Neil Gunn suggested, in The Atom of Delight, that a by-product of analysis is the object's destruction, but I would offer up this journal as evidence to the contrary. My depression, neurosis, and self-loathing have all been impervious to my intellectual firepower. Perhaps it's a deficiency of my armory and/ordinance. Regardless, I'm inclined to believe Neil Gunn when I have an out-of-character experience, though my reason for doing so is predicated more on superstition than empirical reality; that is, I don't want to jinx it: It came out of nowhere, as for as I know, and it might as soon go back there if I don't let it be and settle in.
Monday morning I overslept the alarm by an hour. Not a big deal--I just opted out of packing lunch and making coffee. I could get a sandwich at the cafe, and I had a stash of mate in my desk at work. I settled all that within ten seconds of cussing at the clock.
At work I had back-to-back mugs of mate, but I was still grumpy, though it wasn't entirely because of by the lack of sleep--at least not directly. I was feeling bitter still from Sunday night's ruminations. My pride was taking a beating from the upper hand I had projected into Julie's possession.
Julie was backup the hour I was processing holds. I needed to cut some paper to wrap them with. The cutter is on the counter behind the discharge station, where Julie sat. I was especially forceful in bringing down the blade, though I only cut a few sheets at a time in order to prolong the activity and raise the annoyance factor. The sound of the blade slicing through the paper then banging to a stop is nearly as violent as the action itself, amplified as it is by the elevated soundboard of the hollow underbelly of the cutting surface. I knew I'd get a remark.
"Are you making sure the paper's cut?" said Julie.
"I'm pretending my neck is under there," I said.
There was no reply.
Finished, I sat down to the holds, at Angie's desk, in front of Julie's. Julie came back for a sip of her Earl Grey. On her return trip she asked, smiling, "Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"
"I did that all weekend."
Again, no reply.
"And most of last week," I wanted to add, but that would have been a bit thick.
At lunch I twice attempted conversation with Julie and was each time met with little more than a grunt of discomfiture. That I did not feel rebuffed or embarrassed was an oddity that I did not till this very moment consider as such. It hadn't quite rolled off my back then, but little did I take it personally, either.
For trhe rest of the day I was civil and human as I may ever have been at work, especially in the past year. I offered conversation unbidden, quipped eloquently, and was even nice to Mary Lou, the co-worker with whom I have always had the least tolerance. And I gave it little to no thought.
Today was little different, maybe, even, more of the same. My only contact with Julie was when she entered the break room upon her arrival to put her lunch in the fridge. I said, "Hi, Julie." I didn't try to smile--or not to--so I probably didn't. She muttered, "Hey," with a vaguely questioning look, as if seeking motive. An hour in the workroom together barely raised my temperature, and though I had to apply conscious effort not to look at her at every chance, the effort was all but off-handed.
With as little effort, but unconsciously, I nearly came upon the reason for this recent change in behavior, but as I saw it rising to consciousness I popped it like a bubble. If the analysis is destructive I will destroy first the analysis. I'm not knocking on wood or throwing spilled salt over my shoulder. I'm leaving well enough alone.
Monday
Will It Stay or Will It Go, Now? (5/15/09 Friday)
Thursday morning, before work, I was experiencing some of my usual issues of easy frustration, and I began to worry that the new me was fading away before I had had a chance to fill the role properly. I rode in with Stacey that afternoon and told her about the semi-transformation, describing it as my editor being asleep, adding, "He can die for all I care." I was nervous when we got to work. I haven't had a full day with Julie since I noticed the change, and I was afraid that what I'd told Stacey on the way in had violated my no-jinx policy. Plus, as comparatively jovial as I've been, I still have been reticent around Julie.
I didn't see Julie the first half-hour, and when I did I avoided eye-contact, though she didn't look my way, anyway. The next hour I was on holds and got up from my desk to move to Mary Lou's behind mine (which doesn't have a barcode scanner). Julie was approaching from her desk as I stepped into the lane. Immediately she saw me she staggered, startled, and squeezed her back against a sorting cart. We were at least seven feet apart. I pulled my chin to my chest, shook my head, and squinted at her quizzically. Then I laughed at her and sat down in Mary Lou's chair. Julie may have laughed, but I didn't hear it, and she didn't say anything.
As I processed holds I came back into form, chiding Mary Lou about one thing or another. She's an easy target, but she takes a joke in the proper spirit. I was a bit of a smartass when she asked me if I liked what I was listening to (Franz Ferdinand), and I replied, "No, I hate it. That's why I'm listening to it." It got a rise out of Bethany and Angie, but I immediately apologized to Mary Lou, who accepted it as "no big deal."
At dinner break I sat at my usual spot--the far table, back to the wall--from which I can see out the window on my left and the entire breakroom in front of me and to my right. I was alone when Julie entered and approached the first table. I looked up as she entered and stared into her eyes as she closed in.
"Hello!" she said loudly.
My mouth was full of sandwich, and I nearly emptied it with my laughter. I somehow swallowed and returned her greeting, at a normal volume, but with a chuckle. We did not talk.
On the desk the last hour with Mike, I told him that my feelings for Julie were "fading." Saying it aloud saddened me. It was an admittance I didn't know I was reluctanct to make until I spoke it, and when I said it I wasn't even sure it was true. There was--and still is--some denial at work: I feel I should believe my feelings are fading, but are they? Am I snatching at them as they turn to cloud and float away? Julie's picture is on my fender. I turn it over when I get to work. I've considered taking it off, though I don't want to. No, I won't. I want to look at that radiant face as I climb out of the saddle on the hills. It always makes me smile. If the love deserts me, I hope I still have that.
I didn't see Julie the first half-hour, and when I did I avoided eye-contact, though she didn't look my way, anyway. The next hour I was on holds and got up from my desk to move to Mary Lou's behind mine (which doesn't have a barcode scanner). Julie was approaching from her desk as I stepped into the lane. Immediately she saw me she staggered, startled, and squeezed her back against a sorting cart. We were at least seven feet apart. I pulled my chin to my chest, shook my head, and squinted at her quizzically. Then I laughed at her and sat down in Mary Lou's chair. Julie may have laughed, but I didn't hear it, and she didn't say anything.
As I processed holds I came back into form, chiding Mary Lou about one thing or another. She's an easy target, but she takes a joke in the proper spirit. I was a bit of a smartass when she asked me if I liked what I was listening to (Franz Ferdinand), and I replied, "No, I hate it. That's why I'm listening to it." It got a rise out of Bethany and Angie, but I immediately apologized to Mary Lou, who accepted it as "no big deal."
At dinner break I sat at my usual spot--the far table, back to the wall--from which I can see out the window on my left and the entire breakroom in front of me and to my right. I was alone when Julie entered and approached the first table. I looked up as she entered and stared into her eyes as she closed in.
"Hello!" she said loudly.
My mouth was full of sandwich, and I nearly emptied it with my laughter. I somehow swallowed and returned her greeting, at a normal volume, but with a chuckle. We did not talk.
On the desk the last hour with Mike, I told him that my feelings for Julie were "fading." Saying it aloud saddened me. It was an admittance I didn't know I was reluctanct to make until I spoke it, and when I said it I wasn't even sure it was true. There was--and still is--some denial at work: I feel I should believe my feelings are fading, but are they? Am I snatching at them as they turn to cloud and float away? Julie's picture is on my fender. I turn it over when I get to work. I've considered taking it off, though I don't want to. No, I won't. I want to look at that radiant face as I climb out of the saddle on the hills. It always makes me smile. If the love deserts me, I hope I still have that.
Sunday
She Noes (5/17/09 Sunday)*
That desk hour with Julie a couple weeks ago was just a wishful misperception--I read the schedule wrong--but I did get one Saturday. I thought of joking about it with her--something like, "I thought we were being separated," but I doubt Julie would have been comfortable with it. It was awkward enough out there. It would have helped to have "she knows" written on my hand again, but I remembered occasionally that hour and felt better for it. Still, I was uncomfortable. Nothing could make me initiate conversation with her; essentially, I just wasn't interested. Anything I could think to say to her would have been in my own interest. I just can't pretend to care about the things she's willing to divulge, because she's willing to divulge them to anyone. I've been beyond halfway with her, and she never did cover the rest of the distance. I'm tired of the long walk back to square one. It was quiet hour but for "she knows," and that's not yet quite enough for me.
*Anna Liffen said...
...enough to put you off? Somehow you fell off my blog list when I changed the theme, but now you're back again and the world is how it should be.
*Anna Liffen said...
...enough to put you off? Somehow you fell off my blog list when I changed the theme, but now you're back again and the world is how it should be.
:o)Anna
Dion Burn said...
I hesitate to tell you not to do that again, because I was so happy while the world was how it shouldn't be! This world is too much for me.
I hesitate to tell you not to do that again, because I was so happy while the world was how it shouldn't be! This world is too much for me.
Saturday
If the Horse Would Just Stay Dead, I Might Understand the Futility (5/19/09 Tuesday)*
Several days before I resumed writing, while Julie was on vacation, Judy sat me down, concerned about my mood. I spilled my guts about Julie, grateful to have someone show some concern. Turns out Judy has been a fan of the blog since shortly after I introduced it and has read it through twice. She was glad to have been on vacation the week the blog hit Julie's fan. Anyway, I told Judy about the cold-shoulder wars going on and how I intended to force a confab with Julie about it. (It was not my imagination, apparently, that created the tension in the workplace during the war; Judy felt it, as well, and there was no way we were the only ones, especially given the workplace readership of the blog--as if my demeanor weren't clue enough to the disharmony.) Judy asked me how I would go about it, and I told her virtually the same thing I said to Julie the next week, only when I said, "'It hurts'," I was close to tears. Judy wanted to know if I thought it would be better if Julie and I were no longer scheduled together on the desk, and I swiftly and emphatically answered, "No!"
Clumsy exordium aside, I just wanted to say Tammy may finally have gotten the message, because I had another hour with Julie yesterday. Our entire conversation was, Julie: "Is the hold date the twenty-second?" and, me: "Yes." It was easier to tolerate than Saturday's hour, but no more satisfying, though what I even wanted I have no idea. I worked a little on Straight Read, adding another retrospective comment or two, didn't care if she saw it.
Julie's still giving me these exaggerated wide berths. The first one was amusing, but I've regarded each subsequent avoidance with increasing annoyance, though I've not allowed it to manifest in expression. I don't know what she's about with that, but for my part, I'm not playing. When she is not aware of my approach, I pass her as closely as I can. I don't know what it means to her to know how I feel about her, but she doesn't seem to be living with it as well as I am. That's not to say I've adjusted all that well. I may always be envious of anyone with whom she chats, and I'm still quite conscious of her presence in any shared space, no matter the size. I still want to impress her. But I do not spend every moment there thinking about her. I'm relieved when there are others around to talk to, and I'm talking a lot more with everyone but Julie. I'm not avoiding conversation with her, but what is there to say that doesn't seem shallow compared to what I've said and would rather say? And what would she care to hear it? Perhaps no more than I'd care to say it.
As I was returning with an empty DVD cart, Scotia motioned me to the circ desk behind which she sat. "Is this Bright, Ironic Hell your blog?" "Yes." Far from concerned, I was defiantly amused. "Dude," she said, "you might want to clear the history all the way," and she swept a hand across the counter as if knocking over chess pieces. I said, "I don't care. It's not news. Everybody knows about it." "I didn't know about till now." I just shrugged. "I really don't care about." I left it at that, though I would like to have asked her how much she read and what she thought of it, but that would only have been a salve to my vanity.
I'm nagged by the feeling that I may be trying to provoke something again. I have to keep a check on the feigned insouciance; it could talk me into some stupid things if I let it have its way. I will always maintain that the blog is about me and I have a right to recount my interactions with others. How far can I take that right? How much is mine? Julie wanted our conversation to be "outside of work," but how much less so has it become since I posted it on the internet, knowing there are readers at work? I have no intention of embarrassing her--she knows that--but is this some form of "unwanted attention"? Julie sat at that desk today before Scotia. Did she look at the blog? But to think about that is to want her to have, and to want that is to want a reaciotn. Am I not over even that petty hope?
*Expat From Hell said...
Dearest Dion: This blog is entirely about you. It only has to do with Julie in terms of how YOU perceive her. That's why we follow, that's why we are interested, that's why we support you. Julie is the object of your affection, and we are in awe over what it has brought out in you. Keep it up, my friend, keep it up.
Clumsy exordium aside, I just wanted to say Tammy may finally have gotten the message, because I had another hour with Julie yesterday. Our entire conversation was, Julie: "Is the hold date the twenty-second?" and, me: "Yes." It was easier to tolerate than Saturday's hour, but no more satisfying, though what I even wanted I have no idea. I worked a little on Straight Read, adding another retrospective comment or two, didn't care if she saw it.
Julie's still giving me these exaggerated wide berths. The first one was amusing, but I've regarded each subsequent avoidance with increasing annoyance, though I've not allowed it to manifest in expression. I don't know what she's about with that, but for my part, I'm not playing. When she is not aware of my approach, I pass her as closely as I can. I don't know what it means to her to know how I feel about her, but she doesn't seem to be living with it as well as I am. That's not to say I've adjusted all that well. I may always be envious of anyone with whom she chats, and I'm still quite conscious of her presence in any shared space, no matter the size. I still want to impress her. But I do not spend every moment there thinking about her. I'm relieved when there are others around to talk to, and I'm talking a lot more with everyone but Julie. I'm not avoiding conversation with her, but what is there to say that doesn't seem shallow compared to what I've said and would rather say? And what would she care to hear it? Perhaps no more than I'd care to say it.
As I was returning with an empty DVD cart, Scotia motioned me to the circ desk behind which she sat. "Is this Bright, Ironic Hell your blog?" "Yes." Far from concerned, I was defiantly amused. "Dude," she said, "you might want to clear the history all the way," and she swept a hand across the counter as if knocking over chess pieces. I said, "I don't care. It's not news. Everybody knows about it." "I didn't know about till now." I just shrugged. "I really don't care about." I left it at that, though I would like to have asked her how much she read and what she thought of it, but that would only have been a salve to my vanity.
I'm nagged by the feeling that I may be trying to provoke something again. I have to keep a check on the feigned insouciance; it could talk me into some stupid things if I let it have its way. I will always maintain that the blog is about me and I have a right to recount my interactions with others. How far can I take that right? How much is mine? Julie wanted our conversation to be "outside of work," but how much less so has it become since I posted it on the internet, knowing there are readers at work? I have no intention of embarrassing her--she knows that--but is this some form of "unwanted attention"? Julie sat at that desk today before Scotia. Did she look at the blog? But to think about that is to want her to have, and to want that is to want a reaciotn. Am I not over even that petty hope?
*Expat From Hell said...
Dearest Dion: This blog is entirely about you. It only has to do with Julie in terms of how YOU perceive her. That's why we follow, that's why we are interested, that's why we support you. Julie is the object of your affection, and we are in awe over what it has brought out in you. Keep it up, my friend, keep it up.
ExpatFromHell
Dion Burn said...
I understand my rights, yet I feel that I may be flouting them in the face of ethics. I have no choice, and every right, to write of how I feel; but does the forum in which I express them cross someone else's boundaries of what is right and decent? And, if so, which of us has the greater right of protection?
I understand my rights, yet I feel that I may be flouting them in the face of ethics. I have no choice, and every right, to write of how I feel; but does the forum in which I express them cross someone else's boundaries of what is right and decent? And, if so, which of us has the greater right of protection?
Expat From Hell said...
The forum is YOURS. You made this, and it has no intention (unless I missed something) of being objective. This is entirely subjective. And your subjectivity is why your writing is attractive. Keep up the good work.
The forum is YOURS. You made this, and it has no intention (unless I missed something) of being objective. This is entirely subjective. And your subjectivity is why your writing is attractive. Keep up the good work.
EFH
Friday
The Pride of Frankenstein (5/21/09 Thursday)
I wonder: Is it really up to me? It may be my pride asking that question, but I really want to know. Did I, solely, precipitate the disintegration of the old working relationship with Julie? Then I think of the picture on my fender (the first time), and I wonder how I could ask these questions. Yes, I guess it is just my pride, wanting off the hook. Whenever I think of "It's all up to you," my blood surges, and I'm angry to have so readily agreed with Julie. She makes me weak--weaker--as if there were still some hope of changing her feelings, and I just have to be nice and agreeable--a doormat--to effect the change. Now my pride is slapping me around for it, demanding redemption. What it really wants is help. I'm just not progressing with Julie, and, frankly, I'm not sure what constitutes progress relative to her. What am I moving toward? Certainly not what I want. What do I want that I don't already know is impossible to get? I'm getting along better with everyone at work, except Julie. We exchanged one greeting this week, maybe two last week. How is this better? Will I always want more? And "more" right now is just conversation, a gentle gibe, even. Not much has improved. Here it is, exactly a year since Julie inspired me to start writing again (it seems like ten), and where am I? Have I gone full circle? or have I just not gotten anywhere at all? What's the difference? I could have kept this all to myself, continued scribbling and avoided humiliation, and lived with the caustic regret of "what if"; or, this, the continuous humiliation I suffer now. Yeah, yeah--I know it's my pride. How do I put that aside? I haven't recovered from the train wreck in September, and after the last talk with Julie, I'm even further from it. I think of how she was more prepared for my declaration than I'd thought and realized that she'd scripted a few things for herself. It's no wonder they--e.g., believing you only get to know someone from work or cohabitation--rang so false. Julie wore that same t-shirt today that she had at the train wreck--I hadn't seen it since, and the pain flooded back, with the false sentiments--"great guy," "I had a really nice time"--and I want to scream. Yes, it's my pride that wants to scream. You think I could not have any pride? I won't apologize for my pride; like the way I feel about Julie, it can't be helped, and thinking won't dissipate it. I'm just a man.
A year. Is that all I know after a year?--"I'm just a man"? I know I'm a passionate man, and that I'd been pretending otherwise for countless years before that. I know that passion is an open wound a screaming gash, an insatiable termagant; and I know that without its incessant infliction I wouldn't know I was alive. A year. A year, and it's still up to me. What's up to me?
A year. Is that all I know after a year?--"I'm just a man"? I know I'm a passionate man, and that I'd been pretending otherwise for countless years before that. I know that passion is an open wound a screaming gash, an insatiable termagant; and I know that without its incessant infliction I wouldn't know I was alive. A year. A year, and it's still up to me. What's up to me?
Thursday
What Passes (5/22/09 Friday)
My week off began last night at closing. I still awoke at six this morning. I'm already struggling against feeling cut off, alienated. It's something of a new feeling--the opposite of escape? Exile? Are all feelings painful? Maybe just the new ones. I just reread the last paragraph of yesterday's entry and smiled through tears. What am I? What have I become? What am I becoming? I have to clench my jaw to keep from sobbing--I'm in public. I'm not feeling sad. I don't know what I'm feeling, but I can't help feeling it. I have felt nothing; now, am I feeling too much? I want to be surrounded, smothered, hugged by a crowd. I want everyone talking to me at once. I want to talk myself hoarse.
And yet I've been all but silent. Even in Carytown a weekday afternoon is not thronged. I asked a lost-looking couple if I could help them find a particular place, but they said they were looking for their car. I've spent a hundred dollars on three Ugly Dolls, two CD's and a DVD. I sort of promised the girls big Ugly Dolls this year for their birthday, and when Claire's face lit up and her jaw dropped, the deal was signed. I bought myself Enter the Vaselines and the new one by The Audition. I bought The Flying Scotsman because it's a Scottish movie about a Scotsman.
So, I'm in Jean-Jacques in a crowd that's talking to itself, finished with the chocolate muffin and the first cup of coffee, and in no way ready to go home, but reluctant to spend any more money, wishfully expecting Jan to walk in. I finally called her several weeks ago, at Mike's urging, but got her voice mail. She eventually called me back (got my machine), apologizing and asking if she could be put up the following Tuesday night in order to get to court in the morning. Called her on my lunch break last Friday, left another message. No reply--I thought. I called Mom on Mother's Day, using the cell because I'd already bought the minutes, and saw I had two messages. They were both from Jan, but only one was meant for me. The first was a drunk-dial for "Joe": She was just leaving the second dull party she'd crashed and would let him know if she found a good one. The second told me she was in town getting some dental work done, and loosely suggested we get together, then asked if my kids would like to have her son's gerbil. "I have to get rid of it." The call had been made the Friday I'd called her, but apparently after I'd gotten home and hung up my jacket, phone and all, in the closet. I wonder if she's called since. I rarely turn on my cell.
Jan won't find me here, at Byrd Park. No one will find me here, behind Maymont, at the edge of a pond, between two oak trees, my back against one, bike and feet against the other. As I cruised through the park, hands off the bars, a cyclist dolled up in skin-tight billbillboard togs passed me slowly. I said, "Hey." He didn't even look at me.
I probably haven't been any place so tranquil since I was last in Scotland by myself, nearly thirty years ago, and it almost seems disrespectful to write when I could as easily sink into quiessence. I can hear the train down at the canal, its rumbling smoothed to an ambient roar by the quarter-mile between it and my ears. The rustling leaves cover what little of the sporadic traffic passes on the road out of sight of me. When the wind is still I can make out conversation across the pond a couple hundred feet away. An insect settled on the opposite page five minutes ago, and has not been disturbed by my scribbling or the wind bristling its antennae. A turtle's head parts the water on its way to one of the platforms made for it and anchored in the water. That cyclist is passing for the fourth time. If I had a blanket and a lot more food than a banana and a nutrition bar, I'd be here all night, or until a cop rousted me. I have nowhere to be for anyone else, and won't until Tuesday when I see the kids again, The holiday weekend took them to Lake Gaston, as usual, so I don't even need to make my usual grocery trip for their meals. I might come close to starvation this week, lazy as I am about fixing meals, especially when I don't have to. I have a six of Yuengling Black & Tans. That's food isn't it?
*****
And yet I've been all but silent. Even in Carytown a weekday afternoon is not thronged. I asked a lost-looking couple if I could help them find a particular place, but they said they were looking for their car. I've spent a hundred dollars on three Ugly Dolls, two CD's and a DVD. I sort of promised the girls big Ugly Dolls this year for their birthday, and when Claire's face lit up and her jaw dropped, the deal was signed. I bought myself Enter the Vaselines and the new one by The Audition. I bought The Flying Scotsman because it's a Scottish movie about a Scotsman.
So, I'm in Jean-Jacques in a crowd that's talking to itself, finished with the chocolate muffin and the first cup of coffee, and in no way ready to go home, but reluctant to spend any more money, wishfully expecting Jan to walk in. I finally called her several weeks ago, at Mike's urging, but got her voice mail. She eventually called me back (got my machine), apologizing and asking if she could be put up the following Tuesday night in order to get to court in the morning. Called her on my lunch break last Friday, left another message. No reply--I thought. I called Mom on Mother's Day, using the cell because I'd already bought the minutes, and saw I had two messages. They were both from Jan, but only one was meant for me. The first was a drunk-dial for "Joe": She was just leaving the second dull party she'd crashed and would let him know if she found a good one. The second told me she was in town getting some dental work done, and loosely suggested we get together, then asked if my kids would like to have her son's gerbil. "I have to get rid of it." The call had been made the Friday I'd called her, but apparently after I'd gotten home and hung up my jacket, phone and all, in the closet. I wonder if she's called since. I rarely turn on my cell.
*****
Jan won't find me here, at Byrd Park. No one will find me here, behind Maymont, at the edge of a pond, between two oak trees, my back against one, bike and feet against the other. As I cruised through the park, hands off the bars, a cyclist dolled up in skin-tight billbillboard togs passed me slowly. I said, "Hey." He didn't even look at me.
I probably haven't been any place so tranquil since I was last in Scotland by myself, nearly thirty years ago, and it almost seems disrespectful to write when I could as easily sink into quiessence. I can hear the train down at the canal, its rumbling smoothed to an ambient roar by the quarter-mile between it and my ears. The rustling leaves cover what little of the sporadic traffic passes on the road out of sight of me. When the wind is still I can make out conversation across the pond a couple hundred feet away. An insect settled on the opposite page five minutes ago, and has not been disturbed by my scribbling or the wind bristling its antennae. A turtle's head parts the water on its way to one of the platforms made for it and anchored in the water. That cyclist is passing for the fourth time. If I had a blanket and a lot more food than a banana and a nutrition bar, I'd be here all night, or until a cop rousted me. I have nowhere to be for anyone else, and won't until Tuesday when I see the kids again, The holiday weekend took them to Lake Gaston, as usual, so I don't even need to make my usual grocery trip for their meals. I might come close to starvation this week, lazy as I am about fixing meals, especially when I don't have to. I have a six of Yuengling Black & Tans. That's food isn't it?
Wednesday
I'd Have Said Narcissus, But That Would Have Been a Bit On-the-Nose (5/24/09 Sunday)*
Spoke three words today--"Hi" and "Thank you." As I have before, I felt a perverse sense of accomplishment, but this time it is tinged with shame. I failed to make contact, and I've fogotten how I'd been doing it at work recently. I've been feeling the skill fading all week; now a day alone has drained the last of it. I said "Hi" to a woman sitting on her stoop as I walked past, and I said "Thank you" to the cleerk at Fresh Market when he handed me my change and receipt. (His "Your welcome" seemed startled out of him.) I missed opportunities to connect because I didn't recognize them as such until they had passed. I've said nothing since then and will not again till morning. I'm in for the night. I'll call Matt in the morning to scooter.
Matt has invited me to a cookout he and Mary are invited to. My crashing won't be minded, but it won't hurt to bring an offering of beer. I don't know who else will be there, but I hope it's not too small a gathering--the more people to try to interact with the better. I have to make an effort, even if I don't remember how. Forget "people," really--I just want to talk to women. I'm feeling exceptionally attractive lately, and I'd like to parley that into some self-confidence. It's inexplicable to me: All the time I'd been trying to attract Julie's attention it never crossed my mind that her inattention had anything to do with my physical attractiveness. I mean, what is a guy with all but no self-esteem doing believing he's good-looking? I still believe it--but when did this happen? Long after I'd picked out the beer, I lingered in Fresh Market as a walking display of vanity, inviting the once-over and double-take. Several women (and a couple men) partook. Imagine--me, an exhibitionist! I've gotten a lot more attention since I swore off haircuts as a declaration of independence from trying to look as I perceived others wanted me to look--and since I discovered I have curls, I have been as vain as Samson. If I have one pipeline curl falling to my brow I'm having a good hair day. At Ukrop's I entered an aisle and steered around a tall woman with her back to me. Halfway down I picked up a couple things and continued. Before I reached the end of the aisle that same woman entered it behind a shopping cart. She looked neither to the left or right but me up and down before smiling, saying "Hi," and continuing past me. I returned the greeting then turned to watch her after she passed. She looked straight ahead, did not pause to consider an item on the shelf, and exited the other end. Though I could tell from the personal perusal that she had marked me off as a prospect, I nonetheless chose to be flattered. Flattery is about all I have left in the way of esteem. I'll take it, if it even artificially bolsters my confidence. I don't intend to be the exhibitionist at the cookout, but a dangling curl would start me off on the plus side of confidence.
Matt has invited me to a cookout he and Mary are invited to. My crashing won't be minded, but it won't hurt to bring an offering of beer. I don't know who else will be there, but I hope it's not too small a gathering--the more people to try to interact with the better. I have to make an effort, even if I don't remember how. Forget "people," really--I just want to talk to women. I'm feeling exceptionally attractive lately, and I'd like to parley that into some self-confidence. It's inexplicable to me: All the time I'd been trying to attract Julie's attention it never crossed my mind that her inattention had anything to do with my physical attractiveness. I mean, what is a guy with all but no self-esteem doing believing he's good-looking? I still believe it--but when did this happen? Long after I'd picked out the beer, I lingered in Fresh Market as a walking display of vanity, inviting the once-over and double-take. Several women (and a couple men) partook. Imagine--me, an exhibitionist! I've gotten a lot more attention since I swore off haircuts as a declaration of independence from trying to look as I perceived others wanted me to look--and since I discovered I have curls, I have been as vain as Samson. If I have one pipeline curl falling to my brow I'm having a good hair day. At Ukrop's I entered an aisle and steered around a tall woman with her back to me. Halfway down I picked up a couple things and continued. Before I reached the end of the aisle that same woman entered it behind a shopping cart. She looked neither to the left or right but me up and down before smiling, saying "Hi," and continuing past me. I returned the greeting then turned to watch her after she passed. She looked straight ahead, did not pause to consider an item on the shelf, and exited the other end. Though I could tell from the personal perusal that she had marked me off as a prospect, I nonetheless chose to be flattered. Flattery is about all I have left in the way of esteem. I'll take it, if it even artificially bolsters my confidence. I don't intend to be the exhibitionist at the cookout, but a dangling curl would start me off on the plus side of confidence.
*Expat From Hell said...
Your head may be struggling to maintain a curl or two, but your soul is flowing with them, my friend. Great post. Enjoy your holiday. I am sure the women of Virginia will do the same, thanks to you.
Your head may be struggling to maintain a curl or two, but your soul is flowing with them, my friend. Great post. Enjoy your holiday. I am sure the women of Virginia will do the same, thanks to you.
ExpatFromHell
Tuesday
Know Way, Knowhere, Know How (5/26/09 Tuesday)
The curls were happening yesterday, but nothing else was, really, at the cookout. I did manage to recapture some of my newfound conversational skills--drawing people out despite my actual relative disinterest in them--but there was no flirting to be done, no women I felt that kind of interest in or attraction to. To be back in Bellevue, though, was to be in an old comfort zone, the proximity to Stir Crazy (two blocks) notwithstanding. A place you lived for ten years, where you lived with a lot of other people your age for that long, is not easily gotten out of your system. I've lived in this apartment in the West End (surburbia) for seven years but I don't know anyone here and certainly haven't grown up with anyone here. Michelle upstairs was here when I moved in. I don't know her last name or what she does. I know that she leaves for work at twenty of eight, that she likes her gospel radio loud and that she's had sex over my head a few times in the past couple months. I lived in the Carytown area for the twelve years between Bellevue and here and made no friends or even connections. Though I'm drawn down there frequently, my nostalgic fondness for the place is drawn solely from familiarity of the streets and alleys I covered on foot and bike every day. There is no one there to recognize me. There was at least that at the cookout.
I have been dreaming about work at night and have been spending the days feeling guilty. The dreams, as nearly all my dreams do, have taken place in a gray half-darkness, but an element of stormy weather has been added. Julie was only in the first dream, in which I roll up through mud on my bike to the back door of work, though its not the library but, seemingly, a fast-food restaurant. I'm fumbling with my keys, trying one after another in the bike lock, when Julie comes out of the door on my left, fights through a throng, and brushes my back with her arm to come to the polite aid of a coworker. Presently, she brushes me again on her way back inside. I consider (in my dream) the contact significant, though not in a positive way, seeing as she didn't acknowledge me in any way. In actuality, we have only made physical contact twice, lightly and accidentally. In another dream, I was attempting, against the advice of other coworkers, to get to work. Though it was not raining, the river to my left was in angry, muddy spate, and though it had washed away much of the bank, the sidewalk was still intact, and I figured it would stay so. But a sudden rush of water, as if from a broken dike, poured across the path from my right and behind me. I looked ahead and upon seeing the way similarly blocked, attempted to return, but the rushing water swept my feet from the sidewalk, at which I clawed for new purchase. I did not panic but gave in to my certain death without fear or regret, and was swept into another dream.
I don't know where the guilt comes from or is about, and I'm not even convinced it's guilt. It feels like something I've always called "guilt," but what I think it is is a feeling that I'm not doing enough for myself to get where I think I belong. What am I doing toward getting that book written? What am I doing, even, toward getting this apartment clean? I walked out of work Thursday night intent only on getting down to Carytown and finishing Miss Marjoribanks during the next ten days. Why do I feel I should have set loftier goals? The word "occupation" as it applies to a job has taken on a new depth of meaning: It occupies my time, keeping me from loose ends. Ironic, that these "better things" I have to do besides work aren't enough to occupy me as well as the work does. There are plenty better things to do, but work is easier. I get paid for it, for a start. Is there no other motivation that is good enough to do the better things? What does it take to move from "easy" to "rewarding"? When I'm not working, easy is reading, doing some sudoku and writing some, maybe watching a DVD. Is this my life? Is this the road, with barbed-wire-topped walls, to the end of my days? What breaks the wall, severs the wire? Not guilt, but more than desire. Desire I have. What don't I have, what am I not using, that gets me to rewarding? More than curls and dreams.
I have been dreaming about work at night and have been spending the days feeling guilty. The dreams, as nearly all my dreams do, have taken place in a gray half-darkness, but an element of stormy weather has been added. Julie was only in the first dream, in which I roll up through mud on my bike to the back door of work, though its not the library but, seemingly, a fast-food restaurant. I'm fumbling with my keys, trying one after another in the bike lock, when Julie comes out of the door on my left, fights through a throng, and brushes my back with her arm to come to the polite aid of a coworker. Presently, she brushes me again on her way back inside. I consider (in my dream) the contact significant, though not in a positive way, seeing as she didn't acknowledge me in any way. In actuality, we have only made physical contact twice, lightly and accidentally. In another dream, I was attempting, against the advice of other coworkers, to get to work. Though it was not raining, the river to my left was in angry, muddy spate, and though it had washed away much of the bank, the sidewalk was still intact, and I figured it would stay so. But a sudden rush of water, as if from a broken dike, poured across the path from my right and behind me. I looked ahead and upon seeing the way similarly blocked, attempted to return, but the rushing water swept my feet from the sidewalk, at which I clawed for new purchase. I did not panic but gave in to my certain death without fear or regret, and was swept into another dream.
I don't know where the guilt comes from or is about, and I'm not even convinced it's guilt. It feels like something I've always called "guilt," but what I think it is is a feeling that I'm not doing enough for myself to get where I think I belong. What am I doing toward getting that book written? What am I doing, even, toward getting this apartment clean? I walked out of work Thursday night intent only on getting down to Carytown and finishing Miss Marjoribanks during the next ten days. Why do I feel I should have set loftier goals? The word "occupation" as it applies to a job has taken on a new depth of meaning: It occupies my time, keeping me from loose ends. Ironic, that these "better things" I have to do besides work aren't enough to occupy me as well as the work does. There are plenty better things to do, but work is easier. I get paid for it, for a start. Is there no other motivation that is good enough to do the better things? What does it take to move from "easy" to "rewarding"? When I'm not working, easy is reading, doing some sudoku and writing some, maybe watching a DVD. Is this my life? Is this the road, with barbed-wire-topped walls, to the end of my days? What breaks the wall, severs the wire? Not guilt, but more than desire. Desire I have. What don't I have, what am I not using, that gets me to rewarding? More than curls and dreams.
Monday
A Guy Can Dream--Whether He Likes It or Not (5/27/09 Wednesday)
Another dream of work, another appearance of Julie, as fleeting as the last. I was inside the library this time. It looked like a bookstore--one vast, bright room. I got only a glimpse of Julie--no eye contact. Her hair seemed darker than natural. I felt disappointed that she would color her hair. I remember little else about the dream, except the feeling of playing out a light comedy.
Shouldn't I be glad to be away from work and Julie? I can't need the tension. I have almost never dreamt of work or Julie. I don't want to be at work, and I can always live outside of Julie's presence. Or can I? Sometimes I think I need Julie just to remember I'm alive. I hate this love. I'd say it was unfair if I thought fairness was even in it. What is it good for? Am I supposed to learn from this? Patience, tolerance--are those my lessons? The patience to let love work for me, the tolerance to harbor unwanted feelings?
Shouldn't I be glad to be away from work and Julie? I can't need the tension. I have almost never dreamt of work or Julie. I don't want to be at work, and I can always live outside of Julie's presence. Or can I? Sometimes I think I need Julie just to remember I'm alive. I hate this love. I'd say it was unfair if I thought fairness was even in it. What is it good for? Am I supposed to learn from this? Patience, tolerance--are those my lessons? The patience to let love work for me, the tolerance to harbor unwanted feelings?
Sunday
I Hope (5/28/09 Thursday)
The girls have known about the blog since they googled me. They haven't read it. I haven't told them not to; I think the title frightens them. They don't ask me about it. They'll be thirteen in a month. I would like to talk to them about it. I would like them to know this part of me. I would like them to know what I've been through. I want them to know that a man--and a man my age--can be in love, can want love, deserves love. I at least want them to know the father they see only twice a week. And yet when they finally read this will they wonder why there is scant mention of them while countless words have been devoted to someone who doesn't depend on me for guidance, love and support? who, indeed, depends on me for nothing at all? Could my passion have been better spent?
What will the girls think of me when they read all of this? Caring about that jeopardizes the candor of my writing, but it's a candid concern. Having no older siblings to corrupt them and being nurtured more by responsible grownups than by the media, they will, I hope have thoughts of their own beyond the easily taken for granted lies of tradition, and will not, by the time they read this already believe, say, that a man's emotional strength is his ability to suppress his emotions. Perhaps I can flatter myself to think that their reading this will positively solidify their thoughts on the subject, arming them against popular opinion. I can only hope, and I do. But I hope, first, that they do not judge me. If I have not been a great father it is not because of my preoccupation with Julie but because of my preoccupation with myself. In the process of getting in touch with myself and trying to become whole and learn to love myself without judgement, I have lost touch with the only beings who love me without judgment. (I am aware of the irony, but I don't embrace it.) They likely will be bewildered at first, then frightened, then aghast. After that? What connections will they make between my words and my actions? Consistent and integral ones, I hope; ones that solidify my dimensions, root me deeply and positively into the context of their lives. At the very least, what they read should shed enough light on their perceived shortcomings of me to illuminate a compassionate understanding.
What will the girls think of me when they read all of this? Caring about that jeopardizes the candor of my writing, but it's a candid concern. Having no older siblings to corrupt them and being nurtured more by responsible grownups than by the media, they will, I hope have thoughts of their own beyond the easily taken for granted lies of tradition, and will not, by the time they read this already believe, say, that a man's emotional strength is his ability to suppress his emotions. Perhaps I can flatter myself to think that their reading this will positively solidify their thoughts on the subject, arming them against popular opinion. I can only hope, and I do. But I hope, first, that they do not judge me. If I have not been a great father it is not because of my preoccupation with Julie but because of my preoccupation with myself. In the process of getting in touch with myself and trying to become whole and learn to love myself without judgement, I have lost touch with the only beings who love me without judgment. (I am aware of the irony, but I don't embrace it.) They likely will be bewildered at first, then frightened, then aghast. After that? What connections will they make between my words and my actions? Consistent and integral ones, I hope; ones that solidify my dimensions, root me deeply and positively into the context of their lives. At the very least, what they read should shed enough light on their perceived shortcomings of me to illuminate a compassionate understanding.
Saturday
Fourteen's a Good Place to Stop (5/30/09 Saturday)*
I've only read fourteen books this year. I'm about two months behind my usual pace. In try to reclaim my life from preoccupation with Julie, I've started back into things I'd all but given up in pursuit of her. I still can't listen to XTC or Trashcan Sinatras again, but as there's no chance I'll go back to Ellis Peters, I can always read without that awful pang of association better not made. That lasted until about twenty pages into Phoebe, Junior, when Clarence becomes "fascinated" with Phoebe, falls "a hopeless victim to her fascinations." Apparently, the charge of that word was strong even in the mid-Victorian era. I hope Clarence never actually speaks the word to Phoebe. I don't suppose pre-rejection flattery back then started, "You're a great guy, but..."--that probably got its start in the 1920's--still long enough ago to have since been embedded in the human female DNA. I tried reading this morning, but the entire brief and futile endeavor was clouded by "fascinated." There are words, too, that I can't hear or read--much less use. "Hope" and any form of "fascinate" top the list. The associations turn me cold and bitter and threaten to ossify my heart. Now I see "love" floating upward from the depth of verbal practicality to the heights of psychological malevolence, where sits the temple of irony. I don't want to go there, I don't want to see it. Have I lost those words there? Better to not use them, if I can help it.
One more day of this freedom, and it's back to work. I feel no more fortified against Julie's proximity than I ever did. Every morning I've awaken thinking of her, even when she hasn't appeared in that night's dreams. I've regressed. Even "she knows" has lost meaning, if only for the lack of context. I badly need that context, and not just to resuscitate a specious mantra. Why otherwise, I'm really not sure, but I suspect it's for the challenge. I think that's why I miss Julie when I'm not around her: I have to prove--to her and myself--that I can--what? that I can what? Be in love with her and still work with her? Get over her? I don't think that what I'm trying to prove is what I really want. I don't want to get over her, and if I don't get over her, I can't work with her. So my challenge, really, is to not go stark, raving bonkers over an untenable situation--i.e., I need to live a pretense to sanity. Fake it till I make it? Can you hear me laughing? Good, because I'm not. I don't want to say that I'll enter work Monday as trepidatious as ever to encounter Julie, because it's easily self-fulfilled. I may believe it, but I won't indulge it. Is that faking it? Absolutely--as much so as trying to read Phoebe, Junior.
*Original Comment(s)
Lonesome Loser said...
"I don't suppose pre-rejection flattery back then started, "You're a great guy, but..."--that probably got its start in the 1920's--still long enough ago to have since been embedded in the human female DNA."
Haha! yeah, exactly. It can apply to "you're a great girl, but..." as well. So hurtful and humiliating.
Dion Burn said...
You know it never occurred to me that I could us the same line on a woman--perhaps because of my sensitivity to it.
lonesome loser said...
You're more sensitive than most men I know (really, sad but true). I think people in general, though, handle this kind of thing with a "gee, thanks, you're great, but....{insert false reassuring statement here in place of painful truth}"...
One more day of this freedom, and it's back to work. I feel no more fortified against Julie's proximity than I ever did. Every morning I've awaken thinking of her, even when she hasn't appeared in that night's dreams. I've regressed. Even "she knows" has lost meaning, if only for the lack of context. I badly need that context, and not just to resuscitate a specious mantra. Why otherwise, I'm really not sure, but I suspect it's for the challenge. I think that's why I miss Julie when I'm not around her: I have to prove--to her and myself--that I can--what? that I can what? Be in love with her and still work with her? Get over her? I don't think that what I'm trying to prove is what I really want. I don't want to get over her, and if I don't get over her, I can't work with her. So my challenge, really, is to not go stark, raving bonkers over an untenable situation--i.e., I need to live a pretense to sanity. Fake it till I make it? Can you hear me laughing? Good, because I'm not. I don't want to say that I'll enter work Monday as trepidatious as ever to encounter Julie, because it's easily self-fulfilled. I may believe it, but I won't indulge it. Is that faking it? Absolutely--as much so as trying to read Phoebe, Junior.
*Original Comment(s)
Lonesome Loser said...
"I don't suppose pre-rejection flattery back then started, "You're a great guy, but..."--that probably got its start in the 1920's--still long enough ago to have since been embedded in the human female DNA."
Haha! yeah, exactly. It can apply to "you're a great girl, but..." as well. So hurtful and humiliating.
Dion Burn said...
You know it never occurred to me that I could us the same line on a woman--perhaps because of my sensitivity to it.
lonesome loser said...
You're more sensitive than most men I know (really, sad but true). I think people in general, though, handle this kind of thing with a "gee, thanks, you're great, but....{insert false reassuring statement here in place of painful truth}"...
Friday
The Rust Bucket and the Lyart Are Out of My League--Forget About the New Car and the Young Blonde (5/31/09 Sunday)*
Emma brought over the David Archuleta CD last night, and I figured I should hear it before I judged it. The girls told me the first song, "Crush," was a hit. (I hadn't heard it.) I told them "This is what A Bright, Ironic Hell is about." No reaction. Ah, well, I gave it a shot. I won't push it. Let's just call it a bug in the ear. Actually, anymore, it's not so much the girls I'm concerned about reading the blog as about Ann. I would never tell the kids to keep a secret, and I can surmise by what they tell me of their home life that they woulld be equally candid at home about mine. Come to think of it, they might have already told Ann about my blogs. That in itself would be no red flag to her as long as they gassured her they hadn't read it. Not that I'd care for Ann to read either BIH or Book Monkey Says--I'd rather have her judge me as a man than as a father--but the thought makes me all the more hesitant to give the girls the go-ahead to read BIH. (Book Monkey's a bit further down the road.)
Now there's a third blog, and I might never let them know about this one. It's actually my first one. I'd forgotten about it until I stumbled upon it a few days ago when I pulled up a bookmark portal I rarely use. There it was, at the top of the list. It has lain fallow for nearly three years, having last been posted upon in July or 2006, only three months and twenty-two posts into its life. Well, it's going to live again, though I'm a little embarrassed about it. See, it's, uh, not about love. Its' about sex. which makes it a fantasy, but a fantasy still featuring myself. The real people in it have new names, so let's call it fiction. (Me? Sex? What else could it be?) Anyway, I never promoted it, so it may never have been seen except for the click-throughs from the (pseudonymous) profile page, and there have been only twenty hits on that. I have a bit of tweaking to do on it before re-launching it--refresh myself with the pseudonyms and get myself back into character to write fresh material. Someone got the name Julie, more than a year before I'd met my heaven and hell, so that's gotta change; and one of the men is now a woman, but I think I'll stick with the original model. The cast, as well as the library, has grown much larger, but I don't think that will have a meaningful effect. But there are only two main things I need to do: Tweak the posting dates to bring them "current," and write a new post to kick-start the story. I'm looking forward to expressing another aspect of my personality and exercising another muscle of my imagination.
(I might have said the same about Book Monkey. Poor Book Monkey. He became difficult for me to handle with such a restrictive perspective. He may be dead.)
Looking at the cover of the David Archuleta album, I remarked, "I'd like his shirt without the picture on it." Emma said, "Then it's just a shirt." "No," I said, "it would be a ringer tee. Ringer tees are my new favorite thing. They make me feel like a little boy." Emma faked a cough into her fist and barked, "Midlifecrisis!" "Well," I said, "some guys get the red sports car, some guys get the ringer tees." I decided at that moment to refer to Julie as "my mid-life crisis." I wrote it on the back of her picture today.
*Original Comment(s)
Lonesome Loser said...
Well, I'd like to read your sex blog.
Dion Burn said...
Well...I wouldn't exactly call it a "sex blog", but let's just say its sentiments are coming from somewhere other than my heart. I will let you know when it's ready for its reopening.
lonesome loser said...
yeah, really, let me know...
Now there's a third blog, and I might never let them know about this one. It's actually my first one. I'd forgotten about it until I stumbled upon it a few days ago when I pulled up a bookmark portal I rarely use. There it was, at the top of the list. It has lain fallow for nearly three years, having last been posted upon in July or 2006, only three months and twenty-two posts into its life. Well, it's going to live again, though I'm a little embarrassed about it. See, it's, uh, not about love. Its' about sex. which makes it a fantasy, but a fantasy still featuring myself. The real people in it have new names, so let's call it fiction. (Me? Sex? What else could it be?) Anyway, I never promoted it, so it may never have been seen except for the click-throughs from the (pseudonymous) profile page, and there have been only twenty hits on that. I have a bit of tweaking to do on it before re-launching it--refresh myself with the pseudonyms and get myself back into character to write fresh material. Someone got the name Julie, more than a year before I'd met my heaven and hell, so that's gotta change; and one of the men is now a woman, but I think I'll stick with the original model. The cast, as well as the library, has grown much larger, but I don't think that will have a meaningful effect. But there are only two main things I need to do: Tweak the posting dates to bring them "current," and write a new post to kick-start the story. I'm looking forward to expressing another aspect of my personality and exercising another muscle of my imagination.
(I might have said the same about Book Monkey. Poor Book Monkey. He became difficult for me to handle with such a restrictive perspective. He may be dead.)
Looking at the cover of the David Archuleta album, I remarked, "I'd like his shirt without the picture on it." Emma said, "Then it's just a shirt." "No," I said, "it would be a ringer tee. Ringer tees are my new favorite thing. They make me feel like a little boy." Emma faked a cough into her fist and barked, "Midlifecrisis!" "Well," I said, "some guys get the red sports car, some guys get the ringer tees." I decided at that moment to refer to Julie as "my mid-life crisis." I wrote it on the back of her picture today.
*Original Comment(s)
Lonesome Loser said...
Well, I'd like to read your sex blog.
Dion Burn said...
Well...I wouldn't exactly call it a "sex blog", but let's just say its sentiments are coming from somewhere other than my heart. I will let you know when it's ready for its reopening.
lonesome loser said...
yeah, really, let me know...
Thursday
And for My Next Trick, I Will Convince Myself to Not Read Anything Into It (6/1/09 Monday)
Of course, my approach to the new work week was as predicted. How could it have been otherwise? Naturally, as per Mondays, I rode in with Stacey. When I got out of the car at work without helping put the shades across the windshield she chided me for shirking my duty. I scoped the parking lot entrance for a familiar car. I didn't see it. "Sorry," I said, "I just like to get inside before Julie pulls up." Inside, I went straight to my work, pulling old holds for deletion, hoping to lessen my chances of contact with Julie. By the time I was back in the workroom Julie was at the window, setting up. That meant I could do my job an entire expanse of room away from her, at the discharge counter--until I was done with the express holds and had to collect the old drive-up holds from under her nose. I started on the outside with the shelf unit between us. As I knelt I heard myself mutter, "It's up to you," and was surprised to not find any bitterness in the statement. Still, I was determined to not greet her. Instead, as I moved around to her side I said, "May I squeeze in here?" Slightly startled, having not heard my carpet-muffled approach, she said, "Oh. Sure." As I rifled through the books. I became as determined that she sould ask me about my week of as I was to not initiate conversation wih her. Then Julie said, "Did you have a relaxing time off?" I was so surprised and happy that I could have snatched her up and planted a wet one on her. "Yes, I did," I said, and my head got louder and louder with "Do it! No regrets!" I obeyed and said, "I was just reading and writing...[DO IT!!] and thinking about you." (YES!!) I said, "Sorry," immediately, but I wasn't. It was more like apologizing for a bad pun I couldn't help making. But she giggled! Not a dismissive, barely indulgent "tsh," but a genuine off-guard giggle. Score! I bet she blushed, too, but I couldn't look at her as I dipped to finish my job on the lower shelves; and I could tell, anyway, from her laugh that her back was to me. Not exactly emboldened by my little success but definitely giddy, I said, "I saw a movie you might like." I stood up, and she turned, and I almost forgot how to speak, much less what I intended to say. "The Flying Scotsman, with Johnny Lee Miller." Only through sheer willpower was I able to continue speaking and looking in her face. "It's about, uh, Graeme Obree--" "Who?" "Graeme Obree, champion--world champion cyclist in the nineties." Gah! Finishing that sentence was like finally breaking out of the water and gulping down air. She said, "I'll have to get that, especially if it has Johnny Lee in it." I took the holds back to the discharge station, where I sat heavily and used two shaky hands to lift the mug of chamomile tea to my lips. "She knows," I whispered--"boy, does she know!" The tea was no help at all.
Wednesday
The Sleeves Are Too Short If I Can't Step on Them (6/03/09 Wednesday)*
I try not to kid myself that I made any romantic inroads with my "thinking about you" crack. I've embarrassed/flattered Julie before, but I finally came to understand that however I made her feel at that moment was not a reflection of how she felt for me but about herself. I feel good for having made her feel that way (if I can even flatter myself that much), but I know that it doesn't necessarily increase her affection toward me. In fact, if we're ever to get to "normal" again, I may have set us back a step. In retrospect, it was a good thing to have furthered the conversation by mentioning the movie, bringing to earth any thought of lofty romantic intention--hope for it on my part and fear of it on hers. Yesterday, though, was definitely not a step forward. We made no contact whatsoever with either eyes or voice. I glanced at her several times, but only once when her back wasn't to me. I sat in front of her, at Angie's desk, doing holds one hour, and finished sweaty and with a knot in myh neck from the effort of trying to work when my mind was behind me. Another day of that is likely ahead of me today.
*Original Comment(s)
lonesome loser said...
Yeah, this is a really hard one. It feels so good to have Jessica (or whoever) react to me, it can be really difficult to understand they aren't really reacting to ME, just to the sexual/romantic attention. That even if they do "like" me more, it's because of what I can do for them, not because of wanting to be with me, to get to know me.
*Original Comment(s)
lonesome loser said...
Yeah, this is a really hard one. It feels so good to have Jessica (or whoever) react to me, it can be really difficult to understand they aren't really reacting to ME, just to the sexual/romantic attention. That even if they do "like" me more, it's because of what I can do for them, not because of wanting to be with me, to get to know me.
Tuesday
Is Santa Listening So Long Before Christmas? (6/4/09 Thursday)*
For the first time in the two years we've worked together Julie took a sick day. I'm sure it is not something she would do frivolously or deceitfully, but I had no details and none were offered by Judy or Tammy. I didn't ask. I was disappointed and empty to see the word "sick" by her name on the schedule and a squiggly black line marked through her duties. I know that my vanity is predicated still on her audience, so her absence made me rue bothering to shave, or even coming in. But I thought, Well, at least I can relax. Not true. There was hardly a moment without her presence in my mind and no moreso did I find comfort from that knot in my neck. I'm really not alive without her, am I? I will no longer argue with love--rationality is irrelevant. It just doesn't matter that she feels nothing for me. It doesn't matter that I "understand" that. How could she have believed that telling me that would relieve me of my feelings for her? I am in love with her, and it sickens me to be so. I'm possessive and jealous. I miss her when she's gone, and I can't stand to be around her. There is nothing healthy in this. I want it to stop.
*Original Comment9s)
lonesome loser said...
I'm sorry, I know it's painful and can feel really unhealthy. And so out of our control. I've been obsessing over Jessica for two years, and my (ex)spouse still doesn't know, thinks it was only a few weeks or couple months. It's frustrating and painful and unproductive.
*Original Comment9s)
lonesome loser said...
I'm sorry, I know it's painful and can feel really unhealthy. And so out of our control. I've been obsessing over Jessica for two years, and my (ex)spouse still doesn't know, thinks it was only a few weeks or couple months. It's frustrating and painful and unproductive.
Monday
But Feel Free to Email Me with Suggestions (6/6/09 Saturday)
Julie was back yesterday. We still said nothing to each other, and the only eye contact was a confrontation. I stared in her eyes as we were approaching each other in the workroom. She tilted her chin toward the side on which I was about to pass her, and her eyebrows rose just-perceptibly. I felt as if I were being taunted or dared to speak. I didn't. Over the course of the day the knot spread across the back of my neck. It's still there today, another full workday with Julie. Since "thinking about you," not a word has passed between us that didn't pertain directly to work. It's been dark. It's defeatist and pathetic to resign myself to this state, but how do I get out of it? Yesterday, "it's up to you" never entered my mind, but I heard it very early on today. Most days I resent it, and today is one of those days. Each time I tell myself, "she knows," I have to remind myself of what she knows; and now I also have to ask, "How is that important?" It's fading. I'm losing grip of it. Yet as I do I am experiencing vague fantasies of Julie coming around, warming up to me, talking to me, wanting to know me. Those have to go away if I'm to prevent myself from doing something catastrophically stupid to effect their realization. I can't entertain that kind of hope. I have written "My Mid-Life Crisis" on the back of her picture on my fender. I figure that's in the category of She Knows, so seeing that won't elicit any more than a puzzled look from the clueless, a smirk from the clued-in, and a roll of the eyes from Julie. Hell, what more could I do, at this stage of the game, that could produce more than benign effect? It's best I don't try to answer that.
Sunday
(Dis) Connecting (6/7/09 Sunday)
I tried this past week to reclaim some music from Julie. XTC was first--Mummer, then Skylarking. It didn't work--"Grass," "Great Fire Burning," "Love on a Farmboy's Wages"--every one of the love songs rang ironical. Julie introduced me to Trashcan Sinatras, so them I'm trying to take from her altogether or, rather, remove her from them. Again, failure. I'm not close to trying Prefab Sprout. Yet the music I play has little interest to me if it doesn't connect me with my situation. I'm doing the opposite of distancing myself from Julie--more unhealthy and pathetic behaviour, more hopeful delusion. Maybe I want the pain.
Faith at Good Foods wants to fix me up with her mother, and I'm open to it. Faith has read the blog, and she had her mom read some it. Her reaction, according to Faith, was along the lines of "interesting." I don't know what that means. Faith lives across the street, a few doors closer to me than Stacey, so all I know is that it would at least be convenient to see her mom. That's hardly a reason for a relationship. I don't know anything about her except that she's shy. That's attractive in itself, but it's not enough, of course. If after reading my blog she's still interested in me, I suppose that's a big plus, too; after all, who wants someone who's in love with someone else? I believe I could get over Julie if I had another woman near my age to talk with--not about Julie, but about just about anything else--hang out with, be with, do things with, do nothing with. I hope she's open to at least a cup of coffee or tea (but not at Stir Crazy!). It would be nice to be with a woman who is being open and not pointing a ten-foot pole at my chest. I certainly don't want this to be about getting Julie's wraith out of my heart. I want this to be about connecting with someone who's worth my time and energy, which I don't think is really a tall order. I can say, "All I want is honesty," but I know that's not easy for most people. I can only be honest myself and hope that it's at least appreciated, if not entirely reciprocated, though how I can recognize the former without the latter, I don't know. What makes me believe the connection won't be difficult to make is knowing that Faith's mom is not Julie; that's halfway there. My basic task, with Faith's mom or any other prospective relationship, is to make no comparisons with Julie--though god forbid they should love Trashcan Sinatras!
Faith at Good Foods wants to fix me up with her mother, and I'm open to it. Faith has read the blog, and she had her mom read some it. Her reaction, according to Faith, was along the lines of "interesting." I don't know what that means. Faith lives across the street, a few doors closer to me than Stacey, so all I know is that it would at least be convenient to see her mom. That's hardly a reason for a relationship. I don't know anything about her except that she's shy. That's attractive in itself, but it's not enough, of course. If after reading my blog she's still interested in me, I suppose that's a big plus, too; after all, who wants someone who's in love with someone else? I believe I could get over Julie if I had another woman near my age to talk with--not about Julie, but about just about anything else--hang out with, be with, do things with, do nothing with. I hope she's open to at least a cup of coffee or tea (but not at Stir Crazy!). It would be nice to be with a woman who is being open and not pointing a ten-foot pole at my chest. I certainly don't want this to be about getting Julie's wraith out of my heart. I want this to be about connecting with someone who's worth my time and energy, which I don't think is really a tall order. I can say, "All I want is honesty," but I know that's not easy for most people. I can only be honest myself and hope that it's at least appreciated, if not entirely reciprocated, though how I can recognize the former without the latter, I don't know. What makes me believe the connection won't be difficult to make is knowing that Faith's mom is not Julie; that's halfway there. My basic task, with Faith's mom or any other prospective relationship, is to make no comparisons with Julie--though god forbid they should love Trashcan Sinatras!
Saturday
Pride Comes Before the Summer (6/8/09 Monday)
It seems the best I can do right now is sit crosslegged on the sofa, listen to the dying traffic and watch the light leak away. What I'm trying to do is reflect on the workday, but it's painful. I've had days like this, and one not so long ago, but I don't think the words about it were so hard to come by.
Monday is a full day with Julie, and this one was replete with her, if mostly in my head. When the courier mail came in, I was scheduled for holds and Julie for backup. I waited until Julie wheeled the transit items to the back to pack for the outgoing mail, then started unpacking the incoming in order to extract the holds. she usually takes quite a while and there was a lot to pack so I thought I could knock out the incoming before she got back. But the mail kept coming, and before long I could hear the empty cart rattling closer and closer. I paused with a handful of books to look at her. she looked at me but didn't say anything. I expected at least a "thanks for helping" or something and began right then to panic. I already knew I'd be unable to speak with any sense. When she finally spoke to me after putting the cart away, she said, "Are you sure you want to help?" My reply was just a sort of gurgle that she must have taken for a "huh?" because she repeated herself. "No, I don't really want to be this close to you," is what I needed to say, but what came out was, "Well, I'd like to get my holds." My heart was thudding out of my chest, and my skin was sizzling. I couldn't look at her, I couldn't speak, as we worked within a few feet of each other, sometimes out of the same bin. I was in an agony of desire and self-loathing. I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to shake her and yell, "How can you be so goddamned casual about this! This is killing me! Stop mocking me! Stop acting like nothing is going on!" But I emptied bins and filled carts, sweating and trembling and feeling more the inept fool than I ever have. The stack of empty bins towered over me on the handtruck as I tipped it back. Would I get a "thank you" then? No. Julie turned her back to empty the bookdrop.
It was lunchtime when I finished sorting the mail bins in the back. Julie was filling the electric teapot when I entered the break room. I put my stuff at my usual seat and passed her at the sink to get a spoon from the drawer. I stared at that spoon as I sat heavily, then I said, "Don't let me do that again." "What?" "Don't let me do that again--help you with the mail. Too close." She chuckled lightly and said, "Well, you volunteered. So, thanks." It didn't sound like gratitude but indulgence. I couldn't eat for half an hour, then slowly choked down each bit of my pbj. My heart still raced, and the hands covering my face still trembled. I was little better the rest of the day--worse, for not having anyone to talk to about it.
Julie might think by now that I have nothing to say to her that doesn't remind her of how I feel about her, and she's just about right. The more she pretends otherwise, the more I have to remind her. She has got to at least laugh with me about this. It is not all up to me--and don't dare ask me why! because I don't know. Halfway is as far as I can go with her, and she's not covering the rest of the way because she doesn't give a damn. Yeah, yeah--she doesn't have to do anything--I'm tired of excusing her, rightly or wrongly. And, yeah, I shouldn't speculate on her feelings either, but I wouldn't bet against my judgment. If I'm being hard on Julie, let her tell me. I'm being hard on myself, and that's all. It's the kind of talk that the ignorant thought was harmful to Julie six months ago. I told Chris then that I didn't hate him for blowing my cover, but I'm not sure I didn't lie. I at least hate myself for feeling that I might have. I haven't done the magnanimous, noble, christian thing and forgiven him, but the only reason I think I should have is that it is the magnanimous, noble, christian thing to do--turn the other cheek. Pride is destroying me. It sure gives me enough to write about, though, doesn't it?
Monday is a full day with Julie, and this one was replete with her, if mostly in my head. When the courier mail came in, I was scheduled for holds and Julie for backup. I waited until Julie wheeled the transit items to the back to pack for the outgoing mail, then started unpacking the incoming in order to extract the holds. she usually takes quite a while and there was a lot to pack so I thought I could knock out the incoming before she got back. But the mail kept coming, and before long I could hear the empty cart rattling closer and closer. I paused with a handful of books to look at her. she looked at me but didn't say anything. I expected at least a "thanks for helping" or something and began right then to panic. I already knew I'd be unable to speak with any sense. When she finally spoke to me after putting the cart away, she said, "Are you sure you want to help?" My reply was just a sort of gurgle that she must have taken for a "huh?" because she repeated herself. "No, I don't really want to be this close to you," is what I needed to say, but what came out was, "Well, I'd like to get my holds." My heart was thudding out of my chest, and my skin was sizzling. I couldn't look at her, I couldn't speak, as we worked within a few feet of each other, sometimes out of the same bin. I was in an agony of desire and self-loathing. I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to shake her and yell, "How can you be so goddamned casual about this! This is killing me! Stop mocking me! Stop acting like nothing is going on!" But I emptied bins and filled carts, sweating and trembling and feeling more the inept fool than I ever have. The stack of empty bins towered over me on the handtruck as I tipped it back. Would I get a "thank you" then? No. Julie turned her back to empty the bookdrop.
It was lunchtime when I finished sorting the mail bins in the back. Julie was filling the electric teapot when I entered the break room. I put my stuff at my usual seat and passed her at the sink to get a spoon from the drawer. I stared at that spoon as I sat heavily, then I said, "Don't let me do that again." "What?" "Don't let me do that again--help you with the mail. Too close." She chuckled lightly and said, "Well, you volunteered. So, thanks." It didn't sound like gratitude but indulgence. I couldn't eat for half an hour, then slowly choked down each bit of my pbj. My heart still raced, and the hands covering my face still trembled. I was little better the rest of the day--worse, for not having anyone to talk to about it.
Julie might think by now that I have nothing to say to her that doesn't remind her of how I feel about her, and she's just about right. The more she pretends otherwise, the more I have to remind her. She has got to at least laugh with me about this. It is not all up to me--and don't dare ask me why! because I don't know. Halfway is as far as I can go with her, and she's not covering the rest of the way because she doesn't give a damn. Yeah, yeah--she doesn't have to do anything--I'm tired of excusing her, rightly or wrongly. And, yeah, I shouldn't speculate on her feelings either, but I wouldn't bet against my judgment. If I'm being hard on Julie, let her tell me. I'm being hard on myself, and that's all. It's the kind of talk that the ignorant thought was harmful to Julie six months ago. I told Chris then that I didn't hate him for blowing my cover, but I'm not sure I didn't lie. I at least hate myself for feeling that I might have. I haven't done the magnanimous, noble, christian thing and forgiven him, but the only reason I think I should have is that it is the magnanimous, noble, christian thing to do--turn the other cheek. Pride is destroying me. It sure gives me enough to write about, though, doesn't it?
Friday
Mantra, Mantra, Who's Got the Mantra? (6/9/09 Tuesday)
"No regrets." That should be my new mantra, I thought today as I unloaded the mail (alone!). Then I remembered the other ones--"just keep quiet, no room for doubt," when I was steeling myself to ask Julie out; "no scripts, no scenarios," as I prepared for the "date"; et al--and how flimsy they proved to be in the face of a lifetime of self-doubt, and I chuckled softly to myself. At least I able to laugh. I have evoked "no regrets" three times now, and it has each time buoyed my confidence. The second time came today when Mary Lou said, "Dion's got it under control." I said, "I'll have it under control until Julie gets here." The remark was met with a laugh, and by the time Julie got in for the second shift I had realized two things: Regret at not speaking my mind is a catalyst for my anger; and going "public" with my feelings for Julie dissipates my resentment while helping me find the humor in it all. Maybe I can't yet exactly celebrate being in love, but why should I resent it? (I have a feeling I won't be long in trying to answer that.) And as it's no secret, why should I hide it as if I were ashamed of it? If I talk about it openly--especially humorously--it shows a matured and mellowed attitude toward what had been a serious humiliation. Now, I'm not letting Julie in on this just yet; that is, I'm not going to crack wise about it with her around unless I'm speaking to her, and in that case she will be the entire audience. I don't know why I would give her that deference (I'm hearing Eno's "Julie with...."), except that perhaps I want her embarrassment all to myself. I believe that my remarks to her flatter her, if only to a small degree, and that I would cheapen them if I broadened their audience. But that could simply be hope talking, hope of gaining romantic ground. Also, the knowledge of her dislike of this kind of personal stuff in the workplace puts me at a respectful distance from going tabloid with it. I feel I need to regain some trust from her after my remarks of the past two Mondays. Julie and I didn't exchange so much as a glance, much less a word, in our four hours together until I left work: She packed mail as I packed my saddlebag and squeezed into the bike shoes. Already, I was hearing "no regrets," and as I approached the door I said, "Goodnight, Julie." Her back was to me--or, rather, her butt was; it was all I could see of her bent over a bin. She half rose and half turned and looked up at my smileless but open face. "Oh. Goodnight, Dion," she said, smiling, and her gaze fell to my legs and then back around to her work. I'd caught her by surprise--I'm a quiet walker, and I hadn't exactly addressed her face when I spoke--but there seemed, also, a wariness in her eye contact. I'm glad I didn't have a line prepared, because "no regrets" might have set back the cause. That would be the ironic end to that mantra.
Thursday
Fatebook? (6/12/09 Friday)*
We haven't spoken since I said goodnight Tuesday. She won't even look at me. She won't make eye contact.
I made a Facebook account to get Faith to talk about her mom, but she seems to be backing off, says her mom is "shy about these things." I won't press it. Julie is on Facebook. I knew that already, from when Chris, her rescuer, prodded her to get on there. I don't know if Facebook tracks profile views, so I also created a dummy account--fake name, school, birthdate, etc., to peek at herpage with relative anonymity--an ethical lapse of judgment, I know, but I paid for it on my first visit. What I found was someone who hardly needed me in her life for all the friends she had already. Of course, "friend" on the web does not imply friendship, but she's not the reclusive little old lady that I more or less took her to be--wanted her to be. I was numbed. All I could feel was sad for myself. By late afternoon, thought of Julie could not raise my temperature or my longing for her. Would I have anything more to write? Was this the end of my feelings for her? It might not be quite a void I'd be stepping into, but at least a change I'm not to ready make, a shift from something that I could always count on--painful as it has been--to a new unknown--a kick out of the nest. I'm not ready, because there has been no "literary" ending--no full-circle, no tied-together ends. It's just a car left in the backyard that will eventually grow a tree through its roof. Not even a twist, like we're brother and sister--which would at least would explain why, despite her "French" heritage, she's so interested in Scotland; and it might also account for my lack of sexual attraction to her--her body was never a factor in my interest in her. Oh, how glib I am now, at he end of a day that alternated blurringly between catatonia and blinding rage. Perhaps there was a catharsis in there somewhere; or I'm just spent. Or maybe there are no other feelings that I haven't exhausted. We'll see what feelings I have tomorrow, at work, with Julie.
*Original Comment(s)
Deboshree said...
Hello there!
This is the first time I have read your blog and I have to say..I rather like it!
I read quite a few posts and I can see what you mean.
Boy, you like her sooo much?
Don't mind me saying so but is it really bad if you tell her or does she totally give the uninterested air?It's the latter for sure?
As for what happened on facebook, don't be too surprised. We can never know people too well, even the people close to us. Then what are the people who are not so close to us anyway? She may have a whole new side which you have not seen but may have existed nevertheless.
I'll be following your blog..not only to see what finally happens..but also to help you along the way as a friend who understands what you are going through.
Regards
Deboshree
Dion Burn said...
I appreciate your comments, Debroshee. As to how Julie react to my "reminders," I think she is a little annoyed and barely indulgent. It seems she would rather I pretended as she does that nothing is going on between us.
She does have a side I never knew existed--that's what has depressed me.
Thank you again for your insights. Please keep reading. If you want to start from the start, you should go to The Straight Read, where it's all in reading order up through May.
Anna said...
I can totally relate - my building up of my crushees in my mind, then the realisation that it was all an illusion. Well, or much of it, anyway.. It's not easy.
Anna
x
I made a Facebook account to get Faith to talk about her mom, but she seems to be backing off, says her mom is "shy about these things." I won't press it. Julie is on Facebook. I knew that already, from when Chris, her rescuer, prodded her to get on there. I don't know if Facebook tracks profile views, so I also created a dummy account--fake name, school, birthdate, etc., to peek at herpage with relative anonymity--an ethical lapse of judgment, I know, but I paid for it on my first visit. What I found was someone who hardly needed me in her life for all the friends she had already. Of course, "friend" on the web does not imply friendship, but she's not the reclusive little old lady that I more or less took her to be--wanted her to be. I was numbed. All I could feel was sad for myself. By late afternoon, thought of Julie could not raise my temperature or my longing for her. Would I have anything more to write? Was this the end of my feelings for her? It might not be quite a void I'd be stepping into, but at least a change I'm not to ready make, a shift from something that I could always count on--painful as it has been--to a new unknown--a kick out of the nest. I'm not ready, because there has been no "literary" ending--no full-circle, no tied-together ends. It's just a car left in the backyard that will eventually grow a tree through its roof. Not even a twist, like we're brother and sister--which would at least would explain why, despite her "French" heritage, she's so interested in Scotland; and it might also account for my lack of sexual attraction to her--her body was never a factor in my interest in her. Oh, how glib I am now, at he end of a day that alternated blurringly between catatonia and blinding rage. Perhaps there was a catharsis in there somewhere; or I'm just spent. Or maybe there are no other feelings that I haven't exhausted. We'll see what feelings I have tomorrow, at work, with Julie.
*Original Comment(s)
Deboshree said...
Hello there!
This is the first time I have read your blog and I have to say..I rather like it!
I read quite a few posts and I can see what you mean.
Boy, you like her sooo much?
Don't mind me saying so but is it really bad if you tell her or does she totally give the uninterested air?It's the latter for sure?
As for what happened on facebook, don't be too surprised. We can never know people too well, even the people close to us. Then what are the people who are not so close to us anyway? She may have a whole new side which you have not seen but may have existed nevertheless.
I'll be following your blog..not only to see what finally happens..but also to help you along the way as a friend who understands what you are going through.
Regards
Deboshree
Dion Burn said...
I appreciate your comments, Debroshee. As to how Julie react to my "reminders," I think she is a little annoyed and barely indulgent. It seems she would rather I pretended as she does that nothing is going on between us.
She does have a side I never knew existed--that's what has depressed me.
Thank you again for your insights. Please keep reading. If you want to start from the start, you should go to The Straight Read, where it's all in reading order up through May.
Anna said...
I can totally relate - my building up of my crushees in my mind, then the realisation that it was all an illusion. Well, or much of it, anyway.. It's not easy.
Anna
x
Wednesday
Prison or Fortress? (6/14/09 Sunday)
What changes may have been wrought by Julie's Facebook page Friday were too subtly manifested for me to detect Saturday. At least, they defy my description. I felt no different--the same dread/hope of seeing her, the same avoidance, the same awkwardness with necessary interaction, the same furtive glances and heavy sighs. I can allow that there has been a change, but I'd rather not look for it or embrace it but let it do as it will, as it must. I noticed only that my pride was much subdued, though even that is so vaguely defined as to be ineffable.
Julie And I spent a silent lunch together in the breakroom. I didn't finish my food but stared out the window for long stretches between reluctant bites. I left halfway through the hour.
Megan and Sofiya were on the desk when I came out as relief. Sofiya motioned me to take over for Megan. I was disappointed to be left with Sofiya; we'd have nothing to say to one another. I adjusted the station's ergonomic train wreck--shoving the monitor back, pulling the receipt printer and mouse closer--when the door opened, which didn't register in my aural brain before "Sorry, Sofiya" and the creak-clunk of the chair on the other side of the register signalling Sofiya's departure and Julie's arrival. My first instinct was to say, "Tammy's made a big mistake" (in reference to the scheduling), but my little voice said, "Too soon." Instead, I sat, glancing, sighing, staring through Children's and out their window into the wall of trees at the street entrance...until Julie said, "It's slow for a Saturday." I looked over--she was leaving her seat--and I said, "Aw, don't say that"--she was rounding the far counter--"not without knocking on wood or something." She reached under the marble countertop and rapped on the panelling. "I think it's too late," I said. Julie inspected the flyers, salvaged precious rubber bands from the wastebasket beside the self-check and returned. Patrons kept us busy after that.
Of course, it's tempting to elevate that hour to Event, crown it with significance, but like everything else yesterworkday, I'll choose (as I chose then) to let it ride. Believe it or not, I'm not fond of analyzation, but sometimes the questions are too loud, the confusion too demanding of resolution to leave unattended. Attention to them is often stressful and not often productive. Raretimes, though, I don't induldge their urgency. Yesterday in living and today in writing, I chose to ignore the noisy pair. For someone who has always believed in the ability of the unconscious to glean the essence of experience for its unique needs, I have spent a lot of time since this started not trusting that belief. By no means is that trust entirely restored, but maybe by adding a brick now and then I can make it too strong to knock down with the huff and puff of neurosis.
Maybe another brick. ...
Suddenly faced with one of Julie's steel-rod stares, my eyes goggles and my cheeks puffed and blew out an exaggerated sigh. It was a coincidence, my action unrelated to her stare, yet it was, nonetheless, the right response. I saved the laugh for myself a few minutes later.
Julie And I spent a silent lunch together in the breakroom. I didn't finish my food but stared out the window for long stretches between reluctant bites. I left halfway through the hour.
Megan and Sofiya were on the desk when I came out as relief. Sofiya motioned me to take over for Megan. I was disappointed to be left with Sofiya; we'd have nothing to say to one another. I adjusted the station's ergonomic train wreck--shoving the monitor back, pulling the receipt printer and mouse closer--when the door opened, which didn't register in my aural brain before "Sorry, Sofiya" and the creak-clunk of the chair on the other side of the register signalling Sofiya's departure and Julie's arrival. My first instinct was to say, "Tammy's made a big mistake" (in reference to the scheduling), but my little voice said, "Too soon." Instead, I sat, glancing, sighing, staring through Children's and out their window into the wall of trees at the street entrance...until Julie said, "It's slow for a Saturday." I looked over--she was leaving her seat--and I said, "Aw, don't say that"--she was rounding the far counter--"not without knocking on wood or something." She reached under the marble countertop and rapped on the panelling. "I think it's too late," I said. Julie inspected the flyers, salvaged precious rubber bands from the wastebasket beside the self-check and returned. Patrons kept us busy after that.
Of course, it's tempting to elevate that hour to Event, crown it with significance, but like everything else yesterworkday, I'll choose (as I chose then) to let it ride. Believe it or not, I'm not fond of analyzation, but sometimes the questions are too loud, the confusion too demanding of resolution to leave unattended. Attention to them is often stressful and not often productive. Raretimes, though, I don't induldge their urgency. Yesterday in living and today in writing, I chose to ignore the noisy pair. For someone who has always believed in the ability of the unconscious to glean the essence of experience for its unique needs, I have spent a lot of time since this started not trusting that belief. By no means is that trust entirely restored, but maybe by adding a brick now and then I can make it too strong to knock down with the huff and puff of neurosis.
Maybe another brick. ...
Suddenly faced with one of Julie's steel-rod stares, my eyes goggles and my cheeks puffed and blew out an exaggerated sigh. It was a coincidence, my action unrelated to her stare, yet it was, nonetheless, the right response. I saved the laugh for myself a few minutes later.
Tuesday
How Much Lower Does the Pendulum Swing to Reach the Pit of Despair? (6/15/09 Monday)
Who was that guy who had it so naturally under control yesterday, who had it all figured out? He left town under cover of darkness after selling me that bill-of-philosophical-goods. How many times have I had it all figured out? How many times have I convinced myself of the course I should take? or of the attitude I must have? How many courses led to walls? How many attitudes have stuck? I'm sick of hearing myself talk. The words are getting cheaper and cheaper. From one day to the next I swing from hope to despair, hope to despair--but the hope isn't nearly as high as the despair is deep. I suppose I'd be bipolar if I wasn't mired so deeply in one that I couldn't climb the heights of the other. I'm even tired of saying stuff like that. I do have all the answeres, but I've forgotten the questions they belong to. (I've probably said that before, too.)
Monday
Can You Imagine All the Questions I'll Have at My End-Life Crisis? (6/17/09 Wednesday)
If there weren't Julie, would I be having a mid-life crisis? Was it just waiting for a Julie to project itself upon? Was it inevitable? Would it have taken another form? or latched itself upon some other object? I think it would have tried to attach itself to a great many objects, but only briefly to any one of them, the objects quickly proving to be without sufficient depth. I strongly considered a tattoo for my fiftieth, and I would love to shave my head and start what's left of my hair all over, but am averse to doing anything that says "Look at me!" (Though I suppose that eschewing haircuts altogether since the Train Wreck rather smacks of that, anyway.)
No, if there had to be an object for my mid-life crisis, it had to be Julie, who alone has been capable or sustaining my fascination. I've wondered many (usually bitter) times if she were worthy of my fascination, but did I pick her for the role? I've steadfastly maintained that it was not merely the convenience of her proximity and availability, but I have to admit that I've never convinced myself of that. How could I but to note that there have been and are eligible female co-workers who have held no sway over me whatsoever? Poor Julie--in the wrong place at the right time. She continues to fascinate me, to my own chagrin and frustration, and every day finds yet something else in common to add to a list grown impossibly long for a pair of "incompatible" people.
How long does a mid-life crisis last? How does it end? What makes it stop? If I stopped being in love with Julie, would that be the end of the "crisis"? or would I need a new fascination? When will I ever get the chance to answer those questions?
No, if there had to be an object for my mid-life crisis, it had to be Julie, who alone has been capable or sustaining my fascination. I've wondered many (usually bitter) times if she were worthy of my fascination, but did I pick her for the role? I've steadfastly maintained that it was not merely the convenience of her proximity and availability, but I have to admit that I've never convinced myself of that. How could I but to note that there have been and are eligible female co-workers who have held no sway over me whatsoever? Poor Julie--in the wrong place at the right time. She continues to fascinate me, to my own chagrin and frustration, and every day finds yet something else in common to add to a list grown impossibly long for a pair of "incompatible" people.
How long does a mid-life crisis last? How does it end? What makes it stop? If I stopped being in love with Julie, would that be the end of the "crisis"? or would I need a new fascination? When will I ever get the chance to answer those questions?
Sunday
Not Even to Tell My Grandchildren (6/20/09 Saturday)
The absence of and physical distance from Julie has engendered a certain nostalgia this weekend. Every moment together is impossible, replete to bursting with the unsaid and unsayable--the very things I dwell on once given the breathing room. Again this week, we didn't speak (I think my last crack was fatal), and were only once forced into prolonged contact--ten minutes of packing mail that produce from each of us an utterance that was only half meant for ourselves. Inches away, she bent to pack a box. Her hair parted from her neck. I wanted to plant the lightest kiss on the exposed nape. But's that only how I think of that now. Then, that neck was a taunt, and those unsaid words roiled through my veins. But I don't know what those words were, so I can't regret not saying them. Somehow, the scene is touchingly humorous as I write. If only that attitude could fortify me against the dread that will begin tomorrow night; but it's the only such recent memory of Julie that doesn't browbeat me. I've been thinking of our last meeting, and the more I do the more I feel I had only been indulged. I was confessional and over-disclosive, and she was the mom trying to say the right thing to the sensitive kid. Nothing nostalgic there. I'm not sure I can get far enough away from that memory to find amusement in its recollection.
Saturday
Hope Is Rope (6/22/09 Monday)
Julie has reverted to the cold shoulder. She can have it, because I've had it. It's not up to me anymore. I don't want things the way they were; I want them the way they can never be. How can I keep wanting that? The words are slow in coming because I don't want to repeat myself, and I don't think there's anything otherwise to say. The best I can do is pretend to care as little as she does. It is not all up to me, not if she cares. And if she doesn't, why should I try at all? That's where it stands as I prepare to shut up about all this. There will be no intervention or confrontation with her about this or anything else. I don't need to talk to someone who would rather not listen. But I've said nothing new, and if I'm giving up, why keep talking?
Friday
The Sympathy Waltz (6/23/09 Tuesday)
I keep talking because hope doesn't die. Hope, the biggest, most ignorant fool of all. Hope doesn't make me any smarter, but it does make me happier. Reason may be the reason hope goes away. I can't stop reasoning, but maybe I can pause it when hope rings me.
Tuesday morning through lunch--Julie- and stress-free. After that it seemed impossible to avoid her, but I survived it much better than most days with My Mid-Life Crisis. At one o'clock we were at opposite ends of the workroom, she at the window, I at backup. But as we both had bookdrops to empty, we both had books to sort onto the carts on the battlefield between us. I took an assorted armful into no-man's land, scanning for the enemy, spotting her with juvenile fiction. I opted to unload my CD books onto the nearer cart, nearer aisle. I bent to put a Grisham on the bottom shelf. I rose as Julie rose from the other side. It was Groucho and Chico facing off in the mirror scene in Duck Soup. All that was missing was matching nightshirts and caps. We stared at each other a moment (how can eyes be navy blue?) before she said sharply, "Hello." I was the deer to her headlights. "Hello," I finally replied, surely without expression. We immediately turned from one another and headed back to our posts. There were no casualties, no victory claimed by either side.
The courier mail came, and Julie returned the favor of two weeks ago and helped me unpack it. It was a strange dance of reconnoitering side-long glances and intricate patterns of avoidance. Though I was becoming as hot as before, I also became increasingly amused at the care she was taking to avoid my personal space. We truly were dancing, with me leading. When the window called her away I missed her and wished her back. She didn't return, but at the end of the hour I was to replace her at the window. I marched up sheepishly and diffidently--from the same rostrum from which I declared to her "This cold-shoulder stuff has to stop," all I could do was stand there like a little boy with a message for his teacher. "Are you my replacement?" she said. I barely said, "Mm-hm," then, "Thank you for helping." "Sure." I don't know if she looked at me because I didn't at her.
I was caught away from the winbdow once that hour when a car pulled up, and Julie answered the call. I let her finish it, and when she did she looked at me. I tried to thank her, but when she smiled my lips moved but no sound issued. Oh, hope! Hope saw that smile, such a one as I'm sure it would swear it had never seen. Pride saw it, too, but what it saw was sympathy. Sympathy was the music to our dance among the mail bins. Julie isn't indulging me. She cares. What it is she's caring about I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know. She's thrown off the cold shoulder. Neither am I sure I want to know what hope I'm hoping. Hope certainly doesn't want to know.
Tuesday morning through lunch--Julie- and stress-free. After that it seemed impossible to avoid her, but I survived it much better than most days with My Mid-Life Crisis. At one o'clock we were at opposite ends of the workroom, she at the window, I at backup. But as we both had bookdrops to empty, we both had books to sort onto the carts on the battlefield between us. I took an assorted armful into no-man's land, scanning for the enemy, spotting her with juvenile fiction. I opted to unload my CD books onto the nearer cart, nearer aisle. I bent to put a Grisham on the bottom shelf. I rose as Julie rose from the other side. It was Groucho and Chico facing off in the mirror scene in Duck Soup. All that was missing was matching nightshirts and caps. We stared at each other a moment (how can eyes be navy blue?) before she said sharply, "Hello." I was the deer to her headlights. "Hello," I finally replied, surely without expression. We immediately turned from one another and headed back to our posts. There were no casualties, no victory claimed by either side.
The courier mail came, and Julie returned the favor of two weeks ago and helped me unpack it. It was a strange dance of reconnoitering side-long glances and intricate patterns of avoidance. Though I was becoming as hot as before, I also became increasingly amused at the care she was taking to avoid my personal space. We truly were dancing, with me leading. When the window called her away I missed her and wished her back. She didn't return, but at the end of the hour I was to replace her at the window. I marched up sheepishly and diffidently--from the same rostrum from which I declared to her "This cold-shoulder stuff has to stop," all I could do was stand there like a little boy with a message for his teacher. "Are you my replacement?" she said. I barely said, "Mm-hm," then, "Thank you for helping." "Sure." I don't know if she looked at me because I didn't at her.
I was caught away from the winbdow once that hour when a car pulled up, and Julie answered the call. I let her finish it, and when she did she looked at me. I tried to thank her, but when she smiled my lips moved but no sound issued. Oh, hope! Hope saw that smile, such a one as I'm sure it would swear it had never seen. Pride saw it, too, but what it saw was sympathy. Sympathy was the music to our dance among the mail bins. Julie isn't indulging me. She cares. What it is she's caring about I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know. She's thrown off the cold shoulder. Neither am I sure I want to know what hope I'm hoping. Hope certainly doesn't want to know.
Thursday
No Line, No Bait, No Catch (6/25/09 Thursday)
It's not yet ten-thirty in the morning, and I'm drinking whisky--not out of distress or despondence but just because I want to. I've had breakfast and coffee. I've showered (but not shaved) and tended vigorously to my increasingly complex hair regimen. Now it's time--a couple hours before work--for whisky. I've nearly finished my fourth bottle this year, three more than usual. My inclination to drink it has become almost an imperative in facing down That Which Need Not Be Named. As imperatives go, it is a savory pill to swallow. (I believe I'll swallow some more.)
I wonder if Mr. Gold--Mr. Gold of the mutual amorous hopes--would join me. It seems now I see him every day in the library, and every day I want to introduce myself as a member of a society of common interest. I would like to sit down with him, if not over whisky, at least coffee, and discuss the focal point of our hopes. I know he's been rebuffed, but how? How much has he spoken with Julie? and her with him? The looks he and I exchange I have yet to fully decipher. I know how I look at him--with knowing and curiosity--but does his look self-consciously reflect that? or does he see something of the same in me? What's to gain? Who cares? Mike says he's a retired journalist. Surely as such he would be interested in reading my riveting reportage on our favorite subject. Or perhaps I don't give Mr. Gold enough credit in being able to do what I have not; that is, give up the idea of Julie as a paramour. To give him that credit would discredit his commitment. Oh, no, Mr. Gold, you aren't going to marginalize Julie's worth and denigrate my commitment by just shrugging off her rejection! I won't let you. Aren't you hurt? Have you no pride? Do you really believe there are other fish in the sea? Sure there are--fine catchable fish--but don't you want the white whale? Come on, Ahab! you know Moby Dick's the only fish for you! Wouldn't you as soon die as give up? Hey! come back here! I've got a boat!
Perhaps I should stop drinking now, an hour later and closer to work. Perhaps I should take the bottle with me, in case Mr. Gold comes in.
I wonder if Mr. Gold--Mr. Gold of the mutual amorous hopes--would join me. It seems now I see him every day in the library, and every day I want to introduce myself as a member of a society of common interest. I would like to sit down with him, if not over whisky, at least coffee, and discuss the focal point of our hopes. I know he's been rebuffed, but how? How much has he spoken with Julie? and her with him? The looks he and I exchange I have yet to fully decipher. I know how I look at him--with knowing and curiosity--but does his look self-consciously reflect that? or does he see something of the same in me? What's to gain? Who cares? Mike says he's a retired journalist. Surely as such he would be interested in reading my riveting reportage on our favorite subject. Or perhaps I don't give Mr. Gold enough credit in being able to do what I have not; that is, give up the idea of Julie as a paramour. To give him that credit would discredit his commitment. Oh, no, Mr. Gold, you aren't going to marginalize Julie's worth and denigrate my commitment by just shrugging off her rejection! I won't let you. Aren't you hurt? Have you no pride? Do you really believe there are other fish in the sea? Sure there are--fine catchable fish--but don't you want the white whale? Come on, Ahab! you know Moby Dick's the only fish for you! Wouldn't you as soon die as give up? Hey! come back here! I've got a boat!
Perhaps I should stop drinking now, an hour later and closer to work. Perhaps I should take the bottle with me, in case Mr. Gold comes in.
Wednesday
Taciturn for the Worse (6/28/09 Sunday)*
"Ugh! I can't talk to you!"
Julie rode her bike to work Friday, and I desperately wanted to talk to her about it. I couldn't muster a word till four o'clock, then Judy interrupted us. I left the note around the hand-grip of her bike.
All day--all week--my blood pressure was so high as to prompt people to ask after me, my face being deeply flushed. It's probably like that now as I only fitfully write. Maddox--the nicest guy in the world--showed concern Thursday, and I told him what had been bothering me, but without mentioning Julie by name. I said, "I'm having difficulty--" and choked up. I didn't let the tears come, but at lunch Friday I sought a place to cry, but--practical me--I didn't want to come back with red eyes, however better it might make me feel. Instead, I plotted on either begging off the rest of the day or taking off Monday. I didn't leave early, and I will be in Monday. At the edge of distress, knowing how desperately sad and regretful and self-hateful I would feel over the weekend if I didn't claw my way out of this lead shell of taciturnity, I asked Julie how her commute had been. Then Judy interrupted to ask Julie to go to the desk to cover a hole in the schedule. That had been my last chance. That's when I wrote the note.
I realize it could be interpreted variously, and I considered other words, but I stuck with how I felt. Julie will say nothing, I will say nothing. I'm not trying to start something. I'm not going to provoke her into giving me attention. This may be an intolerable situation for me, but it's not her problem at all--at least I don't want it to be.
[What I didn't post Thursday (written after I got home that night):
*Original Comment(s)
Deboshree said...
I wish you the best my dear friend.
I know how agonizing it can feel at times.
Just keep trying and try not to get too distressed.
Love
Deboshree
Dion Burn said...
Thank you. I'm trying, but I don't know what I'm trying at anymore, or why.
Julie rode her bike to work Friday, and I desperately wanted to talk to her about it. I couldn't muster a word till four o'clock, then Judy interrupted us. I left the note around the hand-grip of her bike.
All day--all week--my blood pressure was so high as to prompt people to ask after me, my face being deeply flushed. It's probably like that now as I only fitfully write. Maddox--the nicest guy in the world--showed concern Thursday, and I told him what had been bothering me, but without mentioning Julie by name. I said, "I'm having difficulty--" and choked up. I didn't let the tears come, but at lunch Friday I sought a place to cry, but--practical me--I didn't want to come back with red eyes, however better it might make me feel. Instead, I plotted on either begging off the rest of the day or taking off Monday. I didn't leave early, and I will be in Monday. At the edge of distress, knowing how desperately sad and regretful and self-hateful I would feel over the weekend if I didn't claw my way out of this lead shell of taciturnity, I asked Julie how her commute had been. Then Judy interrupted to ask Julie to go to the desk to cover a hole in the schedule. That had been my last chance. That's when I wrote the note.
I realize it could be interpreted variously, and I considered other words, but I stuck with how I felt. Julie will say nothing, I will say nothing. I'm not trying to start something. I'm not going to provoke her into giving me attention. This may be an intolerable situation for me, but it's not her problem at all--at least I don't want it to be.
[What I didn't post Thursday (written after I got home that night):
It's official: I am now the last person at work with whom Julie will have a conversation. She was talking with Scotia today. Don't I feel special now?]
*Original Comment(s)
Deboshree said...
I wish you the best my dear friend.
I know how agonizing it can feel at times.
Just keep trying and try not to get too distressed.
Love
Deboshree
Dion Burn said...
Thank you. I'm trying, but I don't know what I'm trying at anymore, or why.
Tuesday
No, Not Okay (6/29/09 Monday)
This is one of those times when I just stare at the paper for twenty minutes or so, slack-jawed and barely breathing, before starting to write; when the entire first paragraph is temporization, a running start. I'm still running--where's the starting line? It's not a dearth but a surplus of thought that paralyzes the pen.
"I'm not going to try talking to you, anymore" was an interpretation of my note that came to me last night, and I decided I had to debunk that, first chance. Ten o'clock, Julie took over for me at the window, announcing so while turning her back on me to get something from the cabinet above her desk. I said, pointing to the cart of books, "These are check-condition." "Okay." "And there's probably quite a bit more in the bins." "Okay." "How was your ride back Friday?" i asked her back. "Okay." (What does that mean?) "Okay?" She finally turned but didn't look at me but with a brush of her eyes and a glancing, forced, tight-lipped smile. "Uhm-hm." Every aspect of her told me not only that she had no intention of telling me more but also, "Go away."
I did. What more could I say? What could I ever say to someone who didn't want to talk to me? The same hour Julie picked up a call. It was for Greta, who was not in the room. Julie left the window to find her. She did not ask me--the only other person in the workroom--to watch the window for her--a breach that she would not have dared to make in normal circumstances.
Again, I am on the edge of distress, yet no course of action presents itself to me. What happened? I can't be convinced that the note in itself had a strong bearing on her attitude. Distasteful as speculation is to me, it is all I have by way of an answer, gossamer as that might be. Her bike had been parked inside, where everyone gathers at the end of the workday to leave together. She may not have been the first to see that slip of paper taped around ther hand-grip, and was very likely not to have been at least annoyed, and given the pretense of work-place propriety she tries to maintain, that was probably a floor I laid bare as she stood upon it.
Is there really anything I can or should do? Is this sudden feeling of defiance I have justified? Is it defiance at all? Did I do something wrong? I mean, besides fall in love with someone who'd as soon have nothing to do with me. What have I done wrong in this whole year-long quagmire of misplaced feelings? But I repeat myself.
As I thrash in my cage, my blood pressure setting records for anything on the outside of a vacuum, I think of my only escape as writing. I think that I could be writing my nights away, putting my energy toward getting out of the library by means of my only obvious talent. Then I wonder what the hell I'm going to write, and I let go of the bars, lean my cheeks against them and stare, unseeing, at freedom. This--whatever this is--is all I seem to know. What is it worth?
"I'm not going to try talking to you, anymore" was an interpretation of my note that came to me last night, and I decided I had to debunk that, first chance. Ten o'clock, Julie took over for me at the window, announcing so while turning her back on me to get something from the cabinet above her desk. I said, pointing to the cart of books, "These are check-condition." "Okay." "And there's probably quite a bit more in the bins." "Okay." "How was your ride back Friday?" i asked her back. "Okay." (What does that mean?) "Okay?" She finally turned but didn't look at me but with a brush of her eyes and a glancing, forced, tight-lipped smile. "Uhm-hm." Every aspect of her told me not only that she had no intention of telling me more but also, "Go away."
I did. What more could I say? What could I ever say to someone who didn't want to talk to me? The same hour Julie picked up a call. It was for Greta, who was not in the room. Julie left the window to find her. She did not ask me--the only other person in the workroom--to watch the window for her--a breach that she would not have dared to make in normal circumstances.
Again, I am on the edge of distress, yet no course of action presents itself to me. What happened? I can't be convinced that the note in itself had a strong bearing on her attitude. Distasteful as speculation is to me, it is all I have by way of an answer, gossamer as that might be. Her bike had been parked inside, where everyone gathers at the end of the workday to leave together. She may not have been the first to see that slip of paper taped around ther hand-grip, and was very likely not to have been at least annoyed, and given the pretense of work-place propriety she tries to maintain, that was probably a floor I laid bare as she stood upon it.
Is there really anything I can or should do? Is this sudden feeling of defiance I have justified? Is it defiance at all? Did I do something wrong? I mean, besides fall in love with someone who'd as soon have nothing to do with me. What have I done wrong in this whole year-long quagmire of misplaced feelings? But I repeat myself.
As I thrash in my cage, my blood pressure setting records for anything on the outside of a vacuum, I think of my only escape as writing. I think that I could be writing my nights away, putting my energy toward getting out of the library by means of my only obvious talent. Then I wonder what the hell I'm going to write, and I let go of the bars, lean my cheeks against them and stare, unseeing, at freedom. This--whatever this is--is all I seem to know. What is it worth?
Monday
Mirror/Mirror (7/02/09 Thursday)*
Bethany also asked after me last Friday. I told her what the problem was. "Still?" she said. She hasn't spoken to me this week. My anti-claque grows. Julie's willful disdain for me grows daily more obvious, but I won't say painfully so; in fact, to this old master of that affectation it is virtually heartening. Suffering is required to maintain such an attitude. Her misery is a comfort to me, as long as it's related to me; and as long as I'm not actively contributing to it I can suffer no remorse over it. And I'm not contributing to it. I have spoken to her more than once since Monday and have each time been met with--eventually--a grunted, barely audible monosyllable of indeterminate verbiage. This has served to lower my blood pressure somewhat (but not enough). I can't know that I am a cause of her behavior (I would not be as "happy" if I weren't), and I'm working hard to not believe it, because it's not a healthy stroke to my ego, attention though it might (or might not) be; but I will never know, because Julie would never tell me; behavior of this sort communicates its own inability to communicate all to clearly. If only she knew how well I knew her....
Unfortunately, her behavior towards me has fueled fantasies of her kindling interest in me. Don't let's start in on that again. My best attitude right now is disinterest, though at this point it must be feigned. Perhaps disinterest isn't quite the right word without "emotional" before it. I am not disinterested, feigned or otherwise, but to become emotionally involved is to hope that Julie actually cares about me. When I was acting towards her the way she is now acting towards me it was for attention. I don't know if she recognized it as such, but I think it best that, thouugh I recognize it, I don't acknowledge it. In the meantime I won't stop trying to talk to her. It's the best way to deny that acknowledgment.
*Original Comment(s)
Deboshree said...
Hey there Dion,
Tough eh?
As far as I know, women don't feign uninterest. When a woman acts as if she doesn't want to talk, I think she means it.
But I guess you must be knowing better.
Tell me,when she behaves like that, what do you really feel? I feel we always know what the other person's vibes are trying to say.I'm sure you know the answer.
Love
Deboshree
Dion Burn said...
I don't know better, Deboshree. I think her disinterest is genuine. What I feel when she behaves like that is anger and self-pity, mostly, I think--and maybe some satisfaction in having gotten some kind of reaction out of her, for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, her behavior towards me has fueled fantasies of her kindling interest in me. Don't let's start in on that again. My best attitude right now is disinterest, though at this point it must be feigned. Perhaps disinterest isn't quite the right word without "emotional" before it. I am not disinterested, feigned or otherwise, but to become emotionally involved is to hope that Julie actually cares about me. When I was acting towards her the way she is now acting towards me it was for attention. I don't know if she recognized it as such, but I think it best that, thouugh I recognize it, I don't acknowledge it. In the meantime I won't stop trying to talk to her. It's the best way to deny that acknowledgment.
*Original Comment(s)
Deboshree said...
Hey there Dion,
Tough eh?
As far as I know, women don't feign uninterest. When a woman acts as if she doesn't want to talk, I think she means it.
But I guess you must be knowing better.
Tell me,when she behaves like that, what do you really feel? I feel we always know what the other person's vibes are trying to say.I'm sure you know the answer.
Love
Deboshree
Dion Burn said...
I don't know better, Deboshree. I think her disinterest is genuine. What I feel when she behaves like that is anger and self-pity, mostly, I think--and maybe some satisfaction in having gotten some kind of reaction out of her, for better or for worse.
Sunday
She Just Points at It and Laughs (7/08/09 Wednesday)*
Julie is trying again, but I've given up. What she's trying is just to be civil, and I can barely muster that. Do I feel anything at all for her? or just for my pride? She won't allow me to connect the way I want to. I'm not worth it to her, but it's only my pride that cares about that. She's not the only person who feels that way about me, but I feel the same about them. Julie told me how she felt about me when she said, "It's all up to you," and I still seethe when I think of that line and how I so readily and humbly accepted it instead of turning it on her with its translation. I was still deluded that there was a chance for me. It is not up to me, because its referent is no longer valid: I don't want things the way they were (that was never enough) and neither does Julie. She doesn't care if I talk to her and would rather I didn't. Who's feelings are hurt by that? It astonishes me still that she could have no interest--of any sort--given all the common interests. She won't talk to me about bikes, Scotland, music, movies--anything--even when I bring them up. I don't so much hate the imbalance of interest as her knowledge of it. It's a power I've given her to wield against me. I'd say, "That's where candor gets me," but it's the naivete of the belief that candor would be returned that got me: I showed her mine, but she didn't show me hers.
*Original Comment(s)
Expat From Hell said...
"I showed her mine, but she didn't show me hers." Therein lies the courage. Therein lies the reason I follow. Keep up the great work, my friend.EFH
Dion Burn said...
Courage: I'm not sure how much of that I've got left--or maybe just how better to use it--that is, for a cause that's not already lost. Thanks for the encouragement.
*Original Comment(s)
Expat From Hell said...
"I showed her mine, but she didn't show me hers." Therein lies the courage. Therein lies the reason I follow. Keep up the great work, my friend.EFH
Dion Burn said...
Courage: I'm not sure how much of that I've got left--or maybe just how better to use it--that is, for a cause that's not already lost. Thanks for the encouragement.
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