tangiblejournal56

[tangiblejournal56]

6/25/11

Sitting on my bed, art supplies & books surrounding me, “Eli the Barrow Boy” playing softly, the tsch-tsch sound of my dangling paper cranes as the fan makes them dance.  It’s too late to be considered Saturday still, soon dawn will be creeping in through my window with its heat & glare.  I hope to be long asleep by then, dreaming of Max as I continually do these days.  The dreams help, the need to see his face, hear his voice, subsides slightly.  A fraction.  A hair.  Not at all, really.

Today was spent on buses, wandering around Austin with Jacob.  Stopping in at the grocery store, his shock & celebration over his vegan chili on sale, unheard of prices, he was so damn happy.  Plans for a big chili dinner ensued.  Once home, already dark out, we went to the pool with our beer & cigarettes, spending two hours floating & discussing particle accelerators, the Tsar Bomba, aerogel, physics.  Favorite topics of his, how he enjoyed teaching me about these subjects so foreign to me.  How skilled I am in discovering people’s passions & letting them discuss those passions to their hearts’ content, how I use that skill to endear myself to them.  Not that I need to do so with Jacob, when drunk as well as sober he will tell me he adores me.  As if it weren’t evident in how endlessly he teases me over all my neuroses & silliness.  All for my reactions, disgust, exasperation, “Jaaacob, doooon’t!”  I was never very feminine until around him so constantly.  Now I shave my legs daily, I clean all the time, I attempt to cook for his as he is as helpless as I am in front of a stove.  Somehow I am terrified to let him see me unladylike, though he is the last person to care about those things.  I’m not even trying to get him to fall for me, I have no interest in dating him.  To what end do these things matter?

We slept together once again.  He brought home a large bottle of cheap vodka & we became spectacularly drunk, watching a documentary on an inventor & architect.  Then down to the pool, swimming & playing water games with the young children.  When they’d gone to bed, we became flirtatious, he grabbing my breasts, myself touching his junk as well.  Back inside, I tried to help him change into his pajamas, & somehow this led to sex.  When I tried closing my eyes & imagining Max, for a few moments I actually enjoyed it.  How awful is that to admit?  I sleep with him so he won’t be lonely, & so I won’t let my feelings of attraction for him go too far.  A very strange sort of irony.  There was one enjoyable moment, I admit, he was teasing me, holding back, & when I’d beg him for it, he’d grin, “No.”  He really liked teasing me, that glimmer in his eyes, that sexy grin.  Again wanting a reaction.  Then after, both retreating to our own beds.  It’s odd, this little pattern we’ve developed.  I don’t see it occurring often, I’m always surprised by its existence.  I would bet it doesn’t happen again.  I am quite taken aback, though, that despite other girls (Spill, to be specific) wanting this, he chose me for his fuck buddy.  Perhaps because of my ability to keep my private life private.  Though I did quietly admit it to Josh tonight.  “I don’t want to say I expected it, but I kind’ve knew it was a possibility,” was his reaction.

Jacob & I also discussed the baby for a little bit tonight.  I didn’t know if he’d even known about it, which he did.  “Uh, everyone knew,” he said in his blunt but not rude way.  He said he’d wanted to bring it up before, hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  Not much was said, a few random details here & there.  It was a pretty comfortable conversation.  I don’t think I could conceive of a better roommate than him, we are completely compatible, cooking together, playing board games, even laying on the living room floor together reading quietly.  I try to be as accommodating as possible, & he just goes with the flow of everything.  I wonder when the day will come when he is annoyed by me, & barely acknowledges me.  He is someone who needs nothing of anyone.  Even if it’s sex, I’m happy to be the person who gives him what he needs.

[tangiblejournal56]

6/29/11

Six-thirty in the morning & I am wide awake.  Missing Max with a dangerous longing like a current come to wipe away any other thought.  Again complimenting each other all through the night.  I told him how I believe he could one day surpass Bukowski, as he has something our beloved poet lacks, “A different outlook.  A relatability, a sense of sympathy for the human race,” I told him.  We discussed his trying to keep his artistic rage fresh, & his choosing a life of unhappiness in order to continue making art.  I told him that was noble & as an appreciator of his work I want him to struggle so as to keep his art churning, but as his friend, I would rather he be happy at the cost of his art.

“Oh you.  I hope you’ll always be there no matter what I do,” he responded, words I thrilled at.  So frequently since I’ve left he’s found ways of telling me how much I mean to him, something I always crave.  I do so despise that part of myself, that I should need regular reminders of the affection I already know is there, but never do I seem to get away from it.  So I try to write down all of these so-rare reminders, so I may pour back over them when my confidence wavers.  I said to him that I hope always to be there on the sidelines of his life, getting to see it unfold.  He said I will be.  I want so much for this to be true.  I crave sitting across from him in a restaurant, listening to whatever thoughts erupt from that mind so inimitable, to be watching some movie he’s drowning out with his running commentary.  That tenderness when he’s drunk, the softness he displays to me only, a self he has hidden to the rest of the world.  How if I cannot be his love, I am at least his confidant, his confessor, his champion.  I am the reason he does not feel so alone in his night, & seemingly no amount of my fucking up can entirely push him away.  Our pseudo-relationship has surpassed even the length of time I was with Ryan, & has all but cured me of my longing for that person.  Now I just long for my burning artist, & know with total faith that he treasures having me at his side, always fighting for him.  Though I cannot entirely quell this desire to believe that perhaps one day his love for our friendship will grow into a romantic desire for me, & then we could be together despite the opinions of his family & friends like Sara, who don’t know me anymore.  I know it is unrealistic, especially with a man like Max, so set in his ways.  But the hope remains.  I worry one day that hope will ruin what we’ve built, but it hasn’t so far.  I still fret for the day he finds a replacement for our days together, our nights.  I will mourn that loss beyond imagination.  A blow larger than Ryan, a total sinking of the self.  But I will not contemplate it, I know where that train of thought leads.  I also refuse to fantasize about the next time I’m with him, I cannot place the burden of expectation on his already-weighted shoulders.  I want to be indispensable to him, but not at the expense of what calm & comfort he can forge.  The intense longing for things to be different, you can’t imagine the struggle.  If only we could’ve met now rather than in high school.  A clean slate.  He’d be more closed off, but I believe I could break the reserve, & everything would be like now, except that he could love me, & I would know how to love him in return.  Maybe then everything could be perfect, neither of us would be all alone in any area of our lives.

[tangiblejournal56]

6/30/11

“Are you asleep?  I’m sure you are.  That’s so lonely but in your best interest.  Difficult to get upset about it.”  Send at 5:21am.  This is the message I woke up to, from a very drunk Max.  I felt guilty, as it was the first time I’ve been unavailable for his drunken outburst of emotion.  It wouldn’t mean as much, except it kind’ve puts the nail in the coffin that I’m gone, a thousand miles away, unable to just come over & make him feel better.  This was what I was so worried about moving over.  Never wanted to leave him alone.

Maybe it’s transference.  I miss him.  Alone without him.  Everything seems so colorless, washed out.  Nothing is as vibrant as when I’m around him.  Sounds cheesy.  It is.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/1/11

Not having a job yet is getting to me, that feeling of worthlessness, stagnation.  The days are passing in a haze of movies, cleaning, clouds of pot smoke, laying listless on my bed in my too-hot room.  Sometimes there’s swimming to break up the monotony.  Jacob is unemployed as well, but has enough money that he can afford to still be jobless.  I am now officially out of funds, a worrying thought.

Josh & I both woke up late tonight, drove to a gas station for cigarettes.  His mood swings abruptly between happy & over-stressed at the slightest provocation lately, but he was content amid our excursion, fun to be around, making jokes & chatting.  It was a nice change.

Not having a job & not going out often is causing quite the writer’s block.  Nothing new to write about, no rage to expel from inside.  Just this never-diminishing boredom.  Any longing I may have ever felt toward being a housewife, a kept woman, has now been eradicated.  I would go nuts.  It surprises me, but I miss long work days, getting something, however mundane, accomplished.  Fuck this economy, it’s never been so hard to find work before.  It’s daunting.

I’m sick of having nothing to write about, to do.  Writing letters to Amanda & longing for Max, this is all I do with my days.  Il dolce far niente has exhausted its appeal, & now I feel like breaking windows & screaming “I want to live!” until my lungs burst.  I need action, the sort that has nothing to do with Jacob sprawled across my bed.  How many more movies can I watch, how many more times can I clean the apartment, just for something to do?  Messaging Max every day to the point where we run out of topics.  I offered to find us a place in Seattle, jobs for us, everything taken care of, if he’d come with.  Perhaps it was just the mood he was in, but he was interested in the idea.  If only.

[tangiblejournal56]

[tangiblejournal56]

7/2/11

Only a few hours since my previous entry, Max texting me at 4:19am, “Still up?”  Our conversation circled around his night with his brother, then on to his refusal to sign for another year on the lease at he & Z’s house & the repercussions of that rebellion.  His rage at still being in this state of stagnation, then slowing slipping into a flirtation with leaving.  “Or maybe something let’s do something.  Yes?  We’ve got to find somewhere to go,” he rang out.  I asked him if this was real, if he was serious about this.  “Um, well, I want to go.  I think I want this.”  I asked him if he wanted me to come along, or if this was a move he needs to make alone.  “Nah, I’d go with you,” he assured me, “I think I would like you along.”  The more we discussed it, the more it seemed to bolster his resolve that this was the right decision.  I was shocked, then ecstatic beyond all measure.  He had to work at ten & it was already after five, so our conversation ended, but despite the late hour I began researching Portland, marking down some points to relay to Max later.  I am overwhelmed with excitement at the thought that by this time next year Max & I could be ensconced in our own private world, across the country from anyone who knows either of us.  No oppressive parents demanding everything & giving nothing in return to him.  No overwhelming responsibility toward everyone.  He can write & I can visit the sea, & save up til I can afford my houseboat.  Then we can walk around the city, eating in cafes & browsing bookstores to our hearts’ content.  Perhaps then, he could be happy, & once realizing his content state, he will see that I can make him happy, that I’d do anything for him.  I wouldn’t even need that much; just for us to live together, in harmony, compatible.  I couldn’t envision a better scenario.  He is all that is good & lovely in the world, & all I’d want is to sit at his feet, listening & devouring every word.  Not exactly hero-worship, he wants to hear me as well.

Only having relocated a month ago & already I’m thrilled at the idea of shedding this scene for a brand new one.  This Austin is not the one I left four years ago, it is humorless & completely lacking in the sheen & excitement it once held.  All darkness in spite of the constant glare of the sun.  I feel as if I’ve traded one prison for another.  At least my previous cell had a job, & it had Max.  I worry my distaste for Austin that I’d previously adored is really the inability to be happy anywhere.  I also wonder if Max’s sudden panicked need to get out of Iowa when he was once so reluctant has to do with the fact that I’m no longer there, making it bearable for him.  I repeat that thought like a mantra in my mind, he needs me, he needs me.  Like I need him.  Oh, Max could survive the pain of any situation, grit his teeth & bear it.  He is also able to push someone he loves away, if he believes it to be best.  But there is a world between us, a system of trust & acceptance, & I can’t believe he’d ever push me totally away.  He would’ve already done so, when I told him I’ll never stop wanting to be his.  At his feet, without end.

[tangiblejournal56]

[tangiblejournal56]

7/4/11

Sometimes with Max there is no room for anyone else’s sadness.  He will not allow me to give voice to the inner neuroses that plague me, despite my constant audience to his own.  Though this stings, I withdraw, & swallow my emotions.  Since the decision to run away to Portland, he has been standoffish, any of that sweet acknowledgment of his missing me is now extinguished from our conversations.  He told me of his talking to Sara again, & made it clear it was no business of mine when I asked him how that friendship was going.  He’s closing himself off to me.  Short responses to all of my conversation, avoidance of real topics.  I know to shy away when he gets like this, but it’s hard.

Jacob & I, high & drunk, took a midnight swim.  He kept swimming underwater to grab my legs, to dunk me, to pick me up on his shoulders, & despite the knowledge that our sex is unsatisfactory, I wished he would take me in his arms, so I didn’t feel alone.  But Josh came home & so nothing could happen, were it even a possibility.  I feel so alone here.

Daryl messaging me today out of the blue.  A pretty surprise I didn’t expect, I believe he too must be lonely.  He’s pleased at me coming to Portland, only three hours away from him in Seattle.  Gossiping, grossing each other out, being assholes to each other.  Our general routine hasn’t shifted much since we last saw one another, comforting to a point.  He told me about going to seminary school.  When I asked him what had happened, why he hadn’t become a pastor or minister, he said simply, “They don’t like you to question anything.”  So he opted to believe in chaos instead.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/5/11

Dark dreams, landscapes of worst-case-scenario.  I believed when I woke up  that Max had died, & the tears poured out of me without cease, even after the fog of sleep cleared away & my senses returned, realization that Max was fine.  Still, tears.  I texted him, “You’re alive, right?”  An hour later he responded, “Yeah, why?”  Told him of my absurd terror & how silly I knew it was.  “Eeek, I’m sorry,” he answered.  Should’ve probably kept it to myself, he has enough dreams of his own about his demise.

The awful morning however was not indicative of how the rest of the day turned out thankfully.  A phone call from the deli, I go in Friday to sign the papers to begin working, a giant weight off my shoulders.  Employment finally, & I am thrilled for this languid laziness to end.  Josh, Jacob & I drove to the mall, where I sat in the food court, talking to Pnut on my phone while eating a large slice of greasy disgusting cheese pizza.  He told me it finally dawned on him that I’m not around, & won’t be for awhile.  I felt a pang of guilt for not being there if he needed me, though I know that he’s never really needed me for anything, other than to hang out, & general sisterly support.  I miss my little brother, the golden child.  We talked about his & Stine’s new house, her looming birthday, him going to school for criminal forensics, me moving to Portland, Jess’s selfish ways, his disappointment in her not said aloud but thick in his tone.  No one has ever disappointed him like she has, & I don’t think he’ll ever allow anyone else to have that chance.  This bothers me, the idea that he could become hard to the world.  He’s my sweet little brother, he should always be innocent & unaware of how awful the world can be.

After the mall we went to Half Price Books, where I was extremely tempted to blow my last $15 on Proust, but managed admirably to abstain.  Instead I poured over the art section, flipping through Picasso & remembering how much I love cubism, that strange, rare feeling it elicits in me.

I feel like I’m stuck in this cyclical vacuum of inaction.  It’s draining any feelings out of me.  I’m starting to feel dead.

But I have a job I’ll soon start.  And these absurd conversations with Max, the run-on nonsense:

“Room is still still.”

“Nash & Young.”

“Younger Gang.”

“Kool?”

“Runnings?”

“Stunnings.”

“…You win.  Mon.”

“I win?  Ha!  Barely had to use my A game!”

“I bow in all of my inferiority before your looming greatness.”

Words put together completely unintelligible to anyone but ourselves.  We have this strange world of our words.  This is comforting.  This feels like home.  My worries that if we live together, will it ruin this?  Will all of our sweet, intimate moments cease because it will then be too much like a real relationship?  I don’t want to give that up, or the sex, or the spontaneous acts of endearment.  Don’t want to lose it, in all of my selfishness, but I would forfeit it to get him out of Iowa, where he is drowning.  To get him somewhere he can be free, no longer beholden to anyone but himself.  He needs this.  More than I need to get off, or feel adored.  I can’t rely on him for that.  I’m getting better.  The missing him isn’t overwhelming, though he does so often colonize my thoughts.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/10/11

“It was hard for me to accept that she had almost no feelings,

maybe none at all, for me as a man.  This hurt so bad at times

that it felt like someone was gouging out my guts with a knife.

Still, the time I spent with her was more precious than anything.

She helped me forget the undertone of loneliness in my life.

She expanded the outer edges of my world, helped me draw a

deep, soothing breath.  Only Sumire could do that for me.”

-haruki murakami-

Rereading Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart on the deck this morning, the sun blasting full-power down on me, already 95 degrees, my cigarette making arabesques of smoke rise above me.  This passage hits me like a sack of bricks I wasn’t prepared for, & I felt a deep stab in my chest more intense than I had yet to feel since leaving Iowa.  Until now, missing Max has been like a dull ache, a runner’s stitch in my side, but I’d been able to push it back, I hadn’t cried over it or mourned not being around him very seriously.  Now however, I felt like crying.  I couldn’t pay attention to the words on the page, I couldn’t slow this pounding heart.  All I could do was go lay back in bed & let the feeling wash over me, wanting to cry & dispel this dark feeling away from me.  I thankfully fell back asleep, & dreamt of weird scenes that made no sense.

I miss him.  Unwavering, the need to see his body in bed next to me, his form more beautiful than a Matisse line, his hands like a symphony.  That sleep look with his furrowed brows, his pouting lips even fuller, those impossibly high cheekbones.  That scent, like home, a comforting, warm feeling, safe.  I end up coming off as a cheesy romance novel-aspirant, but I can find no new way of being less maudlin in my emotions toward him.  He elicits an overwhelming sea of admiration from me, himself as a fact, his mind, that brilliant place.  I cannot believe anyone like him exists anywhere else in the world, so I hold onto this original with an iron grip, knowing if he were to go, a large piece of myself would go away, splitting me in two.  There would be such a lack of beauty in my life, no more true world, no more inspiration to be a better person, to accomplish more, to continue writing.  He makes me feel capable of what I would like to be.  No one else does that, not even Ryan did.  Everyone else seems content with me playing the role of patron, never the artist.  He makes me believe I can do something with myself, not rely on others’ greatness & hope to be a part of it.  I know I help him to some extent as well, motivating him & giving him that encouragement he so badly needs, but he would be a writer regardless of my constant support.  He may not ever believe he could get somewhere with it, which I believe I do help him with realizing.

He’s been asking about when we will move.  I had my doubts about whether or not this would really happen, but he seems anxious & impatient to leave already, not wanting to wait five more months which I need in order to finish my lease here in Austin.  Late at night he will message me, asking me more about Portland, & I smile, anticipation filling me until I’m scratching at the walls.  I recall being sixteen & believing he & I would one day have our place together, I envisioned it a small apartment old as hell & slightly shabby-looking.  My delight when I realized a year or more ago that Max wants the same thing when he & I were discussing our ideas of an awesome place to live.  My adolescent self imagined us in a brick-walled walkup, his albums & CDs spread out all over the place, his guitars & instruments in a corner with a favorite chair.  Books & books & books of ours lining the wall, too many for the overwhelmed shelves to hold.  The threadbare couch, the television, our movies filling another bookshelf.  Opposite his corner with the instruments, my medical examiner’s wooden table as my art desk, my art supplies & laptop.  Our kitchen filled with the random appliances & dishes we’d picked up at various antique & knickknack shops, nothing matching of course.  His liquors & wines lined up on the counter.  Our own separate rooms, but I would spend my nights in his far superior bed, my room mostly used for storing my clothes.  Our idyll de Portland.  A happiness I cannot imagine could be realized.  Whether or not that is the outcome, I will find out.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/13/11

Trying to overcome this loneliness that hits me when I’m sleeping alone, & instead searching for solace in it.  It’s a tough & as yet unsuccessful transition.

Max making mention of his friend Brandon’s crush on me from the one time he, Max, Rachel & I were hanging out, months ago.  Asked him why he took so long to tell me of his friend’s crush, he mumbled some half-assed excuse, “I didn’t think you’d like him,” etc.  While it is true that I have no interest in Brandon, that wouldn’t have stopped Max from telling me.  Significance?  His need for me not to have anyone but him, juxtaposing his inability to have or acknowledge any romantic feelings for me.  Will I wait around forever, until he no longer needs me, has found someone he can let himself love without feeling like an idiot?  I would do anything for him, but what will that cost me, all of that struggle to put him back together enough for him to be able to open himself up to someone, & then I’m to be left again all by myself?  Not certain I’m strong enough for that inevitable outcome, I can’t steel myself so easily to a loveless existence as he can.  I want nothing more than to help him find  a way to thrive, but my small modicum of self-worth I’ve forged finally won’t allow me to be so resigned to such a self-destructive course.  And still yet my indefatigable damned naïveté keeps the flicker of hope that all my selfless work to help him will cause him to love me.  Which then turns me against myself in self-loathing over having to work so hard for his love, as I am so apparently unworthy of it.  I do believe him to be out of my league & lightyears better than myself, but at the same time, am I not also worthy of love?  My flaws are evident, yes, just as anyone else’s are, but I do have some good qualities, strong ones, & though I would never win any contests, my physical self is far from grotesque, some days even appealing.  I am not always a great person, but not so bad as to believe I don’t deserve love, even his.

And then I remember how I treated him in our relationship, & I realize why I would have to prove myself to him, why it would be my penitence to do all of that work & in the end still find myself alone.  Because I helped to break him.  And even after all of the work I still would not deserve him.  I was no better than all of those other forces & persons I despise so much for hurting him, killing the good in him, the optimism & idealism so deeply hidden behind his shell.  No one, not even his friends, see that optimism because it doesn’t fit their image of him as the sarcastic, surly, drunk curmudgeon.  I am maybe the only person not trying to fit him into this niche, this little box with its precise & indisputable description.  He is far too vast & encompassing to be in such a box; he contains multitudes, like anyone else.  But unlike anyone else, he shows this self to a very few.  I am as yet the only audience I know of.  He doesn’t just gift that self to anyone, you have to work to earn it, should you want it badly enough.  For my part, constant but subtle convincing of him that I want to know him entirely, without agenda or judgment, has helped me get inside.  It can’t be all, but it goes a long way.  There has also got to be a certain compatibility, he has to feel you’re akin to him, he has to respect your views & ethics & what he believes your character to consist of.  We think similarly, but with enough variation that we can offer each other alternate yet valid viewpoints.  I am as yet unaware of what exactly it is that I encompass that I am the only one he’s let in.  That is not exaggeration nor false modesty.  He has told me countless times over the past two years that he can open up to no one else, something so deeply flattering & at the same time so heart-wrenchingly sad.  And yet still, something I’ve never fully understood, as there cannot be anything so different about me than all the friends he’s ever had, all of the girlfriends.  This singling out is a large part of why I can never fully believe that he will never love me, that we will never end up together.  That & his either inability or refusal to end our emotional & physical relationship when I couldn’t hide that it was causing me to fall in love with him again, even after him telling me multiple times nothing will come of it.  Max is not the sort to let someone throw themselves away on an impossibility, even over himself, especially someone who means so much to him.  Proof of that in our relationship, in his & his ex’s relationship.  So how do I not read into his actions & interpret some kind of future between us?

I want so badly to believe him, to be free of this chaining of myself to him as it causes me so much pain.  But that belief is there, & to imagine a life without him is terrifying.  A such as he says I give him, he opens entire universes in me I wouldn’t have believed available to me otherwise.  He gives me self-worth, he gives me permission, he doesn’t even realize.  A relationship so beneficial & symbiotic, & yet he feels nothing for me?  I have such a hard time comprehending & accepting that.

In the end, I will do whatever is necessary to help him.  I don’t give a care to what it will do to me.  He is far more important than any self-preservation.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/15/11

Yesterday’s very shitty day started pleasantly, deceptively so.  Texts throughout the night from Max (who else?) while I was fast asleep.  The last one at 7:30am, a drunken stream of consciousness along the lines of “I will die here if I’m not careful, so I’m laying on the kitchen floor drunk with a glass of milk,” to which I responded with an inquiry on how that was working out for him.  He answered, typos not withstanding, “Why are you up?”  Taking a small joy in his messaging me multiple times even when I’m not responding, how he thinks of me again & again in his night.  He then called me, informing me in a nervous tone that he was more drunk than usual, celebrating two whole days of sobriety.  Only Max, I thought, could commit an act so acutely ironic as that.  I told him he wasn’t allowed to die & leave me all alone here, I asked him to promise.  He said he couldn’t promise me that, no one could - always brutally honest, no matter what response is wanted.  He did add a caveat that he had no intentions of leaving me, his tongue thick from too much wine, mumbling “Isn’t that a nice sentiment though, really?  Would you prefer some bullshit ‘Oh I’ll never leave you, you’re my world, blah blah blah?’”  Exaggerating his tone like a wino Romeo, inadvertently expressing his silent feelings for me only allowed to surface in these drunken monologues.  That is not reading into more than what is there, if you know & understand Max.  He told me that he told Z of his plans to move to Portland with me.  I asked if he’d told his parents.  Silence, then “I’ll probably wait until later so they can’t talk me out of it,” a surprising clarity in his current state.  It seems he took seriously my worry that people would discourage him until he no longer believes it an option.  “Are you telling them it’s with me?” I inquired, hesitant.  “Do you think I shouldn’t?  They know we hang out, I’ve told them you’re the smartest person I know, one of my best friends, how you’re the only person who understands me,” he went on, surprising me that he’d even discuss me with them.  Not that he’s ashamed of me, but I’d figured he’d just avoid that opportunity for unpleasantness.  I asked what their reaction to this was.  “Silence,” he answered honestly.  I’d expected that, but didn’t expect that it would still sting.  Their disapproval of me, “She’s a lovely girl, just not for you,” I can hear them saying ever-so-delicately & politically correct in their archaic bourgeois snobbery.  How even in absentia they can always make me feel like Max is just playing “La Boheme” & I, his unfortunate match girl he found while going slumming.  Despite how he fights for me not to feel that way, he is never dishonest about their attitude on the subject of me.  Forever reaffirming my inferiority.

He went to bed & I napped a bit longer.  Glossing over the events of my ultra-shitty, David Lynch-surreal day, I came home to Jacob wanting me to swim with him.  I ceded, & he spent the duration trying to cheer me up out of my funk.  He even suggested Trivial Pursuit, which he never wants to play.  He got drunk & high, becoming that sweet, flirtatious boy with lively yes, dimples like my own but concealed beneath an inch or so of beard.  I am still in awe at how attracted I am to him any time outside of the bedroom, that inexplicable curiosity of chemical bodily reactions.  He made me laugh, telling me mischievously how he’d always thought Brooke horsey-looking, to which I responded “But you dated her for three years!”  He laughed, told me he thought everyone would make fun of him for dating someone so unattractive.  He’s such a question mark to me most of the time, taking me off my guard at every corner.  Surprising me with a request to listen to my jazz collection, & all of the parts of life he simply knows & understands, that I haven’t a clue about, like science & geography & anatomy, & his eagerness to explain them, his excitement that I’m such a willing audience.  Then his randomness & unexpected generosity, his wanting to buy me a camera on my next birthday, “you take too many pictures not to own one!”  When I protested against him purchasing something so expensive just for me, he became frustrated, “You always get me a gift, & you’ve made me all those cards!”  I argued that none of those things were worth a camera, & looking me in the eye very seriously, very sincerely, he said those cards were worth more than any camera, that the cards meant so much to him & he loved them.  I became shy from his intensity & had to look down at my lap for fear of blushing.

We sat outside until 2:30 in the morning reading Trivial Pursuit cards to each other, & I found myself again longing to kiss him for his sweetness, & wondering what it could be like if we were sexually compatible.  Though no force could put Max out of my mind, I am grateful that I can lounge comfortably in these harmless crushes on Jacob, as I know they will never amount to more than flirting & they keep me quite occupied & out of the depressions that stagnation of the senses causes me.

[tangiblejournal56]

[tangiblejournal56]

7/17/11

Jesus christ does the bullshit have to come in waves, not in simple, solitary occurrences so it’s easier to deal with & store away?  All day yesterday I was getting honked & hollered at as I went about my business, with such frequency I began to wonder if I wasn’t on some hidden camera show.  I’m aware there exists some girls who claim to hate this attention but secretly revel in it, but I say this without a single drop of insincerity - I fucking LOATHE it.  I do not find it flattering, it makes me feel like I am not even human, just an object for the visual consumption of others.  I don’t even dress in a baring manner, I am always in jeans & a t-shirt, I rarely make the attempt to look nice at all.

This of course went along nicely with watching a homeless man crawl out from his sleeping bag under the I83 overpass, staggering like the first CroMag to leave the cave, stopping to piss leisurely all over the pillar as though the world was his private stool, leaving a dark patch running down the brick.  I suppose I should be grateful that I was at least spared his mid-afternoon shit.

But of course, that not being enough, this morning on my way to work I walked to my bus stop as I ordinarily do, headphone on, sitting on the bench, doing my standard inconspicuous-stranger pose.  Along comes a fairly normal-appearing fellow, white, middle-aged, tallish, goatee, red t-shirt, khaki shorts.  No obvious signs of drug use, not threatening-looking.  So I shrugged it off when he started circling the bench, as this is a fairly normal type of strange behavior at bus stops - everyone is strange, by at least one person’s standards.  Even when he plopped down two inches from me on the large, empty bench, I wrote it off as not that strange (if a little rude), as it was the only shaded area.  I stared off into the distance & focused on my iPod, slow & soothing music I hadn’t listened to in awhile.  Amid the silent transition between songs, I heard a slapping sound & out of the corner of my eye I caught some jerking movements.  I looked at him for a split-second, saw enough to disgust me into shooting out of my seat & walking quickly up the street to the next bus stop, checking every so often to ensure the offender & his furious stroking wasn’t following me.  The next bus stop thankfully was laden with people, & just outside a grocery store with parking lot rent-a-cops circling on their self-important Segways, caricatures but a welcome presence in the event that the offender returned.  I was surprised at how furious I was, my hands shaking, teeth clenched beneath lips set in a tight line.  I thought to myself, if he is perfectly sane I hope nothing good for him, & if he is mentally unstable that he’d get picked up & taken off somewhere before anything worse should occur.  All of the times I’ve been in Austin, either alone or with someone, I’d never experienced anything that had shaken me as much.  I’d always assumed I’d be able to shrug something like that off, see the humor in it, but because I was alone & in front of only a tree-filled empty wooded area, I’d been frightened of what the man could have done to me had he wanted.

At the next bus stop I ended up next to a young, friendly-looking black man in a work uniform, like me, headed to his job at a deli, & he bummed me a cigarette as I told him of what had transpired to make me so shaky.  He laughed & said, “That’s Austin for you,” shaking his head.  We talked for awhile until the bus came, & though I kept checking to see if the offender was walking toward me, I felt a relief to be under the friendly protection of this man.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/19/11

Another night of shameless flirtation with Jacob as he gets progressively more & more drunk.  He & Josh met me on the bus coming home from work, & once back at the apartment we all hopped into the pool.  Back inside, we lounged around, Jacob & I watching Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13” & throwing dice.  I began drawing absurd prison tattoos on his skin with a blue Bic ballpoint, “Cunt Gash 4eva” across his knuckles, “Thug Life” on his forearm, a heart & banner with Thom’s name.  He wanted a spider web on the back of his elbow.  We were laying on our stomachs, so to pull this off I had to maneuver his arm under & between my breast so I could reach.  He used this as an opportunity to cop a sly feel, his fingers pressing.  As Josh was sitting four feet away, my immediate reaction was “Stop it!” in a low voice, smiling.  I regretted my reaction though, it would’ve been more fun to flirt.  I cooked us all some stir fry, one of the only dishes I can manage not to destroy, & when it was dark out, Jacob & I decided to get back in the pool.  By this point he was pretty drunk & the pool was crowded.  We joked around, grabbing each other, dunking & flipping over.  On the poolside lounges he rubbed my aching shoulders, “You know you can ask for this any time, I don’t mind doing it.”

We talked lightly about a number of topics: his ex-girlfriend, whom he was with for a number of years, how she cheated on him & he broke up with her immediately, how strange he finds others’ reactions to cheating when it isn’t a snap decision to end it.  I told him I’d cheated in one relationship in high school, then never again because of how guilty I’d felt, the damage & hurt it created.  I said to my knowledge I’d never been cheated on.  One of those was a lie.  We discussed what family members we most took after, parenting skills, etc.

Despite all of the flirtation, it resulted in only sexual frustration, the only possible outcome from the start, as Josh isn’t working for a few days, leaving Jacob & I rarely alone.  Oh well.  I am getting better about being content with my big empty bed, though when it’s late & Max is texting me I find myself looking at the empty half longingly.

Max texted me the other night when I was crying, an outpour of frustration out of this feeling of codependence until payday, having helped Josh by moving when I didn’t want to, & his refusal to help me at all in return, another one-sided relationship in my life, shades of my biological father’s personality coming out in my brother.  So overwhelmed, I vented to Max, who listened, assured me we’d soon be in Portland where no one would ask anything of me & I could be as self-serving as I wanted.  He made me laugh by sending me pictures of his face, now sporting only a cheesy mustache, looking comical & ridiculous.  Talking to him cheered me up immeasurably & I went to bed calm & with a renewed sense of backbone.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/22/11

On break at work, nowhere to go in the meantime so I sit in a booth reading, talking to Thom, & finally just writing to fill the two hours.  Today I am lethargic, forcing myself to be chipper & bubbly when approached, then staring into space when alone again.  Having been so long since I’ve worked somewhere new I’d forgotten how strange I appear to new coworkers - my habit of arriving early for a short period of gathering my bearings, my sitting in corners with my books, going through double shifts without eating because I am rarely hungry at work, especially if my job is with food.  The more it surrounds me the less appealing it is.  Upon my manager’s insistence, I allowed him to bring me a vegetarian wrap, which I nibbled at so as not to seem rude or ungrateful, managing to force down a third of it before delegating the rest to a take-home container, knowing I’ll pass it off to Josh or the first homeless man I see.  Days like these force me to realize how foreign I am to the rest of the world, & how alone that makes me.  But I am not truly alone, or I soon won’t be, at least, there is Max.  A beacon of reassurance, the anchor that creates a stillness in my chaotic, spinning world.  He gives me more than he could imagine, more than he believes himself capable.  Due to the early hours I’ve been keeping on account of my job I have often had to miss his late-night texts, about the grand combination of egg rolls & frozen pizza, about watching “Annie Hall” (the loneliness of him watching it without me).  It bothers me, angers me that I’ve had to forgo these conversations, that both of us must miss out on our one link of communication when we are so distant.  I am resentful & counting the dayshoursminutes until I am home in Iowa, & again orbiting in his universe.

Conflicting emotions with Jacob, rocketing back & forth between anger & adoration.  Not often, but there are times when he makes me feel like shit.  His frustration & condescension when I don’t know certain things such as the geographical positions of specific areas, or my lack of knowledge concerning current events.  He couldn’t believe I didn’t know the state of affairs in Libya & Egypt, & acted as though I must be a complete moron.  He doesn’t get how I can choose to disregard the outer world & politics of the day in favor of creating my own interior world in which I can live more happily, expelling as much ugliness & pain as I can manage.  That bewilders me, his lack of understanding for that principle, when he tries so hard to always be more happy & positive.  Hardly opposing ideals.  Besides, why is it so important for him to know these things when it’s not as though he is using this knowledge to better the situation.  I understand the power in knowledge, but I don’t mock him for not knowing any of the endless trivia I have stored up.  It’s not as though I’m asking everyone to live as I do, I know the danger in that, but this is the best way I’ve discovered I can survive.  Succumbing to total, unsheltered reality with no internal lifeboat would destroy me, or whatever is in me that is fundamental to my mental survival, my willingness to thrive.  Aside from his refusal to understand my choices, his blatant disgust with my uneducated stance on such topics is a harshness I am unaccustomed to, I am used to Max’s style of non-judgmental acceptance of my not knowing, then simply & patiently explaining the matter to me.  No condescension, no attempts to talk over my head.  Assuming my intelligence & allowing me to catch up, which I feel is how knowledge is best grasped & retained.  Not coming off like a pompous asshole, as Jacob did last night, to the point where I snapped at him, “Don’t make me feel like shit just because I don’t know something!”  He quickly backed off, tried to smooth it over by reverting back to silly Jacob as we played Trivial Pursuit, but the damage had lingered & I was still stinging.  We went back to singing along to Brand New’s “The Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me” until I eventually cooled off.  Maybe I was overreacting but I just don’t see the value in making someone feel stupid simply because they don’t know something, & feeling stupid is the worst emotion in the spectrum to me, it terrifies & saddens me, makes me feel helpless & alone.  Eventually we were copacetic & he was talking in his drunken animated excitement about Stephen King’s Gunslinger series, in which I held very little personal interest, but faked enthusiasm in due to his eagerness for me to read.  I listened patiently to his ongoing exegesis on the epicness of the series, an internal boredom I masked with interested eyes & faked smiles.  To keep up the charade I focused on how attractive he looked while he ranted, the porch light’s glow on his tanned skin, the arc of his smile, the liveliness of his body while he spoke with such passion.  I agreed to let him read aloud to me from the series, & he lit up with joy.  After I showered I crawled into bed & he sat against the wall, reading aloud & stumbling drunkenly over the text until I feigned unconsciousness.  “Are you asleep?” he asked after awhile, creeping up to me & lightly touching my ear.  He laughed & walked out of the room, & I thought of Max until I eventually fell into a genuine sleep.  How comforting, the image of Max dancing through my mind until all goes dark.  That boy is imbedded so deeply into my core I feel I will never rid myself of the sensation, should I ever long to do so.  In any shape or shadow I hope him to always be in my life, in the foreground or background.  A beacon cutting through the dark.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/23/11

Weird scenes filled my dreams last night as they so often do, Max again infiltrating my thoughts.  The setting saw me moving into the small apartment Max had acquired for us (where this took place I am unaware, no location in this dreamscape was at all recognizable except eventually his car), which turned out to be a dimly lit studio, everything therein covered in that cheap wood paneling - walls, tables, ceiling, kitchen.  He was there when I arrived, his things filling every available inch of space, & I wondered where I was to find space for any of my own belongings, that feeling of displacement my constant companion.  He was drunk & wanted us to go out.  Somehow I was pregnant in this dream, & he took me to get a potion to terminate this condition as though it were a virus to be pillaged.  The doctor told me the undeveloped fetus would come out when I went to the bathroom, in pieces small so not to worry.  I felt disconnected from emotion, as though it were occurring through layers of veils, & I calmly accepted his instruction.  Back on the road, Max & I were stopped outside of a gas station by a police officer who discovered that Max was heavily under the influence.  The overwhelming urge to relieve myself came over me & after much convincing of the officer I was allowed to rush into the bathroom.  Blood was pouring out from between my legs, a torrential flow, & chunks of flesh & bone & unidentifiable matter could be seen through the thick streams.  I grabbed handfuls of paper towels to clean the mess & thought how surreal it was that Max was actually caught drunk driving, & I wondered how we would get home.  I am always amazed when the normal hassles of existence manage to touch him, like tickets, or the overbearing heat of summer.  Such mundaneness never seems possible of reaching him, so in his own state of being, so unaffected.  This I thought about while cleansing the mess of mutilation.  Then I woke.

I was disturbed by my own lack of emotion amid this bodily trauma.  It was as though I’d put myself through all the emotional ringer I could handle with the baby so that no other pain even despite its situational similarities could ever break through the adamantium armor I’ve built up around myself now.  That terrifies me.