Life isn't a tv show, girl. It doesn't fit cookie cutter into a neat little halfhour shape in your day. It doesn't always have the twists and turns that make it fascinating, it doesn't wind up all ok in the end, working it self out in a satisfying, cliff-hanging, tear jerking, joy inducing from start to finish plot line.

Life just is. "Life is what you make of it" life is hard and boring and itriguing and fun and gruesome and sweet and beautiful and annoying and hurtful and...well, you already know all of this.

It hardly ever make sense. And in those moments that it does, you stop thinking and just live and thank god for it all. Those moments that make your insides stll and make you feel like you're sitting on the seawall again, dangling a foot over the edge and staring at the moon through the rippled water. That right there is the only thought that you're allowed to have in the moments that all make sense. Thank God. Even the pain can be sweet, if you stop and you feel it. But you have. To stop. And feel it.

Ya know what, no...

"He would like you if you'd let him."

 

A statement which promptly elicited an eye roll and a terse "he's been given ample opportunity to 'like me'.  Now shut up with the girlie stuff and drink your beer."

 

This is not the first time that this has been said to me, and it probably won't be the last.  And it usually always gets an eye roll, universal indicator of "that's crap".  I know the difference between letting someone care for me, and having to poke, prod, and cajole to persuade someone that it really is ok to care for me.  For one, I'm not that frantic to be in a relationship.  Two, I am not your mother and therefore will probably throw in the towel if I have made it readily apparent that I see you for who you are, like you for that, don't want to change it, and you for WHATEVER reason can't handle that.  There are times in life that you have to fight to love someone, but if I don't have the foundation, then I likely don't have the patience.  So even if those feelings might be lurking in there somewhere, and even if the might be obvious to everyone that knows me and him, it's outta my hands.  

 

I know that I am weird and I know that people wonder about me and I know that the way that I come across is not always the way that I am.  That said, I also know when I've tried and struggled enough to get my point across and the struggle just becomes futile.  There have been a few men that I've cared deeply about (Caleb, for one, which is probably why I am so resistant to this line of thinking) who just couldn't freakin' handle it.  Honestly, I would almost rather "I just don't feel the same way, Kelly" than "I do absolutely feel the same way but I don't know how to deal with it."  Not only have you made it difficult and seemingly stupid for me to care about you, but you're also showing a weakness that is bewildering, which hurts just as much.  

 

Which is why I so vehemently refuse to make it about me.  Yeah, right, I am the one who's throwing a wrench in the cogs.  It's me that has been as transparent as my emotionally retarded little heart will allow, but I am the one who won't let him in.

 

Eye roll, call bullshit, and move on.

My body aches again. It's not lack of sleep, it's not illness (that I know of), the last major exercise that I did on was on Sunday…so the soreness should have worn off by now…

So that can only mean that typical is rearing it's ugly head again…fabulous.

I need a hug.

I can smell fear and b.s. from a three mile radius…so why am I stumped with this one? I wish I was better at this by now and not so easily influenced by someone who can make me laugh…and who actually thinks I’m funny, too, and not some three headed monster out to rob him of his bachelorhood and all of the fun in his life...well, I guess that remains to be seen.

Oh my God, why am I awake at 7 am on a Saturday? Blasphemous!

Oh yeah...it's 'cause I am oddly lazy lately, yet strangely motivated by the slightest notion, which made me leap out of bed at 6:45 am.

I need to work on my priorities...

The hardest battles are the ones that you have with yourself.

I am sitting on my hardwood (read: parque) floor, legs wrapped around the tiny stool that Robert brought me from Africa, the one that I use for a computer stand.

My thoughts my attention my desire float in and out, listen to a hot song by Kings of Leon and I am distracted by the rawness of his voice...I think he probably smokes too many cigarettes or other things and that's why he sounds like that...then I think of:

"Is this weed?"....
"I should take your ass to jail, you know that?"
"For what?"
"For what?!? Look at this!!"
"That's just nuttin' but a cigarette, man!"
"This ciga-weed!"
"Well it look like a cigarette."
"You betta have glaucoma."
"I do."


In and out between fantasy and reality. I should be asleep, I am tired, but I should also write, I should be writing I should be sleeping....I should I should I should...I should just fucking be, screw all the other nonsense in between.

But I am a night owl. I like the dark.

Not so much to see in the dark, not so much to take in.

I like being awake to hear the collective sigh of the city, asleep. I like being a night owl in this city because I know that I can always find some other vagrant soul knocking about, too.

Yep. There's always somebody.

I am a night owl.

I like the dark.


Not so much to see, in the dark. Not so much to take in.


I like being awake to hear the collective breath of the city, asleep. I like being a night owl in this city, because I know I can always find some other vagrant soul knockin' about somewhere, too.

Illustrating the process:
Draft 1: Direct from brain, translated without edits:


I saw you once
Inked up
Pierced
Charming as possible
After being jailed for two years

Your energy was fierce
Something to prove
Nothing to lose
And god those eyes
That smiled like ya
Already knew

All this, fine, made you noticed
What made you remembered
Was your arms
Arranged
Across my lap as you knelt beside me
Casual as anything
Chatting away

My friend was listening
I certainly was not
Captivated as I was
By the slight warm pressure
Of your hand
Around my ankle

Rare is it
In such a fine
Drinking establishment
That I pause
Focus
And breathe

And after only once
Really still see you so clearly


I don’t think that it’s done, it doesn’t feel done. And here’s where the breakdown begins, and where I need to school myself: I have to finish it. I get rough stuff down all of the time, and it’s fine, but I know if I sit still for long enough, focus and try beyond the initial impact, it will be better. I have to bridge the gap between knowing that it can be better, and actually making it that way.

Oh. Look. It's raining. Thank you for the rain...can u please make it stop? Thanks.

Ah, insomnia. My old friend. It has been awhile, but can't say that I've missed you.

I miss "my kids". I miss my ecentric little autistic kids, my so ADHD that I fall off chairs and run into walls kids, my sweet CP kids with their resoundingly hopeful little spirits.

My little band of misfits, the ones that I understood. The ones that it was worth it to try for, and cry for, because at least then I was making a difference.

What the fuck am I doing now?

Becoming numb to nearly everything was not a sign on the path. I guess I never really knew that it was a choice...because in the end, it all comes down to choices. Everytime.

10 Freakin' minutes every mo' Fu' day...if it damn near kills me.

So I have a character. She's weak and literally just an outline, like if you saw her walking on the street all you would see would be this pen sketch of a chick on a piece of lined paper blowing by...

Kinda like me.

I figure it this way: I've got another year and four months on my lease...another nearly 5 months until I'm 30. 3o. I didn't shudder this time, but every time I say it, I gotta at least say it twice. I think in that time, I can do this. I can write something that I like (knock on wood, I don't like anything) and do something with it. And if I start the positive energy now, maybe that might actually be true.

I know that I am ok with floating in the tide because I don't want to dissappoint myself. That's fine for a 10 year old whose dealt with the small things that I have, but not for a 30 year old. 30.

Jesus Christ.

The edges of my resolve are blurring.

Things that I would have never considered before are coming into sharper focus...

And I realize that I don't want you to be that boy to me. I am realizing that there are a lot of things that I want and don't want and I am denying what I want and dealing with what I don't want...why am I doing that?

Why am I working so hard against being what I am?

I've been moving color around to train my mind to let go.

It's helping. The deep pigmented colors make me silly happy and the ugly, weak ones make me contrite...make me realize that the bad is just as necessary as the good, as ugly and weak as it is.

Hmmm...

Wonder why pain makes some people want to cry and it makes me want to punch someone in the face?

What might this say about me?

Curious...

Color.

Inky, seal black that glows a burnished, glossy sheen. Red of the insides, freshly pumped blood, Bordeaux held over a candle flame. Deep deep deep down that color lies within her - it represents life and rage and rich, brightly glorious and slightly disastrous beauty.

Heat, juicy red lips pulled back over teeth that bite into a plump bursting fruit. Red, against black and white, radiance of crimson soul held up to a backdrop of starkness and light...the contrast so pure it robs the lungs of their breath for seconds on end. Red fabric clinging to milk-cream soft skin, grazing the breasts and exposing a collarbone meant to display the throat...a pulse trickles, flutters by each second and hounds it's body with its presence - your heart is here, your heart is here, is here, is her.

Fingertips smudge rouged lips and cause eyelids to fly closed...the touch is so faint and so promising that there can be no other moment in the world but this one. In the stillness when everything stops for a time, feelings are okay, to be felt and to be seen. The planes of a face, the scoop of a jawbone meeting a tender neck is all for the offering, the taking.

This is another space that they inhabit - just this tiny nook that she had been looking for and was missing, every time. She warmed at the thought: Love was so much warmer, felt to the fingertips, than what she had been experiencing.

Home.

2/23/09
At Merrion Square

Maybe I was avoiding writing for so long because it's like any other habit: the more you do it, the more you want to do it. Until it keeps you up at night. Until it steals your appetite. If this is my habit, the happier I am for it. I talk, and all I want to do is write. I read, I want to write. I also think that the Virgo in me (so funny how I identify myself that way) was noticing that what I was writing wasn't good...enough...for the perfectionist critic...me...

But I think now, I've learned this lesson, a big life lesson that might also apply to relationships, romantic and otherwise, if they are strong. You love it, you do it no matter what. The good, bad, boring, inane, pointless, stifling, insulting, you do it anyway. So I write, through the mediocrity, right on to brilliance. You still the contributing, uninvited yet obsessed-over voices, you call forth your own strong, clear voice and you commence. This is what I do, it's what I love. This IS me.

My face mashed into my forearm, I write with my eye-line level to the page. Something I've always done. I look like a maniac. I feel like writing is the same quirk, something I've always done. It is deeply satisfying, to scratch a page with my pen again.

She paints her eyes as black as night now
She pulls those shades down tight
Oh yeah, theres a smile when the pain comes,
The pains gonna make everything alright, alright yeah

I remember driving somewhere with Matt, one of his infamous mix cds in my cd player. Deep in conversation, though I am sure it was about nothing, like umbrellas and how people seem to go stupid when using them, I was idly skipping through the cd. I scrolled through She Talks to Angels, the Black Crows song above, and Matt smacked my hand away to tune it back in.

"Kelly. NEVER skip She Talks to Angels. Ever." He delivers with a meaningful stare.

I guess I remember this moment from eons ago because of the way he went from ginormous goofball to deadpan serious in .5 seconds, which he is still apt to do over music. I remember loving my friend a little bit more that day because it reminded me of the way in which we both seem sometimes to want to wrap ourselves in a blanket of music, notes, words, feelings and all, and be done with the world around us. Music is sacred, music is religious, music is what has kept all three of us Monkeys afloat through many times when we felt sure we might drown. The music is always there, always influencing some corner of our brain to motivate, calm or induce the emotion that we're trying so desperately to stuff down deep inside.

So no wonder that She Talks to Angels propelled me towards my computer like an Irishman to a glass of an 18 year batch of whiskey.

I've got a pot of coffee on that I've nipped from throughout the day. My weekend has consisted of cozying up under the blankets and consuming an Anna Maxted book from cover to cover...my only temptation is a cute boy who oddly won't be put off, no matter how much I let Queen Witch the Sarcastic Bitch loose on him. And I have to say, as cute as he is, I am barely tempted. Old habits die hard, and this one, knock on wood, seems to be clutching at it's last breath. Please? Please God, please?

I live in Manhattan in what should be someone's walk in closet and pay dearly for it. I can hear sounds of merriment outside my window that start at around 8 pm on Friday and slowly fade in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Sounds that used to shunt me out the door in search of at least some banal form of social interaction, now make me happy for those people who are celebrating an end to what was no doubt a hard week, and then have no trouble ferreting deeper under my down-filled blanket and returning my nose to my book. I used to torture myself over why I slave to live in this box (which, consequently I adore because it's "mine" even though it is a box) yet seem to be just fine and dandy with the few occasions that I choose to turn my phone off, try to turn my brain off, and relax alone. Used to being the operative phrase. Because honestly, and especially since I've had a batch of the St. Augustine friends up here, I am just loosing the will to nod and smile at people like a bobble head doll while silently wondering if they are even listening or interested in what I am saying, because I sadly don't give a wit about what they are talking about, either. And that's if I can hear them over the din of voices competing to be heard over whatever style of music is being played to loud.

My St. Augustine friends, My People, have refreshed the feeling that I get when I hang out with genuine, kind, fun loving folks. I relax and I allow more of myself to show, instead of doling it out in rations because I can't ever be sure if someone cares. I know that I don't try hard enough, but for some reason I feel beat down and unwilling to fight to be loved. And in the end I know for a fact that it really shouldn't be that hard.

Back to ten minutes.

At least until I am not so drained...

The good news is, I can type with minimal problems. So Monday won't suck that bad.
The bad news is that I am worried about someone who is special to me, and I know that all I can do is sit back and hope that he can work it out. I have faith in him...I just wish that I could fix it.

In other, mixed-emotion news:
We killed a bottle of Jameson between the three of us. I wasn't aware how good the 12 year batch is, which is knowledge I might have been better off without, ha.

I heart Mexican Radio. I do not heart bars (Gatsby's) where the douchebag to cool people ratio is five to one.

You, I might deal with later. Or maybe not.

If you cannot say it to my face, sober, with no inhibition, then I don't know what to say to you...

I've said it all.

Twice.

I can't say it anymore. I would...

But you won't let me.

Loyalty is a funny thing.

If I care about you, no matter what the "status" (status, also a funny thing) of our friendship is, I end up being loyal to you, almost to a fault, it seems.

Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with being loyal. In fact, I think that too many people these days don't honor and value their friendships enough to be that way. People don't honor and value other things like they used to, either, if you know what I'm sayin'.

Which is why, when I felt bad about being loyal to someone, I started to wonder why I felt this way. On the surface, I thought it was because I might have created the perfect storm for another missed opportunity, and I am getting to the point where I can't count all of the missed opportunities I've had on my fingers and toes. For the most part, these typically end up like that old Garth Brooks song: "sometimes God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers", so alls well that ends well.

But then, as I do, I started to think about it more. I started to question why I was loyal to someone who might not be as loyal to me, when we never really had anything major to be loyal to. When I let that reduction sit in the pot for awhile, I realized it was because I was trying to make light of something that is considered no big deal in this day and age. I was starting to let the lemmings affect my thinking. No bueno.

So let's break it down here. Bear with me, because this will probably make no sense to anyone but me (which I'm pretty used to so whatever):

I don't feel bad for bringing it up. I would rather all the cards be on the table in the beginning, than have a rumor be handed up from under the table that undoubtably would make distrust spread like wildfire.

If I were to pick, if I were to look back at the years there, if I were to say that there was one person I was interested in getting to know, it would be you. I have been intrigued for a long time, and I've never had the opportunity to do anything about it. And I don't like the fact that when I did, it was 6 am and we were both...had both been...well, drinking. But I might point out, it takes two to make dicey decisions at 6 am (I was up for 24 hours at that point, what's your excuse? Kidding. Only kidding.)

So, while I'm probably getting judged for flying off at the mouth too soon, it is what it is. And both of these things are a part of who I am...flying off at the mouth and "it is what it is", that is. And if you are judging or assuming without knowing, then you should stop, just like I should.

Time is what I've got.

Patience is what I'm workin' on.

But that doesn't mean I'm not crossing my fingers and such.