Today the photo sharing service that I used regularly from 2005 to 2011 gave its users a strange gift: access to all of their old photos. I have nearly 6,000 photos stored on the site and they had been hidden to me for a long time after I let my account lapse. I saw them again briefly last fall when they reinvented their app, but I guess this time it struck me harder: I was very sad not long ago.
I know the joke behind so many of the photos where I'm trying to look pleasant while B. is frowning or glaring or growling. Sometimes he was mugging for the camera. But a lot of the time -- and I legitimately didn't notice this until today -- I was just trying to get him to show me that he was happy from time to time. And he wasn't. But I was blind to it.
It wasn't like he was always trying to get out of the relationship, let me be clear: he was being willfully unhappy because happiness was foreign to him. Sarcasm and bitterness was what he thrived on. His sense of humor was what made him lovable, which is why the video for this song (which I loved long before I saw the video) is so striking to me:
It is gruesome toward the end, and becomes ridiculous for it, but I'm not sure there's a better way to demonstrate how gruesome a bitter relationship can become. It is a bloody thing. The way she stands in the street with all of the blood in her hands and raises them to ask, "why are you continuing to do this to me? I keep walking and smiling; why do you have to hurt me?" is really powerful to me.
Tonight I had dinner with C., which we sometimes do on Monday nights now, even though these are planned alone nights. It's such a treat to see him these nights. We meet at the same restaurant every time, on a night when they're only serving vegetarian food, and we eat our mushrooms and nuts and salads and enjoy each others' company.
I told him about the photos and how striking it was that I hadn't noticed B.'s coldness coming through in these photos until now, and he put his hand on my arm and said he was sorry for all of the time that I was sad and that he would make it right somehow.
Unnecessary. It led me to him. And he is fantastic.
I know your heart
It is a sacred thing
You're a comedian
You hide behind your funny face
Every time...
Out of the shadows
Out of the cameras and the lights
You're a chameleon
And you hide behind your darker side
Every time...
Every time I don't need a punch line
I don't need a punch line
Everybody's watching
The way that I see you could not change
I'll be your medium
For everything you wanted to say
Cause out of the shadows
Out of the cameras and the lights
I'm a chameleon
I just hide behind the songs that I write
See me smile
It's not for a funny joke
It's for every time I don't need...
I don't need a punch line
Every time I don't need a punch line
See me smile
It's not for a funny joke
It's for every time I don't need a punch line
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Ramble one
It's a month from the day that I will have to give my notice to my landlord that I do not intend to renew my lease.
So, a month. A month of late nights with no judgment. A month of poor nutrition. A month of a cat-hair couch where I can lounge alone. After that, it's all, "well, we have an afternoon free, let's move over the bikes and go through your kitchen," and sorting through boxes I haven't looked through in two years and all of the panic attacks.
I love him. I love him more than I have ever loved anything because I also trust him and I respect him and I think he is gentle and kind. But I will still have panic attacks once my apartment starts its upheaval.
I imagine there will be endless landlord frustrations, too, though I am keeping my fingers crossed that it won't be a problem. I wouldn't be worried except that the cats have absolutely ruined an area of the wood floor in the bedroom I don't use and thought I would turn into a music and craft room when I moved in but turns out I'm still not that interested in music or crafting. The wood floor throughout is not in great shape anyway, so I hope this isn't a problem, but I suspect the dark spots will be pointed out and furrowed over and there might be questions and I'm not interested.
And I will be sad to leave this neighborhood for a place with many more well-off baby factories and near-retirees.
It's a thriving neighborhood, though. Plenty of new businesses -- mostly restaurants and bars -- are dotting each once-abandoned space. One of my favorite hangouts in the whole city -- where I spent two hours today for a work lunch and two hours last night for a date-night dinner -- is a short bike ride away. One of the best burgers in the country is within walking distance. Friends live nearby. The best live music in town is stupidly close and managed by a good friend. We are going to have a great life in this house, I just know it. But I will so very much miss this neighborhood and these people and this apartment.
I wonder how best to really enjoy my freedom now while I have it, and I guess it's here and now. Blogging to my secret blog about my fears while two cats rest on the table and I listen to the speeders at the nearby intersection and I wear dumb pajamas and I don't worry about my greasy face. Earlier tonight I painted my nails lavender while watching my favorite, little-known public access show on the internet. I suppose none of this will change that drastically, but there certainly isn't this second-floor breeze at the other place and I won't sit this comfortably at the other place.
In fact, as bright and airy as this place is, C's house is equally dark and airless. That aggressive taupe doesn't help, nor does the office's lone standout stab at color: dark brown. Windows are in strange places and don't let in much light. None of them are symmetrical in their rooms and it drive me nuts. The only place that is bright is the large bathroom with the jacuzzi tub, but I can assure you that there is nothing appealing about watching your own gross body distort and bubble in the bright light of a clear day. Or a stormy day. Any sort of day will make this activity unfortunate.
I am surely going to get to a place sometime later this year when I blog about how happy I am to live in a house with a beautiful backyard and patio and we will have painted the office a bright orange to inspire creativity and I will rave about how good it feels to come home from a stressful day and plunge into the huge tub. Or how good it feels to live with someone who loves me. That will also be notable.
I do feel that I should end this secret blog, however, because it mentions C. so much without him knowing about it. I could start a new secret blog, I guess, and let him know about it. My public blog isn't the place for secret thoughts. He reads most of what I write dutifully, though never comments unless I ask about something. He's like B. that way. He says I'm a good writer and believes in my ability, which is the bare minimum in a partner, really. He is not a reader. He is not that interested. But I still would hate to have a blog he didn't know about if I'm living with him.
I think the best thing about what's about to happen is that I will finally long for this apartment, rather than longing for my old house. Like, there's only so much longing you can really take on. Of course I will still miss B. and the life we made together and the kitchen there and the little porch out back where I hung out sometimes, but the longing will now be greater for this kitchen where I remembered how to cook for myself and this little porch out back where I sorted out so many confusing nights and this quiet bedroom, alone. It is a very important line of demarcation. THIS is now the standard of what to miss. Not him. Not our dysfunctional life. This new, quieter life, without all of the door-slamming. I will miss it, but I will trade it in for the quiet sounds of a quiet video game that I swear he's been playing since I met him, and probably Game of Thrones and probably the constant cleaning of the kitchen. He can't stand a dirty kitchen.
I have rambled long enough. Expect many more rambles in the coming days.
So, a month. A month of late nights with no judgment. A month of poor nutrition. A month of a cat-hair couch where I can lounge alone. After that, it's all, "well, we have an afternoon free, let's move over the bikes and go through your kitchen," and sorting through boxes I haven't looked through in two years and all of the panic attacks.
I love him. I love him more than I have ever loved anything because I also trust him and I respect him and I think he is gentle and kind. But I will still have panic attacks once my apartment starts its upheaval.
I imagine there will be endless landlord frustrations, too, though I am keeping my fingers crossed that it won't be a problem. I wouldn't be worried except that the cats have absolutely ruined an area of the wood floor in the bedroom I don't use and thought I would turn into a music and craft room when I moved in but turns out I'm still not that interested in music or crafting. The wood floor throughout is not in great shape anyway, so I hope this isn't a problem, but I suspect the dark spots will be pointed out and furrowed over and there might be questions and I'm not interested.
And I will be sad to leave this neighborhood for a place with many more well-off baby factories and near-retirees.
It's a thriving neighborhood, though. Plenty of new businesses -- mostly restaurants and bars -- are dotting each once-abandoned space. One of my favorite hangouts in the whole city -- where I spent two hours today for a work lunch and two hours last night for a date-night dinner -- is a short bike ride away. One of the best burgers in the country is within walking distance. Friends live nearby. The best live music in town is stupidly close and managed by a good friend. We are going to have a great life in this house, I just know it. But I will so very much miss this neighborhood and these people and this apartment.
I wonder how best to really enjoy my freedom now while I have it, and I guess it's here and now. Blogging to my secret blog about my fears while two cats rest on the table and I listen to the speeders at the nearby intersection and I wear dumb pajamas and I don't worry about my greasy face. Earlier tonight I painted my nails lavender while watching my favorite, little-known public access show on the internet. I suppose none of this will change that drastically, but there certainly isn't this second-floor breeze at the other place and I won't sit this comfortably at the other place.
In fact, as bright and airy as this place is, C's house is equally dark and airless. That aggressive taupe doesn't help, nor does the office's lone standout stab at color: dark brown. Windows are in strange places and don't let in much light. None of them are symmetrical in their rooms and it drive me nuts. The only place that is bright is the large bathroom with the jacuzzi tub, but I can assure you that there is nothing appealing about watching your own gross body distort and bubble in the bright light of a clear day. Or a stormy day. Any sort of day will make this activity unfortunate.
I am surely going to get to a place sometime later this year when I blog about how happy I am to live in a house with a beautiful backyard and patio and we will have painted the office a bright orange to inspire creativity and I will rave about how good it feels to come home from a stressful day and plunge into the huge tub. Or how good it feels to live with someone who loves me. That will also be notable.
I do feel that I should end this secret blog, however, because it mentions C. so much without him knowing about it. I could start a new secret blog, I guess, and let him know about it. My public blog isn't the place for secret thoughts. He reads most of what I write dutifully, though never comments unless I ask about something. He's like B. that way. He says I'm a good writer and believes in my ability, which is the bare minimum in a partner, really. He is not a reader. He is not that interested. But I still would hate to have a blog he didn't know about if I'm living with him.
I think the best thing about what's about to happen is that I will finally long for this apartment, rather than longing for my old house. Like, there's only so much longing you can really take on. Of course I will still miss B. and the life we made together and the kitchen there and the little porch out back where I hung out sometimes, but the longing will now be greater for this kitchen where I remembered how to cook for myself and this little porch out back where I sorted out so many confusing nights and this quiet bedroom, alone. It is a very important line of demarcation. THIS is now the standard of what to miss. Not him. Not our dysfunctional life. This new, quieter life, without all of the door-slamming. I will miss it, but I will trade it in for the quiet sounds of a quiet video game that I swear he's been playing since I met him, and probably Game of Thrones and probably the constant cleaning of the kitchen. He can't stand a dirty kitchen.
I have rambled long enough. Expect many more rambles in the coming days.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Better isn't always doing well; I know because I'm better now myself
Late last night I was on a couch in a living room of a house that will soon be where I live. There is very little furniture there. I don't particularly like the couch. The color is all wrong. The walls of the room are poorly painted: two actually wildly different tones of neutral taupe, as if no one was going to see the difference between the two, which join in a weird spot and not neatly, either. We have plans to paint. Every room is this awful, aggressive taupe.
Tonight I'm on the sun porch of my apartment, which has seen better days. The wall is starting to rot away in one corner and there's peeled paint pieces all over the floor, which I'm sure at least one cat is eating regularly. Also, some errant socks that were dropped from loads of laundry and also some dryer sheets. These things are completely covered in cat hair and dryer lint. It isn't necessarily the loveliest place to spend one's evening anymore, but I guess I don't care much.
I hadn't thought to tell my downstairs neighbors that I'm not renewing my lease, but when one of them asked me what I was going to do about the rent increase and I told her I wouldn't be renewing, she seemed surprised and then grumbled that I'm probably moving in with C. and said, "no, but that's great, really." Her partner is leaving to take a new job and set up a life in Philly for them; she has to stay behind and finish her studies. She seems sad, and I would be, too.
I am not strictly anxious tonight, nor depressed; it is a combination of the two, and it's how I've been feeling for a while.
Leaving my last home was heartbreaking but freeing. And it happened all of the sudden, so there wasn't time to dwell on it. It was just reality and had to be done. This time I'm almost two months from the date I've chosen from my move-out/in date and I find myself this weird space between sad and happy. Anticipation and mourning.
You would think that two years would be enough to get the need to be alone out of my system. I'm going to miss it. And, if things work out as planned, I'm not going to be alone again. I mean, things happen, sure. But the goal is to not be alone, even though I really like being alone. But I don't want to be alone because my relationship falls apart, like last time, I want to be alone because that's what I've chosen, but that's not what I'm choosing now.
I remember being pretty excited about moving in with B. so many years ago. It felt like a big step and felt like it would lead us to marriage, which was where I wanted to go with him back then. Now I just think about failure and how easy it is to mess everything up. I still struggle with so many of the thoughts that plagued me nearly two years ago about commitment and how it doesn't seem to work and it always becomes drudgery and then sometimes becomes toxic if you're not careful. These thoughts have changed very little.
Anyway, I hope something breaks or changes soon so that I can be happy about this whole thing instead of dreading this move.
I hadn't thought to tell my downstairs neighbors that I'm not renewing my lease, but when one of them asked me what I was going to do about the rent increase and I told her I wouldn't be renewing, she seemed surprised and then grumbled that I'm probably moving in with C. and said, "no, but that's great, really." Her partner is leaving to take a new job and set up a life in Philly for them; she has to stay behind and finish her studies. She seems sad, and I would be, too.
I am not strictly anxious tonight, nor depressed; it is a combination of the two, and it's how I've been feeling for a while.
Leaving my last home was heartbreaking but freeing. And it happened all of the sudden, so there wasn't time to dwell on it. It was just reality and had to be done. This time I'm almost two months from the date I've chosen from my move-out/in date and I find myself this weird space between sad and happy. Anticipation and mourning.
You would think that two years would be enough to get the need to be alone out of my system. I'm going to miss it. And, if things work out as planned, I'm not going to be alone again. I mean, things happen, sure. But the goal is to not be alone, even though I really like being alone. But I don't want to be alone because my relationship falls apart, like last time, I want to be alone because that's what I've chosen, but that's not what I'm choosing now.
I remember being pretty excited about moving in with B. so many years ago. It felt like a big step and felt like it would lead us to marriage, which was where I wanted to go with him back then. Now I just think about failure and how easy it is to mess everything up. I still struggle with so many of the thoughts that plagued me nearly two years ago about commitment and how it doesn't seem to work and it always becomes drudgery and then sometimes becomes toxic if you're not careful. These thoughts have changed very little.
Anyway, I hope something breaks or changes soon so that I can be happy about this whole thing instead of dreading this move.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Getting better all the time
Today I gave a presentation to the most amount of people ever in my history of giving presentations and it went ok. I feel good about it. It wasn't perfect and I don't remember all of it, but I think it went ok, which is much more positive than what I can say about previous presentations and attempts at public speaking. C. was there to witness it and he told me all day how proud he was of me for doing a good job and that he had been very nervous for me. Then he spent the rest of the day working in the empty cubicle next to mine and bought me lunch and coffee and just generally played office footsie all day.
After work we celebrated with a couple of fancy cocktails. We talked a bit more about the moving in together thing and he told me how excited he is about it. I'm excited, too. He was already planning our mornings and I said I'd like to work out in the mornings, so he was like, "while you're working out I'll do a little yoga or something and then get coffee started...." It sounds idyllic and impossible, but, then, so is he.
Sitting with someone who is excited about you and your future together is the best feeling in the world.
After work we celebrated with a couple of fancy cocktails. We talked a bit more about the moving in together thing and he told me how excited he is about it. I'm excited, too. He was already planning our mornings and I said I'd like to work out in the mornings, so he was like, "while you're working out I'll do a little yoga or something and then get coffee started...." It sounds idyllic and impossible, but, then, so is he.
Sitting with someone who is excited about you and your future together is the best feeling in the world.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Trust
My brain is simply convinced that C. is lying about this whole love thing and it will come out some way or another that he's been hiding dark secrets and I'll only find them after we move in together, and then I'll have to do the whole extrication process all over again.
I am scared, really scared, to be honest. I want to be with him for, like, ever, but I don't trust that he wants to be with me. I get like this every couple of months, real suspicious of him, and when he hugs me and tries to calm me -- knowing, by the way, that I am highly suspicious of him -- I feel like every move he makes is a lie.
When do you trust your instincts and when do you know they're giving you crap information? OF COURSE I'm hesitant about moving forward with someone after having gone through what I've gone through. But what else can this guy do to show that he's all in on this relationship? He bought a house and there hasn't been a second during this process when he wasn't keeping me involved. He bought that house for us. He has put up with some wicked mood swings since meeting me. Wicked. He said tonight, "I could never be mad at you," not long after I went on a (heartfelt, but ridiculous) tirade and called him spineless. He'll follow me pretty much anywhere, to any event, with any people. He tells me, he shows me that he loves me.
But I can't believe him.
Maybe it's just a bad day, a bad week. I'm feeling highly paranoid. Highly paranoid.
I am scared, really scared, to be honest. I want to be with him for, like, ever, but I don't trust that he wants to be with me. I get like this every couple of months, real suspicious of him, and when he hugs me and tries to calm me -- knowing, by the way, that I am highly suspicious of him -- I feel like every move he makes is a lie.
When do you trust your instincts and when do you know they're giving you crap information? OF COURSE I'm hesitant about moving forward with someone after having gone through what I've gone through. But what else can this guy do to show that he's all in on this relationship? He bought a house and there hasn't been a second during this process when he wasn't keeping me involved. He bought that house for us. He has put up with some wicked mood swings since meeting me. Wicked. He said tonight, "I could never be mad at you," not long after I went on a (heartfelt, but ridiculous) tirade and called him spineless. He'll follow me pretty much anywhere, to any event, with any people. He tells me, he shows me that he loves me.
But I can't believe him.
Maybe it's just a bad day, a bad week. I'm feeling highly paranoid. Highly paranoid.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
The long slog toward August
It hasn't been that bad yet, but summer is afoot. And you know how I feel about it.
This week I went out of town with C. to the comedy fest and now it's Sunday and it's all over and that's the last thing I had to look forward to for a while. Last night while we were eating dinner at one of my favorite places in Austin, I was depressed and said, "I need something to look forward to." He offered that we could think about a trip to his hometown of Chicago, but I was scraping the bottom of my bank account on this road trip, a plane/hotel trip is out of the question.
I am still depressed tonight. All of this year I've had things to look forward to, but it's all over and lived. And I have to give a ridiculous presentation this week to hundreds of people and I am not prepared AND WILL NOT PREPARE because no amount of preparation is going to change the fact that I don't want to do this at all. Not one ounce of me wants to do this. I hate that I have to do this. It is going to ruin my entire week because it will be all I can think about. It will be bad and I am determined to make it bad because I hate myself and my job.
See? Depressed.
Also, I'm troubled because I spent the better part of the week with C. and I'm antsy to move this whole thing forward. Whether that's simply moving in together or it's something a little more structured, I don't care. I came home to my cats and to an apartment I no longer care that much to clean and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being alone here when I have someone I love just a short drive away. But there's also that part of me that's like, "oh, stop, you know it's all gonna fall apart."
Ugh. Bad thoughts. It's just this damn presentation, I swear. And going back to work after five days away.
I have three months left on this life. What a weird thought. What do I do in these three months to make them mean something and to leave here everything I need to leave here? There's much I'd like to shed.
This week I went out of town with C. to the comedy fest and now it's Sunday and it's all over and that's the last thing I had to look forward to for a while. Last night while we were eating dinner at one of my favorite places in Austin, I was depressed and said, "I need something to look forward to." He offered that we could think about a trip to his hometown of Chicago, but I was scraping the bottom of my bank account on this road trip, a plane/hotel trip is out of the question.
I am still depressed tonight. All of this year I've had things to look forward to, but it's all over and lived. And I have to give a ridiculous presentation this week to hundreds of people and I am not prepared AND WILL NOT PREPARE because no amount of preparation is going to change the fact that I don't want to do this at all. Not one ounce of me wants to do this. I hate that I have to do this. It is going to ruin my entire week because it will be all I can think about. It will be bad and I am determined to make it bad because I hate myself and my job.
See? Depressed.
Also, I'm troubled because I spent the better part of the week with C. and I'm antsy to move this whole thing forward. Whether that's simply moving in together or it's something a little more structured, I don't care. I came home to my cats and to an apartment I no longer care that much to clean and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being alone here when I have someone I love just a short drive away. But there's also that part of me that's like, "oh, stop, you know it's all gonna fall apart."
Ugh. Bad thoughts. It's just this damn presentation, I swear. And going back to work after five days away.
I have three months left on this life. What a weird thought. What do I do in these three months to make them mean something and to leave here everything I need to leave here? There's much I'd like to shed.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
I was a person I wish I could remember better
Last night I went to my alma mater to give a presentation about myself to a student organization that is run by a kid who was my intern last summer.
I have little idea how many of you have been reading this since the day that I started blogging after being laid off, but the very idea that I was asked to speak at my alma mater by my own INTERN is insane. And flattering. And sweet.
He gave me no real direction about what to present other than "they like to hear about what people do." So I told them what I do and have done. I tried to give them the whole presentation of what I have been as a working human, the good and the bad and the silly.
I didn't talk too much about the thing that I helped create that still exists and that I hate with every fiber of my being for being nothing like what we all decided on and wanted very much for this city. They didn't care about the little that I said. They had no idea what I was talking about. Which is funny, of course, because they are the people who should have known us and this thing. No idea.
It is sad to think about.
I hate that the thing still exists in my city. When I see the logo or the name, I want to take a can of spray paint to it. It is a failure and it is, I suppose, my fault, for I was the local who was laid off over it. It was also all based on work I had done for years. And it still exists without me, but without a soul.
It's hard to explain to college students the idea of failure on this deep a level. I didn't try too hard.
I glossed over it and tried to point out that even if things go wrong, you'll find your way back. It won't be the same, I warned, but at least you won't be losing your hair, which is a thing that happened to me. It doesn't happen anymore.
I don't know if they took anything away from it. None of them followed me on Twitter after I told them my handle, so I guess that tells you something. Still, it was probably my best presentation to date. It was a little Don Draper-ish, to be honest, but who can handle Don Draper at the age of 19?
I parked in the visitor's parking garage like I've been doing the past few times I've been on campus for things, but it didn't exist when I went to school there. I think that was a parking lot that I really liked back then; I could always find an empty spot there. Across the street is the hotel school and the spot on the sidewalk where my sister fell once and it was raining and we both laughed so hard that we couldn't walk straight afterward.
But instead of being there for a job interview or a performance at the performance hall, I was there to teach in my own small way. I walked some familiar paths to get to a building that I knew by heart but hadn't ever stepped foot in. I nearly teared up at it all. Remembering the unsure person who spent five years there trying to become less unsure. I'm so grateful for that place, and seeing it again from this perspective was bittersweet. I loved every step and felt old with every step. And after, like a true commuter-school student, I took the long way in my car, the way that didn't take me straight to the freeway, but the one that took me to the same old dead-end and by the same-old pizza place THAT IS STILL OPEN and by the grand architecture building and by the TV and radio building and the same mid-century sculpture. I wondered what the 17-year-old me who first stepped foot on this campus would think of the 35-year-old me and her fancy blue car that would always tell her she was listening to The National, and, sometimes, would pause the music to let her talk to her super handsome boyfriend who loves her very much and is ridiculously wonderful.
What could she possibly think of me?
I think she'd feel empathy for everything I've been through. I'm positive she would like the car. Not sure about The National. She would definitely like the boy. She wouldn't be able to breathe in his presence.
She wouldn't get this song. But I do.
When I think of you in the city, The sight of you among the sites. I get this sudden sinking feeling, Of a man about to fly. Never kept me up before, Now I’ve been awake for days. I can’t fight it anymore, I’m going through an awkward phase. I am secretly in love with Everyone that I grew up with. Do my crying underwater, I can’t get down any farther. All my drowning friends can see, Now there is no running from it. It’s become the crux of me, I wish that I could rise above it.
But I stay down, With my demons. But I stay down, With my demons
Passing buzzards in the sky, Alligators in the sewers. I don’t even wonder why, Hide among the under views. Huddle with them all night long, The worried talk to god goes on. I sincerely tried to love it, Wish that I could rise above it.
But I stay down, With my demons. I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons. I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons
Can I stay here? I can sleep on the floor paint the blood and hang the palms, On the door. Do not think I’m going places anymore, Wanna see the sun come up above New York. Oh, everyday I start so great, Then the sunlight dips. Less I’ve learned, The more I see the pythons and the limbs. Do not know what’s wrong with me, Sours in the cup. When I walk into a room, I do not light it up. Fuck.
So I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons
I have little idea how many of you have been reading this since the day that I started blogging after being laid off, but the very idea that I was asked to speak at my alma mater by my own INTERN is insane. And flattering. And sweet.
He gave me no real direction about what to present other than "they like to hear about what people do." So I told them what I do and have done. I tried to give them the whole presentation of what I have been as a working human, the good and the bad and the silly.
I didn't talk too much about the thing that I helped create that still exists and that I hate with every fiber of my being for being nothing like what we all decided on and wanted very much for this city. They didn't care about the little that I said. They had no idea what I was talking about. Which is funny, of course, because they are the people who should have known us and this thing. No idea.
It is sad to think about.
I hate that the thing still exists in my city. When I see the logo or the name, I want to take a can of spray paint to it. It is a failure and it is, I suppose, my fault, for I was the local who was laid off over it. It was also all based on work I had done for years. And it still exists without me, but without a soul.
It's hard to explain to college students the idea of failure on this deep a level. I didn't try too hard.
I glossed over it and tried to point out that even if things go wrong, you'll find your way back. It won't be the same, I warned, but at least you won't be losing your hair, which is a thing that happened to me. It doesn't happen anymore.
I don't know if they took anything away from it. None of them followed me on Twitter after I told them my handle, so I guess that tells you something. Still, it was probably my best presentation to date. It was a little Don Draper-ish, to be honest, but who can handle Don Draper at the age of 19?
I parked in the visitor's parking garage like I've been doing the past few times I've been on campus for things, but it didn't exist when I went to school there. I think that was a parking lot that I really liked back then; I could always find an empty spot there. Across the street is the hotel school and the spot on the sidewalk where my sister fell once and it was raining and we both laughed so hard that we couldn't walk straight afterward.
But instead of being there for a job interview or a performance at the performance hall, I was there to teach in my own small way. I walked some familiar paths to get to a building that I knew by heart but hadn't ever stepped foot in. I nearly teared up at it all. Remembering the unsure person who spent five years there trying to become less unsure. I'm so grateful for that place, and seeing it again from this perspective was bittersweet. I loved every step and felt old with every step. And after, like a true commuter-school student, I took the long way in my car, the way that didn't take me straight to the freeway, but the one that took me to the same old dead-end and by the same-old pizza place THAT IS STILL OPEN and by the grand architecture building and by the TV and radio building and the same mid-century sculpture. I wondered what the 17-year-old me who first stepped foot on this campus would think of the 35-year-old me and her fancy blue car that would always tell her she was listening to The National, and, sometimes, would pause the music to let her talk to her super handsome boyfriend who loves her very much and is ridiculously wonderful.
What could she possibly think of me?
I think she'd feel empathy for everything I've been through. I'm positive she would like the car. Not sure about The National. She would definitely like the boy. She wouldn't be able to breathe in his presence.
She wouldn't get this song. But I do.
When I think of you in the city, The sight of you among the sites. I get this sudden sinking feeling, Of a man about to fly. Never kept me up before, Now I’ve been awake for days. I can’t fight it anymore, I’m going through an awkward phase. I am secretly in love with Everyone that I grew up with. Do my crying underwater, I can’t get down any farther. All my drowning friends can see, Now there is no running from it. It’s become the crux of me, I wish that I could rise above it.
But I stay down, With my demons. But I stay down, With my demons
Passing buzzards in the sky, Alligators in the sewers. I don’t even wonder why, Hide among the under views. Huddle with them all night long, The worried talk to god goes on. I sincerely tried to love it, Wish that I could rise above it.
But I stay down, With my demons. I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons. I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons
Can I stay here? I can sleep on the floor paint the blood and hang the palms, On the door. Do not think I’m going places anymore, Wanna see the sun come up above New York. Oh, everyday I start so great, Then the sunlight dips. Less I’ve learned, The more I see the pythons and the limbs. Do not know what’s wrong with me, Sours in the cup. When I walk into a room, I do not light it up. Fuck.
So I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons I stay down, With my demons
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