I-I-I-I’m Bored. Major ramble about money, school, relationships, etc.

It seems I always have to have something to entertain me – like, 24/7. Once I’ve caught up on all my emails, phone calls, deadlines, homework, personal writing, livejournal checking, Myspace refreshing and ex-stalking, I start going stir crazy. Anyway.

Changes in my world are as such: As some of you know, I’ve been at my current job for just under (or over?) nine years. Yes, it’s a really.long.time, especially when you don’t particularly care for your boss. You may also know I’m going to school again, though I started off slow and only took 7 credits this quarter.

My last day at my job is December 29th. I’ve decided to quit so I can focus on school 100%, which will be necessary for me to fulfill my 12 credits a quarter to qualify for financial aid. This is going to be a huge change for me – one that I’m really really really looking forward to. Countdown starts now: 22 official work days left!

Did I mention I have been making payments on TWO cars I don’t drive anymore, and the last payment on both happens to be on December 15th? Talk about good timing. Talking about bills bores me, but it suddenly dawned on my that the only bills I will have starting next month are rent, which is covered by financial aid(!), my car insurance and my cell phone. Yeah. That’s fucking crazy. This means, for the first time in my life, I almost have no financial responsibility. A whole $100 a month.

Can anyone say “too good to be true?”

Why can’t I just go to school for the rest of my life? Funny, I never ever thought I’d be saying that. Every day though, I sit in math class, wishing the time wouldn’t end, not only because it’s fun, but because it’s less time I have to spend at work. I’m getting the math, like whoa. It’s fascinating to me, which is definitely a good thing considering my interest is physics. I was always afraid I’d hate the math, so I’m thrilled to find myself loving it.

Next quarter is more math (pretty much every quarter will be math for the next, oh, TWO YEARS), and good old English 101. I’m kind of excited, because the first book on the “book list” is The White Boy Shuffle. Looks pretty good, and the author’s “teacher” was Allen Ginsberg. Did I mention I just picked up my first Kerouac book? Satori in Paris and Pic.

Ramble, ramble.

What else? How bout relationships: I’m in one. It’s open. Life is good. I have finally found someone who can handle sharing me, and who is truly not jealous about it. Well, he gets kinda grumbly for about five seconds, but he’s usually just looking for that quick reassurance that I’m not running away with anyone, and he’s good. I’m the exact same way. I’m also happy that’s he’s actually acting upon our open status, and isn’t just some poor sap who can’t stand up to me and is going along with it just to keep the peace. We talk about everything, but we don’t overtalk it like I’ve seen happen in the past. It’s refreshing to be able to talk about these things with someone, like a friend. The few women we’ve brought home together always comment on how we seem to be really good friends, with an obvious affection for each other. One girl said, “you guys are the best couple in the world. I wish every couple could be like you.” hahaha, leave it to the 18 year olds

So yeah, it’s nice to finally be in a place where jealousy is not rampant, freedom is cherished and acted upon, and where someone you respect and desire makes you feel like you’re home.

That’s all for now kids.

Fiction.

“Can I tell you the truth?” she asked.  “Please,” I said, hoping beyond hope that whatever sordid thing she had to say would even come close to validating the dirty thoughts I had running through my head about her.  “Well, see, my birthday is on Thursday. . .and I’ll be turning 18.”  My heart simultaneously sank and leaped.

I looked at her face, her perfect complexion and her pouty lips, the obvious lust in her eyes mixed with fear from her confession.  She looked like a young, shapely Drew Berrymore, with naturally curly, softer than soft chestnut curls.  I took into account that she was only in town for one perfect night, a night that was still young, and added the fact that she’d officially be legal in less than five days, and my decision was made.

Later that night, as she sat on the couch in front of me, eyes glazed over from alcohol, my own blood teeming with inebriation, I decided to test the waters.   She complained of a neck ache, a cue I took as her way of breaking the ice, and I offered to rub her shoulders.  There was a trick, I said, of making neck pain disappear, and I entangled my fingers in her hair.  Massaging her scalp, I slowly but firmly squeezed my fingers together, pulling her hair to release pent up pressure, as feigned as it may be.  Face to face we were, my hands in her hair, our lips inches apart, and I decided to take it to the next level.

Terrified, unsure of how she’d react, I tilted her head and pulled her closer to me.  I rested my lips lightly on her neck, not moving them, almost as if they were there by accident.  We sat like that for a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity, me breathing her in, waiting, waiting for a sign that I hadn’t gone too far.  I was waiting for a reaction, either an acceptance or rejection of my action before I took it any further;  I needed to know this girl wanted it, and wasn’t just going through the motions.  As we sat there in earth-shattering silence, except for her breathing and my waiting and secretly tasting, I felt her fingers rest gently on my shoulder.  The anticipation was killing me as I waited for a push or a pull, when suddenly she dug her nails sharply into my flesh.  As she exhaled, she pulled me closer, and the fate of the night was sealed.

That was the moment that stood out among the rest.

fear vs. growth

So I was lying in bed with my daughter discussing my new schedule coming up, (I’m quitting my day job and going to school full time next quarter), and she asked me if my boss was going to keep a position open for me “just in case.”

Suddenly I realized that those weren’t her words, and I understood all at once that my family doesn’t think I can do it. They don’t think I can go to school full time and live on the financial aid and money I make producing and writing, etc. This disturbs me – not so much that they don’t think I can do it, but that they would voice these concerns to or in front of my daughter.

When my daughter confirmed this, it actually gave me a great opportunity at providing a lesson for her. First I made sure to point out the accusers current job situations. My aunt recently got a job at Tully’s, and my daughter said “Grandma thinks that’s a great job because she can get free ice tea and coffee.” Yeah. Great. So I had to tell my daughter of course not to listen to people that think I (or she) can’t accomplish something, especially if it’s something we’re doing to better our futures so we don’t have to be 50 years old making $14 an hour or living off the charity of others.

Now I just hope I can do it. Heh, don’t think I’m not a little scared, but I know if I do it right and carefully, there’s nothing I can’t do. I’m actually surprised my mother of all people doesn’t know that about me.

Oh well, looks like my successes will be celebrated among my friends. . . and my daughter, who never loses faith.

memories

There was a kid I went to school with, all the way from Kindergarten through High School. He was fat and freckled, and had a shaggy hairline that was always cut crooked so it looked like he was balding by the age of 10. His name was Mike, and he was our fallback kid, the worst of the worst, the trump card when trying to one-up your best friend. “Oh yeah?? Well YOUR boyfriend is Fatass Mike!” That was equivalent to the triple dog dare in girl-speak.

I remember he lived on a winding road overlooking a lake, in a modest burnt orange A-frame. His window was the one facing the street, on the second floor, and was accented by a bright, buzzing light, which threw an eerie incandescent glow within a ten-foot radius of the window. I would always stare at it as I walked by, watching the moths gather every single night, wondering what went on behind that window. I always wondered why his parents didn’t just change out that light, the beacon of hopelessness that signified their boy’s life.

He had it the worst of all of us. It started in the morning for him, as early as the 5th grade from what I can remember. The elementary school was right next to the middle school, and there was a line of trees through a couple of baseball fields which divided the two. Every day we would all walk to our school as fast as we could, hoping to avoid the crowds of militant middle schoolers that walked together, tormenting us along the way. For some reason – perhaps he was doing poorly in school and had to stay later than all of us – Mike was always the last one out the door. We’d see him walking the tree-lined path, his head down, sometimes with his windbreaker pulled tight around his ears so he could pretend he didn’t hear the jeering older kids. They would follow him in a group of three or four 7th graders, throwing rocks and garbage at him.

One day they caught him. I remember I had gotten out of school later that day, due to a pressing appointment of kissing boys for money, and I caught a glimpse of what this kid called daily living. Surrounded by three boys, all of them older, bigger and braver than him, they forced him to lick dog shit off one of the boys’ shoes. If he didn’t do it they would pummel him. After he did it they would pummel him. He took it all, not like a man, but like a sniveling, whining 5th grader. He even responded in kind when they told him to thank them and beg them for more. I’m sure this was the beginning, for many of them, of sado-masochistic tendencies and the potential catalyst for sexual dysfunction as adults.

He had to be suicidal. What child can go to school every day and be the brunt of everyone’s jokes, and turn out ok? I suppose he is now a millionaire, or one of those kids who found refuge in gaming. Most certainly he is hateful toward women, or he’s found the magic secret to buy his way into their hearts. Maybe he needs a woman to hurt him to feel pleasure. Perhaps he totes a trophy wife around by day, and beats her into the night, taking out all the anger and shame on her, or their kids.

Or maybe he made it through somehow, toughening his skin and steeling his nerves, realizing that we were the real losers and that only within our realm of shallowness would we find friendship, which of course would be as vapid and unfulfilling as our high school years.

I still drive by his house every day, and I still gaze at that window, where I still imagine him as a 14-year-old kid masturbating to pictures of our high school cheerleaders – or perhaps his mother. Who knows.

Gotta have goals.

I need to quit smoking, again. It’s evident during sex, which is the worst time to need to stop and catch your breath. I am getting on the patch, and rejoining the gym for New Years. Gotta stay young somehow.

I’m a math whiz. That’s a big fat lie, but I am keeping up enough to be bored in class, and that’s a very good thing considering I had to lower my math level at the beginning of the quarter. I haven’t been scared away from math forever – yet.

This shit is so boring to write about. Don’t feel bad if you skim over it, or don’t comment. I’m bored with myself too.  Let me rephrase:  I am bored with myself on paper.  I am discouraged lately, especially after reading a whole two pages of a Kerouac novel. The man could write, better than anyone I’ve read lately. And it makes me want to write a memoir. Of an adventure. That I’ve yet to have.

Oh, I know, I can talk about how stalktastic I’ve felt toward women lately! Here’s the thing: I haven’t had the luck of finding myself between a woman’s legs in over a year. . .god, maybe two. Has it been two, dear? Anyway. Every girl I see is turning into a possible female rape trauma victim. I find myself fantasizing pretty regularly about that soft spot above a woman’s lip, that little spot men don’t have. It doesn’t help that I was the judge for a kissing contest and made out with two girls (one notoriously hot one). Anyway. If you’re a woman, and I send you creepy messages about making out with you, or “hanging out,” please forgive me. I’ve almost felt intrusive about it, like on some other planet I’d be considered misogynistic.

I spent some time with an adorable boy I refer to as “wheelchair boy.” He had a broken leg, and is since out of the wheelchair, but I will continue to refer to him as such, because it’s just another dimension of his hotness to me, which it’s been decided makes me really weird. Anyway. At the end of the night, after I’d “gotten what I wanted from him,” I was outta there. I kissed him (melted into him), and was out the door. As I’m walking down the stairs, I’m thinking, “I would be a horrible man.” Not that wheelie boy cared either way if I stayed or went, but if he’d been a girl? His/ her poor little heart would’ve been broken – unless he was a girl like me. I don’t know. I just wonder if women are excused from behavior that men would be slung up by the balls for.

That is all.

20 something.

I should like to meet a girl named Mabel. The name has been rattling around in my brain for days now. Perhaps when I meet her, it will go away.

I’ve been obsessing today, stupid things as usual. Things of the past that I cannot change, jealousy over stupid people, because I’m not the center of attention anymore. I kind of wonder what’s going to happen when I’m like 45 and just don’t have “it” anymore. I always assumed I’d be one of those cool older women that everyone likes to be around, the one that accepts her age with grace and dignity, who gives advice and reads until 4 am and would never consider squeezing herself into leather pants and a tanktop with no bra, to catch the eyes of her daughter’s friends.

My boyfriend is 22 years old and has hints of grey hair mixed in with the black. Of course I think it’s adorable. Perhaps I will feel that my grey hairs, when they come in, are also adorable and add character and elegance to my appearance. I’m not 30 yet, and the thoughts of turning 30 used to keep me up at night. Now, I’m really not so afraid, but I think it’s because I’m still pretty. I’m still young. I’m still fresh, as weathered as I feel at times, and it just hasn’t sunk in that my freckles will only make me look innocent for so long.

I wonder also if I’ll end up alone. If my need for freedom will forever force me to turn love away at my doorstep, while I wait and wait for someone who fulfills me enough to release my deepest secrets to. Secrets. Do you have them? Or at least one? One that perhaps haunts you, or at least tickles the soft hairs on your ears at unexpected times?

He calls me baby now. Baby doll and dearest girl, and other things that betray him. I don’t think he ever expected to be calling me by pet names, nor did he ever expect to like me as more than just a fuck. I didn’t either, really. But there was a time when he regarded me as just a stupid girl, in an adorably 22-year-old way, and now. . .he talks to me about things that are important to him, and inside this hormonal creature a man is emerging, and he is one of integrity. He has a pure honesty, a naked exposure, and I trust him instinctively. I’m not sure where it will lead, but that doesn’t seem so important, as there seems something impossibly healthy about this whole situation.
They say I always have to destroy things that are beautiful. I think beautiful things can rise from the ashes of destruction.

Muse.

If exponents don’t kill me, I don’t know what will.My Dad has taken to calling me “the dark one.” People tell me I am all these things that I just never see.

A person on my friend’s list wrote this really amazing piece of work, the kind that makes you sick and elated and pressured to create. I simply cannot write unless I’m inspired, and the only things that inspire me lately are false hopes and fading dreams. I’m going to go cut myself now. Seriously though, how emo do I have to become to produce something worthwhile? Next quarter is coming up, perhaps a creative writing class to help offset the math and the disgust.

Girl. When you speak so openly with no locks on your words, it makes me think I’m imagining that you’re talking to me. How far can I push before I’m a troublemaker and an instigator? I want nothing but your happiness, but the selfish imp in me wants to egg you on, to torment you into giving me a moment, or five, alone.

What if I promise to keep my hands to myself?