this certainly has been an interesting couple of days. i feel like things can be so backwards sometimes that drastic measures have to be taken for them to be set straight.
i don't like for my friends to be made fools of. not that anybody does, but i've come to realize that when faced with the dilemma to shut up or stick up for a friend in a situation where you may be looked upon as ridiculous, shut up is the route traveled.
i can't say i have stopped caring about what others think of me. i think we all do. i think that's human. but i've gotten to a point in my life where i have built concrete ideals of what it is i believe, and when it comes to those things in conflict, i will defend them without a care of what someone else thinks.
i can deal with someone thinking i'm an idiot for standing up for something or someone i love. especially when i see that others around them aren't doing it. especially when the one person who is supposed to have your back doesn't, because they want to look cool. it doesn't take but one person to offer a hand of protection.
that's issue number one. issue number two is that of liars.
to the you who is concerned: i know what you have been telling people about me, and i thought you were smarter and more respectful than that. one day, everything that you have said that was an extension of or blatant expulsion of the truth will come back and hit you in the head, and you will realize the lies you told to save face will only make you look worse on the boomerang back around.
and it's going to happen very soon. not by my hand... i've been out of your life for a while. but trust me. this is not going to be pretty when it all comes to a head. i am watching this be destroyed from the inside out, and soon the foundation is going to fall.
and i'm not sorry, because you deserve it, although i thought for such a long time that you were never capable of this type of fabrication.
ex-relationships are weird. on one hand, it makes sense to be friends, until that blows up in your face. but when you cut the ties clean at the end of everything, it ends up coming back to you in the form of acrid lies that have been chipping silently away at your character without you ever knowing.
either way, you're fucked.
k.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Monday, August 10, 2009
on the flip side
isn't it funny the things we love about someone in the beginning, are the same things we can't stand about them in the end? the way they may chew their food; the way they lightly snore at night right after they fall asleep; the way they frown when you tell them something that's the truth although they didn't want to hear it...
i have always found this perplexing. and what's even more so, is the fact that the things you initially hate about that significant other, somehow makes you more determined to be in a relationship with them. they're broke? let's help them get a job. they're a mean drunk? let's help them get sober. they're insecure? let's help them build some confidence...
broken wing syndrome. like whoa.
my friend anne was recently left to the wayside with her boyfriend of two years. we'll call him bill. so bill was a drifter, a smart and kind of shy guy with a very offbeat sense of humor, tall, and relatively handsome. good-looking enough to let the fact that he was 30 and working the foodrunning shift at the restaurant slide. so they had been dating for two years when i met both of them about six months ago upon my move to boston. i thought the pairing slightly strange, but whatever, you can't help who you fall in love with, right?
anne is one of the smartest people i have ever met in my travels. she goes to MIT, is young, and can finish a crossword in an hour without looking on the backside of the page to cheat, like me. she holds up a full time job serving the douches in harvard square in addition to being a full time student at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. she's very quiet but has a razor sharp wit when you least expect it, which makes her even more intriguing. and while her ability to laugh at others and herself is quick and hot, she's incredibly humble and one of the least superficial people i know. not to mention she's naturally gorgeous to boot. so that's always a plus.
so she comes into work one day about two weeks ago overbearingly quiet, and after a couple hours confesses to me that bill has broken up with her. i was shocked - i had just seen them out two nights before and everything seemed fine between them. but here's where it gets ridiculous. she was broken up with because of a compliment about her man's, ahem, member, which was taken in a very different way than how she meant it.
he accused her of only liking him for his body and walked out on her. it makes it so much more insulting considering the fact that she supported him during two stretches of unemployment and stayed with him for the simple fact that she enjoyed his company and truly loved who he was and not what he did. i couldn't help but think what an idiot he was for letting her go, and how lucky she was to be rid of him and his extra baggage.
we went back and forth that day, going over the things she loved and the things she hated about bill, only to come to the conclusion that somehow, those lines had crossed over themselves and flip-flopped. she used to love his quirky laugh, which now made her cringe at the thought of hearing it. she said she never minded the fact that he didn't have a stable job until recently, which she resented him for as he pretty much used her as a plateau for leverage. and i realized...
i have done the same thing with not one, not two, but all of the serious relationships i have been involved with. the same things i fall in love with, are the same reasons why i leave in the end. and vice-versa. every one of the men who have loved me for who i was, hated me for who i was by the time it was over. do i think it's a bad thing? how can it be. i'm still standing, and still happy with myself, and i still believe that i had all good intentions for the men that i loved in return.
do many of them talk to me anymore? not really. i still talk to scott, because he has indefinitely apologized for the way he treated me when we were together in college. i talk to eric every once in awhile but i can tell he resents me for choosing my career over being with him. duffy has written me off completely, and mike... well, i respect his reasons for the change of heart, although i don't agree with some of them. what can i do? we are all only human, and are here for the primary reason to learn through our mistakes.
i don't think i was an angel in these relationships. i don't think that i was the sole mender for their broken wings. but i contributed, no matter where they are in the world or their lives now, and that's all the thanks i can ask for, really. they all did the same for me, and shaped me into the person i have come to love.
anne and i are going out tomorrow night as a mourning process for our exes. we will be wearing some sassy new hats my mother got me from an estate sale with black mesh veils as a tribute to the regret of a loss of a feeling. because now, that's really all i can say that i have.
i'm old enough to know better, but young enough to laugh at all this. it's the only thing i got, and i'm the best at making a meal with leftovers. enjoy the things you love about someone while you do. hopefully, they won't turn around on you one day and freeze over the ability to appreciate both the bad and the good about the ones that you love.
k.
i have always found this perplexing. and what's even more so, is the fact that the things you initially hate about that significant other, somehow makes you more determined to be in a relationship with them. they're broke? let's help them get a job. they're a mean drunk? let's help them get sober. they're insecure? let's help them build some confidence...
broken wing syndrome. like whoa.
my friend anne was recently left to the wayside with her boyfriend of two years. we'll call him bill. so bill was a drifter, a smart and kind of shy guy with a very offbeat sense of humor, tall, and relatively handsome. good-looking enough to let the fact that he was 30 and working the foodrunning shift at the restaurant slide. so they had been dating for two years when i met both of them about six months ago upon my move to boston. i thought the pairing slightly strange, but whatever, you can't help who you fall in love with, right?
anne is one of the smartest people i have ever met in my travels. she goes to MIT, is young, and can finish a crossword in an hour without looking on the backside of the page to cheat, like me. she holds up a full time job serving the douches in harvard square in addition to being a full time student at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. she's very quiet but has a razor sharp wit when you least expect it, which makes her even more intriguing. and while her ability to laugh at others and herself is quick and hot, she's incredibly humble and one of the least superficial people i know. not to mention she's naturally gorgeous to boot. so that's always a plus.
so she comes into work one day about two weeks ago overbearingly quiet, and after a couple hours confesses to me that bill has broken up with her. i was shocked - i had just seen them out two nights before and everything seemed fine between them. but here's where it gets ridiculous. she was broken up with because of a compliment about her man's, ahem, member, which was taken in a very different way than how she meant it.
he accused her of only liking him for his body and walked out on her. it makes it so much more insulting considering the fact that she supported him during two stretches of unemployment and stayed with him for the simple fact that she enjoyed his company and truly loved who he was and not what he did. i couldn't help but think what an idiot he was for letting her go, and how lucky she was to be rid of him and his extra baggage.
we went back and forth that day, going over the things she loved and the things she hated about bill, only to come to the conclusion that somehow, those lines had crossed over themselves and flip-flopped. she used to love his quirky laugh, which now made her cringe at the thought of hearing it. she said she never minded the fact that he didn't have a stable job until recently, which she resented him for as he pretty much used her as a plateau for leverage. and i realized...
i have done the same thing with not one, not two, but all of the serious relationships i have been involved with. the same things i fall in love with, are the same reasons why i leave in the end. and vice-versa. every one of the men who have loved me for who i was, hated me for who i was by the time it was over. do i think it's a bad thing? how can it be. i'm still standing, and still happy with myself, and i still believe that i had all good intentions for the men that i loved in return.
do many of them talk to me anymore? not really. i still talk to scott, because he has indefinitely apologized for the way he treated me when we were together in college. i talk to eric every once in awhile but i can tell he resents me for choosing my career over being with him. duffy has written me off completely, and mike... well, i respect his reasons for the change of heart, although i don't agree with some of them. what can i do? we are all only human, and are here for the primary reason to learn through our mistakes.
i don't think i was an angel in these relationships. i don't think that i was the sole mender for their broken wings. but i contributed, no matter where they are in the world or their lives now, and that's all the thanks i can ask for, really. they all did the same for me, and shaped me into the person i have come to love.
anne and i are going out tomorrow night as a mourning process for our exes. we will be wearing some sassy new hats my mother got me from an estate sale with black mesh veils as a tribute to the regret of a loss of a feeling. because now, that's really all i can say that i have.
i'm old enough to know better, but young enough to laugh at all this. it's the only thing i got, and i'm the best at making a meal with leftovers. enjoy the things you love about someone while you do. hopefully, they won't turn around on you one day and freeze over the ability to appreciate both the bad and the good about the ones that you love.
k.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
aww, look how cute you are with your big grown up words
ahem. this is dedicated to the women who need reassurance that ex-girlfriends are crazy. it's verbatum , cut and copied.
"who are you to talk about fucking someones boyfriend behind their back??? r u kidding me? ive seen first hand how you like to break apart relationships. you suck not only b/c you bash others for doing exactly what you yourself have been guilty of... you also tell yourself that your a better person for fitting into a size 2. i guess if it helps you sleep at night... fyi i fit in a size 2 also...but i didnt have to expel my dinner to do so. have fun with your unicorns you fucking freak!"
this is the best thing ever... to affect and be affected. i think it's worth a little abuse to get so far under someone's thick, dull skin that they feel it's worth them projecting everything bad they did onto another, just so they can build some sort of transparent decency around their bad decisions.
to all the psycho exes of the world...
for your information, if i stole him from you, then he lied about it to me. but i commend him on his second (less psychotic) choice. second of all, i left you alone. you have constantly tried to befriend me, and for what? so you can anger me with your lack of grammar and punctuation skills and your overbearing use of cliches (case in point: on the tip of my tounge? what the fuck is a tounge and why did you decide to use it so many times in your futile attempt at poetry?)? and lastly, i'm sure the literary term of sarcasm is way over your head, but the size two comment was a joke, sweetheart. i wouldn't have posted anything about it if i hadn't had several mutual acquaintences bring it to my attention and you tried to, once again, be my friend.
i don't give a shit what the fuck you look like, who the fuck you want the world to know you are, and how the fuck you think i live my life. it would be nice if you would do the same for me.
and i never tell myself i'm a good person, dumbass. haven't you ever read my emo bullshit poetry? i'm all about the realization of how i have ruined others. hypocrasy is inherent in human nature; you and i both fall victim to that, my dear. perfection is boring anyway. so as you aspire towards that, i'll chill back here with the sinners. pass the fucking jameson, please.
as far as the unicorn comment... i suggest you back the fuck up on that one. unicorns rule, and you evidently don't understand metaphors. it's funnier to me that you STILL read my shit current enough to know my latest bad blogs. it's adorable, really. now can we both agree to shut the fuck up please? i'm getting tired of you being around so much, especially since i DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOUR LIFE.
do me the same favor and lets get on with our different paths.
by the way, how's the acting working out for you? any big shows there in atlanta? yeah, that's what i thought.
k.
ps: you think i'm so horrible? what about the poem i wrote when i found out your grandfather died? it's called a windy twilight, in my archives, and you should be ashamed of yourself for making yourself believe i'm a soulless bitch just cause you don't have a grip on your jealousy. en-fucking-joy.
"who are you to talk about fucking someones boyfriend behind their back??? r u kidding me? ive seen first hand how you like to break apart relationships. you suck not only b/c you bash others for doing exactly what you yourself have been guilty of... you also tell yourself that your a better person for fitting into a size 2. i guess if it helps you sleep at night... fyi i fit in a size 2 also...but i didnt have to expel my dinner to do so. have fun with your unicorns you fucking freak!"
this is the best thing ever... to affect and be affected. i think it's worth a little abuse to get so far under someone's thick, dull skin that they feel it's worth them projecting everything bad they did onto another, just so they can build some sort of transparent decency around their bad decisions.
to all the psycho exes of the world...
for your information, if i stole him from you, then he lied about it to me. but i commend him on his second (less psychotic) choice. second of all, i left you alone. you have constantly tried to befriend me, and for what? so you can anger me with your lack of grammar and punctuation skills and your overbearing use of cliches (case in point: on the tip of my tounge? what the fuck is a tounge and why did you decide to use it so many times in your futile attempt at poetry?)? and lastly, i'm sure the literary term of sarcasm is way over your head, but the size two comment was a joke, sweetheart. i wouldn't have posted anything about it if i hadn't had several mutual acquaintences bring it to my attention and you tried to, once again, be my friend.
i don't give a shit what the fuck you look like, who the fuck you want the world to know you are, and how the fuck you think i live my life. it would be nice if you would do the same for me.
and i never tell myself i'm a good person, dumbass. haven't you ever read my emo bullshit poetry? i'm all about the realization of how i have ruined others. hypocrasy is inherent in human nature; you and i both fall victim to that, my dear. perfection is boring anyway. so as you aspire towards that, i'll chill back here with the sinners. pass the fucking jameson, please.
as far as the unicorn comment... i suggest you back the fuck up on that one. unicorns rule, and you evidently don't understand metaphors. it's funnier to me that you STILL read my shit current enough to know my latest bad blogs. it's adorable, really. now can we both agree to shut the fuck up please? i'm getting tired of you being around so much, especially since i DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOUR LIFE.
do me the same favor and lets get on with our different paths.
by the way, how's the acting working out for you? any big shows there in atlanta? yeah, that's what i thought.
k.
ps: you think i'm so horrible? what about the poem i wrote when i found out your grandfather died? it's called a windy twilight, in my archives, and you should be ashamed of yourself for making yourself believe i'm a soulless bitch just cause you don't have a grip on your jealousy. en-fucking-joy.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
bringing home the bacon
"his name," she said with a slight curl in her voice,"is jeremiah bacon."
how oddly fitting, i thought, considering his line of work. i was googling the name of the man who is nat's latest interest, who also happened to be the executive chef at the new restaurant she'll be working with. in an effort to save money for our newfound desire to conquer new york city, the restaurant industry was once again the only sure bet for a good payout at the end of the day. it's funny, she has a degree from one of the biggest universitys of the south and a new certificate as an estetician, and she is still going back to serving. which is equivalent to what i'm doing, which is making a living off of go go dancing in clubs. this is what our lives have come to.
ugh. back to the bacon. i was presented with a picture of a man surrounded by a halo of pots, with "don'f fuck with me or i'll cleaver your skull" eyes, looking into the camera lens with not so much as a gleam of interest in what the viewer thinks of him. very intense. and very familiar. "you make sure he's not a virgo yet?" i asked.
"not yet. but if he is, there's no way in hell." if you like crazy, you'd like a chef. if you like crazy with a side of neurosis, you would LOVE a virgo chef. *ding* orders up!
i had a series of virgo chefs in my past. the first one, and most integral, was one i'll call the 4th. he was the catalyst of the chefs that would follow... portland, the best friend, mohawk, mooseface. all culinary artists; all virgos. i was sixteen when i met (well, re-met, but that's a different story) the 4th, a line cook at (ironically enough) the same restaurant i met mooseface at six years and one state later. it was my very first job as a hostess and he was perfection to me... quiet, brooding, and beautiful... and being sixteen, i thought it would last forever. "forever" lasted on and off over the following six years, until it finally occurred to me that he was extremely possessive slash controlling, not to mention BAT-SHIT CRAZY. i blame not knowing this important observation on the fact that we were long-distance the entire relationship, not my fukkin thick-ass head.
i digress. during those six years, during the off seasons of our long tirade, i met and wooed all the rest. no one really stuck, because as it turns out, they were all either possessive or not that interested. with the exception of mooseface.
mooseface was everything that my boyfriend before him was not. he was tall and hadsome and he made money. he made a lot of money, actually, and at twenty-one i was working five jobs to support the unpaid ballet company i was working for in south atlanta; i wasn't aware of the concept of having money in excess to spend. before that, i had dated a guy who treated me horribly and fucked with my mind so that i thought he treated me fair. he should have been in school for law, if it wouldn't have interrupted his plans to be a schmuck dropout pothead. so coming off this relationship, money and nice dinners and gifts were all the more attractive, as one could imagine. mooseface expressed his attraction to me as a friend first, but soon the friendly glasses of wine turned into flowers and romantical dinners.
this is the catch. he was sleeping with natalie, and i knew that she liked him. we found out later that he was also sleeping or had slept with the other half of the attractive female servers at or around that time, so it makes me feel a little better, but i was still a dick and karma has since never stopped reminding me. long story short, she eventually gave us her consent, and mooseface and i embarked on a year long journey that i like to refer to as, my medevial period.
mooseface and i had things in common. we both liked to smoke pot and drink wine. we both liked good food and pretending like we were wealthy. what else...hmmm... we both liked sex. that's five things in common. what else should i have looked for? what he lacked in conversation he made up for in dick, and i was okay with that. i was a rebound for him, and he was a rebound for me. we decided after much deliberation that i would move in with him the following year, and at that point is when things really started to sour. he was depressed with his life, and he had gotten back into doing cocaine, and gotten me to start doing it more that what i condider to be a healthy vice, even now. you know, given the warning signs... the unpredictable mood swings, the restless nights in bed, the frequent nose bleeds... i should have probably guessed that he was doing something that was detrimental to his health. but la la la i just went about my life, wrapped up in how i was going to make it as a ballet dancer, how i wanted to be thinner, how i wanted to get famous so i could have money to spend instead of just pretending like i had all the money in the world, that i really had no idea that he was coked out of his mind every day.
note to self: two selfish people in a relationship will never work out.
we fought constantly. if we weren't fighting, we were in silence. i would get so bored next to him. it turned out that everything i initially liked about him i hated towards the end. i hated how he chewed his food. i hated how he shaved his body hair. how he laughed, how his mouth opened up wide with his tongue hanging out. how he belittled me in front of other people. on that last morning of us living together, it was not even ten o'clock before the fights began. and i told him i wanted out. i packed a bag and my cat and left down the street to live with sarah and natalie, my ever saving graces. that's right. nat took me in after i stole her thunder. i was a total douche and she acted as if it were all his fault for fukkin me up. that's a true friend.
a week later i got a text from mooseface thanking me, that i had showed him that he had a substance abuse problem. i had no idea what he was talking about. when i called him he confessed that he was dealing with an addiction to cocaine and that he had told the restaurant, and that they were paying his way for a thirty day stint in rehab. the substance abuse center was located in miami, and he would be leaving in four days to recover from what he called his "last chance at sobriety". he asked me to stay with him, as i was the only thing that would get him through, that i was his guiding light and the single thing in his life that he felt he had done right... and of course, i did what any girlfriend with a heart would do.
i said i absolutely would not be there for him, and for him to go fukk himself.
i was pissed. i couldn't belieive he didn't tell me about his problem. and still, because i never really noticed for whatever reason, i'm not quite conviced he ever had one. i have this theory in the back of my mind that it was an elaborate ploy for me to stay with him. it was all too convenient; the move out, the impending break up, the habit that i never saw. like rehab was the only dire circumstance that would judge how much i loved him and was willing to fight for the relationship's survival. but really, for a couple who's relationship is based on little more than how you want to decorate your future kitchen and different sexual positions a female partner can climax in, it was probably pushing it to say i was going to stand by him due to the strength and nature of our love.
i felt foolish and naive. how could i have trusted this was going to work out again? none of the virgo chefs beforehand ever did. the 4th was all over the map, moving from possessive to cold in under 60 seconds, and then there was portland, who wanted me to move to oregon to be with him, and the best friend, with whom i had no desire to begin a relationship though he called me for about a month in hopes thats where things would go... it was a rise and fall with the virgos, like the tides. it's funny, i have always prided myself on the ability to look at someone and feel whether or not they are good for me as a friend. well, i either am severely disillusioned, or that ability only extends to plain friends, because my history of men has been way over par.
we get lost in projection, i think it's a problem that we all have a tendency towards. the person that you choose to be with has been that person their entire lives. of course, the beginning of a relationship does bring about change in both people. but it's mostly temporary and once it dissipates a little, begins to manifest projection. this is where the phrase, "i don't even know you anymore" comes from. what you actually mean is, "this is totally not who i thought you were and it's your fault for making me think you were the way i wanted you to be". think about it, especially if you have ever said that before or had it said to you. it's infuriating... if you say it, you feel as if you had been fooled. if it's being said to you, it's a direct blow to your character and/or personality.
the human mind will complete certain things if they are missing. there were a whole series of tests we had to do in one of my psych classes in college in which we looked at cards and said a word that was on the card. in most instances, we would say the word and upon closer evaluation, would realize half of the lines on the letters were missing. it was an excercise in understanding that the mind projects what the image really should be so that it's host won't become confused and disoriented with the patchy information the mind is receiving. like this:
Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
this paragraph defines what i've done in every single relationship i have ever been in.
the truth is, if i find something i want, something i have wanted for years with ALMOST all the parameters necessary to be a "dream come true", i complete the lines so that it fits inside nice and neat, even if the framework is loose and slack-strung. it seems that if i believe hard enough, things actually are what i want them to be, even though in the end, it is not something i ever would have desired. i have been left with a trail of disappointment, a string of lovers that i believed were everything i wanted in life, and only because i wanted that life so bad i could taste success in the food they fed me.
sometimes, the only thing we have is desire, and sometimes, that desire overcomes our reality. it's about as healthy as gourmet food every night for dinner, and that kind of gluttony is only useful if you want one thing; to be fat.
and so it was. natalie called me a few days after working with jeremiah bacon and told me it was over. "he's a total douchebag. his name isn't even jeremiah; it's jerry martin bacon. i fell for a man who uses a stage name in the kitchen because his isn't 'marketable' enough. how could i ever be so stupid?" and all i could do, was lower my head in shame.
i know how she did it. i fell in love with my chefs like that too. and even though mine didn't use a stage name like old jerry martin, they didn't ever have to. i might as well have made up one for them. they were never real to begin with anyway.
k.
how oddly fitting, i thought, considering his line of work. i was googling the name of the man who is nat's latest interest, who also happened to be the executive chef at the new restaurant she'll be working with. in an effort to save money for our newfound desire to conquer new york city, the restaurant industry was once again the only sure bet for a good payout at the end of the day. it's funny, she has a degree from one of the biggest universitys of the south and a new certificate as an estetician, and she is still going back to serving. which is equivalent to what i'm doing, which is making a living off of go go dancing in clubs. this is what our lives have come to.
ugh. back to the bacon. i was presented with a picture of a man surrounded by a halo of pots, with "don'f fuck with me or i'll cleaver your skull" eyes, looking into the camera lens with not so much as a gleam of interest in what the viewer thinks of him. very intense. and very familiar. "you make sure he's not a virgo yet?" i asked.
"not yet. but if he is, there's no way in hell." if you like crazy, you'd like a chef. if you like crazy with a side of neurosis, you would LOVE a virgo chef. *ding* orders up!
i had a series of virgo chefs in my past. the first one, and most integral, was one i'll call the 4th. he was the catalyst of the chefs that would follow... portland, the best friend, mohawk, mooseface. all culinary artists; all virgos. i was sixteen when i met (well, re-met, but that's a different story) the 4th, a line cook at (ironically enough) the same restaurant i met mooseface at six years and one state later. it was my very first job as a hostess and he was perfection to me... quiet, brooding, and beautiful... and being sixteen, i thought it would last forever. "forever" lasted on and off over the following six years, until it finally occurred to me that he was extremely possessive slash controlling, not to mention BAT-SHIT CRAZY. i blame not knowing this important observation on the fact that we were long-distance the entire relationship, not my fukkin thick-ass head.
i digress. during those six years, during the off seasons of our long tirade, i met and wooed all the rest. no one really stuck, because as it turns out, they were all either possessive or not that interested. with the exception of mooseface.
mooseface was everything that my boyfriend before him was not. he was tall and hadsome and he made money. he made a lot of money, actually, and at twenty-one i was working five jobs to support the unpaid ballet company i was working for in south atlanta; i wasn't aware of the concept of having money in excess to spend. before that, i had dated a guy who treated me horribly and fucked with my mind so that i thought he treated me fair. he should have been in school for law, if it wouldn't have interrupted his plans to be a schmuck dropout pothead. so coming off this relationship, money and nice dinners and gifts were all the more attractive, as one could imagine. mooseface expressed his attraction to me as a friend first, but soon the friendly glasses of wine turned into flowers and romantical dinners.
this is the catch. he was sleeping with natalie, and i knew that she liked him. we found out later that he was also sleeping or had slept with the other half of the attractive female servers at or around that time, so it makes me feel a little better, but i was still a dick and karma has since never stopped reminding me. long story short, she eventually gave us her consent, and mooseface and i embarked on a year long journey that i like to refer to as, my medevial period.
mooseface and i had things in common. we both liked to smoke pot and drink wine. we both liked good food and pretending like we were wealthy. what else...hmmm... we both liked sex. that's five things in common. what else should i have looked for? what he lacked in conversation he made up for in dick, and i was okay with that. i was a rebound for him, and he was a rebound for me. we decided after much deliberation that i would move in with him the following year, and at that point is when things really started to sour. he was depressed with his life, and he had gotten back into doing cocaine, and gotten me to start doing it more that what i condider to be a healthy vice, even now. you know, given the warning signs... the unpredictable mood swings, the restless nights in bed, the frequent nose bleeds... i should have probably guessed that he was doing something that was detrimental to his health. but la la la i just went about my life, wrapped up in how i was going to make it as a ballet dancer, how i wanted to be thinner, how i wanted to get famous so i could have money to spend instead of just pretending like i had all the money in the world, that i really had no idea that he was coked out of his mind every day.
note to self: two selfish people in a relationship will never work out.
we fought constantly. if we weren't fighting, we were in silence. i would get so bored next to him. it turned out that everything i initially liked about him i hated towards the end. i hated how he chewed his food. i hated how he shaved his body hair. how he laughed, how his mouth opened up wide with his tongue hanging out. how he belittled me in front of other people. on that last morning of us living together, it was not even ten o'clock before the fights began. and i told him i wanted out. i packed a bag and my cat and left down the street to live with sarah and natalie, my ever saving graces. that's right. nat took me in after i stole her thunder. i was a total douche and she acted as if it were all his fault for fukkin me up. that's a true friend.
a week later i got a text from mooseface thanking me, that i had showed him that he had a substance abuse problem. i had no idea what he was talking about. when i called him he confessed that he was dealing with an addiction to cocaine and that he had told the restaurant, and that they were paying his way for a thirty day stint in rehab. the substance abuse center was located in miami, and he would be leaving in four days to recover from what he called his "last chance at sobriety". he asked me to stay with him, as i was the only thing that would get him through, that i was his guiding light and the single thing in his life that he felt he had done right... and of course, i did what any girlfriend with a heart would do.
i said i absolutely would not be there for him, and for him to go fukk himself.
i was pissed. i couldn't belieive he didn't tell me about his problem. and still, because i never really noticed for whatever reason, i'm not quite conviced he ever had one. i have this theory in the back of my mind that it was an elaborate ploy for me to stay with him. it was all too convenient; the move out, the impending break up, the habit that i never saw. like rehab was the only dire circumstance that would judge how much i loved him and was willing to fight for the relationship's survival. but really, for a couple who's relationship is based on little more than how you want to decorate your future kitchen and different sexual positions a female partner can climax in, it was probably pushing it to say i was going to stand by him due to the strength and nature of our love.
i felt foolish and naive. how could i have trusted this was going to work out again? none of the virgo chefs beforehand ever did. the 4th was all over the map, moving from possessive to cold in under 60 seconds, and then there was portland, who wanted me to move to oregon to be with him, and the best friend, with whom i had no desire to begin a relationship though he called me for about a month in hopes thats where things would go... it was a rise and fall with the virgos, like the tides. it's funny, i have always prided myself on the ability to look at someone and feel whether or not they are good for me as a friend. well, i either am severely disillusioned, or that ability only extends to plain friends, because my history of men has been way over par.
we get lost in projection, i think it's a problem that we all have a tendency towards. the person that you choose to be with has been that person their entire lives. of course, the beginning of a relationship does bring about change in both people. but it's mostly temporary and once it dissipates a little, begins to manifest projection. this is where the phrase, "i don't even know you anymore" comes from. what you actually mean is, "this is totally not who i thought you were and it's your fault for making me think you were the way i wanted you to be". think about it, especially if you have ever said that before or had it said to you. it's infuriating... if you say it, you feel as if you had been fooled. if it's being said to you, it's a direct blow to your character and/or personality.
the human mind will complete certain things if they are missing. there were a whole series of tests we had to do in one of my psych classes in college in which we looked at cards and said a word that was on the card. in most instances, we would say the word and upon closer evaluation, would realize half of the lines on the letters were missing. it was an excercise in understanding that the mind projects what the image really should be so that it's host won't become confused and disoriented with the patchy information the mind is receiving. like this:
Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
this paragraph defines what i've done in every single relationship i have ever been in.
the truth is, if i find something i want, something i have wanted for years with ALMOST all the parameters necessary to be a "dream come true", i complete the lines so that it fits inside nice and neat, even if the framework is loose and slack-strung. it seems that if i believe hard enough, things actually are what i want them to be, even though in the end, it is not something i ever would have desired. i have been left with a trail of disappointment, a string of lovers that i believed were everything i wanted in life, and only because i wanted that life so bad i could taste success in the food they fed me.
sometimes, the only thing we have is desire, and sometimes, that desire overcomes our reality. it's about as healthy as gourmet food every night for dinner, and that kind of gluttony is only useful if you want one thing; to be fat.
and so it was. natalie called me a few days after working with jeremiah bacon and told me it was over. "he's a total douchebag. his name isn't even jeremiah; it's jerry martin bacon. i fell for a man who uses a stage name in the kitchen because his isn't 'marketable' enough. how could i ever be so stupid?" and all i could do, was lower my head in shame.
i know how she did it. i fell in love with my chefs like that too. and even though mine didn't use a stage name like old jerry martin, they didn't ever have to. i might as well have made up one for them. they were never real to begin with anyway.
k.
Friday, May 23, 2008
a lack of faith and bitterness towards... you guessed it... love
i'm an idiot.
i'm a fool, and an idiot, and i can't believe in anything anymore. people are promises i don't want to keep, closed books i care not to read, and most of all, i have been hurt by so many that inevitably, have all been me. what a fukking enigma this stupid game is, and how to play it, and worst of all, asking directions to get to the field in the first place is embarrasing.
this game, is not my game. all i know how to do is be unconditional, even though it's like my drunken pedophile stepfather after a bottle of whiskey and internet porn: it hurts me in the end.
i'm sick of making an effort. i want someone to do it for me, to make me understand what it is to really be open and recieving to someone else. i'm so cold sometimes it surprises me, in ways that i could never explain, and further yet, will never try. i don't want to try anymore. i want to be the helen of troy, for wars to be fought for the glory of my genes.
le sigh. that was a little dramatic, i know. but i feel stupid, for being a little girl, and ugly, because i can't see how i could have ever thought i could win this fight. it's all bullshit, and my faith lies now under the covers. that's all i have ever been.
k.
i'm a fool, and an idiot, and i can't believe in anything anymore. people are promises i don't want to keep, closed books i care not to read, and most of all, i have been hurt by so many that inevitably, have all been me. what a fukking enigma this stupid game is, and how to play it, and worst of all, asking directions to get to the field in the first place is embarrasing.
this game, is not my game. all i know how to do is be unconditional, even though it's like my drunken pedophile stepfather after a bottle of whiskey and internet porn: it hurts me in the end.
i'm sick of making an effort. i want someone to do it for me, to make me understand what it is to really be open and recieving to someone else. i'm so cold sometimes it surprises me, in ways that i could never explain, and further yet, will never try. i don't want to try anymore. i want to be the helen of troy, for wars to be fought for the glory of my genes.
le sigh. that was a little dramatic, i know. but i feel stupid, for being a little girl, and ugly, because i can't see how i could have ever thought i could win this fight. it's all bullshit, and my faith lies now under the covers. that's all i have ever been.
k.
Friday, March 21, 2008
lincoln just turned in his grave, mr. salmon...
(original post: september 29, 2007)
if you build yourself up into an image, you must be able to back all of that up. you can't tell everyone you are one way, and then expect to be recieved jovially as another.
if you're going to be a hardass, then be a hardass to everyone. don't go 99% of the way and then wonder why i think you could be condsidered an asshole. it doesn't work like that.
i met this guy last night, probably the only straight guy in all of wet bar, who found it necessary to talk himself up, as if that would be the final decision for me to accept his hand in marriage (and he did propose to me last night, on one knee and everything, in front of all the gay men in atlanta who were screaming at the top of their lungs - everythings a production, even my proposal). what was funny was that he was acting all hard, despite the fact that he was a property funding accountant dressed in a salmon button down (With the collar popped up!) and tapered khakis. he was telling me how he didn't let anyone talk shit to him and that he was raised basically (from what i could gather) by himself or by a pack of wolves. it was loud.
but anyway, he ranted and ranted and ranted and finally, his friend who was sitting next to him watching him talk to me and say all this shit to me turned to him and said, "bitch, we went to school together and i happen to know that you pissed the bed until you were thirteen." oh. my. god.
i don't think i've ever laughed as hard as i did. and i felt bad, too, because he was a nice guy. he just got caught in a facade. but shit, the timing was beautiful. it was on a break in the music, too, so a couple other people around me heard the burn. sick fucking burn, it was.
but this is the deal. you have the option of presenting yourself to people. you can be smart, slutty, shy, or shady. it doesn't matter. i think it was abraham lincoln that said, "you can be anything you want to... just be it well." hm, or something like that. not the point. however you decide to act, then back that shit up. period. don't tell people you are one way and get angry if they don't believe you're really another.
i'm all for people having multiple layers. that's not what i'm saying. i just think it's important that you aren't a two dimensional image of yourself, and when it comes down to it, that gansta ass would rather run for the exit instead of bashing in someone's head that slapped my ass. mr. salmon would have run for the door and let me do my own defending, which is fine with me. i'm not a damsel in distress. but don't make me think you would be the one doing the bashing.
i am a white-bread (haha it's just my race plus a food), middle-class, subservient lady from a yuppie town outside of orlando. while i wish i could say i grew up on the "streets", or that i am "gangsta" and "hard as nails", i'm not. it would be a lie. i'm not a rock star, cause i'm gravely scared of alot of people at one time... i prefer to spend quiet nights at home watching my tv and talking to my cats. i don't have good street cred. and even though some people may say that's what my image portrays, to be honest, i just like piercings and black hair and tattoos. it has nothing to do with me being "hard", and everything to do with the way i like myself to look.
but i don't tell people differently. i don't make them think i am this gangstaa bitch from the streets. i dont talk like that nor do i act that way, and it would be ridiculous if i tried. some of you who read this may remember the disastrous TI commercial starring your friend kathryne... i think that is proof enough that i'm not very with it. but no matter. i like who i am and i don't think i have to be any other way. if people don't like me, they can suck it.
as for poor mr. salmon, well, we're not getting married. he kind of faded away into the crowd after that, and my prince in salmon armor was no more. it's alright. marriage doesn't seem to be something that wants me anyway. but that's a whole 'nother essay.
if you build yourself up into an image, you must be able to back all of that up. you can't tell everyone you are one way, and then expect to be recieved jovially as another.
if you're going to be a hardass, then be a hardass to everyone. don't go 99% of the way and then wonder why i think you could be condsidered an asshole. it doesn't work like that.
i met this guy last night, probably the only straight guy in all of wet bar, who found it necessary to talk himself up, as if that would be the final decision for me to accept his hand in marriage (and he did propose to me last night, on one knee and everything, in front of all the gay men in atlanta who were screaming at the top of their lungs - everythings a production, even my proposal). what was funny was that he was acting all hard, despite the fact that he was a property funding accountant dressed in a salmon button down (With the collar popped up!) and tapered khakis. he was telling me how he didn't let anyone talk shit to him and that he was raised basically (from what i could gather) by himself or by a pack of wolves. it was loud.
but anyway, he ranted and ranted and ranted and finally, his friend who was sitting next to him watching him talk to me and say all this shit to me turned to him and said, "bitch, we went to school together and i happen to know that you pissed the bed until you were thirteen." oh. my. god.
i don't think i've ever laughed as hard as i did. and i felt bad, too, because he was a nice guy. he just got caught in a facade. but shit, the timing was beautiful. it was on a break in the music, too, so a couple other people around me heard the burn. sick fucking burn, it was.
but this is the deal. you have the option of presenting yourself to people. you can be smart, slutty, shy, or shady. it doesn't matter. i think it was abraham lincoln that said, "you can be anything you want to... just be it well." hm, or something like that. not the point. however you decide to act, then back that shit up. period. don't tell people you are one way and get angry if they don't believe you're really another.
i'm all for people having multiple layers. that's not what i'm saying. i just think it's important that you aren't a two dimensional image of yourself, and when it comes down to it, that gansta ass would rather run for the exit instead of bashing in someone's head that slapped my ass. mr. salmon would have run for the door and let me do my own defending, which is fine with me. i'm not a damsel in distress. but don't make me think you would be the one doing the bashing.
i am a white-bread (haha it's just my race plus a food), middle-class, subservient lady from a yuppie town outside of orlando. while i wish i could say i grew up on the "streets", or that i am "gangsta" and "hard as nails", i'm not. it would be a lie. i'm not a rock star, cause i'm gravely scared of alot of people at one time... i prefer to spend quiet nights at home watching my tv and talking to my cats. i don't have good street cred. and even though some people may say that's what my image portrays, to be honest, i just like piercings and black hair and tattoos. it has nothing to do with me being "hard", and everything to do with the way i like myself to look.
but i don't tell people differently. i don't make them think i am this gangstaa bitch from the streets. i dont talk like that nor do i act that way, and it would be ridiculous if i tried. some of you who read this may remember the disastrous TI commercial starring your friend kathryne... i think that is proof enough that i'm not very with it. but no matter. i like who i am and i don't think i have to be any other way. if people don't like me, they can suck it.
as for poor mr. salmon, well, we're not getting married. he kind of faded away into the crowd after that, and my prince in salmon armor was no more. it's alright. marriage doesn't seem to be something that wants me anyway. but that's a whole 'nother essay.
the problems with cargo khakis
(original post: december 11, 2007)
i dated someone for a hot minute some summers ago, a guy with good intentions and a big heart. we didn't work out long before we stopped talking, because i was insistent that i didn't want a boyfriend and because his insistence that he was in love with me. i just wanted a distraction, someone to laugh with and hang out. i think he wanted to live with me.
we did not have much in common, obviously.
anyway, he contacted me after we had blown the fuse with the whole relationship thing and he told me he was moving to california, probably within the next week, to begin work on a huge big money movie with famous actors and hefty paychecks. and he said he wanted to take me out to dinner to hang out one last time.
"like a date?" i asked, implying the dress up/down notch on the bedpost.
"like a date date." he said. "we've never gone out on a nice date."
so that means to dress up a little, agreed? a "date date" is the double dog dare of a "date", and he used the adjective "nice" so that means put a little elbow grease in it. push up the girls, splash some red across your lips, etc...
and i looked damned good. heels, a skirt, a shirt not from a plastic bagged set of four. i answered the door to him in cargo khaki's, converse, and a stained white work shirt. he worked at a gay bar. logo all over the shirt.
i didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed that i had gotten dressed up for him, like i just wasted my precious time brooding over what would make me look good. thinking that i had thought too much into it, i mumbled someting about being overdressed, and quickly went back to my closet. i changed into jeans and a wife beater, wiped the red off my lips, and sullenly walked out the door in silence. we ended up going to a bar and eating fried onion rings and french fries, getting drunk in awkwardness and stella, until he confessed to me that he had purposely dressed down. he said he knew that i was going to dress up and he wanted to act like it wasn't going to be a big deal that he was going to see me, maybe ever again.
he wore khaki's to be cool? he wore khakis to be mother fucking COOL?!? i mean, i had figured that anyway, but if you're gonna do something as childish as pretending not to care about something you actually really do, at least you could have gone with some other form of pants. maybe go plaid, or rip your jeans. don't insult me with khaki fucking cargos...
but why even do that in the first place? why come to my door, and foreclose a possibly wonderful time? there's no fucking point in sabotaging something that has already been sabotaged. we weren't going to go home together and fuck. we weren't even going to fucking make-out a little, so why try and be an even bigger douche? you do realize that this will be the way i think of you for the rest of my life... as the guy who didn't care enough about me just so that he would make himself look good.
it's bullshit.
if you like something, say so. if you want me, have me. but don't dress in khakis when you wish you would have worn jeans. it makes you look bad and the other person feel bad. i was so disappointed in the whole evening, and when i think of him randomly i am always brought back to the fact that he was too cool to be affected by me. insignifigance is not bliss.
i recently talked to him for the first time in about a year and a half. he's doing well, i think he's been dating someone out there for a while now. i hope he dresses up for dates now. she'd probably appreciate that.
k.
i dated someone for a hot minute some summers ago, a guy with good intentions and a big heart. we didn't work out long before we stopped talking, because i was insistent that i didn't want a boyfriend and because his insistence that he was in love with me. i just wanted a distraction, someone to laugh with and hang out. i think he wanted to live with me.
we did not have much in common, obviously.
anyway, he contacted me after we had blown the fuse with the whole relationship thing and he told me he was moving to california, probably within the next week, to begin work on a huge big money movie with famous actors and hefty paychecks. and he said he wanted to take me out to dinner to hang out one last time.
"like a date?" i asked, implying the dress up/down notch on the bedpost.
"like a date date." he said. "we've never gone out on a nice date."
so that means to dress up a little, agreed? a "date date" is the double dog dare of a "date", and he used the adjective "nice" so that means put a little elbow grease in it. push up the girls, splash some red across your lips, etc...
and i looked damned good. heels, a skirt, a shirt not from a plastic bagged set of four. i answered the door to him in cargo khaki's, converse, and a stained white work shirt. he worked at a gay bar. logo all over the shirt.
i didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed that i had gotten dressed up for him, like i just wasted my precious time brooding over what would make me look good. thinking that i had thought too much into it, i mumbled someting about being overdressed, and quickly went back to my closet. i changed into jeans and a wife beater, wiped the red off my lips, and sullenly walked out the door in silence. we ended up going to a bar and eating fried onion rings and french fries, getting drunk in awkwardness and stella, until he confessed to me that he had purposely dressed down. he said he knew that i was going to dress up and he wanted to act like it wasn't going to be a big deal that he was going to see me, maybe ever again.
he wore khaki's to be cool? he wore khakis to be mother fucking COOL?!? i mean, i had figured that anyway, but if you're gonna do something as childish as pretending not to care about something you actually really do, at least you could have gone with some other form of pants. maybe go plaid, or rip your jeans. don't insult me with khaki fucking cargos...
but why even do that in the first place? why come to my door, and foreclose a possibly wonderful time? there's no fucking point in sabotaging something that has already been sabotaged. we weren't going to go home together and fuck. we weren't even going to fucking make-out a little, so why try and be an even bigger douche? you do realize that this will be the way i think of you for the rest of my life... as the guy who didn't care enough about me just so that he would make himself look good.
it's bullshit.
if you like something, say so. if you want me, have me. but don't dress in khakis when you wish you would have worn jeans. it makes you look bad and the other person feel bad. i was so disappointed in the whole evening, and when i think of him randomly i am always brought back to the fact that he was too cool to be affected by me. insignifigance is not bliss.
i recently talked to him for the first time in about a year and a half. he's doing well, i think he's been dating someone out there for a while now. i hope he dresses up for dates now. she'd probably appreciate that.
k.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
nicotine and love: an undying relationship
(original post: september 15, 2007)
people don't change unless they want to. it's like quitting smoking. you can't do it until you really really want to. because otherwise, even though you know it's bad for you, even though you know lighting something and inhaling it into the only organ that we have that makes us breathe couldn't possibly be a sound way to ensure it will still do so sometime down the road, you won't quit until you are absolutely ready.
my father smoked for thirty-five years. he smoked a full pack, and sometimes two packs of camel wides for the last ten years he smoked. he would cough and weeze and mumble about how he needed to quit and how every cigarette was going to be his last. until the next one, and the one after that. i never thought that man would ever stop his beloved habit.
but, like all beautiful romances, this one too bit the dust. after going to see his doctor who told him that if he didn't quit smoking he was not going to live to see sixty. he was fifty-four at the time. i guess a six year death sentence was enough for him to drop the reigns. he quit, about two weeks before our annual christmas trekk to the mountains.
that was an amazing road trip. three dogs, one with a vengeful stomach problem, my two brothers, my brother's girlfriend who is allergic to everything, my bitter french catholic grandmother who had just gotten married and divorced all in under three months, my mother's stop and go driving skills, my father going through nicotine withdrawls, and me, crammed in the backseat with presents and luggage and groceries. all in one big expedition.
all i wanted to do, was smoke a fucking fag. but my arents still didn't know i smoked, or rather, denied that i did, so i couldn't.
i'll tell you, if that's not a fucking slice of heaven, i don't know what is.
but dad did it. he smokes cigars now, which, to me, kind of cancels the whole triumphant quitting thing out. but shit. i guess if you're gonna go, you should go out with style. it's havana time.
now, me, on the other hand, i don't know when i'm going to quit. i know i have to, i know i shouldn't do it because of the career i'm in, and blah blah blah. listen, smoking is not something that has ever been branded as the "goody two shoes" habit. it wasn't sandra dee who started the trend. james dean, marilyn monroe, tommy lee, most of the bad guys in movies, and teenagers full of angst and revolt... it's not a happy coincidence that they all smoke.
smoking is rebellion. rebellion of the body and what it was meant to be used for. inhaling is like telling everyone "i don't fucking care" and doing it with a certain... je ne sais quoi... penchant for masochism, maybe?
smoking is the habit of habits, the queen of hearts, if i may. i say this because we all know what type of people they are. smokers will befriend other smokers because there is a common ground they share. and many non-smokers do that whole coughing thing and wave their hand in front of their face as if there were carcinigeous bees flying all around them. my favorite non-smoker line is "did you know that's bad for you?"
gee. thanks. did you know that you're ugly? at least i can quit.
so, here we have this attitude and now a habit that runs through our blood and makes us crave more. how is this any different than quitting a person?
it occured to me the other day that quitting a cancerous love is alot like quitting smoking. especially if it's something you don't really want to stop. if you cheat, only with one little cigarette, it sets you back to day one, and you have to restart all over again. your heart still craves the nicotine no matter what your head tells it.
love has the same effects that ciggies do, quickening the heart and temporarily releasing tension in the muscles. it puts us in a better mood and makes us forget that there are things out there that are bothering us. love is a longer version of a cigarette break, then.
but when something goes wrong, when you know there is something that has poisoned your heart, a cancerous sort of love... when you know that the only thing that's right is the one thing you don't want to do... quitting smoking is harder than beginning the habit. it's always harder to stop.
you get mad at yourself when you slip up. when you cheat. you were doing so well. you were making progress, getting stronger without the need for nicotine. you didn't crave one as much after a hard day, nor did you think to buy a pack when you stopped to get gas. you are on the path to washing your hands of a bad habit.
but then, one night, you find one single cigarette lying on the floor of your car. you put it to your mouth, taste the sweet musk of the tobacco, and delight that the paper filter still fits perfectly betwixt your lips... there is a lighter you never through away, and it ignites easily under your thumb as you watch the flint spark in front of your eyes. your heart is racing... it's been too long since you felt the fire in your chest, and as you inhale, you feel it run through your veins, under your skin, the length of your body... the smoke ropes up and into your nose from your mouth and you are reminded of the memories you and the cigarette have had in the past... lying on beach blankets and shivering under the cold mountain sky, singing in the car, or coffee in the morning. it is an old friend, who has been there for a long tme, and without ever reaizing it, you had fallen in love.
cigarettes give you cancer. lovers can too. both kill you in some form or fashion. both betray the relationship you never intended on being so strong, that you never knew you had depended on so heavily. and both, you miss when you quit.
one of my favorite quotes of all time is from the writer oscar wilde. he states, "the only temptation i resist, is to resist temptation." i believe oscar wilde died of complications due to alcohol and opium abuse, sometime in his thirties. as far as it pertains to me, i'm hoping that my resistance to resist temptations will eventually make me understand that i am responsible for my health, regardless if it's mental or physical. i'm the one who doesn't want to quit smoking, because smoking is so damn enjoyable, and therefore if i continue to do so i will perish underneath a nicotine hand.
i think oscar wilde was right, though. hey. at least he was honest with himself.
people don't change unless they want to. it's like quitting smoking. you can't do it until you really really want to. because otherwise, even though you know it's bad for you, even though you know lighting something and inhaling it into the only organ that we have that makes us breathe couldn't possibly be a sound way to ensure it will still do so sometime down the road, you won't quit until you are absolutely ready.
my father smoked for thirty-five years. he smoked a full pack, and sometimes two packs of camel wides for the last ten years he smoked. he would cough and weeze and mumble about how he needed to quit and how every cigarette was going to be his last. until the next one, and the one after that. i never thought that man would ever stop his beloved habit.
but, like all beautiful romances, this one too bit the dust. after going to see his doctor who told him that if he didn't quit smoking he was not going to live to see sixty. he was fifty-four at the time. i guess a six year death sentence was enough for him to drop the reigns. he quit, about two weeks before our annual christmas trekk to the mountains.
that was an amazing road trip. three dogs, one with a vengeful stomach problem, my two brothers, my brother's girlfriend who is allergic to everything, my bitter french catholic grandmother who had just gotten married and divorced all in under three months, my mother's stop and go driving skills, my father going through nicotine withdrawls, and me, crammed in the backseat with presents and luggage and groceries. all in one big expedition.
all i wanted to do, was smoke a fucking fag. but my arents still didn't know i smoked, or rather, denied that i did, so i couldn't.
i'll tell you, if that's not a fucking slice of heaven, i don't know what is.
but dad did it. he smokes cigars now, which, to me, kind of cancels the whole triumphant quitting thing out. but shit. i guess if you're gonna go, you should go out with style. it's havana time.
now, me, on the other hand, i don't know when i'm going to quit. i know i have to, i know i shouldn't do it because of the career i'm in, and blah blah blah. listen, smoking is not something that has ever been branded as the "goody two shoes" habit. it wasn't sandra dee who started the trend. james dean, marilyn monroe, tommy lee, most of the bad guys in movies, and teenagers full of angst and revolt... it's not a happy coincidence that they all smoke.
smoking is rebellion. rebellion of the body and what it was meant to be used for. inhaling is like telling everyone "i don't fucking care" and doing it with a certain... je ne sais quoi... penchant for masochism, maybe?
smoking is the habit of habits, the queen of hearts, if i may. i say this because we all know what type of people they are. smokers will befriend other smokers because there is a common ground they share. and many non-smokers do that whole coughing thing and wave their hand in front of their face as if there were carcinigeous bees flying all around them. my favorite non-smoker line is "did you know that's bad for you?"
gee. thanks. did you know that you're ugly? at least i can quit.
so, here we have this attitude and now a habit that runs through our blood and makes us crave more. how is this any different than quitting a person?
it occured to me the other day that quitting a cancerous love is alot like quitting smoking. especially if it's something you don't really want to stop. if you cheat, only with one little cigarette, it sets you back to day one, and you have to restart all over again. your heart still craves the nicotine no matter what your head tells it.
love has the same effects that ciggies do, quickening the heart and temporarily releasing tension in the muscles. it puts us in a better mood and makes us forget that there are things out there that are bothering us. love is a longer version of a cigarette break, then.
but when something goes wrong, when you know there is something that has poisoned your heart, a cancerous sort of love... when you know that the only thing that's right is the one thing you don't want to do... quitting smoking is harder than beginning the habit. it's always harder to stop.
you get mad at yourself when you slip up. when you cheat. you were doing so well. you were making progress, getting stronger without the need for nicotine. you didn't crave one as much after a hard day, nor did you think to buy a pack when you stopped to get gas. you are on the path to washing your hands of a bad habit.
but then, one night, you find one single cigarette lying on the floor of your car. you put it to your mouth, taste the sweet musk of the tobacco, and delight that the paper filter still fits perfectly betwixt your lips... there is a lighter you never through away, and it ignites easily under your thumb as you watch the flint spark in front of your eyes. your heart is racing... it's been too long since you felt the fire in your chest, and as you inhale, you feel it run through your veins, under your skin, the length of your body... the smoke ropes up and into your nose from your mouth and you are reminded of the memories you and the cigarette have had in the past... lying on beach blankets and shivering under the cold mountain sky, singing in the car, or coffee in the morning. it is an old friend, who has been there for a long tme, and without ever reaizing it, you had fallen in love.
cigarettes give you cancer. lovers can too. both kill you in some form or fashion. both betray the relationship you never intended on being so strong, that you never knew you had depended on so heavily. and both, you miss when you quit.
one of my favorite quotes of all time is from the writer oscar wilde. he states, "the only temptation i resist, is to resist temptation." i believe oscar wilde died of complications due to alcohol and opium abuse, sometime in his thirties. as far as it pertains to me, i'm hoping that my resistance to resist temptations will eventually make me understand that i am responsible for my health, regardless if it's mental or physical. i'm the one who doesn't want to quit smoking, because smoking is so damn enjoyable, and therefore if i continue to do so i will perish underneath a nicotine hand.
i think oscar wilde was right, though. hey. at least he was honest with himself.
still life romance
(original post: september 3, 2007)
such smiles,
in your heads,
painted underneath
dropping suns
and ocean
foam at your feet.
smiles splashed
from ear to ear,
against your skull
and down your spine.
it's lovely, there,
in memories and dusk,
with smiles and
skin
and fake kodak settings,
hurt forgotton
in the panorama
of the picture,
and it's beautiful, it's
so easy
to fall back inside,
to let the bad things
slide
and forget
the chaos behind the
smiles.
no,
you'll be happy
there,
amongst the silence
in the 5x8 walls,
living in
a picture-perfect
glossy
and heads so full
of smile and lies.
enjoy
your soulless nights
and careless hearts,
the ocean waves
nipping at your feet
cold,
but fake even now.
k.
i had this boyfriend once who told me that he had fallen in love with me from a picture. before i had ever even met him, he had come over to our house and he had seen me inside a picture frame with my two best friends and knew that he wanted me from that moment on.
at first, i found this romantic, a love at first sight kind of notion, and we dated, for just under a year. until he went psycho on me, and went to rehab for a coke addiction i don't really know if he had. there was a shrine and a dui involved too, but that's another story for another day.
anyway, he said that to me at the very beginning of our relationship, and it slowly started to eat away at me as things went on. how do you fall in love with a picture? what does that mean? what does that say about how well he knows me, falling complacent with a two dimentional glossy from a time he never even knew about...
i slowly began to realize he fell in love not with the girl who trips over air, snorts when she laughs, has a generally messy repretoire with spaghetti and red wine, eats with her fingers, has pummeled ballet hobbit feet...
but rather he fell in love with the idea of what i could be. what i was in that foreign moment that happened to be capured in time and displayed on our coffee table in the living room. he fell in love with the idea of me, two dimentional and blonde, sticking my tongue out at the camera.
him saying that to me should've been the selling point for me to throw a red flag penalty and say, whoa, mister, you are way out of line.
but of course, i didn't, and it was an obstacle laden relationship from that point on. who woulda thunk it? man, was he crazy. i mean, bat-shit, balls to the wall nuts. corn nuts. that's some serious shit. but really good writing.
so we broke up when he decided to abandon me and go to rehab that his work was paying for, for an addiction that he never really had, and i moved in with those same two girls that have never failed to save me. the same picture was up on the living room table, and i had to look at it every day when i sat down on the couches, thinking about the same thing...
how could i be so dumb? i knew when he said he fell in love with me from a picture that it bothered me, in the back of my mind, and i pushed it out. because the blinders were on, because i wanted to believe i loved him too. but that wasn't true love. he fell in love with a two dimentional kathryne, without flaws and insecurities and idiocincracies... which, i have to say, is not who i am.
living up to that one picture was the hardest thing to do for me in that relationship, ironically enough. most girls get in a relationship and are intimidated by another girl who is friends with the significant other. i was intimidated by a inanimate framed picture of myself. i'm so wierd.
but for just cause. i could never be what that picture was to him. never, not in a million years, cause me in that picture was not who i was in real life. we all have these images of ourselves that are tangible, that lay in frames and photo albums, of our good sides and funny faces and aspects of our personalities that are captured in a single milisecond of time, to be for forever. but that's all they are - an aspect of who we are. one thing out of many that create everything who we are.
you can love a picture all you want. this is my best side, loo how cute we were that night, this was so funny it made me piss my pants after we took this picture... that's all fine. but when it's done and said, there are things that a picture can't tell. i don't think erick knew that the picture he fell in love with, behind all those smiles, was a girl who had just relapsed in bulimia and vomited everything she ate back up. that picture was taken at one of the lowest points in my life, but i plastered a smile on my face and posed for the camera anyway. he fell in love with a lie.
so, pictures, to me... well, that's all they are. they aren't a window to the past. they are a posed rendition of a moment. and you can't fall in love with one, because it's not real. it will never manifest, become something that is true, ever again. you can't get those good old times back.
you can only create newer ones.
unless of course, you go to rehab for cocaine. that pretty much stops time in general. look at erick, and lindsay lohan... but they probably deserve eachother anyway. they would make great picture babies.
such smiles,
in your heads,
painted underneath
dropping suns
and ocean
foam at your feet.
smiles splashed
from ear to ear,
against your skull
and down your spine.
it's lovely, there,
in memories and dusk,
with smiles and
skin
and fake kodak settings,
hurt forgotton
in the panorama
of the picture,
and it's beautiful, it's
so easy
to fall back inside,
to let the bad things
slide
and forget
the chaos behind the
smiles.
no,
you'll be happy
there,
amongst the silence
in the 5x8 walls,
living in
a picture-perfect
glossy
and heads so full
of smile and lies.
enjoy
your soulless nights
and careless hearts,
the ocean waves
nipping at your feet
cold,
but fake even now.
k.
i had this boyfriend once who told me that he had fallen in love with me from a picture. before i had ever even met him, he had come over to our house and he had seen me inside a picture frame with my two best friends and knew that he wanted me from that moment on.
at first, i found this romantic, a love at first sight kind of notion, and we dated, for just under a year. until he went psycho on me, and went to rehab for a coke addiction i don't really know if he had. there was a shrine and a dui involved too, but that's another story for another day.
anyway, he said that to me at the very beginning of our relationship, and it slowly started to eat away at me as things went on. how do you fall in love with a picture? what does that mean? what does that say about how well he knows me, falling complacent with a two dimentional glossy from a time he never even knew about...
i slowly began to realize he fell in love not with the girl who trips over air, snorts when she laughs, has a generally messy repretoire with spaghetti and red wine, eats with her fingers, has pummeled ballet hobbit feet...
but rather he fell in love with the idea of what i could be. what i was in that foreign moment that happened to be capured in time and displayed on our coffee table in the living room. he fell in love with the idea of me, two dimentional and blonde, sticking my tongue out at the camera.
him saying that to me should've been the selling point for me to throw a red flag penalty and say, whoa, mister, you are way out of line.
but of course, i didn't, and it was an obstacle laden relationship from that point on. who woulda thunk it? man, was he crazy. i mean, bat-shit, balls to the wall nuts. corn nuts. that's some serious shit. but really good writing.
so we broke up when he decided to abandon me and go to rehab that his work was paying for, for an addiction that he never really had, and i moved in with those same two girls that have never failed to save me. the same picture was up on the living room table, and i had to look at it every day when i sat down on the couches, thinking about the same thing...
how could i be so dumb? i knew when he said he fell in love with me from a picture that it bothered me, in the back of my mind, and i pushed it out. because the blinders were on, because i wanted to believe i loved him too. but that wasn't true love. he fell in love with a two dimentional kathryne, without flaws and insecurities and idiocincracies... which, i have to say, is not who i am.
living up to that one picture was the hardest thing to do for me in that relationship, ironically enough. most girls get in a relationship and are intimidated by another girl who is friends with the significant other. i was intimidated by a inanimate framed picture of myself. i'm so wierd.
but for just cause. i could never be what that picture was to him. never, not in a million years, cause me in that picture was not who i was in real life. we all have these images of ourselves that are tangible, that lay in frames and photo albums, of our good sides and funny faces and aspects of our personalities that are captured in a single milisecond of time, to be for forever. but that's all they are - an aspect of who we are. one thing out of many that create everything who we are.
you can love a picture all you want. this is my best side, loo how cute we were that night, this was so funny it made me piss my pants after we took this picture... that's all fine. but when it's done and said, there are things that a picture can't tell. i don't think erick knew that the picture he fell in love with, behind all those smiles, was a girl who had just relapsed in bulimia and vomited everything she ate back up. that picture was taken at one of the lowest points in my life, but i plastered a smile on my face and posed for the camera anyway. he fell in love with a lie.
so, pictures, to me... well, that's all they are. they aren't a window to the past. they are a posed rendition of a moment. and you can't fall in love with one, because it's not real. it will never manifest, become something that is true, ever again. you can't get those good old times back.
you can only create newer ones.
unless of course, you go to rehab for cocaine. that pretty much stops time in general. look at erick, and lindsay lohan... but they probably deserve eachother anyway. they would make great picture babies.
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