I am sitting outside, under the stars writing. My feet feel the coolness of the grass and for one brief moment, I am happy.
Things went really well today. In fact, truth be told, they went much better than I had anticipated. I left work at 1pm (and feeling frisky after double fraps and flirting with Justin) and came back to my old digs. I wasn’t feeling anxious, amazingly, I felt calm and almost carefree. Rob and his dad Rick had already started packing the U-Haul. My job was very simple: pack the rest of my things.
I had already packed over 10 boxes, mainly having to do with my books (so many!) and cds. My collection since I have been here in San Francisco has grown astronomically, to over double of what I had originally moved with.
I have gotten really lucky! Cathleen and Rob are good people. I have become a part of their group and accepted as being one of them with no muss or fuss. Cathleen and I have gotten closer to being almost sisters. Rob treats me as though our kiss last weekend never happened (a good thing). Rob even went so far as to go and create a space in his office for my bed (which I pilfered from Irene) and now I have security of “mine”. It is indeed a wonderful feeling.
After arranging “my” area, I laid on my bed and didn’t think. God, how long had it been since i have done that? Probably so long that I cannot remember when.. I remember vividly being 8 or 9 years old and sitting on the back porch at the house I grew up in, in Port Huron Michigan. Had it really been that long? Oh my, it cannot be that long!?!?!
Grass.
God, it feels so good against my feet. Though it has gotten chillier here then back in Grand Rapids.
Stars.
I am sitting under the stars. God, what a new exhilarating concept. I pinch myself to feel pain to make it more real.
I think about the events of the past year, and I shudder for a brief moment. Christian. Irene. Danny. Jeff. People who have changed my life in some significant way, but yet insignificant in what I want now.
50 weeks to the day.
I am so damn calm, that it is awe inspiring.
A missive by any other name….
I am going to go relax some more. Lay back down on my bed, with my hands behind my head and not think. Go take a bath and then go curl up back in my bed and read for awhile.
It has been a long day.
Month: April 1998
I’m an adult now
Cathleen has just left to go to Rob’s and Irene is holed up in her bedroom area on the phone. The afternoon has been mild at the least. I woke up at earlier this afternoon with Cathleen barging into my room. I didn’t blame her. I told her I would get up early to go grocery shopping so that we could do some sort of Easter dinner. But when she had attempted to wake me up earlier in this morning, I think I sort of grumbled and flipped around in my bed. I think it was about 10 a.m., I can’t remember specifically.
Last night I caught a cab home from (I give up forever to touch you) the subway station and I ended up sharing it with a couple and another person. The couple were young (mid 20’s or so) and the guy was sitting next to me. I don’t know what it was about him, he wasn’t all that attractive to me, but his smell just drove me nuts! This is a good thing.
(You bleed just to know you are alive.)
I have this weird thing about smells. It’s not cologne (though Obsession/Eternity/Ferenheit/Davidoff Cool Water tend to get my juices flowing) per se, but it’s like someone’s essence. I can “smell” them before anything else. When I go hang out with my friend Michael, sometimes his smell isn’t pleasant, so i refrain from hugging him. It’s not body odor, it is something else that I’ve never really explained other then it’s an aura type thing. One of my best friends in high school Josh, had this most incredible smell. I used to just hug him all the time to get nearer to it. He didn’t think I was weird, though we both did joke that if by bottling it and selling it, I would have amassed a fortune. Someone mentioned that it was probably pheromones that were playing havoc with my nose. I don’t know what it is, but I can never clarify it enough to give a logical response.
Today is Easter Sunday. I forced Cathleen to go grocery shopping (hence why she came barging into my room earlier today) so that we could get ham, scalloped potatoes, rolls and the like. I’ve tried calling my mom to wish her a Happy Easter, but I got my brother’s voice on the answering machine instead of my mom’s. Odd. He’s been home for a total of three days and he’s already taking over. I wonder if he misses it. I know that he hasn’t been back since August of 1997, so I wonder how he is accepting the changes.
This afternoon, Irene came into the living room (I’m a lucky man, with fire in my hand) while Cathleen and I were talking about Ty. She made a comment about how that we were both out of here, that she’s already rented out our rooms to others. What transpired was this conversation, where we basically were in the right and Irene was in the wrong. It felt good to stand up for myself and not back down. I need to do that more.
Speaking of which, since I told my father that I no longer wanted to be in contact with him anymore, he’s been calling a couple of times a day, every day. Shelly says that in a way, I am being irrational about the whole subject, but, I don’t think so. Both he and my mother have used me as a pawn for the last 25 years and I don’t want to be a chess piece any longer. I’ve got to prove, at least to myself and especially them, that I am an adult and I can provide for myself. I’ve been doing a pretty good thus far, so I think.
early Sunday morning
The whole purpose of this, was that the writers block that had been lasting over two months has finally been cleared. Thanks in part to me writing a 21k file entitled “Celibacy: The New Frontier” and passing it on to jericho/d1s to put into F.U.C.K.. It was the first piece written in over two months, and since then, I have felt this need to release my thoughts again to the world.
I’m fairly sure, except for a few small letters here and there, that the world isn’t dying because I haven’t written anything. However, the thing is, that I have felt a sense of ‘loss’ (for a better word) for -not- doing it. I’ve gotten pretty disgusted in the past, and tore the whole site down, but found out after doing so, that people were upset because it my web pages were no longer accessible. And it wasn’t really about my personal web pages, but my writings page.
In that time period, while surfing the web again, I’ve noticed that I wasn’t the only one who whose the idea of the journal was being used. Many sites show feelings/idea’s/dreams/heart-aches of that person’s life. In a way, it’s a bit daunting, because what makes me so much different then the average Joe Blow?
who cares. it is my life and no one lives it but me.
daily trappings:
Woke up later than planned today (2PM) and realized I had to leave at 4 P.M. to head to my job as a tech engineer (sounds more glamorous than it really is). Walking out of my bedroom, I noticed that psycho-schitzo roommate Irene had posted an addendum to her eviction notice yesterday: “If you plan on staying on after the 1st (of the month), I will require a deposit of 300 dollars to cover bills and such.” I started laughing. I have been living in this shit-hole for nearly a year, and -now- she’s requiring a deposit? I don’t think so. In the past couple of months, Irene has started getting -really- strange (more so than normal, this is California after all). For instance, when she got pissed off for god-knows what, she disconnected the heater for four days. Now, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it were not early February, and it was never more than 30 degrees outside. She’s pulled asinine stunts such as taking the living room TV into her bedroom, knowing we (Cathleen and I) couldn’t watch television, breaking dishes in angry fits and then turning around and making us presents in happier moments. Cathleen wasn’t as amused as I was. Cathleen had spent the better part of the morning talking to her now ex Ty, and was fairly upset. She and I have been looking for a place to split for a month now. But this being the Bay Area, it’s tougher then a needle in a haystack.
Work was uneventful, except for one thing: I was the only one manning the phone lines tonight.
Again, this wouldn’t be that big of deal, but it is Saturday night (should give you some clue as to my social life if I am working on a Saturday night), and everybody and their damn brother was wanting to get on-line. The calls in the queues were over 40 minutes long, and I was going nuts. Also one of our servers was acting flaky, so I had to speak to the sys admin on duty and attempt to fix it on our end. Not fun.
But, as par usual, since I am so damn charming and talented, I got head hunted on the phone. I should have emailed my resume out to the person, but I haven’t yet, and right now my resume is not up to date. But I will. (I procrastinate so damn much, that I probably won’t get it out till tomorrow at one point.)
I really hate my job. Well, that’s being excessive. I love it because I have plenty of freedom there, but I hate it because I don’t get paid nearly enough NOR am I recognized. For instance, last week I fixed on of the main computers (which was a priority because it was part of the network printer group), and Daniel, my immediate boss says he will email the head honcho’s and bcc me a copy of the letter for thanking me. Has this letter been sent? Hell no! And they wonder why they have such a high turn over rate? Or for that matter, why I’ve been scheduling interviews at other companies?
After work, Deva walked me down 2nd street towards the subway station and I felt somewhat safe. I had just made it in time to catch my train. I was sitting there reading Love in the Time of Cholera, when this guy walks over and sits down in front of me. I’m not sure what station he got on at, but it disturbed me with it being nearly late at night, and that he has to sit by me when there are tons of empty seats around.
He starts talking to me, and I stiffen a bit. It really bothers me when strangers start talking to me about nothing and everything in particular. Some people are nice, but others, well, you really don’t want to meet them after dark.
He introduced himself as Rick, and he asked me my name. I shook his hand and didn’t give him my name, just said “Hello.” I was busily attempting to read my book, and also staring out into the darkened tunnels. He keeps making small talk and I smile and nod and answer a few questions, and attempt to brush him off politely. When he finally gets the point that I’m not going to speak to him, he stops and just sits there. He then starts motioning towards me and moving his lips as if he was speaking to someone. I look up at him and apologizes. I ask sharply “For what?” and he doesn’t say anything at all. A bit disturbed, I get off at the next stop and walk fast to the other train. I turn around and he’s just standing there talking to someone and I’ve been forgotten. Slightly relieved I sit down in a single seat and pick up my book again. I can hear his raunchous laughter wafting in through the open doors. I start panicking and willing the doors to close, but it’s like the train operator isn’t listening to me.
Finally the doors being to close and I notice Rick’s laughter is still coming through the cracks. He’s safe on the platform while I’m safe inside the train. No one suspicious is sitting near me and I breathe a small sense of relief as I begin reading again.