i feel so

damn irritated with the political people in my life. everyone besides my housemates.

you: STOP BEING SO FUCKING HOLIER THAN THOU. Who the hell gave you the right to shove your righteous fucking self in everyone's face? i'm so fucking unhappy that you are the only political and queer person i have been connected to here. i thought you would do what it took to introduce me to the political scene, but no, you only seem fucking committed to parading your damn politics. over and over again you are condescending and irritating. i wanted to be close to you, but you hold me at arm's length-- and I realize now that most of your friends also do that. I am fucking done. i don't care if you never call me again. i don't care if i never see you again.

you: i feel less vehemently angry at you. you have tried to be helpful and you are never condescending. I just wish you were less successful. That way I wouldn't feel like such a damn failure. Then again, you have been here for five years, and put in the requisite time. argh

and then

he said,
"can i be completely honest?" my stomach jumped, preparing.
"yeah." i responded. "of course."
"i was going to ask you something selfish," he said slowly, the memory of prior harsh words from me likely causing him to weigh his more carefully. i used to be very critical of him. "I was going to ask you to wait for me."
i felt confused. wait for what? while the last weekend without him had been unexpectedly difficult, but he wasn't going anywhere, was he? i became suddenly worried at the possibility. "what do you mean?" i asked.
"i wanted to be selfish. i want you to wait... i want to be the next one."
it hit me what he meant. i was startlingly pleased, and I wanted-- for my own hedonistic pleasure-- for him to spell it out, say it all. "the next one?" i played dumb.
his voice was thick, low timbered with his request. "i want to be the next person you have sex with."
ah. that's what i wanted. i melted. or to be more precise, a certain lovely part of me melted-- both conceptual and physical lovely parts. "of course," i responded. "of course. there's no one else for me right now. you will be the next."

and now

after the telling and the acknowledging i am dreaming of you but not of you--
in my heaven there is a place like that we kept together for that short period of time
and you are there but it is not the you that broke me so completely
it is the you that fit inside me forcefully frightfully
wonderfully

an open letter

to you. not so open in the end, considering that it is directed at those people in my life committed to distance and trepidation in their relationships with me... and finally to you, who is not confused at all, and who hates the distance between us.

first, I suppose, is you; you whom i loved from the beginning, whom i adored like a shining brother, with the exception that i wished to kiss you and hold you close and keep you warm in bed beside me forever. your melancholy impressed me with its depth and conviction, the artistry that flowed from it so thoughtlessly I envied. i was never so genuinely creative, and have not grown into such a person, either. i deeply craved my nights with you, after long train rides to meet your chaste embraces at beachside stations, and afternoons laughing with friends in the ardor and mania of adolescence.

those nights in your bed, our bodies matched in the blankets of flannel and desire, were what i waited for, what i imagined when I lay alone. your hands the soft parts of me, heat from you radiating, penetrating me, my love for you allowing this unspoken violation, hopinghopinghoping that in the morning your attention towards me would have changed, that our public embraces at beachside stations would become less chaste in the context of a shared love...

but years passed and your gaze never shifted. more beautiful women warranted your attentions, my friends in fact, but you never saw me as you saw them. in our young adulthood you found shame in the way you treated me and apologized, yet my adoring attention still allowed you to exploit my desire for your love. you were the beginning of all this, the start of my obsession with the unrequited.

much later you came along. strong jawed and cynical, your figure solid against the wood of the bar, your smile easy and winning; you stood strong at the center of your community, amongst others transcending categories so easily applied. you were powerful, in both personal and actual ways; established, political, respected.

one evening on the wharf with our mutual friends we sat around a table, impressing each other carefully with language and analysis and eye contact, i felt you keenly next to me, watching me. we spoke of our families, shared characteristics between us; politics and friends, and sometimes of sports (which i spurned for its violence yet you loved for its competition). we left the restaurant and you grabbed me, kissed me, held me close to your chest tight with its bindings, your hands firmly on my back is a feeling i will never forget. i ran, you chased me, we insisted on each other.

after two weeks i had ended all other dating endeavors and fallen deep into the well of you. we spent hours and hours in my bedroom on the hill, our harsh and fervent fucking making paper of the rest of the world, easily crumpled and thrown into the corner. i was warm and safe in your embrace, and there i forgot about time, i forgot about my friends, i forgot about work and writing and activism, all i knew was you. i fell in love with you in a way i had never loved before. you, however, did not love me; or perhaps you were not willing to love me.

when you left me it was as if my clothes were taken and burnt, i was left naked and shocked in the scathing truth of your absence. it was not real, it felt as if there was no way it was true, that it was impossible for reality to shift so radically, so decidedly, so quickly. your power and presence in the community made me avoid it, i shunned myself in order to avoid you and the pain the sight of you would bring. I studied the marks you left and quietly decided to never love a woman in the same way again.

now, we come to you. it seemed casual to me, at first, your interest in me both odd and obvious in its strategy, your intoxicated escapades of rhetoric compelling, boring and predicable all at once. it was as if you were both trying to impress me and ignore me in the same interaction, and in this it was as if i had returned to a high school context-- where the boys try to pretend that they have no feelings, and that their affections don't exist, and instead go to extended lengths to disguise their attraction with disinterest, if not outright disdain. funny that your mantra, in the beginning, was "we're all adults here." it contradicted the other statement, which was "i don't want anyone to know," which thrust us-- me, unwilling-- back into that place of adolescent dramatics.

for all that awkward fits-and-starts of ours, however, i began to have feelings for you i didn't expect. in those afternoons on top of covers in both of our rooms, quietly endorsing each other with wrapped arms and covert kisses, marked with extended forays into discussions both deeply personal and deeply political both at once and distinct, amidst statements both careful and rash about our possible future together, our connection became clear to me, at least. you pulled back, after a time, afraid and preoccupied, and still i am compelled toward you and confused by your confusion. i know you want me-- you say it, occasionally, for me to hear and remember, perhaps to make sure i still care, they are easy comments requiring no real commitment on your part-- and that you do not know how to move toward me. in that i cannot remove you from my thoughts, and you plague me. i know you think about me, contemplate our connection, and it infuriates me that you cannot acknowledge it.

here and now there is yet another person, this one carrying a theme of my life with him as he steps through my existence with intention and objective: me, my love and his intertwined, our lives together. he is striving to be my love for the rest of our lives, and presents himself completely; there is no hiding, no trepidation, the complete person, obfuscated only by his own pain and history-- like the rest of us.

well

here i am. weeks later.

i don't really know what i'm doing. I kind-of do, i suppose, but i am less committed to actually being deeply committed to knowing.

i do know that i need to make more money.

i do know that i have to buy a new dress for zack's premiere
and that his movie is ridiculously racist and sexist
and my face will be seen there and it makes me feel crazycrazy

aaarrrgggh

i do know that i'm not going to invest in halfassed, judgemental relationships anymore
and that i'm done being worried about that shit
essentially, i'm done being worried about YOU and YOU

this weekend

i spent most of my time on date-like excursions. it was fun and interesting, also difficult in some ways; i found myself noticing that I was hiding a little in these interactions. i wasn't hiding myself while in them, but from myself in the enacting of them; instead of doing my laundry, budgets and bills, I spent time being romantic with folks in my life. No sex, just connecting; without alcohol I spend much more time thinking about people rather than my lust.

The most consuming interaction of the last three days, however, was definitely my evening with Jon. (my love, my heart) We met in in the Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building and as he strode toward me I felt my heart lean toward explosion like i couldn't hold it in my chest any longer the way he holds his lower lip between his teeth when he's nervous and swings his arm at his side looking at me out from under his heavy lashes i had forgotten these details and it drove me a little insane

we picked a spot at on the water near some statues that attracted picture taking tourists like flies to honey and we talked about why and how we had come to this predicament, after so many years of dancing around each other and trying to figure it out, after finally being able to be together had i left so unceremoniously, the reasoning, whether there was someone else (there was not), talking crying being there next to each other

when i looked at him it was like i needed to drink him in again, say prayers to the place we had shared, remember that night in the candlelight where i had promised myself to never forget the sanctity of our connection, a promise i so conveniently forgot

what has occurred to me recently is that my alcoholism deserves a large part of the blame. once again sabotaging a close, loving, stable, supportive relationship for alcohol and its social trappings (read: slutty dating and other such rique encounters).

the rest of our evening was more than pleasant, it was comfortable and joyful and really about us. i practiced humility, he practiced asserting himself, we rode the bus and ate sushi and sat at my house with my housemates talking politics of liberation, listening to the coup and all i could think was

this is the life i have been striving for

and this is a person i could choose to love for the rest of my life

yeah

ok. see the following posts to get an idea of what i'm feeling right now:
http://lovelyone.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-cant-handle.html
http://lovelyone.blogspot.com/2006/01/sigh.html

Clearly, I have had a problem the whole time. No one likes a stupid, dramatic drunk. It's time for a real decision, no more talk, no more bullshit.

I really don't want to lose E. I hope that he can forgive me someday. I don't need it to be today, just soon in our lives.

jesus

jon sometimes i miss you so much it feels like i am going to fall apart

yesterday

certain situations revealed my class roots like a bad dye job.

first, i was probably too ebullient at the fundraiser; second, I was probably overdressed for the fundraiser (i LOVE my flashy heels, betch!); third, i suggested that our staff go to a chain restaurant in Florida while we are working on the Amex project (I was rebuked by my ED). Argh. I am feeling a bit sheepish today, for a million reasons, not just those above.

It wasn't until my portland friends arrived that I realized how much of a struggle this transition has been. In particular, this job has infused a sense of an essential fight for survival (read: recognition & respect) into my life that I do not enjoy. I spent some time last night speaking-- a bit intensely, I think-- about how the city requires your attention to basic inequality and that to expect things to come easy here is a self-delusion. I surprised at my vehemence, and was pleased again to have revealed another aspect of my life to look at.

No, I'm not being sarcastic. Self examination is key in personal liberation, right?

i was just struck

by the memory of a scent
the deep lingering loam of a rainy place
dark in the night damp from a day of rain

me safe in that cloying texture of air

sometimes

vulnerability makes me feel sick to my stomach.

i vascillate

between wanting to everything i can to end this fucking depression and wanting to just wallow in it completely, go there with everything i have and see what happens. i have been slowly descending in fits and starts, propelled by a growing understanding of the inevitable and a disaffection with the present

my co-counseling side says LOVE YOUR SELF HATE!!! LOOK AT IT!!! GIVE IT A BIG FUCKING HUG!! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!! then the practical, wide-world side says --you can't function like this, you can't be a full woman like this, you can't be loved like this, you have to get better before you go to a place you can never get back from, a fat-ugly-hopeless place where you are utterly alone, stupid and self-indulgent.--

well, that's fun, right? i keep thinking i've found the answer, and keep coming back to the same damn feelings. greant.

also

my mother criticized the list i created regarding a partner.

in the spirit of being more grounded and practical, I am looking for a relationship wherein we can:

- live together and create a home that we both enjoy; a place where we both feel comfortable and taken care of, a place where our friends feel welcome, where we can challenge each other in a healthy way
- get in the car/on our bikes and go places together
- laugh at each other's foibles and flaws
- occasionally have a knockdowndragout fight and have great makeup sex/cuddling/mutual affirmation
- get drunk and laugh at each other
- make food for each other, collaborate on whats going to taste the best and how it should be presented, experiment
- go shopping together
- talk about our days when they are done
- read together in bed before we go to sleep and discuss our books
- sleep in the same bed at night, hold each other
- wake up together and have coffee/tea/breakfast, see each other off
- fantasize about our future, our children, our community.

i think that's it.

ok so

in order to be present here today i have to move some things within me-- process a little-- get clearer.

send me your position
getting lonely down here

this is the time in my life that i can use, i can really mine for the artinpain that i have been craving for so long, the reason that i left portland, i'm looking for that struggle that will force me to create art to write to be poetic with my life to see the beauty in the difficulty

i have to end some things and start some things very soon, today in fact. it's time to start believing again, being the fully powerful person that i have grown to be, to exercise my willpower-- i want to reign in my desires run rampant, they are causing suffering i can't manage right now. Can I do the things that truly ground me on a daily basis? I have been looking for satisfaction in pursuing base impulses and finding only fleeting fulfillment. Sex, food, drink, television-- I have always known that I would not find what i needed in those things.

i have to get used

to not being 22 anymore. here i am, five years later, not dating very much, not putting myself out there very much, sitting at home on a saturday night watching ghostbusters. i am eventually going to do my hair. it's going to look good, too, damnit, before pride.

so what does it mean? what does this all mean? I have some sense of failure here-- like I am not living up to my full capacity as a 20something. then again, i need to calm the fuck down and have a good time. i'm not getting any younger...

i am gonna

make it
through this year
if it kills me

what an intense day. i made all these powerful decisions and it all crashed down around me this morning, my carefully constructed castle of self-protection crumbling sadly at my feet. Today I was the subject of a meeting, and no one told me what happened in it. The director of the SF office engaged in her usual subtle undercutting-- walked into the office and barely acknowledged me, sent emails to the staff and ED that suggested we do things that I was clearly unprepared for, talked about me loud enough for me to hear in front of other staff.

Meanwhile, i looked up abuse in the workplace-- and found definitions of "workplace bully" and psychological abuse in the workplace. I am being bullied, and there are no laws to protect me. http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/bbstudies/youknowwhen.html

this realization that i am being abused hit hard. it's kinda like when i realized that what had happened to me was rape. the new understanding that what is going on is ABUSE incurs its own trauma.

it all went downhill from when david and i got in a little spat in the morning and he asked me what was really going on-- NOTHING! i said, lying and knowing it-- and i broke down crying. It all seems like too much, everything these people do, and my tolerance level for being constantly underestimated, undercut and unacknowledged is nonexistent.

The question is: can I use this anger, sadness and depression towards positive ends? Today I have written more than I have any other day in recent history-- wonderful. More blog entries than ever in an attempt to blow off this steam, figure out my struggle. For the first time in my life I am distinctly not enjoying my depression-- i'm unsure why. it seems particularly difficult.

my coworker jamie

told me to never try to go to bed after 11pm. I remember her caution but pay little attention.

i had a great session today. really, all sessions are great right now. my mind was occupied with a few overarching themes: hopelessness, loneliness, fear. The last week or so I have been blessed with a change of direction in these thought patterns; I made a decision that work will not depress me, that it has no control over me, and that I do not want to be in a relationship right now. Dating, sure, relationship, no. There is too much desperation there for me. I do not want to be in a relationship because it is the "least awful alternative," I want to choose a person as a primary partner who embodies characteristics I value and lives a life I admire while encouraging me to live the fullest life possible. (Just to be fair, Laura and David do this for me. Lucky me.)

I suppose it is a worthwhile effort to list what I think these characteristics might be. My next long term, primary relationship will be with a person who is:
- Deeply compassionate and forgiving of self and others
- Political and committed to building the movement
- Committed to self reflection and in turn, radical self transformation on a regular basis
- Absolutely adoring of me and supportive
- Able to see where I struggle and offer help
- Able to notice when they are struggling and ask for help
- Generally knowledgable of their material and patterns, able to acknowledge those things to me
- Engaged in a self help process
- Engaged in community that is intergenerational, multicultural, multiclassed, multigendered
- Living in the Bay Area
- Self-sufficient, emotionally and financially
- Socially adept
- Surrounded by supportive friends and family
- Terrifically crass and inappropriate in the most fun ways
- Adventurous, physical
- Sexy and adventurous in the bedroom-- ostensibly a top
- Bike rider
- Book lover, intellectual

I have to say that politically and personally i do not believe that I am alone, persay; these structures of disconnection are strictly products of a society divided by oppression and capitalism. It makes sense, then, that in this first post-college phase wherein I have re-entered capitalism-- like sudden cold-water immersion-- i would be shocked and pissed at what I found here. And that I would seek a person to contradict my sense of abandonment and isolation.

I do not want to move forward with dating in a state of desperation. Instead, I am looking closely at my life and where I can decide to be more fulfilled and self-actualized.

Have I mentioned that I love my bike? I should have, because I do. :)

there are a few

things that need to be written about. I will put them under separate headings to represent them distinctly.

on mondays its

depression, on fridays its elation... is this the way of the working world?

the great thing about today is that I am feeling much more excited about building community and putting myself out there. Unfortunately, I have not been laying the groundwork for success in that area... and of all people, I know that it takes consistent attention to build a solid community of folks that will come out and play and support you when you need it.

Let's see if I can pull it out tonight. Good thing I am also good at not beating myself up if things don't go exactly my way.

all my love...

i think

i may have to start a different blog for my political material... because i actually want people to read it.

regardless.

a working class rant:
today as i walked to my high rise office building in the embarcadero district of san francisco, surrounded by the bay itself, views of oakland and the bay bridge, expensive places to buy food and fancy florists I passed charles schwab windows emblazoned with the clever slogans of their campaigns focused on getting everyday folks to invest their money in something with charles schwab

one of these slogans reads "planning for your retirement? or hoping to?"

everytime I see that fucking slogan i think about my father. yes, he was downwardly mobile; yes, he is self-employed; yes, he hates bosses and taxes and you, if you cut in line. my daddy was hoping to plan for his retirement, but that's not how things went. instead, a series of events determined our descent from the working class to the poor, where desperation became a member of the family.

it started when a roof he repaired in palm springs leaked when it rained, of all the ironic things, and they sued the pants off of him; his truck full of tools was stolen; an economic crash leveled the real estate economy, which made work extremely difficult to find for a self-employed residential remodeler. Daddy has always, on top of these new circumstances, systematically and unabashedly undervalued his carpentry. We lost our house and almost everything we owned and moved in with his new girlfriend and my to-be forever stepmother, Alyce. Now he owns nothing, has nothing, lives from job to job, check to check.

He is 60 now. After 40+ years of heavy manual labor, not to mention a few good bone-breaking and back-snapping beatings over the course of his exciting life, his body feels every movement and shift. still and yet he shoulders rolls of tar papers and stepladders up to second and third story roofs through creaky hips and achy knees.

daddy, why don't you hire some folks and just be the head contractor guy? you're too skilled and too old to be doing this shit anymore.

i don't want to stop working. i love working, audrey. working defines me as a man, its my art. i can't imagine my life without work. i'm gonna work until i die. that's what i want to do. you're gonna have to get used to that. anyway, i can't trust anyone to produce the quality of work that i do for my clients.

but daddy, you're just going to die sooner if you do that. and that's not fair to me or zack or jay.

it's my life. i will do with it what i want. if i don't want to live without working then you should respect that. anyway, what would i do for money?

zack and jay and i would figure that out, papa. just because it's hard to think about not working doesn't mean you should do it til you die, for fuck's sake.

i don't know, babe.

Subtext: I don't have any money, i'm afraid to be a burden on my kids, and i have no idea what i would do with my time if i didn't work so hard everyday that I was exhausted.

What would you do, charles schwab? are you gonna take money that doesn't exist because of the machinations of a manipulated economy and destructive patriarchy and invest it in a market that systematically exploits people like my father? no. you'll just make it seem like its accessible, promote the possibility... and bring up feelings of resentment each day as I walk to work.