Do you think peole just grow out of each other after time?

I resent my own answer to that question enough to deny that it's really what I think.

I lose people at a rate steady enough that by this point ten years ago, I'll probably have completely recycled all friends except those who remain merely vague acquaintances.


It seems every damn day I get hit with another realization of how damn hypocritical I am. Only one person in life has ever called me a hypocrite in such a way that they held it against me, and before that I'd never really thought of myself that way. The idea that I am comes as a particular sting to me, as he was not only the only person that comes to mind that I didn't lose to issues similar to those currently plaguing me, but he was, to my knowledge, the biggest, most hurtful loss thus far.


"I asked my father,
I said, 'Father change my name.'
The one I'm using now it's covered up
with fear and filth and cowardice and shame.

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me."


Very suddenly I like this song. One of those moments. Leonard Cohen. Genius.

On with it.

Okay, Kris would like to point out that not only am I a wimp, I'm a wimp who gets Hindus and Buddhists mixed up. He's probably off praying to Allah that I get my act together before he tries to take me to temple with his family Christmas day for the annual sacrifice of a black cat to the Earth gods.

He also decided to say something that I think he hopes I'll construe as insightful- "Know what just hit me... If you weren't as confused or sad as you are... you wouldn't sad OR confused... Try it some time, I think you might be happy from it..."

You know Kris, I got some insight for you, too- Sadness comes and goes, but confusion is somethign that pretty much stays with us forever. Bank on that!

Still looking for someone to go skydiving with me on my birthday...c'mon....you know you want to.

On with it....

"Are you strong enough to toe the line?
Are you gonna make me yours
Or do I make you mine?
I'm in and out I'm up and down
Wonder if I'm lost or found,
But I need your hands on me now.

But you don't need my pictures on your wall
You say you need no one.
And you don't need my secret midnight call
I guess you need no one.
Is anybody waiting at home for you?
Cause it's time that will tell if it's heaven if it's hell or if it's
Anybody waiting at home for you?
Cause it's time that will tell this tale

I hopelessly, helplessly, wonder why
Everything gotta change."

Kudos to Mark for making me download this. For a while, it didn't do much for me, but now....yeah. I get it.

So my mom's got me going through all my old papers looking for shit to recycle, and I've just come across one of the many letters that I wrote but never sent, this one to Chuck S., while he was living in georgia my sophomore year. It was a few days after the homecoming dance which, not surprisingly, was awful for me...so many of them were. Most of it is just bullshit bitching, but one paragraph...while technically still just bullshit bitching, really sorta...makes me think. About how much things never changed for me, I guess. I don't know.

"I know the world has just too many men for all of them not to be attracted to me, but why can't any of the ones that are be within a thousand mile radius??? This just isn't fair. I need to feel needed, or at the very least wanted. Hell, I'd settle for thought about in a benign way every once in a while. This is of no interest to you AT ALL, but I don't have anyone else to write to. You know what I want? I want a guy who will pick a flower for me on his way to school. I want someone who would, just maybe, attempt to write a poetic analogy about my face that didn't involve the phrase "taxidermy exhibit". I want a guy who could hold my body and touch, but listen when I told him to stop and not need any more. I want someone who would come to my house after school when I was sick with books from the library he'd taken out just for me and read me Byron or excerpts from "The Princess Bride" in bed. I don't even need all that. But I just can't be left in my little corner during the slow dances anymore, you know what I mean? I can't pass one more couple kissing in the hall with the knowledge that I've never been kissed that way, or at all, by a guy. And I can't take feeling ugly anymore."

There's universal truth in that, I think. And aside from having been kissed, and realizing how obnoxious it is to use more than one question mark in a row, how much of that has really changed for me? Okay, so I don't sit out slow dances anymore.....but I don't think anyone ever really gets over sitting out as many as I did. Being in the bathroom at dances, playing the crying game, being it's master. (I use the phrase "the crying game" often enough so that I should invest in finding out what the hell it is....perhaps I should rent the video, or read the book, whichever it is.)


And then I think back and regret how much of that I've had and lost. Mark and his artistic appreciation of me, Andrew and the dandelions he gave me, Jeff bringing me tic tacs and a rose and "The People Versus Larry Flint"- okay, so it wasn't the Princess Bride. The effort was there.

And no, Jeff and I haven't broken up or anything. But, in general, things tend to wane in life. And I'm left hopelessly, helplessly wondering why
Everything gotta change.


And maybe now certain people need my pictures on there wall. Maybe now certain people need my secret midnight call. But I need hands on me now...and who's going to be waiting at home for me?

Do I still need no one?

I still can't take feeling ugly anymore.

On with it.

Kris is calling me a wimp. Damn Hindus. Asexuality is such an easy way out.

And I cried watching "My Best Friend's Wedding" tonight. Funny how easily emotional shit makes me act like a fucking WOMAN.

Can't spend that long writing though- on Jenn's computer, spending the night tonight. Her parents aren't here, so we'll probably end up doing something rowdy like...watching another chick flick or talking about boys.

GAH.

On with it.

So I had a mini-mental breakdown last night. It started out that I just was bored out of my mind and no one was online, then turned into a shitload of missing Jeremey bullshit, then it turned into everything. I had just given up waiting for anyone to come online and make me feel better and resolved myself to listening to Matchbox Twenty and lying helpless on my bed when Chad came on. About five minutes into that conversation, though, my mother came in here (her room, where the computer is temporarily located) and forced me off line. This made me go INSANE. I couldn't bear the thought that I was forced, once again, to go lay in my room and stifle my sobbing into a a pillow, lest any sort of loud expression outside of that should attract attention and indignance. I couldn't stand anymore the idea that, aside from in the written word, I'm not allowed to express myself at all in this house at all, at least without being questioned as to my mental health. And I couldn't stand that whenever I cry for help to anyone outside of the house, no one seems to hear me.

So I went to bed, crying and contorting my body the way I do when I've lost a little more of my mind for the night. And the tears in the dark were running into my ears- a desperate, if somehow refreshing feeling- I realized that know one ever helps me in times like that because I cannot ask anyone specifically for help, I send out there really vague messages and hope someone will pick up on them, but generally I send them in a way that people think it's okay to ignore them. And I realized that this all comes from some self-image shit I have going for me: I don't think I'm important enough to ask for help, or I'm afraid that no one else will think I'm important enough to give it. So I have to send out messages and hope that someone will give it to me of their own free will.


Freshmen year, I thought about suicide a lot. I wanted help. I send out signals to a lot of my friends, but they were bitterly rejected. Desperate, I ended up writing a lot of shit in a notebook- a poem about suicide, drawings of people dying, and a "note" written back and forth to Serena- I was telling her what to write so I could have two sets of handwriting- that was making obscure references about how I'd been thinking about doing something bad, and how there were some people who I thought could help me, but I didn't know them well enough to ask. I went to the library, where Max worked, and left it there purposely, in hopes that he'd find it and have to read it in order to return it.

He did. And in his consequent actions, he saved my life. Even in the moments since that I've wanted to die, I've never stopped thanking him for that, and I've never stopped admiring him as a symbol of someone who was willing to do what they had to for another person. Someone who saw enough in me to go out on a limb for me- not for his own reasons, the way I feel some people do sometimes, but merely to keep me safe.


When I realized last night that I didn't think enough of myself to clearly ask anyone for help, it was not long in coming that I began to make the connection that no one else must think of me the way Max once did, no one else must think me worthy of making an effort to notice the signals. It was at this time that the phone rang. I looked at it for a moment, barely willing to hope it was for me, but crawled out of bed, despite telltale way I knew my voice would sound, and answered it.

Long story short, Chad saved the part of me that needed to be saved last night. I fucking love him.


After I got off the phone with him, I was amply calmed down, so I put on the TV. The end of "Dirty Dancing" was on. A year ago or so, I actually wrote Elorza an e-mail specifically about how happy the end of "Dirty Dancing" makes me. It's such an amazing ending...the romance and the bravery and the insobordination...and the romance. It's credible and incredible at the same time. I could write infinitely more about it, but I really don't want to devote a long time to that, because this is a post about Chad, despite that he was only mentioned twice, and about Max, despite that I haven't talked to him for years, and about people in life who leave me speechless.

Which is clearly demonstrated by all that shit I just wrote. On with it. :-)

I'm sick of looking for boobs. That's right. You heard me. SICK OF IT.

I'm looking for a nice set to use in a banner advertisement I'm making for the future site of the newsletter- the building of which is distracting me from trivial things like writing it- and this is a MUCH HARDER task than you'd think. I got naked tits galore, but what I want is a nice cleavage shot. It's getting tedious, and who wants the act of looking at boobs to get tedious. Since anything that works for me is illegal to use, I've made an executive decision- this will be Ilsa and Buttercup's internet debut.

I'm going over to Shawn's one of these days, we're going to do our best to get the image of my (bra-clad) tits online. That's right. Shawn S., full pass to Buttercup and Ilsa in lingerie. You know you're jealous.

Fuck that. I think half the state has seen 'em in a bra. It's getting that off that's the trick...well...not really. Fuck it.

On with it.