I’m leaving Olympia (daviforestolgacheshiretonyjulianne) soon, off to missourri (pax) and a few days later scooting over to the east coast (chadrachaelizziezoemoorekitties). I feel deflated, a full sort of empty. Displaced? It’s summer soltice tomorrow, the longest day of the year, and I want to run away to something, but I’m not sure what or where to run to. Everything I want seems impossibly far away – I already have it. Having things seems so trite. Such a fucking passive, dead interaction.

In the winter the solstice is the shortest day of the year and that feels suffocating. Not enough time to do anything but sleep, blink your eyes in the cool sunlight, and sleep again. In the summer the solstice is larger than all of human existence. Everything I know, everyone I care for, it all seems tiny to me, minimized and stale. How could anything be as powerful or large as the sun, as dynamic as the sky?

… I might be turning into a primitivist. She writes on her laptop.

What sort of ritual is right for the solstice? I think I want to be sober. I’m way into being sober lately. There’s just so much pleasure to get from being alive and it takes up all of my attention opening myself to it, why would I want to be high or altered and ignoring even more of it? I mean, during the best trips you can be open to much more of it, or at least different parts of it. But there’s no guarantee and if I keep working on my capacity for doing that while I’m sober I’ll just better and better at it my entire life. Maybe.

Maybe planning something big is in order for the longest day. Something that honors long commitments. A picnic.

Tomorrow I’m packing.

I sat at one of the metal picnic tables in the bunker, scanning the crowd endlessly for my family. Several times I thought I saw my mother, or my sister, but it wasn’t them. I wandered around, exploring. There was another entrance at the front of our house. This one had a large window from which I could see the street. There were also two electronic alarm panels, which were to communicate with the rest of the people in bunkers. The first button was blinking, and next to it, it said “Philadelphia.” We were supposed to report in and let everyone know we had gotten into the bunker. There were other items on the list but I didn’t read them. I was frantic.

It began to rain suddenly, but the rain was making a hissing sound where it hit the ground. Some of us knew it was acid rain. A jet was directed right at the window, wetting the sil. It was planned, menacing, directed at us. If the window wasn’t secure the acid would seep in and we would all die. My panic began to rise. I wanted to leave, find a hiding spot elsewhere, without so many people, but I didn’t want to get struck by the poison rain. Finally I spotted my mother and father bickering at a table across the room. My middle sister was sitting with them, looking a bit bored. I rushed over to them, asking my sister where the twins were. She pointed to another table that was full of children. “Izzie never gets older,” she said, which I took to mean she hadn’t grown much since the last time I saw her. Izzie turned to me at that point and her face was much younger than the last time I saw her. She looked about three years old. She had very big eyes and looked quite innocent. I felt a surge of protectiveness rise in me.

My fear was growing worse as well. Someone had dragged a chair or shower like conraption into the middle of the room. He walked to the table where the children were sitting and grabbed his son by the arm. I had a horrible feeling. I felt as though at any moment I would let out a scream that would never end. He set him in the middle of the contraption and flipped a switch. There was a loud pop and fizzing sound. His son went limp.

The echos of my scream woke me. I wasn’t sure if I had actually screamed or if the ringing in my head was the dizzying dream I fled so fast. I looked at Davi’s face, sleeping next to me, and reminded myself that neither Davi or I have ever been in a bunker. The realization was salve to my frantic mind but even so the entire nightmare sits badly with me. Mostly because I could see it happening one day.

i wasn’t ready. it didn’t matter.

there are some things i forgot right away, like the permeating scent of pine trees. some thing i blew up to an outrageous porportion. there are streets and cars, chain restaurants, police, babylon is still in full swing. there’s just a better alternative.

chad is far away and i’ve been going back over entries in this old blog, realizing my struggle to be singular and connected at the same time is so old. i’ve done this before. more than once, probably. with chad, with mordecai, with davi. i think it’s  necessary part of the cycle, which is annoying but informative as well. i have to pull away, maybe a little too far away, so that i can get close again, too close, and restart the whole thing.

i’ve been blaming forest for not wanting to have sex with me more. i feel like a bad person for it. i don’t forest’s experience of this at all. it’s something like after having sex with the same person a couple of time it gets a lot less interesting. i have the complete opposite experience. the more i know someone the more comfortable i get and the more pleasure i can receive. i’m just putting too much of myself out there with forest, in the end, and i think i might know what pax feels when he speaks of fearing his desire for me. it hurts to want more than is available, to be so hungry and ignored, to be needy is uncomfortable and unhealthy.

we’re going down to eugene tomorrow for Maya’s 21st birthday. i’m super excited. i hope i get to see troy and spend time with him. troy is sooooo sexy it’s ridiculous.

this post is ridiculous. it’s full of sex and preoccupied tangled up emotion.

woke up this morning and my dreams were gone
crushed beneath the crumpled sheets
and your warm body sleeping breathing gently
in
and out.

when I am crushed beneath my rumpled thoughts
it’s hard to understand the point of desire
wanting anything (wanting you)
even though I still want it (you)
I Just can’t admit it (you)

does it always come down to this (you)?

I am swimming away on a sea of you (me)
and drowning, darling, drowning.

Keli Chad and I are visiting Mark. I’m tired. Soulweary kind of like waiting too long in a train station or something. I might get a job as a figure model (standing naked for fifteen dollars an hour) so that’s cool.  The house (box) is really dirty, not cool. All my laundry is being done (awesome) and I have an appointment with someone on monday. I’ve been eating a lot of chocolate (argenine) in hopes that this outbreak will last longer and there’ll actually be something for them to test. I feel lost. Directionless. I wish I could have taken a math class this semester. I don’t have the energy to add one into my schedule from the community college. It’s too far away. I just want to go to one school at a time. So I guess my associate’s degree will have to wait yet another semester. Maybe I’ll take a summer math class. But summer is always so busy. I don’t know what I’m doing this summer besides Israel.

I’m dependent on Chad and trying not to be and not admiting it. How do I stop while he’s still around?

Then I noticed that someone has responded to a comment I left on livejournal, so I wanted to respond to the response, so I opened up livejournal. Chad was logged in.

I haven’t heard much (anything? anything that felt really substantial to me…) from Keli since she and Hany left after their last visit.  I’m not allowed to view her posts on livejournal, she locks them.  So logged in with Chad’s identity, I went to read them.

I was shocked that I was mentioned in more than one post.  I loved reading them.  She has such a truthful way of writing, she sounds so herself in her posts.  They’re more coherent then stream-of-consciousness but not dry or guarded or analytical.  It was really reassuring to see she spoke of me with tenderness and love.  I was really starting to doubt how she feels about me lately and now I just miss her.  My jealousy is rekindled in my love for her; I feel so envious of her talents and mystique.  The Keli mystique.  Does it have something to do with her Maytag-like butt, her dancer’s body, her magical eyes?  (I cringe. I sound like a lovelorn fool. Fool.)  I think it’s more abstract and that Keli will continue to be beautiful and alluring long after her body ages. 

I dislike my envious feelings about her.  I don’t see what good they hold at all.  I know that they wouldn’t exist if I didn’t like her quite a lot but it seems like existing in the way I want to with her and Chad and Hany would be easier if the same love was present without the jealousy and covetousness.  The fact that she shares many of these same emotions doesn’t serve as a balm, doesn’t make them dissapear, although it does give us common ground.  Blargh.

Anyway, the big thing is that I might have genital herpes.  I hadn’t considered it a possibility until my doctor suggested it… I’ve never seen any sores or ‘shedding’ (what they call it when the sores heal and the dead skin is shed)… But apparently you can have asymptomatic HSV.  This is pretty scary to me as it brings into full consideration the physical impact my actions, and specifically sexual ones, have on other people.

I also haven’t decided who I’m going to tell and who I’m not going to…  As it’s on my mind a lot I’ve mentioned it to a few friends that it doesn’t immediately concern to vent some steam. I guess the need to decide who to tell this information to and who not to is based on a fear of judgement.  I’m also wondering if I’m responsible to alert all my sexual partners since the pain started occuring (this summer sometime?) which is vague enough.  But it’s also really hard to say ‘I might have gential herpes, so go get tested.’  I’ve tried really hard to consider what it would be like to know for sure and have to tell people, and I still feel like this is harder.  But then… I’m not in that position, am I?

On top of the whatever-it-is that’s happening in my vag; the muscles in my back are tight as SHIT and painful, I’m on antibiotics for a swollen lymph node, my ankles still ache from their respective sprains, and as of last night I developed heartburn… out of nowhere.

The good news is that my brain is all gravy, which is the part of me I really expected to be fucked up this year, overall… Go brain!

Alright, I’m sick of talking about health.  If I write one more health related sentence I’m going to puke.

It is slightly less than a week, now, that I will be seeing Keli and Hany…  I’m so excited. I’m also a little curious as to why Keli has been so out of touch… I sent a few group emails that I had hoped she would respond to, but nothing specifically to her, so it’s not like she had (shall we say it?) a duty to write back or anything. I’ve missed her, maybe especially since we’re still getting to know eachother, and I’m hungry for more contact. Which will happen one way or another soon enough…

Cristian emailed me yesterday/last night.  It’s a really sweet email and it made me laugh because I felt so at a loss as to what to do about it…

I’m glad I decided to come home.  These few days I’m ready to spend alone, taking care of myself and my space, making art and loving the kittens; it feels really good.  I love having space, and I won’t for a while after this.  It’s only three days, anyway.  Tomorrow – I might even go to the gym!!!  Boy is it going to feel great to go again.

I listened to that phrase over again and as I said it aloud I giggled when I came to duty because my story broke right in that moment, in my innocent relief that I thought duty was unnecessary.

duty. she wondered.
what is it.
Her thoughts fell from the sky in bubbles of light
which she caught on her tongue of enlightenment and drank from until she was
full of their cool clear strange waters

if you love something, why do you feel duty to it?
it is a false love, a covering up of the true love of truth.
emotional fastlane
I want to be there.

Chad , I feel duty to you and I hate it and I figured out why!
Because I love you. Because I’m afraid to let you go.
I feel Duty to be the person you love in order to keep you,
to fulfill my happiness and desire to be with you.
when
I really am myself more right now
declairing I’m afraid to let you go
and fucking judging herself
and that is fine.
It made me laugh so much that the back of a dirty truck showed that to me.

I think that today is going to be a long day. I wish I could sleep but this weed has kept me awake. I was so nervous in the car when we were lost/not really lost. My legs were shaking but that was because of the cold.

Maybe I’ll take a later bus… *yawn* sweet dreams

My day started off in Philadelphia taking the kittens to the vet, actually, it started off in Philadelphia saying goodnight to Theresa and Ben.  I had a few people over for dinner and it was shockingly comfortable, in the end. I feel relief about this because it feels like proof that I can have a social life. I CAN!

Anyway. Then I packed, got on the bus, came home, celebrated the first night of Hanukah and saw my entire family, AND went to Brian’s winter-break kickoff birthday party extravaganza which was much smaller than expected. Partly because  Aimee and I got there a few hours after it started and Joe Barbee and Danny B. had already left. I was pretty excited about seeing Joe so I called him when I got there and we talked about doing something on Saturday. That’s good; I haven’t seen him in a crazy long time. Davi and Sarah get back into town early next week and Dan might be here too… All in all it’s looking like it’s going to be a busy break. I’m excited.

Talking to Aimee in the car on the way to Brian’s felt so good. And then I called Chad and mouthed off to him for a few minutes, sharing a bit of the roll I was on, thought-wise. It was a really intense spilling of words and it felt really great, really complete to say it. The party was nice because Matt Lashoff was there, and Miranda, and they’re fun to talk to. AND EVERYONE WAS SOBER. This was so what I wanted. So so so what I wanted. Especially after my last experience with drunk people, to be written about later in this post? We’ll see how tired I get.

What I really want to remember is my conversation with Brian. I still feel a little shaky-sore about it but I think it’s going to be okay, too, so yeah. We started off by FINALLY admitting that we weren’t really attracted to each other, and that was GREAT because it so needed to be said and we both knew anyway. After that he started talking about stuff, I dunno, Sarah and stuff, and he was talking about it all like really excited and emphatic, but when I listened to the words he was saying I got really caught up in my own stories of what was happening with him. This in turn led me to argue with him because of my emotional investment in his well-being as my friend and love (even though it’s not romantic love it’s still incredibly strong) and… I don’t know. Protectiveness boiled up in me. The crazy part, which I saw and which Chad also pointed out when I called him to ask for some advice, was that I wasn’t being a good friend and loving him in my actions. He didn’t want to be argued with, or shown the way out of his suffering. He wanted to be loved. And I didn’t give him that.

Later on, after I came back from a brief walk to cool off and talk to Chad some more, I told Brian I was sorry I didn’t listen, and that I wanted to try and listen again if he wanted to talk. I’m scared that I fucked up, because that’s the second time I’ve reacted this way to his pain, but I can only be truthful and open and see what he chooses to do. I’m also scared I’ll give in to my fear again when he comes to me but knowing is half the battle, I suppose. (hah, battle. no battle…)

Two nights ago I went to a party next door, well, really, below us, but the next door over on the block. A guy named Steven lives there with a housemate Paulo or something like that. Theresa called me and told me to get my ass over there. I walked in the door completely sober and was confronted by thirty plus people, all my age, all drunk as hell. It was… it was interesting, I guess. I realized that I really don’t have a lot of a drive to get fucked up the way I used to. I like to be stoned, sometimes, although it seems like every time I am these days I have really difficult conversations that lead to some soreness for a few days afterwards due to the frank and instigatory feelings the erupt in me. Other than that… Well, that’s it, I guess. Drugs… I don’t know. Drugs don’t seem like too bad a thing in moderation to me, just because they can really show you things you didn’t know. But staying on drugs for weeks or months at a time forfeits your experience of life itself and that’s… Depressing, I guess.

I sound too mature to my own ears.

I guess I have to go fart in someone’s face now, or something.

Yeah… that’s better.

On top of all the goings on, I’ve held a lot of stress in me about other things. Some of these are good stresses, like the probability of seeing Keli and Hany so soon… I’m feeling trepidation and excitement at once, but Chad assuaged a lot of this fear by pointing something really obvious out to me. I started off talking about how it was really good to hang out with Keli and Hany last time and how satisfying it felt. I was trying to convey excitement towards the feelings of group camaraderie as well as the new found individual intimacy I felt with them both last time they visited, but I ended up with some statements about how I was also a little afraid of how it was hard it was to get comfortable in that situation at times. There were intensely uncomfortable feelings right along side the intensely good ones. What Chad pointed out was that it was like that last time. This clued me in to the fact that I was generalizing about any experience I have with Keli, Hany, and Chad through the one visit last time. Underneath this realization was the implication that it could be totally and utterly different this time and I felt a lot more free at that point, like… I could worry about it or not but whatever was going to happen wasn’t happening yet. This free feeling gave way to hope and a strong desire to be more open. I recognize my own intention to connect more with everyone and let these friendships blossom as they will.

Sleepnow.

chad and i went to the library today. that’s the only time i went out of the house. it was good to get out and walk a little but i still miss running. i was thinking the other day that i’d like to do bikram instead of running, to keep in shape. i just need to get some money.

i feel kinda sad that i still don’t have any money to pay the vet bills. i don’t want to go in debt and offer to retroactively pay them, though. i suppose i’ll just be super nice about it and scape off the regret.