Filed under: destroy that tape loop, ne'er-do-wells | Tags: alcohol, massage, randomness, sobriety
lately i’ve been thinking about how much i want to go to massage school, and maybe try & open up something similar to working class acupuncture in portland, or, but do it here in pittsburgh. that would involve lots of money (way less than most massage schools, but still, at least 5 g’s) , a two-year commitment to a school i am skeptical of, keeping the faith that my limp wrists will not die on me completely, and a very long commitment to pittsburgh. it’s something i think is really important, & something i really want to do, provided i can find some co-conspirators. i feel like the reason why i haven’t done more cool shit with my life yet is because i lack people that i can work well with who want similar things. you know? even little shit like traveling i almost never do, and i don’t really know why.
something else, totally unrelated, that i want is more friends who were raised by crazy drunk families who aren’t crazy drunk messes themselves. i want to talk about the very real sense of abandonment you can have when yr trying to sober up, like how you can feel that you’ve failed yr family by not being a total mess. when you know you’re fucking lucky to not have that gene that makes you ruin your whole goddamn life, but at the same time, you can tell they resent you, and that they don’t understand that you aren’t like them. & there is a cameraderie in their drunkenness that you’re left out of.
like, the last two times i stayed with my fam for an extended period of time (winter & summer ‘07) i was encouraged to drink until i passed out, i never got yelled at for lazing about the house when i had a hangover or drinking until i puked. but there were several times when shit hit the fan when i a) cooked vegetables b) spent hours writing c) cut my hair. like, what the fuck, right? but then i thought about it more and i realized that in their own fucked up way, they want me to be a part of their world. & it saddens them that i’m not. & in their own weird way they’re trying to include me.
i don’t really have anyone to talk to about this; most of my friends who are from alcoholic homes are either drunk-ass messes themselves, or else i don’t really get to talk to them anymore. and i’m trying to sober up lately, because my body just can’t take anymore abuse, and it’s not terribly hard usually, but it’s bringing up all this weird shit. i drank a little last night and i woke up at 6am in a panic searching for my birth certificate. what?
on a wholly different note, i also want to go west again, really badly. i also want to visit ray in baltimore & see the american visionary art museum, and i want to see chicago and minneapolis for the first time because everyone keeps saying that i’ll like them, and i want to go back to the desert even though i don’t really know anyone there.
there is this withered bowl of vegetables that i cooked last saturday. i ate the whole skilletful, except for one mouthful. potatoes, thyme, onions, beans. kale&tomatoes fresh from the garden. it was delicious. but i just can’t eat that last mouthful, and i can’t throw it away, either.
i quit coffee, can you believe it? it was making my heart feel very uncomfortable every time i had more than a few sips, and making it beat irregularly too. i don’t have health insurance or tons of $ laying around for an ekg or anything like that, and my mom has a disease where she can’t drink coffee or her heart will go haywire. so i just quit coffee. cold turkey. i still drink green tea, even though it makes my heart a little race-y it’s not too bad. man! i am only twenty-six! and everyone who knows me knows how much i love my coffee.
but, i have to say, i am feeling a lot of clarity and peace that i don’t feel when i’m all caffiened-out. i do more dumb things in the morning, like sending emails that unintentionally offend people when i am just trying to explain, or losing shit at work, but once i’ve fully woken up i have lots of insight. lots of calm.
i am trying to embrace the heartbreak and pain that this year has brought me. it’s made room for a lot of other things, like growth & change. if all the fucked-up shit that happened this year hadn’t happened, i wouldn’t have written 65 pages in 7 months (!) because i would have been too busy having fun. well, i was too busy having fun in may, and my wrists hurt too bad to type much in march, but other than that i’ve been diligently trooping forward. and it feels so good! so much better than anything ever.
i think once i finish this book & get things moving with it, it might be time to start scouting for a new place to live. pittsburgh is great and i love everyone i know here, but i feel like my purpose in being here was to have a space where i could write this book, and i think if i stay for too much longer i will just stagnate. there are so many reasons to stay: easy life, cheap massage school?, good friends, good job (although it’s extremely tenuous and subject to end at literally any second due to my boss’ lousy health), vegetable gardens. and there are so many reasons to leave: new adventures, new inspirations, excitement. a fear of stagnation & permanency. & the dating pool here is rather dry. i am rather preoccupied with someone at the moment, but she’s a tough nut to crack & there is a huge barrier to us getting together. i am willing to overlook that barrier, but most people aren’t. i don’t think she’s willing to overlook it. she’s so cute & so awesome though, and i don’t know how to tell her. sigh.
oh, i don’t know. i know that every emotion i have is subject to change at any second, and i know that everything i write on the internet immediately contradicts itself once the “publish” button is hit. i know i’m a flighty aries, i know i will always be spiritually homeless. i thought that was over, but i don’t think it is; i don’t think it will ever be. as thomas builds-the-fire (or, i guess, sherman alexie) so brilliantly put it in one of my favorite short story ever (”this is what it means to say phoenix, arizona”), nothing ever stops.
*i was at the dying giant eagle (r.i.p.) in my soon-to-be-former neighborhood, and this intense man came up to me–skinny, crudely tattooed, wild-eyed. he may or may not have been boxcar billy from a few entries back. anyway, we had the following conversation in the frozen foods aisle.
dude: have you ever had the stouffer’s chipped beef? it’s AMAZING?
me: nah.
dude: you put that in your microwave, and then you make some toast! [waves loaf of white bread he is holding] oh, it’s SO GOOD. you oughta try it!
me: i don’t really eat meat.
dude: well, hon, i’m sorry, but i got THE MUNCHIES real bad, know what i mean?
me: [smiles, walks towards cheese]
*the other day at book ‘em, the subject of barbie dolls came up somehow. my very favorite ex-con, who’s a fairly rough dude, looked away sadly and said, so that it was barely audible, “i wish they’d stop making them things.” it was, oddly, really touching.
*i was having this intense dream that this furry i used to work with had gotten a map tattooed on his penis & i was watching this pretentious art-skool movie about it. i was awoken by my landlady coming in to show the place (i knew she was coming; i just overslept) to this normal person. in case you didn’t know, my landlady is fucking amazing and one of the funniest people i’ve ever known. and this following convo ensued.
normal person: is this neighborhood….safe?
landlady: oh, yeah! you don’t have any problems, right, ocean? [i nodded yes sleepily]. in fact, this is a ‘weed-and-seed’ community, which means that if you commit any crimes here, you do federal time! so that really cleaned this place up….
me: what?!?! that’s what that means? i thought that meant that people in this community really like to garden!!!
landlady: oh, no, this used to be a really tough neighborhood, but they cleaned this place up. there used to be a lot of prostitutes here, but a lot of them got arrested. of course, they didn’t arrest the fucking johns. they never do, because if they did, there would be no Congress!
*in my endless quest to find not-annoying-but-not-distracting music to listen to while i write, i have turned to AM radio. yesterday i stumbled upon this croatian radio show, featuring a dorky-yet-sweet old man host, wishing people with old-fashioned names like herbert and doris happy birthdays, and cajoling listeners to “give [him] a jingle” at his home phone number! there was something sweet and trusting about that, about giving out your home phone number and address on the radio because you know that there’s probably only ten or fifteen people listening and you can trust that they’re all good people.
*speaking of writing, i cracked page 100 on my book yesterday!!!!!!!! (the book i’m writing, not one i’m reading). wow!
new york was good, full of tasty food and old friends, of laughing until my stomach hurt. i got salt water on my face & realized how much i’d been craving it. now all i need is some seaweed in my mouth & i’d be good. riding the train back to the city to meet up with sheena & emily for indian food & then greyhound for the long ride home, i didn’t look out the window at all. i used to be distracted by the window, fascinated by everything. now i can ignore it. it isn’t mine anymore. ironically, while on the train i was reading an essay by sarah schulman about gentrification in nyc and was dumbstruck by this sentence: “i stayed put, and my home left me.”
now i am back home, quote-unquote, and it sucks and i’m not entirely sure why. well, right now i am at work and surrounded by extreme negativity & cloudy skies, but other than that there’s no real reason. the 48 hours or so since my return have been full of friends, intense crusty trannies covering “papa was a rodeo” at a house show & having my hair stand on end because of it, laffs, halfway-decent books, good movies, writing well, cooking well. it’s like, what else do i need. well. it takes a long time for me to react to things that have happened to me. i go through months of being numb & surviving before i can really feel things. & now, all of a sudden, i am experiencing the true heartbreak of this year.
this year has been all about betrayal by my nearest & dearest. it’s been about a month since the last bad thing & now i am finally feeling it all. when i was in the thick of the bad things, i was focused on survival. i was trying to feel okay, and it often worked. but it was distraction. not absolution. i wish i could be honest about what i need, about what i want to do, without people freaking out. this year has been about facing unpleasant truths. this year has been about things that i thought were solved years ago rearing their ugly heads. this year has reminded me that what i thought was over will never be over.
Filed under: destroy that tape loop, ne'er-do-wells, tough girls | Tags: destroy that tape loop
this past week has left me crazy, for no particular reason, which is perhaps the most maddening of all. sunday night i got too drunk, had a gigantic freak-out, worse than i’ve had in so long. years. bad things almost happened, or they would have had i the strength to crawl into the kitchen. luckily i just passed out in a bed that isn’t mine, and i didn’t feel good when i got up in the morning, but the really bad things had passed for a while.
i thought maybe i shouldn’t drink anymore; but last night i drank and it was mostly fine. yesterday i was okay for the most part, as long as i kept my lungs expanding to their fullest capacity. last night i drank, just a little bit, just enough to feel good and not enough to go straight down that slippery slope. before that i hung out in tiffini’s backyard with tiff, branden and aaryn. tiffini and branden lay like cats and i made everyone do a photoshoot with flowers and safari nets. i could see the very edge of the beautiful mountain sunset underneath the clouds. then to the bluest moon for a $4 long island iced tea, then to the thunderbird. i couldn’t sing the spin doctors because it was too crowded. a lil’ nerve-wracking, a little awkward, but ultimately fine.
& now? i am sleepy, i was woken up in the middle of the night and had a hard time going back to bed. the challenge of this particular time period, i think, is to learn to accept the things that i can’t fucking change. it’s hard though, especially from the vantage point of an empty house & empty bed. but really, what else am i gonna do?
the soul station is playing even better music than usual & this morning, before anyone came in, i was dancing so fucking hard. i love dancing, but i usually hold back because i’m embarrassed. i dance for real around eric g., my sibz, and amanda. and even more so when it’s just by myself. something about dancing in an empty law firm is just so fucking fun. so freeing, so magical. a little bit lonely, too, i’m not going to pretend otherwise. but also, really great.
1996 or so, early. thirteen years old. it was a snow day. we were at d.’s house, because it had the lowest amount of parental supervision. d. was a troubled loud crazy girl from a really fucked-up family who i was secretly in love with, e. was a pretty little blonde from a really fucked-up family (and who is still one of my best friends today!) and i was a tall awkward bookish dork from a really fucked-up family who was just coming out of my shell, just learning how to talk so people would listen, just learning how loud i could scream & what it could do.
anyway. three thirteen-year-olds (perhaps e. was 14 by then. she’s an aquarius.) snowy day. bored. this was before the interweb. sitting in d.’s living room we saw some teenage boys walking by us. we dared d. to say something to them. she opened the window, pulled up the screen and screamed, in her waking-the-dead voice, “EAT ME OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU AIN’T SHIT! EAT ME OUT EAT ME OUT EAT ME OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTT!”
we all laughed. then one of us said, “oh shit, they’re coming towards the house!” we all panicked and ran out the side door, up the hill in d.’s backyard. no shoes, no jackets. d.’s backyard was a hill at about a 50 degree angle, straight up and totally icy. we ran up, half scared, half giggly. i looked down at e., climbing underneath me. she had a kitchen knife between her teeth, blade side pointed away from her tongue. she had a truly crazed look in her eye. i had a moment that i’ve had a lot of times since, where i look around and think, “this is so fucking crazy, and this is so where i need to be.” barefoot on the ice? why the fuck not? e. was so quiet in school, the only conventionally attractive one in our whole social circle. everyone thought she was so normal. but she had a knife between her teeth, and she took it out once we reached the bushes at the top to hiss, “if they come up here, i’ll stab them! i’ll stab them!” i have never loved her more.
that was the first time i fell in love with tough girls, the first time i made a vow to always have my life be crazy, the first time i looked at danger and got exhilarated. before them–just two years ago–i’d been resigned to a life of reading books in my old beatup chair. nobody touched me & nobody heard me. i would talk and people would just look in shock. i didn’t know how to be loud. people said my name like a punishment. who would have thought in just two years i’d have a new name, i’d be standing on a hill with knives & we’d talk about stabbing boys. we’d do it for each other, if that’s what it came down to, because that’s what we meant to each other. two years ago i would have cringed at “eat me out” and “motherfucker” but now my mouth was filthy, now it was curved to fit the shape of those words.
the boys knocked on the locked door & eventually went away. we went back inside and prank-called people and laughed until we couldn’t breathe, until we all thought we were literally going to die. & that was just the beginning, just the beginning.
my life isn’t really all that crazy or dangerous anymore, and i don’t really want it to be. but sometimes i miss that self, wire-rim glasses and all. i have a waking-the-dead voice of my own; that girl who screamed has a baby & lives on the other side of the country & hates me so much she won’t speak my name. that’s fine, i guess. she helped me enough.
