence of it all is only just starting to settle-- and the vow that I will never trust anyone like that ever again. I wish I never trusted him to begin with ! I was foolish... He wasn't trustworthy to take care of my feelings, and that was clear form the start...

But by the time I saw it, it was too late...

Now I don't know what to do with him or my life and I feel it all sliding away-- everything I ever wanted is already dead before my eyes.

I HATE HIM!!!

A Scholar? Or a Hooker?

2003-11-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

With Elvis in Pick-a-Bagel, using the same green pen with which I read Lefebvre's French Revolution the other day. (It's up to the part of the "Comeback Special" when Elvis kicks the "Big Boss-man's" ass!)

Anyway, I really don't want to be at work today. I'm really tired and cranky and I have the worst cramps in the world. My mind is blanking and I don't even have anything to write. I wonder-- what is the point of keeping these journals? Am I trying to capture time? To avoid loss? (Tonight will be a memory too...)

There is such a jappy girl talking so loudly in that particular voice and cursing a lot. I hope she shuts up sometime soon. Good... She is hanging up.

I can't wait to go have my hair colored and cut. It's so in a rut right now. I think my hair is thinning in general. It doesn't grow as fast as it used to. It's no longer super thick.

Ugh. That woman is back on the phone again...

The ginger from the sushi here smells good-- soothing.

(I never looked for trouble, but I never ran)

I wonder if I'll ever get to where "I said I"d get." No, really-- Why am I so defeatist? I want to be a great scholar. I wonder if I can. Am I good enough at history? I guess I just don't know yet.

(We're trapped in a world that's troubled with pain).

************************

Later...

After 6:00 PM.

That was truly the most bizarre thing. I left work and was smoking a cigarette and waiting for the bus to stop and a woman came up to me-- dressed okay with earrings and a bag, and asked me to pay for her dinner. (I was holding my wallet with the bills sticking out, looking for my metro card.)

"Well, I can give you a dollar," I said.

"A dollar?!? Look at you! You're loaded!" she replied.

"No, I'm not. I'm a student and I only have $10 to get me through the week," I answered.

Then she tried a different tactic and said-- "They're killing us! They're just killing us!"

And then she asked me if she could be my "madam." She actually asked me for my contact info! WTF?!? I got rid of her with $2.00 and a cigarette, but damn!

In other news, the crush is growing and growing... It's delicious.

In yet other news, I suck as a dieter. I can't stick to it and I deserve to die.

(Wait-- what year is it? 1995? 1997? Fuck... 1995 was almost 10 years ago!)

The Mover

2003-11-04T13:39:00.000-05:00

Ok... Today's a little better. I've made right choices so far, and let's see if I can get through this month... until my birthday.

I is so fucking cold today. Patty Kiernan said it would be 68 and sunny and instead it feels like 48 and it's drizzling and I have neither an umbrella nor a jacket. AND (At!) my hair is straight...

I wonder what BritProf is going to say about my proposal. Why do I feel like I don't know how to do this? All I want to write about are historical ideas, but is that history? I think this is where I'm going to need the most training and will have to struggle to find my niche.

I am going to move things. I have to move things. I'm so tired of treading water, but it takes so much energy to do anything else but sink!

I wonder if I should go back. I wonder if Eva's waiting for me.

I think I'll head back now.

Eating

2003-11-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

Why am I doing this to myself?

I just ate spaghetti and meatballs for lunch and had a dessert. Am I trying to kill myself? From this moment on, I'm going to be good through my birthday. Then I'll reassess.

I feel sick and I hate myself.

Here with Big Mama Thorton and hot coffee.

I feel dizzy already.

Old New York

2003-10-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

Another Halloween.

Finished a lunch of bread, cheese, smoked fish and onions. (That makes me feel like a writer from Cowley's NY, although there's no reason why it should!)

On a lunch break and waiting for those keys to be made... And plagued by the thought, lately, that all of this is memory-- that the world is passing-- that "my New York" is passing. It's the first time I've ever felt ageing-- that it's the people younger than I who own the world. The thought makes me sad and sick. And more than anything, scared.

Nothingville

2003-10-23T13:47:00.000-04:00

In Cafe Europa on my lunch hour (late) and blinking into a sty with the wind icing my left hip and leg and wanting to write because I'm not in the mood to read.

My brain is getting tired from all of this (I have to write a paper tonight) and it's hard to keep my priorities straight when all I want to do is crash after work.

God, my eye (sty) hurts!

Listening to Garou, who I absolutely adore. I would give anything to see him in concert. he sings a part of me that i don't find anywhere else. It's like opera but rough instead of sublime. It hurts, but feels good to listen at the same time.

GoldenFinch's wedding was on Saturday. It feels weird to hang out with my college friends sometimes. It's like we all have these fixed personalities with fixed expectations and I play into it and then feel stupid.

I had such a great time last night walking to the library. It was nice and cold out and I had on my hood and jacket and chain-smoked the whole way there. It was just at twilight, so everyones faces looked pale and blue with a biting pink in the cheeks and lips. I know that's how I looked and I loved every minute of it. My hair was like straw and even more brightly colored next to my colorless, flushed face.

Then I went into Sephora and had that "winter" feel of carrying a million things and sweating in my heavy coat inside the heated store and then I went outside and my damp skin caught fire in the wind, burning me all over. It was fabulous and the most "complete" moment that I've had in a really long time. I live for moments like those. They seem to only come at times when I can let myself get into that mood-- that mood I used to live in, but am not supposed to go into anymore-- where I feel strong and dizzy at the same time-- where I have a self-awareness that is almost external and where anger turns to power and the hallucinations begin. There's definitely a shift that happens in my brain when that happens. I know I can't live there anymore, but I miss that part so much. That was my strongest self. I don't think I'll ever be able to explain this to anyone else either because my words never come close to that absolute magic.

(Que l'amour est violent)

Alright. So, I finished lunch and now I'm here sipping a piping (burning) hot hazelnut coffee. I don't want to go back to work yet though because I don't have to (at least not for another 10 minutes!).

Why is my handwriting so fucking messy today? I think it's because I'm used to typing again. I remember that happened when I worked at the music management company.

So... when am I ever going to start my diet? What am I afraid of? Sometimes I wonder about what happened to me. And then I think that that's totally wrong and I just need to fill up all these empty spaces.

I still want to cry when I think about how things failed with B. That was all I wanted in the world and I feel the tears in my throat right now. It's so much easier to hate the people around you when you're not in a relationship too. I feel so weird about GoldenFinch getting married. I feel like we will never understand each other again. When I told her that i loved her that email and how I will never forget the "Be Not Afraid" night, I think I was saying "goodbye." She kept looking at me at the wedding when I was singing, but for me, I was already gone.

I am gone from so many of the places i n my life, but I haven't landed anywhere yet either. Nowhere. To be nowhere. (Or as Elvis would say, to be in "Nothingville...")

I really need a new Elvis Presley CD. All I want to do is listen to him and I"m running out of "freshness." I wonder if one day there'll be nothing left for me to hear of him and then what will I do/ He is the man-God of my previous entry. Cruel because of the distance, but merciful because he will never, ever go away.

Anyway, on that somewhat disturbing note, I should be heading back to work. As much as I want to stay here with coffee and Garou...

I hope B and I don't fight tonight. I really need that soft place.

(Especially on an afternoon with a sty-- on some level, from beginning to end, NOTHING CHANGES!)

The Princess of Medici

2003-10-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

Waiting (after work) on the floor in the hall outside my professor's office. I have to pee, but don't think I have the time. Bumped into Ana C. in Pick-a-Bagel today (and Patty J. yesterday and Amy P. and Stephen at the opera on Saturday!). I feel like all of this is some sort of sign (it really is too bizarre in my neighborly city of strangers). But I have no idea what this sign could be.

I'm really nervous about this advisor thing for my research paper. Yes-- he's a Victorianist, but business and economics doesn't seem like it would be the right fit at all and if he's really opinionated, he might pressure me into writing something I don't want to.

It's just about 6:00 PM and they're still in there talking... I hope he's not too critical. I really am just too tired to defend myself.

Today was a wasted day at work and I think Suj knows it. I think Gab knows it too and doesn't like it. But Suj basically told me to do my own work until he finished his fucking picture for the pope and he still wasn't done when I left for the day!

I like answering the phones when Eva is out. It forces people to tell me what's going on (and I got to talk to the Princess of Medici today).

Like I said-- some things are really too bizarre.

Okay, now they're eating into my time and I'm getting really irritated. Maybe they don't know I'm here. I guess I'll go knock...

Later...

Overworked on a Black Night

2003-10-13T20:09:00.000-04:00

Waiting with a headache in a black night for a voice lesson.

Crushed by this unbearable schedule. My chest feels stretched and my shoulder blades burn. My hands tremble with fatigue.

Today I left home at 8:00 AM, worked until 5:00 PM, went to the nutritionist, went grocery shopping, wrote a 6-page paper and now I"m at a voice lesson and I don't know who I am anymore.

And I keep thinking about AIR7 because ironically enough, that's the only time I remember being happy. It was before I had a broken heart.

That day at the Whitney was the happiest day of my life.

Slow High

2003-09-28T00:12:00.000-04:00

Ok. I'm high again, but not like that. This time I am really slow and I get the sense that my handwriting is very big. Will tell more tomorrow. Today is a day (entry) that needs justice.

Saw Streetcar.

Got excited.

Couldn't sleep.

This is to calm my brain and nerves and let me rest

Scary Drugs

2003-09-26T00:14:00.000-04:00

Ok. I am so fucked up right now (and I even see myself writing messy and it's slowing me down. I see myself writing so slowly and I'm going to be mad at me but (faster)

I'm thinking so much faster and my wrists feel tingle, I can feeling I had the time to go back and write that. Oh my god, my mind is just slowed down. I feel so much more clear but my wrists are still tingling. I know I'm not writing clear. This is SO fucking hard to stay on the line.

I want to let go and be high. high. HIGH.

I want it's 12/26- 12:01 Lorai just said 10:36 3rd

In the Stacks

2003-09-25T22:18:00.000-04:00

Democratic primary debate today, but I missed it. I was at the New York Public Library with my seminar class. The best part was going down into the (normally closed) stacks and watching the slips come down through the shoots and the books go up the little elevator. I went to JJay to get some library books (where there were a lot of cameras for some Elvis Costello concert on A&E) and then home to watch Extreme Makeovers. Skipped dinner again. :)

Moving On

2003-09-23T17:36:00.000-04:00

Okay.

Today is going to be a changing day in "mah life."

First I went to Dr. G. She made me ask myself-- what did I do with those feelings? How am I still friends with B? Why am I emotional with the person who has hurt me most in the whole wide world? I realized that this is all part of the way I hold myself back. I don't let myself take risks anymore. And as scared as I am of dying alone, can I live like this for the rest of my life? I don't think so...

Then I came home and called B and cried because this is still between us. And I'm sick of sitting on it for the sake of our friendship and letting it eat away at me and come out in different ways. I need to deal with these feelings, but I don't know if I can be there for him if I do.

Then I cooked lunch (yes, cooked!) and watched Dr. Phil. It was a "weight loss challenge" episode. It made me realize that I'm sick of who I am. Cutting myself or getting more tattoos or pretending that there are no problems won't put me in control or stop me from hating myself. I need to work every single day to change my life and that includes cooking, cleaning, diet, exercise and no more of this with B.

This is what I'm going to propose:
1.) No more sleeping over.
2.) No more kisses
3.) No more "tatz"
4.) hanging out limited to twice a month
5.) control acting vulnerable as much as possible.
6.) FACE YOUR FUCKING FEELINGS THAT YOU'RE PISSED AT HIM!!!

I mean, even if he didn't hurt me on purpose, he didn't have to date me or live with me if he thought I wasn't good enough for him. AND, once he did, eh didn't have to tell me that it's my flaws that keep him from being with me. He was SELFISH in that working out his problems took place at my expense.

I WANT TO MOVE ON.

Vindicating Liu

2003-09-23T01:31:00.000-04:00

Later (much later... 1:31 in the morning into the day after and I'm drunk on a bottle or two of wine...)

I just feel the need to write to vindicate Liu. I'm so glad that she called me... that she was thinking about me. Maybe she is more like me that I thought... I just feel like the more time that goes by, the less alike our lives are, the less alike we are...

Anyway, it's late and I'm drunk and I have a lot of reading to do tomorrow, so that's it for now.

lots of love,

h

College Days Fade

2003-09-22T12:43:00.000-04:00

Just left lunch with B at Hsin Yi. The neighborhood is crazy right now. The UN General Assembly begins meeting today so there are leaders from all around the world here. The police presence is crazy. They say it's supposed to be like this until October 5th. Oh well... It's already 12:30 and I still have so much fucking reading to do. I really want to eat a muffin, but just ate lunch so know that it's just gluttony.

It's weird (and this is a totally new train of thought), but I am beginning to feel like "the college years" are in a safe and comfortable past. I don't feel like that person anymore. I feel like that can have been my youth, but who I am now doesn't have to be continuous with that. I feel like I am redefining relationships with a lot of my friends and that I see them from more of a distance. I feel like I want to open up less to people I'm not all that close to. Even stranger, I don't want to be close to so many people.

It's harder to keep friendships tight without opening up though. It just seems that everyone's lives are so different. GoldenFinch is getting married. NiS may be heading off to Germany. Who the hell knows what Liu is up to since I hardly hear from her anymore...

I think one of the reasons I feel really irritated with her is that she "aligned herself" back then because she was going through some sort of phase and then she moved on, but meanwhile that part of me was not a phase, but something more essential. I thought I had found someone who understood and was the same and now I feel like I was wrong. Nobody can be trusted to be the same sort of friend when there's a man around, unless the relationship is not going well...

Anyway, I better get reading. Like I said... I have so much fucking work to do!

Cool Tagalog

2003-09-22T11:52:00.000-04:00

Secret Communication Words:

maliit ako: I am small
pansinin mo ako: pay attention to me!
nakakainis- is annoying
saan ka uuwi- where are you going (home)?
kailan tayo uuwi: when are we going home?

ulol: crazy!
gago: stupid!
vastas: obscene, lewd, crass!

The Raw Life

2003-09-18T17:57:00.000-04:00

Well, since I can't concentrate on the reading I'm supposed to do (Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siecle Russia) in front of an extra large cappuccino, I might as well write a few words here...

First, I'm going to make a list of all the old movies I've seen since August:

Night and Fog
Birth of a Nation
(both for class)

Easy Come, Easy Go
Change of Habit
King Creole
Jailhouse Rock
Loving You

A Streetcar Named Desire!!!
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Grapes of Wrath
On the Waterfront
Godfather I and Godfather II
Last Tango in Paris
Lawrence of Arabia
The Wild One
The Young Lions
Cool Hand Luke
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A Fool There Was
Guy and Dolls
Carousel (although this one doesn't really count)

And a few more on the way...

On a totally different note, sometimes I think that I'll never be "cured" nor do I want to be. Last night I very purposefully got a little drunk and carved "EP" into my thigh. Why can't I let go of such an awful vice... so truly bizarre? I mean, I don't think it's at all rooted in the "typical" reasons for self-injury. In fact, I know it's not.

It's more about a desperate, aching hunger for beauty and finding God and beauty in the rawness of life. An aching to see things destroyed... for that's the moment of life at its most full-- to be destroyed by someone cool and in control... a life giver and taker-- a God-- but someone shaken with emotion beneath it all... a MAN!

To join God and man in a beating. To crush nature's creations and color it all with "will."

I hate this part of myself. It's always craving and it embarrasses me. I know that no one I know feels this way or could even come near to understanding without pity or fear. I wish I didn't feel this way. Or maybe I just need someone to beat the shit out of me to get it out of my system.

These feelings... these cravings are so unwelcome. So confusing... And yet they are most often the only thing in my life that seems real. It's as if everything else is just a means for killing time. And the best I can do is to be self-mocking because there's no room for anything else. But even that requires a great leap of courage.

The people sitting near me are really annoying. Some Hungarian girl who just arrived here... and some sleazy guy who's interviewing her as if she were a mail order bride.

Well... I suppose I should get back to reading because I do need to present this week...

B: On Prostitutes

2003-08-22T01:06:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I really hate him. I can't believe this whole fucking conversation about prostitution. I shouldn't let him sleep here anymore... a man so against my principles! I mean, it's so dehumanizing to everyone involved and so pathetic on part of the person buying... I would lose all respect for him if I knew he even considered such a thing! It's so fucking pathetic. I need to get out of this situation... to get out of this world in which a guy thinks he can buy the realness of sex. He doesn't know what sex it. She has side-railed me for long enough.

It annoys me that he's even sleeping out there in the living room after we had this conversation.

I don't know... this is stupid. Maybe I should kill myself.

(See what happens when you're drunk?!?)

And do I think that Buke is charming when he says it? So what? I can't believe B would think that way. It really makes me hate him.

But how can I hate someone I love?

Well, this time I just do...

Summer Heat

2003-08-18T14:11:00.000-04:00

At the end of the summer. It's cooled down a little today, but my curls are still sticking to the back of my neck.

Sitting in the Starbucks near ProfNietzsche (I walked here from the nutritionist) drinking an iced venti soy latte and listening to Garou.

I lost four pounds this week. And even though it feels good, I know it's only because I had my period last week. I really want to try to do this though.

I don't know why it's taking so long to cool down in here. Ever sine the blackout, no one wants to turn their fucking air conditioners on. I am ready to kill "Time Warner" too. I can live without cable, but not without Internet. (Isn't that weird considering that 10 years ago I had never used the Internet once!)

Anyway, it's been a week of watching gorgeous men in the movies and being obsessed with A Streetcar Named Desire. I fucking LOVE that movie. (I just watched it three more times.)

So, there was Streetcar, King Creole (twice), Butch Cassidy... etc. And yesterday in the movie theater, Open Range.

Today I'm supposed to go to Long Island to have another dress fitting with Pati. I hope the whole shoe thing works out. LilSis and I really need to plan BigSis' bachelorette party this week. Maybe I'll call Nipkins and see if she can recommend any places... or KBH. I don't feel like writing here anymore, so I think I'll read.

Chaos and Connection

2003-07-20T23:22:00.000-04:00

The day after HW's wedding... It was weird for me in a lot ways... When AW said he wanted to slap C and I felt it turn in my stomach in the strangest place... where things felt mystically or spiritually root themselves. And when my mom cried because I said it makes me sad when I think of how sad my dad must have been... and she felt responsible that she couldn't help him...

(when L kissed my neck).

I felt weirdly drawn to chaos... Maybe it's not so weird, but why am I so different from BigSis and LilSis like that? I almost wish that family was even crazier so that I could release all this shit that I struggle against all the time (and smoke in the open), but I know that I would die...

And here I am... drunk again tonight and feeling deliciously connected and horribly guilty for it all the same...

"The History of the Beach" is on the history channel right now. B is in the Philippines and seems worlds away from the W's.

I so want to meet a boy to love me... I want to connect to someone... To have a partner in this chaos so I don't need to be floating anymore.

Dream-o-Meter: Shopping and the Ghost of Nanny

2003-07-04T12:27:00.000-04:00

My dream (as far back as I can remember it):

Walking up the huge staircase to an elevated 7-train (although I was coming from somewhere Upper, Upper West-- Harlem?) And I had no shoes on. There was a group of tourists00 a blond family on the staircase speaking German or something and I thought they would look at my feet.

I was afraid of stepping on broken glass. The cement was sparkling. I got on the Uptown side and had to figure out how to get onto the Downtown platform. I thought I'd get off at 72nd Street, but after one stop I saw a flea market below-- more like a Jerusalem bazaar.

I saw a large, magenta, velvet bag and another made of brocade-velvet tapestry. I decided to get off the train.

Once in the bazaar, I had to step over two girls looking at a tray of rings in order to get the the bags. One ring was made of garnet and moonstone. Another was made of small green tiles.

Then Is aw a stand behind me where they were selling gold. I had some gold to trade in, but the man told me that he didn't have anything 14K. He was Middle Eastern. We were seated at a wooden table. The man said something about it being "Joseph-gold" which made sense to me, being in Jerusalem.

Then a woman came over to me-- a white American "soccer mom" type. She asked if she could leave her six year old son with me for half an hour. I asked her why she's be willing to leave him with me... a stranger! She said it's because I'm white and I had brushed my teeth and I looked "safe." I felt uncomfortable, but I said "okay." I asked her for her cell phone number just in case she never showed up again. She couldn't remember the number. She wrote something down on a paper (4... 9581?) but said another thing out loud as she wrote it. She seemed to have some weird math-equation way of remembering each of the following numbers. I gave her mine instead. I think I said "288887"

Then, the next thing I know, we were in "Epic" (or my conception of "Epic") but it had all of the clothing from "Scream" and my cousin Jail was working there. The store hadn't opened yet.

BigSis, LilSis, Aunt Nin, Jol and I were shopping there. It was like we had "first dibs" there while people outside the doors were pressed against the glass trying to get in. Jail's hair was dyed bright orange, like Nipkins.

I saw a beautiful pale-green sweater that I wanted. There weren't many on the rack, even though it was a new item and there were there with a hodge-podge of pale green sale skirts.

I finally found my size (after not being able to read the tags) but when I showed it to BigSis, she said it was three sizes smaller... Then when I wanted to try it on, the sweater was black. It fit me, but I couldn't find a green one, like the one I wanted, in my size.

By this time, the store was open and crowded and I couldn't get Jail's attention to go look in the stockroom for me.

Suddenly, there were so many people there that it became some sort of party. Some sweet sixteen or something for one of my cousins being held at the store! We were walking around, mingling. I bumped into Jol and Aunt Nin. Jol looked about 13 years old.

She said: "I'm glad it was you that my mom wanted to drop me off with in the bazaar. I didn't want to say anything though because it was embarrassing."

I seemed to know what she was talking about and laughed at the memory (like that time int he islands when someone thought she was my daughter?)

Then I bumped into Uncle R. He was upset. He kept saying something like:

"Last summer we saw you guys... We were relevant to you guys, right?"

It was as if he just came from a conversation of someone telling him otherwise.

Suddenly, he turned his head. Nanny appeared-- taller than him-- in a flash, over his shoulder. It scared me. She looked healthy and beautiful for the party, but was wearing glasses with brightly green tinted lenses. I tried to apologize to her and tell her how much we miss her. Everyone else walked away. She looked at me sadly.

I woke up.

Disappointment

2003-06-23T12:42:00.000-04:00

Okay. So, I'm such an idiot and not even a poetic one... You would think that I'd be able to learn from mistakes once I've made them a few hundred times! I guess not...

I just know that I've disappointed them now the same way I've disappointed everyone. And maybe that's what I wanted to do (Je le croix).

Damn.

Speaking of which, I have to make an appointment for my language exam. Maybe I can do that on Wednesday. My hand hurts from writing even a little bit, and i think it's because I'm pressing hard because this pen is running out... On Metro North on my way to the "Federalist Era!"

Self-Crafting on Chambord

2003-06-18T23:46:00.000-04:00

Okay. SO here I am again. And barely removed (but SO removed) from what I was reading a few years ago (with the delicate addition of Chambord). But the stripes are bolder but hidden. I'm in a bigger room, but still alone. Free? Less so? More responsible... In a good way-- one that's wiser.

But then why am I still acting like a fuck-up and photographing it to boot!?! (Because I have no spectators.).

It's all for posterity. Like "Madame fuck-face" tossed into jail during the Reign of Terror... Why can't I remember her name right now? Anyway, my hand hurts. Too much to write right now...

***********************
Adding drugs to the mix.

Writing high is much harder that writing just drunk or depressed. Things don't seem to flow as well. Everything is stuck and creaky. Let me persist-- what is wrong with me? What am I pursuing here? Self-crafting. I think it's ALL about self-crafting.

Do you know what I mean? That's what B took from me... My ability to DECIDE who I am. That's what was so weird with those old journal entries .

And for once, I'm trusting the pen again.

I miss you.

Cutting Flowers Bruises

2003-06-13T23:51:00.000-04:00

The pink peonies I have here are, I think, the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. It's been a strange day today-- one that I'm ending with cigarettes, wine, my black slip that I feel fat in and a very familiar sting on my thigh...

A weird day that began with a lack of sleep and then a rainy walk to physical therapy. Then, Rochester jumped on my back and left his claw-mark in a three punctured wound. God, how it hurt. But, I became strangely possessed to lengthen them... drawing red stripes out and around my torso... as impossible as that may seem.

Then, to my voice lesson, met up with B at "Rice Bowl" and came back here to laze around hardly doing a shred of the work that's oppressively weighing on my chest.

Then B left to go out to drinks with friends.

I feel like a different person when I'm with him-- both a lighter and heavier person at the same time. Both lovable and detestable.

Anyway, part of me is resentful that he'll never invite me out to do things with his friend,s but I still invite him to do things with mine.

After he left (and an episode of "Law & Order") I got Secretary on PPV. It both impressed me because it avoided cliches and it annoyed me with its rampant cliches.

Afterwards, I felt nothing but crestfallen and an urge to cut that I could not bite back. It's not fair that people have such a problem with my cutting! I mean... it really doesn't hurt me or anyone else for that matter, and I just love it aesthetically and feel so beautiful and satisfied when I can see the marks there.

I couldn't resist one simple, beautiful line on my thigh, although I wish it were on my calf or arm.

Afterwards, I wet the wound and smeared the blood around so it looked bruised and bigger... although I wouldn't dare do anything more permanent or noticeable.

It's because I'm always being fucking inspected! So... I've resolved to drink a bottle or two of wine to numb this frustration. Is that really better, though? It's just not visible for people to pick up on tomorrow.

Arghh!!!

I want to be painted by Heathcliff... especially around the eyes. And I want to stop thinking about my thesis, finding a job and who the fuck I am.

Just to be bruised and loved.

I don't care if people think it's fucked up. I know where the line is in my head and I"m not afraid that I'll cross it...

Waiting for VJ

2003-06-11T17:00:00.000-04:00

I've been lugging this thing around for ages without the urge to write. But now, sitting in Starbucks with a toasty Vanilla Latte and waiting for VJ, I need to ward off sleep.

I feel too exposed sitting here. My fingers are heavy and there are no corners. To make things worse, the kitschy zodiac chess-board table is making me dizzy. And my fucking ankle hurts.

VJ and I are supposed to go to bartending class which starts today. And I am supposed to be reading about the American Federalists (among other things) (But God, my fucking ankle hurts!)

Physical Therapy plus going to the gym today has more than drained me. I feel like if someone spoke to me right now, I would more than love to respond in an overly cranky manner.

I think I wrote in this Starbucks on a different day too-- the one on 102nd and Broadway.

I still feel weird about what happened on Saturday night and how to act if I bump into Druggie or his brother. I hope they're not dangerous or anything weird like that... Today I had some terrible imagining of being raped on the roof.

Why am I so fucking crazy?

And my Michelle Dessler/ Todd Manning dream... How can I miss a character so much when he's just a fictional character? What is going on with me?

Maybe I need to retire with Wuthering Heights. I'm up to the part when Catherine tells Nelly that she'll marry Linton and Heathcliff overhears and storms away from the estate...

Until later...

War

2003-03-31T19:06:00.000-05:00

Laying in bed reading William Morris' "Rapunzel" and watching "The Giuliani Story" on TV. It's making me cry. It's still making me cry. The loss of life makes me cry and the face of that woman at the firehouse-- that will always be burned into my memory.

And Rudy just ended and Seinfeld started-- Seinfeld from an era that has passed. From the Clinton '90's. Not the world of war and fear, anxiety and hatred that we live in now.

Thinking about the war-- really thinking about the war-- nauseates me. All of those people whose lives are torn apart there-- all of those Iraqi families who are terrified tonight. And we are so fucking up over there! Can it be that we really so underestimated the war or has Bush's government been lying to us all along?

I want back the Clinton '90's. New York felt different then. Everyone had a job and you could smoke in the bars.

Congress was always fighting-- not lining up behind a vigilante, born-again Christian whom even I want to believe... all in the ashes of the Twin Towers.

My ankle is killing me. It is swollen, but not as purple.

The whole world hates America. Is the world order changing? Is the UN now irrelevant? How will the future remember us?

Will they know that I had love?
Will they remember love?

PS: I hate the CNN coverage. "Showdown" my ass!

PPS: I think Saddam's still alive...

Broken Ankle

2003-02-23T19:12:00.000-05:00

Little did I know how much things would change...

Collapsed just that night with a broken ankle. And now, here I am stuck in a cast and away from myself. As much as I hate myself, I hate being away from myself even more.

I feel such a suffocated pressing on my chest. Yet, how much time has passed since I've had anyone to explain it to.

I just got a message from that kid, PianoBoy. Worse than that he keeps calling me is that without my independence, I've been castrated and there's no sense in calling him back. I can't have any kind of social life for months!

And I'm going to lose everything I had started. I can't even call that damn bouncer back.

There's not even the privacy of a phone call.

At the Athens Cafe

2003-02-08T14:16:00.000-05:00

In the Athens Cafe in Astoria with B. (He just went to the restroom). It's very cool to be able to smoke here, but my stomach feels strange from the combination of Indian food, cappuccino and smoke...

The table is a pink, silver and black granite framed by an oak-ish wood. It's a strange combination. I wonder who designed it.

I wonder why I feel so different when I smoke. I love that B thinks I'm a "cool" smoker. I don't think I'll ever quit, just for the transformation it allows me. It's so unfair that there's only one more month until Bloomberg's fucking laws go into effect.

I want to be a writer. Find some kind of job researching. Not have to put on a show or get dressed up for anyone. I really hate that. It makes it hard to be myself. Hard to feel grounded in who I am. Maybe I can find some kind of job in research for the next year.

Being here makes me miss my dad. The guy at the next table has worry-beads. And all of the smoke and the coffee... I miss him. It's just so unfair. I wonder what he would think of me... Even now, I think he'd be disappointed. I guess that's kind of pathetic in a way.

I feel very exposed sitting in the window like this. There's a gray-moustached man on the payphone outside who stands very near to the window.

What kind of research job could I get? Would I be able to find something with the job market as it is? I don't know...