Saturday, October 11, 2008

dark room

never mind the beetlejuice reference, but my whole life is a dark room. ok not really, but i do spend an awful lot of time butt-down on our ugly red hand-me-down futon in the living room, which is damned dark as rooms go. it's a rainy saturday afternoon and i'm taking stock of my sitch. not nearly as melodramatic as it sounds, fortunately. trevor just left for the bars to meet with one of his friends who has called at least 5 times since i arrived to hang out, and whom he has turned down each time. we agreed that it was time to show his face. ideally i would have been sunshine cheerleader and cried out, 'YES! that's exactly what i want to do, babe! let me go put on my face and grease up my hair so i can sit on my can in some rank-smelling dive spending $4 per beer to pour into my inert listless body!'

predictably, i instead opted to give him the silent treatment until he tried that tres annoying tactic of cheerfully suggesting wholesome activities i could engage in while he was racking up a bar tab. oh no. i told him not to bring up yoga in all of its sacredness just to assuage his guilt. if i felt like sulking, bored out of my mind, in a dark room, listening to gen y suicide-inducing grunge tracks while cruising dog-rescue sites, i will do just that. if i want to drive myself to cherry creek mall to inhale the smell of commerce (no, not in the morning, but you already knew i was heading towards that mallrats reference), then i will do that. if i felt like going and twisting myself into a pretzel, i would do that, as well, but i sure as hell don't need captain america to suggest that shit to me. i'm alone in a strange city where i know no one but the eternally reliant person i am directing my insults towards. i will be sulky if i fucking feel like it.

thankfully, trevor is acres more cool than i am - i just make up for it by being articulate and clever, and he overlooks the bitchy part, what a good deal - and feels guilty and bad for ditching me for a bar, which fulfills my goal of making him feel shitty for abandoning my ass on a rainy saturday, while i secretly distract him from my outrageous childishness by stating all of the above out loud. cleverly, of course. (it's really funny and somewhat sad and terrible how well this tactic works to detract from your less-than-perfect personality.) anyway, i send him on his way amidst promises of text messages from bar stools while hanging out with people who wear patagonia fleece and crocs. ok, ok, the patagonia fleece is just a guess, i've never met these people, but i know about the crocs for sure, and that's worse than the fleece. they sound very nice, but i'm just not in the mood to hide the horror in my eyes when i see their outfits.

i need some friends. i need them so badly that i am too emotionally immobilized to contact the friends that i do have. what a conundrum. anyway, all my lazy bitches over there spread across a couple of continents do is read my blog for updates, anyway. it's a one-way valve, this blogisphere. alright, i guess that's not fair. i do get comments now and then. those are nice. i'll stop feeling cynical and somewhat sorry for myself. i knew what i was getting myself into.

on another note, isn't it a BITCH that knowing what kind of shit you're headed towards does absolutely nothing to temper the shittiness level? shouldn't recognition count for something? all it really does is make me look out at the pine tree next to my window and think, 'for fuck's sake! this really does suck as much as i thought it would!' i wish i could be a habitual drinker or dope smoker to sort of complete the pathetic-ness of the picture, but i never really took to either very well. free-flow at launch parties is another thing altogether. drinks go down so much more nicely when you're in heels.

trevor and i mention every once in a while (translation: daily) what we miss about china. trevor, being the fob that he is, misses not only his friends, but china itself, its language and surroundings. (i know what you're thinking - what surroundings are those?) i don't miss stupid china at all, but i miss my friends. i miss having a group of people around me full of ideas and energy who always have something interesting up their sleeves. maybe new york is different, but where i'm from and where i currently am don't have that same dynamic. there is something about being a transplant and needing to get something out of being in a foreign place. the fuel of temporariness, i suppose.

otherwise, things are going well as expected. i actually am not being as much of a brat as i was today. i've been making some damn saucy dinners, too. and yet, i don't feel like the brat description is accurate, really. it's not horrible to me that i don't feel obligated to go out and be in some stank bar in the middle of the day for the sake of getting out of the house. i really don't begrudge trevor ditching my ass (i just like the ring of the phrase) to sit in a bar with croc-wearing friends. it's just that the reality of it is that i am essentially in a city with no friends and no family. the one person i do know is great and supportive and fair and sunshiney to the point of needing a xanax, but i require more than one person on earth to keep me stimulated and happy, and more than one location, and more than one task. it's just how shit be.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1. Crocs are fucked. Yes, they're far worse than Patagonia. Never second guess that feeling again.

2. Why don't you go out to your Ranch 99 place and pretend you're in lovely downtown El Cerrito?

3. Recognizing a situation is shit doesn't make it better. Therapists are kind of full of it on that one IMO.

4. Get a bike! Seeing scenery and going somewhere and exploring and getting exercise and working out hostility all at the same time...it's the new drinking! :)

Love ya. Hang in!