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she cried before she got out of bed.
mostly out of ego ("god, I have to show up to another family event alone - the only one alone"), but lots of it was the same old fucking thing: "why does no one love me back".
She would take anything at this point - cheap sentiments - one on a roster - good time geisha, but the kicker is not just with anyone - it would have to be a brilliant elusive cool boy.
fuck.
and those were all taken
or more damaged than even her.
and then there was always the getting into other things - broadening the ole portfolio - getting into yoga, "I'm really tired of men and am just concentrating on my body now."
but that ship had sailed.
she adored the soft warm skin of her body except when she got to the neck. was sun really such an ager. the arms too. must be.
and he had always put sunscreen on, and she loved his pink freckled skin.
but it hadn't worked.
she couldn't understand why she couldn't get over it. Maybe because she didn't do the "best way to get over a man is under a new one." she could blame herself a million times over. she hated the drinking. she drank so much to try to be someone else: someone cool, someone who didn't care very much, someone wanted.
it makes her tear up even now. maybe she was just hormonal. it was fucking bizarre that she still got her monthly blood. and of course it was annoying. she didn't care about sentences right now. she only cared about getting through the paragraph.
her new idea was to stop fighting it.
make NMD into the fucking great white mobius dick - fuck it. stop trying to open herself to anything knew (sic) and just give up. become some masturbater with a great body no one will ever touch until the fifth year when she gets drunk and lonely and allows the nearest nice guy to not be nice and sells herself for some human touch.
or maybe she'd just get massages and therapy on the table.
or both.
it didn't bode well. it wasn't what she wanted.
she wanted the right combination of safety, drugs, magic to be able to
go back in time
and tell him, "I'm losing you. why did you say 'it's not my fault!' when I noted that I like you more than you like me. Are you just going through the non-wave-making motions until something better tempts your eyes."
and he would have deflected the question, and she would have allowed it. and she would have written thousands of words in the model trying to figure it out - scaffolding for her psyche.
the air smelled nice. the cat she thought was the most beautiful was sauntering up to the front porch - pointedly ignoring her. She called her Richard because it reminded her of the doll from the inspector Jury mysteries. it didn't matter.
no one was ever going to sit next to her on a sofa bored out of their gourd but killing time until the next day at the office - knowing that neither of them were going anywhere. No one was ever going to say "we're not sure" anymore. no one was going to include her in a 'we'. oui. wee. wee. pee. digress and deflect.
the drinking was all over her writing.
she wanted him to be drunk. he stopped. she got drunk because she was terrified. she was terrified to feel hope - terrified to be scared it could go away - terrified that she wasn't enough - terrified that she was too much - terrified that he would drive out of her broken driveway and never return.
that's what had happened. she needed to deal with it.
how?
it seemed lame to go to bed at 7pm then asleep by 8 and wake up by purring cats at 4:50am then feed and brush and coffee and protein shake then work then murder true crime then repeat. it had been nice in wilmington to realize she was capable of staying up until the wee hours if she was stimulated. the hotel had been a peace nest. she was glad she had done it even if the clawfoot tub felt too plastic and not porcelain enough.
and maybe these words - all thousands of entries - windows into her life - her attempt at talking and storytelling. maybe she was completely delusional that someone would be able to go "wow. you're something." maybe it wouldn't make up for bill telling her she was something - something useful to orgasm to. maybe it would.
she said yesterday - to no one of course - to the robot "maybe I like just having raw talent. maybe I don't need to edit anything and get in the Paris review. maybe it was a stupid dream and maybe I can just rest on 'if I had tried, I would have been brilliantly acknowledged as a great writer."
of course it was sad, but maybe it was better than hoping.
hoping is what hurt the most.
the avoidants had it so good - just don't feel - just keep busy.
drink suppress
it had been nice to be in wilmington. she really loved the people that she loved there. she thought that they loved her. it was beautiful. at Karen's party, she had made a buzzkill mistake of the people she hadn't seen in ages - at saying 'I want to apologize for being such a cunt in my youth..." those people hadn't really cared. she felt stupid and trapped saying it.
"live in the moment my bitch."
"yes, but ..."
the moments were ghosts. the conversation was always 'so what did you figure out.'
she wanted to dance and be merry and feel confident.
she usually used men to give her that "I must be someone because the best man I know is mine."
it was hard.
she remembered Franny saying it, "I wish I had the courage to be a complete nobody".
well, ready or not...
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