....and then the plumbing failed and the bathroom flooded, and I hauled ass to campus to drop Ears then back again, running several projects by phone in transit, now back at my home desk while also on the phone while also waiting for the plumber, hoping to get back to campus in time for the 3 p.m. meeting I shouldn't have to go to at all except if I don't the A. Nothing or B. Something Stupid that will occur will be a pain in my ass surely.  And I need a cigarette so bad I could shit my eyeballs.  But I don't.

But maybe I should.  Just cut the cord.  Cuz what I really need more than a cigarette is an actual friend.

Update: I cut the cord.

word

I couldn’t afford to be a 24-hour woman. But it didn’t stop me from trying till it shattered me.

VIRGO Is what you want really worth working so long and hard to get to? That future day will come whether or not you worked long and hard — only, if you don't put in the work, that future day won't have nearly the same significance. (sigh)

I wish this were a novel and I could turn the page and it would be his mind's turn to speak. What is really in there?

(Betrayals unceasing.)

(shrug)

queen of cups

"I do not want to be disrespected anymore. Undervalued. As a person, as company, as a friend, as a lover. This I know. I am not confused about what I do NOT want."
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I tried unblogging the rest below in favor of the upshot up there. But no, I haven't gotten any further (yet) in my thinking.
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Could it be that he was more invested in our plotline than I was? Wouldn’t that be an odd thing to discover? I mean, I wanted commitment don’t get me wrong. But it was more absolute. As in, if you are attached to someone then you are, period. Married was code for me, to mean that. To him, the plotline mattered more than the person in the plot. But me, well I’ve read about a buttgillion plots, each worth reading is its own weirdness and entirely character-driven. He cheats. He leaves. And in so doing switches out the woman he has for one who is better on paper. New plotline, one he can more easily see the arc of, her ovaries probably work (if not, we can switch her out again), it’s not her that matters much. Then as per usual he realizes he doesn’t like her smell, her anything. So yeah, the plot can’t drive the story dude. The people drive the plot. I’ve told my belief in that a million times, he can’t fathom it, he and I just cannot see eye to eye on that basic value structure. Plus, his dick talks him into this shit too, every time he does it, whispering crap into his ear like “this is the one!” just because it likes new pussy and pussy it ain’t supposed to have too especially (like a button that says don’t push me). That dick of his is like Mr. Nicotine, whispering in his ear all the time, about how good it’s going to feel andit probably won’t kill him (and ya never know, she might have something totally new, a clit piercing or something, LET’S FIND OUT!). It’s laughable, it really is, the logic of a dick when it’s being a dick, ya know what I’m saying? I do not want to be disrespected anymore. Undervalued, as a person, as company, as a friend, as a lover. This I know. I am not confused about what I do not want. And I don’t want the plotline anymore either. Not that one. It was his in the first place and he is the one who bails out of it (!) To hold him inside a fence means he immediately ruins the yard digging escape holes. Fuck that. The gate is wide open. So stop making a mess. Anyway. It was never the plot in the first place that I was in it for. It was HIM. I didn’t want to be married and then looked around for someone to fit that bill. He came, and with him came plot. He likes a fuss. So I threw a fuss. And added a spell to own it too, make the fuss my own for him. Now that is done. I speak in other currencies entirely unless I am trying to speak to him in his. If I met a man for whom my defenses fell and I unfurled, with whom I could talk for hours about nothing, who got all my jokes and could withstand all my desire. And he said, Look I want to never live in your house or have dinner with both you and my mother, but I’ll tattoo your name on my ass and take out every dirty thought I’ve had on your body and then sometimes feed you bbq. Then go home to play with my fish tank and do my own laundry. (The downside is?) The downside is that’s not plot. And he likes a plot. He likes THE PLOT, his parents’ life, their exact plotline, played out in the same place, with the same parameters, the same fusses, anniversary gifts that match the number of years, the script all laid out in every detail. And hey, we all want what we want. He wants that. And I am not that. I am I. All he gets out of me is me. Not enough. For him anyway. Not by that measuring tape. But I don’t have to use that measure – I never wanted to grow up to be his mother so I ain’t, which is no surprise to me. And he DID want to grow up to be his dad, but he AIN’T, and that’s some kind of surprise to him but … (shrug) All this, it isn't MY downside. For me the downside is that we have to add in “And I want to fuck other people that my dick has picked out and pretend I’m going to have kids with them until I get to know them, because I’m into that from time to time” to his list of stipulations, which is, well, hard to plan (so much as a vacation) around if nothing else. I can’t really blame him for it – most of my closest friends went through some ‘polyamory’ period in their 30’s. And I always thought it was nuts, but then again my 30’s were no fun at all, so what the hell do I know? I probably didn’t do it just because I wasn’t into it, which is hardly an achievement on my part. I dunno. (Shrug.) He clearly is some kind of attached to me. And I still am studying the matter. And if I am honest, except for how much it is not what he wants, now is better than what it was for me. How it is now isn’t all I want either, obviously. But I’m much more open in my parameters of what I consider valuable in an intimate partner, and this now compared to that then, this is better for me. I don’t want to HAVE to partner for any reason except my own desire, I have no plotline I need fulfilled for me. And now my own desire is unfettered from that, from his plotneed, and I am not trying to do anything else but know my own desire(s), not trying also to do everything else the way I was before, killing myself trying. I'm reverting back to my own language(s). What I value most is searching interior inventories (sharing them), wit sharp enough to carve into the world and look at its guts, lovemaking that is about itself about its object of desire about creating a source of energy that recharges stronger with each use. I don’t want to be anyone’s mere wife, label it and forget it. Fuck that. I want to be exactly what is on his ass, the only one of me, called by my own name.

second day in a row. universe must know something I don't. which come to think of it should come as no surprise

queen of cups

VIRGO Someone has wronged you in the past. If only it were enough that this person has apologized and wants your forgiveness. It still seems a little too easy, doesn't it? There's more that will occur before you'll be ready to let this one go.

VIRGO They like you, but that's not what's important here. Furthermore, the praise may not fit your mental script, and the accolades won't be what you expected, either. The point is, your contribution is making a difference.


even when they try to they can't do it like I do la la la

the Virgo perspective

VIRGO You have easier access to the heart of your love than you have in a long time. What gives you this open door? Trust. You've earned it by doing as you say you will or better.

(doubt ft. shrug)

What I've earned from that is trust in myself. What I want now are people around me that I can trust even half that much. In whatever category. Trust to look for as much humor in everything. To be as grateful for a body. To give as much thanks for blessings. To live by priciples they hold themselves steady by as best they can, always trying. To reflect as much. To honor as much. To cherish as much. To take to heart the pleasure there is in providing for another. Even half as much. When is the last time you put your whole self into making someone else's day? Start there then put one foot in front of the other, is how you get to where you might be someone who could make another person's life better for your being in it. ....

This is what I wanted. To be steady rain and sunshine for them I loved. It was enough. More. I never understood how else you want to. How else a person could want to want. But I am learning. I want watered. a duet ft being alone

VIRGO If you knew what exactly was keeping you stuck, you wouldn't be. Pondering won't help. If this were a physical issue, you'd wiggle and pull until you could figure out exactly the sticking point. That's what you need to do. Bonus track - TJ cracks out an impersonation of this, gives me the giggles every time. "...the middle to the side!", snort

I swam in that pond for hours daily. Felt like I was cooling a fury, my soul a hot coal, I almost expected a sizzle sound when I'd slide in.

Everything here reminds me, reminds anyone who comes here, how fleeting and insignificant is anyone. It all is so much older and untouched that you are. You are a baby compared to a mountain, and nothing much too really. It makes me serially quite anxious this year, like a turtle would be overturned, and also at peace (resigned?). I am just a glass of cold milk once in Tupper.

"An affection that was calculated was never trustworthy.” ― John Irving, A Widow for One Year

more frogs this year. from the center of the lake treading water I watch a large hawk swoop past TJs head on the hunt for a fat frog, my son oblivious to it, intent as he is on watching me lest I suddenly go under and disappear. I never do though

The silence here you cannot imagine. I am never anywhere else on earth like this place. There is not even the hum of modern electric ping, which has a sound unlike the old hardwire, which is wrapped and ear invisible. NOTHING. I can hear against the backdrop of it. Here is the palest sound of humidity dappling pond. Light which sounds like birch trees mostly not moving. Bats, which are one decibel above a void. If I won the lottery, I would buy Silence. Through which I would swim and swim, the sound of hummingbirds huge in their swooping by. I am right now (doing): 1. Perching atop my jeep to catch a cell signal In the middle of nowhere overlooking a desolate lake, calling In to a board of trustees meeting, to shepherd the end games, honing In on my next boss, my next Dominant. 2. Processing still the fallout inside me of mating as a Catch and Release program. In his defense, how did I think I could live where he does? In the din of fuss? I tune all that out as far as I can, just as he abhores a void and fills it with anyone new (i.e. loud). If we were mythical ceatures, we would belong to entirely different categories of beings. And many more of his kind inhabit this planet. Why should he have lived in my Quiet dimension? It was like some star trek type shit, a Klingon bummed out by his clan weddings every weekend falls for a Cube of Light woman temporarily. 3. NOTHING. I am doing vitally important things related to the very nature of my material existence right now. But to look at it, I am a woman sitting on a jeep, still and alone and watching dragonflies in the distance, and that is all.

I get up, write a little / make mental notes / go for a walk writing in my head / get a smoothie at the juice bar noting the owner in detail, the defensive quality in her cold aging beauty, making a mental note of it / come home lay out chores jump in the shower / grade papers and read the resumes I have to for my afternoon meeting / get dressed and check my liptint before heading out.... / realize I am still wearing the same outfit as yesterday, as in from the photo yesterday, as in from 20 years ago, and since I am so STAYED I wouldn't be surprised if these jeans weren't originally Mark's, the same, so long have I had them that I have just always had them.... /I don't know what there is to see in that. I dunno.

VIRGO From time to time, even the most exciting people get bored of their own stories and skins. Being around the people who love you dearly will help you see yourself with the adoring eyes that they see you through.

Like...? My mom? She thinks I'm a Goddess of Indestruction. (lol)

the memorial is today

I looked at a man-boy that way twice in my life.  Once then, when I was 15 years old.  And then after many years of pain and anger and lonely struggle, I looked again and wrapped a cord worth two lives around myself for him, hoping it would stick this time and my heart would hold together.  It didn't again, of course.

Mark would understand that.  Did understand it.  There was a woman after me, many years of pain and anger and lonely struggle later for him too.  Her name was Evelyn.  She loved him, and he surely loved her.  But she was erratic, troubled, selfish, left him a time or two, came back, then abandoned him finally and he died alone.  One of the last things he said, and I believe he said it to me who would understand it because he said it to my mother because I couldn't be there (wasn't there, chose not to upset Aaron by going), was, "Don't let them say anything bad about Evelyn." Those last words he spoke about Evelyn say nothing about her at all; they say everything you'd want to know about Mark.

Now two of the four people in that photo, he and by beloved grandmother, are dead.  And I'm next.

r.i.p.

inspiration

"This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble." ~Beethoven.
  "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." ~Hemingway.

I'm surprised by how much the DNC is getting to me in places. Like Biden. I need to have faith in the tried and proven, that that's a real thing, I guess.

"Wolves in shells are crueller than stray ones." GASTON BACHELARD, The Poetics of Space

The boys and I watched Gone Girl. It looks like a murder mystery but it's really a study of a marriage. Of what marriage is and does to people. I said something like, If you're not already convinced it's a bad idea...I didn't even finish the thought before they were both like MARRIAGE IS FUCKED UP NO FUCKING WAY etc etc. Well, probably not fucked up for everybody (your grandparents have a good marriage for instance) but I've set you an extremely terrible example, so you'll probably struggle with it some. I'm sorry. "It isn't your fault. But yea, just the thought of marriage makes me feel sick, like here", says Ears, putting a hand to his guts where I often do too. If I were to come anywhere near anything looking like a romantic plotline in front of them again, they'd be coping with a sickening feeling of dread over it immediately. So hey universe, condition #1, until they're grown no romcom plotlines! I ain't nobody's better half, I've got to be whole. Then we switched over to the DNC some more, and TJ read us an article speculating about the role of the 'first dude' and how every time Bill has time in his hands he makes trouble so Hillary has to keep him busy, so TJ starts interjecting inuendo as he's reading about how Bill owes her head in the oval office so like 'get under this desk and get to gettin or I'm calling Cory Booker', and had me in stitches.

What are the biggest life lessons you learned?, I imagine their shrinks asking. That marriage is like playing Russian roulette while drunk on hope, that men wreak havoc on women and children, and that the most valuable life skill is extremely inappropriate humor at the ready at all times.

They'll be really pissed at me, I imagine, and rightly so.

10 years I've been keeping this blog.  Comes in handy for a retrospect.  Though ... eeesh .... long before Trainwreck, what the fuck was up with all that kitten bullshit?  I hate cats :/

I removed every picture with my whole face clearly in it from the entire 10 years.  Why?  Because even that much, seeing my face ever again, is conditional. I'm thinking: maybe if I set a conditional on giving anything, I'll start having people around who can nut up and meet an expectation for a change.  And they'll have the opportunity then to be(come) those kinds of people by extension.  And if not, fine, go look into someone else's eyes then.

On the upside, I got to see all the faces of others since I keep them eh? Am the keeper. And regiggle at jokes.

For instances,

(I still don't know why this is funny - but it is)

VIRGO No one is ever alone in a feeling. However complex it may seem, someone else in the world has gone through or is going through something very close to your emotion, but you have to reach out to know the truth of that.

"..We don't get what we want, we get what we think we deserve." ~Sarah Silverman @ the DNC

"Ah, but when the road narrows to the width of this bed, when there is nothing in front of you that is known, dare you disdain any guide?", A Single Man, Christopher Isherman

A man is hard to find, good or otherwise, but guys are everywhere now. Meanwhile, I know way more women than girls. ~I Don't Care About Your Band, Julie Klausner

What I deserve: Men. Not guys. And certainly not boys.

girl crush

I want to be like her.

Thunder down the gorge. First real rain of the summer.