I’m so sick of crying. Last night Crusifer stayed to work overtime on a tattoo... He called me ahead of time to let me know. I was upset, especially when he said he was going to smoke a blunt with the customer afterwards. He told me when he got home how hot this girl was. He told me...;
“Yo babe, I think I got a girl friend.”
“You what?!?!” I exclaimed.
“Not like that.”
“I don’t want to hear that in any form.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I said, I don’t want to hear that in any form!”
“But babe, I just got mad connections just now. This fine as hell bitch comes in the shop today with three other fine as hell chicks,” he makes this little gesture he does where he touches his nose with one finger and then brushes it, I’m not sure why he does it, or where it comes from, but I know it’s like purposely blushing or along those lines. “She wanted a tattoo and as I was tattooing her she got to talking and she starts telling me how she’s in an open relationship. I did one of those tut numbers, because I know how that is. He’s sleeping with other girls but she hasn’t slept with anyone yet. I asked her if she wanted to get laid, and she said that she did.”
As he’s telling me this he’s getting undressed in the area of the room that I can’t see from the bed where I’m lying. I keep waiting for him to greet me and kiss me and tell me how he misses me, but without any input he continues.
“She was like preppy, but not that preppy. She had this sort of emo thing going on, not that she was gothed out or anything... She was just fine as hell, like... She was like a barbie, but she was emo though. Anyway, I asked her why she wasn’t getting laid even though she wanted to get laid and she said she doesn’t tell the guys she likes that she likes them, she wants them to figure it out. So I was like, ‘oh, you’re one of those chicks’ and she was like ‘what do you mean by that?’”
I say, “Baby?” Hoping to prompt him to greet me and touch me to stop talking about her, but after a moment of silence he says, “She was like Barbie gone emo, but not emo gone Barbie if you know what I mean. She was like one those chicks. Anyway, I got done tattooing her and then her friend wanted to get tattooed too. She was tattooed before by Cory Cudney so I was feeling pretty good. Like they were tattooed by him but she wanted to get a tattoo from me after seeing my stuff.”
I sigh and give up on him paying any notice to me. After another silence he says, “She was fine as hell though. Like she was really thin, and she was so pale, like you think you’re pale, you should have seen how pale she is. You would definitely think she’s hot. She was like Barbie gone emo.”
“You said that,” I said, getting extremely annoyed.
“Oh. Well, yeah, all her friends wanted to get tattooed by me too. And I saw (insert some name I forgot here) on the way home too, he gave me a slim-jim. Man, I’m coming up on Elmwood. I want everyone to know me. Like Hardcore wasn’t even all-like-that before I was there and now people who wouldn’t get tattooed there, get tattooed there by me.”
Still, no greeting, no hug, no kiss. All the happiness in me drains out of me and I listen despairingly as he continues, repeating himself often.
“And not just anybody either, I mean, this chick was fine as hell. And she asked for my number and of course I had to give it to her.”
“No you didn’t have to,” I muttered, but I don’t think he heard me.
“Like I just swooned her.”
“You did what?!?!”
“I swooned her, cause like she was mad fine.”
“Why would you do that? You’re encouraging her?” I say incredulously.
“No, no, of course not. It’s just flattering, you’d do it too.”
“I most certainly would not swoon anyone but you!”
“Yeah right, like you don’t get all happy when guys flatter you. You’re a woman so you wouldn’t understand. Women always get attention. I’m a man so it’s cool to me when a girl takes notice of me. It’s flattering you know. Cause she was mad hot and like emo, but Barbie though.”
“That’s like the third time you’ve said that now. And I don’t get flattered, and even if I did I wouldn’t come home bragging about it. You wouldn’t like it if I did.”
“Yeah, but you’re a woman. Let me put it this way, I have a lot more to worry about than you do.”
“Yeah right!” I exclaimed. “You’re at work tattooing every single fucking day. You tattoo mad fine fucking bitches all the fucking time! And you said so your self, even your fucking boss wants to fuck you!”
At this point I roll over and face away from him even though he’s walked into view. He crawls onto the bed and kisses my neck and says, “But I just got mad connections though.”
“I don’t fucking care about your connections!” I spat. This is the part where I messed up. I should have rolled over and kisses him back and told him how I felt earnestly but instead I just lost it. Instead of confronting the wrong I felt he had done, I added my own wrong to the picture by discounting his happiness, discounting his long-awaiting affection and discounting his socializing to further his career and lied about my own feelings on a level even though I didn’t care at that moment.
He abruptly pulls away and adds onto the pile of wrong-doings of the night by saying, “You think you don’t care about my connections, but what do you think is going to support us? You just go find some other man who has connections and then call me and let me know when you’ve found him and tell me you understand then!”
Of course this statement didn’t really make sense but I understood what he meant. His connections are something I should care about, and of course I do. Not so much because it’s important but because I care about everything he does. However his relationship with me, is so much more important to me. I didn’t want to hear about the chick he’d been with for the last three hours, tattooing her and then smoking a blunt with her when he could have been home with me, especially not before he even greets me.
The whole ordeal was only really a minor set-back and we eventually worked it out, but after a lot of crying and acting the fool on my part...
Today, ironically Jeremy visited me. Two weeks ago, when I was about ready to leave Crusifer, I was dying for Jeremy to visit me so that I could evaluate that possibility if it even was one. Today I saw that while I could ask him back out, it probably wouldn’t work. I’m not the same girl he was so crazy about, and my perspective is so different that he doesn’t seem like all that he was to me then. I feel a very sisterly-brotherly love for him. It’s obvious he feels a much more lustful love for me. We both dream about each other which is interesting, but not surprising really.
I kept trying to engage in an interesting conversation with him, but I realize now that we never got to talking about much of anything interesting. We’re both to distracted by who we are and what we used to be when we were together that it’s hard to talk about anything else. We don’t have recent memories together so we always go back to the common ground of what we did have. As I’ve said a zillion times, I wish dearly that I could be his friend, but I know that’s beyond impossible.
This is the first time seeing him again in probably three months. I see Tina only about twice as much, and that about ends the people I try to keep in touch with. I keep trying to talk to Will online, mostly out of courtesy for the friendship he’s offered me on many occasions. He was there to talk to when I was down and out. The truth is though that there seems to be nobody I can have easy conversation with but Crusifer, and even that sometimes seems strained. It’s wonderful and everything to be able to talk to my mother but nothing can change the dramatic age gap and the determined rolls of mother and daughter which will forever limit our conversations’ content.
I hope Jeremy saw no pity in my eyes when I looked at him, but I’m afraid he did because he said to me, “why do you keep looking at me like that?” And I said, “like what?” and he said, “the way you’re looking at me now which makes me feel so stupid.”
I laughed and determinedly looked at him in a silly way. He was also surprised when I said fluently without being conscious of the statements origins, “what the fruit cup?” in response to something he said or did, though I forgot what it was. I got that expression from him and never lost it.
He stayed for perhaps two hours. He wouldn’t have stayed so long but I told him he couldn’t go after only just showing up and did my typical move for when I don’t want someone to leave: I hide something that belongs to them. I hid his ipod. So as he was looking for it (mostly to be funny) I hid his shoes, and while he was looking for those I hid his hoodie. It made for more interesting interacting that the goofy faces and small talk we were having.
After I gave him his things back perhaps half an hour later we both opened our mouths and took a breath as if to say something at the same moment. We both didn’t speak, waiting for the other, and I said, “you first,” and then, before I could blink he snuck in a kiss – a quick peck to the lips. I was rather stunned, because it was so unexpected and so ironic after all the complaining I had done last night about Crusifer smoking a blunt with that chick.
I told Jeremy about last night’s happenings and the irony of it. He seemed embarrassed for having done it, but leaned towards me as if to look for something more. “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t like being a hypocrite, and I also don’t like feeling guilty.” This of course didn’t prevent him from getting a few gropes before he left, and somehow I do feel guilty anyway. I know that if Crusifer watched our interactions he would have been just as upset (if not more so) than I would have been if I could have watched him last night with that emo chick.
At least I wasn’t swooning anybody, and at least this is like a once in forever thing, and I’m hanging around a bunch of “hot” guys. So why do I feel like a hypocrite anyway?
This whole jealousy thing keeps getting worse for me. I don’t know how to stop the feelings I get every time I hear about or think about Crusifer and his profession. Tattoos in private places is bad enough, and so is smoking with customers, but doing it on my time and then coming home and bragging about it is more than I can handle. Sometimes I feel like he’s doing it just to make me jealous because of his insecurities.
And if all of this wasn’t enough weighing on my mind, now he’s probably not coming home again tonight because his cousin is in town. I feel bad for making it such a big deal for him to hang out with his cousin, but I feel like it’s so unfair that he should get to go out and have a good time with his cousins when I’m stuck here, lonely, on my period, with cramps, feeling like shit, missing him, after waiting for him and thinking about him all day long. I thought I said it in jest when I said to Jeremy, “Crusifer probably won’t even be home until four o’clock in the morning again. I’m lucky if I ever see that nigga!”
That was in response to Jeremy telling me about his new work schedule which has him working more hours than Crusifer. 8:00am to 8:00pm Mondays through Saturdays. Pretty crazy, huh? I feel bad for him. Mordern work is bull shit.
Now he isn’t going to be coming home tonight either. I’m so sick of this dance. If I’m not doing this dance with Crusifer then I’m doing the longer dance of hopping from man to man, and if it’s not that dance then it’s the lonely one. I feel like that of the three options this has to be the better one. He does love me, he is trying and he is providing for me... But I’m so fucking sick of being alone.
How many do you know?
That are going with the flow?
How many do you know?
That don’t know where to go?
How many, are ready?
How many, are steady?
How many started great?
How many were fate?
How many ended late?
How many are yet to state?
I just want to shout. I just want to pout.
I just want to yell. I just want to tell...
All the lovers in the land,
all the people holding hands,
all the famous and their fans,
all the ladies and their mans...
I just want to scream. I just want to dream.
I just want to yell. I just want to tell...
Everyone and anyone,
that it’s not as hard as they think,
that everything changes in a blink,
that you don’t have to circle, the same small rink!
Break traditions and the fads,
Ladies don’t leave your lads,
Guys don’t get so mad,
and stop making your lover sad.
It’s simple don’t you see?
I’m so sure that you will agree.
Because love is loud and free,
strong and sturdy as a tree.
I know that you’ve been hurting,
and I know that you’ve been burning.
You suffer from a great and terrible thirst,
but all you need to do; is put your love first.
Sunday, June, 22nd 2008, 3:30am
I shouldn’t be surprised, and I guess I’m not. He drank. He arrived at five in the morning. He passed out before five thirty. He didn’t say he was sorry, or that he missed me, or that it was a mistake. All he said was, “I forgot” and “I love you.” I beyond tears. I’m just cold and empty for now. I plan on going on a very early bike ride shortly. But it’s so early that I thought I’d wait a little longer.
Crusifer, as usual, when passed out doesn’t move at all once he’s asleep. He won’t notice I’ve left the bed for hours, if at all before he wakes up. The lights being on don’t bother him, nor does the clacking of this key board, or the noises I made while getting dressed.
He left the fridge open. He does the stupidest things when he’s drunk. I haven’t left a fridge door open since I was like a child. And that was mostly because our old fridge, before the fire, was bootleg as hell. He also poured himself this huge bowl of “munchies” from the downstairs kitchen when he has all these snacks up here just for him. I swear, I should stop wasting my time buying all his favorite nuts and snacks and bagging them for him. If it were my son I’d just make him eat it since he asked for it, but since it’s my “fiancé” there is little point in doing anything but stopping.
I wish it was eight o’clock in the morning instead of not yet six o’clock. Then I could feel like there was something to do with myself. I most certainly can’t sleep, and I’m all dressed to go biking. I barely know why I want to go bike... I just want to leave because I feel so left. Is that revenge? I am that petty? Surely the real reason is that I want to feel free and the wind and stuff... Am I hoping to run into someone? If I was, I don’t know who’d it be since nobody will be out at this time in the morning...
Crusifer has ruined our Sunday and it’s barely even begun. For what? So he could hang out with his drunken cousins? What a disgusting waste. He doesn’t know it, but I told myself that after three strikes after this “all or nothing” deal I’d call it quits for good and for sure. This is strike two... And it’s been... Two weeks? Pathetic! Why am I bothering?
I’m so deeply engrossed with someone who just won’t see me for me... It’s stupid and yet I feel so obligated to give one more fucking chance. Again, and again and again... Just like with Tre, until I was sure. This is so freaking stupid! I want to rip my own veins out of my arms, but I’m rather timid for such an ambition... Too timid to do anything other than imagine it vividly with a sour expression on my face. What useless masochism! (As Erica Jong would say...)
This should be the beginning of my own book about me, starring my dobblegander (sp?) with some nifty name...
Novel Draft
Kasandra paces back and forth on the floor, too angry to cry and too depressed to be truly angry. Was anyone going to ever love her? Was she cursed? Where did she go wrong? Was it on the phone earlier that day when she said that it wasn’t fair for him to go out with his cousins while she stayed at home alone? Was it last week when she gave him (yet again) another undeserved chance at marriage? Was it when she proposed to him in the first place five months ago on their year anniversary? Perhaps she just went wrong before the entire relationship consummated itself with a lusty sex on the first night they met? Perhaps it was rooted in the last ex, or the one before that? Maybe, just maybe, if she had been a better woman (like the woman she’s sure she must be by now) back where she was first in love, then maybe none of this would have happened.
Certainly she’s paying for something she’s done wrong four years ago, like when she cheated on her first love with lonely and desperate tears in her eyes. If one minute of sex before you dismount and break down in tears can really be considered cheating...
Kasandra waits for him to get home like a dog waiting for their master, or a cat waiting for food, like a toddler waiting to be picked up. She’s impulsive in her desire and anguish. She takes out her energy dancing wildly to recorded music videos for a time. When this loses it’s interest she reads the end of a book she’s been reading, then she goes on to play a PC game on his laptop next to the bed. When all of this has failed in pleasing her, failed in distracting her, failed in occupying her until he finally arrives, she settles at about three thirty in the morning in front of the TV with a unopened bag of Kettle chips; Salt & Vinegar flavored.
After consuming the chips and an entire episode of the Tyra Banks show she’s still just as unhappy, undistracted and alone as she was one hour previously. All occupations thus having failed her she begins to doodle. She’s still doodling when finally the drunk Mardarous arrives at five o’clock in the morning. She’s too angry to look up, and too cold to even cry. This scene has repeated in collideiscope of past nights and early mornings, only usually there are more tears. She’s losing hope to the point where even tears give no solace.
One might think that a year and half was a period of time too short to become to immensely attached, but then again, one might not know Kasandra.
That’s a little something of how I want the book to go. Something I can write, something I can get into, something that is relatable and such... It ought to start with tonight.
In a primitive society there isn’t a lot of time to think. Get up in the morning, and cook breakfast, which in itself requires making the fire, getting cooking stones hot, gathering water, etc. Say that takes an hour, and perhaps longer if there are kids to watch after. Then there is hunting, which takes hours of planning and practice, and hours to make the weapons, and then the actual process which takes hours of stalking which may not even lead to a catch. Foraging is all well as good, but not sustaining enough in a small community which can’t mass-produce fruits and vegetables.
Time not spent hunting would be used to make clothing, starting with skinning the animal, and cleaning the fur. The entire process of preparing a fur can take days with cleaning, stretching, and smoking. This was more than enough work for a man and a woman to be kept busy from dawn until dusk for eternity.
Farms and cities began to change that, allowing for entertainment, such as they had in Egyptian, Roman and Sumerian empires. However, when enough inventions come along, and enough wealth can be provided there is allowed to be a higher class of people that may become educated. This is a privilege and not to be taken lightly, because those few that may become educated come up with the new ideas that allow for the growing world population to continue to prosper and grow.
As terrible as slavery is, the slaves in many ancient empires allowed their masters the leisure to think. Being allowed to think gives us the opportunity to conceive great ideas to bring us forward into a new generation, a new century, a new era. For example, if Benjamin Franklin had been born into a more primitive society where he had to hunt and gather for food, or if he had been too busy being entertained after a long day’s work then electricity may never have been found. Of course, it may have still happened, but who can be sure?
Electricity is what allows so many millions of us to sit on our tails and think and for us to have an education. Electricity allows the mass production that brings us cheap clothing (we don’t have to work for days and days on one garment as we would have if we were starting with fur on an animal), and cheap food (instead of gathering ourselves, or planting ourselves factories do half the work for us), and cheap housing (instead of us building our homes big machines and specialized workers do it) and so on. Without all these inventions we’d have a lot less time. What’s funny is that we feel like we don’t have much time as is!
Perhaps “me-time” is addictive, because just a couple thousand years ago “me-time” didn’t exist for much of anybody. Survival was all there was. The problem with this development is that it’s grinding to a halt. We have so much freedom, and so much cheap junk, and so much education and opportunities that today’s generation is taking it all for granted. It’s the obligation of those who have time to think to be able to use that time in a productive way for their own sake, and the sake of their children and community. Unfortunately free time is often spent on partying, drugs, small-talk, gossip, fashion, relaxing, TV, and websites like Myspace.
In contrast to a couple hundred years ago... Education was coveted, and books were valuable. Now that everyone can write a book there tends to be less and less content worth reading! Now that books are everywhere there are less and less readers! Anybody notice the size of Reader’s Digest? The poor magazine is half the size it used to be! I suspect this is due to a lack of funding because of a lack of subscriptions rooted in a lack of education in the new working generation.
The deepest problem with this trend is the lack of invention. Today as I walked through Target I realized that everything I saw was something I’d seen before with a new color on it, or a new print, or a cut just slightly different. There was nothing new and innovative to be seen. Nothing is unique or hand-made and nothing is of the type of quality that it could be. Hence why we buy so many products that don’t work, or break shortly thereafter buying them.
Point-blank being that all this time we have to think and all this free education is all for nothing. We’re not making good enough use of any of our resources or capabilities.
To further my point, take prescription drugs for example. Aside from antibiotics which is an incredible discovery that changed life as we know it by turning things like strep-throat from deadly to a week of discomfort. If you take the other medications into consideration however, like drugs that combat the side affects of ADD or ADHD or pain pills, you’ll find a bunch of products that are worthless at their core.
Why are they worthless? Because studies (not acclaimed by our incompetent government) show that ADD is reversible through the practices of functional medicine. We need to take the path away from the diagnoses. Correlation does not mean causation (as an old friend recently reminded me). Which means that just because two people have a runny nose does not mean they have it for the same reason. This is a simple one to say, because we all know there is a difference between allergies and having a cold. But what about if two people have flaky scalp? Would you say they both have it for the same reason? You could be bloated from eating or from cramps. You could have a headache from noise or from lack of sleep. You could have pimples from puberty or from oily skin or from a disagreeable diet.
These are things that everyone knows, so why do we assume that just because two or three symptoms line up that it is what they say it is. The way the system works now is like taking aspirin to cure a nail through the foot. And that sad fact is that this is known to the researchers, the scientists and many doctors, but it’s not acknowledged.
Studies have shown that many “conditions” like diabetes and attention-deficit-disorder can be eliminated through dietary changes. This means that for many people (perhaps most but not all) their prescriptions are a waste of money and not needed. Think of the money put into the research of these drugs, the money put into the production of them, the selling of them, the insurance companies that help pay for them, the people who work in pharmacies selling them when so many of them are worthless junk.
This should be common knowledge but education is slipping, and so is research. Our entire network of systems that makes the world run is collapsing in on itself and I feel like nobody else can see it.
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