say: yes, yes- anything you want

I spent today in a whirling dervish of thoughts. Quite frankly, I don't know where it all came from. Could be the time of year, the time of the month, circumstance, the wearisome tread of holding back and in, or maybe it was simply my time to feel the feelings. The thoughts weren't unproductive... but I haven't gotten anywhere with them.

What I did do was finally speak to one of my best friends for the first time in far too long. I'd called her last night (after posting something on here that I haven't yet reread in a state of sobriety), thinking she'd be awake since she's clear across the country, but no luck. We connected today and I unloaded and she said: "Wow. I really should have had a cup of coffee before I called you back." I miss her so.

Then I talked to el sótano for an hour, which was also good. She Freudian slipped and said "when" instead of "if" which made me happy. Actually, wait, she said "is" instead of "would" which is sort of the same but not really at all.

I've been thinking about perspective. Obviously, we all have different ones- if we didn't, life would be cruel and boring. What I'm currently stuck on is how much my experiences have altered my perspective, and how I'm continually startled to realize that people don't see things the same way that I do. But of course they don't, because we have different feelings about the same experiences. So just because I don't see the value or possibility of a long-distance relationship doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't, either. I just don't think I could do that again. I've had enough (finally). Then again... you can't pick & choose who you fall for. But sometimes, I think I do.

Someone told me recently that I "do it right" because I tend to be involved with women that live a bit away from me. It's not totally intentional, but I do like to have my space. [Obviously, my next girlfriend will need to respect my space, regardless of where she lives in proximity to me. Wait: the catch is- she will need to have her own life and a sense of independence in order to fit into my life. Yes. That's the real truth.] The distance does allow me to protect my relationship from the semantics of my life, that being the fact that I'm a public school teacher and am out to my coworkers, but not verbally to my students. A handful of them usually figure it out, and I know there are rumors, and I know that some of my former students resolutely know that I'm gay, but I do have an easier time "hiding it" because my relationships tend to take place outside of my city. I don't particularly like this- it's something that complicates my life while it simplifies it. I don't like feeling like I have to lie about my sexual orientation to my students: what the fuck good is that teaching them, really? But I also don't have the desire to deal with the potential drama, bullshit, and discrimination that would almost definitely be driven at me if I were to be out, fully.

And yes, I realize this further complicates my Obscure Object-ing. Obviously, I know this. And yes, it's part of why I keep my mouth shut about that. Selfish as I may be, the last thing I want to do is complicate her life.

Here's what my obtuse reasoning is circled around: I'm goddamn tired of holding in these feelings for my Obscure Object. I realize that she is intelligent (one of the major things I like about her) and that, really, she must have an inkling to, at the very least, knowing I am attracted to her. In fact, she has to know that part. I basically told her, it just happened in a slightly skewed way. And wait, it happened twice. Three times, maybe? Yes. She should know that part; whether or not she's really hearing it is another story.

I don't know how to tell her that I beyond lust after her. Not that I would walk up to her and say, "I lust after you," because most of the time, I'm a little classier than that. I've never been skillful with talking about my feelings when I'm not sure if I'm walking into a safety zone or a potential minefield. The fact is, I am attracted to her on about sixteen different levels. If someone made me write down each of those sixteen ways, I think I could actually make it happen. Listen, levels of attractions are muy importante to a heart-gets-caught-in-my-head girl like me.

Typically, I am able to write about these things better than I can speak them. In this case, though, I'd rather say it. Every time I think about doing that, my heart nosedives into my stomach.

I would like to be able to sit down with her and say: "I am wildly attracted to you. Sixteen different levels, in fact. I think you are fucking amazing, and it's okay if you aren't reciprocating this; I just needed to tell you."

El sótano asked me today: "Do you just want to have a weekend of wild sex with her, or do you want more than that? A relationship? What? What is it you want?" and I couldn't really answer her because the truth is, at this point, the Obscure Object and I just need to fuck and get on with it-- whatever it is.


(...and I can't get a clear sense of it until our lips meet, tentative then not, just as they did in my Riesling-soaked dreams last night.)

this will go unsent.

I won't burden you with specifics, but here's the truth: I'm fucking crazy about you.

I'm not going to belabor my point with citing how long I've felt this way (longer than I'd like to admit) or how it came to be (slow, then with the speed of an undammed waterfall) or what I'd like you to say in response (ok, alright, me too, or not but it doesn't change a thing, it changes everything- for the better, for what we could be).

Years, actually.

Initially, that animal attraction swiped me, cut me. I saw you and I thought: Wow. I'd tell you this, but your reactions to things are so unpredictable, and I can barely say "hi" without stuttering and/or turning a fierce shade of the blush family when I see you, so maybe you'll read this and understand, but I bet not. The reading part. I think you'd understand. You would if you wanted to.

I bet she wanted you all this time

Tonight, I got as far as opening a blank Word Document. The thoughts were there, tangled with the metaphors and deeply imbedded symbolism- all neatly arranged in my head. I already knew, opening the document, what I wanted the first sentence to be.

And then it snapped out of my head. As soon as I typed ", it was all gone. I think that's someone's way of telling me that I shouldn't open this thing, this monolith of "unrequited love", with dialogue. I can accept that; I just didn't have/inspire another idea.

Instead of writing something new, I flipped through some things that I wrote back in 2004, and then started working on again last summer. In that, I found the beginning of a short story that was detailing the state of my relationship last July. & in reading that for the first time since July 2007, I was horrified, scared, and saddended.

Sometimes being strong is overrated. Sometimes accepting defeat is the best thing a person can do.

I think I'm getting closer to figuring these things out.

I'm going to buy back memories / to awaken some old qualities

I've waited for that moment- the one where even when we're standing in a sea of 50+ other people, there's complete silence around us, encapsulating us, buffering us from any/every/thing/one. The one where you're standing right next to me, close enough to speak lowly almost in secret (like we've done before, when my heart was hammering inside my chest but my hand held the pen like a captive, steady and consistent, never waivering). The one where I casually say hello, ask how you are. Smile directly into your eyes because while we don't have a problem with eye contact, we seem unable to move past the stage where we express emotion outside of the locked glances. Keep it simple, easy, just hi how are you.

Easy.

I had that moment today. I had the ability to open my mouth and yank out the words, phrases so fucking casual that I can throw them at complete strangers, but so unnervingly tender when it comes to you. My hand was shaking with the slightest tremor as I scrawled in giant, black block letters. You were still there, right next to me. I couldn't hear anything other than HI HOW ARE YOU spinning in my head. Warp speed. I couldn't open my mouth. You didn't either, because you never do. No, okay, maybe you do, sometimes. & I do, sometimes. But not today. Neither of us, today.

I've always vaguely understood/surmised that you and I are a little bit alike- in that we both spend a lot of time in our heads. That maybe when we don't open our mouths, we might be thinking of saying hi, but we're also thinking of 87 other really important things and then the moment's gone, lost really forever but I don't mean that to be as world-ending as it seems, it just is, because that exact moment will never happen again. Well, I guess it could happen tomorrow. And the next day. But not after that.

What this means is that I have to be the bold one. I have to be the one to force myself to open my mouth, to get past the semi-ridiculous dramatizations debuting on an hourly basis in my head. You probably don't hate me. You probably also don't like me as much as I want you to, but that's negotiable, and that's also okay. I can't articulate what I want, realistically, but I know that I hate the fact that we ignore each other- purposely or otherwise. I don't want you to think that I don't like you. Maybe you don't care as much as I do- I almost know that you don't, because I care about you/this/us inordinately so- but I think [hope] that you care at least a little bit.

And if you don't, then that will be okay too.

I just want to get past this block in my heart. I just want to say hi, and I just want you to know that I wonder how you are.

if you could only see the way she __________ me

I realized several minutes ago that I'm not writing because I don't want to put this lingering story into words-- words spread across my computer screen, winding through the intense desire and mind-bending relative impossibility of a love so carefully/unconsciously grown, a love that rips through the most monotonous of every day tasks; the words will draw out the most shadowed recesses of my imagination (which is totally overactive despite this infatuation) and reveal entirely unfamiliar levels of yes/no.

I don't want to write it, because once I do, that'll be reality. The words, wound and bound. Black and white fiction. Fiction. When I write it, I'll have to face the reality that while the feelings are sometimes too real, the hypothetical and tangible situation is nonexistent (outside of the drawn-from-real-life seriously open-ended real-life experiences involving these feelings for this person). It'll be fiction, for real, but just fiction. & I guess there is a part of me that is unwilling to face that.

I was also browsing on Amazon earlier, ISO good reads (and what did I purchase? Cupcake, of course, because I need to know what CC is up to in NYC), and I got a little nervous that my eventual writing is going to be cliche. I don't want to be cliche. I don't want to write another typical lesbian love story. Uh uh, no sir, not my goal. But it's not as if I'm being proactive in any sense of the word. Me and my lofty goals of being a writer slam to the floor when I realize that in the language of a novella, I have to be real. I'm going to have to unearth the demons of unrequited love, because there is still a part of me that believes one writes best about the things one knows... intimately. So maybe it's not all fiction, for me. Fiction interspersed with the nonfiction of the heart.

In fact, speaking of proactive, which I am not, I am sitting here with two browsers open, totaling four tabs and one additional browser window for Solitaire. I also just im'd a friend to point out that simplicity can be lame, "However, I think complexity is sometimes overrated." Which's pretty amusing considering all the talking I've been doing about how a relationship with el sótano would never work because anything between us is completely superficial. Total lack of depth (which, alright, I think I could appreciate for maybe a handful of months at this point because I am exhausted with Deep Connections that only serve to fuck with my mind). Tiresome. All this talk about relationships/love/bullshit is so tiresome. & not a priority, not anymore.

I thought I'd see the Obscure Object today, but I didn't, and part of me was relieved. I never know at which angle my stomach is going to jump, if we'll even acknowledge each other, if my smile/eyes will betray me, or if she'd even notice.

If I write it down, it can be real for someone else's eyes, and maybe, I think, that's real enough.

stop (don't) the beat

I started to write about how I'm having trouble sleeping, which would have segued neatly into the repetitive thought patterns I'm having about A) ending my relationship, B) hating the neatly twisted, lingering what-if with el sótano, C) the impending doom of the beginning of the school year & how it's getting close, and D) the never ending fascination/wonder/tugging of the heartstrings surrounding the Obscure Object. .... and how one of my friends added fuel to the fire yesterday when she informed me that she'd overheard the Obscure Object talking about me. In a totally professional way, but, come on, she could have used 75+ other names/examples/ideas.

I almost just said WHY ME, but that would be a little pathetic, and I'm not playing that card.

I think happiness isn't a goal, it's that life is a journey, not a destination thing. But how could life be a destination? I'm not sure if I'd recognize happiness if it slapped me across the face. I wouldn't, actually, because I am happy, I just have piss-poor "luck in love" and continually end up with women who put on such tremendous airs to get me into their clutches, and then, then the pearly facade erodes and I'm left with a crippling pseudo-replica of whom I thought I was with. And then I get unhappy. Because it's not real. And things that are not real should be boundaried to staying in my head or on paper. So maybe I should not get into relationships until I've been dating someone for, oh I don't know, six years maybe. That should eradicate the possibility of discovering something, once latched into the Relationship, that is totally appalling and impossible to live with. But I guess not, because the Right People are forever evolving, changing, enhancing, and what you experience now is not what you will experience in eleven years. There is always more to learn, and room to grow.

I think, then, that I simply want to be with someone who takes advantage of the room we have in which to grow. Because me + stagnance = disaster.

El sótano told me, back before she started calling me a Liar and getting all fired up about supposed inconsistencies, that she wanted to A) be with me, B) do good by me, and C) have me rub off my better qualities on her so that she could grow as a person. She actually didn't say (C) in those words, because she doesn't speak like that, ever, but she gave me (and our mutual friend) the impression that she wanted to become a better person, and that she wanted to grow. The thing is, as rehashed in discussion yesterday with said mutual friend, while el sótano has the capacity to do these things (we all do, I truly believe that, but the WILL is an entirely different force to reckon with), she won't. Because she is emotionally stunted, and she always gives up before she achieves something intrapersonal and self-beneficial. I don't doubt that she would like to be faithful to me, but we all know she has a very hard time with this because she is not the type who does committment well. And that's fine, but being honest about that is key. She talks a good game, but it's game. And I am a really poor loser when it comes to games.

I've got to rid myself of the illusion of perfection floating before me. It's out of reach, it's probably a blown-up escapist fantasy, and I might not even want it if/when I conquer it. I need to pull a Kelly Taylor and choose me. Because that is probably the only real solution.

i will show how i take casual & embellish into:

Heartsick is not among my favorite
feelings. Nor is sadness due to the inability
to have the one I want, nor a billowing sheath
of perpetual lovelust wonder.
I gave you my words, scrawled out in the heat
of the night, darkness pressing onto my curved
back and curiousity swallowing my swollen heart.
The envelope skittered onto your desk and I had turned
away before I realized that you had picked it up,
cut it open, absorbed the delicately threaded words (much as
you have done to me without the slightest awareness).
You came after me,
calling my name quietly,
meeting my stationary form in the dusty damp hallway.
You thanked me, a deliriously serious and heartfelt
gaze decorating your face, and our bodies came together
in one sweet casual moment,
fitting perfectly
as I've known and worried they would.