fuck me, i'm delirious.
how does one fall into things like this? here i was, jaded, disillusioned, cynical, thwarted, finally autonomous.
these things, these things i like. hence the evil. hence my silly man-banter. hence the fence.
then, shit, i take that all away from myself.
i was doing so well.
single.
alright. to let the record show, paragraphs of gush have been removed and are now being replaced. why? 'cause nobody wants to read about people who are retarded for each other. it's just not very interesting.
ah, but mean people are very entertaining. even the Care Bears have bad guys.
the X was bad. i knew this, then and now, it was obvious. not whole-heartedly bad, but not good for me, or, ultimately, himself. the X had many good points: wild abandon, child-like enthusiasm, good sex, great friends, cheap rent, and people tell me he's hot. wait, no, that was him telling me other people telling him he's hot. right. the Ego. the Rockstar. the Manwhore. all self-proclaimed, mind you. it was facinating to watch his interaction with the world - his mental point system of worth begot by charm, persistance, and very blue eyes.
"why don't you wear blue?"
"i'm busy"
"?"
"i'll be stopped too much by people telling me how beautiful my eyes are"
then there's me. my retinas hurt from the rolling. i couldn't have cared less. what i wanted was the walking in the snow in the woods with dogs. i wanted to glean the boldness to make music, unabashedly. i wanted the warm farm houses with good food. i wanted picking shrimp and shooting guns off porches and beer with movies. kicking ass at scrabble in the deep of february. oh, of course, sex, too, yes. but, was it even that good? can it really be all that great if afterwards his face falls and he can only think of other things, other people. ex-girlfriends in arizona with daughters that have red hair like his little sister. songs about his truck or whatever. his cowboy complex, suffering due to being a Mainer, born and raised, tainted by one year of a southwest city.
lordy, and that family. i really did enjoy the whole family. damn, were they disfunctionally entertaining. i was almost wooed more by the sister than him. she liked me, wanted him to have a cool girl. she made us dinner, invited me over. scolded him for his idiocy and general bad manners and bought the flowers he would give to me, apologetic and puppy-dog-eyed. she was 17 and wanted to drink it all away, smoke it all away, be revered for her wit and beauty. wanted to be thin and coveted. wanted to be anywhere else, doing anything, but doing nothing at all.
the mother, whom i worked with, was neighbors with (she lived separately from the farm, across town, across a property from me, luckily visibly blocked by a house). she did baby dances, akin to rain dances, calling on the fertilization gods to grant her with a grandchild from my loins [note: i hate babies, children, and the concept of germination of people]. she would do these dances at our mutual work place, which meant that any physical ailment i might confess to would immediately be met with "maybe you're pregnant!" this continued consistantly until, though we had broken up for months once, i still went to Rite Aid and bought a pregnancy test just in case immaculate conception had been voodooed on me. negative, of course.
the younger brother had something close to aspbergers, being highly intelligent, yet socially and emotionally, um, stunted? awkward? frustrating? i liked him, a strangely funny boy who seemed much too tall for his social abilities. only 15 month younger than the X, they had extreme competitiveness, one coveting the other's charm and grace, the other coveting intelligence. he liked me, very much, i think, and that did not make things any smoother between brothers.
the X was constantly disappointed in his father - a quiet and gentle man, contemplative and achingly slow of speech. a smart guy, jazz piantist, owned his own tile business that the X worked for. never paid bills on time and the wood stove often went out. he loved his children but drove them all crazy. he was undramatic.
anyway, it really all comes down to me not wanting his looks or pseudo-rockstar statis or badboy crap. i liked other things about him, but was not willing to overlook his lack of good old fashioned curtisies or common sense or respect. he was a shitty boyfriend. selfish, self-centered, ego-manical, immature, mama's boy with a complete lack of objective view or fore-thought. he's the only person i've ever really punched. i've got the flu and he's got a show that night. i just wanted him to ask if i was ok, if i needed some water. he says, "you know what? i've got a lot of things on my mind right now and you're at the bottom of the list." i understand blind rage now. i understand thoughtless violence. there was no discernable time between the word "list" and my fist. socked him in the left side of his faced and told him to go fuck himself. to no avail. he sucked.
but i told him these things, when we broke up for good. and it only made him want me back. and not because he realized i was what he wanted, or becaused he had "really changed" like he claimed. only because i didn't want him. and i wasn't hateful. i just didn't want him. he was lame. and someone with such an addiction to the compliments and adoration (he definately had a gaggle of groupies in wait) could not handle someone seeing real things in him and judging them as bad. i didn't like the real him. and it didn't look good for some non-goddess to dump the Rockstar. "SHE dumped HIM? wow, he must have really fucked up...he's so hot." such things were said.
pulllease. people, have some self respect.
when i decided to end it, we were living together and with 5 of our friends in one big house. the X's mother's rental, to be exact. after work i called to drag him out of his local watering hole (which was where he spent his waking hours, away from me, sulking) for a beer at an out-of-the-scene location. an oddity of a bar, it was filled with collectable memorobilia spanning many decades, creating stalactites of lunchboxes and record albums, vinettes of mannequins and jukeboxes. the owner bought us each a beer and, over-excitedly showed us everything in the place out of loneliness, i think. after an hour of that, we finally sat alone in a booth by the window.
"so, we shouldn't live together."
"right."
"and...i don't think we should be together eithe.r"
"uh, what? really?"
"well, i kind of don't like you."
"yeah, i don't really like you, either. that's not true. i love you."
"we aren't good together."
"yeah. but just move out and we can try again."
we start bickering about the same old crap. we don't trust each other. we have opposite schedules. i go out every night. he's overworked. he's depressed. i won't make music. we are heated, sweating, in fact, and dragging out all kinds of rational and irrational arguments that need a good venting. we're getting philosophical, we're getting scientific, we're getting raw and downright mean.
then, a strange thing happens. we hear a yelp from the door. a very morbidly obese woman has fallen in the doorway, filling the bottom three feet of passage. her Jack Sprat boyfriend, weighing in at one fifth her size, is trying to get her up
"call an ambulance!"
"we can get you up."
"no you can't! you can't lift me! my knees'll give out! call an ambulance!"
you can tell she has done this before.
the X, being a person of good build and past wrestling glory, sheepishly steps over to see if he can help. he is quickly dismissed. for all his bad points, he's a good neighbor.
an ambulance is called. it comes, along with two fire trucks and some random red emergency pickup truck. the dark Maine winter night is lit up like a circus tent or rave.
"you look really pretty in the emergency lights"
"thanks"
one female and seven male emergency crew members craw in and around the obstruction. she's loud and unconsolable. the female crew member is asking her questions.
"are you hurt?"
"my knees! have have bad knees!"
"we're going to try to lift you to a chair..."
"no! no! i'm too big!"
"how much do you weight, ma'am?"
[in a shouting whisper] "400 pounds - but don't tell my boyfriend!"
"we won't tell your boyfriend, ma'am."
the X and i look at each other. there is no way out of the building, besides the emergency exit with the alarm (which, i suppose, wouldn't have mattered at this point). we allow ourselves to laugh. it's impossible to be humorless. we're trapped.
it takes them about an hour to get her up and sitting. we're half exhausted from arguing our cases, half from witnessing the plight of the unfortunate, and we leave as soon as we can. through the parking lot he, turns around.
"so, you're moving out."
"yup."
"and, you're breaking up with me?"
"yup."
"jesus.
...would you consider dating when you move?"
"no."
"jesus."
he drops me off at our house. tells me this sucks and he's going to go get very drunk. i ask him what's new.
i'm out in two weeks. being single is awesome. not to mention my complete relief is ridiculously flattered by his eventual ueber-depression and shameless begging (read: BEGGING) for me to take him back. he's changed. i'm the one. there's only me. he could make me so happy. this all becomes extremely unflattering as it's apparent that it's not me he wants back, but the social respect of our friends and validation that he is a good person. people know he was not good to me. and his drunk depression is wearing on everyone. i try to convince him that we can be friends, but he can't do it. all or nothing. i take nothing.
i did not get nothing.
which brings us back to the begining. i start hanging out with a boy. friends. the X is constantly drunk and enraged (also self-imposing abstenance...don't know why). my new friend gets publicly threated by the X multiple times. up in his face, whiskey breath, advice to stay away less he suffer consequences, punches. i almost punch him again for trying to scare away this boy. all the threats, interestingly enough, pull me and my new friend nearer than i had anticipated. remember, i love being single. i am completely jaded and weary of men. i want no dating. maybe make out with a few girls and boys, go home alone. i want none of this shit i've just rid myself of.
ah, but this boy. he's no ordinary. i am not to worry about the X. we'll just leave, together. have a good time. this is what we do. and there will be awkward silences, places that could be filled by first kisses and whatnot. but he's heard my speech about the sluts of this town and how everyone does everyone and no one bother to be friends first. makes me sick. why fuck then see if they're cool? this town is too small for that! besides, i'm not hot. i'm interesting.
so we do other things. drink too much coffee and consider the possibilities of physics - vaccuums and dark space. can you believe stephen hawking changed his mind about black holes? we spend days coming up with words that start with "in" for no good reason that we can remember. he is polite. thoughtful. funny. most importantly, not wooing me.
but nobody wants to read about people who are retarded for each other. which is where this all heads, of course. it's been five months and we are concerned: we like each other more and more every day. we are not sick of each other, ever. we are living together, without complication (yet...we are not unhuman). we are refraining from the L word, though it is strangely difficult and often frustrating. why, i don't know. i'm afraid it'll break the charm, maybe. this is different. this isn't like a relationship at all. it's like breathing. the most natural thing in the world.
