Taking Sides

Sometimes I feel that for every ounce that I love you, it must mean that I love myself less in equal amounts.

In my turmoil and doubt I am forced to take sides, pick. Am I with myself or against? And how can I rightfullybe expected to make this sort of decision? And so it goes that the conversation is never ending;  an intellectual journey mapped out be Escher. This image I have of you is elegant but impossible, hypnotic and hard to buy into as anything more than a fantastic hypothetical. And yet still, impossible to look away from.

 

I

Spiritual Bumper-cars

All the surfaces are reflective in this town. I can’t find the pores, the holes where smells and sounds are supposed to seep in, where humanity seeps out. It all hovers here, above the surface in fine, separate layers. Nothing commingles. Siloed and segregated I walk through busy, bustling streets surrounded by an invisible shield of my own scent, energy, thoughts. Here they play spiritual bumper-cars and no one ever wins. No one gets bumped, but we all define winning differently…

I have never experienced anomie the way I learned in sociology class. I could never internalize the feeling, understand what it meant to feel alone in a sea of life. I am starting to wrap my head around it now. I’m not there, but the prospect has become less hypothetical.

I teeter between anger and sadness, disbelief and frustration. How? And more importantly, why? Why live in a cocoon when you can be out in the world? Is it a protectionist instinct? Self-preservation? What about the green of my eyes makes you look away so quickly? What is it in the curve of my smile that has you turning away?

Whiplash (JG)

The things I want to say to you,

to do to you, overwhelm me.

Your voice the other night pulled me back with such force that I am still reeling.

I don’t know what it is about you but there is something that leaves me wanting more.

Just the sight of your name on my screen has me in a gorgeous panic.

The best kind of panic, the same panic that came over me when we pulled up to my house on our second date.

You remember…

that moment when I was getting out of your car and then this invisible magnet held me fast to the seat.

It’s the moment you recognize that there is no turning back.

The roller coaster has chugged up the tracks and from your front car seat you see the horizon and it looks like the tracks are about to end and it’s the same moment-

you have no recourse.

You just grip the handles and decide- as if you had the power to actually choose- to let go.

Your voice is that moment on a loop.

And I fight, but I’ve got nothing.

I am unarmed against you and I am lost.

Dreamt I couldnt breathe (April 12)

Or rather, I couldn’t breath and that got incorporated into my dream. I was at work only we worked in the Middle East; somewhere desert-y and hot. Lots of sand. The building we worked in was a cross between my mother’s house and one of those buildings made from Jerusalem stone, carved roughly from big blocks. The layout in the office was ours exactly at work. My friend knocked on my window and I opened it, said hi and told her me boss was there and that I had to go. Then I told my boss that my friend said hi. For the record, this ‘friend’ is no one I can place in real life.

Then I was in disguise as a woman, which is weird because I ama women. But I got over-dressed the way men do when playing women; only it was in traditional middle-eastern garb; long flowing cotton dresses and headscarves all in bright colours. I was escaping to beyond the walls (whatever that meant). I don’t know why I had to escape but I had to. My father was waiting for me in a jeep on the other side. I was with someone mentally, as in we were two people escaping, but I never saw them or interacted with them, I just knew they were there and recall being concerned that either of us would get caught. We were running, darting back and forth and then i hear or feel someone behind me and I turn around and there is a man with a semi-automatic staring down at me (I’m crouched with my back against an outside corner wall) and he is about to shoot me and sand is blowing and I’m choking on sand and tears and fear and I cant breath and I wake up with my blanket covering my face…

An Awkward Choreography

I was chatted up on Facebook by a guy I was friends with in high school and maybe, CEGEP… I still count him as a friend despite my better judgement because he is just one of those people that I know are with me for life.

So he writes me out of the blue and starts talking about when we last saw each other (1.5 years ago). We went for sushi then out to listen to music at some hipster joint. He asked me back to his place for wine & cheese (you can break that code on your own I imagine, I know I did when he said it) and I said “no”. I said no despite having been infatuated with him on and off for years. He reminded me of his offer, my reaction and then said he knew why I said ‘no’. He guessed wrong and then I told him what I have been holding back since I was about 18. I told him something I don’t think have ever told anyone. I told him this:

 

           I said “no” because the last time we were together you told me you loved me and I said ‘”Tell me that when you are sober” and you swore up and down that it was true and that you had always felt that way and that you would happily say it again the next morning, and the next morning you remembered nothing, and then you left and didn’t call me for over three weeks… Thats why I said “no”.

Then we had the following exchange:

9:22pm BOY

That morning… when I walked along somerled…

enraptured, but with a world of uncertainty in my head. and feeling…

unsure

which was my always feeling

and I like to step back to that day and call you back

but I didn’t

but why

9:24pm ME

nice to know

because you wernt interested

9:24pm BOY

I wasn’t

At the time, I was very negative

9:25pm ME

or because i wasnt the girl you thought you wanted

9:26pm BOY

that is one part of my personality i still don’t understand

I KNOW how much I like you

but,,,

I have a blank spot

9:26pm ME

knowing isnt feeling

much to many people’s dismay one can not make up for the other

9:27pm BOY

I look at the girls I loved on facebook

with their cool lives and trips…

and feel left out.

Why don’t you call me back?

After I fuck you over?

I still ask that despite the obvious.

And feel alone.

But hey, i dont’ want to be morbid.\

9:29pm ME

there is no point looking back unless you plan on learning something

9:29pmA BOY

WE all had weird problems when we were younger.

I think being 31.

9:29pm ME

had? still have. me anyway

is today your birthday?

9:30pm BOY

September 14

Let me say something hollow sounding but true.

9:30pm ME

and dont worry about being morbid. its nice to have a real conversation

ok…

9:31pm BOY

OK agree… you won’t click off and leave me feeling stupid?

Anyway, I’m really impressed by you.

9:32pm ME

thank you.

why?

9:32pm BOY

All the things you do, and the deft way you can face new career opportunities.

I am always afraid of moving.

You do it like its life.

9:32pm ME

and im always afraid of staying

i hear you, but its not all positive, my moving around

a lot of it is running

9:33pm BOY

I have been facing the prospect of staying/moving I MUST move.

9:33pm ME

im the flight half of fight or..

9:33pm BOY

Tell me…

9:33pm ME

where are you now?

9:33pm BOY

Home.

9:34pm ME

yes, but YOURS or parents?

9:34pm BOY

Mine.

9:34pm ME

ok, your still ok

youre

9:34pm BOY

OK

My next step is… america? toronto? advertising creativity…

I have to move to survive.

9:35pm ME

emotionally or job-wise?

9:35pm BOY

Job-wise.

Defined by job. you can relate i think?

9:35pm ME

sadly no

i have never worn a job so closely

i sort of envy that

but i understand

where do you want to be and who will take you and where do those overlap?

and voila! thats where you go..

9:37pm BOY

phone #?

9:38pm ME

XXX XXX XXX (I gave it to him)

Then he calls and we proceed to have the most awkward conversation. No, not awkward, heart-wrenching. He is so lost. If it didn’t come through in the typing it came through in his voice. There was nothing to do but laugh when I knew he needed me to, and congratulate him when the story warranted… He has let himself go way down the emotional rabbit hole, and sadly I am now too far removed to do anything of value. At one point he started getting inadvertently insulting. Like the guy who only says seriously inappropriate things when he is super drunk, but honestly fancies himself a good guy and doesn’t even see it… He told me he thought I would have said yes on our last ‘date’ because he had a good job at that point (??!!). Stuff like that that made me wonder if he was just saying it because he was drunk to sound funny or because he actually though that…

We skirted around the fact that he has a drinking problem. Thatwas awful. Its the only time (that I can recall) that I felt like a grown-up dealing with a grown-up issues in real time. I felt like I was in an after-school special and I feel like maybe I read the wrong script. I let it go.  Was that right? I dunno… I’m constantly being told that I can’t save everyone… Maybe its true. That makes me sad. Whats the point in knowing things and seeing things if you can’t help?

At the end of the day I was happy for his apology for mistreatment and nonchalance when we were teenagers that he offered up during the call. Also nice to hear him say “thank you” for how I was with him in high school; he said I was ‘huminizing’. Anyway, I guess all told it was an odd and slightly uncomfortable interaction but one that, at the very least reminded me the being kind is worth it. You really never can tell how much of a difference it can make in that moment and years in the future.

On becoming your parents

“I was so focused on not becoming my mother, that I became my father. I did not see that coming.”

-Rachel on Friends

Loved this and thought I’d share.

Its all Timing

“The difference between a romance and a tragedy is just a matter of where you decide to start and stop telling the love story”

 

Have truer words ever been written?

i have not died

i’m coming. i’m busy and distracted but i’m coming. please hold *insert semi-decent hold music here*

US VP Debate

This will be updated many times no doubt:

Maverick. STOP SAYING IT!!!

He is the man we need to leave, um, lead. CLASSIC! (Palin is such a sorority pledge wanna-be)

Biden almost cried. Not a Hillay cry, but an honest, human choke-up. I like.

Holy Empowerment Batman!

This evening I attended a fundraising event for the last organization I worked for. You might recall that I quit that job and was all to happy to never see the CEO again. Of course I *did* see him again at an employees wedding. The CEO tried to make small talk and I was as polite as Emily Post could have asked me to be. Certainly no nicer to be sure. but civil and appropriate. I thought that was that. Then I heard that CEO told the entire table at said wedding that he had fired me. How this A) even came up and B) could EVER be construed as appropriate behaviour (even assuming it wasn’t a humongous lie) is beyond me and anyone I have spoken to about it. Flash-forward to this evenings soiree where I showed up in fairly good spirits, excited about seeing former co-workers who, it must be said, I have the utmost respect and in some cases affection for. I was warmed and relieved to have been received so graciously; running up, big smiles, authentic hugs – all very nice. CEO kept eyeing me and in his (typical) paranoid state* seemed worried about what I and his current staff must be bantering so easily about. Anyway, about an hour after I arrived he came up to me and sort of tickled my shoulder by way of greeting. When I turned to face him he made a somewhat awkward move to hug me. I didn’t move. He extended his hand for a shake; I didn’t move. He flashed his signature smile** and I just stood there. The rest of teh exchange went a little something like so:

CEO: What? no hug?

Me: I have no desire to hug you.

CEO: Oh. (pause) I thought after the wedding we were OK, that everything was history…

Me: We are history…   (a tad dramatic know, but when does a girl get the chance to throw a line like that out there? I mean really!)

CEO: Come on, I though we moved past this, I thought we could be friendly at least.

Me: I was civil with you at the wedding and that’s all I had in me. We are not friends. I don’t respect you and I don’t like you and I have nothing to say to you. (I should have said that I don’t trust him either but I forgot)

CEO: (Semi-blank stare)  Well… whys that? (SERIOUSLY??!)

Me: You dont respect your staff and you don’t honour them. You are the helm of a phenomenal organization and I wish you well but you need to recognize that losing 3 of your best staff in under 6 weeks is an indication of a very significant problem.

CEO: No one is perfect. I am working on my stuff. i’m just interested in knowing whats going on in your life.

Me: I’m glad to hear it. It would be a shame if such wonderful went to waste, but I have no desire to talk to you about it.

CEO: And what are you up to these days?

Me: Thats none of your business.

CEO: If you really care about the organization why dont you come in and speak to me about your concerns?

Me: It would be my pleasure to come and speak with you and the chairs of the board.

 

This type pf back and forth, skirting issues and stonewalling, went on for what felt like 15 minutes but could not have been more then 5. I was so calm the whole time it was eerie. H|e looked frazzled. I have to say that I particularly enjoyed telling him that I had no respect for him etc. It was like a professional-life wet dream come true. Who wants to place bets that he never asks me for my input with his chairs? Anyone? AHAHAHAHAHHHHAAAAA!

* Remember that U2 quote “Its no secret that a liar never believes anyone else”? Sooooo apropos!

** It pains me to say this, but if you don’t know the asswipe behind the smile he does flash a rather inviting and affable megawatt grim.