I Don't Know, You Tell Me
Oct. 6th, 2009 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationYes, tell me. Tell me wtf I'm doing here, tell me where all this came from. Tell me if any of this is real or if I'm just delusional. I don't think I'm delusional. It sure seems real. But it also seems... unreal.
Saturday morning saw me driving back from Philly so I could go to work (my one shift) and guess where I spent Sunday?
Yes. Also in Philly.
This is craziness, what I'm doing here.
The night of that concert with Hanna was quite possibly one of the very best nights of my life. I think that must be the best sex I've ever had. Ever.
So, what does this make me? I have these crazy one-night things that turn into... continuing things? Apparently? This is just what I do?
I think it is what I do. I mean, I'm doing it right now...
Well, I guess it shouldn't surprise me. I always said I was easy.
So, Hanna is an ex-art-student. She graduated last spring. This was her first fall not going back to school - I went to First Friday with her once before, it was me and this girl Kirsten and her and Erica. That, I think, was the last time I'd been on a date with someone other than my boyfriend, and it was a truly horrible date. Kirsten and I did not click one bit - Hanna and Erica had a great time. It was the first time I'd met Hanna, actually. I was kinda-sorta eying her as competition, since, you know, Erica went all distant on me after she started dating her, and also, you know, hid the fact that she was seeing someone from me as well.
And I dunno what happened. Sure, I thought Hanna was an interesting person. But... I dunno. I saw her at the club - I had a really good time talking with her, but that's kind of all I thought it was. She came to the baseball game with me and Bevan, and it was only then that he accused me of flirting my head off with her. I didn't really think I was... but then after that was the eight hour coffee date.
And then I met her at the concert and look what happened there.
I dunno what I'm feeling here. I've been trying to figure it out - of course, of course I feel fantastic, glowing, lighter-than-air, but isn't that just - I mean, that's just me, that's just an illusion, isn't it? Isn't that just what it feels like when you feel like you're falling for someone? I've felt this plenty of times before - that doesn't mean it turned into anything more than just a destructive, humiliating mess. It's all this stupid butterflies-in-the-stomach shit that makes me make a fool of myself every time.
Except not.
Except what am I doing to make a fool of myself this time? Nothing at all. She's not a girl-with-a-boyfriend. She's nothing like arrogant and self-centered Krissy, either. So what am I really afraid of, here? I'm not repeating any kind of past mistake. It's not like I'm doing something I should know better than to do.
And I think it's worth mentioning that I never felt any kind of stomach-butterflies around my boyfriend. I always assumed it was because he's, you know, a guy.
Oh, but what am I saying here? That I don't love my boyfriend? I do. Of course I do. That I'm not in love with him? I'm not. I never thought I was - but that doesn't mean I'm in love with Hanna, either, for goodness sakes! Whatthefuck does in love mean, anyways?
On Friday, I met Hanna in the city and we toured the galleries for First Friday. I met some of her friends. Two of them I had already met before. We looked at a lot of art and talked a whole lot about art. Artists always find me. I always say that. They're everywhere in my life. She asked me to come back to her place. I didn't drive a bunch of people with me this time - in fact, I left my car in Atlantic City and took NJ transit to Philly - and so I did.
I did, and, after our lovely night of gallery-hopping (and Hanna was a little drunk, I could tell - she had wine at every gallery we went to) I tried my best to explain to her what "complicated" meant.
She said it sounded an awful lot like I'm dating my best friend.
Bevan isn't my best friend. I don't care what it sounds like to Hanna. "Best friend" has a terrible connotation to me - Daniel is my best friend. No one in the world knows me better than Daniel - and he hates me.
She also said something along the lines of how she can forget ever trying to date me - since I'm clearly already in a relationship - but that doesn't mean we didn't mess around. Because we most certainly did. Again. I mean - we did it once. Why not again. If it was wrong the first time and I did it anyway, what difference does a second time make?
I... have never felt so attractive in my entire life. For all my talk - for all I say that looks mean nothing, that what you do with yourself, what kind of clothes you wear, what you do with your hair, all that means ten thousand times more than whether or not your eyes are striking or your figure is sensual - my looks mean a whole lot to me. And I'm not my own type - I wouldn't be attracted to someone who looks like me.
Never, ever in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be the kind of girl who has flings.
I think I'm having a fling right now.
This is a good time for a fling - if I can't learn what the other side of the world has to teach me, at least I'm doing something on this side of the world -
I don't know, this is coming out all disjointed. I didn't mean for it to be -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ivy_poet wanted details, and that's what I intended on writing. It seems to be stray thoughts - and not what I meant to write about at all. Hanna and I looked at art on Friday night. We talked about art. We talked to a bunch of other people about art, including some of the artists. Then we went back to her place and I talked about me - no, I didn't talk about me, not really. I talked about Bevan. I talked about how we were going to China and I talked about him pushing me and I talked about the car accident and not having a job and hanging around his house every day and feeling really fucking unhelpful - and like I am leading some kind of weird double life, spending so much time with him at his house and with his parents and then gallivanting about Philadelphia with her - I didn't actually talk about myself at all.
So it would make sense, then, that she would call him my best friend.
On Sunday I was back in Philly with her - something to do with First Friday, I think, all these artists are having open studios in the city, where you can just go in and look around at their spaces and what they're working on. Being that Hanna is an ex-art-student (this is what she calls herself... I would think the word should be artist, but whatever she says...) this is kind of her goal, to have a working studio, to have her name known in those circles, whatever. She knows a lot of the working artists in the city because she either went to school with them, or met them somehow through her school - the surprise, the real surprise here, is that I know some of these people too.
It was odd to be walking through studios in Kensington, looking at names on doors and gallery cards, and recognizing them - there is a girl who manages a floor of an old warehouse building and sublets different parts of it out to working artists, and of course has her own space there as well - Hanna knows one of the artists in that collective from school - I know the girl who manages the whole space. She was Jay's room mate before Jay moved in with Bethany and Daniel. She remembered me - I remembered her. It was strange and it was like... it was like I don't know.
It was like in my head maybe I imagined that the city just floated away while I was gone - when I realized that if I ever moved back there it wouldn't be the same, maybe I was a little overzealous in my assumption that it would be a city full of strangers and strange things. It's not. Just because everyone I knew isn't still there doesn't mean some people aren't.
Is this what Hanna wants, then, a studio space of her own?
I get what she's going through, I really do, and I'm finding her situation really fascinating. I'd call myself as much of an artist as she is - she went to art school. I would have, had things been a little different for me when I was trying to go to college. We're both creative - we both sink into our creativity and disappear there. She had this fantastic experience of living and breathing and working with other artists - one that I'm so jealous of and one that she seems totally disillusioned by.
I'm not saying I haven't had fantastic experiences. I have - I'm not saying I've never brushed the corners of the art-world. I have, but not from her perspective, and I wish I could.
She talked about going to First Friday and going to the open studios as if it was something she should do, cause she's a Moore girl, except for she's not a Moore girl anymore. Not like it was something she wanted to do - just something she should. And does she want a studio space of her own, does she want to find a "collective" of her own and do what these artists we saw Sunday were doing?
Hanna, she says, hasn't produced any art whatsoever since graduating. And she told me before about how her senior year of art school went - she barely scraped by, she hated the work she made, it was a joke to her, she was sick of the whole scene by then and it meant nothing to her, and she threw it all away as soon as she had her last review - she has the slides and the digital images, but still. So... she was in a funk. An artist's funk. I can't say I don't understand that - I do, I so do. And that, I've always said, is the trouble with turning your very nature, your artist's nature, into something academic - it's like being graded on what kind of mood you wake up in. It's like putting your very soul on display for your professors to critique. I get it.
This is the kind of stuff she talks about. I understand it all. Is this making her fall for me? Because I know what it's like to get into a funk and destroy your own creations?
She told me this before but she hasn't been shy about saying it again - what kicked off this funk that wrecked her last year of school? FUCKING ERICA disappearing, of course. Erica, the fucking diva of the universe, the center of the world whether you want her to be or not.
I'm not saying that it's okay to blame a year and a half of ignoring the thing you love most - or claiming to love most - (is this sentence making sense? Hanna is ignoring making art, the one thing she claims to love the most - ) because of something someone else did, even if that someone is your girlfriend, and even if the thing they did is disappear without a word and turn up in Virginia with their supposedly-ex-boyfriend - I'm just saying that sometimes it feels good to blame someone else.
I get that too.
I had a Plan, I had such a Plan, and I'm trying really, really hard not to get too upset that I'm not in China right now. It's just the way it happened - B didn't try to get in a car accident, it wasn't intentional (although... I have a whole lot more to say about that, too) and it certainly wasn't anyone's fault - who can I get angry at? But I had such a Plan. We were going to go to China. I was going to come back a changed person - older, wiser, smarter, better, different - that's what happens when you travel, the world changes you. Picks you up out of your hole and shows you the sky. In my head, the only way I could get the fuck out of here was to do nothing halfway - get on a thirteen hour flight to another continent.
When I came back... when I came back I was going to move back to Philadelphia, because that's all I've ever wanted since I came here. I left because I couldn't afford my own place and I didn't want to live with Krissy indefinitely - I should never have moved in with her. If I hadn't, we might still be together, or at least parted on very different terms. I can afford a place to live now. Nothing's keeping me here - nothing, except B, and he, oh, he fully intended to spend the winter in New England snowboarding his freestyle soul away. Him and Ryan and Jory living it up there in the snow and the cold and being extreme and all that - and after that who knew? But that was the Plan.
I was going to try to figure something out with school - with life. That was part of moving to Philly - that's where my school is, and I still have scholarship money there. But this was all for later - all for someone else, some other girl, some girl who'd been to China and back, not for me, not for this girl who is running back and forth over the AC expressway (again, although this time it doesn't seem like a chore, it's an adventure - and that says a lot about me and Krissy, now doesn't it?) for these wild nights and quiet conversations with this very fascinating girl with blue eyes who seems pretty fucking fascinated with me, too, and then going home to her boyfriend and doing crazy extreme things like standing on a desk with a screwdriver trying to get broken blinds to go down and stay closed -
Saturday morning I worked - I slept, a little, with Hanna at her apartment, and got up early - I always get up early, it's not a big deal - and drove back here to go to work, my one shift of the week. Yep. I work four hours a week. I don't want to outright quit, even though I might as well - I think eventually I'll get more hours as more open up, but that could be months from now. I don't want to quit because my job is my entire social life. Or it was, until I started up the crazy AC expressway game again. I've become quite attached to the people there - and if I didn't go to work, I think the only people I'd see here would be Bevan, his friend Rich, and his parents. JJ maybe - I think I've hung out with her outside of work possibly five times in three years. But one of them was pretty recently, so maybe I can count her. I'd see my aunt Jen - none of my cousins, since none of them live here anymore. That's about it.
So I went to work on Saturday morning. Saturday morning on the bar was, of course, B's shift. He opened the bar, I was the opening host. I cut up the fruit, he swept up the vestibule. Not because I can't sweep - because back in the day (I can't believe I'm saying "back in the day" about something I've done here, in this town - I've been here too fucking long!) we used to come to work together on Saturday mornings, because we'd leave work together on Friday nights, because I didn't have a driver's license and he would always give me a ride. One way or another, we'd either spend the night at my place or his together - not because we were sleeping together, not back then, but because at two am we'd leave the bar, and we don't live close to each other at all, and we'd talk for another hour or two, or watch infomercials or something, and then just fall asleep. It made more sense than driving all over Cape May County just to take me home and then come pick me up the next morning.
...I can't believe he actually would have come back to my house to pick me up the morning - but that was what he always said. "You might as well sleep here so I don't have to go all the way out to the island to get you tomorrow." Like of course he would make sure I got to work. Like somehow that was his responsibility - but who was I to him, then? Some girl from work, that's all. He had a fucking girlfriend at the time...
And so I'd get to work early, with him, and I'd sit at the bar and cut all the fruit, because what else was I going to do, sit there and do nothing?
So another bartender, Jenna, has the Saturday morning shift now. She and I... don't have that pleasant of a history, to say the least. She's never been horrible to me, she just... doesn't really like me - or anyone else, I don't think. That's just the way she is, I don't take it personally. I just don't like her. Once she had some kind of snit about some kind of bar drama with B and one of the other bartenders - she was making a big deal out of nothing, I swear.
Well, Saturday, she came in late, not because she was out livin' it up and hungover, but because she had some kind of car issue. Her car was not at work - her mom dropped her off. Jenna, I think, lives with her mom. Again - a grown person living with their parent - this continues to be completely bizarre to me, Jenna's got to be about thirty. But that's how it goes around here, so it seems. So when I got to work, she was rushing around trying to get the whole bar set up, and she was like, good, I'm glad you're here, please, please help me with the fruit, I got here late, my car, blah blah blah, and I was like... sweep the vestibule real quick for me?
I mean, it takes like two minutes. Unless I do it, it takes me like ten. You try juggling a crutch and a broom and a dustpan. But, I mean, I have a whole hour to "set up" the lobby, and there isn't all that much to actually do. I'm slow as shit, and I always get it done with time to spare.
And she was like, "this isn't going to be a regular thing, I'm not going to need your help every week" and so on, and I was just like, that's fine, whatever, I don't care. And she slammed stuff around and I cubed peaches and thawed cranberries and sliced lime wheels and I dared ask her about her car, and wouldn't you know, Jenna was actually very visibly upset about her car, which is probably done for.
And she thanked me for my help, the bar was set up successfully with a few minutes to spare, she did sweep the vestibule, and she even went and got kid's menus from the store room for me (because whoever had closed the night before did not do this as they were supposed to...) and that's probably the most civil interaction I've ever had with Ms Totally Cranky Every Day Bartender.
And I gave her a ride home so she didn't have to call her mom to get her.
I figure people drove me the fuck around all that time, I might as well offer a ride to anyone who needs one now that I have a driver's license again. Equivalent exchange and all that.
Saturday afternoon after work I went to B's. His mom was down for the weekend. He happily told her about the tequila incident - why advertise something like that, I have no idea. Why tell it like it's a funny story, complete with spitting out blood and freaking out and making me call the doctor, when it reality it was quite horrible - I don't mean to spill all his secrets, but seriously, he was in tears at the time. Which anyone would be - messed up stomach that's probably full of blood, can't make yourself throw up without first, um, destroying the wires and rubber bands holding your jaw together - which he did not do, but it was a possible outcome. Then we would have absolutely had to have gone to the doctor right then, and who knows what would have come of that - I would cry too. It sucks to see someone that frustrated and in that much discomfort that they can't help but cry.
Drinking Cabo from the bottle with a straw was funny. The next day was not funny at all and "I was spitting up blood, ha ha ha" does not belong in a funny anecdote about how he's handling the whole "stay still and rest" thing.
Aaannnndddd his mom kind of went off about that, too, not really at him for drinking tequila when he's not supposed to be having any alcohol (if for no other reason than because he's still on a lot of painkillers, but being that he's someone who likes to take painkillers for fun and then have a couple beers, I'm sure this is why he felt the need to just ignore this instruction) but about where the tequila came from in the first place.
She assumed it was me.
I assured her it was not.
(As an aside, he and I drank quite a bit of that expensive tequila last night and nothing bad came of it other than I was a little hungover this morning...)
And she went off about his dad being the worst excuse for a parent she'd ever seen and she can't believe it and so on and so on, and B was like, mom, chill out, I'm an adult, I don't need to be taken care of, I don't need a parent, I'm 23 years old...
And she was like, he didn't even take care of you when you were a kid - and she just went on and on and I'm just there staring at all this - her getting all worked up and hysterical practically, and him just rolling his eyes about it. He was just like, mom, relax, it's okay, I survived it. He meant the tequila thing, of course, but then she was all like "I can't believe I almost lost you, I love you so much, oh you'll always be my baby." And he was just like, okay okay okay.
And there is me, wanting to disappear into a corner, cause where do I belong in all this? I do not. It was very uncomfortable, to say the very least.
And later on she called me a doll for coming over every day. I tried to pull out the whole "well what else am I going to do with my time" thing but I stopped when I realized it was a "you're a doll but..." kind of thing.
So... let me write a little bit about this.
When his mom realized that a lot of the time, it's been me and B alone in the house together, she kinda... expressed some very intense disgust towards his dad. For, you know, leaving us home alone together. Cause the condition of B leaving the hospital was that he one, goes to like one million doctors appointments with like... twelve different doctors (actually three, I am exaggerating) and two, that he's not by himself. He's doing a whole lot better now - soooo much better, it's really... fantastic, and wonderful, how much better he looks and how much more like himself he's acting and how much more time he's spending actually being awake - but at first it was really pretty bad. I said before that he passed out a few times just from tilting his head back to drink from a cup. He wouldn't go down his basement stairs because he said looking down made him dizzy - he still doesn't go down the stairs by himself even now, and he's doing a lot better.
I'm... not much help. And I hate that. I feel like an able, functional adult person - I feel like I'm strong, and I am, and I'm in better shape than I have been in a while, I go to the gym, etc. I live by myself, I take care of everything myself - except I'm actually not. I don't, in fact, actually count as being an able, functional adult. I'm like... somewhere in the in-between.
Just today, Bevan went to stand up from the couch. His collarbone is broken, his ribs are broken - he doesn't move his head around too much because it makes him dizzy, he doesn't look up and down or anything like that, and when ever he does move around, he says it makes his whole face throb. So to stand up, from a low, sinking couch - you use your whole torso to do this, and, you know, your shoulders and stuff. So for him, for now, it hurts, and it's hard. Today, cause she's here and was sitting right there, his mom helped him stand up. And looked right at me.
Cause I can't do that. I absolutely cannot, it isn't possible. And so I don't count.
And that's the truth.
However healthy I feel, or am, however strong I am, however capable I am - well, yeah, there are a few things I can't expect to ever do - run, jump, etc, okay, whatever - most things there probably is a way to figure out how to do them. It's... part of being disabled, I think, not that I'm like, the spokesperson for all people with all disabilities, but... life kind of turns in to a puzzle game, where every action you want to take turns into a puzzle and you have to carefully assess the whole thing and then come up with some way to accomplish your end goal - cause it ain't gonna be the way you did it before, or the way you've seen everyone else doing it. I think, mostly, at this point in my life, I am able to do just about anything I really want to do. I know I'm able to do quite a few things I'm completely uninterested in doing - play sports, or something like that.
But that's my view of me.
I kind of think that the rest of the world sees me as someone who needs help - cause people are always trying to help me. The dreaded supermarket - where random shoppers will take things off the shelf that I'm reaching for, and put them in my basket for me - why, why do I look like that's something I can't do myself? What do they think I was doing, just standing there staring at the thing I wanted, waiting for someone to come get it for me? That would be a very inefficient way to shop. And if that truly were the case, I wouldn't be shopping by myself. I'd be ordering my groceries online, which, actually, I do. But I forget stuff all the time. And I kind of feel like a lazy ass, having my groceries delivered to me when I have a car and can get to the supermarket just fine.
I don't like people touching me. Or my stuff. Or moving my stuff around. Or doing anything for me, not because I don't want help if I need it, but because I'm pathologically particular and want things done the way I do them. I like to be left alone, I do not like strangers, and I do not like that in order to run ordinary errands, I have to suffer through some kind of social interaction. I like social interaction when I'm in the mood for it - when it's people I want to be around. I'm a very social person. BUT NOT WHEN I DONT FEEL LIKE IT.
And people touch me, and touch my stuff, and move my stuff around, and do things for me, all the damn time, and it's cause I look like I need help.
Yesterday me and B were in the living room playing on the playstation. I was laying on the floor with my head closest to the TV and my feet closest to the couch, tilting my head back and playing upside down, which I discovered makes a game I've already played half to death much more challenging. The playstation I actually brought up from downstairs several days ago - Bevan asked me to go get it, and he always apologizes profusely for asking me to do stuff like that, and I always feel really bad that he feels bad. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't something I could do - except maybe fix the blinds, but I'm not convinced those blinds can be fixed by anyone, that's not just me. I told him to stop saying he's sorry and just say thanks and be done with it -
B was sitting on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, playing also but not, of course, upside down. He could have gotten off the floor if he wanted to - I think - and I could have too, but when his mom came it it looked a little bit like a disaster. Mostly because I knocked over the little bookshelf next to the TV. I dunno, it looked sturdier than it was, I guess. I thought I might use it to walk around a little - not such a bright idea on my part. My crutches were still next to the couch - I can't exactly really walk without them - I'm not really walking with them either, though - and I was kinda using the furniture to move around. I do that at my house all the time, but I know my own furniture and what's good to grab on to and what's not. I was moving a bunch of stuff around, though, the wireless controller one of us (I swear it wasn't me) left on overnight and killed the batteries dead, so I was gonna hook up the other controller that sucks, so, I dunno, I thought with holding the two controllers and dealing with the cord of the one... this was a good idea. It was not.
So... I knocked over the little shelf, everything that was on it, and, of course, myself. It was not that big of a deal - the floor has carpet on it, nothing heavy or sharp landed on me, whatever. I did, however, just leave everything where it fell. And then dealt with the controllers, re-started the game, and laid down on the floor and played upside down, not bothering to pick up the books or retrieve my crutches or anything sensical like that.
So, she was like, what happened and B was just like, oh, Lara knocked over the shelf, that's all, everything's fine here. And she kind of looked at me and was like, do you need... some help? And I was like, nah. But since she was there we turned off the game, and of course I sat up, and B stood up, and she saw my crutches by the couch, quite far from the center of the floor where I was sitting, and she brought them to me. I could have got them eventually, or B could have got them, but since she did, I figured I should stand up, and of course she just hovered over me watching me stand up from the floor... which I'm sure looked very awkward, being that I didn't have anything to grab ahold of.
There was a little while where Bevan would always help me stand up. I mean, not off the floor - I don't usually just sit in the center of the floor like that, or on the floor at all, cause it's actually pretty tricky to get up that way. If I were more flexible, it would be a lot easier. I'm working on that. I mean standing up from sitting on the couch, or in a chair, or something like that. It was kind of around when we first started... "dating," I guess. When we first started being really touchy with each other. I'm kind of funny about being touched, but I was starting to get used to it a little from him, and he was always putting his arm around me and stuff. And so I'd go to stand up, and he'd put his arm around me and just kind of pick me up and there I'd be on my feet, and after a few times I was just like, "stop doing that! I can do it myself!"
And he said some really reasonable stuff like how he was just trying to help and he didn't like to see me having such a hard time when he could just help me out real quick like that. And I was like, you don't understand. It's not hard. I want to do it myself. I need help with all kinds of other shit - if I can do it myself, I want to! And it isn't hard - it looks awkward, I know that. But I've only been doing it for years and years and years. It's not hard and I don't need help.
But that was his first instinct, to help me, because I looked like I needed help.
His mom picked up all the books and righted the shelf. I could have picked up the books but I don't think I could have picked up the whole shelf - and then there's the whole reason my boyfriend was sitting on the floor to begin with - he kind of fell there. He got dizzy when he stood up - which hasn't been happening much anymore so I think he was being less careful - and then kind of missed the couch when he tried to sit back down. Which just jarred his entire body really badly, and after that he didn't want to budge. Could I have helped him stand back up? No, of course not. This is the whole reason he's not supposed to be home by himself, and this is the whole reason I don't count.
Which just fucking sucks.
I've tried to mostly shut up about this. I don't want to make this all about me - I think I've been self-centered enough already. It's something he and I are kind of dancing around - his injuries are similar to some of mine - I broke my jaw too, I cracked my skull too, I smashed my whole face up too, but it was a totally different situation for me so really, it's not all that similar at all. So saying "well when I got hurt - it doesn't really add much. It doesn't do much more than bring up stuff I don't want to talk about anyway. It makes him feel bad for asking me to do stuff he knows is hard for me to do - and... I kinda think it's making him feel bad that for as upset as he is - as freaked out as he is - and he really is, too - and as miserable as he is (which anyone would be, I swear) he is going to be just fine. In maybe... six months from now? Or so? It will be like nothing ever happened. It's miserable now. But it's not going to stay that way.
He kind of said as much, at one point, and I just told him not to think like that. Not cause I really think I can tell him what to think - I just didn't want to have that conversation right then. And I still don't.
For what it's worth... I do try to tell myself I'm not entirely unhelpful. The one time I said something, B spent quite a bit of time telling me that was bullshit and he would have gone batshit insane if it weren't for me coming over every day, and the fact that I'm there and talking to him and sitting with him is keeping him sane (cause, of course, he doesn't know that when I'm not there I'm in a different state, keeping someone else company in a completely different way...) and I do get that doing that does count, and it's not something to just dismiss...
But I still feel like shit. And I know this isn't even about me, and that just makes me feel even more like shit.
And as for Hanna... well. I tried to mention to B that I went to that concert with her last Thursday. He knew I was going to it - I took his phone with me, switched our sim cards and left mine with him in the hospital, cause his phone takes pictures and mine is ancient and does not, and he knew I was doing that and why, at the time - but he has since forgotten this entire event. Cause I brought it up and he was like, you did? When did you do that? You took my phone? Really?
He doesn't remember that. He doesn't remember quite a bit of being in the hospital, even though he seemed mostly aware at the time. The other day he was like, really, it was two weeks? It was two weeks. This is not actually that surprising... this doesn't mean there's anything permanently wrong with his memory, although it kind of freaks him out to hear me telling him about stuff that happened in the hospital that he's got no memory. I asked him if he remembered throwing Rich out of the room and he said very vaguely - and he definitely remembered why he did that (which I still don't completely understand myself...) but that happened quite a few days after the concert thing.
So I told him - again - that I went to see a concert while he was in the hospital, and I said I went with JJ - cause I did. I didn't go with Hanna, she was just there...
I did tell him I went to First Friday with Hanna. Before I went, not, you know, after.
Also, I told him where I was going on Sunday, and he told me to take his cameral with me (I wanted his phone again, but he was not having that - he hates my phone, and was kind of disturbed that he agreed to me doing that the first time) - and I did say it was with Hanna. I'm not lying about where I'm going or who I'm with.
And he... he really really wants me to go out and do stuff. He really really appreciates me staying home with him, and he really really feels bad about that. Especially since I pretty much have no job so I pretty much don't see anyone else at all. He tried to get Rich to go to the bar and have a beer with me - Rich is not really... my favorite person ever, and we actually did go to the bar, and we sat there in the car and were like, so, what now, we go in, and have a drink, and come back? And I was like, yeah, this is stupid. I don't have anything to talk to you about. And he was like, yeah, same here, no offense. And I was like, absolutely none taken. And then I was like, what's Karin doing? (Karin's his sometimes girlfriend) Karin was working - I said maybe we could go to a different bar closer to where Karin works - where they have karaoke, which I love - and she could meet us there when she got off. That was a decent evening I suppose. More or less.
But inevitably, he was just like, "I want you to go out, but does it have to be with Hanna?"
The fact that he has not flat-out asked me if I've hooked up with her leads me to believe that he thinks I have. Because I totally expected him to say something like that.
Ever since we all three of us went to that baseball game together, his general reaction to me and Hanna has been: I don't like this. I'm not telling you what to do - I'm just telling you I don't like it. I mean, he didn't say it exactly like that. But that's pretty much what it is.
And this, I think, is another conversation we're dancing around having.
And... there we go. THAT was my entire weekend. Don't ask me what I'm doing here. I don't know.
I keep asking myself what I'm afraid of - am I afraid that whatever's going on with me and Hanna isn't real, it's all just an illusion, and it'll fade away soon enough and I'll have gotten all excited - and attached - for nothing?
Am I afraid I'm doing something awful - I don't know, am I? I'm kind of lying - by omission, but it's the same thing, really. I know this is supposed to be "open" or "casual" or whatever. I know he's hooked up with other girls. I know he was pretty much planning to move in with another girl so he could be near those snow-covered mountains - and I said I didn't like that. Not OMG I'm breaking up with you because I know you're not going to stay with me forever - not like that. Just that... I didn't like knowing that. And also, that I wasn't sure it was a good idea to move in with a girl he one, broke up with, and two, cheated on. But he said it would be a temporary thing, just for the winter, at least to start out with. Which makes a lot more sense.
I know he wouldn't like not knowing what I'm doing. So I'm deliberately not telling him.
And so what am I actually afraid of?
I'm afraid that I'll wreck what we have - when he finds out what I haven't been telling him, and when he realizes that this wasn't just something that happened one night and that was the end of it - I dunno, I felt before that he'd never forgive me - maybe that's a little harsh, but I can't say it won't change what we have now. It would never be the same. Maybe he would be so upset with me that this would be it - the end. No more.
And then Hanna will lose interest in me - her passing fancy will pass, maybe I'm interesting, maybe I'm just feeding whatever funk she's got herself into, I don't really know exactly what her interest in me is. She told me I'm gorgeous - lately, and with her, I've even felt fucking gorgeous. I'm so easy - say nice things to me and I'm gone. My boyfriend buys me a booty skirt and says it would look hot - in bed - and I melt. Do people know this about me? Do they know how easy I am? Am I being lied to, taken advantage of? I don't really think so... but maybe. Maybe Hanna says what I so clearly want to hear, so she can get what she wants from me - whatever that is. I don't think so, but maybe.
And then... then I will be alone.
I don't know what scares me more - losing what I do have, or passing up what I could have.
I'd hate to let the most beautiful thing in the world go because I don't believe it's real.
But is it?
Saturday morning saw me driving back from Philly so I could go to work (my one shift) and guess where I spent Sunday?
Yes. Also in Philly.
This is craziness, what I'm doing here.
The night of that concert with Hanna was quite possibly one of the very best nights of my life. I think that must be the best sex I've ever had. Ever.
So, what does this make me? I have these crazy one-night things that turn into... continuing things? Apparently? This is just what I do?
I think it is what I do. I mean, I'm doing it right now...
Well, I guess it shouldn't surprise me. I always said I was easy.
So, Hanna is an ex-art-student. She graduated last spring. This was her first fall not going back to school - I went to First Friday with her once before, it was me and this girl Kirsten and her and Erica. That, I think, was the last time I'd been on a date with someone other than my boyfriend, and it was a truly horrible date. Kirsten and I did not click one bit - Hanna and Erica had a great time. It was the first time I'd met Hanna, actually. I was kinda-sorta eying her as competition, since, you know, Erica went all distant on me after she started dating her, and also, you know, hid the fact that she was seeing someone from me as well.
And I dunno what happened. Sure, I thought Hanna was an interesting person. But... I dunno. I saw her at the club - I had a really good time talking with her, but that's kind of all I thought it was. She came to the baseball game with me and Bevan, and it was only then that he accused me of flirting my head off with her. I didn't really think I was... but then after that was the eight hour coffee date.
And then I met her at the concert and look what happened there.
I dunno what I'm feeling here. I've been trying to figure it out - of course, of course I feel fantastic, glowing, lighter-than-air, but isn't that just - I mean, that's just me, that's just an illusion, isn't it? Isn't that just what it feels like when you feel like you're falling for someone? I've felt this plenty of times before - that doesn't mean it turned into anything more than just a destructive, humiliating mess. It's all this stupid butterflies-in-the-stomach shit that makes me make a fool of myself every time.
Except not.
Except what am I doing to make a fool of myself this time? Nothing at all. She's not a girl-with-a-boyfriend. She's nothing like arrogant and self-centered Krissy, either. So what am I really afraid of, here? I'm not repeating any kind of past mistake. It's not like I'm doing something I should know better than to do.
And I think it's worth mentioning that I never felt any kind of stomach-butterflies around my boyfriend. I always assumed it was because he's, you know, a guy.
Oh, but what am I saying here? That I don't love my boyfriend? I do. Of course I do. That I'm not in love with him? I'm not. I never thought I was - but that doesn't mean I'm in love with Hanna, either, for goodness sakes! Whatthefuck does in love mean, anyways?
On Friday, I met Hanna in the city and we toured the galleries for First Friday. I met some of her friends. Two of them I had already met before. We looked at a lot of art and talked a whole lot about art. Artists always find me. I always say that. They're everywhere in my life. She asked me to come back to her place. I didn't drive a bunch of people with me this time - in fact, I left my car in Atlantic City and took NJ transit to Philly - and so I did.
I did, and, after our lovely night of gallery-hopping (and Hanna was a little drunk, I could tell - she had wine at every gallery we went to) I tried my best to explain to her what "complicated" meant.
She said it sounded an awful lot like I'm dating my best friend.
Bevan isn't my best friend. I don't care what it sounds like to Hanna. "Best friend" has a terrible connotation to me - Daniel is my best friend. No one in the world knows me better than Daniel - and he hates me.
She also said something along the lines of how she can forget ever trying to date me - since I'm clearly already in a relationship - but that doesn't mean we didn't mess around. Because we most certainly did. Again. I mean - we did it once. Why not again. If it was wrong the first time and I did it anyway, what difference does a second time make?
I... have never felt so attractive in my entire life. For all my talk - for all I say that looks mean nothing, that what you do with yourself, what kind of clothes you wear, what you do with your hair, all that means ten thousand times more than whether or not your eyes are striking or your figure is sensual - my looks mean a whole lot to me. And I'm not my own type - I wouldn't be attracted to someone who looks like me.
Never, ever in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be the kind of girl who has flings.
I think I'm having a fling right now.
This is a good time for a fling - if I can't learn what the other side of the world has to teach me, at least I'm doing something on this side of the world -
I don't know, this is coming out all disjointed. I didn't mean for it to be -
ivy_poet wanted details, and that's what I intended on writing. It seems to be stray thoughts - and not what I meant to write about at all. Hanna and I looked at art on Friday night. We talked about art. We talked to a bunch of other people about art, including some of the artists. Then we went back to her place and I talked about me - no, I didn't talk about me, not really. I talked about Bevan. I talked about how we were going to China and I talked about him pushing me and I talked about the car accident and not having a job and hanging around his house every day and feeling really fucking unhelpful - and like I am leading some kind of weird double life, spending so much time with him at his house and with his parents and then gallivanting about Philadelphia with her - I didn't actually talk about myself at all. So it would make sense, then, that she would call him my best friend.
On Sunday I was back in Philly with her - something to do with First Friday, I think, all these artists are having open studios in the city, where you can just go in and look around at their spaces and what they're working on. Being that Hanna is an ex-art-student (this is what she calls herself... I would think the word should be artist, but whatever she says...) this is kind of her goal, to have a working studio, to have her name known in those circles, whatever. She knows a lot of the working artists in the city because she either went to school with them, or met them somehow through her school - the surprise, the real surprise here, is that I know some of these people too.
It was odd to be walking through studios in Kensington, looking at names on doors and gallery cards, and recognizing them - there is a girl who manages a floor of an old warehouse building and sublets different parts of it out to working artists, and of course has her own space there as well - Hanna knows one of the artists in that collective from school - I know the girl who manages the whole space. She was Jay's room mate before Jay moved in with Bethany and Daniel. She remembered me - I remembered her. It was strange and it was like... it was like I don't know.
It was like in my head maybe I imagined that the city just floated away while I was gone - when I realized that if I ever moved back there it wouldn't be the same, maybe I was a little overzealous in my assumption that it would be a city full of strangers and strange things. It's not. Just because everyone I knew isn't still there doesn't mean some people aren't.
Is this what Hanna wants, then, a studio space of her own?
I get what she's going through, I really do, and I'm finding her situation really fascinating. I'd call myself as much of an artist as she is - she went to art school. I would have, had things been a little different for me when I was trying to go to college. We're both creative - we both sink into our creativity and disappear there. She had this fantastic experience of living and breathing and working with other artists - one that I'm so jealous of and one that she seems totally disillusioned by.
I'm not saying I haven't had fantastic experiences. I have - I'm not saying I've never brushed the corners of the art-world. I have, but not from her perspective, and I wish I could.
She talked about going to First Friday and going to the open studios as if it was something she should do, cause she's a Moore girl, except for she's not a Moore girl anymore. Not like it was something she wanted to do - just something she should. And does she want a studio space of her own, does she want to find a "collective" of her own and do what these artists we saw Sunday were doing?
Hanna, she says, hasn't produced any art whatsoever since graduating. And she told me before about how her senior year of art school went - she barely scraped by, she hated the work she made, it was a joke to her, she was sick of the whole scene by then and it meant nothing to her, and she threw it all away as soon as she had her last review - she has the slides and the digital images, but still. So... she was in a funk. An artist's funk. I can't say I don't understand that - I do, I so do. And that, I've always said, is the trouble with turning your very nature, your artist's nature, into something academic - it's like being graded on what kind of mood you wake up in. It's like putting your very soul on display for your professors to critique. I get it.
This is the kind of stuff she talks about. I understand it all. Is this making her fall for me? Because I know what it's like to get into a funk and destroy your own creations?
She told me this before but she hasn't been shy about saying it again - what kicked off this funk that wrecked her last year of school? FUCKING ERICA disappearing, of course. Erica, the fucking diva of the universe, the center of the world whether you want her to be or not.
I'm not saying that it's okay to blame a year and a half of ignoring the thing you love most - or claiming to love most - (is this sentence making sense? Hanna is ignoring making art, the one thing she claims to love the most - ) because of something someone else did, even if that someone is your girlfriend, and even if the thing they did is disappear without a word and turn up in Virginia with their supposedly-ex-boyfriend - I'm just saying that sometimes it feels good to blame someone else.
I get that too.
I had a Plan, I had such a Plan, and I'm trying really, really hard not to get too upset that I'm not in China right now. It's just the way it happened - B didn't try to get in a car accident, it wasn't intentional (although... I have a whole lot more to say about that, too) and it certainly wasn't anyone's fault - who can I get angry at? But I had such a Plan. We were going to go to China. I was going to come back a changed person - older, wiser, smarter, better, different - that's what happens when you travel, the world changes you. Picks you up out of your hole and shows you the sky. In my head, the only way I could get the fuck out of here was to do nothing halfway - get on a thirteen hour flight to another continent.
When I came back... when I came back I was going to move back to Philadelphia, because that's all I've ever wanted since I came here. I left because I couldn't afford my own place and I didn't want to live with Krissy indefinitely - I should never have moved in with her. If I hadn't, we might still be together, or at least parted on very different terms. I can afford a place to live now. Nothing's keeping me here - nothing, except B, and he, oh, he fully intended to spend the winter in New England snowboarding his freestyle soul away. Him and Ryan and Jory living it up there in the snow and the cold and being extreme and all that - and after that who knew? But that was the Plan.
I was going to try to figure something out with school - with life. That was part of moving to Philly - that's where my school is, and I still have scholarship money there. But this was all for later - all for someone else, some other girl, some girl who'd been to China and back, not for me, not for this girl who is running back and forth over the AC expressway (again, although this time it doesn't seem like a chore, it's an adventure - and that says a lot about me and Krissy, now doesn't it?) for these wild nights and quiet conversations with this very fascinating girl with blue eyes who seems pretty fucking fascinated with me, too, and then going home to her boyfriend and doing crazy extreme things like standing on a desk with a screwdriver trying to get broken blinds to go down and stay closed -
Saturday morning I worked - I slept, a little, with Hanna at her apartment, and got up early - I always get up early, it's not a big deal - and drove back here to go to work, my one shift of the week. Yep. I work four hours a week. I don't want to outright quit, even though I might as well - I think eventually I'll get more hours as more open up, but that could be months from now. I don't want to quit because my job is my entire social life. Or it was, until I started up the crazy AC expressway game again. I've become quite attached to the people there - and if I didn't go to work, I think the only people I'd see here would be Bevan, his friend Rich, and his parents. JJ maybe - I think I've hung out with her outside of work possibly five times in three years. But one of them was pretty recently, so maybe I can count her. I'd see my aunt Jen - none of my cousins, since none of them live here anymore. That's about it.
So I went to work on Saturday morning. Saturday morning on the bar was, of course, B's shift. He opened the bar, I was the opening host. I cut up the fruit, he swept up the vestibule. Not because I can't sweep - because back in the day (I can't believe I'm saying "back in the day" about something I've done here, in this town - I've been here too fucking long!) we used to come to work together on Saturday mornings, because we'd leave work together on Friday nights, because I didn't have a driver's license and he would always give me a ride. One way or another, we'd either spend the night at my place or his together - not because we were sleeping together, not back then, but because at two am we'd leave the bar, and we don't live close to each other at all, and we'd talk for another hour or two, or watch infomercials or something, and then just fall asleep. It made more sense than driving all over Cape May County just to take me home and then come pick me up the next morning.
...I can't believe he actually would have come back to my house to pick me up the morning - but that was what he always said. "You might as well sleep here so I don't have to go all the way out to the island to get you tomorrow." Like of course he would make sure I got to work. Like somehow that was his responsibility - but who was I to him, then? Some girl from work, that's all. He had a fucking girlfriend at the time...
And so I'd get to work early, with him, and I'd sit at the bar and cut all the fruit, because what else was I going to do, sit there and do nothing?
So another bartender, Jenna, has the Saturday morning shift now. She and I... don't have that pleasant of a history, to say the least. She's never been horrible to me, she just... doesn't really like me - or anyone else, I don't think. That's just the way she is, I don't take it personally. I just don't like her. Once she had some kind of snit about some kind of bar drama with B and one of the other bartenders - she was making a big deal out of nothing, I swear.
Well, Saturday, she came in late, not because she was out livin' it up and hungover, but because she had some kind of car issue. Her car was not at work - her mom dropped her off. Jenna, I think, lives with her mom. Again - a grown person living with their parent - this continues to be completely bizarre to me, Jenna's got to be about thirty. But that's how it goes around here, so it seems. So when I got to work, she was rushing around trying to get the whole bar set up, and she was like, good, I'm glad you're here, please, please help me with the fruit, I got here late, my car, blah blah blah, and I was like... sweep the vestibule real quick for me?
I mean, it takes like two minutes. Unless I do it, it takes me like ten. You try juggling a crutch and a broom and a dustpan. But, I mean, I have a whole hour to "set up" the lobby, and there isn't all that much to actually do. I'm slow as shit, and I always get it done with time to spare.
And she was like, "this isn't going to be a regular thing, I'm not going to need your help every week" and so on, and I was just like, that's fine, whatever, I don't care. And she slammed stuff around and I cubed peaches and thawed cranberries and sliced lime wheels and I dared ask her about her car, and wouldn't you know, Jenna was actually very visibly upset about her car, which is probably done for.
And she thanked me for my help, the bar was set up successfully with a few minutes to spare, she did sweep the vestibule, and she even went and got kid's menus from the store room for me (because whoever had closed the night before did not do this as they were supposed to...) and that's probably the most civil interaction I've ever had with Ms Totally Cranky Every Day Bartender.
And I gave her a ride home so she didn't have to call her mom to get her.
I figure people drove me the fuck around all that time, I might as well offer a ride to anyone who needs one now that I have a driver's license again. Equivalent exchange and all that.
Saturday afternoon after work I went to B's. His mom was down for the weekend. He happily told her about the tequila incident - why advertise something like that, I have no idea. Why tell it like it's a funny story, complete with spitting out blood and freaking out and making me call the doctor, when it reality it was quite horrible - I don't mean to spill all his secrets, but seriously, he was in tears at the time. Which anyone would be - messed up stomach that's probably full of blood, can't make yourself throw up without first, um, destroying the wires and rubber bands holding your jaw together - which he did not do, but it was a possible outcome. Then we would have absolutely had to have gone to the doctor right then, and who knows what would have come of that - I would cry too. It sucks to see someone that frustrated and in that much discomfort that they can't help but cry.
Drinking Cabo from the bottle with a straw was funny. The next day was not funny at all and "I was spitting up blood, ha ha ha" does not belong in a funny anecdote about how he's handling the whole "stay still and rest" thing.
Aaannnndddd his mom kind of went off about that, too, not really at him for drinking tequila when he's not supposed to be having any alcohol (if for no other reason than because he's still on a lot of painkillers, but being that he's someone who likes to take painkillers for fun and then have a couple beers, I'm sure this is why he felt the need to just ignore this instruction) but about where the tequila came from in the first place.
She assumed it was me.
I assured her it was not.
(As an aside, he and I drank quite a bit of that expensive tequila last night and nothing bad came of it other than I was a little hungover this morning...)
And she went off about his dad being the worst excuse for a parent she'd ever seen and she can't believe it and so on and so on, and B was like, mom, chill out, I'm an adult, I don't need to be taken care of, I don't need a parent, I'm 23 years old...
And she was like, he didn't even take care of you when you were a kid - and she just went on and on and I'm just there staring at all this - her getting all worked up and hysterical practically, and him just rolling his eyes about it. He was just like, mom, relax, it's okay, I survived it. He meant the tequila thing, of course, but then she was all like "I can't believe I almost lost you, I love you so much, oh you'll always be my baby." And he was just like, okay okay okay.
And there is me, wanting to disappear into a corner, cause where do I belong in all this? I do not. It was very uncomfortable, to say the very least.
And later on she called me a doll for coming over every day. I tried to pull out the whole "well what else am I going to do with my time" thing but I stopped when I realized it was a "you're a doll but..." kind of thing.
So... let me write a little bit about this.
When his mom realized that a lot of the time, it's been me and B alone in the house together, she kinda... expressed some very intense disgust towards his dad. For, you know, leaving us home alone together. Cause the condition of B leaving the hospital was that he one, goes to like one million doctors appointments with like... twelve different doctors (actually three, I am exaggerating) and two, that he's not by himself. He's doing a whole lot better now - soooo much better, it's really... fantastic, and wonderful, how much better he looks and how much more like himself he's acting and how much more time he's spending actually being awake - but at first it was really pretty bad. I said before that he passed out a few times just from tilting his head back to drink from a cup. He wouldn't go down his basement stairs because he said looking down made him dizzy - he still doesn't go down the stairs by himself even now, and he's doing a lot better.
I'm... not much help. And I hate that. I feel like an able, functional adult person - I feel like I'm strong, and I am, and I'm in better shape than I have been in a while, I go to the gym, etc. I live by myself, I take care of everything myself - except I'm actually not. I don't, in fact, actually count as being an able, functional adult. I'm like... somewhere in the in-between.
Just today, Bevan went to stand up from the couch. His collarbone is broken, his ribs are broken - he doesn't move his head around too much because it makes him dizzy, he doesn't look up and down or anything like that, and when ever he does move around, he says it makes his whole face throb. So to stand up, from a low, sinking couch - you use your whole torso to do this, and, you know, your shoulders and stuff. So for him, for now, it hurts, and it's hard. Today, cause she's here and was sitting right there, his mom helped him stand up. And looked right at me.
Cause I can't do that. I absolutely cannot, it isn't possible. And so I don't count.
And that's the truth.
However healthy I feel, or am, however strong I am, however capable I am - well, yeah, there are a few things I can't expect to ever do - run, jump, etc, okay, whatever - most things there probably is a way to figure out how to do them. It's... part of being disabled, I think, not that I'm like, the spokesperson for all people with all disabilities, but... life kind of turns in to a puzzle game, where every action you want to take turns into a puzzle and you have to carefully assess the whole thing and then come up with some way to accomplish your end goal - cause it ain't gonna be the way you did it before, or the way you've seen everyone else doing it. I think, mostly, at this point in my life, I am able to do just about anything I really want to do. I know I'm able to do quite a few things I'm completely uninterested in doing - play sports, or something like that.
But that's my view of me.
I kind of think that the rest of the world sees me as someone who needs help - cause people are always trying to help me. The dreaded supermarket - where random shoppers will take things off the shelf that I'm reaching for, and put them in my basket for me - why, why do I look like that's something I can't do myself? What do they think I was doing, just standing there staring at the thing I wanted, waiting for someone to come get it for me? That would be a very inefficient way to shop. And if that truly were the case, I wouldn't be shopping by myself. I'd be ordering my groceries online, which, actually, I do. But I forget stuff all the time. And I kind of feel like a lazy ass, having my groceries delivered to me when I have a car and can get to the supermarket just fine.
I don't like people touching me. Or my stuff. Or moving my stuff around. Or doing anything for me, not because I don't want help if I need it, but because I'm pathologically particular and want things done the way I do them. I like to be left alone, I do not like strangers, and I do not like that in order to run ordinary errands, I have to suffer through some kind of social interaction. I like social interaction when I'm in the mood for it - when it's people I want to be around. I'm a very social person. BUT NOT WHEN I DONT FEEL LIKE IT.
And people touch me, and touch my stuff, and move my stuff around, and do things for me, all the damn time, and it's cause I look like I need help.
Yesterday me and B were in the living room playing on the playstation. I was laying on the floor with my head closest to the TV and my feet closest to the couch, tilting my head back and playing upside down, which I discovered makes a game I've already played half to death much more challenging. The playstation I actually brought up from downstairs several days ago - Bevan asked me to go get it, and he always apologizes profusely for asking me to do stuff like that, and I always feel really bad that he feels bad. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't something I could do - except maybe fix the blinds, but I'm not convinced those blinds can be fixed by anyone, that's not just me. I told him to stop saying he's sorry and just say thanks and be done with it -
B was sitting on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, playing also but not, of course, upside down. He could have gotten off the floor if he wanted to - I think - and I could have too, but when his mom came it it looked a little bit like a disaster. Mostly because I knocked over the little bookshelf next to the TV. I dunno, it looked sturdier than it was, I guess. I thought I might use it to walk around a little - not such a bright idea on my part. My crutches were still next to the couch - I can't exactly really walk without them - I'm not really walking with them either, though - and I was kinda using the furniture to move around. I do that at my house all the time, but I know my own furniture and what's good to grab on to and what's not. I was moving a bunch of stuff around, though, the wireless controller one of us (I swear it wasn't me) left on overnight and killed the batteries dead, so I was gonna hook up the other controller that sucks, so, I dunno, I thought with holding the two controllers and dealing with the cord of the one... this was a good idea. It was not.
So... I knocked over the little shelf, everything that was on it, and, of course, myself. It was not that big of a deal - the floor has carpet on it, nothing heavy or sharp landed on me, whatever. I did, however, just leave everything where it fell. And then dealt with the controllers, re-started the game, and laid down on the floor and played upside down, not bothering to pick up the books or retrieve my crutches or anything sensical like that.
So, she was like, what happened and B was just like, oh, Lara knocked over the shelf, that's all, everything's fine here. And she kind of looked at me and was like, do you need... some help? And I was like, nah. But since she was there we turned off the game, and of course I sat up, and B stood up, and she saw my crutches by the couch, quite far from the center of the floor where I was sitting, and she brought them to me. I could have got them eventually, or B could have got them, but since she did, I figured I should stand up, and of course she just hovered over me watching me stand up from the floor... which I'm sure looked very awkward, being that I didn't have anything to grab ahold of.
There was a little while where Bevan would always help me stand up. I mean, not off the floor - I don't usually just sit in the center of the floor like that, or on the floor at all, cause it's actually pretty tricky to get up that way. If I were more flexible, it would be a lot easier. I'm working on that. I mean standing up from sitting on the couch, or in a chair, or something like that. It was kind of around when we first started... "dating," I guess. When we first started being really touchy with each other. I'm kind of funny about being touched, but I was starting to get used to it a little from him, and he was always putting his arm around me and stuff. And so I'd go to stand up, and he'd put his arm around me and just kind of pick me up and there I'd be on my feet, and after a few times I was just like, "stop doing that! I can do it myself!"
And he said some really reasonable stuff like how he was just trying to help and he didn't like to see me having such a hard time when he could just help me out real quick like that. And I was like, you don't understand. It's not hard. I want to do it myself. I need help with all kinds of other shit - if I can do it myself, I want to! And it isn't hard - it looks awkward, I know that. But I've only been doing it for years and years and years. It's not hard and I don't need help.
But that was his first instinct, to help me, because I looked like I needed help.
His mom picked up all the books and righted the shelf. I could have picked up the books but I don't think I could have picked up the whole shelf - and then there's the whole reason my boyfriend was sitting on the floor to begin with - he kind of fell there. He got dizzy when he stood up - which hasn't been happening much anymore so I think he was being less careful - and then kind of missed the couch when he tried to sit back down. Which just jarred his entire body really badly, and after that he didn't want to budge. Could I have helped him stand back up? No, of course not. This is the whole reason he's not supposed to be home by himself, and this is the whole reason I don't count.
Which just fucking sucks.
I've tried to mostly shut up about this. I don't want to make this all about me - I think I've been self-centered enough already. It's something he and I are kind of dancing around - his injuries are similar to some of mine - I broke my jaw too, I cracked my skull too, I smashed my whole face up too, but it was a totally different situation for me so really, it's not all that similar at all. So saying "well when I got hurt - it doesn't really add much. It doesn't do much more than bring up stuff I don't want to talk about anyway. It makes him feel bad for asking me to do stuff he knows is hard for me to do - and... I kinda think it's making him feel bad that for as upset as he is - as freaked out as he is - and he really is, too - and as miserable as he is (which anyone would be, I swear) he is going to be just fine. In maybe... six months from now? Or so? It will be like nothing ever happened. It's miserable now. But it's not going to stay that way.
He kind of said as much, at one point, and I just told him not to think like that. Not cause I really think I can tell him what to think - I just didn't want to have that conversation right then. And I still don't.
For what it's worth... I do try to tell myself I'm not entirely unhelpful. The one time I said something, B spent quite a bit of time telling me that was bullshit and he would have gone batshit insane if it weren't for me coming over every day, and the fact that I'm there and talking to him and sitting with him is keeping him sane (cause, of course, he doesn't know that when I'm not there I'm in a different state, keeping someone else company in a completely different way...) and I do get that doing that does count, and it's not something to just dismiss...
But I still feel like shit. And I know this isn't even about me, and that just makes me feel even more like shit.
And as for Hanna... well. I tried to mention to B that I went to that concert with her last Thursday. He knew I was going to it - I took his phone with me, switched our sim cards and left mine with him in the hospital, cause his phone takes pictures and mine is ancient and does not, and he knew I was doing that and why, at the time - but he has since forgotten this entire event. Cause I brought it up and he was like, you did? When did you do that? You took my phone? Really?
He doesn't remember that. He doesn't remember quite a bit of being in the hospital, even though he seemed mostly aware at the time. The other day he was like, really, it was two weeks? It was two weeks. This is not actually that surprising... this doesn't mean there's anything permanently wrong with his memory, although it kind of freaks him out to hear me telling him about stuff that happened in the hospital that he's got no memory. I asked him if he remembered throwing Rich out of the room and he said very vaguely - and he definitely remembered why he did that (which I still don't completely understand myself...) but that happened quite a few days after the concert thing.
So I told him - again - that I went to see a concert while he was in the hospital, and I said I went with JJ - cause I did. I didn't go with Hanna, she was just there...
I did tell him I went to First Friday with Hanna. Before I went, not, you know, after.
Also, I told him where I was going on Sunday, and he told me to take his cameral with me (I wanted his phone again, but he was not having that - he hates my phone, and was kind of disturbed that he agreed to me doing that the first time) - and I did say it was with Hanna. I'm not lying about where I'm going or who I'm with.
And he... he really really wants me to go out and do stuff. He really really appreciates me staying home with him, and he really really feels bad about that. Especially since I pretty much have no job so I pretty much don't see anyone else at all. He tried to get Rich to go to the bar and have a beer with me - Rich is not really... my favorite person ever, and we actually did go to the bar, and we sat there in the car and were like, so, what now, we go in, and have a drink, and come back? And I was like, yeah, this is stupid. I don't have anything to talk to you about. And he was like, yeah, same here, no offense. And I was like, absolutely none taken. And then I was like, what's Karin doing? (Karin's his sometimes girlfriend) Karin was working - I said maybe we could go to a different bar closer to where Karin works - where they have karaoke, which I love - and she could meet us there when she got off. That was a decent evening I suppose. More or less.
But inevitably, he was just like, "I want you to go out, but does it have to be with Hanna?"
The fact that he has not flat-out asked me if I've hooked up with her leads me to believe that he thinks I have. Because I totally expected him to say something like that.
Ever since we all three of us went to that baseball game together, his general reaction to me and Hanna has been: I don't like this. I'm not telling you what to do - I'm just telling you I don't like it. I mean, he didn't say it exactly like that. But that's pretty much what it is.
And this, I think, is another conversation we're dancing around having.
And... there we go. THAT was my entire weekend. Don't ask me what I'm doing here. I don't know.
I keep asking myself what I'm afraid of - am I afraid that whatever's going on with me and Hanna isn't real, it's all just an illusion, and it'll fade away soon enough and I'll have gotten all excited - and attached - for nothing?
Am I afraid I'm doing something awful - I don't know, am I? I'm kind of lying - by omission, but it's the same thing, really. I know this is supposed to be "open" or "casual" or whatever. I know he's hooked up with other girls. I know he was pretty much planning to move in with another girl so he could be near those snow-covered mountains - and I said I didn't like that. Not OMG I'm breaking up with you because I know you're not going to stay with me forever - not like that. Just that... I didn't like knowing that. And also, that I wasn't sure it was a good idea to move in with a girl he one, broke up with, and two, cheated on. But he said it would be a temporary thing, just for the winter, at least to start out with. Which makes a lot more sense.
I know he wouldn't like not knowing what I'm doing. So I'm deliberately not telling him.
And so what am I actually afraid of?
I'm afraid that I'll wreck what we have - when he finds out what I haven't been telling him, and when he realizes that this wasn't just something that happened one night and that was the end of it - I dunno, I felt before that he'd never forgive me - maybe that's a little harsh, but I can't say it won't change what we have now. It would never be the same. Maybe he would be so upset with me that this would be it - the end. No more.
And then Hanna will lose interest in me - her passing fancy will pass, maybe I'm interesting, maybe I'm just feeding whatever funk she's got herself into, I don't really know exactly what her interest in me is. She told me I'm gorgeous - lately, and with her, I've even felt fucking gorgeous. I'm so easy - say nice things to me and I'm gone. My boyfriend buys me a booty skirt and says it would look hot - in bed - and I melt. Do people know this about me? Do they know how easy I am? Am I being lied to, taken advantage of? I don't really think so... but maybe. Maybe Hanna says what I so clearly want to hear, so she can get what she wants from me - whatever that is. I don't think so, but maybe.
And then... then I will be alone.
I don't know what scares me more - losing what I do have, or passing up what I could have.
I'd hate to let the most beautiful thing in the world go because I don't believe it's real.
But is it?
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Date: 2009-10-06 08:54 pm (UTC)He was talking about going to Connecticut anyway, so why don't you two just break up? It doesn't have to have anything to do with Hanna, it may have happened eventually anyway, seeing as he didn't exactly say no to moving up to his ex-gf.
And I gotta say, regretting what could have been sucks WAY MORE than the alternative. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...and all that.
Sorry, I'm in a weird mood today. Guess we both are.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-06 11:00 pm (UTC)Friends-with-benefits seems pretty safe, and therefor ideal.
What can I say, I'm a coward when it comes to this stuff. I'm the one who left my girlfriend on the grounds that "it was getting to serious."
Yeah, weird day.