The Switfly Tilting Planet

I don't know why invoking Madeline L'Engle seems appropriate for my mood, but wtf.

My cousin (K) picked on me tonight about my aversion to relationships. It was meant to be constructive, but it came off as condescending. Actually, it didn't, but I found myself furious at everyone for no reason in the hours following. So, yeah, it was fucked up.

I think she was trying to push me into (re)trying therapy. But if came off as "you're fucked up, don't you realize that you should do something about it?"

I don't feel particularly fucked up. I've been in the zone for awhile, actually. There are hiccups, sure, but I've been chill -- as evidenced, by nothing else, but the infrequency of my posts. I suppose you could argue that I've just been filling up my life with bullshit so I don't have to deal with things that are important, but well, fuck you. I think K. would agree to some degree.

Feel free to re-read the last paragraph. Especially the sentence that begins with "I suppose".

So why am I angry?

Well, let's see... the insinuation that I'm too dumb to realize that I have issues that need to be handled. Um, I'm handling them. Perhaps it's via dissonance and redirection, but you know what? Fuck drugs. Fuck anti-depressants, fuck pharma, fuck self-medicating, and fuck paying to have someone almost smile at you for $150 an hour. I'll take a beer (just one or two) and a textarea any day over that bullshit.

I don't recall being unhappy very often in the last three months. Or angry. Or depressed. Oh, yeah, until just now, when someone decided to tell me I was fucked up.

I never said I wasn't. Let me deal with it in my own way. If you want to suggest a tool, fine, do so. Hell, do it once a quarter for a year or three until you get tired of the routine and give up. Then go ahead and assume (or even hope) that I find my own way to nirvana.

I might even suggest (gasp) that you trust that I'll figure it out. I've done pretty good on my own, all by myself, without you, or your god, or your therapist, or your goddamn opinion thus far. One might even say, objectively, that I've done pretty well for myself. Imagine that.

In fact, if you need to divorce yourself from me because you can't handle "the negativity", or otherwise want to hang out with me less, that's even ok. I'll be pissed at you, I'll think you're kinduv a pussy (or, perhaps, just an idiot), I may flame you in this blog, and I'll miss you, but wtf. I will, at least, still respect you.

(Well, mostly.)

But don't hop up on a high horse and tell me that my life sucks. I already think that my life sucks often enough without any reminders. I mean, really! What the fuck was she thinking?

--

She accused me of being scared. Of girls. Well, no, more accurately, of an intimate relationship with a girl.

(Excuse me while I pick up my jaw from the floor.) You really think so? You don't say!

I'm sorry... ahem. So what?

(Never mind that I've been trying in recent memory despite that reticence. Jeez.)

--

While I'm ranting, can I point out that the presentation seemed an awful lot like "hey! you need to go to therapy so that you'll settle for some bimbo that you'd otherwise reject out of hand!"

So. In the several months that have passed since my return from vacation -- er, I mean, school (and anyone who thinks they worked harder in school than I do now clearly didn't deserve whatever degree they received. Privileged fuck!) -- I've come to the conclusion that, in spite my incessant question about the location of that strange book club where all the attractive, gym frequenting, articulate, educated, emotionally available, sexual, sensual, understanding twenty-something women of moderate maintenance level happens to be, there are, in fact, plenty of "almost" girls out there. I've been dating one for four months, in fact. Scratch the good-in-bed part, the gym bunny part, and... ok, she's got 'em covered. So, not too shabby. Solid settling material. Hell, I even think she'd be loyal and not cheat on me! Fancy that.

(Part of it was moving out of the valley. Sigh. Too bad I kinda like it there.)

Still, when did my mental health come into question as a reason to settle or not?

I'm sorry, did I miss something? I'm mentally handicapped because I want someone, oh let's see... who is like me? When did that become a sign of mental illness?

So, again, I ask, what the fuck was she thinking?

Goodbye AZ

I moved out of my place in Arizona yesterday.

1900 miles in 3 days. 1300 of them 19 hours yesterday.

It made me sad. Conflicted. I guess it was the physical manifestation of me giving up on the dream.

I will lie tomorrow like I lied yesterday. I'm better at it, perhaps -- I can talk about frat parties and dorm rooms. I can talk about all night study sessions and dumb roommates.

I can continue to lie.

Thanks, dad. You were successful in imprinting a little piece of your failed existence on me, after all.

--

Slutbag wrote me today. It was a mass email asking for advice on a volunteer program abroad where she'd get sponsored for her travel and lodging in exchange for her time.

Hmm, how about the Organization for the Survivors of Cheating Whores?

--

K, that's all. Life isn't really that bad. I'm just a little... irreverent. Perhaps.

Drunk drunk drunk. Drunk!

Yes, drunk. Some irishman offered me a pour of goldschlager and I took it. And he poured. And poured. And poured. I think I took on 8 shots at once. It was like a twenty second pour.

Ow.

And I'm drunk. And alone. Because you're honest when you're drunk, right, and honesty says that I love the people I trust so much more than they deserve and could give a fuck about everyone else... hot or not.

So. I miss Laura right now. Enough to go look at her myspace and note that I am nowhere to be found. That I am but her dirty little secret from three summers ago, a footnote in the great expanse of life, the google cache, and the universe.

I'm ok with that. But I still miss her.

Tear.

I miss Presh, too, even as I acknowledge that there's nothing to miss.

With either of them. They were nothing except some fanciful nightmare of dream trapped within my own head.

...says the hurting sensitivity of all that is Alfie to himself in hopes that he'll believe.

Negativity

Someone "told" me that a downer friend is no friend. That's bullshit. Fuck you. No warning, no comment, no constructive criticism. And you're supposed to be my friend.

Oops. Guess not. Guess I'm not good enough, or "up" enough, or positive enough.

Well, that's fucked up. You're NOT my friend. Maybe you never were. A friend pulls his buddy up.

A friend sticks around.

A friend announces when, how, and why if he needs to protect his boundaries. A friend who has sensitive boundaries shares them and asks his friend not to cross them. He doesn't just watch as they are crossed and then halts the friendship.

So, yeah, irreparable damage. I thought you were family. I thought you were around for a lifetime.

But, alas, you're... nothing but a girl. You leave for no reason. You leave when I actually need you. You leave when I believe you'll never ever leave, when the cynicism gives way to faith.

You leave. I come last, a footnote, a forgotten memory, a faint image, like a grainy vision or a distant shoreline in the fog.

You leave. And like all the other girls, I shall go on without you. I shall relish in my transactional relationships, whispering my negativity to the permanent record of the googlebot, alone with my superficial friends and the contracts they come with.

You will be added to the long list of people that left me for no reason. Who left me simply because I was me and shared all. Who promised and betrayed, who earned my trust and faith only to squander it, who, well, can suck a dick.

--

So, um, yeah. I miss my friend. But, frankly...

Fuck you all. Bitches.

--

PS This is for you, too, Ayla. Your paradise is never coming.

sigh

"The thing is, it's NOT that bad for me. It's NOT that bad to have mediocre sex with some random chick and feel slightly conflicted about her nuzzling up to me afterwardss. It's NOT that bad to smell her hair, and, instead of feeling a sense of home and completeness, try to determine whether it's Biolage or not. It's NOT that bad.

Because, you see, unlike you, that's better than normal. That's better than I've had in quite some time... maybe ever. It's not a step down or backward to have a fake sense of intimacy with someone like it is for you. It's a step up."

(said to a friend of mine recently when he expressed confusion at my contemplation of having a one night stand on my birthday. I didn't, btw.)

--

I went to a party tonight. I saw an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time -- a friend of the roommate of the girl who invited me (also an old friend). We went full circle... I knew Carlos, who knew X, who knew Y, who knew Michele, who rooms with Danielle, who is my friend. Six degrees, full circle. Nice.

It was good to see him.

D is Texas' older sister, though, and I found myself staring her straight in the face when I went to the rest room. I was up there, along with a dozen other smiling faces I knew all to well. And I missed. Not her, really. I missed being there, feeling her, feeling me feel her. I guess I missed feeling.

I stared at her, and she wasn't the little girl I remembered. She wasn't the memory of a memory I have. Nor was there an emotional response.

Just missing what it felt like to miss, maybe.

--

I got invited out on a boat ride tomorrow night. Perfect spot to seduce some little girl... invite her out, have some drinks, hang out with rich people, imply that "all of this can be yours if only [you can hold on to me]", then take her home and fuck the shit out of her.

And I thought about who I could invite, and I thought about how a good night's sleep sounds so much better.

Then I thought about just posting a unicorn ad on craigslist. Like an ad for an employee, only for a girlfriend.

"Must be emotionally available, be able to load weights on a leg press machine, witty/intelligent/educated, and 25-30. Pick any two. Me? I fill out your Cosmo quizzes nicely and your mom will like me."

Somehow I think I'll get a few fat chicks replying on an ad like that and nothing more. Quoth the Quagmyre, "hey, fat chicks need love too!"

Sure. Just not on my watch.

--

So, yeah, I'm sad tonight.

--

Oh, hey, Presh wrote me back. "Loved your email. Thank you very much."

Uh huh. Sure. I pine over you for a decade and that's what I get? Heh. She processed for a week and wrote THAT on my friggin Myspace comment/wall. Sheesh.

('sok. I wasn't expecting much more than that.)

--

Falling asleep. My melancholy will have to wait.

P.S.

If you happened to donate semen to my mother roughly 31 years and 9 months ago, I DON'T appreciate your call.

I deleted that message before the third word was spoken.

Frankly, if you would just hurry up and die, the world would be a better place, and four people I care deeply about would all be happier and healthier. I'm one one of them.

Go find your place with god. 'cause you ain't finding it here.

I sent it

"I've been wanting to tell you something for... oh I dunno. Over a decade?

(It's my birthday, you know, and I'm feeling sentimental. Go figure.)

You already know. I know you do. Just... I love you. Always have, and always will. Maybe not romantically, maybe not anything any more than at a distance, maybe only when songs from 1995 come on the radio, maybe only when I see popcorn ceilings and remember sanding yours with you and Amy, maybe just the random what-if and the little smile that comes up when I see a message from you on my birthday.

When you showed up in town last autumn, I didn't dare admit it, not to myself, let alone anyone else, but seeing you made me so very happy. I held my breath when you came in the room and (please don't tell) cried when you left.

Let's just say I wish I could have a coffee with you anytime I wanted. One day, a long time from now, I'd very much like it if the people we are now (and will become) could be friends again like we were then... taking time for granted, loving without knowing, knowing without feeling, not even realizing how innocent we were, nor how much life lie ahead, nor just how valuable those few short experiences were.

Until then, just know that someone, without contention, sans any selfishness or motive, loves you and wants you to be the very best person you can be -- happy, healthy, loved and in love, hopeful and content, joyous and awe-struck.

Promise.

May the world be your oyster and your soul be complete.

Always,

(alfie)"