Resentful Love

Sunday, June 8th 2008 at 1:00am

I just need to accept who he is, and accept that I can’t change that, and then figure out if I want this for myself. It’s hard to chill out when my heart is breaking, but he doesn’t reach out to me when I’m in despair like I am now, he only moves farther away. He complains about how I need to deal with his Cav-ness, but he won’t deal with my tears and my aching heart.

It’s time to do like he does and say whatever. The only problem with this “solution” is that if I say whatever and truly mean it, then I’m going to stop doing all the things I do for him. I’m going to stop doing a lot of things for myself as well. Right now, he’s god-knows-where. He came home at 11:30pm (which means he left work at 11:25pm because it’s a five minute bike ride for him) and he didn’t greet me. I was watching the Tyra show but I paused it and waited for him to say something, when he didn’t I said “hey beautiful” but he didn’t respond.

I pressed the play button after a minute. He sat on the bed after a few more minutes. I paused the TV when he seemed like he wanted to say something. I don’t even know how we got into an argument. Oh wait, yes I do. He said, “I’m gonna go grab a couple beers and play some video games or something. What do you want to do?”

I replied, “I want to fall off the face of the planet.”

He asked where that came from, and I told him that he asked what I wanted, and that I had told him what I wanted. Then he said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I said, “Why haven’t you smiled to me in the last two days? Same difference, isn’t it?”

“You haven’t smiled at me since I got home yet,” he said.

“You didn’t even smile at me after morning sex and biking with you to work, which are two things you say you want a lot of.”

“Yeah, so you did that stuff one time. Like I’m supposed to get so excited because you did it. All I can think in my head is ‘about time’ is all.”

“And you expect me to keep doing it with that attitude?” I asked, getting angry. “If you made me tea and I didn’t drink any of it, and I just went back to sleep, would you ever do it again? You probably wouldn’t!”

He didn’t respond to that. He instead tried to defend himself in a different way by saying, “It was just an off-day. Everyone kept asking me all day at work what was wrong. I kept saying nothing, but no one would get off it.”

“But if it was an off-day then something was wrong. Why couldn’t you just open up and tell me what’s wrong?”

We went on that way for about twenty minutes. I said to him (again), “It’s not what you’re doing, it’s the intent behind it, the meaning of your action that is clearly illustrated by when you’re doing it, and how.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

I throw up my hands at this point. “You’re still not getting it!”

“Yeah-yeah. It’s about the meaning behind it. But obviously different actions have different meanings. I’m not stupid.”

We also touched on the drinking again. “Do you believe you have a drinking problem?” I asked again.

“No, I don’t,” he replied.

“But you wrote me a letter that said you believed that you do. You lied to me.”

“Not this again.”

“But that’s a real issue. We’re not arguing about nothing. This is important, because you do have an issue. The definition of a drinking problem is when it interferes with your family or your work.”

“My drinking doesn’t affect my work.”

At that point I should have pointed out how he was showing how little he cared about me to think about his work before me, but I didn’t, I said, “It affects me. How can you say you care about me so much more than I care about you when you don’t care how your drinking affects me? You were so drunk the other night you couldn’t operate a fan, and when I tried to tell you, you got mad at me, you treated me like shit because I was trying to help you. That’s okay with you?”

“It’s not the beer, it’s that I drank too many of them. I just need to learn not to get that drunk.”

“But it’s not like this is the first time,” I protested. “This isn’t even the second, third, fifth, tenth time... This is like the twentieth or thirtieth time you’ve come home drunk and treating me like shit.”

“Well I’m working on it.”

“Continuing to drink isn’t working on it. Quitting is working on it. Admitting you have a problem is working on it. If you continue to drink in your regular life than drinking will always be a part of your regular life, and getting drunk is a very logical result to drinking!”

I began crying at this point, but I didn’t actually stop talking to cry, I just let the tears fall while I spoke. I’ve already learned the letting the tears take over will not make him stop to comfort me, it won’t make him see how much he’s hurting me, and it won’t make me feel any better.

After about twenty minutes, he stands up, says “whatever” and starts to walk away. I said to him, “When did I walk away from you and say whatever? You’ve been doing it to me from the beginning. Every time you get sick of it you walk away and say whatever. I’ve done that to you how many times? What? Like one, two, maybe five times in our whole relationship? You think that doesn’t hurt?”

He just shrugged me off and went out to go buy his couple of beers, and he’s not back yet at 1:14am. I didn’t really look at what time he left, probably shortly before midnight. Once he was down the stairs, as usual, the flood of tears comes over me. I tell myself to stop, but I couldn’t just stop immediately, not yet have I gotten far enough to cry for a few seconds and then stop. But I down to minutes from hours.

He came back upstairs about sixty seconds later, and ignoring my tears asks, “think your parents would mind if I took the car?”

“Yes,” I said, without much contemplation. I’m not sure if they would mind, but I can’t imagine my mom would say, “yes, go ahead and leave my daughter in her room crying so you can go support your bad habit of drinking.”

I’m not sure why he needed to go anywhere requiring a car to pick up a couple beers. I guess he changed his mind about his plan. Beers never took him more than five minutes to acquire from the corner store before.
I’m kinda relieved that he’s not here right now though. Arguing with him is too hard after feeling like I’m so lost all day. I’ve been a drift... I’ve been talking to my mom most of the day. Hardly even talking, but rather, just listening for a lot of it. Too depressed to make a bowl of cereal when I first got up... I got out of bed at 5:00pm.

I woke to Crusifer calling me and was delighted to hear his voice. We chatted for a while and I asked why he didn’t call me last night. Why he didn’t borrow someone’s phone if his was dead. He eventually just hung up on me. I’m so tired of trying. I poured my heart out to him again on the phone...

I told him that I couldn’t look at hot girls any more because my heart had no room for anybody but him. “I’m just horny” he says. I told him, “I know, but this has nothing to do with being horny. It has to do with what’s in your heart.” I keep trying to explain how his actions are telling me that I’m not one of his real concerns. Why do I keep trying to explain this? If I’m really not, then I’m not, and I probably never will be because I’ve been busting my ass trying to prove my love for him all this time.

The cooking (and not just any cooking, but exactly what he wants, when he wants it), and the cleaning, (and carefully organizing his clothing, which I stopped doing because he clearly didn’t care), and the scanning and editing his art, and organizing all the files (which takes hours of focus) which he has never really appreciated either. Now this week I visited him four times at work. I rode with him to work once, I came to pick him up another time. I washed him in the shower, and he washed me. I gave him pedicures, and manicures, as I always do. I picked out his hair the way he likes. I did everything he said he wanted, including the morning sex and everything. I got on top.

What he doesn’t know is that I also bought him a birthday present this week and am working on a surprise for next week. What about all the times he came home to candles and his favorite underwear? I quit that because half the time he either argued with me, or wanted to do “something else” or whatever. He’d probably deny this, but in the future he’ll deny how he completely pushed me out after his coveted “morning sex.” He puts so much emphasis on what I do for him, and then claims I do nothing for him even when I do everything he says he wants. Either he’s not being real with himself about what he really wants, or he just doesn’t care what I do regardless, or he’s blind to everything I do. No matter the answer, none of it sounds like love to me...

With Tre I was stuck on “what if I can’t find someone as attractive?” and “he’s so strong, and I might not be able to find someone who can protect me like that” and so on. Then again, I was also stuck on the weed. Now I feel like I can’t find another artist, much less a goth/punk artist. But I guess that’s just a superficial excuse for the fact that I’m attached to him and everything about him including his flaws. I should know by now that his hobbies are unrelated to what’s really important between us. It’s not the hobby, but that we do it together. And we’re not doing much of anything together.

It’s not pay that you get for your job, it’s if your job allows you to enjoy your life and to be proud of yourself. It’s not if you’re attractive, but if you’re confident in your body. It’s not if you do or don’t give gifts, it’s that you mean well and are thoughtful in giving your gifts. It’s not if you have money or if you don’t, it’s how you spend how much or how little you have. This is what I keep trying to get through to Crusifer. It’s not if he goes out or if he doesn’t, it’s if he comes home fucked up, or coming home all excited because he found out that this hot chick wants to fuck him... Those things ruin everything. If he called me while he was out, came home when he said he was coming home, told me ahead of time, and gave me affection when he got back... Everything would be different.

Sunday, June 8th 2008 at 1:22pm

I might have gone to the gay pride parade if no body didn’t hurt like hell. My glands are swollen, have been for two days now... My neck won’t allow my head to turn all the way in most directions. When I sit down my stomach muscles clench too hard for comfort. When I stand up my thighs adamantly complain. My hips are sore when firm pressure is applied. My arms feel heavy.

This is the day Crusifer tells me El and Connie want to take him to Zor Valley. Do I want to come? Of course I want to come, but I can’t, and good-luck making anyone understand that. I’m in enough pain already, but if I went, I don’t think there is a chance that I wouldn’t get sick. I’m shifting between enjoying the extreme heat up here to being a little cooler than I like. Signs of a mild fever. Swallowing don’t “hurt” per say, but it isn’t comfortable. I would stay in bed, but that would hurt my muscles even more by the time I got up again. I’d just be stiff again, like yesterday.

My body freaking hates me.

I don’t think I’ve been this depressed since I was with Tre. I feel trapped. I’m arguing myself in circles, and at every turn I have a physical problem to overcome, and an emotional problem to overcome. Every turn in my chair strains some muscle...

He says I always am in pain, as though that’s reason for him not to care. So if I got in a serious accident tomorrow and lost use of my legs, I bet you his sympathy would last about ten minutes. Not that I so much want the sympathy, I just don’t want to face what it means that he doesn’t have any...

He’s going to go without me I guess. If he really does, which I expect he will, since he spent the last two nights away from me without problem, I think I know what I’ll do with my day.

I suppose vomiting the night away, and not getting to sleep until five o’clock still doesn’t warrant it being called a drinking “problem.”

All I can do is accept it at this point. Accept that he is who is he is, and that he’s not changing, and forget about any and all plans that I may have had. And then just chill out. I’m stressing my point to being the verge of being sick, and I’m paying for my stressing right now. That’s no good. I certainly can’t live my life feeling like this. Hell, I won’t make it through the summer at this rate. I’ll melt. (He, he, he, like my dry humor?)

I’m back to shivering. Moments ago I was sweating. This isn’t good. I suppose what I should do it go back to bed... But if I do that I won’t be able to move because I’ll get so stiff. This is quite the conundrum, just like my relationship. I’m torn between trying to show him how he behaves by acting like him, and by setting an example by treating him the way I want to be treated. I’ve taken the latter route around eight-five percent of the time, but... It’s difficult in this position. At the moment I’m not really doing either.

I’ve seriously considered getting high and drunk twice a week to show him... I’ve considered not being home when he got here... I’ve considered not calling him... I’ve considered not smiling... I’ve considered not initiating conversations... I’ve considered not answering his questions. But that would just make things worse, and I’d feel bad about it. I need serious guidance. But from whom?

Well, I suppose I already wrote the answer to that in my last entry, but we know I can’t just arrange that of my own accord...

I feel helpless. Anything new about that? Nope.

You know what else I’ve been considering? Getting a job. Being in this condition makes it a laughable prospect, because this is one of the large reasons why I can’t imagine getting an ordinary job. I’d probably get sick on the third day of work and be out for a week and then get fired. It could just be another excuse, but it sure as hell is a likely one. I’d love to get hired as the florist at Wegmans though. That might be fun, but we all know that getting the job you want is about as likely as winning the lotto.

But if I had a job... I’d meet new people. I’d see new things. I’d make my own money. If I worked part time I could still have time for some of the things I like to do, and if I got a well-suited job I might not get sick from it... I should apply for florist at Wegmans, just because, if I did get hired, I’d accept the job happily. It can’t hurt.

I’ve also been thinking about college again, but I don’t know how I could afford it...

I think I’m going to lay down and read now. Sitting up has become difficult.

Sunday, June 8th 2008 at 3:03pm

I’m copying pictures from one of the various SD chips I own. I think I have three, and Crusifer has two. Sometimes I clear off one and have it in reserve to switch out with the one Crusifer is currently using so that I don’t have to clean a chip on the spot without warning. I figure now is as good as time as any to upload all the chips. It needs doing.

Unfortunately just copying the pictures from the chips is time consuming. Often copying like twenty pictures will take seven or eight minutes. I’m not sure why is takes so long. I don’t know if it’s the chip, and if my computer speed is irrelevant, or if it’s my computer and the chip is irrelevant, or if both play a part in the speed at which the pictures are copied. Perhaps it has nothing to do with either and it’s more about my operating system, or about the method I use to copy them, or even the size and quality of the photos? It’s running at about a minute for every six photos.

Did I ever mention how many files I have? I have 15 gigs of files, and only about 2 of those gigs are music or video. It’s all art, photos and text. The text is in poetry, journal entries, HTML, game-design and novel-writing. The photos are of tattoos, family, friends, but mostly me. The art is Crusifer’s art, my art, digital art, maya models, and mores. There’s also things like the board game files, which include over 2000 graphics for the cards, and many very large files for the board-map. And of course there is a large number of charts and the manual, though those don’t take up much space at all.

Fifteen gigs in the 21st century isn’t really a lot, but considering that it’s not music and videos is incredible. I mean, fifteen gigs of movies is only like five to seven movies. Fifteen gigs of photos and text... That’s a lot of photos and text. I pride myself on my collection. It’s all very well organized. (To be exact, I just copied 63 pictures and it took a total of about seventeen minutes.) For example, under photos there is “Crusifer’s downloads,” “Family & Friends,” “Events,” and “Pictures of Me.” Under each one of those is five to twelve sub-folders. Under events you would find “Hawk Creak,” “Christmas 2007,” and “Christmas 2008" as well as a variety of other events from the past few years. In the fifteen gigs there are over 1000 folders; go figure.

I guess Crusifer isn’t going to Zor Valley because El never called him back and isn’t answering his phone. I really don’t like his friends. They’re so not reliable. Probably why I don’t have buds. It annoys me to death when people say something and don’t follow through, especially when they don’t even call and let you know...

Speaking of which... I have not seen Tina since the day after her baby was born. I called her once, and we spoke for a bit. I considered visiting her that day but I had already visited Crusifer and I was tired. I called her once since then but she didn’t pick up. I should make a point to see her this week. If not tomorrow then Thursday. (I’ve made plans for Tuesday, and on Wednesday Crusifer might have off work.)

I suppose I ought to get to work on the Quest cards today. Now, while I’m waiting for files to copy is as good a time as any... 55 seconds remaining... And then I’ll make another copy, and then another, (into different folders to save me the effort of sorting later) and then I’ll be done with this chip and it will be on to the next. Mundane life... It’s only wonderful when you’re deeply and passionately and happily in love...

Aunt Mary is in love. I guess I’m happy for her.

January 14th, 2008

Monday the 14th of January, 2008.

It is 9:25pm at the moment.

Ashley, Nicole & Hallie,

I guess my point was that it’s a lot more likely for something terrible to happen to you if you’re involved with bad stuff. Every time I personally hear about someone’s friend getting shot, or raped, or kid-napped, etc, it was someone who was heavily either into drugs or parties or both. The only thing outside of those I ever heard about personally was that Tiffany once was beaten by a bunch of black girls for dressing "goth" when she walked by Grover several years ago. And personally, I think it was an error in judgment to be alone dressed that way in that area. I certainly wouldn’t do that myself. That’s really my only testament to that. Of course walking home from school can be an issue too, but don’t all kids ride the yellow school buses? I always did, and then the bus-aid walks you across the street and everything.

Of course it’s not always the victim’s fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that there are a large number of things a person can do to help protect themselves from those sorts of things happening.

---

Well, after being done with Arrin, my mom continued to speak with him. And Arrin has hatched a new plan of business which he told her about, which he met with myself, my mother and my brother about today. Everything is a little more clear to me now about how Arrin does business, and how he views things. I just don’t like the fact that everything isn’t always clear with him, but I suppose nobody is perfect... Oh how I miss C.

I’ll be meeting with C for lunch this Thursday. I figured that would be a good wake-up call for me. To speak to my old boss, to see how he’s been the last year and a half. I miss him, and I wish I could take part in his company somehow, but perhaps that is an opportunity that I missed out on. But what am I saying? I still don’t want a career, and My boyfriend is fine with me not having one.

On the other hand, I am still a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant, but I have not been doing much with that as of late. Perhaps I will in the future, perhaps I won’t. *sigh*

---

My boyfriend isn’t here yet. I’m not sure why. He’s been so good to me this last week it’s unbelievable. (If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is not true...) So I’m trying really hard not to believe it, but it’s so hard not to get my hopes up in the clouds when he’s coming home every night, blowing off every party he’s invited to, drawing with me, writing with me, talking to me, eating beside me, even dancing and exercising with me. Everything I always knew we could do together, but somehow weren’t.

He did say he was going to take a bath before he came up here, but he wasn’t here yet at 9:20pm, and for him, it’s not a twenty-minute walk. And at 9:05pm he wasn’t at work. I know this because Mom and I were driving home from Arrin’s place, and decided we should swing by and get My boyfriend (since it’s snowing felines and canines out there and freezing like outer-space) but we got there after nine o’clock by a few minutes and he’s not answering his phone. I rang it for ten minutes straight, for the fat lot of good it did me.

I hope he’s alright. I don’t know why I bother worrying about him though, since if anything went "wrong" it’s him being at a party. But on a Monday night though? Highly unlikely really.

---

In other news, Operation Restoration and Reconstruction of the mid-section and ‘front’-section of the attic is underway! Two new construction lights have been ‘installed’ and paid for today by The One And Only Phoenix, herself. (And the accompanying extension cord.) And I’ve gone through one box anyway. It was a box of Melanie’s Mall stuff from when I was a kid. I cleaned the stuff up and transferred it into a bin. There is a good deal of my own stuff I want to get out of the way before bothering to move on to my parent’s stuff, since mine is the stuff that you are immediately hit with when you go back there. Once my storage is re-organized and condensed then I can use the space that the stuff was occupying as a work-station for my parents’ old boxes.

It’s a pretty large project really, but at the same time, I know I’m capable of doing it entirely myself (at least to a liveable degree) even though it will take some time. I’m really excited to have gotten started on that.

Another project I’ve started on is the e-bay project. Which really is a project since it requires so many pictures to be worth-while. I’ve taken pictures of myself in half of the cloths I wish to try and sell. All perfectly good stuff otherwise I’d just throw it all away or something. Perhaps even give it to the salvation army – except that I feel that’s a waste really. I’ve heard and seen some things about the salvation army that deter me from wanting to give away my old stuff to them.

I not only have a bin and half full of perfectly good clothes, I also have a large box full of glass-wear items that would be nice to clean up and sell as well. That’s a lot of pictures and cleaning up in it self. I figure if the stuff sells, or more likely, if half of it sells, it works out to being a $4 to $5 dollar an hour job for a week or two, which isn’t obviously very good, but it’s better than throwing the stuff away, and it’s also better to recycle some of the cost than none. Perhaps it won’t take as much time as I think it will, who knows.

---

I guess I’m not feeling very inspired today. All I’ve done is clean, talk to my Mom and Arrin and my brother, and take those pictures. Not really much to write about, huh? And My boyfriend still isn’t answering his phone at nine-fifty-five. Not a good sign really. It’s the fourteenth, so I should be expecting something bad to happen soon.

Conclusions, Circles and Continue

Saturday the 12th of January, 2008.

It is 6:09pm at the moment.

Yesterday My boyfriend and I repeated the binding ceremony that was done on January 11th 2007. It was a much grander ceremony having the weight of a year behind it, and being an anniversary of sorts. The small metal-heart-box was brought out of it’s pink-tin container within the swede-pink-MK-bracelet box in the bottom drawer of our jewelry box and rested before my largest quartz-crystal point before an orange candle with two wicks, two flames, to represent the two of us.

The entire room was lit with candles, including the bathroom so that there would be no artificial light at all. It smelled of vanilla, apple pie, and the soft scent created by other mild candles mixed together. It smelled of home, protection, and contentment.

I brought out all of my stones and places them artistically about the room, pleased with my arrangement, with my collection, with my knowledge and with my own power. I held my small violet swirled-stone ball. It’s not perfectly round, and you can feel it’s indentations and ripples, though it’s entirely smooth to the touch. I love it’s energy. It helped me focus myself.

I poured a generous, but not extravagant amount of extra virgin olive oil into a small tinted-glass bowl. I pulled out his promise ring (though not his engagement ring, I’m not sure where he’s been keeping that) and his engagement necklace, and his pouch of protective stones to lay beside the oil and the double-wicked candle, as well as the crystal and the metal-weave box shaped like a heart.

Because I don’t have a chalice or an alter, I took a slab of 2 by 2 wood painted solid black that was about a foot long (left over from making the shelves above my bed and television) and taped five candles (with black ducked tape I was given for Christmas from mom) to it. Since I only had green, red and white taper candles I looked up their exact meanings so I could get their placement right.

I taped the green candle in the center. Centering us in logic, prosperity and prudence. I used two white candles beside that, one I inscribed with truth with a small pocket knife I gave My boyfriend last year, and the other I inscribed understanding, and on the ends, I used two red candles. One was maroon and the other was bright red. The bright red one I inscribed with love and the maroon with lust. Perhaps not traditional, but that’s suiting since neither My boyfriend or I are traditional people. (Except in the sense that he want’s to be the working man of the house, and I want to be the house-hold wife who mothers, cleans and cooks.)

I dressed in a flowing, layered, partly transparent skirt cut unevenly into points with a short-skirted slip of black and pink over it. Not a combination I have ever used before. My boyfriend liked it as much as I did.

When he arrived at eleven twenty we meditated on the bed first. A pre-ceremonial protection meditation, concentrated on putting us together within a white bubble of protection, filled with light and completely surrounding us both. Within the white bubble is a white figure eight, one side of the eight enclosing him, and the other side enclosing me, passing understanding, love and truth between us.

We meditated on this facing each other.

My boyfriend without a doubt felt the effects of meditating on his imagery with me. As we moved to the couch (our other bed-couch that actually used to be used as our bed before we decided our couch made a better bed) we were affectionate and whispered to each other, since it was obvious we could not talk since it would be too loud in the quiet candle-lit room.

Touching, kissing, and resettling I set up for the cleansing part of the ceremony. The prerequisite to the binding spell. We dripped wax onto both sides of the double-wicked candle, one side with his finger-print and the other side with my finger-print.

(By the by, if you decide to go do your own binding spell make sure you do not do exactly what you have read here. Spells are to be invented by the person or persons involved and should be as unique as possible, involving actions, words, positions and tools pertaining to what you believe should be done to create the desired result. Spell copying, or ‘recipe spells’ will hold less meaning than self-written incantations, or self-invented candle or stone rituals. And do remember that when you bind someone to you, you also bind yourself to them. Never do this unless you are willing to give yourself entirely to the person you are binding.)

Then we mediated on our cleansing our Chakras: First the red chakra; Located at the base of the spine, this chakra forms our foundation. It represents the element earth, and is therefore related to our survival instincts, and to our sense of grounding and connection to our bodies and the physical plane. Ideally this chakra brings us health, prosperity, security, and dynamic presence. The first chakra is our physical identity. We filled with red, connected to each other in red strings, and then moved up.

The orange chakra, located in the abdomen, as well as lower back, and sexual organs, is related to the element water, and to emotions and sexuality. It is our emotional identity. It connects us to others through feeling, desire, sensation, and movement. This chakra, when strong and healthy, brings us fluidity and grace, depth of feeling, sexual fulfillment, and the ability to accept change. The second chakra is oriented in self-gratification. And so we filled and connected in orange, only leaving the red ball exempt from filling with orange.

Then up to the third chakra. The power chakra, and it is yellow. Located in the solar plexus; it rules our personal power, will, and autonomy, as well as our metabolism. When healthy, this chakra brings us energy, effectiveness, and spontaneity. This chakra is our ego identity and is oriented in self-definition. As so we filled and connected with yellow, only leaving the orange and red balls of energy exempt from filling with yellow.

Then my favorite chakra, the fourth, with the element of air. This chakra is the one I feel when I’m lonely, or upset, or happy. Located in the heart, it is the middle of seven chakras. It is related to love and is the integrator of opposites in the psyche: mind and body, male and female, persona and shadow, ego and unity. A healthy fourth chakra allows us to love deeply, feel compassion, have a deep sense of peace and centeredness. And oh how I feel that peace and centeredness when I’m with My boyfriend. It vibrates when I’m around other psychics and that feeling is so unique compared to touch, smell, taste, sight and sound. It is wonderful when I’m feeling love, and it’s the worst pain I can imagine when feeling separated from love. I had never felt it so strongly as I did when Jeremy left me. It hurt like fire for over a month, day in and day out. When emotions hit us so spiritually and so physically, how can anyone not believe in another plane filled with emotions and energy alone? Incidently this is also the chakra of self-acceptance, and social identity. And so we filled with green, leaving only the yellow, orange and red chakra-balls beneath it.

The fifth chakra is located in the throat and is thus related to communication and creativity. Here we experience the world symbolically through vibration, such as the vibration of sound representing language. This is the chakra of our creative identity, oriented to self-expression. It is the blue chakra. And so we filled with blue, leaving only the previous colored balls in place, and washing ourselves everywhere else in blue.

The second-last chakra, or should I say, second-highest chakra is that of light, oriented to self-reflection. It is our archetypal identity. This chakra is known as the brow chakra or third eye center. It is related to the act of seeing, both physically and intuitively. The purple chakra opens our psychic faculties and our understanding of archetypal levels. When healthy it allows us to see clearly, and to see from a higher plane and level. And so we filled with purple.

And lastly, the highest chakra, the seventh which is oriented to self-knowlegde and holds the element thought. This is the crown chakra that relates to consciousness as pure awareness. It is our connection to the greater world beyond, to a timeless, spaceless place of all-knowing. When developed, this chakra brings us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss. This chakra is violent and is our universal identity. And so we filled with violet coming in through the top of our heads, until we were filled and connected with violet energy. Then we filled again with white, only leaving the chakra balls in place, completing the chakra cleansing.

I’d like to point out that for each of these chakras we have a different identity. Physical, emotional, ego, social, creative, archetypal, and universal. To me, this means that each of those energies contains a unique code, like a strand of DNA that directly relates to us in that form. Currently we are all human, based in red and in physical but we also are connected to our emotions, our ego, our social side, our creativity, and many of us are also connected to our archetypal and universal selves. But notice that some people don’t get much past physical. Perhaps alcoholics who deny their emotions and have sex with girls while lying to them about love when they’ve never even felt love would fit the bill.

I believe that when we leave this body that our physical selves, (which will obliviously rot) will have a red strand of information, that contains the DNA information that we lived in as a body as well as our memories of this life-time, and lessons. That piece of information will be a bit of energy that comprises our entire being, and it will be everywhere, just like our DNA in our bodies is everywhere. I believe that those who can remember their past lives are people who either were born into this life as a more advanced soul who couldn’t help but remember in their sleep or even while awake because there is so many useful things to remember that their firmly-connected spirit wants to convey, or they are people who have developed their chakras and their powers during this life-time. I will make my children write their dreams first thing in the morning everyday as one way to help them tap into the messages we receive for our greater selves. (Even if you don’t believe in dreams being real in the other realm, then look at it this way: Dreams take place in your subconscious, allowing you to process your real knowledge, emotions and memories without being clouded by present events or external interactions. Therefore there is an infinite amount of self-knowledge to be gained by remembering and writing them.)

Following this train of thought, our crown chakra would be the "DNA" of our entire soul, containing the information of all of our past lives in and out of the physical plane. But because we are rooted in our red energy, tapping into that energy requires aligning all of the chakras between red and violet. This would be the purpose for meditating. To learn what we already know. Funny, ain’t it?

After the chakra cleansing I lit the five candled alter I made just for last night. Returning to the couch I put an "R" on My boyfriend’s forehead in oil, and he put a "C" on mine. Then we proceeded to write out our future wishes for our relationship in oil on each others bare chests. He only wrote one, I wrote many. Neither of us told each other our wishes. I think it’s beautiful to tell each other in subconscious, in energy, in body and in oil but not in words. It made it so personal.

It made it us.

We held the violet ball in our right hands together between us, and clasped our left hands above that. I told him to remember our worst memories, the ones where he felt guilty, or angry, upset or betrayed. I remember that first time I saw him drunk, when I became so enraged that I banged his head into the floor. I feel guilty about that night, and indignant as well. But now that is so long ago, and it was time to let it go. Then I said to shatter the image, and to forgive ourselves and each other for these memories.

Then, the more pleasant memories were to be recalled. Last year’s binding ceremony where him and I severed bits of hair and melded them together by melting wax over them inside the metal-heart container (with a metal flower adorning the top and a woven-ish pattern covering the entire box). The day that we realized we finally felt like our relationship was back a month after my return from my three-week trip. The trip to Toronto and the convention and when My boyfriend knocked the paper oriental light down and us trying to put it back up properly. The Adam’s Mark hotel during my Uncle’s Super Grands tournament, and having sex in the bathroom, swimming in the pool and watching the fighters in side-rink seats. Those memories to be tucked carefully away, never forgotten.

Then I circled the heart-box the around the candle. This metal box being the only object to connect us to last year’s ceremony, and representing this past year. When back at it’s original point before the crystal I placed a paper heart-cutout picture of the two of us looking at each other over the hairs and wax melted inside. I dripped red wax from my lighting candle, the same used to make the finger prints on the large double-wick candle, and covered the picture with wax. Then I snipped new hair clipping, winding his curl around my straight hair before dropping it into the small container and melting it on top of the picture.

The picture is still visible, but through a red-tint and a little fuzzy in places. I like to think of the fuzzy spots as the bad memories we’ll forget, and what we can see being tinted in red because we’re remembering passion, and love and happiness.

Then, for the final testament of our commitment. A Love Contract we had joked about making two nights before yesterday came into being the night before yesterday. He agreed to it’s terms prior to last night’s ceremony. Casually, he sliced open his finger to sign it in blood and also placed his finger print in blood on it as well. I picked a convenient scab to sign my own name, and added a lip-print in lipstick as well as my official signature in charcoal.

That contract is as follows:

---

Scrap Talent Scouting

Sunday the 6th of January, 2008.

It is 2:30am at the moment.

My boyfriend,

As you suspected, you do spend more time with me than you do out. Except for last month anyway. But seriously, by an average of 2%... Great, I’m 2% more important than your friends? Or something like that. And this doesn’t include any measure of the quality of time spent together except that I only recorded hours with me that you actually spent with me. You being at your computer, and me reading a book on the bed (as a dull example) doesn’t count.

Time remaining includes your transportation to and from work, time that you’re awake in the morning and I’m still tired. Time that you were taking a bath, or times where we occupied the same room, but for some reason were not engaged in anything at all together. (Yes, I did count us sitting at our computers as time spent together.)

And out of the time we did spend together, honestly, how much of it was watching TV, being at our computers, or having sex? Not that I dislike any of those things, I like them all, but they are not the highlights of my week. For example, us ice skating together made a highlight. Us having Christmas dinner together made a highlight. Us eating out at Wegmands was a highlight. And damn, I’m already stumbling trying to think up another one.

My boyfriend, I’m crazy about you. But it’s taking it’s toll on me to wait. I waited for Tre for two years. Jeremy waited for me for two years. Eventually there comes a time when you give up. I don’t want to give up. I want to make this work. I’m trying so hard to please you. I don’t know what more you could possibly want from me. But if there is something, for goodness-sakes, ask me.

How come you never write me letters? How come it’s been so long since you drew me a picture? How come you never invite me anywhere? How come you don’t read the books I’ve bought you? How come you never want to do what I want to do, and never appreciate that I’m damn-near always doing what you want to do?

Month	Total Days	Total Hours	Hours At Work	Hours Sleeping	Hours Out	Hours with Me	Time Remaining
August	31 days	744hrs	255hrs (34%)	248hrs (30%)	58hrs (7.8%)	65hrs (8.7%)	118hrs (15.8%)
September	30 days	720hrs	230hrs (32%)	240hrs (30%)	50hrs (7.1%)	97hrs (13%)	103hrs (14.3%)
October	31 days	744hrs	266hrs (36%)	248hrs (30%)	46hrs (6.2%)	48hrs (6.4%)	136hrs (18.2%)
November	30 days	720hrs	234hrs (33%)	240hrs (30%)	39hrs (5.5%)	70hrs (9.7%)	137hrs (19%)
December	31 days	744	242 (33%)	248 (30%)	72 (9.8%)	64 (8.6%)	118 (15.8%)

My boyfriend, above is plain statistical break-down of your time spent over the last five months. On average I get 9.5% of your time. The highest possible with your work schedule would be about 29%. Now you might finally see why this upsets me, but perhaps not. I feel helpless My boyfriend. You won’t listen to me, you’ll barely call me. I feel like my feelings are not even an area considered in your actions most of the time.

I’m alone tonight, with no explanation, and no warning. I was dressed up, make-up to stockings to lacy underwear only to be hung up on for asking if you could please try to be ready by 11:30pm, and ignored ever since.

That is what I’m referring to when I say things are not changing. That is what I mean when I say I’ve rewound two years of my life. This isn’t the pattern of a married man or a father, and those are what I’m looking for, and aiming for. This is why I cry, and doubt, and question.

I want it to be you. This isn’t a break-up letter. This is your second warning.

It is 3:50am at the moment.

Four o’clock in the morning. Again. Yesterday is was five-thirty in the morning before he got home. I knew things would suck even more if I told him he could go out, but I didn’t know it would suck like this. Three Steels he drank last night while he was out. And he came home talking about how Sam wants to fuck him. Seriously, just the fucking highlight of a lifetime.

Last night he let me know he was going out, and that he didn’t know when he’d be home. Today is an entirely different story. A story that for the most part, I don’t know or understand. My Mom offered him a ride, via me. I called and told him, he said he’d love a ride. He said to be there at 11:30pm. At 11:15pm he called me and asked if it could be a little later because no one had left the shop yet, because paychecks were not given out yet. I told him it could not be made later because my Dad would have the car. He said, "Fuck it, if it’s that much of a problem then I’ll walk home!" And then he hung up.

I called right back. No answer. Why did he get angry about it? He was offered a ride. He wasn’t able (so he says) to leave before 11:30pm. Somehow this is just reason to make me believe that he is angry, but that he will be walking home. Perhaps it takes him until midnight to leave the shop, and perhaps in takes as long as half an hour to walk home, and perhaps he spends an hour in the bathroom. Even if all of that were the case, he would have been here over two hours ago.

I take this to mean that he was planning on going out from the beginning and just didn’t want to tell me. Never mind that I took off my jeans and sweatshirt and cotton panties and bra, and replaced it with black thigh-highs, lace-black panties, a lacy-silk dress with no bra, a scarf as a belt, leg warmers (stylish ones that didn’t detract from the outfit that would allow me to not freeze when we picked him up) three-inch-heeled boots, applied my eye-liner, eye-shadow and lipstick freshly, and was about to set out the door when he called and said not to come get him.

I kinda wish I hadn’t answered my phone and had instead shown up. Then what would have happened? Would he have turned out to be ready by 11:30pm after all? Would he change his mind when he saw me?

You know, he doesn’t even read this blog anymore because he says it’ll hurt him too much. I think that’s a flashing banner all on it’s own. He’s in a deep denial. As Tre was. Oddly. Tre knew (as he puts it) that our "relationship was on the rocks" but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. He felt helpless, like our breakup was inevitable, but that perhaps, maybe, just maybe if he stuck everything out that somehow I’d just decide to accept a sloppy, mean, inconsiderate, inconsistent, lying, split-personality, thieving, ass hole as a husband. Ha! You could hang me first.

So My boyfriend thinks I’m going to magically accept getting to spend next to no time with him, and him coming home smelling of beers and acting like a bumbling ass-hole. That I’ll just accept be called a liar and being call typical. What do I do to deserve that? Does every typical woman put up with this shit? Is every typical woman this forgiving? Is every typical woman willing to play out his fantasies in bed, and do all of his domestic work and be here each and every night for him without fail? Is every typical woman willing to do what-the-fuck-ever he wants to do when he gets home? I don’t bloody think so!

And for goodness-sakes I am not a liar! I have a whole fucking blog online filled with over 1000 entries. If I did lie, they would be obvious. But perhaps him not reading my blog is a bigger banner of disaster than I originally thought. At first I thought that it would make my life easier, since I could write fully, without slanting things for his benefit. Without worrying about his reaction. But doesn’t it just go to show that he is purposely not caring about how I feel?

I hate that every little noise I hear excites me because I think it’s him. I hate how I start to tingle when I get convinced that he’s here. Who else would be making all those sounds? But then they die down and stop and I realize that Mary must have used the bathroom, or that Dad must have came home from his night out. I sit there and tell myself over and over again, it’s not him, it’s not him, don’t be excited because it’s not him. You shouldn’t even BE excited, because after-all, look what he’s doing to you! But I can’t help it. My motions still, my ears strain, my body grows tense. Waiting, listening, eyes bulging in the dark. Nothing. No one. I am alone.

It has occurred to me that if I suddenly start seeing spirits one of the nights that he is out that I will be trapped up here. Undoubtedly a spirit that would bother me would occupy the stairs. No one would come if I screamed. I scream too often for that. (When a big spider falls in my face. When I hurt myself. When My boyfriend fucks me. When My boyfriend and I get into a bad argument.) No one would come, and there I’d be, face-to-face with an apparition that I couldn’t emotionally handle. A stress-demon that would feed on my fear, and make me more afraid with my own fear.

I never turn all the lights off when I’m alone. About to turn nineteen and I still can’t do that. I almost thought I could after kicking Tre out, but not quite, not really.

I’m so lost in this sea of feelings and sensations. Here I am, wanting a baby so bad when I’m losing my grip on the father I have in mind. Here I am, not wanting a job, trying to fight the idea when the best job offer I could probably imagine just dropped into my lap, when I need money to accomplish my goals. Wait, what goals? I want kids. But sometimes, only sometimes, I want other things too. I want this attic done, of course. But sometimes other things sound good, like college, like being a psychiatrist, like being a novelist. Yet somehow those dreams fade in and out, while having a steady family is my main focus all the time.

My boyfriend doesn’t really appreciate me, does he? And he doesn’t believe that I appreciate him. But what more could I do to appreciate him or to show him that I do? I’ve sat there, doing nothing but watching him play Final Fantasy 12 for seven or eight hours since he got the game. Just watching, just to be close to him, to converse with him. And what did he do? He snapped at me for "giving all the wrong game advice." I’m so mad at myself. How can this have happened? I’m so focused on making things work with My boyfriend, just like I was a year into my relationship with Tre. Of course, this obviously is on a different scale. My boyfriend and I have only had two arguments as vicious as those I used to have with Tre. But it seems to me as though our arguments are only growing worse.

I finally am getting My boyfriend as an entire picture. Everything that I like about him I knew from practically the first month. And my biggest problem (the drinking and partying) I knew then too. But all these other little things have filled in. His tendency towards denial is just a recent one. His insecurities are things that were revealed to me one by one throughout the course of our entire relationship, starting in the third month or so. His direct connection between sex and love (which he can’t separate – he doesn’t feel loved without sex, period) didn’t become apparent until around five months with him, perhaps four or six months, I’m not sure.

Here go the noises again. What could it be this time? Doors opening and closing. What sound like footsteps. And then quiet again. No activity in the downstairs bathroom this time. Perhaps it was just the wind. This time I’ve managed to stay calmer than last time.

The really fucked up part is that he didn’t let me know he was going out. The part where he got mad at me for nothing. He hung up on me and has been ignoring my calls ever since. Now that is fucked up. I have all the basis to just leave him, and I know I do. I can barely even say that I have the basis to forgive him, because how many times have I forgiven him already?

I feel so desolate, and it’s his fault, again. The ratio between happiness and sadness caused by a partner required to maintain an at least semi-functional relationship is faltering. I’ve gotten so that I don’t cry about half the stuff that he does that I used to. That’s another phase I’ve been through before with Tre. When things don’t bring me to that point anymore. The problem is that I doubted Tre often times in the beginning to, and after all, he flat-out lied, and he was a disaster to physical items, etc. I mean, My boyfriend isn’t like that, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. As one commenter said before (sorry that I can’t remember who exactly, perhaps Ashley or Hallie?) I need to stop comparing him to Tre and saying that he’d better, and starting asking myself if he is enough. I guess the answer to that might be barely.

It sounds so bad, but when he is with me, it’s like magic. Our conversations are insightful and enjoyable. Our hobbies are compatible, our interests are similar. Our goals line up. All except for the part where he works a zillion hours a week, and then parties all night afterwards. But the magic he makes while he’s with me is really starting to become less and less relevant, because he spends so little time with me, and because he breaks my heart by making these promises he can’t keep, and by not telling me his plans or how he feels, he ends up making me feel like shit for long hours of the day and night, much longer than the time I can even spend with him, and our arguments have doubled in the last month in frequency and ferocity...

And then he calls. Just now. In tears. I’ve only seen him cry once, and that was over his mom. Oh no. What could have possibly happened? I’m so confused. I’m going to meet him downstairs...

Tuesday the 8th of January, 2008.

It is 1:09pm at the moment.

After giving My boyfriend the letter (via slipping it into his journal) he said to me, "I don’t know what else you might want from me. Today I came home and I drew beside you, and I read while you read, I wrote while you were writing, and we ate and watched Naruto. Would writing a letter too make any real difference?" (Or something along those lines, word for word is always difficult to come up with, even when it’s something I said.)

I smiled, "How can I put this?" I thought for a moment. "If I had my druthers, that is, if I had everything exactly the way I’d like it, then yes, I want to do all of those things. Everyday when you got home we’d write, or draw, or read, or watch TV, or play on our computer, or talk and laugh, have sex or make love, kiss and play, exercise together, and all of those sorts of things. But..."

"On Sunday we’d –" he started to elaborate for me.

"On Sunday you might do something really extra special for me. Like cook me a breakfast and bring it to me in bed. Or slip away during the day for a few minutes to run me a hot bath with rose petals, and then drag me to the bathroom pretending you’re going to take a bath, and then surprise me with a candle-lit bathroom and wash me head to toe, and warm up my towel in the dryer and dry me too. And of course I’d also like letters or poetry."

"Oh," he said, sounding bewildered for a moment, "I guess I really haven’t been trying."

"Well, I did try some of those things when I first met you," I said, "because that’s when things like that are usually done. To impress and to win. But I was the one chasing you. I kept telling you that you’d better hit me back, but when you never did, I just stopped do the fancy stuff and kept up doing normal wify things."

He does listen, and I love that about him. Or at least, he listens when I talk about him. He’s giving this a fresh new try. I’m trying really hard not to believe it though, because if I get my hopes up, and get all excited then it will hurt all the more when Saturday is a repeat of last Saturday. And yet, I can’t help but feel like him and I are traveling on two paths at once, progressing respectively on them both. One path leads to breakup, the other to a happy relationship. Every argument is closer to the end of everything, and every understanding conversation is closer to being between a perfect married couple. That can’t be normal, can it?

My boyfriend has fun when he stays home with me, and when he goes out, he comes home upset and stressed most of the time. At some point he’ll have to see the pattern, he just has to. He says that he sees that, and knows that, but I guess all large realizations are quicker to be understood than they are to be put into action.

He’s started working out everyday. Not that he was at all fat. His stomach is flat and has been since I met him, with the slight ripples of abs beneath. He’s very thin and has talked about working out and getting "bigger" since he met me. Now three days in a row he’s done push-ups and sit-ups. Perhaps he really is turning over a new leaf. I hope so, because life spent with him is just plain happy.

Wednesday the 9th of January, 2008.

It is 2:07pm at the moment.

I have not been doing anything since I met A. It’s really getting to me. No reading, barely writing at all, no video games what-so-ever, no cleaning has been done, my dishes aren’t clean, the floor needs mopping, I’m tired, feeling stressed and I don’t have anything to show for it yet. And I can’t even write a real entry about it because I have to go.

It is 4:07pm at the moment.

Back when I was working for C everything had an order, and a plan. Everything was professional, confidential, understandable, logical and nobody was kept in the dark. Nobody at C’s design company swore, or was vulgar, or had temper tantrums. Everybody was made as clear as could be on everything. On pay, on hours, on projects, on objectives. I felt free to ask questions, and I wasn’t interrupted. My place as employee was clear.

I’ve been working for A since Thursday last week. Six days. In those six days I’ve changed my myspace, mailed about fifty people on myspace, and posted a bulletin. I’ve opened up an "imgoth" account, and a "vampire freak" account, and messaged thirty to forty people on each of those. I’ve called everyone I know. I’ve made flyers, typed plans, addresses, phone-numbers, and even a contract that had nothing to do with me (that took several hours) under the impression that it had everything to do with me, as a favor. I’ve answered the phones, done two photo-shoots that I was pretty sure I was being paid for, that I was later informed that I’m not being paid for.

I have not been drawing, I didn’t even manage my own laundry, or dishes. The floor has not been swept or mopped. The trashes are overly full. My clothes are in disarray. I haven’t taken a bath. I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I’m tired, and I feel like shit. I have not been grocery shopping with Mom, I have not been using the cook-book I paid for to learn how to make new organic meals. I have not worked on my scrap-booking, my art, my poetry or my novel. I have not worked on the board game.

All I’ve done is work my ass off for no pay for a business that might be closing down anyway, for a man that mostly wants to get in my pants. I don’t think I can do this shit. I was all happy yesterday about organizing a rave for him, and he said that I was going to be in charge of it. Well, I made the passes, and I made them in different colors so that if one person doesn’t manage to give the money to me or Aaron (whoever was supposed to be handling it) then the color passes they were selling would simply be void. I told this idea to Aaron and he didn’t even blink. No recognition of the effort it took to create them, or the time I spent thinking and planning, because he said I was in charge.

He tells me I have a five-hundred dollar budget for making this rave happen, and that I need to get one hundred people there. I say that’s fine, and then I set to making a chart for where each part of the five-hundred is going. I looked up the best prices for paper-cups, glow-sticks, boos, etc, and then when he called me (he fucking calls me constantly) to ask me how I was doing, and I told him about all my progress, and he says that I didn’t need to do any of that, he knows all of that. Well why did he even tell me about the budget if he is going to take care of that aspect?

I feel like he’s pretending to hire me so that I might sleep with him at this point. I should have followed my first instinct and just backed out. S and T, the people working for A, are never going to get this show on the road. I get no credit for being the only person who knows anything about computers whose there. I get no credit for being more organized.

I’m not even sure I can stick this out. Plus I walked out today I got so mad. When I arrived today, the first thing I did was going check up on the notebook that had the information about the appointment I was supposed to have today. The notebook was defaced, the paper I had written on was gone, and as usual, nobody knew how or why. Supposedly the notebook fell apart, which is bullshit when it was in perfect condition before. Why would it just fall apart unless somebody was unduly rough with it?

Honestly, I think either S or T, or both are the people doing the stupid shit. Money is missing from their bank account (and you guys know I don’t stay anywhere near thieves) and papers are missing from their drawers, and the day before yesterday somehow a chair made it’s way through the wall (while noone was there of course) and nothing stays where anybody leaves it. Every other word out of their mouths is fuck (except of course when my Mom is there, or a client) and they’re always all being negative.

I’ve never seen them sit down to a meeting of any sort. I’ve never even seen them have an intelligent conversation. When I was working for C, every Monday we all sat down and discussed what was accomplished last week, and what was going to be accomplished this week. We discussed clients, computers, files, plans, meetings and just about anything relevant to the business, and that kept everyone in the know.

And then, to top off all of that, I brought in the photos I took today on disk. And A scrolled through them (which he couldn’t even do without me – he can’t make his computer burn discs, he barely knows how to read discs, he knows nothing about editing pictures or what can be done with them, etc) and to each picture he said "That’s crap" and sometimes "That’s really crap" and just once he said, "I guess that’s decent." You know what? Fuck this shit. That was my response, though a silent one that it was. But to top it off, he shows Lisa, and he starts telling her how they’re all crap. That’s just great. Can anybody say, none of her business?

He made me look like a total idiot. In fact, he’s been making me look and feel like an idiot since I met him, on top of making me feel like a hunk of meat to be devoured. My anything means nothing to him. Fuck my projects, my needs or wants. And you know, that’s normal when you’re getting paid by the hour. That’s normal when he’s your boss. But when he’s some guy who calls himself "your friend" and constantly makes remarks about marrying me, that is certainly uncalled for. All of it is uncalled for. I don’t want a job, I never did want a job. My parents should have forced my way into college if they wanted this for me.

I left without saying goodbye, and if I can get my parents to not intervene, I’m returning the phone and other supplies tonight or tomorrow, via his mailbox. There is just no point in any of this for me. I’m a nice person. I really am. I consider other people’s feelings, and I try to make sure that everyone knows the whole story from the beginning so there are no misunderstandings. I might be a nobody in the business world, but I refuse to be treated like a nobody.

Thursday the 10th of January, 2008.

It is 1:05pm at the moment.

I suppose it could have worked out, but it just wasn’t headed that way. After I stormed out and had Aunt Mary pick me up there just wasn’t a good way to come back and apologize. Perhaps there was opportunity with Aaron, but I think most of that opportunity would only be available if I was his lover, and as you all know, I’m madly in love with My boyfriend and not interested in other men, especially older white men who are more interested in money than kindness.

I was upset last night. I know I made Aaron feel bad one way or another. He probably thinks I never wanted to be there at all, that I was nothing but a lie that slipped in and out of his life in just under a week. I don’t like knowing that I must be viewed that way. I gave him an attitude in the end. I slouched in my chair, turned on my (almost) ghetto voice, and said I didn’t care, that I didn’t want to discuss it, that my mind couldn’t be changed, that I was technically never employed and that I didn’t care if I seemed unprofessional because their entire establishment was unprofessional.

I was harsh, and practically rude, and I don’t like that. Perhaps that’s why I left, because I was feeling so hostile, so trapped, so belittled, so unappreciated. I don’t need anything interfering with my number one: My boyfriend.

Aaron told me things like, "You should stick to your dreams and goals and let My boyfriend do his tattoo thing on his own." That was one of the biggest turn offs. I believe that two people in a relationship should devote themselves completely. Holding back so much is why so many relationships collapse. Both parties are afraid of being too attached, afraid of heartbreak, so they break each other’s hearts by never being all there, by never getting quite close.

I won’t be that way. I refuse to even bother trying to be that way. I’m not a heartless person. I am not a reserved person. I’m not someone with something to hide. I’m not going to let myself be put in position where I do have something to hide, or in a situation that makes me reserved and heartless and detached. My dreams are children and housework. True, I want to write a few books. True, I want to draw and read. But I can do that and raise children and do housework. But I can’t raise kids, write books, read books, draw pictures, take care of my husband, clean the house and have a career.

That’s why I’m devoting my time to making My boyfriend’s career take off. Aaron may be into occult, and he may be intelligent and have an excellent mind for business, and true, he doesn’t do drugs and he has a hell of a lot of money. But he doesn’t have the character I want. His morals are there, and they are legitimate. I don’t consider him a bad person, he just views everything to far on the scale of business exchange. Too much weighs on what the person has done for him, and not who they are, and what they can do. There is a delicate balance between judgement based on who a person is and what they have done for you. I think he leans to heavily on what he can get out of it.

Perhaps that’s not it either. But I know that when I was around him it felt suspiciously like being around Tre (minus the sexy long dreads and smooth dark skin obviously) – it had that same energy to it. That energy that is a little bit too earthly, and not connected enough to the universe of light.

It is 1:27pm at the moment.

Loopy Kitten,

You make a good point. Not everyone likes so much one-on-one time as I do. I’m aware of this, but sometimes it’s so hard to comprehend it. The thing is that I believe My boyfriend is a person who was like I am now, but changed in order to cope with his surroundings. I believe he only acquired friends to party with because he couldn’t find the right girl. He doesn’t want to trust anybody after how Brianna made him feel.

That may not be entirely true, but he doesn’t seem to contradict that theory. When he doesn’t go out, he spends all of his time that he’s here beside me. He’s the first person I’ve been with who is as affectionate as I am. He’s the first person I’ve been with who kisses so deeply spiritually, but so lightly physically; who makes love every time we have sex, even if only for part of it. Somewhere inside I feel like we are completely identical, and that we just have to strip back some outer-coverings we’ve developed to adapt to our own harsh experiences.

Maybe from an outside perspective it’s easier to see him as like everyone else, and me the odd ball. But honestly, he’s fits in no better than I do. He would tell you himself that him and I are a two of a kind, and that is what makes things so vastly different with him. That is why my determination to make it work has doubled over again, instead of sliding away like it probably should have after my experiences with Tre.

I’m twice as disappointed as I should be when he goes out because I know it’s not him, I know that isn’t what he wants for himself. The real question is; does he have the discipline to erase his fears and go after the few things he really wants with all of his effort? And if I didn’t believe that he could, I wouldn’t still be trying. I believe he wants children and a family almost as much as I do. But just above that, he wants to be a highly respected, well-known, published tattoo and flash artist.

Perhaps he is a person who needs space, and I have not discovered that yet, but if that’s the case, then My boyfriend himself doesn’t even know it yet. He believes he wants what I want, he just doesn’t always know how to say no to his family and friends who want to drink and party all night. As much as I was trying to avoid getting my hopes up, I think he’s turned over a new leaf this week.

We’ll see what we’ll see, eh? You should come and visit here sometime. We’ll show you a good time. *wink, wink*

Thursday the 10th of January, 2008.

It is 4:36pm at the moment.

On a person to person basis, not considering financial assets, physical belongings or different particular skills, I’d say that My boyfriend, myself, Mary, my father and Aaron would all be equals. I’d place my mother, Joel of the Unitarian church and C (my previous employer) all on a higher level. What I mean to say by that, is I don’t consider Aaron better than me because he’s older, or because he has more assets, or better than my father or My boyfriend, or Mary, though I also don’t consider any of us better than him. I didn’t quit because I think I’m better than him, or because I thought it was too much work. (Though the work load was a good sized portion of the sum total reason, but would not have been enough for me to drop the opportunity all together.) I quit (though I was never technically hired) because Aaron is not clear enough about what he means when he speaks, even though he speaks so much.

I can’t seem to stop myself from thinking about all of this. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop since I left yesterday. (Only interspersed with thoughts of the things I want to accomplish with my time, and of course thoughts of My boyfriend.) I feel terribly about the whole thing the more I think about it. Tim and Scott are out of a place to stay and out of job because they couldn’t manage to recruit enough extras in Buffalo, and perhaps that’s entirely their own fault. Saundra felt that she went through an ordeal with the whole thing. Lisa probably doesn’t feel too good about the whole situation either. And then, the person who has it the worst out of all of this would be Aaron. No one to count on, no one to trust, in a haunted house that he’s not going to keep anymore...

The poor guy is probably lonely. He probably regrets ever trying to open anything up here in Buffalo. It’s a strategically good location, as he put it. So why doesn’t business boom here? It’s something about this city – some describe Buffalo as a black hole – it sucks you in, and never gives back, and never lets you go. Some describe Buffalo as a dead city, where mostly zombie roam, with no real ambitions and goals and no where to go. Some say you can’t make it in Buffalo, that you have to move. And some few will describe Buffalo as a city full of talent and potential, just waiting to be found and used. This is where I’ve lived my whole life, and no amount of traveling can change the fact that this is the place I know best. And from my perspective, everyone in Buffalo should be given the means for them and their whole family to move elsewhere, until the city is empty. Then they should tear half the place down. Restore all the historical locations. Open up a theme-park in one the empty spots they tear down, and redesign the Elmwood strip into one long never-ending flee-market of Moma and Papa shops full of unique things, and then when the construction is done, let fresh blood move into this place. It would take on a whole new feel, and stop being a place for drug users, bums and single welfare-moms.

Heh, Buffalo doesn’t have a ghetto. Buffalo has five or six ghettos. The West Side, where I grew up, in this house used to be an Italian ghetto before I was born. Now it’s predominantly Puerto Rican, and it’s still a ghetto. The house-fronts and yards look terrible, and the back yards are even worse. The houses are crumbling and the paint is chipping on almost every building here on the West Side. This is also true of the lower west side, almost all of the East Side, half the South Towns, and perhaps a quarter of North Buffalo. Right after our Welcome sign, you see a clump of disheveled houses on the lower west side.

So why did Aaron come here? Perhaps because so many people are unemployed. It’s the perfect place to recruit extras, or so you’d think. Maybe unemployment is so high because people are lazy drug users? Or perhaps it’s simply because the education here is one of the worst in the country. Heck, I know ninety percent of everything I learned was from my parents or from books. Perhaps ten percent (and boy is that a lot of credit to appoint to them) came from the schools I’ve been to.

I’m actually embarrassed about the whole thing with Aaron and Talent Scouting. I don’t get embarrassed very easily either. The whole thing just makes me look bad. Everything I was trying to accomplish just backfired on me at every turn. *snorts* I shouldn’t be surprised, that is the story of my life.

The real question becomes, now what? I know what I want to do. I’m going to be My boyfriend’s full-time flash editor. Assuming his stuff sells. I don’t see why not. His art is way better than the flash on the walls. The customers always like his art more than what they picked out off the wall. At the same time though, people want the classic bull shit. They want the hearts, the banners, the lettering... Even when rebelling and inking their skin, people still conform. It makes me feel this odd sense of pride not to have a tattoo. So odd that I would respect My boyfriend’s career choice so much when I would never get a tattoo. Perhaps because I feel that his art has nothing to do with how I feel about getting a tattoo. I don’t even look down on people getting them, I just think that they shouldn’t.

Anyway, I got a little sidetracked. My destination being my mom questioning if I’m a spoiled brat or not. It’s a good question. We all have things we are willing to do, and things we will absolutely not do, no matter what. And we all have things we could do, if given the right price or other compensation. Perhaps the case is that I have higher standards than I probably should considering my age, experience and place in life. In fact, that is highly likely to be the case, and to be what mom was referring to in the matters of me being a spoiled brat.

Morgan,

You ask some really good questions. Perhaps you just have to turn back to the old saying that "time flies where you're having fun" – and of course the reverse is true: it drags when you're not having fun. Life seems to be full of little hypocrisies like how new experiences last longer than old ones. The first time watching an intro to a show it seems twice as long as after you've seen a couple episodes.

PS: I'm so glad your cat came back.

It is 5:55pm at the moment.

My point being that I am at least a little spoiled, and at least a little bratty. The fact of the matter is that I got it stuck in my head that I was going to be a house-wife at a young age, and at some point between my Junior year in High School and meeting My boyfriend, I realized that being a house-wife doesn’t require a degree from college, but college does require a lot of money that I don’t have.

At some point between that realization and now, I realized that getting my own successful career would only mean giving it up when I had children, or not giving my children the home-school education that I desired. And then, somewhere between that realization and now, I realized that if I wasn’t going to get a job, and if I wasn’t going to college, then why wait to have children?

The ultimate bottom line being that I’m marrying My boyfriend and I’m having his kids, and if all goes to hell with him, then I’m still get married and having kids before I’m 22. Can’t change my mind. Perhaps I am lazy to some, but to me, I look at it as being a matter of what type of work I’m willing to do.

Not What I Wanted

Friday the 4th of January, 2008.

It is 3:18pm at the moment.

I guess Saundra is the only one who shares my apprehension.

Saundra is a sixty-somethin year old woman who acts much like a person who hasn’t quite come out of teens in their thirties – if you get what I mean. (Celeste is a woman in her thirties who hasn’t quite come out of her teens.) Saundra has been working for Aaron, and she’s done all of the recruiting that’s been done so far.

Then there is Scott, who is a young man, probably in his twenties somewhere, who did work for Aaron, but got fired basically on my first day, which was yesterday. I’ve seen Scott a few times. I saw him when I met with Saundra to be an extra. I saw him when I met with Aaron to interview for the position of talent scout. I saw him briefly before he left when I arrived yesterday. I’ve been told he had been living there by Aaron, and Saundra tells me that the actual business is in Scott’s name. This is a questionable thing.

Saundra has been complaining that the clients need copies of their registration papers, because it’s not professional to not give them a copy. Aaron has apparently been blowing her off entirely on this matter, which is also questionable.

Saundra called me at ten o’clock this morning (to my utter unhappiness) to tell me about how she doesn’t think she can work for Aaron anymore because he disrespects her, and because he’s not professional enough, and because he’s constantly being sarcastic, and because she lost her keys yesterday (and she never loses her keys) and because she’s been having anxiety attacks (and she never has anxiety attacks) and because her friend has been having them too. (Get the feeling that she kept me on the phone forever after apologizing for waking me up?) And she feels like something just isn’t right, but she hopes it works out for me, but she knows it can’t work out for her, because after all, she’s going back to school, and that is going to take all of her energy, and do be careful because you know that Aaron is trying to take you away from your boyfriend.

Okay, okay, okay Saundra, I got it, now please SHUT UP! She must have went on for about ten minutes about all of that. And she brought up all the good points. Something doesn’t feel right when I’m there. I’m having anxiety attacks, but I just thought that was because I’m always having anxiety attacks, about everything. (Am I going to have to get a job? Will we be kicked out? Will Dad leave? Is My boyfriend as nuts about me as I am about him? Am I making a mistake? Am I really ready for all of this? I’m never going to get what I want out of all of this, am I? And other assorted things to have anxiety attacks about.)

Worst is the feeling of being trapped. Everyone wants me to do this. Even Saundra said, "I hope it works out for you." The closest I’ve had to someone not wanting me to do it was My boyfriend saying, "I’ll understand if you don’t want to do this." *extra heavy sigh*

I’m not getting paid on a salary, and that alone is making me want to run. I want to be paid for the trauma I went through yesterday. While I smiling, making stupid small talk, and Saundra was in the other room on the verge of tears, I was thinking inside my head; I have to escape, I have to escape, I have to escape somehow. But how? Mom said she expects me to give it at least three months, which means if I don’t, she’s going to be upset. Dad’s all happy about this happening, and I never wanted him to know in the first place because I never wanted to do this in the first place.

What the fuck is wrong with me? If it’s not about My boyfriend I have an intense dislike for doing it. His art, his laundry, his dishes, his room, his shelves, his love, his sex, his job, his touch, his everything. I want to do it for him. Doing things for Mom is okay too. Doing things for Dad or Mary is like doing something for myself – possible, but sometimes difficult. Everybody else can be torturous. I feel like I’m wasting my effort on people that don’t love me, on money that hates me, with time that I should be giving to My boyfriend.

This can’t be right. Maybe I just need some fucking B-vitamins, since that’s usually the case when all someone wants is out.

I woke up even more dismal than ever today. I felt like I had even less of a reason to get up. All I keep thinking is that I’m not pregnant, and I can’t be pregnant, because I’m not allowed to be pregnant, and I have to go back on birth control, so that I can feel even more worthless, so that I can be dragged even further away from what I want out of life, so that I can be trapped even more, so I can be crushed and despised in my misery.

If you understand what I mean. I’m dreading going back on birth control. (Ugh, I just remember part of an awful dream I had where my teeth with dangling, browning, rotting, and hurting terribly. I bet that’s a message to pay the $20 a month to continue my dentist coverage.) I’m dreading losing my sexual appetite again.

I wanted a baby so bad. I’ve never wanted anything so much. I’ve never been so happy about anything. I feel so worthless. Why, why, why won’t somebody just kill me? For goodness sakes, it made me stop giving myself death wishes. You can’t wish death on yourself when you have baby, or even if you’re pregnant with one. It’s a rule you just shouldn’t ever break.

What am I doing? Crying at almost four o’clock in the afternoon. I haven’t done a goddamned thing today because all I can think about is My boyfriend, My boyfriend’s baby, this fucking job I don’t want, my parents and how I can’t please them, this attic and how it’s not done... My boyfriend’s baby, did I mention that one? This job that I already hate. Working with Aaron frightens me. The guy is a creep.

I hate the way he stops talking, keeps smiling, and stares at me. I hate that I’m going back there tomorrow. I’ve already giving flyers to My boyfriend with my work information to find people. I’ve already called people letting them know. I’ve changed my myspace, and I’ve messaged a ton of people on myspace, vampire freak, and other places. But how much harder will it be to escape if I have a full-fledged office there?

It would be so much better if he didn’t drop ten-thousand hints about trying to date me. He’s fucking thirty-seven years old, and he’s a fucking creep. What’s worse is that he knows he’s intimidating me because he asked if he his sun-glasses (which are for an "eye condition") intimidated me. I cooly said that they didn’t and pulled out my own prescription sun-glasses.

If I were to work anywhere happily, it would be back at my old job. This just screams SCAM, and RAPE, all-fucking-over-it. If not tomorrow, then eventually. I caught him testing my number ability. If a client pays a certain amount of dollars, then someone gets a certain portion, and he gets a certain portion, and I get a certain portion, does that sound good? No, I said, it doesn’t. Where’d the last hundred dollars go?

I don’t trust him. I don’t like him. I don’t want a job in the first place.

It is 4:03pm at the moment.

Mom brought me breakfast. She also told me that she visited Aaron this morning to tell him to stop hitting on me. That’s great and all, but I’m still nervous about this. Scott has been fired, Saundra is quitting, and that means just him and I, alone in that huge house. Can anybody say creepy?

As My boyfriend said, all I ever talk about is children. And I don’t want to raise children and have a job simultaneously. That sounds terribly miserable, for them and for me. Already, when they’re ten, I’d been thirty, if I was pregnant now. I don’t want to wait, I don’t want to wait, I hate this.

My boyfriend says he’s sad that he’s not making enough to support a little one on his own yet. He says he’s upset that I’m not pregnant too. He’s terrified of me going back on the birth control. I’m terrified of going back on birth control, now that I know it was causing the mysterious pain that feels exactly like a terrible yeast-infection, except that there is no yeast. I even went to get checked for a yeast infection one of the worst times and they said I had no yeast, and that my flora levels that combat yeast were indeed very high. No creams helped. Itching, pain, soreness, the inability to have sex, discomfort when sitting down and while using the bathroom all so that I don’t have a baby that I desperately want to have!

I hate this fucking bull shit! Hate it, hate it, hate it.

The drive that we’re born with to have children must have been increased in me. Then again, poor cousin Colleen wanted a baby so bad at fourteen that she had one. Now she has three children and an abusive girlfriend. Then again, she also managed to get through the rest of high school, and through college, and hold a job, and take care of her aging father, my uncle Eugene even after the death of her mother. (My uncle Eugene and her mother adopted her incidently.)

As Mom put it, the logic that Colleen would have had was that she didn’t have her mother to love her, and her boyfriend wasn’t loving her right, and her father was getting her old, so why not have a baby to love her? But of course it doesn’t work that way at all.

I want a baby to love. The dependance sounds exciting. Someone who wants me to do everything for them, and who needs it, and who one day will appreciate it. Someone to teach everything I’ve learned about health to. Someone to pass my sense of fashion on to (even if they rebel and hate how I dress in their teens, I still get to try.) Someone to make like me. I can watch them stumble as I did, and pick them up, and teach them to fight back at the world. Teach them to care as so many of the new generation doesn’t.

I don’t want a job for money. I want a baby for love and for pride. Money will not buy me love and pride and joy. Money might possibly make having a baby easier, but then what, just to quit and not have the money anyway? Why work towards having a career I don’t want to keep?

I wanted to bail out of Mary Kay as well, and I stuck with it, and went no-where with it. Now I have something that might allow me to go somewhere with more things, and I want to bail again. Surprise, surprise, really? But nothing changes the fact that Aaron is a creep.

The attic needs rebuilding, and that takes more time and effort than it does money. We already have the drywall. We already have the tools. All I need are a couple of construction lights and some plastic sorting drawers and bins and I’ll be able to get started on the project myself. Currently there isn’t even enough light back their to assess what needs doing. A baby would need it’s own room as it gets older, and building the room while Cheanna is actually growing up doesn’t sound like the best idea to me.

I think I’m just going to have to convince my Dad to let me do it. I’m not interested in doing anything else with myself. They didn’t want to let me learn to read (at daycare) when I was ready, and then I didn’t end up reading until I was ten. (In fifth grade.) I still didn’t read much of anything until well into High School. I only read the same series over and over until somewhere in High School. (That series being Ever World, by K. A. Applegate.)

My point being that I know when I’m ready. If I wait I might change my mind.

My Mom says I’m not making sense. She says it’s my hormones that I’m not used to dealing with because of the birth control. Great. Another lead against what I want. What am I saying? My boyfriend is still partly in question, isn’t he? Oh fuck. I’m just going back to bed. I hate everything.

Unhappy Transition

Monday the 31st of December, 2007.

It is 1:14pm at the moment.

I’m terrified of regretting my current actions later. If My boyfriend and I go ahead and get married and have children, and four years down the line we’re still having the same arguments, I might very well wish that I had left him back when it was "easy" to do it. (Easy in retrospect from the future...)

But, on the other hand, if I were to leave him now, I might find that all relationships have arguments, and most have worse arguments. I might discover that having just one night a week with My boyfriend is better than entire weeks with other men or women. I might realize that it wasn’t so hard, that it wasn’t so bad, and that being alone is far worse than arguing with My boyfriend over drinking and being out.

I also could discover a world of great lovers and relationships unknown to me in my teens. I might discover that being single isn’t so bad. I might discover that I’m really a lesbian after all. I might, I might, but I doubt that. Though, why I don’t know. I shouldn’t doubt that there are better fish in the sea, because after all, a short month after Jeremy left me, Tre came along, and a short month after I left Tre (after two years of bickering) along came My boyfriend. And this was without even trying to find a man.

And yet, and yet... And yet it’s just so hard to believe that I’m beautiful. It’s so hard to believe that I’m lovable. It’s so hard to believe that people can be honest, trustworthy, interesting and smart.

But other fish in the sea is only about five to ten percent of my dilemma with leaving My boyfriend over this. There is also all of the dreams and plans I’d have to give up. We’d never have a tattoo shop together, I would have no art to scan and clean and rearrange. My artistic muse would be gone from my life, and my art would cease to exist at all. (After all, I hardly drew at all while I was with Tre, and when I did, it was mostly because I was at school and there was nothing better to occupy my mind and hands.)

Let’s put thus reasons so far like this: 5% of it is that I don’t believe I could find something I truly be happier with. 15% is all the dreams I’d have to give up. Then comes the whopper of course, the pain of being separated from someone you love so dearly. If I were to leave My boyfriend, I’d do it the same way I did with Tre. I’d bottle my pain and my anger, until my tears dry up, and the love wilts, so that I don’t have to break myself in the process of saying it’s over and more than necessary. The only problem with that theory is that My boyfriend will never make me feel that bad. My boyfriend would never throw my head into a wall, or point a gun at my head, or tell me that I’d be worthless without him, or threaten to kill my whole family and next boyfriend if I left him. My boyfriend is a nice guy. He’s just an insecure nice guy who wants to be a macho-man.

5% is the lack of fish in the sea. 15% is the dreams I’d leave behind. 10% is how alone I’d be in the days to follow. 70% is the pain from being separated from him, now that he’s become embedded into my soul. And even that first five-percent is a compelling reason not to do it.

So now that I’ve cancelled out the first option on my list of options. (My options: leave him, compromise with El, demand that he do things my way or else, separate myself slowly through making new hobbies and friends away from him, take more control of his life through crude and unfair methods.)

El suggested last night that he get three nights a week, and I get the other four. Ha! Ha! Yeah, right. He has no idea what it’s like for me to have no company at night to look forward to. "But why can’t you come with us?" He asks. (Not even the first time we’ve been over this.)

"The smell of cigarettes gives me a pounding headache that lasts all night. Besides, I wouldn’t enjoy myself and that would bring you guys down. I have nothing in common with the sort of people you guys hang out with. I want nothing to do with the drugs, the terrible eating habits, the party life-style or any of it. I don’t even have anything to talk about with those people."

"You can’t just expect My boyfriend to give up the other half of his life."

At this point I want to scoff. Partying is not life, at least, not the way they party. Getting drunk, and high, and talking to random people about nothing in some bootleg house all night, night after night, is not living at all. I can respect a single person who does this after work to let loose, to look for a mate or for friends. I can even respect a couple who goes to clubs to dance and have a good time once a week. But the people at the parties they go to don’t even have a life outside of partying. They work ho-hum jobs at drug stores, have no hobbies, and do drugs seven days a week. And I’m not just talking weed and boos. I’m talking cocaine, dexing, ecstacy, acid, opium, and some of them perhaps even crack.

Seeing people snot cocaine makes my stomach turn. A girl that could be beautiful, that could be smart, that could have a future, bouncing around after a cocaine high, falling all over the floor, and onto the men in the room, laughing about nothing, shaking uncontrollably is just scary. It makes me want to shake her (as if she isn’t shaking enough) and scream "what the fuck are you doing with your life!?"

I don’t want to talk to people who gossip about other people, who talk about drug experiences, sports, maybe video games, and previous parties as their center of conversation. How incredibly boring. Why not discus the inner-plot of a recent movie and character’s motives? Why not a good book we’ve all read? Why not our different religious and spiritual believes? Why not odd things we know about animals? Why not dreams and what we think they mean? Anything but football, tits and drugs.

If that is half of My boyfriend’s life, I’m not sure I want to be involved in any part of his life. Hearing El put it that way really shifted my perspective. Obviously this is important to him. Despite My boyfriend’s intellect, despite his interest in books, taking apart computers, different religions, and theosophy, he still wants to waste half of his free time being a couch-potato.

The level of how depressing that is for me is so high that I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s so upsetting and so real that it’s struck a fervent doubt into my core. The doubt that turned into disgust with Tre. This is my worst fear, and it’s happening and how to deal with that is just blowing my mind.

"You do realize that My boyfriend blows me off as much as he blows you off," El says. I think about this for a while. El is really trying to come up with a compromise. But El can still go off and have a love interest, and have other friends. He knows a lot of other people. Why does he need My boyfriend’s time? I fully understand now that El isn’t my problem. My boyfriend is the problem. My boyfriend’s wants are my problem, just like my wants are his problem. He wants to go out, and I don’t want him to, simple as that, really?

And who gets what they want? In his view-point (I think) he believes he should be able to go out and do drugs if he wants to because he brings home the money. Through my perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to do these things because they’re not only bad for his health, but it also hurts my feelings, and on top of that, if he didn’t have me, then he wouldn’t have this room, this pussy, clean clothes, clean dishes, good food, love, affection, attention and a considerable amount of understanding on his side.

True, without him, I wouldn’t have a lot of things too. After all, I don’t have what I want and need from him when he’s gone. No love, no attention, no affection, no sex, no one to talk to, no interaction to be gained. Why, why don’t video games satisfy me like they used to? Why, why, why would I rather lay on the bed stroking his hair, listening to his day than play Civilization, Tekken, CivCity, Eudemons, Spyro, Sims, or any of the games I own? Why does other company bore me to death? Why do I cry when he leaves? Why does him wanting to leave make my stomach clench and my chest ache?

It’s not natural, and I know it’s not. People cry after arguments, or during them, but not because their man wants to spend a night or so out... He’s not coming home tonight, and at least I know in advance this time. But it made me wake up sad. It makes the whole day seem moot and pointless. It makes going to bed at 5:00pm appealing. It makes everything seem doubly worthless and pointless as it already often does.

It’s out of the question for me to go with them. I’m not going. It would be pointless. It’s out of the question for me to just let him leave me, once, twice, three times a week, and stay here, alone, miserable, and hating myself. If that was the case, I might as well give up right now. As I said to El,

"If I were to agree to that, part of the deal would mean having another boyfriend. Which is actually why My boyfriend and I have been looking for a girlfriend. He’d get more pussy, and I’d get more company. The problems with that however are numerous. Imagine a girl that is actually compatible with both him and me?" I snort and shake my head, "It’s impossible. I’ve never met a girl I get along with enough to want to see everyday. I’ve never had a friend. It’s always been me and one other guy or nothing. Going out and finding myself friends is not appealing or satisfying, and finding a girlfriend is impossible and poses a number of threats and issues all on it’s own."

Both El and Coriver are convinced there is some sort of compromise possible. I used to believe that too. After yesterday, I don’t believe there is any way that we’ll all be satisfied. If El got his way, I’d be miserable, and if I got mine, My boyfriend and El would see each other once a month or so, which would leave El feeling jipped as all hell. And the worst part? There isn’t just El and me to consider. There is My boyfriend’s mother, and his cousins, and his coworkers. Tonight he’s going out with Nikki and Frank. El won’t even be there.

I have no New Years plans that I know of. I don’t even want plans if I won’t be with My boyfriend. I don’t want to even be awake. Why am I so damn addicted? It can’t be normal, it can’t be reasonable. The more he’s out, the more desperate and irrational I get. I start acting like the fiend when he’s out.

He’ll tell me he misses me when he’s gone. He’ll say he’s sorry. He’ll make promises. I’m done believing. I’m not sure I can ask him to change anymore. I think I have to force it, deal with this, or leave. Since we’ve covered dealing with it, and leaving, that moves on to forcing him to do things my way. This isn’t a pretty picture either.

That would mean completely jipping El out of hanging out with his best friend. That would mean completely jipping My boyfriend out of one his favorite people in the world. And it would require drastic methods like picking My boyfriend up from work everyday, punishing him severely with no sex, and no favors in general when he defies me, rewarding him profusely for being with me (which I always try to do, everyday as is) and aggressively reminding him of the consequences of leaving, and of staying. I think that it might work, but I also think that it might back fire. If I hold too tightly he’s going to feel trapped, and he’ll lash out.

To complicate things even more, I’m having trouble coping with him with other girls now. It seemed like a good freedom to give him. Something logical and simple. Something other relationships don’t have. A way to not-conform and to be understanding to his nimpfadic tenancies. (Yes, I said nimpfadic, want to pick a bone about it, or what?)

But time has made me more attached, more possessive, more controlling, more afraid, deeper in love, deeper in desperation, deeper in jealousy. When we first got together I didn’t give a hoot if he slept with other girls, (as long as he used a condom of course.) After all, he’d slept with other girls before, so what did it matter anyway? When he did do it, it did make me jealous and upset, but I recovered quickly enough and went on with things. It didn’t dwell in my mind more than a day or so.

The second time wasn’t so bad either, though it hurt worse emotionally, I was able to conceal it even better. Though now thinking about it makes me upset. I feel like my time, my space, my body, my memories, my bliss-cloud is being invaded. I’ve never been this jealous before. I’ve never felt this emotionally fucked by it before. And I feel like I’m trying to trap him in a box all at once, and I don’t know how to not do so. The alternative is to break my own heart over and over again.

Monday the 31st of December, 2007.

It is 6:40pm at the moment.

Hi Tina!

You seem to have changed your phone number again. I don't know of any way to get a hold of you at the moment. I wanted to see what you were doing for New Years. We're having a small get together over here.

I had a thought totally unrelated to the above that I'd really like to speak with you in person about. Being that you're in the army, and have some sort of income, even though it's limited/in lump sums etc., it could be a logical thing for us to move in together some time in the future.

The reason why I bring this up is because there is a good chance my father will move out soon, which means that we'd have to give up the house. My boyfriend doesn't make enough to support it. Though in that event, it wouldn't take THAT much more to support it, and you'd have access to everything you'd have in an apartment or more. (Phone, heat, water, electric, cable, DVR, high-speed internet, food)

The other reason I bring it up is because in the event that we have to move out, it would be nice to have a room mate, and I'd be able to babysit your baby while you're at work (& while My boyfriend is at work for that matter) very easily, and then instead of paying me directly for the babysitting, you'd just contribute to the bills. We would also get a chance to get to know each other better and such.

I don't really know what your situation is with your Mom, but obviously the baby will need it's own room when it get's older, and in the event that my father move's out, it would make enough extra room for you and your baby to have more space than (I assume) you have now. I really hope that you consider the idea, and I'd like to talk about it more in person.

I'm really lonely with all this time Crusifer spends at work, and I have too much time to think about all the negative stuff in life sometimes. Call me anytime. 536 9226

~Atara Phoenix

Monday the 31st of December, 2007.

It is 9:39pm at the moment.

He doesn’t call me with his changes of plans. He doesn’t take my feelings into consideration. He isn’t willing to quit drinking and partying. I feel like it’s already over right now. Every part of my chest, stomach, just everything is roiling in pain. The fire of anger has burned up my tears of agony, and I don’t know what to do.

I have no interest in anything. I’ve wasted another year of my life! Another fucking year! And now I’ll have to start from scratch. I’ll have to get a job. I’ll have to find myself someone new to love, and live with this heartache. I hate myself. I hate. I hate, hate, hate myself. Why won’t I just keel over and die? I wish I was dead, right this moment!

Oh god, no I don’t, I don’t want my mommy to come looking for me when I’m laying here motionless... But what am I living for? What am I looking forward to? What dream do I have that’s worth getting up out of bed for?

He is who he is, and he’s not changing, and I can’t do anything about it. It’s deal with it or leave, and if this is dealing with it, then there is no dealing to be done. Why, why, why, whywhwywhywhwywhy...?

But, but, but... Mary said he was the one. She saw it? So why isn’t it working? Why is everything so terrible? I’m back to where I was with Tre, where he’s causing me and equal amount of pain and pleasure. This is so awful. I don’t want to do this again. I thought I had made so much progress, and I thought I had come so far, but I’ve done nothing. Nothing! It’s all been a waste, it’s for nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing!

Fuck this world. Fuck it all. Fuck everything that you stand for. I don’t belong. I don’t exist. I refuse to give a shit. Don’t ever judge me. Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for. I won’t belong, I don’t even exist, I don’t give a shit. Don’t ever judge me!

Burn me alive, strangle my voodoo doll, twist my neck one-notch short of breaking and tie me there. Needles in my eyes. Crucify me. Leave me hanging, douse me with water to prolong my agony. Watch me bleed and scream, and devour thou favorite meal.

Pulverize me. Gimp me. Gag me with a spoon, and a fork too.

Sorting his coins, buying him pizza, hanging up his hoddie, collecting up his laundry, waiting for the few minutes I’d get to have before he got ready and went out with his boss and I don’t even get a phone call to let me know that he’s at a fucking house party in the mean time. I told him I hated him. He told me he was going to get trashed. He hung up. I called back. He didn’t answer. I left a message saying that if he got trashed to never come back. (While crying uncontrollably.)

The whole day is a waste. Nothing I said to him has gotten through, none of it meant anything. It’s all one big lie. I’m living one big lie again. All my hopes are worthless. I’m shedding my leaves, a slowly dying tree; a slowly callousing heart.

Every incident is another blow. Every day like this is another day closer to the inevitable.

Tuesday the 1st of January, 2008.

It is 3:27am at the moment.

Happy New Year! Oh, the cheer.

So we went to Asa’s house, which I’ll admit was ten times better than laying on my bed crying for all of these hours, which I may very well have done if we hadn’t gone. I was crying hysterically when the phone rang and my mom said, "are you ready to go?" and I wiped the tears from my face, took a deep breath and said that I would be right down.

I had to sit there and stare into space for several minutes before coming to terms with facing a social situation when I feel like my life is falling apart, but somehow, somehow I have to convince myself that it is better not to mope.

Honestly, I disgust myself. My antics, my crying, my moping, my depression. It’s all flat out disgusting. Though I’d be highly offended if anybody said this to me, and try to back up the way I feel, and also try to explain that I don’t want to feel this way, that I am trying not to feel this way, but how do you change how you feel?

At Asa’s house, my brother Robert, myself, Asa, Mom and Dad all sat around a board game that I don’t know the name of. A first time play for almost all of us. I lost miserably, and I ate something Mom and I made, which had too much sugar in it, and gave me an awful stomachache. It was so bad that I forced myself to vomit for the first time in my life, multiple times in fact, trying to get it all up so that I wouldn’t be in pain all night. It seems to have worked since I feel fine now. I’ll remember next time I make a bad eating choice that vomiting isn’t as bad as being bloated and in pain for hours upon hours.

At least I was too busy with losing, the food, the ache, the puking that for a little while I didn’t miss My boyfriend. This is a huge accomplishment for me. I feel genuinely proud of myself for it. When we got home, I suggested since it’s late, and since the three of us are together (myself and my parents) which is kinda rare, that we talk.

We talked about My boyfriend and related topics at great length. They both gave me new ideas, new options, though not too far removed from the things I had thought of myself. They brought out the things I already knew and connected them differently. My conclusions:

My boyfriend needs to slay his own dragon, and he has to do it his way.

By telling My boyfriend I won’t be with him if he drinks or if he attends parties, I’m telling him that I don’t accept him for who he is.

By not going out of the house with him, and my not allowing him to drink anywhere near me, I push him away, and force him to associate with influences in opposition to me while he’s drinking and socializing, and consequentially making his fun less satisfying because he’s too busy being stressed because of me to really enjoy himself.

Going cold turkey doesn’t work for everybody just because it works for me.

Pushing and rushing somebody only makes them rebel more, and further pushes them away.

I need to take away all expectations and start over.

Tuesday the 1st of January, 2008.

It is 6:20pm at the moment.

"He won’t forgive me," is what I wrote at noon. After writing that, I had nothing left to write. I hate how an imminent breakup turns me into a fucking slave. I feel like I can’t ask for anything. Now I’m the one who feels trapped. Trapped in never having what I’m looking for, what I’ve been working for, and towards. I feel like a failure.

He says he forgives me. For being ignorant last night. I forgive him, obviously since I’m still trying so hard to make this work. But I feel the distinct feeling of failure. It’s like I already lost the race, but let’s keep going to my marks won’t be that bad.

I had a decent day so far. It really hasn’t been terrible. I’m doing the compromising thing. I told him he can go out, any day of the week, except for days off. He can drink, he can smoke, whatever, just don’t bring company home, and try not to be an ass hole when you’re drunk. I did this so our relationship wouldn’t be ruined, but my plans, my hopes, my dreams were crushed by making this compromise. And worse yet, he’s not particularly happy with it!

"What if I wanna bring niggas to the build? Niggas aint tryin’ to always be out."

*sigh* If this still doesn’t work then I’ll have no choice but to give up. How long to give things? I don’t know. I feel completely desolate. I thought I didn’t have much to look forward to before, but now I’m not even sure what I’m trying to work towards. I did make sure to reiterate that I was not marrying a man who drinks.

The most worrying the part is that he doesn’t understand why. That’s actually more scary than the fact itself. He doesn’t understand why he should eat dinner with my parents and I on New Years Day. He doesn’t see why my Mom might be upset if he doesn’t at least sit down with us.

I’m so tired to working to find the right analogy, of working to find a solution to something that he can’t seem to understand. Like the gangster rap music. I’m really not trying to listen to "fuck bitches, get money" and "raised in the projects" and "36mafia" and other assorted lyrics, groups, "songs" and such because I can’t relate at all, it’s loud even when it’s quiet, it’s offensive most of the time, I’d hate to think that My boyfriend really felt the way these "artists" say they feel about things. And I don’t like the way it sounds either.

My boyfriend is about to pop his bottle now. And play Final Fantasy XII for PS2.

Wednesday the 2nd of January, 2008.

It is 4:01pm at the moment.

My boyfriend and I made a compromise. He can go out any days of the work week he feels like going out. He can even get fucked up. (This is just begging for something really awful to happen, but it’s worth a try.) All I’m asking is for his days off to myself, which currently consist of one day a week. The least time I’ve ever had with a boyfriend before. A pitiful group of hours amongst the mass of hours in a week.

He can even drink at home, as long as it’s two of something 5% or one Steel. This was my father’s idea, and My boyfriend is going along with it, or at least, he says he is. Then again, what is there to not go along with? Leave me on Sunday too? If that is to be the case, then I give up.

This is so frustrating. I can’t count on having anything to look forward to. I can’t count on anything or anyone. I just want to cry my time away. Of course he’s not really going to go out six days a week, but I have little doubt that things will only get worse from this point on.

I informed him that I wasn’t marrying him unless he quit drinking all together. And why is this considering changing him? He only started drinking three years ago, and for one of those years he was with me. He quit smoking cigarettes for me pretty easily. I don’t see what the big deal is, honestly. I quit drinking after one stupid night in Iowa, involving bad sex, crawling, ripping my pants and vomiting multiple times. I quit smoking weed on the basis that my memory was better without it.

I started both of those things when I was fourteen, and I smoked everyday for two years. And I simply quit both smoking weed and drinking.

Thursday the 3rd of January, 2008.

It is 7:14pm at the moment.

A lot can happen very fast if you let it. I almost left My boyfriend. In fact, I screamed at him to get the fuck out of the house. He didn’t. He rolled over and went to sleep. I compromised with him, or in the way I look at it, I gave him back his freedom. I didn’t get anything in particular out of it the way I look at it. He might stay home on his days off. I don’t believe anything.

I got a fucking job. I’m not happy about it at all. My "boss" wants to marry me, and the job is commission, not hourly. I’m supposed to recruit models and actors. Then I become their manager. Then I make a commission on them. Aaron is also allowing me to do photography for them, which is the only part that really sounds good to me.

I’m worried about having my time consumed, and I’m doubly worried about Aaron trying to hit on me. It’s not as straightforward as I’d like. Not like things were with my old boss and my old job. I miss working at the web-design place sometimes.

But because he’s not my boss in title, and because I work on commission I’m free to come and go as I please. Plus I’m getting my own office, and he gave me a cell phone for work purposes on the spot. Though it’s kinda cool that I can call myself a Talent Scout. I also was given a work e-mail, not that an e-mail is anything to hoot over.

The part I think that’s best about this whole deal is that I’m going to be able to run my Mary Kay business out of my office their, and do presentations for Mary Kay Cosmetics and Skin Care. That should be very profitable.

Though somehow I’m not excited about it at all. Mom pointed out that My boyfriend devotes all of his time towards being a famous tattoo artist because that’s what he wants to do with his life. I pointed out that becoming a tattoo artist is his main passion, that it’s his goal above all else, and that my main passion is completely un-career-related.

I want to run away from the task entirely already but everyone wants me to stick with it. I feel like it was never even my choice. Like somehow someone pushed me into it. Recruiting is not something I’m good at, even now that I’m offering a job that pays $50 to $150 a day. I want to be an extra, that sounds cool and profitable. Representing them, and finding them sounds scary.

And my mentor keeps dropping hints about wishing I was single, and how it would be cool if I went to Los Angeles with him. Heh, heh-heh. I said, "Only if I can take My boyfriend with me. My fiancé."

Aaron seems like a poor lonely puppy that doesn’t know how to do anything but make money. If you can’t make money of it, he’s not interested. And then there is Saundra, but she’s a different story.

A story that I seem to be too tired to type out. If you’re interested in more information about becoming an extra and getting paid to hang around a set, then you should call my work cell (716) 480-4985 Mon-Sat, 1:30pm to 9:00pm.

Thanks for all the support guys.