Thursday, October 30, 2014

Episode: I don't understand men.

Yesterday morning I woke up remembering a very vivid late morning dream. It was about the Turk. A surprise topic since I really hadn't been thinking much about that situation since ya'll watched me process it through two weeks ago. (I never did send that email.) But the dream was hilarious and fantastic and I took it to mean I was feeling quite myself again. It went as such:

We were apparently living in the same building. He had just returned from Turkey and I saw him enter with his bags while I doing laundry in the common area. He left a partially scratched lotto ticket on my chest freezer - which was behind the washer in the common area. I pretended not to see him as I passed, but bumped into him while heading back to my room so I'd know he saw me; I noticed he had the purple lotto ticket. I went to my room briefly and when I went back to the freezer, the ticket was still there. (The number scratched was 10 and three horizontal lines to the left of it.) So I walked over to him - while he was crouched down riffling through his bags - to give it back and he shut the door in my face. So I put my foot in the door and he was like, "I don't want to do this."  
I said, "Do what? Here's your ticket you left it on my freezer." He said it wasn't his and I said I saw him with it. He took it and then he went on about how he didn't want to fight. And I was totally calm going, "Um. I don't want to fight with you." He said we weren't going to get back together - and while he said that, his toupee* fell off the back of his head and he just put his hand out in front of himself and caught it and put it back on and didn't acknowledge it happened; just kept talking. Then I just lost it cracking up laughing and said "I definitely don't want to get back together with you, but we live in the same building so we should at least be friendly." 
*no, he doesn't wear a toupee IRL
And then this happened yesterday evening:


::blinks emphatically:: what?!

My initial reaction was: what the fuck. And my current reaction is: what the fuck. Like what are you doing and didn't you choose to go away already?

Here was the awkward 200 year old sea turtle of a conversation that followed:


But what I really wanted to say was "What do you want?" Like "Um, excuse me, what the fuck are you doing? What is this right here?" as I tap on the screen. Didn't we do this already and you gave me the shove off and we couldn't agree on the fact that I don't commit that quickly and you wanted to force me into exclusivity? And that whole I'm in Turkey and move on without me part. Seriously, what do you want? Because I am not at all prepared to deal with this shit all over again. Let us not play games.

This happens time and again - and I'm not sure how often it happens to me versus what is considered normal - if there is such thing as normal - but I am the girl that 1. friends fall for and 2. exes come back to. Why?! 1. We're friends; don't ruin that. And 2. we've been there already and it hurt. Granted, this situation as been slightly different than normal completely ridiculous from the start, but I moved past that part of giving a shit and wanting to be with him and why would I want to go through that again. And then, as a total human, I also want that chance for anyone who saw me misrepresented, to see who I really am versus that fucked of version of ovarian cysts and scared and resisting girl. Also - let's be honest here - physical attraction and adult needs...knoamsayin?.

This is an incredibly shit catch-22, but I suppose that's just following due course of a situation that has been as incredibly fucked up as this since day one. And no, for those playing the home version, he hasn't responded and I'm leaving it at that. I felt as though it ended the game and absolves me from any further thought or action. If he was giving me the heads up that he's back because he thought I cared, I didn't - and that can lie there forever as an end because I don't need upper-hand power and, as far as I'm concerned, my cute, conveniently-timed dreaming, toupee-inventing brain says I have it anyway. And if he was testing the waters to see if I'm still interested in him or if I am dating someone else, I think I answered that question in a pseudo-invitation to invite me to hang out. And bravo to me, I think, for that clever and slightly low hanging fruit of 'let's not play this game' because it is clear to me now that I don't understand men, but here I feel as though perhaps I'm learning to deal with them better.

So there ya go, guys: the Turk is back from Turkey. Now we know. The end(?).

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Less of a Freak

10/14/14 ...


Facebook is often an unflattering pain in the ass, but today it's been a wondrous thing - it's made me feel like less of a freak. In between the engagement, wedding and baby photos, was this ["What An Almost Relationship Looks Like"] suggested article (dangling below someone's Thought Catalog post). OMG! I thought reading it: It's not just me and panic and psychics getting inside my head - predicting HG and the Turk to a T. We all do this - and I with the incredible pull of these boys: Like I the light and they the moths - to which I respond with subsequent panic and questions of intention.

And just after reading that - wondering how I fell in love so easy in my teen and early 20s, then never again since then and what went so wrong with me - I read this ["17 Things to Expect When You Date a Girl Who's Used to Being On Her Own"]. And I really am not alone. We're all doing this: Swinging our arms and guarding our hearts, seeing who ducks and who is left standing. I'm not a god-damned freak; a mutant of love and loss. I am a girl scared of getting hurt. A girl who's comfort zone became single and alone. A girl who tests and guards her heart because, fuck, that shit hurts. We are 30(ish) and single, but we are still trying - even if that means we are weary and testing. That's what matters, I hope: that we try. But fuck, girls, if it doesn't still hurt and at times make us doubt our worth; ignite our buried fears. I just have to tell myself if I drive them away now, it's better than later. But I can't help but think they don't even know me, just the scared girl handing out difficult and weird entrance exams on the way to her heart. And as each fails, I self-doubt - even when I know I've done the right thing. But I am not alone; we are not alone. And good. That feels good.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Arguing with an Absent Ex-Lover

[Written 10.17.14, posted retroactively.]


“Jesus Christ,” she thinks, “I've been here before!”

She reaches for the red panic button. He says enough nearly eloquent lines, sprinkled with WTFs and cord strikings to know something’s not quite right.

“I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE!” She presses the button, then argues with blank space of his absence.

***

It began wonderful, nearly. You a bit too into me and I squeamish and not really sure. But a drug, as you called me, has a tremendous ability to find its way to the addict. And you show up at my house with pizza and shocked I’m “beautiful” after 75 minutes of hot yoga. And there’s sex. Fine, I begin to give in, but there are moguls with red flags dangling precariously above that I know I need to navigate before I can settle in anywhere near comfortable. And then you leave. And I’m left with my thoughts and these flags and yup, nothing is normal and this isn’t how I want to be treated and you’re not listening to what I want too. I navigate, loosely leaving you behind, trying not to let go of the fraying rope. But I felt confined and hopeless after you listened to my reason then went onto ignore it.

We are equals, I said. “No, we’re not,” you responded just days in. It gave it the culture pass, as I did many of the moguls. Then weeks passed in your absence. Garbled fucked up weeks where I said one thing, you agree and then just continued to be exactly who you wanted like there wasn’t another voice to consider. And then came the last time we spoke. I knew it would be the last time we spoke but I was hesitant to admit it – doing that girl thing where you scramble to keep what you know you don’t want just because it’s leaving.

You called that last time because when you asked how I was, I told you not well. I was sick. You call even though I tell you not to; I was too much a mental and hormonal mess (but left that part out, not that you would understand). You set me off first by telling me I was selfish to ‘bother’ my mother with news about my health, crying and looking for comfort. I DON’T CARE IF YOU DIDN’T TELL YOUR PARENTS WHEN YOU GOT SHOT IN THE LEG. PERSONALLY I THINK THAT MAKES YOU DUMB (is that I wanted to tell you). No mother ever wants to not be needed. I’m sorry if that’s the way your mother made you feel; pity on you, dear boy.

I go on, defending my point: I tell you about the doctor finding the cyst – poking me internally so much so that she ruptured it, putting me presently in a lot of pain - and you ask with a chuckle, "Did you cheat on me?"  

I lose my calm entirely. I shuffle from terror to fury and exclaim: "HOW CAN I CHEAT - WE'RE NOT IN A RELATIONSHIP?!" - again putting myself on the back burner to revisit your fucking theme of forcing me into a relationship I told you I wasn't ready for.

You continue to make faces at me on Skype, a weird form of cheering someone up or you’re just uncomfortable with my failure to be perfect. I'm falling apart. 

I think: Why the fuck are you talking about your watch?! Why would you say if I cry, you'd leave the room?! What kind of monster have you been hiding behind the facade of sweet words (and eloquent commands)?! 

You say: "What are you like in the break-up?" 

I pause to think and reluctantly respond: "Kind of like this" and pause with another realization, "but ever man who has ever left me has always come back again."

"I NEVER GO BACK!" you quipped so sternly, adding "if this is what you are like when you like me, please don't love me. If you love me, only love me a little, not a lot." 

I think: BITCH. I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU. AND DID YOU MISS THE OTHER 400 TIMES I SAID THIS WASN'T A RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE...I DON'T KNOW YOU. And how dare you judge my relationship with my mother just because it is different than you and yours.

You say: "You're controlling. And always negative. And I'm controlling so that will never work." 

I think:Well, you got one out of three! Oh those moguls I needed to navigate: I can't gain more than ten pounds or we're just friends; only bug bites, no bruises; only have two alcoholic beverages; no burping. YOU KNOW I POOP, RIGHT?! (And burping and alcohol are two of my favorite things.)

You say: "No talking about exes."  

I think: YOU KNOW IT'S WEIRD THAT YOU'RE 30 AND NEVER HAD A RELATIONSHIP, RIGHT?! Why do I have to "teach" anyone how to be in a long term relationship? I'm done paving lesson plans for little boys. I'm too old for that shit. A 30 year old should have that figured out by now. 

Suddenly and without reason, you pan the camera to show me the bedroom door. 

You say: "This is a custom door. It was $3,000."

I think: WHY ARE YOU SHOWING ME YOUR PARENTS' $3000 DOOR?! I don't give a shit about your damn door; my ovary exploded yesterday!

You ask: "Do you like my car? Do you like my watch?"  as if nothing else is going on and your subject change would go unnoticed.

My thoughts, they escape my mouth with heated furver: "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR MATERIAL THINGS!. I'm sick and frustrated because you just told me that after 40 days, you’re going to be gone even longer and I'm so sick of this situation. I don't want to do this anymore!"

You say: "You said you liked my watch before..."

And suddenly, I realize this might be over.

***

It's a fine line to straddle at 31. To know the difference between I tried and run away because this is bad for me. Because I don't want to regret what I didn't do - or try for - and question ever 'what could have been,' but I also don't want to be broken a year later and think 'fuck, I knew better. I know better about this by now.' I guess I just have to trust myself more. That I make the right decisions; that no matter what, I cannot kill destiny. But I can preserve my heart, leaning on mistakes of the past. It is both foolish to let the past determine the future and foolish to not heed the bells of warning: You have been here before (and it hurt a lot).

I have my history. And now I require patience and understanding. And love - unconditional. For that is what I am willing to give if a man will have me, but I won't be taken if he would promise anything less. Love doesn't come with stipulations of weight loss and belching. And this, this is what I could not overcome, despite the rumbling in my chest.

Working six days a week: Where is my adventure?! Limiting me to two drinks: Stifling my choice. I do not belong in a cage, managed by the locks of what you would inevitably convince me was love. The compliments. That absolute doting. And just that look. There was good there, there was. But so were the dangers lurking below; dangers I wasn't willing to acknowledge for love story I wanted to have. The dangers of which I can only see now, moving past the infatuated desire for your promises.

***

"You're cheap!" you've said to me, more than once. 

"I'm not cheap. I'm broke," I retort, yet again. "There's a difference." 

But that was never an invitation for you to tell me how I don't make enough money and here's what I need to do instead. I don't need to have a Mercedes to feel validated in my life. I don't need beautiful hardwood floors. And I don't need your life fucking advice. I made it this far without the guidance of a man. And besides, you build cabinets for a living: Who the fuck are you to judge my career trajectory?!

I need only two things: Happiness and love. And I realized one very important thing about myself in all of this: I would much rather have a poor man’s time than a rich man’s money. A fact, I soon realized, you would never understand.

***

I find it a happy accident that my Uber driver in Boston was Turkish or I might have had the wrong idea about all Turks. This sweet, adorable man had a gentle spirit: Reminiscent of the Turk at his best. He said none of these aforementioned elements of control and judgement were normal and that, as a foreign national, it was the Turk's job to assimilate to my culture (not I to his). It was then I wished the blank space was filled with Turk's presence so I could scream: So my lipstick isn't tacky! It’s not my fault that Turkish women don't wear a lot of make-up! I HAVE BLONDE HAIR AND BLUE EYES AND CURVES FOR DAYS! DO I LOOK FUCKING TURKISH TO YOU?! 

I was surprised to learn - as my new Turkish friend shared - that Turkish people are more emotional than Americans. A shock, considering the Turk said he would never cry anywhere but alone. "But I've seen you cry,” I said during that last conversation. “You were tearing up when you came over after your brother was shot in the face."

"No I wasn't," he responded, with a dry conviction.

"I've seen you cry."

"No you haven't," he contested. His rigidity had set in. He continued to rewrite history for his convenience:"You're the one that chased me..."

It was then that I realized, this was clearly over.

***

So how's that relationship - that you thought you could just so rightfully claim simply because you wanted it – working out for you?  

She winks. And she lets go of the panic button. 

Six Oh Three

Hours before I even heard back from the Turk last Friday, I sat at the end of a work day - considering driving home to Pennsylvania the next morning for 30 hours just to get my head together again - after hours and hours days weeks of a distracted mind and a dull pain and and and I don't know self pity or something like it, in a moment of revelation I got monetarily sick of my own stupid thoughts and penned the bit below - clearly foreshadowing the douchey this-is-for-you bullshit non break up break up email that was to follow just hours later. (How do you like that run-on?) I did end up going home to find the comfort of family and try to clear my head of it all. But it is still taking time to feel normal again...I'm getting there.


6:03p, 10/10/14
click to enlarge.
oh god. what am i whining about? things didn't work out with this guy i barely knew? been there! i'm 31 and this isn't where i thought i'd be. so what! ask someone 40 and 31 is young. i'm young! whatever, young enough. these are the things i wanted - to fall on my face and make mistakes. and then i do and it gets to me and i bitch and when does it get easier. well i imagine nothing gets easier, just different; circumstances change and one thing you cried over gets resolved only to be presented with something else that sucks. there are good, good things here - this life of mine. yes, fine, i'm impatient and the same relationships and friends that sprinkle the path behind me are different; they've changed - or i've changed. but maybe that just means that life isn't as stagnant as i sit here frustratingly accuse if of being. everything is fine. i have got to calm down. it's a long and winding road. and if something is no longer on it, it wasn't meant to be.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Turkish Update

Guys, guys, the Turk came back and everything is great!

I'm totally joking. Nothing in my life ever works out quite that normal and nice. He never actually replied to my response(s) to his birthday email. "Well how often does he check his email," my mom asked.

"I don't know. I don't even know what continent he is on!"
Motherly advice, while lamenting
 about the Turk's latest response

"Good point." So after sending a follow up email to him on Thursday - after he didn't respond to my reply to his birthday email Tuesday -the Turk finally replied late night last Friday. I literally typed "please reply" at the end after I asked what was going on between us and if I should move on or he was still in Turkey and should I keep on waiting because not knowing was hurting me. He apologized for the late response and responded, in his broken English, with something resembling: that the family related matters in Turkey were more complicated than he had thought and he didn't know when he would be back so maybe I should go on because it would be selfish of him to ask me to wait for him and thank you for understanding.

Right. Well that didn't exactly tell me how he felt, which was a big question in the email I had sent. And read as though he was trying to take the 'I'm a good guy and this is for you' way out. But I suppose if you think, fuck I could be here for a year, his reply is totally justified. And I feel somewhat vindicated that he was, indeed, dealing with family shit, although my patience leaves something to be desired. But dude, why wouldn't you clue me in as to your whereabouts?! If this shit doesn't tell you just how jacked up our communication over the past what's it now like 2 months? has been, I don't know what does.

I responded and asked if he would like to keep in contact and maybe see each other when he gets back, which really was what I was going for from the beginning and got all fucking garbled. But, again, he didn't respond. Maybe he's sick of trying to write sentences in English, which I just realized is as difficult for him as reading my stupid emails in English. Would have been a lot easier from the start for him to admit that reading English is perhaps not his strong suit. Pride can certainly be inhibiting. Or maybe he's just a total fucking asshole. Could be.

So I tried to pen this email back to him, in Turkish this time. To really get my point across. Like, no, feelings - what are your FEEEEEEELINGS and I'd like to see you when you get back. And blah blah blah. But now I'm holding onto it wondering: Really? Is that what I want? Does he even care? Do I care if he cares? Hasn't all this fucked-uppedness encouraged me to just walk away? Like do I want to continue this hostage situation?  I don't know. But whatever it was the universe did a really strange thing to me with this one. And I'm really looking forward to seeing the god damned point. Because this all sucked big fucking Turkish donkey balls. And I hate it. And its incredibly frustrating. Although the weight loss has been nice...so at least there's that sliver of size six silver lining.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

"Call the Midwife"

Earlier this year year I got addicted to a BBC show based on a book, Call the Midwife, a memoir written by Jennifer Worth, a 1950s nurse and mid-wife in a very poor section of London, called Poplar. I loved the book; love the show. Love the lessons. Four quotes I really enjoyed while Netflix marathon-watching season three last month (because will power); I'm just going to leave them here.

"Perfection is not a polished thing. It is often simply something that is sincerely meant. [...] Perfection is what we discover in each other; what we see reflected back. And if perfection eludes us, that doesn't matter, for what we have in the moment is enough." 

"Invisible wounds are the hardest to heal. For their closure depends on the love of others. And patience and understanding. And the tender gift of time." 

"History needn't be a trap. We can't escape its web and shake off its weight of pain. We can change our minds and open our hearts. We can let forgiveness speak and allow it to be heard; let friendship flourish and let love in so it might feed and sustain us all our days."  

"The young can't see what lies ahead. And perhaps that is their blessing and their sorrow."



Saturday, October 11, 2014

(Psst)

I went to a psychic in Boston last weekend while there. Some Russian lady who used to have hair my color but now has to dye it and really did not believe me when I said it grows this way. "But your roots are darker," she said, suspect.

"Yea, the sun lightens my hair. The roots haven't seen the sun yet," I said, wanting to add the word bitch. We were clearly starting out on the right foot.

Anyway, the reading was weird. She said I had to be careful about friends that smile to my face, but stab me in the back. They are not real friends. I agreed.

She told me I was born under three lucky stars: business, love and something else. Obviously I was paying swell attention. There were two little girls I had befriended while waiting for my friend to finish her reading and they took a liking to me and kept popping up during the reading, so I'm just going to go ahead and blame the readers' granddaughters and my awesome appeal to children for forgetting.

She told me I smile on the outside, but I am not happy on the inside. That I am negative. Clouded and frustration; confused. Basically she picked up on all the elements I had felt over the past month with the Turk. And I considered that an open and shut case of circumstance, because I do try to find my happiness and mend my frustrations. So I mentioned him, to which she had nothing to say. She didn't "see him".

She did go on to said I have a soul mate, but she doesn't know who or when or where he is. (Or if it's the Turk.) Very useful. She said there was something from my teenage years that still follows me and haunts me. She said that I push men away; I don't make it easy on them to know me and this is from what haunts me. (I think she was trying to sell me a cleansing.) But she did pick up on my incredible ability to test (perchance even to self-sabotage) potential relationships. And that I need to knock it off. Although a few breaths later she said that my soul mate will accept all of the parts of me. So that was weird and slightly useless advice.

But, I'll just try to keep being my best me. We are all a sum of our histories, there is no denying that. But it is a thought I need to keep with me, I think is what I gained from her reading: Not to be confused or frustrated, not to fight my feelings or push people away; not to 'test'. And then I came back Tuesday morning and saw this last card from this weeks post secret. And it really resonated.


I shall try my best. Not to be afraid.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Boston Creme Birth Control

Last week I was chatting with my Seattle Senorita. She was going to be back in Boston for a couple of weeks and had suggested a few weeks back that I travel there for my birthday. I didn't think much of it until mid last week and it went from a joking mention to full on purchasing my tickets in about 20 minutes. I think these last minute whimsy trips always end up the best. I'm not even sure what I packed. But it didn't even matter - I wasn't there for Boston, I was there for my soul sisters. I would be lost without them. And laugh not nearly as much.

And to think, we all met because of Craig's List. I put out a "looking for roommate" ad years ago. She was the first to respond. She flew down to meet me and apartment shop. She never moved but we never stopped talking. And then she became convinced that me and her other friend in Seattle would get along. We were friends on Facebook for a year before we met in person last summer. And I love her. I love them both. Thanks social media. And while the weekend we had together was just about the best girls weekend I've ever had (and perfectly non-overt birthday celebration) it's not the moment that really stuck out worth sharing from that weekend. That moment came Monday morning when I was having brunch with my old roommate. You know, the 40ish nanny, D, that I used to live with and we wouldn't have been friends if weren't roommates but she's sweet and I love her, that one.

I meet her downtown. I meet the babe she nannies for who is two by now and happily snacking on a whole box of popcorn she had bought him as 'sorry you got your flu shot this morning' treat. After I said 'hi' to the babe who really only cared about the popcorn at this point, she immediately started lamenting that the mom handed him off without having packed the stroller and so she had no diapers. Mayday! I think and suggest she go buy some. She declines and says she doesn't want to pay for them and he should be okay for four hours. I try to encourage her again, but she begins to discuss lunch and decides she wants to go to the Omni hotel for lunch at Parker's (the hotel's restaurant) because they invented the Boston creme pie. Fine with me. So let's set the scene. Actually, let me show you the scene:

via

So there it is. Now, remember it's noonish on a Monday, in downtown Boston so there are lots of suits having a quiet professional meal at this fine dining establishment. The kid is mostly quiet through the meal, and just as the nanny ordered her Boston creme pie, the babe leans into the table, red-faced. Oh god, he's pooping! "Are you pooping," D asks him as she pulls him closer to her after I emit some sort of this-is-bad noise.

Just then, it begins. "Change diaper," the little boy says.

As a response, D pulls his chair a bit closer to her to acknowledge his request while she said, "You have to wait."

That didn't go over well. And it must have been exceptionally flu-shot induced awful because the kid wouldn't even sit back in his high chair, opting to lean forward on the table to avoid whatever had exited him over a nice meal and again announced, notably louder, "Poop! Change diaper!"

"You have to wait..." she said.

And then, in the middle of the restaurant full of well-dressed proper-ass people and wood walls and ambiance, he began to scream on repeat: "POOP! CHANGE DIAPER. CHANGE DIAPER. CHANGE DIAPER. POOOOOOOOP! CHANGE DIAPERRRRR."

Oh my god, all the proper-ass people are looking at us...

As his voice escalated, I insisted she go out and get him a diaper and change him. While she was hesitate to leave me alone for 20 minutes, I didn't care if it took four hours, she needed to get him to stop yelling "poop change diaper". I am rarely embarrassed but even that one got me. She left and I texted my soul sisters what happened and added "this is my life?!" - these occasions, I'm pretty sure, are why I don't have kids yet. About 35 minutes later, she returned with a happy toddler, at which time we all shared the Boston creme pie, which, to be honest, wasn't anything to write home about - in case you were wondering.




Thursday, October 9, 2014

Romanticism Sucks

I guess I did what would be considered an incredibly stupid thing. I like to think of myself as a realist - fighting the term cynic at this point - when it comes to love-type stuff. But I suppose when you agree to post-pone a move you had planned to wait for a man you barely know to come back from a month plus vacation in order to be able to get to know him, that's fairly romantic. And incredibly stupid.

I'm down 8 pounds. Which is likely in part to the cyst and definitely in part to my complete lack of appetite. The last conversation the Turk and I had was a complete and utter disaster. I had just gotten back from the second doctors appointment, finding out she had ruptured the cyst and having just popped my second day of birth control (which I hate because they make me nuts), when he pinged me. I told him I wasn't doing well, so naturally he called to Skype and see the complete disaster I was try to to make things better, but not knowing one another and the separation of cultures, created just about the worst conversation I've ever had with someone. We definitely both pushed each other away. And I hadn't heard from him since, also in part probably to my Skype going wonk.

Once Skype broke, I realized everything that could have gone wrong in this already entirely ridiculous situation has. But a man fighting that hard for you affections, declaring on the second day he would make you fall in love with him, has an incredible pull that lasts well past when logic screams that it should. It makes you not eat. Or it's just that I'm in an anxious limbo. I can move on; I've done it many times before, but my heart is fighting the logic in my head and I'm just stuck: Not knowing if he's still just abroad, or here and doing the aloof man non break up break up thing. Because yes, I made it known that we weren't in an exclusive relationship, but clearly we were doing SOMETHING. It is your job to tell me if something has become nothing to you. That's how that works. Meanwhile, I'm just over here kicking myself for my curious, optimistic stupidity.

He wished me a happy birthday Tuesday via email. (I think he may have called first but I was at my birthday dinner and missed it.) It was the first I'd heard from him in two weeks, since the disastrous discourse. I asked if he was home yet - and later added if he was the one that called to try again - with no response and I sit in the middle going: "Well, he could just be ignoring me and I should move on or he is dealing with his family stuff in Turkey with no internet and what an asshole I would be for up and leaving and saying 'fuck you." This feels like a concrete box. I'm Austin Powers stuck between the walls. And I can't won't eat.

I'm down 8.5 pounds. Romanticism fucking sucks. I'm just going to go pick up a hoard of cats and tell them all about how incredibly stupid their 'momma' is.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The Joshua Tree

I'm currently enthralled in my latest book - having given up on The Kennedy Women for now, as it's missing much of the juicy bits Nemesis had me hooked by, and returning to my most favorite of category: memoirs with - The Glass Castle. I came across this (these) excerpt(s). And I like it.

The chapter begins:
    After we pulled up stakes in San Francisco, we headed for the Mojave Desert. Near the Eagle Mountains, Mom made Dad stop the car. She'd seen a tree on the side of the road that had caught her fancy.
    It wasn't just any tree. It was an ancient Joshua tree. It stood in a crease of land where the desert ended and the mountain began, forming a wind tunnel. From the time the Joshua tree was a tiny sapling, it had been so beaten down by the whipping wind that, rather than trying to grow skyward, it had grown in the direction that the wind pushed it. It existed now in a permanent state of windblownness, leaning over so far that it seemed ready to topple, although, in fact, its roots held it firmly in place.
    I thought the Joshua tree was ugly. It looked scraggly and freakish, permanently stuck in its twisted, tortured position, and it made me think of how some adults tell you not to make weird faces because your features could freeze. Mom, however, thought it was one of the most beautiful trees she had ever seen. She told us she had to paint it.
 
And ends:
    While we were in Midland, Mom painted dozens of variations and studies of the Joshua tree. We'd go with her and she'd give us art lessons. One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and straight.
    Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty."