Darts & a Board

in the last 10 days I will have met and had drinks with 5 new fellas. So far no skirt flippin' but really alls I'm looking to do is to have SOMETHING to do any night of the week.

it's funny, I'm not sure what I'm looking for but I sure do see clearly what I'm not. Mostly it feels, lately, like i'm zigging when the people I'm with are zagging. maybe i'm zagging and they are zigging. which is which?

i've been accused of analyzing this shit too much. what do you think? I was quick to dismiss it as 'that's how I roll, dude." but with a second pass (and clearly analyzing it too much) perhaps it's a flaw.

fuck you, thirty-two? aren't we done yet?

I have all the potential in the world (if it’s not dependent on good credit or cash flow).

On my preprogrammed radio buttons there is now this newish radio station that is the non-format format kind. Songs you haven’t heard on the radio in a long time but somehow still know the lyrics (like Rock Me Amadeus or Centerfield or Centerfold) played regardless of genre or flow. Normally, I don’t listen to commercial radio and instead commute to NPR, I’m getting dumber daily as I tune into the JAK.

On Monday the jak added a “morning crew” to my great disappointment. I was digging that folks weren’t talking on my commute, you know? But today, day two, the dj was talking about the point at which she started thinking “What was my mom doing at this age” and comparing and contrasting the lives. I’ve been doing that since I was 17, the age my mom was when she got knocked up. Does everyone do this? Is it just kids of divorce or teenage parents? Kids trying desparately NOT to be their parents? Kids who's parent beat it into them they should NOT be like them? The purpose the reflection has served for me is a) deepen the respect I have for what my mother has accomplished and b) take pride in the path I've taken. It was weird to hear someone talk about it on the radio.

The point of the story was to segue into playing “Ruby” by Kenny Rogers. She said it was her mom’s ”anthem” just after her dad took his loving all over town. I started thinking what my anthem would be. The song to which I go to be strong and sad all at once. I’m still thinking on it. Maybe something dramatic needs to happen to shake that shit loose, I dunno. Are there different anthems for different circumstances. Anyone have an anthem all ready to roll should the bottom fall out?

oh...and if it's "I will survive" I just don't want to know that about you.

It’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate

I spent five years (good, bad, beautiful and ugly years) with a boy that didn’t know that the beginning of the chorus to the song above was “Going off the rails on this crazy train”. It was funny because this was discovered as we sped down the highway singing loudly along to the song. When he sang, at the top of his lungs, his version of the lyrics, I just stopped and looked at him. Was he trying to be funny? Nope, he repeated the same wrong lyrics, my face contorted to an expression that inquired “WHAT are YOU singing?!” but he didn’t notice and kept it going. I can’t for the life of me remember what his lyrics were but I do recall him challenging me on my accuracy but when it was clear I was right a really good laugh was had. Good stuff.

So I’ve deployed a new tactic, another mom tool, given to me soon after my dad died to keep me from spiraling too deeply into the dark, stupid thoughts that seem to so easily eat me up. Not that anything I’ve encountered since can compare to the grief of that but I find when I have a negative ‘tude, this helps. It’s a little new-agey and hippy-shit; she may have picked it up in the Christian Science Reading Room. So if you’re hippy squeamish, avert your eyes now.

So it works like this: at the onset of a single negative thought, stop it and replace it with 5 positive thoughts on the same subject. Let me give you an example:

Negative Thought du jour:

“My ass is looking big”

Positive Counter Thoughts:

“Some folks like baby with back”
“It’s smaller than it used to be”
“It’s within your control to change”
“You’re taking positive steps to keep your whole body healthy”
“It’s the only ass you got, love it.”

It’s actually hard to do. As you can imagine, when you’re feeling black, it’s hard to turn sunshiney orange. Particularly because you aren’t supposed to use negative language either like “It’s NOT as big as it was”. Get it? You quickly discover negative thoughts aren’t worth your effort and soon stop having them. It’s true. Try it, I dare you.

So here’s your mission (the few but proud who read this shit), if I go into a woe-is-me rant demand I come up with 5 positives for every negative. Deal? No more of this lament and longing. No more dwelling on what is not. Just focusing on the bright side of shit and seeing how far that takes me.

Mom’s have good insights (on rare occasions)

Yesterday I sent my mom a slideshow and preemptively explained the boy. Mom’s are inquisitive about such shit when you’re an only daughter and single at almost 33. Now, I didn’t give her the details I have shared in this space, told her simply that he was a boy I liked and who didn’t like me back the same way. I went on to explain that such rejection stung my skin, my heart and, at times, my eyes despite the fact that he was totally willing to be friends.

She wrote back saying the photos are lovely, the fact I have such beautiful scenery in which to hike is a true blessing and that while rejection is a tough pill to swallow, a friend willing to have such adventures is worth the swallow. This from a woman who hid actual pills in ice cream to get them down my gullet and who is well aware of my easily triggered gag reflex. “Swallow it,” she says.

Huh.

I went to bed thinking about this other perspective. Woke up reconsidering if my deletion of his profile from my friend list was premature. In the wee hours of the morning, he added another friend. She quickly left a comment lamenting the deletion of his handjobs general interest and asked he call about the hike.

A couple of thoughts have since occurred to me. Not necessarily in this order:

I’m easily replaceable

I clearly stunted his myspace experience as since Sunday he’s made more friends than he has since we first met there. Almost a 20% increase in 4 days and heck, I’m sure more are coming.

I need to learn to just “hang out” with fellas.

It’s my own damn fault that I’m not hiking with him

I need thicker skin.

I want to truly believe (as it’s something I know) that I’m not everyone’s flavor and that’s ok.

How big a glass of water comes with a rejection pill? Can it be buried in ice cream?

Where’s Mary Poppins with that spoonful of sugar?

Will I be able to salvage a friendship here?

Why am I so retarded?

Does time pass this slowly for everyone?

Today’s take-aways:

boys break up with you TO move on. mom’s have sage advice
sleep on every drastic move before acting
swallow what you can if you have a friend in adventure

oh yeah! AND FUCK YOU 32!

Now we'll say it's in God's hands but God doesn't always have the best goddamn plans, does he?

I have an unsubstantiated belief in the #3. We all know it’s a magic number thanks to School House Rocks and De La Soul. But there’s a lot of mythology around trinities and the number 9 (which is 3cubed, yo) and so if I have any faith, it’s in this number and I can’t explain it any better. If intelligent design is a scientific theory to be taught to children then why begrudge me a belief in the power of three?

Despite what I may have led you to believe, I have a fairly charmed life and I do believe it has a lot to do with a birthday on 3/15. Ok, maybe not charmed but since birth I’ve always landed on my feet despite having my legs cut off a millions. This year, I’ll be 33 (11times more magical than just regular old 3), it’s falling on a Wednesday (which I consider to be the 3rd in the week) and it’s ’06. Everything is coming up 3 so I have great expectations for my 33rd year. Expectations yet undefined so maybe it’s just hope I have. Either way, good things are headed my way.

I’ve got 2 more months of bullshit 32 to deal with, however, and it seems stupid thirty-two won’t go quietly.

Made a new friend yesterday out that myspacer I mentioned. He is a lot like me in weird ways: see-through skin, doesn’t laugh easily but does so brightly if you get it out of him, and he may be a little lost. Like I said, we’ve been following a similar path from the Midwest to the westwest for the better part of a decade. It is nice to meet someone and feel like they understand kinda where you’ve been. I dunno. Always happy to make a new friend. 32 hasn’t sucked THAT hard.

On a different note, grapes are expensive. So much so that now, when I purchase them, the cashier says “You know these grapes are $8, right? You still want them” And usually do not find the purchase regrettable but I have an $8 bag of sour freaking grapes and that really chaps my ass. Fuck you thirty-two (I’m gonna blame everything on thirty-two, btw, until I’m 33).

another door... there's a fleece vest in my backseat, too. dang it.

Cause in my head there's a greyhound station. Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations..

So today is gonna be a long one; one of angst and anticipation.

Angst: yes, I’m still a chick. The kind of chick I don’t want to be and usually I’m not. In the back seat of my car is a baby blue polo shirt that was discarded pre-hellhole hike (and that’s the actual name, it was a beautiful hike) in lieu of something long in sleeve. I thought I gathered everything left behind prior to the smile that proceeded the words “this will be the last time I will see you for awhile”. But I was grocery-gettin’ yesterday when I noticed the baby blue. “Aw fuck” traveled from my head to my mouth in record speed. The kind of chick I am and don’t want to be is the kind of chick that sees this doorway disguised as a shirt. I could call, text, IM, or email something light and funny mentioning the hostage I have and negotiating a release over lunch or drink. Or, I could bring it inside, wash it kindly and put it in a place that I would, being the kind of chick I am now, surely peek at it just to feel the sting. How many more doors am I gonna find and struggle to keep closed? Yesterday was a similarly long angst day in which he and I bantered about the term “awhile”. He seemed to need to hear that the "future friend" option was on the table. I had only ever said “awhile” and the next day did not qualify. But today there’s a shirt. Tomorrow there will be LOST, the next day will be Thursday and I’ll probably be wondering what he’s doing this weekend and feel like I’m “over it” and “heck, let’s hike on Sunday”. He promised that even if I get to be THAT chick he won’t accept my invitations. THANK YOU for small favors. I will be that chick, I’m sure. Already, he’s soliciting new hiking buddies and my heart sank and my head said “HURRY UP!” like don’t take so long to get over it that you’re replaced as the hiking buddy, DANG!

Ok. That’s the angst.

Anticipation: once again it’s in the form of someone I met on myspace. You’d think I’d learn, you know? But killing time, looking at friends of friends of friends I came across a fella that listed “Phantom Tollbooth” as a favorite book. I then noticed that he had similar music tastes AND lived in Cinncy in the years I traveled to that city to see Pavement. Turns out we were at the same Pavement show in Cinncy in 1994 and some other concerts in Denver. We’ve been slowly heading West for years and anonymously crossed paths often. It took me a while and yes, I’m that kind of chick as well- the kind that's not afraid to ask YOU out- I finally was all like I totally could use some more friends in SD, wanna be one? "Absolutely" was the reply so tonight I will meet him. Not so much romantic anticipation but a no-hassle friendship would be a welcomed change.

Wish me luck. I need to put the angst to bed and wake up to a world of happiness, you know?

I get it- my loss…


I was doing so well, too. Felt like I came to good understanding and acceptance of my place in his world. That understanding and acceptance came with several really good days of hanging out, keeping my hands to myself. I can’t really say for sure what changed. Last weekend, while spending several hours driving around, he said he was still attracted to me. That statement came with a very clear and logical explanation as why attraction was not enough and I understood that. It all makes perfect sense. But somehow only the “I’m still attracted to you” stuck and the logical clear explanation was lost.

So I’m at a loss as to what changed. By Friday night, I was consumed by a need to have him, to fuck him, to feel his hands on my ass. With that consumption I could no longer see the logic in “just friends”; “just friends” gutted me. I sent a retarded text message and I immediately understood I was nowhere near ready or able to be “just friends”. He politely suggested I sleep on it. Having been with him when he got similar texts from other girls he’s not into, and having heard his exasperation with the drama, I imagined his sigh, eye roll and head shake as he read that text and realized I was one of THOSE girls

I slept on it and felt Built to Spill had something to say about the way I felt,
“In the morning, feeling ½ right; feeling normal. Just an isolated incident”.

Although I wasn’t sure it was an isolated incident. Saturday quite possibly was my worst day in a long time. It was rainy and there was a full moon. I would like to think something atmospheric or celestial caused me to relate to people SO poorly that day. I couldn’t snap out of a funk and funk means I spent too much time with my darkest and most self-hatred thoughts. The value in “just friends” was a distant imprint of a memory, like if someone would have started to explain, it may have sounded familiar but it had no legs in the current reality, you know? Instead, the thought he would fuck anyone else like he fucked me manifested itself into a knot in my stomach. The thought that he was capable of being so smitten and sweet and that he could not possibly feel that for me felt like a 1,000lb of self doubt sitting right on my chest. I totally get it. I have only been dumped by one other person so I admit I have very POOR coping skills. I know that he and I didn’t really even date so much as fucked and, on good days, I can keep that all in perspective. But on bad days, like Saturday, I feel useless, loveless, and hopeless all because this boy can’t love me. It’s still a mystery how I could have had so much hope and love for him in a short time, particularly since he never treated me all that well.

So, after a really great hike into Hellhole Canyon and a fun dinner at the Turf, I told him, casually, that this would be the last time I see him for a while. His reply? “Have a nice life, you’re walking home”. He didn’t make me walk home but repeated the nice life comment as I got out of the car. And still, when I looked in his face to say goodbye, I didn’t want to go.

I’m sure he’s happy to be done with my drama. I’ll be happy when the feeling I’ve lost something really special subsides and I hope that’s soon because today already feels like a shitpile as I sit on my hands and try not to notice he’s online.