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I wonder if you hurt my feelings because I have upset you somehow.
Because I unknowingly deserve it.
Or perhaps this is just a natural bi-product of your not giving a shit about me.
Because lately I simply cannot tell the difference.
That aside.
These men.
I hate them.
I hate these men so very much.
The throttle strangle choke wrap up and pull down into smothering dim lit suffocation wrapping claws around my heart my throat they want to steal my breath away to severe my limbs to pull the pieces off into some cave ingest them fill themselves with me all ground up and brushed away until there is no trace remaining they will absorb they will gorge themselves on my life and mind and there is nothing left.
I am beside myself. Please god please god please god just let me make it to the semester's beginning. I can anchor myself in thought and action. I can be made real by my intentions.
It's beyond quicksand, it's not just a mindless sucking down though that's there too, it's more the intentional growth of a parasitic vine the way a plant seeks the light and moves toward it, aggressively. No mercy. No hesitation. I am betrayed by myself and they blame me for compelling them. How dare you be so attractive it only goes to show that it only follows that you will be pursued I don't know what to tell you I don't know what to say. The worst is once they know my real name that they think there is all the more permission it's like the only real defense a woman has is to be a stone wall bitch the coldest most ruthless retract all that light so there is nothing to attract these fucking poachers these goddamn predators to be sullen to be contrary to never return a smile or acknowledge a conversation you can't even make fucking eye contact since it's an invitation!
They don't get it, they don't get it, they haven't a fucking clue that they make it impossible for us to be us for me to be me for a friendship to form it's all so damn hungry and unwelcome they seek to consume it all the need, the desire the need the desire the way they want it all for themselves every aspect of me tell me something secret and true I want to know the Sunday morning tea and toast version of you give me little pieces of you that no one else can have that no one else knows here's a dollar and terrific drain a massive drain of energy and resources of time and they'd take it all if I let them. Perhaps it's a simple matter of risky economics the greater the risk the greater the reward or so it's supposed to be though considering what I risk I don't think those paltry dollar bills add up to much. Please just let me make it to the semester. I am beside myself.......
Last night Simon called, again.
It started online.
It's my fault for answering the phone, for not having turned it off in the first place. You you must know that he's so hard to understand in general, let alone when he's typing. He's too poor a typist to communicate effectively, often spelling words wrong, leaving them out entirely or piecing together sentences incomprehensibly. I wonder too often if he's lying, being sarcastic, making a lighthearted joke, or just being cruel...
And so I was caught up in the words he said. And so I was drowning in the incomprehensible guilt he somehow manages to make me feel...
He said I was The First, but he'd wanted me to be The Only, and so he hates me
That I was supposed to have been the mother of his children, and so he hates me.
He asked again and again why he still calls me, and thinks about me everyday.
He said I broke his heart, and so he hates me.
He said I still have so much power over him, and so he hates me.
He said everything he is and will be is because of me.
He said every song he plays he plays for two girls, but he will never play for me again.
He kept going on about how he needs to end up with a girl like me.
About how he's dating an Irish girl who hates me passionately and how, were I to ever meet her face to face, she'd attack me viciously.
When I asked why, what threat I possibly could pose, he responded that I will always be the biggest threat. And then,
"I'm sorry. I have wanted you. You are the girl that has inspired all this, all me."
I don't get it. I just don't. I'm reeling still and, right after the fact, I was shuddering convulsively.
We dated from the close cusp of my 15th birthday for about a year and a half. Broke up long before the age of 17. When we'd still fight in circles and he'd cry. When I'd kick the door shut after he ran out of the classroom, no matter who was watching.
We were kids. So young... Is he quite serious? Did he really think it would last? Did he really negate every subsequent relationship in his mind to make it insignificant in comparison? Does he really hold me up on such a pedestal?
The good news is that I gained a radical new perspective from the exchange. I was suddenly guilt stricken at all the attention I'd demanded from Owen, all the jealousy I'd targeted at him. After my awful, confusing conversation with Simon, I felt all the more certain that I was in fact capable of being a rational human being. Of living the virtues of grace and maturity I hold in such high esteem. I'm thinking that, on a romantic, emotional level, I can let him--Owen--I can let him go.
Oh Simon! I want a world in which you will send me pictures of the places you've been and say, "Hey, if you're ever in London, stop by to see my perform at X venue and we'll grab a pint at X pub when I'm done." A world in which we can smile knowingly at one another, ask about the folks, laugh about old times. Part with a fond hug and a kiss on the cheek, amicable. Sane.
Is that so much to ask?
Is it??
Nightmares, bratty kids, employment, drinking too much...
These are the most recent updates!
Cathy has been such a little hooker. "Wow, your eyes are so small without makeup!" and "Your hair is weird..." and "If your legs were just three inches longer you'd be perfect!" are just a few gems she's uttered in reference to me. I mean, really, with everything I've done for her--and everything she's demanded I do in the future--you'd think she'd think before speaking! Apparently this is too much to ask... Good god! Nothing like being made to feel super self-conscious by an 18 year old!
I've been taking melatonin on the advice of Sarah Coulter, and it's been working wonders... My dreams are more lucid--still nightmarish, but it bothers me less. Like a comprehensive episode of the world ending. At first it's almost fun, people banding together with the spirit of adventure, eager to try out all they'd discussed over meals or drinks or drugs. Then things began to fall apart, abstract but realistic, until the dream culminated with sobering realizations, most of my companions dead, a need to abandon the dogs in my care and company. You get my drift. I dunno, it's just a very different way of dreaming. Things aren't good, but it's comforting to have such a continuity, to have things make so much sense.
Sadly, last night didn't really fit the bill. It involved shifting, high speed escalators, a frustrating stage performance, confrontations and running, running, running. I woke up sweaty and annoyed, and went right to the computer. For fuck sake! Even the Armageddon dreams leave me wanting to lazily drift back to sleep!
Oh yes, and I got a job at the Walrus! F-ing finally! It's so funny to watch these guys melt. You can tell they're nice guys for it. Not sleazy, not mean, not conceited, just good old guys eager to believe what a pretty girl is telling them. Now that I can work with! I get the official offer today or Monday, and I'll most likely start training on Tuesday. They are impressed with my willingness to work, with my interest in internal promotion... I'm so excited. Now all I need is a push up bra and great quantities of caffeine so I can push the shots they sell there to college age boys. Poontang, anyone? How about a little Sexy Chocolate? Or a Panty Dropper for your lady friends?
When I got out of my stellar interview yesterday I went right across the street and slammed a super tasty margarita at Juanita's while I waited for Dave to rescue me from Pearl St. This was followed by multiple high-proof beers at the Southern Sun and a bottle of Riesling at home. Perhaps it was massive quantities of alcohol that caused my bizarre and frustrating dreams? Perhaps... ;)
Oh yes! Also to add to the recent activities:
Friends from home are conspiring to bring me back to Rochester, at least for a while. Mom's on board. What with being unemployed for two months, having no friends in the area, hating where I'm living and desperately missing home, it's not like it's taking a lot of convincing. The only thing is that I should have moved back when I still had money saved up and hadn't yet gone through the trouble of lugging all my shit to Boulder and signing a lease on a horrible place.
Now, the horrible place!
Oh my god!! Yesterday the kitchen floor was wet. As I was cleaning it up, the drain gurgled, then bubbled, then rose, then overflowed. I went to take a shower. When I got out, the floor was soaked with a formidable puddle. I knew I couldn't have made that mess, but still, I cleaned it up. A few minutes later, I returned to see the puddle was back, only larger and deeper... So the bathroom was flooding as well. I threw down a towel and went to wash the dishes. And guess what!!!??? Turns out, the fucking pipes aren't even connected to the fucking drain anymore! I call Dave, freaking out. He says, "Can't you just screw it back on?" Trouble is, there was nothing to screw--it looked like the goddamn assembly had been glued together!!! So I guess the idea now is to use the "otherwise unlivable" clause in our lease to our advantage, get Dave his money back, help him to find a smaller, more affordable place, and move my happy ass back to New York!
Now that I have a job, I guess I could start saving money to make the move? Hmm....
And it would only be temporary. Until I could apply to another school, one I actually want to go to. I suppose though that I should do at least one semester at CU, just so I have a good idea as to whether or not I want to actually pursue acting... If I do, then Emerson. If I do not, then I look for a really super awesome Anthro school. Yay for tentative plans!
The medical profession in this country is making me feel like a second class citizen.
Never mind the horrible religious Right and their attempts to make women prisoners in their own bodies, never mind the laws being enacted in all but 13 States that uphold the rights of the unborn above and beyond those of the women carrying them.
That's not what I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about cervical cancer screening, and all the horrors associated with it.
I'm talking about abortion services and all the trauma that could be avoided if only physicians chose to act.
I'm talking about the women who sob for 30 to 40 minutes straight, who desperately clutch the hand of a friend while she smells her own skin burning, who might possibly be unable to carry a child to full term after such a nightmare, who will bleed for an unknown length of time after such a horrifying procedure. That's what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the women who are told to take ibuprofen to ease the pain of biopsies, of internal scraping and cutting over which they have no control.
Pain medication? 5mg Vicodin, and only after major surgery, and only if you're lucky.
IV sedation? A perfectly reasonable solution to traumatizing surgery that does not require patient participation in any way, but good fucking luck finding a doctor willing to do it!
I'm so angry. I'm so fucking angry. People who know me well are surprised by the sheer scope of my rage--they know I get upset but this is bad even for me.
Anger is a useful tool for masking other emotions.
Anger will hide and protect me from the inevitable.
From impending pain and panic.
I really, truly, just do not know what to do.
My friends, never again will I live in fear that Sarah Palin could possibly actually affect my life one day.
Or have to sleep and wake and breathe with the knowledge that that Rapture-raving, Alaskan hick, wolf-slaughtering, subversive cunt would be next in line for the nuclear codes.
Never again will I have to hear John McCain (god bless him) utter the words "pork barrel" from his shaky old man jowls, or wonder what exactly a total "spending freeze" might mean to me.
And for at least the next two years I shall not have to dread the effect the religious Right might have on my uterus.
I am a happy voter.
For the time being, I am at peace.
Fri, Oct. 3rd, 2008, 02:56 pm
Goddamnit
Houdini just died.
He was my most favorite fish. After King Leopold, of course. RIP, my little buddies.
Nearly hyperventilating.
I spent $1,575 of my boyfriend's money today.
On a 900 sq ft place in South Boulder.
A basement apartment with natural light, somehow.
3 bedrooms, one large bathroom, an almost perfect kitchen.
(What the fuck is up with people turning their basements into expensive apartments but installing neither garbage disposal nor dishwasher, anyway???)
Oh yeah.
The area is beautiful, sure.
But I don't know a goddamn thing about it.
Where the grocery store is, for instance.
Or the nearest laundromat.
For now I'll have no laundry machines at this place.
Or exercise facility.
Or secure entry.
I'm not sure how far it actually is from campus.
We're not allowed to use the backyard, since it belong to the lady upstairs.
Whatever.
But what about utilities?
Do we split them with her?
Is anything covered by our whopping $900/month lease?
A fat woman with two young girls, will she be blasting the heat all winter, and expect us to pay half?
Heating half a freakin' house??
High pressure sales.
"Someone else is coming in 15 minutes to tour the place. They're very excited about it. Of course, if you want to sign RIGHT NOW, then it could be yours..."
And of course David wasn't there to see it.
So if he hates it it's all my fault.
And I still haven't gotten a call back from the bar...
I'm going back on stage, aren't I?
I'm going to become a stripper again...
I just can't believe it.
I spent nearly 16 grand of someone else's money today!
And I'm UNEMPLOYED!
Holy fucking hell!
I'm bored.
I'm feeling desperate.
My "best friend" is the weirdest chick in the world...
I called her, in tears, about the sum of money I spent.
About how I still have no job.
And she told me I'm still a good friend, even when I don't have money.
What the fuck is that??
Is that supposed to make me feel better? Does that have ANYTHING to do with my concerns?
I'm freaking out. FREAKING OUT. Waiting for the pills to kick in.
And then maybe I can sleep...
See what happens when I don't smoke weed?
I think.
I think way too damn much and nothing productive comes of it.
I worry myself to pieces.
This pernicious doubt. This antagonistic....
whoa.
ok
drugs working
bye for now...........
(exhale)
On September 15
I got fired for no good reason.
No warning at all.
A week after the brakes failed in my car.
With two months left on my lease.
Just as I was applying to college.
And had hoped to move out on my own.
You know.
Get space from Dave?
And this turn of events really stressed me out.
So I got sick.
The sort of sickness that exhausts you completely.
Like waking up for a shower means you'll have to nap again before you dry off.
And I got laryngitis, like I used to every autumn.
On September 23
I finished the last draft of my college essays.
And contemplated the application for a restaurant I like in Boulder.
After I sleep I will press "send" on the online application,
having cut and pasted the essays into the designated boxes.
I will pay the application fee and pray nothing goes wrong.
After I shower I will ride the bus to Boulder,
looking good,
hopefully,
and shake hands and smile like my life depends on it.
Because it sort of does,
I guess.
Unless.
Unless Angela or Mary Jane wants to make a new appearance on stage.
Dancing for dollars?
No.
No thank you.
I think I'll see how far "Have we made a decision yet, folks?" gets me before I resort
to 6" heels and blistering cheap perfume again.
Oh boy oh boy.
Universe?
You best not fuck me on this one, buddy.
This is full-steam-ahead sincerity.
This is real.
Oh god let this all work out!
Tue, Aug. 5th, 2008, 01:15 pm
Revelations!!
So after having had a conversation with a pivotal person from my past, and one nervous breakdown later, it finally occurred to me:
I'm doing ok. In fact, I'm doing awesome.
I came here for a reason.
I've learned so much about people, about relationships.
About what I'm capable of.
About letting go.
About clawing your way out of a bad, bad situation.
About starvation and poverty.
About generosity and kindness.
About trust and friendship.
About just how truly twisted some people can be.
About grief and loss.
About forgiveness and renewal.
About independence and creativity.
About desperation and when it's time to really put your foot down hard.
About what I'll stand for and what I won't.
About loyalty and addiction.
About how strong I can be when I need to be, and how admitting you can't do it alone is ok too.
I'm really doing ok..... I just hadn't realized it until I held my life experience up against the backdrop of the place and life I left behind. At first I thought myself a failure, all my friends going on to graduate studies when I have no degree to my name. But now I see that my experience has great value, and I've received an education I might not have achieved anywhere else.
I'm grateful to everyone who's been a part of this.
I'm so happy.
I feel like dancing!
Tue, Jul. 29th, 2008, 04:06 pm
I think that, finally, I'm no longer content to play roles in other peoples lives.
Now I want something more.
I demand more significance.
I can't continue to let it be all about what I can offer them.
I want to know what they can offer me.
Somehow.
Somewhere along the way I will figure this out.
Determine if I have any worth.
But for now
I think I'll just run with it
and pretend I'm priceless.
Thu, Jul. 10th, 2008, 01:12 pm
Hmm... So. Today, a not so special day, I started working out. Since it's me, I probably pushed myself too far. I usually do.
I need a personal trainer. Someone who can force me to start small.
I'm too tired to write.
Just thought I'd make a note of it.
Resolutions never work. Mirrors, self-loathing, and randomness usually do the trick, though.
I blow
bubbles
on the street corner.
$8.50 an hour.
Beats cigarettes.
But I end up with smoke, anyway.
In the light from the parking lot outside my
window
it billows
up and just hangs.
Slow, familiar and.
Gray.
Inevitable.
Mine.
I can't remember the last time I was with somebody I "adored."
It must have been New York. It must have.
Wed, Jun. 18th, 2008, 11:07 pm
A Question:
Do you think human beings, "human-ness," Homo sapien sapiens, us--do you think as a species we were an evolutionary inevitability?
Personally, I don't. I think we were and remain just as random and accidental as any other creature... But that does not seem to be the prevailing viewpoint, now does it?
Fucking humans...
Fri, May. 23rd, 2008, 03:33 pm
Quickie update
Parents in town:
The first day here they dropped $250 on a suit and two pairs of really nice dress pants for me at a hoity-toity store down town... By the time I got home, a bottle of new nail polish (which they had also bought for me) had exploded and thoroughly soaked the suit jacket and one of the pairs of pants...
HOLY HELL!
So now I have to sneak around and replace these items before the folks find out about their ruined gift... Because there is no way in hell I'm letting them spend that much money on me twice, you know?
I'm waiting for them to corner Dave and tell him he needs therapy and medication, which is true.
Everyone has loved them, which is not surprising.
We went to a wine tasting at my place of business last night and they got to meet most of my coworkers. They had a fabulous time. I drank too much and subsequently puked.
Now if only the weather would clear up...
I swear the cars are breathing around me on the street, up the alleys, at night.
Breathing.
Feel a little bit like melting. Like flaking away. Like old bones.
Old bones.
And the cars breathe around me.
Breathe.
It's a suffocating sound.
The breathing of city cars on 14th fills the alleys up full, dirt and sound, expanding.
Up. Up.
The poison sound of seething breathing, the cars resonate, crush.
Into windows, even, seeping through screens and bars, grates over the glass, through the unsealed gaps.
Unsettling.
And human-like.
And gasoline-like.
Tonight: pulled my wings from behind the sofa and, picking off the collected dog hair, shaking loose the dust, I've set to making them sparkle again.
A long time ago I threw my (first pair of) wings away. I saw myself as 'growing up' and felt that forsaking the loud orange and purple pair would be a necessary symbol if I wished a real step forward. Sadly, I later came to regret the decision.
When I was in love and Trish had neck surgery after the seizures that moved our classroom to the first floor came, I wore my faery wings to the hospital and brought flowers. Now, in this present reality where I'm feeling out the terrifying possibility the great unknown of, "everything really is going to be ok" my boss has had massive back surgery and the wound refuses to heal--not infected--but not closing and in need of swabbing along the spine (the spine!) and seeps fluid onto bandages.
So. Now I've decided I want to get back in touch with myself. With the spiritual side of me, the whimsical side. We all saw the result of the nurturance of my cabaret-loving aspects, the hardening, the softening, the freeing, the fortifying. In the end you have money and access to so much more and physical strength and real cunning but it makes you sick of heart and soul. I'm no witch, though I would be, could I but believe in some face and name; I'm no devotee of any organized congregation, but I feel myself a spiritual being...
I almost feel like starting a cult, just for the hell of it. Instead, I think I'll settle for purple, green and gold wings. For glitter spilling over the edges of newspaper and drops of glue drying on skin.
I want flowers and healing. I want happier, and whole-er.
I want to be the me I was before being someone else became profitable.
I want to be the bearer or good things, and the wearer of wings.
(so mote it be)
The most valuable thing I've ever had stolen was several months worth of emotional, passionate, inspired and deeply personal writing created in the time following my abortion. 86 online entires, some as long as 3 pages, were lost to cyber space on Christmas Eve, 2005. I've never been more prolific, more sincere. That careless crash, that negligence that lead to annihilation was in effect the physical symbol of the worst possible digression--all the healing and self-exploration and rage and despair just *blip* in a blink of an eye, stolen, lost, whoops...
I don't feel it was an accident.
I feel it was a malicious move by the Universe. I feel it was intentional and hideous.
The loss of nothing else could have hurt me more deeply.
Nothing else could have left such a scar. I can never replace it. I can never repair it.
On that day I was broken, and I remain so.
Backwards:
The chimpanzee-like round little man, looked like he might have had Downs Syndrome but smiled as he swung on the rope. Apparently they were all in the same freak-show.
The 9' tall ugly woman towered there with dark skin, and she was super gaunt, bones poking through papery skin, giant bony extremities had two tiny little hyper unintelligible midget-humans (but only a foot tall) chained to her ankle and an equally ugly but only slightly smaller than average dark man beside her; they blocked the stairs.
After my escape from the demon-boy with all those dark and awful powers, Tyler was transformed into a black kitten and, despite who he was, I found myself clambering over treacherous areas to save him, set him on the shelf here, a girls hands here, little kitten nails; I kept him from drowning or being dropped.
I'm not sure where he came from, but it had to have been another dimension... This frightening monster of a young man who hurt me so badly, biting me, humiliating me, causing me great physical pain. I knew I was supposed to summon some sort of guardian to take him back to his own world, or maybe just imprison him in a mirror. I didn't know how, though, the summoning I mean, and so I stared blankly into a mirror with great hope and he kept coming back.
Apparently the rest of my family had already taken care of their perspective antagonists (Ryan was there) because they mostly waited while I suffered. It was a bad time.
Before he appeared my family and I were going places, to some gathering or at least up some stairs. It later occurred to us we were in the direct path of blue bulls soon to be released, and we would be trampled there in that narrow canyon of stone stairs. Up high spectators watched, or clung to the wall for sport. We had to do the same--climb the railing and cower above the seething throng of horned beasts, hoping none would buck and knock us from our perch.
***
There must have been more. There's always more to a horrible night of dreaming. That's what the full moon will do to you...
Sun, Mar. 9th, 2008, 08:29 pm
"Porno Girl"
Back in December, on the advice of a director I had worked with and her photographer husband, I contacted the most respected talent agency in Denver, Donna Baldwin. Unfortunately I was ill-prepared for this encounter and, having sent her a picture of me as Mistress Eva, I was doomed to obscurity and pretty much guaranteed I'd never have representation, ever.
In March of the following year, I received an email from this same woman I had so scandalized with my stupid picture. She said she had a part for me in a feature film, small but significant, and would I be interested?
Turns out the role is a porno starlette, referred to in the script only as "Porno Girl." First of all, let me just say this script has some of the worst dialogue I've ever read, ever. We're talking awkward phrasing that's clearly meant to be clever ("Oh, don't mind her, she's just an attention hound," as opposed to "She's just an attention slut," or even, "She just wants/needs attention--it's pathetic, really.") and a real lack of understanding about how people might actually communicate. Further, the dude who wrote this--who's not a bad guy, don't get me wrong--clings to cliche to substitute for real experience. I have hung out with at least two dozen porn stars in my life, from the infamous Ron Jeremy to the misogynistic Courtney Paige to the diminutive Bridget the Midget and I can say with all certainty that they are not mindless twits and they certainly have more depth and insight than his ridiculous "Porno Girl" caricature would have you believe.
Honestly, I at first felt a little insulted. I mean, honestly, I was the Shakespeare Queen in high school, oh so many, many years ago, and now the only work I can get in Denver is based on my body... and my utter lack of qualms about being topless. Also, it's one thing to have to act like a half-wit, it's another to act like a stupid girl with ridiculously bad lines! Was Kathleen getting even with me? Was I the only girl she could think of who would fit such a demoralizing role? Was I just being too sensitive?
I looked up the other work the director, Mitch Dickman, had done. He had won awards at a myriad of film festivals for the short films he'd written, directed, or produced--and man oh man, were they terrible! I figured the bar must be set pretty low here--a Western short with no Western accents, a bunch of "artistic" and abstract films that were, I'm sure, meant to be provocative but fell a little short of the mark thanks to undecipherable plot lines--but perhaps I could at least get some networking in? I had been told the people behind this film were local stage actors attempting their first feature-length production on film... Hey man, I'll take the stage over a camera any day!
I went to the audition tonight, held in a private residence in NE Denver. I was asked over hand shakes if I'd brought my head shot.
Well, no, I don't have one...
Ok fine, here, use this pizza box as a prop and we'll run through it...
So, thank you for your time, I have a few questions-are you SAG?
Huh?
It means Screen Actors Guild.
Oh, no, I'm not...
Do you belong to a union?
No...
Ok, we'll be in touch with Kathleen...
Now I just feel like an asshole. I feel like an unprofessional hack. Like small-time.
What a great feeling.......
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