The Bitch of It

I may have been a little "all about me" too. You are right.

Fair enough. Sincerely.

But mine came from a different place. I gave to you. I gave and gave and gave and gave. I supported and read and edited and attended and churched and familyed and indulged and listened. I payed.

I gave too much. I gave till I had nothing left for myself. I need YOU to give it back. That wasn't part of the bargain.

And I suppose I got a little out of control with feeling insecure. Most of the time what I felt so bad about was silly and had nothing to do with me. But it rarely did have to do with me. And it was so. much. more. than "not wanting to spend every night with me." It was wanting to not spend the night all week. It was not wanting to spend the night with me or hang out with my friends. Or do things I was interested in or go to my grocery store or even give me conversation when we were fighting and I was sobbing and you. always. walked. away. It was you not wanting me to help anymore. It was you promising me one thing and not doing it...or hardly doing it. Doing it half-assed only bc I called and woke you up. It was about me trying to set aside, trying SO HARD (if only for a short while because then you DIDN'T cheat on me) to see your side and be more clear about my own feelings and more understanding of your needs. BUT YOU NEVER GAVE ME ANYTHING. You almost did. You talked about it. You thought about it. But when it came down to it, it was SO HARD to give in on those things that DID make sense bc it got so little recognition. What I DID FOR YOU was never even ackowledged. How much I DID adjust was just assumed. And that gave me SO LITTLE to fall back on when those things that "I should've understood" came around.

You should've understood.

You should've understood that actions speak louder than rarely spoken words. That I was never on my best game when I was fighting all that. And, even though I truly enjoyed doing those things for you, being at your place, doing your things, hanging with your friends and family, it should never be taken for granted. When it is, all I have to cling to is that you want me around. THen when you don't, no matter how justified the reason, how logical, all I feel is the don't. I am sorry I needed to be needed. I am sorry that I dealt with it poorly. I am sorry I loved you. That I am. I don't regret it, because it was true. I just wish it hadn't been.

And I suppose you're right, it doesn't matter now. Can't change anything. But my handicap is still with me. The damage from when you crashed my life can't just be undone. How I question myself and every action and word. The fear. The trust.

The uncertainty and nagging.

The bitch of it? You don't feel these things at all. It DOESN'T matter to you now. You CAN just let go. You DON'T have any permanent injury.

You were never really there at all.

Queasy

I am weird. I feel weird, anyway. Really weird.

I am not terribly unhappy right now, but I am not happy. I am lonely, but don't feel sad all the time or anything. Matter of fact, I haven't really even been able to muster up a tear lately...my cheeks are feeling a little abandoned. I think that would help me sort a few things out, a good healthy weep.

I dunno though. At the risk of being mocked--as I know that some of you already have! You smug, native butt--I feel rather moorless, like my base here is shrinking. I know that has contributed to this nagging sense of lonliness. I have like two friends left, neither of which are proving to be superb options for one reason or another: adequacy, availability, blah blah. I feel rather...reversed, I guess. More like right when I moved here, only less sad.

Less ravaged anyway, still some steady stream of a little sad. My most frequent company are dates, several of which were only the one date and thank goodness. Don't get me wrong, I have been in fine company. Filmmakers and artists and graphic designers, law students and stand-up bass players. A guy who designed the new Chipotle app for iPhone. All smart and interesting and some of them even interested in me! But it is just all too clear that mostly, across the board, I am trying to fill some loneliness hole, meet people I really want to be around, WANT TO, ya know? Like really desire to spend time with them. And that is just not that easy to find.

I just want really good company, I guess. Really good. And I spend most of my time hanging out with myself: somtimes excellent company, sometimes really a drag.

I have eaten up the 3rd season of The Wire, the 2nd season of Big Love, relived Season 1 of True Blood and 30 Rock, looked through grad school applications and written articles. But all in some weird non-committal haze, like this is not really my life. Like I am saving up for something, putting my nickles and dimes in a jar, and it has no bottom. I don't know where I am headed or what I will do or where I will be and if anyone will go with me. Might seem stupid or like I am borrowing trouble, but nonetheless...it is this fuzzy anxiety that blurs all the lines in my life.

What the fuck am I doing???

I am making weird decisions like I am on vacation or at summer camp or there will be some canned deadline that will signal a new chapter and I won't feel this way or act this way anymore. But time keeps passing--and not that slowly--and I just feel the same. I am clinging to some raggedy leftovers of something, or just sitting like a fat rock on riverbed, letting things just go by, I DON'T KNOW!

And I know I need to cut some things out. Because I'm certain I am alone in certain things, that I am setting myself up for a fall, that I am only hurting myself. I can't help it, it feels so...right.

Oh good, there go the tears. Seriously, though they fall through a racked and wrinkled up ugly face, and it almost hurts to let them go, it feels better.

I am a fool, to be sure. Foolish. A jester mocking of my own life, and my life is a fit of laughter and loathing in equal parts.

In lighter news, my job sucks less. My boss is respectful and nice and treats me almost like...an adult. Though I am sure that would change if he walked in my cube right now to find me blahging. In tears, at that. I sicken myself. ;) I am weak and self-indulgent. And I am sorry, for any of you who have stomached it so far.

In shorter items, that will not make sense to most:

Screw YOU if you don't want to talk to me anymore because I won't sleep with you.

Don't set your phone down in Ward Parkway. Ever. And if you do, have a major hissy fit.

Always ask for a last name from an unknown texter.

Back up your music and share it with people if they ask!

Bigger or, at least, better.

Check four times if you have the keys.

You are not a better person than me for thinking and acting differently and sancitmonious is unattractive.

BBQ sauce isn't a toy.

Don't be an asshole if you don't know the whole story.

Always do the allergy test.

Beauty Balls and Stress Words

First of all. No, we are not friends. You were too wimpy to tell me the truth and too foolish to make up a lie I wouldnt actually SEE you make untrue. You are a boob. And goofy looking. And way too color coordinated. The best thing about you is your taste in music.

I can do that myself! Poopoo on you!

_____________________________________________

There, now that that is finished.

It has been weeks, weeks!, since I had a moment to write a word for myself. I have been developing a nice sized ulcer since late June, when an article got as big as a house and threatened to collapse on me for nearly 2 months! I mean seriously, my back has been worse, my neck sore, my sleep bad, my bowels irritated, my lumps bruisey and sore! Quite literally I thought I would have a major attack of some kind, but, luckily, managed only minor ones. I have been stress eating like a rabid teenage boy.

Sigh.

I can't really believe I have one word to say for the exhaustion. (Magnified by numerable other items happening in life, visits and laundry and boys and and electronics malfunctions and holes burnt in pockets and birthdays and interviews and a GAGILLION magazine obligations, holy shnikes, I have just not had a moment to even stop the spinning!)

I would actually love to just duck out a while, lay around and not see anyone at all. But, of course, life beckons and this very weekend, tomorrow even, I have an interview then a Dad visit then an Atmosphere show where the likely opener will be much alcohol consumption, and the closer may end up being kissing a rapper. Fun, right? Right! But when can I get off this ride?

I am supposed to have a date tonight. He is all right. He speaks with a sorta-cute Chicago accent and has crazy blue eyes. BUT he talks a little like a car salesman and wears a lot of gel in his hair. He DID drop the only-two-hours-after-Date-1-ask-for-Date-2 move. "Do I have to wait three days to tell you I want to see you again?" No, sir, you don't. But I have no time for the likes of you for at least one week, deal? I think he thought I was putting him off. But it is so true! Though, I might have been putting him off, too.

I would rather stay home and read. Clean my house, do my laundry, and read. I am just on the cusp of Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and already I think this wee tome of short stories could prove a problem. On page 17, not even through the first of the fictions, I am sitting alone over my pile of salad at Whole Foods giving tears real consideration. Even the title makes me tingle, just a little, it's so distant and omnipotent and sad.

It is so simple and poignant. It feels like truth. I find myself having to look away from the page, like from a person who just told you they don't love you anymore. It feels a little like I am trying to look to something, but I am just as much trying not to see. To be fair, I do think some of my gutteral reaction to her easy catelogue of a strained relationship is that I am only two little pink pills from the end of the packet.

Maybe it isn't as beautiful and wrenching as I think it is. But there is some element of pain in reading it, similiar--hilariously--to what I felt about The Breakup. Like the honesty there is just too corrosive, so cutting and personal. Like she is writing my exact feelings, things I didn't know how to articulate myself, through complete (fictional!) strangers who have nothing in common with me at all.

Only, unlike the comedic film, this prose is so tempered and unassuming and boldy real that I can say nary a word against it. I don't want to own The Breakup. And I don't want to own Interpreter of Maladies. I want to consume it. I want to paste it to my walls.

I want to have written it.

There is a real possibility that reading this book is a very bad idea.

A Waste

I had the weirdest dream. I had tucked all sorts of things, little items (my ID, a Borders gift card I just got, a check from my mom for my birthday) in my book, as, actually, I am wont to do. I carry it everywhere, it is easy to find in my bag and holds papers well.

In my dream, I had left my book, part open on table outside somewhere, and all my things, important and sometimes irreplacable, had blown out all about the table benches.

I could see it, see it all, I think, account for it.

But I just couldn't move. I could not move an inch, I felt the anxiety and panic rising in my throat and wanted to--quick as light!--jump on all my goods. But I just couldn't. It was an incredibly distressing dream.

The phone woke me when it rang a KC number that I don't know, at 6 am. I could not sleep a wink after that, but lay, motionless and tense, until well after I needed to be up.

I just couldn't sleep with the heavy weight of my heart. The awful panicky, re-living I do after a confrontation with someone important to me.

Someone I love.

Who--again--does not love me. I suppose what he said was true, I pushed him away. I slid, as I have so often before, into dropping information and revealing other guy-agendas so that I am at a distance, clearly stated that all my eggs are not in YOUR basket, sir. I know I do this with the vague idea like, "Hello, get on it, or else it'll get on." But more, it is just a childish reaction to knowing--somewhere in this head of mine--that I have already been pushed away. It is some knee-jerk to the distance someone else is already inserting between them and me.

I shouldn't do it. Not only because it so stellarly succeeds in pushing someone away--alienating them, even--but because then it gives my own, gnawing, self-destructive, eat-myself-alive tendency so much ammunition. I replay all the things I said and did that were foolish and uncommunicative and petty, when wasn't all of that post-mortem already?

In honest truth, my actions in that regard had nothing to do with why I was dumped, sorta--again--and on my birthday, for terrible timing. It makes me glad I knew well enough to never leave Broken Heart B for Broken Heart A. Or, as I affectionately used to call him, BM. I knew then, that what I had was so much more worthwhile. And, for better or worse (but clearly more worse, considering how things in THAT arena turned out) I was right.

I was right about you, anyway. I was wrong about B.

Maybe everyone is right. I need to be alone alone alone. For a while, just be more alone than I have been already the past few months, which, as far as I am concerned, was pretty alone. But maybe, like getting in a cold pool when you KNOW you HAVE to swim, I just have to jump right in to my cold alone, head on, let it envelope me, so I can just get on with it.

It is scary, though, I am pretty sure I used to be that alone, and I don't think I did very well. I am just not that strong a swimmer.

I could throw up.

I might.

I am warning you now, that my birthday blues bring out the bery worst of my self-indulgence.

The way I feel today reminds me of my college graduation. When it was an ok day, nothing really wrong, all family there, people congratulating, friends and parties.

But there was something clearly missing.

I knew it would be missing. I knew he wouldn't come. I wanted him to come, he was one of the most important people to me. I needed him to come. I hoped he would come, but I knew he wouldn't come.

That hope is the very worst sort of hope, the kind that, even before it dies a slow and agonizing death, hour at a time, you know it is doomed. And even though you know, know in the core of that pit in your stomach, that anxious and guilty and nervous feeling that mucks up a feeling that is supposed to be positive, know that it will die, you just can't kill it.

And so, you go on, hoping. And he doesn't come.

It is an asshole, feels like one anyway.

A Year

Older.

Gross.

The best thing, so far, that happened to me for my birthday--despite a LOVELY and sincere and singular effort by LJ and generous giftitude and cuteness by my mother and father--was that, more than one week ahead of schedule, last Sunday at the airport in KC, the dude checking your ID and your boarding pass wished me a happy birthday. When I said, it isn't quite here yet, he replied, "But I won't see you then."

And, for whatever reason, it made me really happy. And really sad, mostly at just how happy it made me, I guess, I don't know. It was just really nice, and seemed really genuine. How ironic, a rare moment of truth like that from a total stranger, and a bored airport employee at that.

Today on the elevator up to the job of doom, I heard a guy--who I ride with often, he is on 8, the only floor higher than mine--on his cell, saying he had to go, he was on an elevator full of people, they were all wishing him a happy birthday too.

So, he gets off, I say, considering actual glee at the coincidence, Is it your birthday today? Yes, it is. It's mine too! Happy Birthday! He looked at me like I surely was just some jerk who liked to steal thunder. I said, "It's another guy's in my office as well, isn't that funny? Three of us in this building."

I DIDN'T go so far as to say that it was ALSO my coworker--the only other person in my department actually--who lives in Dallas' birthday today. That wasn't THAT odd? Three of us right here in my office.

He did NOT wish me well back. He was probably turning 63. You'd think he would have learned some manners by now.

In the meantime, D--co-working 27th-er--probably won't even come in today. And I was here a little early. And I probably will be tomorrow. I effing hate my birthday. I hate it.

Observatory

I DO get awfully liberal with the weird puncuation and typing-flare when I am in a tizzy, don't I?

Effing Rant

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! If I had paper--newspaper, preferably--just lying all around me I would tear it. I would rip it just into shreads. I am so angry and frustratedandconfusedandsadandrejectedandstupid.

I am just BUSTING. I could just BUST. I want to shriek and make a scene and throw things and sob. And instead, I sit at my desk, passive-aggressively excising my demons to almost no one. Very therapuetic, clearly.

Last night was one of the most fun, energizing, positive nights I have had in a long time...for the most part. EditorFriend--name going unsaid for privacy reasons, but those in the know, know--was invited to the Grand Opening of the new Brazilian steakhouse downtown and let. me. tell. you. Holy crap. If the service and the artichoke hearts and the lamb chops and key lime pie and house Malbec are always that good, they should just fill in the "Cause of Death" right now: gut bust.

Nene was two tables away (He is SO big. SO big. And since I was strictly verbotten--rightly so--from playing the starstruck fan-girl card, I decided that earning a silent appraisal was the best I was gonna get. Maybe. So I sashayed my super-star strut right up to the salad bar past him and his equally unusually tall-sized lady and might, just MIGHT have gotten a once over. Yay me. NBA eye candy. Life-goal: Check.) Mayor Hickenlooper did a loop.

Not to mention the superior quality of our own company. A certain co-magaziner or two, both of whom I entertain on-and-off crushes on, attended and we laughed so hard, and the general atmosphere was one of such bouyant delight that my face actually hurt from smiling and I think my nipples were hard for a decent part of the evening--Pardon the crassness, please.

I mean really, it was not a single moment of delight. There was not one thing that was amazing. I was in an unwavering, overwhelming state of titillated. I mean, I WAS delight.

And one of said onandoff likes may have asked me out. He was a little lit. But hey, I will take it, Tyler, bring it on. But, I suppose that brings me to the rage-y, annoyed, frustrated and confused part of this little ditty.

The nasty, negative, newly-bitter part of me (I used to have so much less of this quality) wants to just say, "Why even think about it, E? You KNOW he won't call. And then I want to slap myself, tell myself to shut up and quit borrowing trouble. I sorta listen to this part of me, but there is a nagging little whisper underneath that talk that knows that I am almost always right about this. That, despite the fact that an evening is all but perfect, I will still be jilted. It has happened all too many times now. Apparently, I have this effect on people.

Take Dream-Boat. Well, let us adjust this to: Emotionally-Unavailable Wants-What-He-Can't-Have Giant-Child Fuck-Up Boat. Ironically, one in the same with Dream Boat. Every interaction together is perfection. If a night with a romantic interest could be a natural sweetner, this would be ambrosia. And I.Never.Get.A.Call.Back. Dickhead, quit screwing with my feelings, right?

Next example (mind you, this is totally disregarding my ability to repulse even those I am ACTUALLY in a relationship with, like I send out irresistably strong go-to-some-other-chick pulses that ACTUALLY propel them away): Had a date three (?) weeks ago. He leaked from his eyes and nose for the entire two hours we were together. He called me a luddite bc I said it was sad, the way people were dismissing the printed word (did he KNOW who he was going out with? And, P.S., KELLS--stupid name--I heart technology, there is lots of it I want people to buy me), and looked a TINY bit like that guy from A Clockwork Orange. That's right, that creepy ginger lead man. Even HE didn't call me. I wasn't sad about that, it just shows a pattern.

Last, but not least: Over the last two workdays, I have exchanged approximately 80 emails, 2 dozen text messages, and a moderate amount of Facebook chat with yet another fellow. An internet date. L-dog (again, privacy people) and I re-vested in a free, crappy internet site mostly just for distraction. It is fun. Most people, if you ever meet anyone, are not quite up to par, not to be a jerk. Just not. But clearly, judging from the absurd! amount of communication here, this was not the case. I laughed out loud. I should interject that this cube has not seen a lot of out-loud laughter of late, my normal source having, for the most part, dried up. (Or just disappeared, it is alive and kicking elsewhere, notta regular part of my life, eh.) So this was welcome change. We kept sorta making plans to meet in several days, and kept trying to push it up, eager, it seemed.

SO to get to it, I was excited about this tiny guy. Yes, tiny. He said 5'9 but I was in flats, and I have my doubt face on. Small.

Nonetheless, very excited. So much so that I did the most ridiculous, spontaneous, borderline unsafe thing and just went and met him after dinner last night. That's right, no one knew where I was, and it was at his personal dwelling (which he owns...grin), rather late at night. No Me! Don't do it! Right? But all was well, we had a Corona and scrolled through his AppleTV (amazing stuff, I dig it a lot...KELLS. Grrr.) He told me I was "very pretty," that he liked the way I dress (?), and that I was "so fucking sexy." (That, of course, was halfway through the Corona, to be fair.) Seems like a good start, right?

We laughed a little, it was late, I left, all parts in tact, not taken hostage by internet nutcase whose home I entered willingly.

Then today he cancels our other date.

WTF, batman? I mean, for cereal. WTF?

Hence paper-ripping, foot-stomping, tantrum-throwing pissed-off mood! What is WITH this endless stream of guys who say I am cute and and attractive, and they want to touch me, and we get along like dogies on an open plain and STILL this sort of runaround. I quit.

Linda Wortheimer (sp?) on NPR, I SWEAR, says nBr and I want to call in and ask that if they are going to keep employing full time RADIO NEWSANCHORS that they have some godforsaken ENUNCIATION.

A very ugly woman in the car in front of me today had 4 small children, IMPROPERLY STRAPPED IN to the back of her Saturn today. As she was driving badly, I might add. As I pass said terrible driver, I see that contributing to her terribleness (which was aplenty already) was the fact that she was TEXTING (come on, horseface, it is SEVEN THIRTY) AND smoking a cigarette. In her Saturn. With four 5-year olds. I quit LIFE!

AHHHHHHHHH! Where is something I can destroy?!

On the upside, I am def. going to start boxing lessons. ;)

There, my anger for the day.

Week.

Month.

Season.

Less than one week now until the big mess of an anticlimax known as my birthday and I am pretty sure that I am seeing things. In the corner of my eye, I keep seeing little twitches and vibrations on my screen, sure that there has been a change that someone has sent me a message or an email or...? And I can only assume this is a product of my desire. That, indeed that corner tab is not moving, only that I so wish it to that my eye has produced a spasm just to give me that single, short moment's reprieve.

I have been itching for a road trip lately. Not sure where to go, the few places within reasonable drive distance all rather...unappealing destinations. I was on my way back from the airport in the grocery getter and felt a sense of dull happiness at being on the (sorta) open road that I hadn't felt with that awareness since college and the days of endless back and forth between Lawrence and the Ville.

Driving, for me, has always been fertile creative ground, especially when I am prone to sadness--which, luckily for me and all my rapt readers (ha!), lately I have been--and has produced a number of short pieces for writing classes, all with themes of emptiness and open space and possibility and smog.

It hasn't felt as cathartic as that brief, late night drive was. I was tempted to just keep going. I feel the need to shake off my life right now so strongly, that there is some irrational, terrifying, urgent siren call to just fuck off and not come back. Take all my money ($31), shirk all my duties, leave all my acquaintances and just blow outta here. It is a dream.

In that dream it is warm and dry and I have some futureless, somewhat personally fulfilling job like bartending or driving a school bus or working the cash register at a convenience store. Somewhere small, lots of small places. Where I eat canned beans and PB&J and sleep in my van and spend my free time--so much of it!--walking around, picking through antique stores and talking to old strangers and musing about the world on driftwood benches around a lake.

Some sort of comforting nothing. With goals and achievements one in the same, doing what I want to do, and wanting what I do. Everyone around and nobody with me but me. Low expectations and pleasant surprises every day.

I'd write a book on the customer copy receipts that no one wanted and staple it together with a psuedonym like "Almetta May Van Duesel" on it and pay my $127 dollars to have it copied three dozen times at a Kinko's onto smooth, bold colored paper and send it to my loved ones. The people I used to know.

I'd sit at the ratty booth at some creepy truck stop diner and smile all my teeth at the greasy guy at the pie bar with almost none and get back to my novel, tea in hand, one foot out the door.

Not a Titles Kinda Week

So, I keep intending to write things that aren't sad. That aren't even All About Eva. But it seems that I don't have the motivation unless I feel like crying. I think about it, I pick up my computer...and I am just too tired. Too bored. Too uninspired.

My life right now, honestly, feels terribly uninspired. For a few hours (blessed be, even a few days here and there!) I feel less in a rut, less disappointed. But it isn't lasting! I try to encourage it, hold on to it (I clean and decorate a cute new apartment, I read and have visitors and try to communicate with my friends, I ride my bike on occasion. I say to myself, just keep being productive! Keep being distracted!) But little things bleed in around the edges.

I clearly put something out there that is not myself. I feel like it is myself and if I change it I feel uncomfrtably NOT myself but people seem to like this Eva-thing that is out there and not so much dig the Eva they get once they get in there a little bit. This is discouraging. Like being jokey and loud and fun and--occasionally--outrageous, even a little inappropriate, I know, draws the sort of people that are only let down and bored and frustrated and unattracted to people who are a little damaged. Like whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't sign up for THIS now did, I?

So what should I do? Amend my initial behavior? But these days, superficial happiness is the only kind I have! I have to cling to it! Recreate it! Ignore the sort of gnawing emptiness and feeling of widespread rejection that makes me stand in the shower for too long, not even soaping. Just staring and steaming. Thoughts kind of nowhere but really everywhere that it doesn't even take coherent thoughts to be.

Be missing you.
Be wondering why you ever came back, sort of, just to go away again.
Be wondering where your life has taken you.
Be giddy about nothing, really, hope placed in poor vessels just because I need some and the only place I have to store it is these awkward, ill-suited containers. Then reeling with slap-in-the-face when that backfires on me, too.

I don't know what to do with myself, honestly! Honestly, I don't. I am trying exceptionally hard to focus on the plus sides, the things I DO have (family family family! cute apartment! health! family!) and on looking forward to a better month (and believing it WILL be...but it isn't MUCH better), on putting positive energy into my life but I just feel too weak to carry this off! It takes so much work and then I have a tucker-out day and I spend it all crying in the airport on the way to my cousin's funeral and I am such a JERK, such a JERK to feel so sad when people have lost SO much more, and endured SO MUCH more than I have with much stronger faces.

Of course feeling guilty and pathetic doesn't, indeed, help me stop BEING a royal Jerkstore.

I need to be better person.

I sat in that service, with my whole weird family, and got to thinking what would be said at a funeral for me. I don't like what I came up with. Even the good stuff, I hate it. It's all the wrong sort of good stuff. Shallow. I don't think the tone would be of all that I had brought to the people around me. Laughter? Maybe. A positive to be sure, but just doesn't seem very...hefty.

Really, I just need a person. I need to be someone's person.

So, easy task number one: Find one person capable of love AND being loved and that doesn't get so blinded by my sassy, blustery, class-clown, swagger and fun self that they terribly mind my dark, sad, stubborn, insecure side. Preferably someone with some degree of both themselves, that I actually like.

Totally doable.

And it had been so long since I cried at work.

Today's the fourth of July
Another June has gone by,
And when they light up our town,
I just think
What a waste of gunpowder and sky

I'm certain I am alone
In harbouring thoughts of our home
It's one of my faults that I can't quell my past
I ought to have gotten it gone.

Oh, baby, I wonder - If when you are older
-Someday-You'll wake up
And say, 'my god, I should have told her -What would it take?
But now here I am and the world's gotten colder
And she's got the river down which I sold her.

So that's today's memory lane
With all the pathos and pain
Another chapter in a book where the chapters are endless
And they're always the same
A verse, then a verse, and refrain

Oh, baby, I wonder -If when you are older -
Someday-You'll wake up
And say, 'my god, I should have told her -What would it take?
But now here I am and the world's gotten colder
And she's got the river down which I sold her.

I Give You Her Word

Love ridden, I have looked at you,
With the focus I gave to my birthday candles.
I've wished on the lidded blue flames
Under your brow
And baby, I wished for you.
Nobody sees when you are lying in your bed
And I wanna crawl in with you,
But I cry instead.
I want your warm, but it will only make
Me colder when its over.
So I cant tonight, baby.
No, not baby anymore - if I need you
Ill just use your simple name.
Only kisses on the cheek from now on,
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave.
My hand wont hold you down no more.
The path is clear to follow through.
I stood too long in the way of the door
And now Im giving up on you.
No, not baby anymore - if I need you
Ill just use your simple name.
Only kisses on the cheek from now on,
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave.
No, not baby anymore - if I need you
Ill just use your simple name
Only kisses on the cheek from now on,
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave.

50th Post

And what a grand celebration it is. Only took me like 2 and half years to hit the half-century piece.

And I don't even really have anything good to say. I am mostly having just an insurmountably frustrating day with short bouts of self-torturing (though I must say this is an improvement.) I am exhausted all the time (turns out that emotional distress and extreme unhappiness--not to mention the drinking and cavorting that ensue from said issues--can be super tiring. Who would've thought?) and I am UBER employment-frustrated.

I won't get into the deets, it wouldn't be safe. I know that there are spies reading this.

However, it is not just bill-time here, spent-all-my-savings crunch and didn't-get-what-I-wanted-here, job that is stressing me out. I am worried and picking on myself and doing all the annoying, scared, chicken-shit high school crap and all I ever wanted was a snow globe.

Whattayagotta do to get a little comfortable in this place? Huh? I just want to feel happy and safe and needed/wanted/loved. Is this just a damned hard thing to get? Geezus.

If a gallon and a half of white russians, Big Lebowski, and a pretty definitive kickball victory--even when it was raining a bit!--can't shake off this dust, what on EARTH can?

I can only guess it will have to involve a Jeanie, a visit, and some galloping. I hope she really comes (she doesn't read this, though, so she may need encouragement otherwise.) And maybe a pool party this weekend at which I will NOT wear a bathing suit but rather a cute, somewhat bust-revealing sun dress that that old hat o' mine never even saw, and boy, would he wish he had. Nothing to soothe the "Is she cuter than me?" masochistic blues like some good old fashioned flattery and pandering from the opposite sex. And I have always had a knack for that, Lord please don't let me have lost that gift, too.

So if I can get checked out a little bit and some sun, I might, MIGHT, MIGHT feel even better. Plans for other self-improvement projects also in the works.

Follow-up later, Numba 51, here I come!

UNluck

A new conclusion (that is actualy quite old, but never verbalized, and once I had an arsenal of personal support to help me deal with it so it never really had to be verbalized):

I have horrid anxiety the day after some good drinking. Not EVERY day after, I suppose, but, where there is propensity for anxiety already, that damned downer drink nudges me into the nervous/guilty/anxiety-ridden/upset stomach hole that is, well, pretty unpleasant.

Maybe I should stop.

Nah.

It doesn't help that I can NOT figure my karma. Things have been going terribly wrong this whole month (including the last day of last month, really, as the commencement ceremony of shit...getting cheated on, and dumping my favorite person, that was really a great launch to the whole debacle that is June thus far), not all important things, of course, but really, WTF?

So there is the generally cruddy feeling of being broken up with someone you love, right? The weird tension that I now feel toward a whole darn neighborhood--one that happens to be my drive home from work, I might add--that really sets the tone. Avoidance of certain corners and bars and websites and shows and thoughts and buttons on my phone. Talk about anxiety, geez.

Then, speaking of my phone. I would say precisely 8.5 days after the "incident" with that guy I used to date, I left my phone on a table at The Snug--where we had a most chatty and friendly waiter--at approximately 10:15 on a Sunday, out of reach of wandering passer-by (maybe even mostly out of sight), very few customers in sight, and almost no crackheads about. One might think I a phone left in this situation, friendly waiter would be the one to find it and I might be able to retrieve it. But no. Gone. Every phone number, photo, text message I ever got, poof. This sucks ass, BTW.

I was highly upset by this. Highly. I tried to rationalize and feel better, like the universe was saving me the trouble of having to (eventually but probably quite soon) fish through all the cute love messages I had recieved once upon a time from that "man." So, silver lining...sort of. Maybe this is NOT the beginning of a month of negative vibes.

Wrong again, bucko. In the week following this is what occurred: I spent ALL the money I have--err, scratch that, had, lost a very sentimental photo that made me SAD, I got a parking ticket, a flat tire, got in a fight with my friend Tony, I built a book shelf that is LARGE and put ALL my media on it, only to have it fall over entirely (a huge mess and a little scary) and lost my little pouch with my ID, my debit cards, my credit card AND my Panera gift card all in it.

I can't believe my TV hasn't fallen off my wall, I haven't smashed my car to bits, been robbed AND been fired. I mean, for cereal, who's a gal gotta screw around here for some better luck?

I guess what I should add to the above mentioned list of things that have happened to me that I did indeed FIND my oh-so important pouch, soaked through, on the front steps to my house the morning AFTER I had to have dropped it. No one took it. So, maybe my luck is turning after all.

I Me You Who

I don't recognize my life right now. I don't really recognize me right now. I feel like I have lived so many lives already, been so many people. So many friends and places and loves have made up the scenery, I hardly recall them all, and many don't exist anymore. Not to me.

I don't know what to believe anymore. I am drifting and stuck at the same time and don't know whether to plant my feet or shake the shit out of myself.

I was so sad and troubled once. Totally incapable of expressing what a mess I was and falling apart from the inside out. I had been through such cycles of confusing, insufficient friendships (no blame placed, of course) and complete collapse of my sense of self. I picked a guy who was, at the very least, stable. He loved me, he tolerated me, he took care of me. And shoot, I was a nightmare. I was a hot mess, then. Poor Dave. If he was anything, it was a good, solid guy. Not that he never erred, but I had never had anyone more true and devoted. I can see now that we were NOT overly in love. There was no magic. There was someone there for me, for the first time, really. And I appreciate all he did for me, which I think was more than I know.

Eventually, I had shaken the depression and mood swings and non-communication and Prozac. Felt like a new girl. I could be all the me I had been, without the hard fall after--all the zazz without the depletion after. I felt basically ok about who I am and what I had to offer. Paul was my partner for the most contented time of my life I have ever had. I was happy, active (For some of that relationship, at least, ha, ha. There was some really fat time when I was the last person who would've been a fan of me.), had reachable goals and a job/friends/boyfriend that gave me a strong sense of place. I knew who I was, who needed me, who I needed and that, basically, we all fit together. The only thing lacking with Paul was foresight.

Maybe not foresight, I don't think it was that I couldn't see that we would not want the same things in the long run. I think I really didn't want them yet. Paul taught me an enormous amount about myself, about compromise and communication and real life with love, about confidence in your person and comfort. I did love him. An f-ton to be truthful. And I still do. He was a fabulous, beautiful, caring person and he did me no wrong. I miss him.

But alas, then came the sneaking ambition to do more with my life. I realize I needed someone creative and sharp, who would challenge me and lead me to new things and have as much zeal for a busy, adventurous life as me. Someone who would take a risk sometimes. Set their goals high. And so I left. And this is where it gets confusing.

Basically always made good choices, knew when to quit and what went wrong, took some hits but hardly even any body damage. Self: solid. Me: still me. Blah blah blah, this guy, that guy, a smart, prickish, self-important politician, a tiny, bad-mannered photographer, a really beefy guy with good style on a longboard. (You remember him don't you? The one you saw me on a date with? You remember how that felt? Now multiply that icky feeling of feeling small and a tiny bit betrayed--slapped in the face?--by 100. Imagine you loved me like I do you, now. Imagine I did that to you now. You might understand how I feel about you, now, Mr. I Didn't Cheat. But I have other examples, relevant to your life even, if you need more clarification.) A PhD in English who taught lit at DU. A guy that made me laugh more than anyone has before or since and valued family and travel and life experiences (perfection!) and whom I fell for harder than I have for anyone before or since.

But I didn't want any of them. They didn't want me, either, some of them, but the feeling was mutual. Good times, nothing more.

But then there was you. Least likely to. Never swept me off my feet or impressed me or made me feel giddy. Not back then. You were nice. Pleasant. I had a good time with you. Never WOW but always happy when we parted. It was just good. So we went on. How did I get into this so far? Did it start way back then?

Little by little, I shined less and less. I could tell certain things: I didn't laugh as much or make others laugh as much. I was a little boring. I was less sassy, less confident, less me.

More uncertain and scared. More and more vulnerable and less and less comforted. I became a difficult person I don't even know. I felt sad as often as I did happy. Worried and confused and full of doubt in you and me. This all made me more and more difficult. I just wanted you to be there for me, to think of me, to love me as well as I loved you. Which I am sure got harder as that circle went on. I was less the me who you might have loved.

Now I am so full of doubt in myself. I feel so set back. Regressed. How could I have been so foolish? I let myself sink with an albatross of mismatched loving. Style? Ability. In so many ways, you are just a boy. You don't have the equipment just yet, I guess. Because I believe we did have the love, I saw it first thing in the morning when you woke up and felt it when you pulled me to you while you slept and when you kissed my hand in the car. But not when I needed something a little harder, broader, bigger.

I guess I was blinded. Out of nowhere I loved you. Everything that had seemed regular before. Pleasant. Unspecial. Now it was wonderful and interesting and had potential. I loved you in a way I hadn't those others. Something deeper, and more willing to adjust, and more intense. And more hurtful and self-destructive and painful.

So unlike me. I feel my foundation is shaken like it hadn't been before. Between how much I want to be around you (and can't) and miss you, and how much self-esteem I have lost in this whole relationship (let alone by the ending), and how much you DID do me wrong, and how jealous and stupid I feel, I don't know how to deal with my emotions. They all lead, one into the other.

They're fading, and hopefully will continue to. But it is a slow road. I don't have the verve I had before. It isn't so easy to get up. I am more dim, more down, tarnished. I pray it is only for some period of grieving, because, as much as I love you, for all the good and great qualities you have, you are NOT worth all the good qualities I had.

Have.

Will have again.

Not one of the good days.

I just can't help it. What's left is just regular remembering things I wish I wouldn't, feeling sad, and missing so many things. And, really, feeling like you're the only person I would've wanted to talk to about how bad I feel.

But you made me feel this way.

You were my person.

But you weren't, really, I guess. I don't feel like anyone who really cared for me would do things that make you wonder what I have to wonder. You have made me look back at all that I was and you were and we were with new, skeptical vision. Was she just prettier than me? More fun than me? Smarter than me? What? What was it that blocked me out so easily?

It is silly and self-destructive and wretchedly painful to think these things but they creep in, first thing in the morning, when I wake up alone, in so many ways, again and again. Then they sit there on top of my heart all day. Sometimes I can ignore them, but other times it makes me remember how you told me you missed me when I wasn't around, and that you missed my face, and then wonder...why didn't you then?

Right when you meet people, it is all such a fantasy--all flirting and fun and no issues. You felt that way about me, once. I guess I let you down.

She won't always been fun, either, you know. You weren't all fun anymore. It was work for me, too. I met (and already knew) guys that were "cuter" or "more fun" or "better on paper" and who showed interest in me--and a lot who were none of the above, lol.

But you know, it just never mattered because, in the end (and through all the trouble and work and hardships--and all the laughter and support and love) I just wanted you.

It is so hard to know that you just wanted someone else.

It's like all that love was a lie.

What's wrong with me?

Wreck

I miss you something fierce. But I'd be too afraid to tell you that.

So you don't have to see me. Or I you.

I guess what it comes down to is this: you killed our relationship. If I had killed it, if you had known about my little indiscretion (and what a gift to you it was to tell you, so that now you can retroactively justify your actions, "See, YOU did something wrong too." Like that makes it ok that when you transgressed you did it upon my full, faithful, loving heart. You stabbed me in a trusting, believing heart. I only threw in my little bit to hurt you. And I am sorry I did. I am sorry because it has made you feel better about your actions, it has given you something to hold over me, distracts from what really happened here, what ENDED us (because it wasn't what I did). But even more so I am sorry because I still feel, even as I did then, like I would never ever ever want to hurt you. It pains me to think of you in pain and shames me to have caused it. So for that, truly, I am sorry. I was weak. I let a hole that you had torn in me the week before (that was closing. Slowly, but closing) let in a temptation that, for one brief moment, made me feel loved in a way I hadn't for so long. And that is weak and pathetic and selfish. I am sorry. I cannot say it enough. I was wrong.

But back to the point. (And I am sorry, I have to make this point, because I want you to have some idea of why I was so mad mad upset...and again, I am sorry for the scene and the slap). If I had killed it, it would have been manslaughter (pardon the awful metaphor, it is both grotesque and stupid, but clear). You murdered it. The difference? Intent. You say oh, all I did was text her. A lot. Hide it. Badly. Act guilty and treat you differently, distantly, treat you LIKE I was cheating on you. But, I wasn't. (Or so you think.) But, what was the point of all that chatter? You don't pick up new friends at a bar, get their phone number and hide their existence and your new "friendship." Did she even know you had a girlfriend? Not that it matters, she doesn't know me. She has no guilt about screwing me over. But you.

What were you thinking? I know you are not so naive to misunderstand what all that banter is. That is where things start. That is where we started. You would be lying to yourself if you believed that is all it would be. What would it have been next? Hanging out when you tell me you are going to hang with friends? Work? Why become these new texting "friends" if you werent going to see one another. And then what? You would be a bigger fool than I believe you to be if you thought that would stay "innocent." You are lucky I found out when I did, so that you could still make some case against being the bad guy. Before all your delusions ran out. Before all the sudden even YOU noticed how not ok "just talking" to "just a girl" really is. It is poison. What I do when I am drunk at a bar? Call you. You never did, I would have always assumed that was just your style, you were never one to ACTIVELY miss me, really. But don't you see, I would never have believed that again. How could I have been ok, when you were shopping for my replacement while I sat at home, dreaming about seeing you the next morning/night? How is that fair?

I don't know if this was just a rookie mistake or if you really were just too cowardly to get out of this relationship in a more noble way or if you were just scared, and freaked out by the idea that there was this path (one where you would have to pay attention to your actions and think about me and make effort all the time) and that it might really work, so you set our relationship on fire out of fear. All I know is that I do believe, against all the odds, that you loved me. If you doubt it now (and I hope you don't, because I don't have much heart left to break), one day you will not. And you should know, that I valued you, and still value you incredibly highly. And you may have moved on to Jill already, but I won't be going anywhere so soon. I have nothing to give anyone else. All my best parts are missing. They are still all wrapped up in you, and in how much I believed in you, and in us. How much I just fucking loved every bit about you.

And please, do not think I am calling you a bad person. You aren't. You are a good person. A slightly you-centric person, one not quite ready to give enough to a relationship and a person who loves you, but that does not make you anything like a bad person. I am very sorry if previous words (spoken or written) have hurt you, I was angry. I AM angry. And, whether you see it or not right now, I have every right to be.

I know it had been rough at times. I am sorry. You weren't great at being with someone and I wasn't great at being with someone who wasn't great at it. I know I said this to you before, but from the very beginning, I had some shadow following me into this. I would say that it felt like I was unimportant, that I was unloved by you. You would cite carefully tracked instances of when you had been thoughtful, loving, put me first.

And you were right. You are right.

I guess I wish I could have figured it out that it was something less tangible. Some basic hesitancy, some core holding-back that eroded my confidence in myself and how you felt about me. I constantly thought it was something I needed to work on, make adjustments for, ease up. And I did. Because the more I felt insecure, the more sensitive and prone to starting a fight I became. I let my feelings morph into one issue (like smoking) that I would NOT bend on, like it was some mission to get you to show me, for real, that you gave a shit about me. And I am sorry for that, it was hard on us both. But there was something faulty in the foundation.

It takes two to make a relationship difficult. I know that. So PLEASE do not think that I do not understand that you might have been trying to fill some void, too. I am not innocent.

But I guess that, when the going got rough, and we made a real plan, came up with a real solution, I reinvested all I had in you. I had a new lease on you. I felt like I loved you even more. I felt like, "hey now, I have admitted MY problem with this, and he has his, and thats the first step, right?"

I guess that is why it hurt even more. That you sold me to a girl on a barstool at Don's for a flirtation. I was high on us. I was high on believing in you. I was down with taking less than I have ever been offered as far as time and attention, because at least I got you. And I wanted you so bad. I still do. I love you so much. It's misery.

I hope that if you read this (and read it all the way through) that you don't just react in anger. I tried to be fair (thought I am sure you would say I haven't been. And fair enough, obviously, I am biased.) I hope that some of what I have said makes sense to you, and I DO hope you feel bad about what you have done. I don't want you to feel like shit, or hate yourself, or say you're an asshole. I just want you to know that you did one big, shitty thing, at least. I have acknowledged what I did wrong too, and feel badly--so badly I almost blamed MY actions for this (And kind of do, I have kicked myself so hard and so long that I can barely stand, I have blamed myself and hated on myself and regretted my actions endlessly) but you pulled that last Jenga block, baby (I tired of the 'straw camel back' saying, ha ha).

I just want you to remember me fondly as, I do you now, in between bouts of rage and crushed sobbing, and as I will--always--eventually. I want you to look back and know that, if even the actual relationship was tough sometimes, that the love was good and true, no matter how it ended.

There will always be a sore spot in my heart for Silver Strike and fire balls and movie theater diet cokes and The Wire and the NBA and podcasts and the best cuddling I ever got. I don't know when or if I will ever really get over you. No time soon, for sure.

In/Out

I spent the first night in my new place. I had great guys who were more than happy to help me move about 1/2 my stuff for the low low price of pizza and beers. And really, I would've bought the pizza and beer just to get them to hang out with me.

I haven't been doing so well alone.

I just never know when it is going to hit me. I will make it almost the whole day...not one tear! I felt giddy with the new things going on and possibilities and new starts! I got a purple chenille couch big enough for two.

I DO know that it hits me when I come home to a all-but-empty apartment that IS mine, but doesn't feel like mine. I had so many plans and thoughts about this new place, and I was excited to LIVE alone, but I didn't really expect to always BE alone. And boy am I. I guess that's really it. It has been a long time since I felt so alone, so lost, so unmoored. I feel like a stranger to myself. And I ruined my day-long record of not weeping. It was short but hard, the break in composure in the dark in my new room with no over head lights and no television even to distract me and no one left to call. I don't have my person anymore. Other people are tired of hearing about this shit from me and, frankly, I am tired of feeling it. It has been so long, way longer than just since things stopped going on, and possibilities were exhausted and things ended.

I used to be really happy. Well, not all the time, but a generally upbeat person. And I don't know her anymore. The sadness has gotten into my foundations. I know it will get better. I just wish so badly I could close my eyes and click my heels and wake up a month from now, feeling sturdy again. But lately I have been having trouble sleeping.

I know that sometime I won't feel sick when I think about you with her. About how you look in the morning and how you squeezed extra tight when you hugged me when you thought I was being cute. I'll forget all the lovely things we had, they'll seem cute but irrelevant. Pleasant, but dead and gone. I hope, anyway.

But for now, it is like I have a temporary case of manic depression, one day bouncing and hauty, all bluster about how much better I can do (which I hardly mean even at the SECOND I say it), and the next, I can't help but cry the whole drive back to work from lunch, devastated that I don't get to have you anymore, and I throw my whole sandwich in my mouth in what seems like one foul bite, glad to feel some physical sickness that sort of matches my wretched mood.

The good news? 50/50 chance that tomorrow will be one of the good days.

Words of Wisdom from B.G.

So, yesterday, this man said to me, "Glad to meet you, I can already tell you are one in a million."

I looked this dude in the eye and said, "You know? That is SO true."

He remarks, "But you know, that means there are thousands of you in China."

Undeterred, "Good luck finding them, buddy." Needle in a haystack, when pure gold is right in front of you. Just don't fuck it up. Don't go and sabotage it later, right?

I Give Up

I had this horrible dream. It was so real, one of those where you wake up feeling panicky and sad, where your body has all the signs that this dream was real. It used to happen to me a lot when I was a kid. It was always that my mother died. Funny, last week, I had this sort of painful-real dream that my mom and I had this awful, hateful, knock-down drag-out fight. I told the person I am seeing about it. So strange, though, there isn't really any good way to put into words how vivid these dreams are. How much they feel like truth. How physical my response is to them.

This one was not about my mom. It was about you. It left me sad and hopeless feeling. Course, it didn't help that I fell asleep, finally, of pure exhaustion, troubled and upset and sad and feeling hopeless. This dream made me want to call you right away. To tell you I love you. To tell you I miss you and that everything else was silly.

I was just so lonely yesterday--for a lot of reasons. I didn't even want to call you. Seemed like it would make me feel worse. I would chatter and be excited to speak with you and miss you and feel how much I didn't feel that reflected. I would tell myself it was all in my end, that I am hormonal, sad already, unreliable. But I wouldn't listen to myself. So, I just didn't call.

You are lucky I didn't post what I really wrote. But give it a day. I am not off-board with this move, yet, jerk.

I woke up alone today.

You can pick your friends and you can bite your nails, but keep your nails away from me, friend.

I am writing this because, as of yesterday, I had TWO blogs for March and then, as of today, I didn't. I removed my first blog ever. It was weird, letting getting funny eat-all-your-words surgery.

But it was with good reason. I had written it very specifically and to air my own insecurity and fear (wait you say, that sounds just like all your other blogs, and touche, mon frere, touche but this one was different) and having done its cathartic duty for me (and hopefully having done little more, preferably no damage), it was dually removed. In nod to this issue's trustful resolution. Thank you. Thank YOU, sir.

However, I found myself wishing for another March blog, and to set into motion a little more frequent blog-habit, so...

In reality, I am writing this because yesterday, trotting out of Whole Foods, over-priced 'organic' salad in hand, I caught a lady--a young, not unattractive, seemingly smarter than this lady--clipping her nails in the indoor cafe. SISTER! STOP! You repulsive barn animal. For real. There are people eating RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. Granted, they are not at your table, but I think it is not unreasonable to direct your attention to any of those times--which I know we ALL have had--where a clipped nail's trajectory is not only disproportionally huge, but also totally random and untraceable.

You will end up some gross old hard epidermis shaving in someones organic daahl from the Global Cuisines bar. You will have the whole mass-produced, faux-local-business-fresh-and-organic mecca of deliciously bankrupting food shut down for finger nails (not approved by the FDA).

You can eat your nails, but keep 'em outta mine. Jesus. Where is your mother?

Oh, god, no, she's dead you say? When you were young? Cancer? Tragedy?

Well, that is sad. Very sad. Especially sad when you know she is watching you from Heaven and weeping. Weeping at your abhorrent behavior. For shame, you public-indoor-eating-place clipper, for shame.

Smorgaspudge and Potpourblah

I am a mess. A gross oozing mess. I feel like shit. I would say I done sunk if it werent for this nagging sinking feeling. Can't help but think things (oh you, vague, communal noun, "things." What things? When things? Which things? AH!) I feel like I am in high school again, all except for my waistline.

Same sensitivity and uncertainty and destructiveness. What the F is my problem? It's about to cause me a lot more, whatever it is. I can feel it. I feel anxious and doomed all the time. I am eating myself from the inside out. It isn't fun, it's totally unnatural, it is hard work, it hurts pretty bad and it WILL leave me with nothing in the end. Yet I am powerless to stop it. I know I am doing it, I tell myself to stop and that seems to actually encourage it.

I mean, really, WHAT THE F?

And to think, I was going to do a movie review blog. I had so many things to say. Clever, insightful thoughts. Well, really just pointing out the obvious and using big words but it made me feel like I was special.

But my mood ate it. And now that I mention it, all that critiquing and all that Eva guts just wasnt a good combination. My mood has got indigestion.

Greener Grass

In an effort to distract myself from the 1200 words I have left to write for an article due NOW (but actually going to be done by tonight) until my incredible caffeine jitters subside and my vision is a little less effervescent, I have decided to write a useless blog--as it doesn't matter so much the quality, readability, heck! even the coherence of this thing. It is the perfect venue for my crack-writing.

This weekend, after a disconcerting hour spent huddled in the prairie wind by a barbed wire fence while an overzealous policeman gave my vehicle an excessive cavity search, I rendezvoused with my sister sibling in that booming Western Kansas metropolis of Hays. No--really, a nice, farm-fed fellow who bought us a drink and slow-two-stepped me around a corn-starched dance floor told me it was THE destination in the west of the Wheat State. And he would know, he lived in the big city for a year, then decided that Wichita was just not the place for him.

Anyhoo, so we took the standard turns at a local eatery and a smoke-filled dive bar at which every single patron sat with their skinny drink straws dangling from their lips and their cigarettes fading to ash in their yellow fingers, riveted by the UFC on the TVs. We played some Penthouse PhotoHunt, whooped loudly, made it painfully clear we were not from Hays and headed to the western bar to get the night actually started.

The thing that was most abundantly clear--outside of the fact that it seems that country boys (and country old men) dig girls with glasses and a city vibe--was that these folks were a different country. Everything about the way this bar worked was foreign to us. EVERYone had a second nature gift at two-stepping, swinging and line-dancing. Not only did they all know how (as if born with boots on) but they did it automatically--almost mechanically--with partner after partner, sometimes never bothering to smile or speak at all, before or after. This was just the norm, the reg, you didn't even have to like a gal to dance with her, you just had to be able to flip her around.

The very best part of the business was the old folks. Now, Hays wasn't running any sort of shortage on hefty citizens and their seniors weren't any different. These were not people turning down offers of AARP covers, either. But, even when the dance floor was empty of the booze-lubed youths that were pulling out the fancy moves, it was the round, polyester-panted old folks who were still out there, strutting their stuff. They laid on each other's bosoms and bellies, really holding onto one another as they shuffled around the wooden floor, the steps to their dances totally subconscious. They weren't fashionable or cool. They were happy. They had rough hands and big belt buckles and even bigger hair and they had an easy, comfortable intimacy of people who had relatively hard, simple satisfying lives. And someone to live it with. Someone whose dance card they had eagerly filled decades ago and now had a family and a house and a lifetime of shared achievements with. A sturdy, comforting partner and attainable goals.

It looked like a warm, pleasant place to be, at least from over my vodka at the bar on the side of the dance floor.

There is certainly something to be said for small towns with rural leanings. Anna and I both think there is a certain indefinite something that is missed out on when you live in the city, some kind of contentedness.

For a moment I really longed to pitch all my discontentment and move to the country, pulling sweet, sincere boys in boots for the rest of my life.

But, to be sure, it is a double-edged sword. There would be something lost in living in rural middle America too. Or anywhere, being anyone. It is such a shame we can't live all of the lives there are out there, kind of sample all the sweets there are.

Meanwhile, my man friend wants me around, except when it isn't convenient. Not if it will, god forbid, make it look like he's "that guy" with the girlfriend now. He'd much prefer to get someone to pick him up, drive him around while he gets hammered (and probably smokes, un-nagged), and makes sure his friend that mercilessly makes fun of other people and is generally a hater (sounds like a fun guy, right?) still thinks he is just "one of the guys," not "tied down" by "the old lady."

Too bad that "just one of the guys," eventually ends up being "just one guy." One. Single. Guy.

P.S. It was a phenomenal Super Bowl, outside of a few minor (but actually fatal) choking incidences on the part of the Cards and a majorly amazing, will-be-talked-about-for-quite-some-time catch by a guy on the Steelers' releve. Too bad, I was cheering for the underdog.

Puddle O' Muddle

So, I find myself two months older than I was the last time I posted. It is ridiculous, I know, you can save your lecturing, I have done enough berating of myself.

I know it is a sorry excuse, but really, truly, I HAVE been nutty busy, between holidays, a record amount of work for the magazine (five? six items in the Feb issue and a feature due out NOW for March?), travel, and trying to maintain some semblance of a happy, normal personal life, I have just been wearing myself thin. I am just waiting for some sort of diagnosis, I am sure I have a deficiency of some sort or a pissed off thyroid or the beginning stages of diabetes. But, more than anything I guess that the real reason for my absence (and total neglect of my creeping, blog-hack, relation by marriage) was a strange new life form that I hadn't seen in a while: happiness?

I guess I have been more happy lately, more looking to real people in my life for support/fulfillment/constant yammering rather than the cybernetic nobody that reads this blog. Weird. Totes weird.

As much as it pleases me, I think it is sad that I will have so much less man-alysis to do on this thing now, and, that which there is to be done may actually be too--gasp!--private to do here. I wouldn't want to alienate anyone, nor am I totally free to bitch about you the way I want to if YOU ARE READING THIS.

Now, for the news:

Since our last non-versation I have acquired a number of things (including a taste for terrible, made-up-word puns as a writing style, please see the above paragraph as well):

• A new appreciation for the rampant smug self-satisfaction that is basically the foundation of all current music. Not that I am hatin', sometimes I would have JUST as hard a time giving my self-stroke a break if I were these guys, however, I do not count aging Brit-pop Oasis as one of these artists. But I still really liked the completely detached, mental-masturbation style of Liam Gallagher's stage performance. It was fascinating, like watching a gorilla pick at himself in front of the packed zoo window. Thanks for taking me, Dave.
• A new pair of perilously hipster heavy black specs, that, in truth, I do not have the hairstyle to support.
• A pair of purple corduroy skinny jeans that fall into the same category as my spectacles.
• A new car that decidedly moves me back to normal gal status, as it is NOT a particularly hipster thing to have a small-model SUV. Geez, maybe I should trade it in for a Schwinn before the hipster train that all my friends are on pulls out forever....wink, wink, loving nudge.
• A much more rich film vocabulary, hats off to you, Fu. I have, in the last six months of my existence, seen as many movies as I think I have in the whole rest of my life, and I am somewhat wary of saying, this is pleasing me, more and more, you infectious film geek. For all I know, by the time you are done with me, my insides will be all popcorn and celluloid.
• And, not to ignore the requisite dose of melancholy that usually attends these blog posts, a weird condition of late that lends me to vacillate wildly between conditions of intense anxiety and insecurity--most of which tend to eventually work themselves out through pouches just below my eyes that allow for some very cathartic things called tears--and bouts of giddy elation, often accompanied by intense, far more intense that is the norm for me, sexual desires. I am all but consumed at these times by my weird, hormonal horn-doggy self, it is highly stressful, let me tell you. SO, there you go, I am still adrift in strange waves of sadness, totally discontent with a number of aspect of my life, so please do not feel like the world has been flipped on its head, but at least this time, I balanced it out with some good, old-fashioned pervishness. Isn't that wonderful and lovely?

Good day to you, good people, until we meet again.

And for you, rogue label maker and profile defiler, YOU WATCH YOUR BACK. And please see the handy use of your labels, below. F'in Punk.