July 19th 2014
email from me
I want to be social, yet I want to be productive. YOU are the perfect friend for such times. If you’d like to come by tonight for spell and hang out, chatting, drawing, give a shout!
July 20th 2014
email from me
if you want to come by after rush hour(s) is over and just… hang out, I think I’ll be around. We could just sit and draw and chat. I miss doing that.
I started recently making sure I draw every fucking day. Even if it’s a stupid doodle. The more I do it, the less scary it is. Kind of like leaving the house or being out during daylight hours.
email from Stefan
Yeah…. Even if Im in good awful pain… I sketch for a few minutes
email from me
Well, it’s worried me, y’know. Almost all the art you post online is many years old. You aren’t drawing or painting enough. Whatever pain your leg is in, your eyes and hands work ok, right?
email from Stefan
Yeah…. I haven’t posted shit ever since ive moved home. I’ve filled up two books since ive been here.
email from me
I was referring to before that. I mean, most of your instagram and tumblr is stuff I remember.
But I’m glad you are drawing. It worries me if you are only doing tattoo art. Still. Painting is what you SHOULD do. That self portrait you had at that show was AMAZING.
July 22nd 2014
email from me
Hey.
I know you have a lot going on in your life, but …. I could really really use a friend. <the boyfriend> is the only person I’ve got for the most part, and I need someone to talk to that I’m not sexually involved with.
I’m having…. gender issues.
Well… You can rant/write all you want. My mom just had her surgery…. Took seven hours. 3 extra hours to cut out scar tissue. I’ve spent the last for hours rubbing her lips with a little sponge to cool her off cause she can’t swallow. Then…. No joke, as I went down for a CIG… My uncle came in on bed from a heart attack. My moms complications are gonna keep her there longer. But….. If I could call I will.
If you don’t mind writing about it…. What kind of gender issues? In about to grab a coffee and go back to just sit next to my mom and watch TV. She probably won’t even realize I’m there
email from me
JESUS CHRIST.
This all sounds insane.
Is it your asshole uncle that disowned his half black grandkid?
What kind of complications does your mom have
Um. Ok. My gender issues. Here’s the ramble. I hope it distracts your mind for a while.
So. I stopped shaving my legs. I’m really fucking hairy, and I hate shaving because I hate the feeling of stubble. I hate it. I used to shave twice a day. I’m not so big on being as hairy as I am, and I’d rather not have the hair, but… EGAD. Not shaving my legs has made me feel so much more comfortable in my skin. But that can just be feminism, y’know
But…. so, looking back, at my tomboy youth… I loved running around topless in my Gramma’s back yard; it was my favorite thing. I used to make my cousins pretend I was a boy when we were in the woods alone. I used to play with the boys at recess in elementary school and not let the girls play with us, though I’d a female best friend I’d play with every day after school. The boy I had a crush on in junior high told me I walked like a boy. all through elementary school I wanted a boy’s haircut. I hated my breasts when they started, and have honestly only found them a discomfort since I got the bastards. I’ve only learned to appreciate them because they balanced out my very curvy figure. Only, now I’ve lost weight, and I find I really would rather be rid of them.
Like, I can’t stop thinking about getting top surgery. At least down to an A or B. At least so I don’t have to wear a bra. At least so they aren’t noticable.
I think I’m an inbetweener. A not 100% gender person. I’ve been told more times than I can count that I have the brain of a dude. I think I’m an androgyne? Or something similar?
Then there’s the whole sex drive thing.
I don’t have one. I feel terribly guilty about it. He deserves more sex. I gave him my blessings to go and find sex elsewhere, but he’s refused.
I love <the boyfriend>. I do. I love the guy. He’s the most supportive, kind, devoted boyfriend I could ever hope for. But that… that…. ZING has just never been there. There’s not that kind of emotional GRAVITY that I expect. I thought it would show up? But we still …. we still…. we don’t flow together AT ALL during sexual times.
I’ve been trying to figure out if this is just him? Is it just chemical? Is he just not sexually compatible? Or is it just how I am with guys?
Now, you do come into play with this a bit. Because I’ve been thinking about my sexual and emotional history. You were the only guy I have fallen for hard since I was 19. The only one. You are, I think an exception perhaps? I mean, um. This might seem a bit much, but I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD that to me, you smelled like dried rose petals. That’s crazy, I realize, but… it’s true. I’ve never experienced that kind of allure of natural scent otherwise. We clearly had some kind of serious chemistry between us, at least from my perspective. I’ve been wondering if that’s because you are a bit of an inbetweener as well? Or maybe just a too-perfect-chemical-compatibility-exception?
Guys are… easy. I understand how they think. I get along with them. I’ve never really FIT with girls, so I’m never comfortable around them. But …. I totally find myself attracted to woman FAR more often than men. And I’m far more likely to feel like a stupid giggling moron around women than men. Is that just because I’m less experienced with women, or because I’m actually more INTO them?
And i’m not sure how worthwhile all this is to explore. I mean, my body is falling apart. I’m typing this while wearing an eyepatch, and a foam neck brace. Does it matter if I’m hardly having sex anymore? Or if I was really into it, would I be having sex anyway?
But really, I’ve been more swept up into the few women that I’ve dated than the men, in my adulthood. (aside from you)
I can’t stop thinking about how awesome it’d be if I didn’t have breasts.
All through childhood I felt as though I was supposed to be a boy, but I ended up a girl at the last minute. And I was enraptured at the idea of a sex change operation when I first saw it on TV when I was in junior high.
Not being a curvy girl would be so amazing to me.
That doesn’t mean I’d want to be a guy. I’m TOTALLY not a dude.
Christ, I don’t know. But it’s freaking me out and I keep researching stuff and I don’t really know where my head is at, and I’m sorry that this is very unstructured, I’ve just sort of rambled it all out as it came into my head. There’s more, I’m sure. But this is the gist.
Sorry.
I’m sort of having a weird freak out. I’m scared?
I wasn’t expecting this.
(you are the only person I’ve told this to)
(though having a conversation with <the boyfriend>, he has considered that I might be more into women than men)
I didn’t realize that your mom was going to have her surgery so soon, but I guess, with something like this, you’d want it done as soon as possible.
Have you had any indication with doctors as to how successful the surgery went, with regard to the cancer removal?
And honestly, if you guys need any help around the house while your mom is recovering, LET ME COME BY AND CLEAN.
Seriously. It helps me get my inner OCD out. And I feel better about my life if I’m able to help others and not just be a vacuum of need all the fucking time.
July 24th 2014
email from me
I hope things are going ok with your mom.
I also hope that I didn’t offend or freak you out with my gender ramble.
I also hope that you are doing ok. Call me if you like.
July 25th 2014
email from Stefan
She’s talking more… Eating a bit. But she’s in the couch all day and night, and she coughs a lot and it sounds so faint and it hurts her so much. So… I get paranoid she’s gonna need something, so all night I sit in the living room while she sleeps, or if I go in my room, I keep the volume on everything down so I could get her water if she starts to cough.
Nah, that email didn’t offend or freak me out. Its just how it is. We connect with people in different ways and they don’t always sync up with other ways one may expect our assume they would.
And me…. Im worried about myself and not sure what the immediate future holds. I really don’t want to be a statistic. I don’t want stories from people to define me, I’d like to be around to define myself.
July 26th 2014
email from me
Sorry if this is not very eloquent; I’ve just woken up.
What you are going through with your mom must be quite difficult to experience. Especially since you usually have the burden of being the person who “takes care of things” while everyone else gets to fall apart.
(Seriously, I don’t understand why humans don’t get an annual full body MRI to make sure nothing is going wrong. It would be cheaper than having to go through the rigors of surgery and chemo or whatever treatment people have to go through when a serious diagnosis isn’t caught right away.)
I don’t mean to offend, but I know temptation is sometimes uncontrollable; do not take any of your mother’s pain killers. It will eat you up with guilt, and it would break your family’s heart if they were to find out. I’ll see if I can be of any assistance in that realm; better my pills than hers.
I’m truly sorry for the pain and worry you are going through. Think on this, though. I don’t have any family members that I have a caring enough relationship with to feel anywhere near how you do. My heart is breaking for you, for what your family has to endure, but please please remember that all this is direct proportion to how much you care about one another. That you can feel so much tragedy and worry right now is a beautiful reflection of how much love and care you possess for your mother, and in turn, what a caring mother she has been to you.
I really really do think you should look into some kind of out-patient addiction treatment. Even just some NA style meetings. I think it might help you out, give you something solid to cling to in all this craziness of your life.
There is a secular sobriety group in Paramus. LINK: <dead link>
Please. Give it a shot. I know how much you keep bottled up and don’t share with others, all the dark stories. You may find others who are struggling as you are; people you can be open with – perhaps people who can help in very real ways that those of us who love you just won’t ever understand 100%, as much as we strive to.
Also, it can’t hurt your legal matters. With your leg injury, your mom being sick, AND attending meetings of your own volition, you may get off on probation.
And, if you DO get off on probation, you’ve got to secure yourself some kind of structure to make sure you actually make it through probation without any fuckups. Those SOS meetings might help, or at least direct you to some tactics that will.
I miss being sober with you. I drink occasionally these days, and I ALWAYS regret it. I smoke more weed than I should, I think – though the pain and headaches and pervasive nausea gives me excuse enough to indulge. (Painkillers are pain killers and that’s so medicinal to me there’s no “high” to it, so that doesn’t count)
But I really do miss being a sober duo, that feeling of superiority when we’d go out together, or hanging out just the two of us on the party holidays when everyone else was out being wasted. Or even being by myself, when offered I’d politely decline without hesitation, because to do so was …. a solidarity; but not in the sense of ME supporting YOU, but rather, supporting each other – another way that we were being an awesome indefinable pair. Even when apart, we were on the same team, y’know? It was comforting. We were good for each other, in that way.
And me…. Im worried about myself and not sure what the immediate future holds. I really don’t want to be a statistic. I don’t want stories from people to define me, I’d like to be around to define myself.
I’m worried about you, too. However, regardless of what your future holds, you aren’t going to be a statistic. You are so fucking indefinable, my friend. You are a truly amazing human being, pulling yourself through dregs of existence that most would never survive, and still manage to show love and appreciation to people who truly deserve it. Nobody’s stories could ever define you.
All that being said, I can’t really express to you how inconsolable I would be if you weren’t around to define yourself. I know we’ve not been in each other’s worlds much these past few years, but seriously, you are of a very small group of people who have really meant something to me, and have arguably meant the most of them all.
I don’t know what I can do to help, but I’ll keep offering things, and you’d better not be to fucking proud to accept it of benefit. 🙂
I will again offer to help clean things up around the house (because really, being an OCD cleaning lady is, depressingly, probably my greatest skill set).
Also, I just….
What I really want to offer is to find a dark quiet room and just lay down and stare at the ceiling and talk quietly; hold hands when asked, hug tightly when needed. Just…. feeling safe and still, brief as it might be.
I’m rambling. Sorry. Like I said, I started writing this just as I woke up.
Anyway….
I hope your mom improves every day, and that you can find some solace and peace in ways that aren’t harmful to you.
Whatever happens, I will support you. While I know you don’t share the darkest bits of your existence, regardless of your actions I know WHO YOU ARE, and that person is worth everything to me.
Forever your friend,
Rachael
July 26th 2014
email from me
Hey. I’ve not drawn for the past three days, and i’ve got to compensate. Also, I’ve finally finished the video that’s been eating up my life for the past two months. I intend to celebrate by sitting in my yard and drawing.
Would you like to come over and join me? I’ll get us Polish food. Or maybe nachos!
July 28th 2014
email from me
Just hoping you are ok and letting you know I care.
July 31st 2014
email from me
just making sure you are ok.
August 2nd 2014
email from Stefan
Yeah… Im okay..ish
August 3rd 2014
email from me
Well, I’ve got the apartment to myself til tomorrow morning, so you’d like to hang, let me know.
August 6th
I’d been thoroughly upfront about my past relationship and continued communication with Stefan with my boyfriend. Regardless, suspicious that we were having an affair, my boyfriend reads through the emails between Stefan and I, and is terribly upset at the content of our communication. I can’t blame him, but I refuse to abandon Stefan.
August 7th 2014
email from me
…
How’s stuff going?
That offer to hang out still stands!
email from Stefan
It’s… Not good for me. But… Whatever.
We’re gonna cut my mom’s hair preemptively to donate it before the chemo takes effect. I heard they don’t take treated hair.
We’ll see
email from me
Have you told your lawyer? Because these cases might help each other. “In so much pain that you were drawn back to your illegal past” could help the settlement, and “illegally run down and harmed and left in a state of pain for many months, fully documented by the courts” could only help your possession case.
Also, don’t be too proud to use the “sick mom” card.
Also, GO TO A FUCKING MEETING. GET SOME FUCKING HELP. Clearly, doing it on your own isn’t cutting it.
Also, that whole sitting quietly and hugging offer still stands.
and come hang out with me in a park and watch a movie.
http://bricartsmedia.org/events/performing-arts/asian-dub-foundation-thx-1138-taylor-mcferrin
Sounds pretty awesome.
email from Stefan
Im going to Englewood to see vanilla fudge with my dad tonight. We probably won’t stay long cuz of ma… So if we come back before 10… I’ll come.
email from me
Ah, well, it starts at 6, so nevermind. I hope you have fun hanging out with your dad! That sounds like a good Dad thing to do together.
But if you want to come out to the city and hang out, I’ll be out and about. I’ll keep my phone charged.
email from Stefan
Alright.. Cool
August 9th 2014
email from me
Tonight at Prospect Park: St. Vincent! It’s FREE! I might get VIP. If you are interested in going, let me know! Depending on the VIP status I may or may not go. http://bricartsmedia.org/events/performing-arts/st-vincent-san-fermin
August 15th 2014
email from me
Wanna come by? I’m hanging in my back yard and it’s lovely!
August 17th 2014
email from me
Who knows how long I’ll stay in this apartment.
I never have any visitors. come by and sit in the back yard with me! You might actually enjoy yourself. I imagine you could use some enjoyment.
August 19th 2014
email from me
It’s a lovely day. Why not come visit me and hang out?
email from Stefan
Sorry…. I’ve been feeling atrocious and my mom has been keeping me busy with her needs.
Also, Some haunted attraction in Sparta has asked me to design a logo and help in some production stuff. It’s an old baseball field/stadium, so that’s what they want the theme to be.
August 20th 2014
email from me
Hey, I had a weird idea. Maybe my dad and your dad should jam together. I bet they’d get along. Does he have people to play with regularly these days? If not, maybe the company of a musician would help his spirits, since you say he’s not taking all this very well.
Today I was asked to draw a five page comic submission. No pay. But the writer is an old friend of mine, and it’s for a fundraising thing, evidently. For Ebola. I’ve no idea how an Ebola comic is going to work out.
Well, anyway…. Give yourself a break sometime and come visit me. Our time in this apartment is limited, and I’d like to have SOME visitors to hang out in the back yard while I’ve got it, and while it’s nice out. And…. I just figure you could really use a break from your world for an evening.
Do you know where the field is? It’s probably right in the center of town, behind the Sparta version of a Dairy Queen. How odd. I’m glad you are getting the work!
email from Stefan
My dad plays with the same guys hes played with he was 18. Crazy. Hes played with some of the members of vanilla fudge which is why we went to see them in teanack the other day.
He still goes on Fridays to work on recording when he can.
I’ve been thru 6 bands and I’m 30 years younger than him. And hes still working on “tightening” songs that they’ve been working on for 40 years.
email from me
Oh well. I figured they’d probably like each other.
I’m not trying to take you away from your mom, especially if she needs you. I just figure you could use a break from your life, maybe someone to talk to.
I am your friend, whether it makes sense or not.
So come visit!
I could use someone to talk to as well.
August 21st 2014
email from me
I’ve the apartment to myself this evening, if you’d like to sit outside and smoke and chat for a little while.
email from Stefan
Hey…. I just woke up. I stayed up thru the night and took mom to the hospital for her first chemo session. Took like, 6 hours all together. They made it somewhat comfortable. When my grandmother had it, it was much more scary. Now, (provided you’re at a good place) you can sir in the room with them, the chair is real comfy, you can watch TV… And they even bring you food. They drug you with a massive dose of a antihistamine. At that point she was looped.
But, she’s gonna be going thru hell.
email from me
You should get her some weeeeeeeed. It will help her eat and fight the nausea. If she doesn’t have ondasetron, she should. I’m on it. It’s for nausea for chemo patients. If you want some to give her to try, let me know.
email from Stefan
Yeah…I’ve been trying to convince her.
email from me
I’ll see if I can get some brownies, when they are next around. Honestly though, you can just fry it up with some eggs. I was doing that for a while.
August 23rd 2014
email from me
This is me, inviting you by this evening. <Boyfriend> is at work til 9 tomorrow, my roommate is at work, I am cleaning and trying to gut my life of as much crap as possible. We can hang out. Draw. Watch something. It’s a wonderfully grey day.
I worry about you. You are my friend.
I don’t have that many friends, y’know.
Also, unrelated: can I have something you painted? Something I would like? You know my tastes.
email from Stefan
Yes, you can have a painting. And it is a perfect gray day.
I just had a blow out with dad. Wasn’t pretty.
I told him we should argue away from my mom because she got upset.
I’m close to snapping.
I have to try and scrape up gas and toll $ to see if I could get there. As of now, I’m on E. Im walking around now extremely pissed. Not good. Not good at all.
email from me
Get out of there for the evening.
Come by here, if you want, if you can. I’ll buy us some Polish food. My roommate’s around, but she just stays in her room, anyway.
If you want to take public transport, if that’s easier, I can give you directions from Port Authority.
Hey.
You alright?
Please be safe. Don’t go walking around on your fucked up foot. Don’t make things worse for yourself. Come by here and be somewhere chill for a while.
If you want a place to crash, you are welcome to do so here. I’ve got a foam mattress, and the livingroom is pretty dark when the curtains are closed. <Boyfriend> will be home from work at around 10am, but will just crash for a few hours and then have to leave by 3 to go back to work.
Why be alone and angry when you could hang out and have fun, where you are wanted, with someone who cares about you?
Well, I’m going to be your friend, whether you like it or not.
You deserve better than the way you treat yourself.
And even if you don’t believe that; even if you believe that you deserve every hell that you put yourself through…
I need you. I need you in my life. My life has been lacking since you’ve been absent in it. I love your broken self.
Remember that.
You sent me this when we were first friends. Listen to this and know that I mean it.
August 24th 2014
email from me
Let me take you somewhere. Let me take you somewhere nice and serene where you can get yourself together.
I will pay for the gas and drive with you to wherever you need to get to. Find a place that takes Medicaid and does longterm care. Get away from the stresses of your family and your life for a month, get clean.
Be brave enough to face why you are again turning to the escapism that’s ravaging your life.
I’ll hold your hand. I’ll visit. I’ll do whatever I can to make things better.
I will be there for you.
(St. Jude in upstate NY does the secular SMART program instead of 12-step bullshit. It doesn’t take Medicaid, but it does state that it works with your finances. I’ll help you get there.)
August 28th 2014
email from me
I just wanted you to know…. I drew this for a notebookery project thing, back when I was still living with Aunt Mary. You might have seen the drawing. It was meant as you and me, though it didn’t look like us.
August 29th 2014
email from Stefan
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-1963-interview-with-frank-sinatra.html?m=1
Old 63 Sinatra interview in Playboy. The answers were polished by a writer, but they’re still his thoughts.
email from me
WOW. That was really great.
Hey, it’s BEAUTIFUL outside. Come by if you are so inclined.
email from Stefan
There’s that carnival shit going on at my house, and my friend and mom’s hairdresser is coming by to shave her head in a few minutes. I’m gonna try to film it. I wish I didn’t feel like death.
email from me
Buy her some big earings and some bold lipstick. Watch some films with ladies looking hot with shaved heads. (Maybe you could finally watch more of Farscape. It really gets so much better than where we’d left off.)
You can always come by afterwards.
email from Stefan
I told her to say it’s the new ice bucket challenge and to post it on Facebook, eyebrows and all…
And to nominate like 30 people.
email from me
I just bought some eastern european feta-style cheese. It’s amazing.
If your mom is nauseated, I can bring you some of my ondansetron. If she doesn’t have any for herself, that is.
(she should get some)
How’d the hair shaving go?
email from Stefan
Good. She has a perfect little light bulb head. It actually looks good.
email from me
I’m telling you. BIG earings and some strong lipstick.
And lots of science fiction to impress upon her that bald ladies are HOT.