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.