begin again

OK, fuck it. This is bullshit. I stayed home today and watched the SciFi channel. I have been doing this all weekend. I can't make it far enough to hope for real love or romance, or good friends. Instead invent frustrating roof parties and post-sex rejection from Albertine.
I watch television. I am lonely. I would prefer the roof time and Albertine's bull shit to another night of this.
Now I’m drunk and medicated. I am going to watch tv until I pass out. I’m going to need to start his shit over.

on the roof, II

I'm on the roof again, and this time drunk with friends, and Gretel has this song, “Chick Habit”, on repeat, she's avoiding the work she has to do and swinging her long limbs around like a go-go dancer, and as the staccato guitar riff bangs out from inside the window, her arms pump and her legs bend her into a half crouch. She is rarely this attractive. While I watch her I laugh a little, and Maggie and Branson cuddle on the other side of our tarred porch, despite her absent boyfriend and his complexes, despite my, “that girl is trouble” (to him) and my “stay away from my roommate” to her. They are cuddling and I am tired, and Gretel is keeping me entertained, but I go inside anyway and say to myself, "that is weird". I take a pill that has not been prescribed to me. It is an anxiety pill. I turn my computer on to a this American life episode from 1998, and listen to other peoples' failures until they are added to mine and are weighing on me. Other peoples' lives. I have too much empathy tonight. My anti-anxiety pill might be fighting valiantly against this rising tide of worry, but not to the right extent. I turn off the radio, and wonder if Maggie will leave tonight.

Chapter Ends

Well, the book may now be closed on Albertine. And that’s fine, as my constant emotional pendulum swings, silences, depressions, and breakdowns were getting a little tiresome. “Just friends” means I can now give it up.
Which leaves me feeling a little empty, to be honest. Not empty in that I feel lovelorn, not like a vessel in need of filling. More like a vacuum. I feel like my emotional state is now subdued, and like I could use something new to care intensely about. Even Steven is fine, but that loses its flavor quickly. I mean, there are baths, and coffee shops, and books, but these feel more like means of pleasantly filling time, and not like passions. And there is my work, but you can only love that so much. While it’s pleasant to feel like I’m not on the verge of tears half the time, I’m also not on the edge of ebullience. Perhaps I should start drinking, or knitting. . .

No, I’m sure something will come along. Some depression-inciting anticipation, the promise of tenuous meaning and lifelong fulfillment will reemerge. It always does.

message

A telephone call was made, with a message, not too pressing, but not overly casual, and now I'm waiting for a response. I feel like those scientists who send signals into space, hoping for some extraterrestrial to signal back. Sometimes, I believe I have about the same chances, too.

yo-yo

If I had any illusions that going to Albertine’s party would be good for me peace of mind, they are now dispelled. The party was fantastic. I felt that I received special attention from her. We had inside jokes and she would tell stories about me to her friends, like a proud girlfriend should I guess that was the tough part. I looked good. I was funny. I was intelligent. We had rapport. I felt like she wanted me (but I’ve felt this before). Then, at the end of the night, while the other lat guest was in the bathroom, I said,
“So. . .I’ll see you . . .sometime.”
She said, “Absolutely,” with the kind of surety that made me feel like she wanted to, like she wanted to be with me, like her ex-boyfriend was beginning to decrease, and I was experiencing a corresponding increase.
I rode home with that “absolutely” in my mind. I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night because of that word. Instead I went back through the night, replaying jokes, looks, glances, the movement of people through the room, her tendency to remain close to me. I tried not to make any conjecture. I tried not to embellish.
Since then I’ve been waiting, a little anxiously, for something from her, a small sign that I would see her again soon. It’s only been thirty-six hours. I have no patience. Today is her real birthday, so I sent her a short email. No plans, no questions, just “Happy actual birthday. Celebrate with some dark chocolate.” I am terrified of coming on too strong. At the same time, I need an answer, a reply. Until then, I am incapacitated.

Social calendar

Albertine is having a small party tonight. I am invited, and I am attending, and I am nervous. I am trying to manage my expectations, to keep them at zero, since what I really want is to go and have fun and be entertaining to strangers and everything more complicated than that is inconsequential.
These are the questions I ask and answer:
What do I think will happen there? Who knows.

What do I want to happen there? I am not sure.
I am trying to convince myself of these answers. I tell myself these things to assuage my nerves.
I try to remember that I have great power. I avoid consulting my horoscope.

Earlier today, I went to a barbecue at a friend’s house. Everyone was married, with children, with yards and freestanding houses. The talk frequently swayed to household projects, baby details, and “how’s work?” While I do know that Albertine’s party could be fairly painful and awkward, I do know that it will be more interesting than this barbecue, and I am thankful for this. I would rather be tortured by Albertine than made to feel out of step with my peers at another interminable barbecue.

today's the day

Once every few weeks or so, I decide that “today’s the day” I will begin to live my life assiduously and fully. The assumption is that every day after that will follow, like that first day just provides the catalyst for some perpetual chemical reaction. My “today’s the day” decision involves several criteria, including improving my exercise regimen and diet, working harder, watching less television, and basically not doing any of the things I regularly do that make me feel guilty, such as going to 7-Eleven for taquitos at two in the morning, watching television until even later, masturbating to the kind of pornography that makes me feel dirty afterward, and being shy in social situations. Once in a while, after I’ve made this promise to myself, I last a day or two before slipping back into my typical behavior. While I always fail eventually, the hours in which I judge myself as virtuous make me feel like I have the great power that the I Ching told me I could have.
So, today’s the day, and this time I’m going to make it last. I’m going to bend like a reed in the wind, but never break, I’m going to be superhuman, superego, Superman, leaping buildings and working like a titan and at least, when I make the inevitable mistake, I will leave a me-shaped hole in the wall. I will go down swinging. I may fall to the ground, but I will get up off the mat. I am out of clichés.
Anyway, after visiting 7-Eleven twice yesterday, finishing my taquitos and cheetos before I had completed the one block walk to my bicycle, after I stayed up late watching Battlestar Galactica, a show I have no interest in, and after masturbating twice to the dirtiest kind of smut, the kind that makes me shake with guilt and pray that god isn’t watching when I’m through, after all of this, and after I woke up late and watched more Battlestar Galactica, I decided that today would be the day. I woke up, masturbated without pornography, exercised, and went to work. So, eight hours in, today is the day. Let’s hope this sticks.

Wine bottle

I have this bottle of wine that was a gift from my last serious girlfriend. Carrie gave me the wine shortly before she turned into a Machiavellian lunatic, and supposedly it was pretty good stuff, so I kept it on a shelf next to my bed, and it would sit there and I would look at it from time to time and wait for a reason to drink it. When Carrie and I actually broke up, I thought we might get back together, so I saved it, and then when we were really finished, I was so apathetic towards her that I didn’t want to make a big deal out of the wine.

The bottle got a little dusty, and I waited for a special event, for a romantic night with some unnamed new girl. I envisioned us drinking the syrah together. I would laugh to myself about how Carrie was funding my new romance, how this was probably not how she had first pictured this bottle’s demise, and how I would use the intoxication provided by the wine to seduce the next love of my life. This never happened. Albertine was as close as it got, and she preferred whites.

Last night, after the bath and the I Ching, I drank the wine, alone, working in my office, out of a plastic cup. I was reminded of that scene in the movie Sideways, where the Paul Giamatti character finishes off the pride of his wine collection in a fast food restaurant, drinking it out of a Styrofoam cup. On the surface, that scene looks so pathetic, but there’s a feeling of catharsis there that enabled me as a viewer to feel positive about this lonely alcoholic’s little rebellion. It’s like he’s letting go of this iconic artifact that’s part of the life he needs to change.

I’m not saying my own thing was that critical. I was just getting rid of a consumable that needed to be gotten rid of. Albertine had canceled my Saturday dinner and drinks and afterwards plans, so I figured I would use my free time to expunge the relics of another woman in such a way that I was also dealing with this new thing. I opened the bottle, deleted Albertine’s so-charming emails, and moved on to real work. Hours later, I felt drunk and productive, and proud of myself for handling this new loneliness in a constructive manner.

bathtime with Ching

My depression subsided a bit as soon as Albertine dumped me. I drew a hot bath and sat in it, watching sitcoms and reading books about democracy until the hot water induced sweat and thirst. I got as low as I could in the water, a rim of suds ringed my face, and I stared at the ceiling. I felt enervated. I felt as if I would never walk again. I thought about my free standing, clawfoot tub, and wondered how much it, and the water, and my body weighed together. I waited for us to crash through the floor, and as I sat, looking at the ceiling, I had the impression of that ring of water around my face, the ellipse of the shower curtain rod framing the ceiling, little shower curtain rings holding the shower. But all I though about was, “wow, what a lot of rings.” For the moment, I did not worry about outcomes, would she won’t shes, sexual theatrics and conversation inhibitions. This hadn’t happened in several days.

The water was cold.

When I got up, I decided I would like to throw the I Ching. Some people use the I Ching as some sort of soothsaying device. Others simply use the book for Taoist guidance. I think Carl Jung might have said that tools like the I Ching help us clarify our range of choice, help us filter the course of actions we will or won’t be pursuing, like a more advance version of the toincoss where, when you don’t get the result you were looking for, so you simply flip again. Whenever I’m done pinning all my hopes for a future of conventional domestic bliss on someone who ends up not being worth the daydreaming effort, I feel rudderless. All of a sudden, I’ve got all of this time to think, and nothing to think about. I throw the I Ching.

It tells me I have Great Power. I smile. We'll see how this goes.

In bed, weekday morning

My new sheets are dark and soft. The morning’s light streams onto them and they absorb it all. They cant take anything the sun can throw at them because they are badass. My body warms while a continual cool wind keeps my head comfortable. I am not getting out of bed today. It’s funny. Last night was pleasant. Albertine and I had a drink and watched a movie, Pan’s Labyrinth. We followed it up with insightful (in my book) discourse and some simple time lying in bed together. I left unsatisfied, however, and the brevity of the kiss at the end left me wanting more. I left at 1:15 A.M., on my bicycle, and felt cold, lonely, unsure of the future. I am not happy with this uncertainty.

I am not getting out of bed today. I feel unable to cope, to work, to make small talk with strange Miranda and ebullient Gilberte. I don’t want to talk to my clients on the phone, and I do not want to sit at my desk. I stay here, sometimes asleep, sometimes not. It is quiet in the morning. I enjoy the quiet.

At noon, I think about how many signs of depression I am showing right now. I shrug it off. But then, depression is lame, right? Twenty minutes later I decide to compromise. I will not go to work, but I will, to some extent, be a functioning member of society. I will go to the coffeeshop. I will read, do some light work, and be around people. This feels like it will be a resounding success.