christmas 08

An affair to dismember

It is amazing how it all starts to bleed together...the little apartment in Via Somalia...Thunderstorm symphonies in Memphis...election night in Vegas...whiskey drunk and stumbling through the sunset...Different cities, different languages-both spoken and of the body, different friends and lovers...

Lives that run parallel but never cross.

And I, for all intents and purposes, have lost control of the wheel...because when I jump, I jump off...fearlessly, feet first...try what and whoever on for size. I like a puzzle, a good story...lips...conversation that goes on without breath...being able to feel someone as they enter the room..verve...long sweaty afternoons...art installations...music music music...
And for those of you reading this, YOU...friends and fellow travellers-you are the tread in my wheels...you may not stop me from rolling, but you keep me from spinning out on the shoulder.
But as I sit here, a zillion miles away from some and in bed next to others, I have some decisions to make about the decisions I have made and it starts now.

Phase one is difficult because it involves the Wild Irish Rogue...

I came back to the City a hurricane and he was recovering from a Tsunami...That said, it should have been easy...we should have been the friends that we both needed...or maybe it was that 'need' that created the tension...Now, I am not one for expectations, but I was blindsided.
My impressions of him were completely connected to another person...so to divide him from her and fast forward a decade-brought this completely different person into my life...He was as complex as he was simple, as charismatic as he was cocky and a goodtime all around.

But he was reticent and he was hurting...and the last way to get an answer from him was to ask a question..he was guarded and I think suspicious of me because I was a female-and was somehow there to steal his soul...but I wasn't looking for a soulmate-just a playmate...someone to chase fog with...drink wine and talk music and books..and maybe, just maybe...get tangled up in the wee hours...because most things, like people, seem a little less broken in the dark...

And I wasn't sure what his picture looked like without me in it. I don't know if he was dating or if he passed his free time alone...that was his life, his business...but I did worry about him. He was good people and fragile, I sensed. I felt like he was self-isolating so I ambushed him a couple times...I think he saw it as me wanting more than he was willing to give...but I just wanted him to know I was a safe a place to turn...but I am MUCH better at fucking things up than maintaining them.

Regardless...I gave it a shot..(and a took a few shots as well)

And that door isn't closed completely. If he needed someone to be there, I would...but I am not a monster or a whore and didn't like feeling one...I am not good at being passive, which is what I would have to do to maintain the friendship...I felt when I took issue, he put it all on me...or I needed to operate within his delicate framework-which, I guess is what people do when they date-but we weren't dating...which again, spoke to the problem, I am not sure if he knew where to put me. I am pretty raw and tomboyish-but still a girl...most guys get confused-can't see the kitten inside the lion. I just wanted to say 'Baby, it ain't your heartstrings I've been tugging at'

All good things to end in lieu of good things to come

Will the man who needs wheelchair assistance please remain seated

Will the man who needs wheelchair assistance please remain seated

Today was a comedy of errors...On the first leg of my trip, I met Cocksucker. He was a sawed-off redneck idiot, who, was just smart enough to know he was a moron, and turned that moron outwards to the masses, instead of looking inward for a minute and maybe even reading a book or something. He had a chip on his shoulder bigger than his shoulder and kept snapping at people without any real reason.

It was mostly benign until he mouthed off to this nice little lady...at that point, he made my short list and I waited for his next move, I was going to take him down. See, I have pent-up waitress rage, from years of dealing with people like that douchebag and I could spend years of therapy, calmly and productively working through those feelings-or I can just meet that guy off the clock and use my words.

I tend to lean towards the latter.

But the rest of the flight went off without a hitch. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed.
Oh, but then, because either God loves me or Jesus hates me, Cocksucker was on my connecting flight AND a two hour layover became a 4 hour layover. Cocksucker became Cocksucker raised to the power of Asshole. It was too delicious even for me to imagine where this was going.

At a certain point, I just said, in front of everyone

" It is two hours,two hours in a lifetime is NOTHING, and if the plane falls out
of the sky-it means even less"

Cocksucker just walked off mumbling stupid to himself.

One of the ticket attendants thanked me and then I pulled the other into a pow-wow. I asked her if there was a problem passenger, couldn't she just call security and have them bounced?

She smiled and said

"Do you have a problem or concern about a passenger?"

I returned her smile and replied

"Do I need to?"

We laughed and so it was done.

There were knowing glances and raised fists in glory as security took him away.

The rest of the trip was weird as well...Buddahist monks with cellphones, people speaking Flemish, a creepy guy that sat across from me leering at women long enough that I could tell his type. He liked skinny brunettes..other than that he barely passed his eyes over them...I heard a guy tell his friend his new girlfriend is so hot and so model perfect he keeps waiting for her to tell him that she is a man...uh? Okay.

And as I was leaving the plane, the server in the sky said over the PA
"Will the man waiting for wheelchair assistance please remain seated"

I just laughed. Maybe too loud. Getting hard looks from the man next to me.
But that line was just too perfect, summed it all up.

something borrowed, something true

...For as long as I can remember, major conflict in my life, I have resolved with motion. Hop a plane, get on a bus...In Europe, I rode the rails from London to Sicily...from France to Hungary...taking in some history and taking myself out of whatever equation had become a riddle.

And in this, I saw truth. Distance makes for clarity, I would know what was situational and what was mine. This, in theory, was true. I am very very aware of my flaws...but the isolation of travel, of starting over and having to always rely on me and only MY judgement-atleast in the intial phases of a transfer-has created this reverse Stockholm syndrome...the crazy gets me through the rough stuff instead of my more solid bits...In the past couple of years,especially, I have begun to sympathize with my captor.

It is the quirky, imbalanced, the "Terminal Uniqueness" that took me to Vegas, and that is where the inmates REALLY started running the asylum.
To me, honesty, has always been key...ESPECIALLY with those in my inner sanctum...but in Vegas, that honesty became fractured. I lied about just about everything in the beginning...From what I studied in college to why I moved to there in the first place. I couldn't reveal my political affiliations.I could cite Machiavelli and John Murphy...no harm, no foul. It would be okay and it was-until I became close to my co-workers.

We were always together, on and off the clock, they became my family. And I struggled. Especially with Brenda, because we were SO close, and she would say to me " Something is missing" in reference to my story...

And that fracturing of truth made it easy for me to fall into bed with a married man...and what I realized, yesterday, when I wasn't sure if the day was going to end in plane tickets or a full tank of gas- that our relationship has kept my ability to be honest-broken into pieces.
Since he and I got involved, I haven't been completely honest with anyone. We lied to our co-workers, I lied to my friends...even to the people who knew, I downplayed it. It was taboo, it made people around me uncomfortable...so I just highlighted different elements, walked the crooked lines in my fractured truth...but the fact I was leaving town kept me in the game because when I jump, I jump in and ride it out until the end.

But it hasn't ended. In fact, yesterday, it was clear that we are closer now. The distance has made us friends...though the crazy passion is still there. But what the hell is my motivation now? He is hardly low hanging fruit anymore.What am I maintaining?

And when I sit and trying to put my finger on an actual legitimate feeling for him-I can't come up with one. I mean, we laugh together and have a very open sexual relationship...but I never went into this wanting to be with him. I still don't. Lately, he has been talking about how he doesn't want anything to change between us-which, I don't even know why he would say that? I don't know if he fears that as time passes I will become more attached or if the fears belong to him.He talked about us burning for eternity in hell together. Which is probably the longest committent a man has ever given me-hahaha...I mean I've had men want to marry me, spend a lifetime-but an ETERNITY? It is too ridiculous to even consider.

But again, why am I in this? Boredom? Quite possibly. Though I woke up the other morning, in the sunset, in a familiar though not entirely comfortable bed...(the sun was as bright as I had ever seen it, and the fact that it made-what by all accounts-was a rare appearance-after a white night-was proof enough that god hates me.)

And that bed, or more accurately- the dynamics of the two people that passed the night in it, made me further evaluate what the hell I am doing. When I started to feel comfort or closeness, I wanted to take things to the dirty place. I couldn't just BE. Part of it is biology but the other part? Fear, maybe? Burning the thoughts of a possibility of a bridge? Just burning, senselessly?
But I like that place...buzzing around the city, laughing, listening to music...not taking ANYTHING too seriously...friendship. Can it be that simple or will I fuck it up?

So, I guess my point, is, ultimately, you can travel, live, learn...CULTIVATE...but if you don't stick around long enough to safely close doors, those doors, those lights left on in the dark and far reaching corners of your life, will come and cast long shadows on the now.

And it smarts a little.