August 1st 2009

email from me

I have not slept.  I am sitting here, freshly showered, naked and waiting for the baby oil to sink in, with a half an hour before I have to leave for the doctor’s.

I am slightly crazed.

So I am going to take this opportunity to ramble some stuff at you that I feel is hovering under the surface.  Maybe I’m totally wrong, and there’s nothing there, but if that’s the case, then at least I’m getting my wierd manifestations out into the open where they can be properly disposed of. 

See…  I felt there was wierdness.  Like a big wierdness was narrowly averted or something.  And that’s a good thing.

But maybe to further the good thing I can (in a rational and non-adversarial sort of way) explain some parts of my thinking… of my interpretation…  of my perspective….

And apologise for not being entirely…  up front.  About whatever strangeness I might have been giving off.

First, let me mention that…  You sometimes become uncharacteristically vauge and tight-lipped about things….  compared to the way you generally discuss things with me.  It’s sudden, and tends to stand out a bit.  This is almost always when invovling the company of a woman.  I noticed it most specifically when you were first begining to deal with some of the social frustrations of your friendship with <Random Chick> and her roommate.  Because you’d normally refer to the client casually by name, or with some personal verbal mark of reference….  but with <Random Chick>’s roommate, suddenly you’d play the pronoun game and only refer to her as “client” in this certain and obscure way.  Similar ways of speaking pop up when you end up spending an evening with a female friend.  Or even a mixed event…  if there’s a female present who isn’t immediately identifiable as the significant other of another, you tend to not mention her presence unless completely neccessary.

I don’t know why you do this, and you probably don’t realise you are doing it most of the time.  It’s the sort of thing that….  makes one feel like, even if they weren’t, they SHOULD be suspicious of something….  but I’ve learned that you just…  seem to speak that way.  Maybe you’ve just learned to be more protective of your interactions with women from hanging out with dudes that think you are always getting laid.  Maybe you got used to wierdly jealous women or something.  Maybe you are trying to be polite to me.

Anyway….  my point is.  you get vague.  

And…  while I’ve come to learn that it’s just how you are about certain things….  (mostly female things)

right at that moment…  it’s still a bit off putting and takes a moment to calibrate.  If that makes sence.

It’s…  well….  it’s just wierd to be telling a close friend (me) that you went down to AC “with a friend” and refer to her only as “she” and only in the most vauge ways possible.

Conversationally, it’s common to mention someone by name, even if that person is unknown.  I can’t figure out if yo do this because you think I might get somehow jealous, but if it IS….  it’s probably exactly the wrong tactic to take.

Like I said…  I’m not wierdly jealous of women, and it’s rather against my nature to ever assume that just because a male and female are enjoying one another’s company that there’s anything beyond just that; enjoying one another’s company.    

– – – –  OK, so now it’s much later, I’ve gone to the doctor, slept, and now just woke up with mostly sorta working eyes again, and I think I’ll finish this email now – – – – 

But being told in the most obscure and vauge means possible that you went down to AC “with a friend” was an odd and jarring thing.  Like I said, I’d figured it was some sort of “Rock bonding” thing, annd I just wasn’t expecting that…  The way you explained your trip was done in a FAR more secretive way than I’m used to you being with me….  

And that stopped my brain in it’s tracks.

“….. oh.”

And then there’s….  the rest.

Keep in mind, just a few days ago I’d shown you the free hotel thing, and you’d been saying how we should go to a hotel just for fun.  Keep in mind that for over a year you’d been telling me that we should go to AC, that you’d bring me down there….  and I’d suggeted it a few times, even…  And I’ve never BEEN to AC, and you’d assurred me we’d go, said that you didn’t LIKE AC and it was a waste of time, but that you’d go with me and would have fun there togehter not gambling  

So does it bother me that you went off to AC with a lady friend who isn’t me?  

Of course!  Really, how would I not?!?

Does that mean you shouldn’t have gone?

Christ, no.  If you want to go, then you should.

Does it eat away at me that I can’t provide you with the escape from your house for a few days that i used to – that for you to get away you need to look to others because I just can’t offer you anything anymore?  Oh, yes yes yes.

But…   you still want to escape.

Christ, you deserve someone else footing the fucking bill for a change; all the paying and covering and taking me out all the time that you do….  you’ve fucking earned a night of someone else taking care of the cost and the car…  But of course it further bothers me that I can’t be that person.  That it’s someone else.

Was I sitting awake, and sleepless, worried and freaked, wishing you online, or willing to talk on the phone Thursday morning?  Desperately so.  Was I a bit surprised I didn’t hear from you until the wee hours of Friday, (since i’d had that doctor appointment planned and had mentioned it to you a few times)?   Yeah, I was a bit.  But I’m not your responsibility.  I’m not something to be looked after and coddled.  You aren’t expected to be available for every bump in the road or scrape on the knee.

Had I been wishing, the moment I found out I was a finalist for this competition, that I had you, first and foremost, to tell?  Gosh, yes.  But you were already off in AC, a place I thought we’d be going to, and were there without me.  This, to me, said it was “non-Rachael time” and i figured it’d be best to wait.  To give you your escape time.

But, so…

Yeah, I might have been a bit wierd.  

I don’t think my feelings of oddness are outside the realm of being understandable emotional reactions given the situation….  

But logically, there’s nothing to be done.  It’s not like there’s any offense.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  I’m not angry in any way.  Or offended.  Sometimes the way the world goes isn’t the way I wished.  Nothing I ws feeling had anything to do with questioning your “loyalty to our friendship” or anything.

I’m not going to ask you the particulars of your AC trip….  but it does make me feel strange and quarantined to be suddenly ….  explained things in so minimal and tightlipped a manner.  You just don’t usually do that with me, and i just didn’t think we operated like that, and it’s offputting and a bit sad.  We kinda just tell each other stuff.  But that’s your every right to be as private or secretive about anything you want.  What the fuck am I going to do, MAKE you want to share?  

Soooo….  I’m sorry.  I probably was a bit wierd, but really, had I said anything, it owuld have come off as accusatory…  like you weren’t SUPPOSED to go to AC, which isn’t the case…  or that you SHOULD HAVE done this or SHOULDN’T HAVE done that, etc etc etc…  which isn’t the case at all.  

Nor am I jealous (aside from the fact that I’m jealous that i’m not the person I wish I were so I could be the person to depend on for things sometimes).

Nor am I angry.

It does, from time to time, slightly wound me when you become suddenly and obviously withholding about certain lifebits suddenly.  I’m not trying to crawl inside your head and get your deepest desires or make a map of your brain…  but sometimes there’s a sudden distance in places that don’t seem private, neccessarily, just “off limits” for reasons I can’t comprehend.  But that’s not anything I have right to comment on, really.  like you said “you don’t have to understand, that’s the beauty of it”.  But…  i feel like I should understand.  That I’m lacking.  

Maybe I tell you too much.  Maybe I’m supposed to do the same?

Or…  y’know…  I just care too much.

I care too much and simple small things get under my skin in ways that just aren’t normal.  Because….  you matter to me in so many stupid small ways.

I know that there’s always lead locked box of ‘no one shall enter” in the center of you (i have one too, but it’s smaller)….  but I kinda thought that box was buried deep inside and you and I got to peel off our skin and wrestle about with each other all bloody and naked like that…..  

Y’know…  and I miss you.  There’s that.  There’s a lot of that.  I miss being able to hole up all dark and comfy somehwere and just be comfortable and not have people to carter to or worry about nearby.  I miss long hours of summer dark and bed.  I miss hiding under covers and watching things.  I wanted to be that hotel room person.  So I could leap on you in my pajamas and share morning snacks.

I think this living here and not OG where you could come is still slowly destroying my innards, like my heart is on a barbeque slow cook skewer.

blah.

Anyway…  this is really long and I’m getting sidetracked and saccharine.

You are, as ever, my very favoritest human that ever I’ve known.

June 15th 2009

email from Stefan

What is wrong with you.

i was being sarcastic……and not to insult you…..i was just being sarcastic because you have no reason to be offended or to think about any of it.

….and when you first acknowledged my “delete this” statement you said, “you want me to delete that, aw”    as if,you barely cared.

You know i have lots of little idiosyncrasies, and whatnot.  ….and i do always have little things and problems…..but when and if i want to explain something, i will.    ……but when i want a picture deleted, you delete it.    In fact, you never post pictures of me without asking….and, i didn;t mind that pic up…..and then, i wanted it down.    You want a reason, an explanation……here it is.   ….i want it deleted. 

If you’re my friend, you don’t have to understand…..you just have to erase it.      

You asked me a bunch of questions after i just asked you a tiny question……and you don’t get to ask me anything,and point a flashlight in my face and judge me by trying to filter out the reason with odd questions…….respect my request.    the end. 

you said   ,”But I’m rather hurt and offended that you would make such a ridiculous request”

so….. should i explain how selfish and contradictory this statement is or should i just expect you to know.    You think you have the right to call my requests “ridiculous”, KNOWING, I didn’t explain to you the reason……you don’t get to start insulting what I don’t feel like explaining.    You, with all your mental , physical , and other oddities ,I’ve taken to respect….all things I understand, and don’t. As you have mine.  

You really should not judge me one request you don’t understand or have an answer to……just chill out.     I put you before everyone in my life.   Don’t get worked up over something so small.         I just posted your book link up and i’ll continue to.    Now just blow off whatever steam you have to and get back to being my friend.    I have weird little requests sometimes.   That’s all……not a big deal.     Call me when you want to have wacky banter….or just talk.

---

email from me

It’s the only picture I have of the two of us in my facebook. I DID care.

It was that you didn’t want it in the same SET as the other pictures I’d uploaded. To move it was fine. Which I did right away. That’s what seemed all rather ridiculous.

But now it’s deleted.

And no, I don’t generally question you about things. But when it comes to issues that are about ME, that I somehow caused, like taking down a picture of you because of what I just uploaded…

well,

oh well.

ok.

goodnight.

---

email from Stefan

i slept for two hours…..in which i had a dream about being so fed up with things I went to newark to buy dope.  Then, I woke up and got a call from my mom.  I said….”hello?”….and her opening line was…”you didn’t leave me any money.”    ….meaning, I forgot to leave 15 dollars for her to get an oil change when she used it.    I….flipped on her.     ….and now I have to set up and hope I don’t pass out while I tattoo this girl’s foot.    My heart is about to leap out.      good grief.    When it rains,it pours.

---

email from me

I’m trying to feel better, but my soul is still broken.

I still don’t understand what happened. And ‘i’m not trying to drag it out, but I can’t figure out what went wrong, and I don’t think my brain can really move on until I can understand something.

I was never angry. Nothing in my words was angry. I’m still not sure why… you were so angry on the phone. I’d been removing myself from a conversation you clearly didn’t want to have. I was trying to AVOID pressing a matter that was important and frustrating to me and made clear to be off limits to you.

I was hurt and offended. But I was never angry…. And I really want to understand what ignited you so. The word “ridiculous”? You’ve told me I was being ridiculous countless times. It that really it? Is that really a word that offends so greatly? I meant no offense. You are right, I didn’t know your motive, and can’t comment on that. But I was referring to the action alone, without the reasoning behind it. Your email to me yesterday was somewhat unkind in parts, and I tried to respond as simply and explanatory as possible. I somehow failed.

My suggestion as to motive wasn’t me trying to squeeze information out of you, rather, it seemed to me to be the most logical conclusion at the time (be it wrong or right) and I found it…. disrespectful… that you’d not think I deserved some honesty about your feelings regarding me and my actions… or past associations… or whatever it is.

I trust you implicitly, And will do whatever is requested, with or without explanation. But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt sometimes. That it doesn’t still sting to feel i’m not being met with honesty.

You are the most important person in my entire universe.

This wounds me as much as it does you.

I just want to understand.

I’m sorry for writing, but I think you are tattooing and i’m sick and my voice is shot.

I can’t believe that you really comprehend how much you mean to me, or how important you are, or… the terrifying emotional immensity/intensity you strike in me.

When you tell me that we are flawed… that you are reminded of the many faults and imperfections…. that I have done this… if you say there are scars and wounds and things have been tainted in some way… I will indeed feel a physical sensation of a crushing blow to the center of my being, a sharp, terrible, aching pain…. I am filled with a sorrow and terror of the sky caving in… and I cannot stop from sobbing.

To be told such notions… that I have contributed to the destruction of something so resplendent, so significant…. it makes me feel like every webby thread of fascia has been torn from my body and I curl inward like a dying insect.

Perhaps it’s unfair of me to be so emotionally intense regarding my feelings for you.

I’m sorry if that puts you in an unfair postition.

My point here… was trying to possibly convey to you that I do NOT fuck with you, do NOT try to pull your strings, do NOT try to scam information out of you, do NOT want anything of you that you won’t give freely. You mean far too much to me for me to be capable of that.

I do not want to anger you. or offend you.

Or least of all… hurt you.

this isn’t probably very…. cohesive as an email… I fall back and forth asleep…. I’m pretty sick. Even taking cold medicine.

I’m sorry everything isn’t perfect. because this, you and me, if anything in the universe could be, THIS should be perfect

(but i usually think it is as close to perfect that perfect can be)

The way… um. my feelings… so much… um… you….

…… so much it hurts.

April 30th 2009

email from me

So.

Christ, I don’t even know what to say.  I mean…  my mind is all jumbled.

I wanted to explain things.  About why…  I got so upset about the “exhibitionist” thing. 

Exhibitionists….  get off on the attention.  They are naked just for the sexual attention it brings them.  Or…  even in a non sexual context…  the intent is only for attention.  While I am pleased when my works get attention, it’s not because the image is of ME, but because it’s an image I created.  There’s a stark difference there, right?  Even in…  the wacky way I dress sometimes…  it’s not BECAUSE of the attention it might bring, but in spite of it.  I don’t understand how most of the world sees things, I don’t get every day perceptions.  I appreciate you explaining these things to me when you feel it’s important – I really do.  But it isn’t always going to curb my actions.  And….  just because you tell me how the lowest common denominator of humanity may percieve things I do, that doesn’t mean that if I continue with my actions that I’m….  asking for / seeking out that sort of attention.  It just means I do what I do in spite of the negative.

And…

I….  think I may have misconstrued some of my pasts.  Or you may have misinterpreted them.  The “walking around naked in front of my friends” has gotten rather blown out of proportion.  I might stumble into the bathroom from my bedroom naked at night, be naked in my bedroom in the summer, strip to my underwear when I got home in a hot NYC apartment, sunbathe in my yard, think nothing of it to get changed in front of a platonic friend…  but I even asked Geoff, and he said he just remembered me hanging out in a towel dying my hair all the time.  It’s that I never considered anything of it.  I never saw any particular morality lines regarding nudity – there just wasn’t anything SEXUAL or inappropiate about it to me.  That’s rather the opposite of being an exhibitionist.  I mean, I wasn’t greeting my roomates in the morning wearing nothing but a chef’s hat serving them scrambled eggs or anything.

The same goes with the webcam hooplah.  I’d….  i’d mentioned that when first we started talking not as some badge of accomplishment….  but exactly the opposite – because you’d said that you had ominous type stuff in your pasts….  and I’d offered that up to try and make things more comfortable – more even.  It’s NOT something I’m proud of, but that attitude is only in retrospect, in a further understanding of what that actually was.  My girlfriend was a cam girl, but she posed it to me as her attempt to emulate Ana Voog, a new-wave type art chick who started the first 24 hour cam as some sort of art installation.  I lived with my girlfriend, and for 4 months or so, I, too was part of her 24 hour cam show.  It’s never something I’d have done otherwise.  I honestly thought it was silly and ridiculous than anyone would care enough to want to watch.  It was most often just me sitting at the computer, typing.  Or us fighting, most likely.

You’d quoted me as saying “I’d rather be naked on stage than [fill in the blank].”  I only say that when in reference to singing or dancing in public – because to me, those are the most vulnerable and exposing experiences I could imagine; the equivalent, I imagine, to how most other people would feel being naked on a stage in front of hundred.

But that’s all not the point.  The point….  the thing that upset me is…    even if I HAD been romping about stark naked all the time…  even if 80% of my photographs were nude….  my intent is not for personal attention.  I’ve never seen nudity as anything shameful, or particularly tantalizing….  and until relatively recently, I found nothing sacred about it at all.

It’s not that you said particularly hurtful words to me.

It wasn’t that I thought you weere being mean…  or trying to undermine my artistic goals or anything…  or telling me what to do…

It’s that I thought you had an understanding of that aspect of me, and….  the idea that you’d think….  to whatever extent…  that I was just….  presenting myself to the world like that…. 

For you to explain so definitively that because I’d told you I’d been a cam girl, that because I’d said I used to be “naked all the time”, that because I have nude images of myself…..  that you’d find “exhibitionist” the only / logical conclusion….   I mean, perhaps you didn’t mean it in a purely sexual way (though the word is most often used in such a context), but even otherwise…   I thought you knew…  that I’d explained…  and to know that you see part of me in such a way… which is so far from my intent…  yes, it does bring me to tears.

….  you can’t have any idea how very important your opinion is to me.  How every crucial your point of view, your critical eye, your interpretation of the world is to me.  How very often I strive to accomplish something hoping more than ANY other reason that I might feel that I’ve earned some degree of pride in your eye.  You are my chosen audience of one, and I want to earn your attention/applause/approval…. far more often (and intently) than I have any sense of self preservation. 

I want to…. maybe….. be someone you are proud of knowing….  the way I’m proud of knowing you.  I can’t possibly hurt myself as much as a disapproving gaze from you can wound me to the core.

I’m sure I’m being a bit hyper-emotional these days.  I’m warring with myself at trying not to be as terrified and doomed-feeling about how much everything in my life is about to change at once….  how it’s going to rip away from me the places/means/ways I most think of of our times together….  and that’s really what I hold most precious in my life…  I’d probably be less weepy and wounded about your casual words if that wasn’t going through my head all the time….  how much things will change, my schedule will be yanked out of my hands…  and I’ll be living a life so very far away from yours.  So distant.  And I’m afraid it’s all going to fade away.

It already hurts. 

You mean way too much to me, I guess.

I feel like it’s far more than appropriate, and I’m really trying to control myself.

February 15th 2009

email from me

So, for some reason, even though my sleep yesterday was meager and disjointed, I’m antsy and wide awake with manic energy and bouncing knees.

And in this racing brain of mine, a thought occured to me.

I’m not trying to put more on your frustratingly full plate.  How you deal with your people and social life is, y’know, your business.  Entirely.  But…  if it would help, if it would it make things easier, give people a simple answer so they didn’t pry and ask questions about what you are with who…  you are welcome to call me your “girlfriend.” It’s silly I suppose, but I’m distant enough from your regular social life that it would practically be like having one of those “my girlfriend lives in Canada” things.  It wouldn’t change anything in my interaction with you certainly, and it’s not as though I often interact with you in front of others with thier own strange expectations….  eh.  I don’t know. 

I mean, I should make it clear that I’m not personally seeking out any sort of title or status.  I…  don’t really care what you call me (“just don’t call me late for dinner!” har har!).  It won’t change anything in my universe.  When I think of you in my head, the term “boyfriend” doesn’t spring to mind.  Not at all.  “Favorite human” or “comrade in survival” or “creative partner in crime” are actually, quite literally, the first phrases that pop into view when I think of you.  “Best friend”, yes, there’s that too, but you’ve rather redefined and reinvented the term to be much bigger and brighter and awe-inspiring… and it’s a term as loosely used as anything else that loses it’s potency with overuse. 

Eh…  “girlfriend”…  “boyfriend”…  they describe these set roles that are suffocating and limiting and far too filled with presupposed expectation.  I don’t like them.  They put wierd labels on peoples foreheads determining proper interaction.  “are you someone’s girlfriend?  then I react to you like this- blah blah blah”.   It takes a piece of a person’s humanity and individuality and autonomy away, to “belong” to someone.  Gives a definition to the world to what should be a private matter.  It implies taking a first step down a dark corridor of co-habitation, marriage, chlidren, boredom.  The term “mate” has a simple, sci-fi sort of honesty about it at least

(I’m in full ramble now, I realise, and I can feel there’s more coming.) 

“Exclusive agreement”?  No. Because that’s a contract.  Granted, I’d not share myself with you physically if you were bedding someone else, pursuing someone else…  but I only want your company, in whatever way you share it, because you so desire it.  Anything else is shallow and bitter.  I’d rather know that every time you visit, every time you say or do something kind, it’s because you felt it, not because it was according to some previous arrangement.

My point to this whole thing, was not to get into specifics between you and I.  There kind of aren’t specifics. 

My point was…. 

Yes, it’s sad and it sucks that so many seem to need defined roles to interact with each other.  And to offer explination of any sort is bowing to uncomfortable and juvenile social custom.  But.  If you DO want some sort of quick answer to give people, if you DO want a label to wear as your armor against the gossiping sheep and pushy needy women with wolves eyes….  you are welcome to use me as protective plating.  Tell people “we’re just fucking” if that’s what they need to hear.  Tell people “it’s all just a performance piece.”  Tell people you have a girlfriend in Canada and I’m just the platonic friend who’s helping you cope with the emotional longing. 

Or.

I’ll feign public online interest in mystery boy, or claim strict adherence to a lesbian lifestyle, if you’d prefer me to be further removed so that you are at least free from questions regarding me. 

Anything you want. 

Y’know.  Or nothing at all.  Or tell people to just fuck off.  Like I said, how you deal with your social interactions is totally your business.

But.

What you decide to disclose or keep private; avoid discussing or use conveinient short-hand to explain…  it won’t change that:

You are the single most important person in my universe.

I care more deeply for you than I’ve ever cared for someone.

I enjoy every aspect of your company.

I trust you so entirely, that my past, in comparison, seems a paranoid maniac

In my head, you are “Stefan” –  not “boyfriend” or any pigeon-hole limiting/assuming term, and “Stefan” you shall stay.

la la la la.

PS. I’m hoping this was not a heavy head trip to read, but rather….  something to lighten the weight a little, verbose that it was.

September 25th 2008

email from me

I’m… just…

I detest that smugly pleased manner that is ever the response when I explain that I took myself off the myriad of pills I was on. i remember so vividly…. 12 years ago… taking morphine pills as a trade… and for a day and a half, not being able to hold down any food… but amazed and enthralled that for the first time in as long as I could remember… since I was a child…. I was able to lie down and not be uncomfortable or in pain… and I didn’t care that I couldn’t eat.

Because it was so amazing that I wasn’t in pain. I don’t think I realised how much pain I was so used to being in until that moment.

I don’t mention this, because I’ve no idea what it’s like to have an encompassing addiction… can’t possibly consider myself near experiencing what you endured… (one of the only good things I got from my mom’s genes is, while terribly prone to obsessive compulsuve behavior and addictive personality, I am very guarded against physical addiction.) But I do know what it is to have my body want just so I could feel normal… just so I could function… and did so for years without anybody really knowing how bad it got at times.

It takes alot… out of me… for me to keep up and lock it all away in a closet somewhere. It’s a struggle of distraction and avoidance and delusion.

I can’t… find… any position… where I don’t hurt. And it keeps growing. There’s this fire that goes from the back of my head and pours down the insides of my shoulderblades… the sharp stabbing sand that swirls and settles in my limbs… the numb ach of my right leg…

Yes yes yes… oh, I know I’ve said this all before. But every time I say it… it’s worse. I adapt… I raise my tolerance… lower my expectations… and I’m not sure how long….

And I keep myself… untainted… for the sake of trying to keep my mind from fog… keeping my vision from being weakened worse…

but for what? I’m no better now.

I don’t want to be a zombie. But I’m losing myself to all this… it’s just constantly slowly wearing me away…

And I know you are right… that it’s best to do it alone.

Because to depend on others is only an excersize in disappointment and getting screwed over. But… how? What am I going to do with myself?

I… envy you. In your potential ability to fill a backpack and walk away from everything. I’m able to do that in my mind. In every way, in these walls that surround me… But my body and it’s pains… my ongoing mystery disease… it keeps me trapped. It keeps me from being able to throw caution to the wind the way I should be able to.

and…

I…

my guilt. Eats at me. Because as much as I lament my lonliness… and the people who turn away because my life isn’t pretty… I kept myself away. I felt it was unfair to draw anyone in. Because it isn’t pretty. And because I do beleive that …. things wont end well for me. And so I often feel guilty. For weakening. For letting anyone near.

Well, just you really. Because you matter.

But then… I really don’t know… what I’d….

You make me want to be well. You make me want to strive. You keep me from crumbling into a million peices. If only because I want us to have FUN together. I mean, christ, I don’t want this to feel like some terrible pressure… but… You give me something to look forward to. There’s this amazingness that comes with feeling… understood, trusted, enjoyed, appreciated… and understanding, trusting, enjoying, appreciating in turn… something that feels like being freshly showered in a comfy sweater and clean fuzzy socks while feeling the brisk wind of an autumn rainstorm blowing through the window and drinking a mug of warmth…. Only a million times better. that awesomeness of exhilerating comfiness. Of feeling RIGHT.

I’m not always … vocal about the terrible things in my head. About how stark and cold and dangerous it gets in there. So you’ve no way to know… exactly how much you’ve helped me… been a tremendous force of …. everything worthwhile.

And I’m so very sorry… that I’m the mess that I am. That I can’t find a way out of this. That I can’t reciprocate the gifts of life savingness and the many glowing embers that you’ve given me in kind.

I’m sorry… that I hurt. That I’m only getting worse and I’m only getting more worried.

I’m sorry… that I’m being so serious. I don’t want to be.

It sounds so stupid.. and so juvenile.. but my head keeps asking me… why is it that we can’t just be living in an existence that lets us enjoy? Why can’t we be having adventures and madcap outings and see strange new things and wander about? Why can’t we be having fun most of the time?

Don’t we deserve it by now?

---

September 27th

email from Stefan

I realized me simply saying, “wait,you guys never,go to the city?…shit….i’ll drive”…started this mess.

The more I explained what has happened with this situation and some other silly situations…..the more people seem to say in all their round about ways……”hey dude,you dug your own grave”.    At least that’s what I translate all of it as.   

Whatever happened to people just helping to laugh about things?         Instead I get talks that I don’t need.     I know the obvious………I’m the one who comes out and says it.

As soon as I talk about any vulnerabilities of mine…people start openly rocket-firing what seems to be negative opinions of my self control.    Maybe I am losing self control.  

I feel I have more self control than anyone i know…..I feel i’ve been victimized less than anyone…….but have victimized myself more than everyone, if that makes any sense.

I’m full of anxiety.     anger.      self hatred.         People are hypocrites but tell me of my flaws……sometimes when i’m just trying to share funiness or lighten the stupidity i’m getting into.    It’s not like I’m giving into sleeping with people or doing drugs or drinking or something like that.   It only takes a little of my honesty to get everyone going about what wrong with me.  Wich is why I never reveal who I really am to people.

Is it so easy to point out Stefan’s flaws.    It seems people enjoy it.       

Am i losing control…..am I……..losing my Stefanness?       This sucks.       I’m gonna hate myself over this for a while.

This is why I keep all those walls up.            This is why I can’t like myself.

There’s my seriousness for the week.    Sorry you’re the one that has to hear it.      

I feel stupid.

---

email from me

See…  that’s the problem. 

As far as I see it, it isn’t a matter of you doing anything wrong whatsoever, or being flawed.

[ keep in mind, everything I say here on in is based on my perception and take on things from a great distance, isn’t by any means a definitive interpretation, and is open to debate]

It’s a matter of other people being overly enamored with you for reasons that have little to do with who you are; but rather, what they think you are, what you represent, and the social status your presence brings them.  It’s a matter of these people being ever present and insistant.  It’s a matter of these people being so self absorbed and refusing to look beyond thier own desires of your company so much so that they can easily ignore every social cue that indicates you may not be on the same page.  It’s a matter of people being able to concentrate on that one response that indicates the result they want (your willing social interaction) and casting away every other memory that would indicate otherwise.

Yes, in many ways in this situation, though completely unintentionally, you DID dig your own grave.  But that’s only because I think you are much more like myself in many regards than you realise.  Your mentioning of my cluelessness about myself….  I think you are equally blind to aspects of yourself, how people react to you, and that’s why others calling you out on where the situation went wrong seems so strangely negative….

You really don’t understand how attractive you are to others.  I’m not just talking about your physicality in a sexual way (you already heard my stance on that), though that too plays in, especially with the ladies and thier rather uncooth and uncomfortable advances….  but even just insofar that humans always prefer other humans they find physically appealing, even in job interviews and whatnot. 

But moreso…  I’m referring to just YOU….  that glowing alien alternative life path that you represent to most, your personality, your demeanor, your body language, your personal style, your honesty, your spark of child-joy, your very selective social manner, your many talents and abilities, your open eyes and observation, the amazing control and Stefan-ness that you DO possess in SPADES….  It makes people CLAMOR to be near you.  To be part of your inner circle.  To possess some small part of your attention.  Even the way you’ve mentioned Derek explaining your role to others in past social interactions…  or the fact that Rock, while a very different sort of person than you, considers you one of the handful of humans worthy of his resepect.

I don’t think you realise exactly how bright a flame you are to so many moths.

I’d had tried to point out some elements of this weekend’s situation, only because you don’t seem to always consider exactly to what severe degree people who want to be near you will continue to try… and cast aside bushels of “No” and instead gaze upon that one solitary “Yes” (or even “unlikely maybe”) with hopeful and deluded doe eyes.  It doesn’t really occur to you how significant your presence might seem to someone…  not only because you can’t see yourself in that glowing light, but because you don’t see ANYONE in that sort of light….  It doesn’t occur to you that your minor and friendly cast-away sentences could be snatched from the ground like a scrap of rockstar clothing and turned holy relic.  And being the “tattoo-guy” puts you ever more in that rockstar role.

….which is why I tried to approach it in the way I did…  being that I can see how these people, as insistant and secluded in thier worlds as they are, could easily misinterpret and mutate your basic cordial nature into something of more significance…  of something more reciprocated and meaningful than it is… 

I am well aware of your lack of ego in these matters.

However…  to those that don’t understand that about you…  it looks only as matter of you being reckless with your presence.  Like some sort of fake posturing.  Of lacking self control for being so flagrently free with your person.  Enchanting others with little effort and faux humility like a pied piper.  It just doesn’t compute to most that you could be as…  “impressive” (i can’t think of exactly the word I’m looking for…  “awesome”?) a person as you are, a person who so clearly draws others to him with ease as you do…  and not be VERY consious of it and dictating it’s power, control and use.

To those that see you through moth eyes to some degree….  there’s some competition invovled, too, I’d imagine.  Some jealousy at play.  And so, when the winged ones “call you out” on the fact that you’ve dug your own grave in this situation, they do so with accusation…  because your attention towards others threatens thier position. 

Or, because through moth eyes they see so few faults in you … it becomes a thing of comfort to find some perceived flaw….  something to cling to and point out in hyper critical manner to compensate for thier own insecure sence of self.

That’s why…  I kept trying to explain that I wasn’t trying to be critical (and I really do apologise if I lumped myself in with they who rocket-fired opinions that blossomed into your self doubt) …  but only trying to explain how I could see how others could look at it….  that I can see your vantage point… and from that view, every path you’d taken is justifiable…  but for someone who doesn’t comprehend your outlook, things can easily be confused and misinterpreted.

Much like it doesn’t often occur to me to see my body or anyone else’s as anything other than natural flesh, as nothing particuarly attractive or sexual unless having been presented in a personally relevant erotic manner….  and therefore end up asking you silly questions about nipples or presenting myself in a way that I by no means meant to….  much like that….  You don’t see anyone, but most ESPECIALLY yourself, as worthy of the kind of cult of personality and enthusiasm that you generate….  and like me, it is far easier for your actions to be percieved by others as doing it on purpose…  for the attention.

But…  That’s not a flaw.  Not in you, at least.

(i mean, it’d be nice if you could get a better grasp your worth, but I wouldn’t want you to not be kind to people just because they might cling too tightly. )

I like the way you are…  And wouldn’t want that to change as one of your innate behaviors….  because that’s just the way you swim through the world.  It’s only a shame that it’s not a trait that’s more easily comprehended or appreciated by others. 

I know I’ve contributed to this self doubt in you…  I truly apologise…  And I’ll help you laugh it off from now on in, if you like.  I think I was trying to expose certain aspects I vewied in your interactions with others…   in some wierd…  protective…  motive.  Trying to shield you from being …  used….  or dragged into excessive frustrations.  I apologise if that was….  unneccessary or condescending or attacking or hypocritical in some way.

Goodness…  I’ve been rather verbose.

The gist of all of this is….  (and I say this without any sence of sarcasm) …  Stefan, you’re just too awesome.  Even the people who can’t comprehend it in the ways that they should…  even the self serving, even people who have a limited spectrum of vision, even THEY recognise somehow that there’s something that’s just more honest, more worthwhile, more selfless, and terribly rare in you… than they’ll find in most people on earth. 

Feel free to text or IM or call if there are any frustrations you’d like some of my help to laugh about the oh-so-tragic silliness of your evening.  😀  Regardless of everything…  I hope you manage to have oodles of fun. 

Wheeee!!!!

---

email from Stefan

I have…..I thought…..I guess…waa?   I just read this.    I didn’t fall asleep till 2pm(because i was tossing and turning all,”who am I?” am whatnot.

I agree with much and disagree with much………I almost…..don’t care how people see me.

Only a few people……if you like who I am…..that’s good.      ……but,I……sheesh…..I’m gonna read this again….I didn’t even have coffee yet.     I have a story for you……later.     I need to caffinate first.         

I like you.

September 2nd 2008

email from me

Hmmmm.

This has been rolling around in the back of my head for a few days now.  Maybe longer.

Ummmm.  i know I probably went off a bit on phone texting when you’d mentioned something about Rock making you feel self concious.  I didn’t mean to come off so overzealous or wierdly defensive as I probably did… 

But.

See, this isn’t the kind of thing that I say.  Because, well, it’s somehow embarrassing.  And, well…  I am always concerned that to do so will make you feel objectified, or lessen how awesome I think you are as a human.

However…  perhaps you should know how amazingly fond I am of your physical self.  I…  um…  The girly phrases that have gone on in my head regarding you when your form slides into my mind are:  “Goodness….  and  I’m allowed to touch him sometimes! eeeee!”  and “The world has finally decided to be unfair in my favor!” 

That sounds silly, I’m sure.  But I’m not used to…  the sight of flesh as being…  thrilling.  magnetic.

I can appreciate a person’s form – the face, the body, etc – find it aesthetically appealing, striking, or even alluring…  but that doesn’t attract me to a person.  Nor does that allow me to discount the fact that I find you physically… stunning.  I currently find myself in the enviable position of being wholeheartedly attracted to you in both body and mind (and spirit for lack of a better term?)…  being entirely taken by every aspect of your… um… (ok, I’ll say it) beauty.

That….  never happens.  to me.

(Yes, I am embarrassed now.)

(I hope I haven’t offended you.)

---

email from Stefan

That’s not offensive…..just…..not something I often…..or ever read.    ….and….I don’t know, hard to comprehend or something.   ……but as usual……you make me feel slightly better about the days I live, via you’re kind words,meaningful gestures and honest friendship.   You are good.

I am desperate need of movie watching in darkness with you.

I am in desperate need of your company….I need to be around a real friend……I am trusting people even less these days…….I will become less friendly so I can concentrate even more on painting for an exhibition in the winter……..I hate that i’m starbucks right now.     Time to leave and get some food.

All the things you say and give me……never go unnoticed and always get rediscovered when I see them…….in fact……Tina Turnip and Baku got me through a particularly bad nightmare I had two days ago.    It was……horribly,nauseatingly violent……and the images still play in my head.   …..but…..I had them in bed with me and it was slightly more bearable.

Thanks for them……and for you.         

Oh geez……a table of brace faced teens are giggling at me……time to go.

---

September 5th

email from Stefan

…about to tattoo a bunch of bullshit…..I don’t want to do his.      ….but…..I have to.

…..This sucks.      

…..I miss our cold,dark,bed comfy camaraderie.

and…..on a selfish note, I miss your…..skin.      You can ignore that if you want.

….I’m wacky in the head and still feel…….depressed and I think…..fuck…….here they are.
…..time to apply a fake smile.      enjoy your night…….you know where I’ll be.

---

email from me

well….  I miss your skin in my cold dark comfy bed. 

I did lots of laundry and none of my pillow cases have any trace of you.  I think it’s making my sleep suffer.

My day was pretty horrible.

Before i went to bed at 10:30 I had three phone conversations, and sent two business emails. 

siiiigh.  There’s a storm a-brewin’…. flood watches all over NJ…  even here.  Wish you were hiding here in the impending weather of doom with me….  my satelite TV is already going out and it hasn’t even started raining yet.

It would be nice…  to have your warm flesh to cling to. 

I keep scaring myself…  wondering why I don’t have any life goals, life dreams, why i don’t know what I want….  

I wish I could make everything better.  In our worlds.

August 19th 2008

email from me

(I’m not writing this as an explination or continuation of earlier conversation exactly – that conversation was…  a catalyst of sorts?  it just started my head down this path and i had to write it out.  So here is a long thingee.)

I do carry my pasts. 

Some aren’t mentioned because they are faded and hardly remembered. 

Some aren’t mentioned because they are so inconsequential and don’t effect anything about my life whatsoever. 

Some were unkind, and I try my damnedest to stuff them in the faded or inconsequential places, because they don’t deserve to be held by me, they don’t deserve to effect me, don’t deserve my memory space, don’t deserve mentioning. 

Some are locked away in heavy chained box.  Those are the ones that matter, those are the ones that scar, those are the ones that still make my insides ache in pain or joy.  The ones that matter…  the ones that deserve to, or the ones that cut too deep when my flesh was too young and soft…  those I try to tell you.  Because they do matter.  Because whether I like it or not, they do effect me, who I am.  Because they stay with me. 

Not much makes it into that box anymore.  Not for years and years.  So few have mattered enough to me that thier cruelty could actually wound me in any lasting way.  Sure, there were terrible moments.  But.  Those are lessons to be learned, warning signs to look out for, rules of engagement to observe…  but they are not worth keeping.  Those aren’t things that won’t let me throw them away to the fading place.  Like at a zoo, i can walk through and look a these wild dangerous things and see only interesting patterns in the fur, amusing habitats; see through science eyes.  Til the animals all die from malnutrition.

The happy moments in my box are few.  There are few people I considered true friends, all years and years past…  and they have, with time, one by one, soured and tainted my memories by revealing themselves as the terrible humans they always were underneath.  It is in my nature to try…  and I do try… to look past the terrible monsters of now and shield my old happy memories from time.  But it never works.  the Happy Then and the Terrible Now negate one another, and I’m left with another past fading away…  and a new awful memory of loss in it’s place.

And this is my point.

Be the realist that you are…  and know… 

You’ve already crammed a whole bunch of the good sort in my safe box of memories.  There are more tiny flickers of moments and kind happenings and actions of awesomeness and that have been catalouged and saved in the past year or so than had gained entrace in…..  probably a decade. 

Because…  you matter. 

Because you mean more. 

You mean more, are more significant, have reached further into me than any friend or lover (god I hate that term, “lover” but what’s the alternative?) ever has.    Like you’re past shoulder deep into the mess of me, your hands slippery and sliding…  fingers discovering…  grazing…  gripping…  some small rusted knot at the center of me.  finding the smoothness underneath.

So….  you won’t be fading away from my memories.  I don’t think it’s possible, barring some severe amnesia-inducing head trauma.  Hated?  I don’t think that’s possible either.  It’s too….  um…  you are so present  in ….  me…  for my mind to take either of those paths.  If ANYTHING in that realm, some terrible future, then it would be …. an ache.  a phantom pain.  it would hurt, and it would fill my memory box, and it would stay. 

Because you are already one of the things that matters… 

that deserves to be there. 

And…  I’m probably just sounding like a crazy person.  But dammit, sometimes I just….  gotta….  send you words.

So there.

---

August 20th 2008

email from Stefan

I am a realist……more of a realist than you…in my opinion.   You’ve explained to me things of your “relationships of importance”, and it seems love was just a word to justify drinking,drugging,fucking,violence and back stabbing…….and I also know you’ve talked fairly freely about promiscuious behaivor as if it was a good trait of yours.   ……and did I judge you……..no.    no I didn’t.

I didn’t pry or dig for any of these facts…….these are all things you’ve threw at me willingly and almost…..strangely…….so believe that i’ll quote you when trying to get you to see my point cleary.    I care about enough to explain this.

You’ve told me about <Mutual Friend>, <Comic Artist Guy> (yes,i’m sorry….i’m cringing…..being honest)…….colin,even <Motorcycle Ex>….and well…..many others.

There was offered info of sexual something with all of them…..and nearly every other name you’ve ever dropped to me.

Is that fact………yes……..does it bother me…………..of fuckin course…………why……because I think you have short changed yourself.

……and because I am involved in the grid now……….but…….it’s a painful double edged sword for me……that I was brought into unknowingly.     That’s unfair to me.      …..but a time machine is the only answer…….so…..nothin’ I can do.    ….and I do not think of you in a bad way for it……it’s personal stuff i go through in my head…….just Stefan shit.

……I repeat….. I don’t judge you.      ……..but your words…..make me remember the hoardes of things you’ve told me and showed me that rub so very hard against the grain of what you say at times.    ……I’m NOT saying you’re a hypcrite…..I’m saying I don’t thik YOU realize things…..about yourself.

It’s hard with the things you’ve told me to not easily present a case that I am no different than anyone you’ve ever told me about.

You’ve confessed to me quite casually that you’ve shared time,”love”,and your tongue and flesh with almost everyone you’ve told me about…..and I’m pretty sure….there’s more. 

So…..my point IS, just UNDERSTAND why it’s hard for me to see ANY difference……in who I am to you.    

I have proven to be a good enough friend to have my point respected……agreed?

I respect your words….and give them thought and consideration……..so…..do the same to mine.

(although I know you always do…..you’re a good friend….that’s a fact)

I’m not saying,”No,I wanna be special!”, I’m just saying….again….that I’m a realist.

Reality is what I live in…..painful stinging reality.       ……and the second I stray from reality,I start feeling weak and vunerable……and then I go through pain and no matter who says they care……..everyone…..one by one….would disappear. Then I’d be alone in a bad place……doing bad things.               ……so I choose to live in a negative reality.   The whole,”life is shit but at least i know”..sorta thing.   ugh.

…..be mindful of the things YOU’VE said to me. …and showed me…..and do.   …and the way you display yourself to the public.

……I never forget a single thing I hear or see from someone I respect…….never.

……I will say this again……it CAN’T be stressed enough.

I will ALWAYS, be on YOUR side.   
I will ALWAYS,be your friend.

….and…will NEVER judge you……but I WILL tell you how I see things.    …..because I’m naturally honest with you.

…..as you’ve been so naturally honest with me.

……and through that natural honesty you’ve said many things with me that stick to ones head.

……so I’m sure you’d agree that when you boastfully told me how people told you,as if it were some general consensus of what is said to you by people you know, that you’re “good at oral sex”……as I was getting dressed…..didn’t have a sorta,”I guess this is completely whatever for her”…..sorta thing,in my head……i didn’t cry……i just…..took the thought and said…….that sucks…but…eh……who am i to make a difference?   no one. that’s who.

……you didn’t see the importance in telling me certain things…….not my business?   sure….i’ll go with that…….but should you have told me and let me decide if I wanted to join a pile for myself…….probably wouldv’ve made me think differently of how “whatever”,you see these sorta things as being.         You seem to cast aside alot on a, “it meant nothing”, vibe……..wich again…..sorta goes against the grain of the way you speak of people.

………I AM YOUR FRIEND AND WE ENJOY EACHOTHERS COMPANY……….FACT.

………as far as me and you go……that’s what I have to go on……..as a realist…..that’s what I got……but…..it’s a big deal.  To me.

……many people have put me in a bad mood in the past few days……and i really have not slept……i’m shaking right now…….my eyes are fucking ruined……seriously ruined right now……and my blood is boiling…….from EVERYTHING…….my trip is basically alreayd fucked from all the things on my mind…(not this stuff……not you…..other things…….but….of course…..i think about this stuff too. soemtimes.)        

…..I won’t even enjoy my trip.
……but that’s another story…….I don’t mean to digress.

….anyway……sigh…….jesus fuckin christ.  My brain.   My thoughts…..my life……I need your help sometimes.    I think.

…..as lame as it sounds……I am looking forward to getting back just so I could hide in the dark with you and watch movies…probably because of how crazy overtired I feel right now.

….From the start,you were forward,honest,observent….and said many things to tell me of you and the things you’ve done.

….I remembered everthing you said…….and I think our entire FRIENDSHIP,is based on the stage of communication you set for us.

…..I enjoy our honesty and observations of eachother……..and you know for a fact that everything I say to you is out of respect…….and you know I’m saddened that I have no time machine that could go back to a time where I could defend you as a good friend………I HATE,knowing thinsg you’ve told me……because I care about you……and would dive into trouble and pain for you.

If one day……we part ways as friends……..at least remember that.

Nothing has changed from the first moment I decided I liked you……….only more repect…….it still grows….even today.

……but my self respect and observations…….do build a sad reality for me.     I don’t know what else to say.

……You have a friend…..cry everyday…..if you have to……but, you can NEVER say,you have no one.   …..I am here for you in ways you can’t imagine.     There is your ONE fact,that when all else seems  cloudy and abstact, you can hold onto as you writhe in bed to help soften the blow of all of lifes stabbing.

---

August 21st 2008

email from me

It’s odd.

Amoungst my friends, I’ve always been the most chaste.  Frank in conversation about sexual matters more than most perhaps, but always more…  physically withdrawn.  Aside from you, I still am.  I don’t know if that speaks poorly on my character, thiers, or what…

I went through a period in my early 20’s …  where I went a bit out there.  I carried over my philosophy about drugs…  “I’ll try anything for the experience” …  to sex.  It started to become treated like a science experiment, almost.  I was so detached from my fleshy body that most encounters were just strategic sensation.  To see what I could feel.

But…  I don’t see myself as ever being permiscuous.  I’d made poor decisions, sure.  But that was rather the point.  I thought they were lessons I needed to learn.  To live through.  ( Maybe I didn’t need to learn at all.  Maybe I learned the wrong things.  Like telling you I was good at oral sex…  that was…  how everybody spoke, I thought.  Or.  Maybe I was trying to compensate and make sure that my childhood hadn’t neutered my sexuality.)

Regardless of why…  I emerged from that period of my life no longer enamored by sex. 

I ended up in a completely different head space. It’s also around the same time I stopped drinking and doing drugs for the most part.  I don’t blame the drugs for my past, I think both were intertwined in the same surface lifestyle.  I think I got everything I could out of it and then… I just stopped looking for empty answers. 

Sex, touching people, it repulsed me.  It got to the point that…  I actually started to manifest physical pain if I tried to convince myself otherwise.  For about four years, I had no sex drive whatsoever.  I avoided advances…  had two encounters with exes during that time, just for an attempt at some ancient spark of physical comfort…. towards people I still at least vaugely cared about.  But I was still left feeling….  empty. 

I understand your being skeeved at the make out tree.  It makes sence.  From my current vantage point, I would be skeeved at it to, had I not lived through it myself with a different perspective at the time.  Does that make sence? 

ANd…  I see myself in such a different place now, I don’t connect myself to that lifestyle.  I can only look at it the same way I look at my drug use at the time.  I wouldn’t live that way now, and people I know who still do are kinda sad… but when I tell stories about driving so wacked out on Dustoff I couldn’t see the parked car in front of me, I’ll probably tell it with amusement and a stupid grin.  I’m no more proud of my drug use than I am of my too-open sexual past…  but it pours out from me in a similar, probably inappropriate, way.

I wish I had a time machine, too.  Sure, there are experiences I regret, but more than any other reason, I wish I could wipe my slate clean so that you could better appreciate….  um….  

christ, I can’t tell if my words are going to make things worse, or what….

Before you, I’d not found any enjoyment of being touched by anyone in nearly five years.  For even longer, I’d not encountered anyone who didn’t somehow sadden me with some empty gesture of the flesh.   

(And yes, in that respect, I probably have short changed myself in the past.  I probably should have just stayed celibate even longer).

But in the now…  I’d never had a sence of….  intimacy…  or sensuality before…  never had….  never lost myself…never gave anything of me…  GOD i hate words…  I didn’t know I was missing it….  but maybe that’s what I was looking for and couldn’t find…  before.

Regarding the “lover” bit…  I used that word in reference to “sexual partner”, not…  love-mate type thing.  But…  about the love hooplah….  I never have been one to use the word as freely as most…  and again,  the blurry haze of delusion I lived in through drugs and sex, I saw more clearly once I removed myself from that realm.  When I was 16, and again when I was 19, I thought myself in love.  I thought that was…  the kind of thing most people experience.  That giddy youthful naivety in over exhuberance towards someone. 

As my adult self, had I ever experienced that?  No.  I have been swept along in the that haze…  the wake of other people’s enthusiasm….  momentarily considered I might be part of something…  but even that was but twice, and it always faded as soon as the newness wore off.  That is why, aside from things being painfully prolonged by cohabitation, I NEVER had a significant other make it past the 6 month mark.  I usually broke things off at three months, knowing that I’d not share their emotional fervor.  Finding myself annoyed or usually smothered in some way.

So…..my point IS, just UNDERSTAND why it’s hard for me to see ANY difference……in who I am to you.     

I do.  I really do.  And that makes me wish for that time machine more than any self-serving reasons I could have. 

And that is why…  I try to explain all these things to you.  Not because I think you are judging me, but because if you could really see how… my insides….  um….     Why I try….  I wish I could drag you inside my mind…

Because I might not always see the grim reality of things…  I might seem inconsistant with my outlooks on certain things, but I don’t lie to you.  So know that I am telling you something of meaning when I say that…

You are the closest bestest friend I’ve ever had.  You mean more to me and are more significant than anyone else has ever been.

And.

I have never before given of myself even a fraction of what I’ve shared with you.  Physically or otherwise.

you can NEVER say,you have no one.   …..I am here for you in ways you can’t imagine.     There is your ONE fact,that when all else seems  cloudy and abstract, you can hold onto as you writhe in bed to help soften the blow of all of lifes stabbing.

Good thing.  Because I kinda already do.

Thank you for being my favorite person.  Maybe someday you’ll….  understand how much that means.  How different you are in my world.

---

email from Stefan

I had to read that twice because my eyes are…..in your words….”are all wonky”.

I am shocked that reading that actually made me, slightly tear up….i’m not even sure what paragraph did it.     weird…..I don’t do that.    I’m all weak and emotional right now I think…..man,i need rest.  ugh.

I understand what you’re saying……and obviously relate…..being that I was raised on a,”do what is not suppose to be done”,lifestyle.  …..and it put me on the street and through hell…..wich is a whole other story I’ll tell you in parts as the conversation calls for it.    Point is….I understand.

It saddens me……that I….you…..people……have to go through this shit……..or choose to.   

Even though I know you hadn’t gone as far into hell as me…….I would drop to my knees in some sort of seizure like break down if I found out you had.    ……but comparing is never the answer.  So moving right along.   Our experiences our are own.

Maybe one day…..i’ll feel good about about myself,or break whatever reluctance I have to believe I am worth a damn.      Although I believe you trust me and….. and know I’m a friend.  A true one….I hope.

I……find your face,flesh,body…..and every part of you to be comfy and happily warm and friendly because I know there isn’t a selfish or negative thought in your head towards me…..I hope it’s true.

I am more interested in bunching sheets and blankets over us and nestling up to your wall and just propping eachother up by our shoulders to watch cartoons or movies together, than blank pursuits of pointless affection with people.    People are disappointing…..because like you said….they’re all still the same person….flopping about in the scene of horrid drunken social meaningless orgies of,..empty,unenjoyable, nauseating text book sexual encounters.     Doing casual drugs and drinking to justify there regrets night to night.

People like us have other things….wrong with us……we have physical and.or psychological issues to tend to and battle everyday.      They don’t understand.      So I don’t try to explain to others.

I can try to describe what our moments of touching flesh is to me…….but in no other areas is it so apparent that, “words are cheap”.       So…..i’ll just say, I won’t write about that now.

I am comfortable with you……because….like I said….I can sense certain things…..and I can feel slightly able to tear down a wall or two and….relax?……around you…..because I feel you don’t judge me….and appreciate the intentions I have for you.

That when we are laying down together…..it’s not……to be intimate…..it’s not an awkward tension…..it’s……..two freinds who truly care for each others well being just helping eachother with true company.   …..true…..friends.

…….in fact….it’s almost sad……….I’m not even sure I’ve had……true friends.

…….there was always the lingering notion they can at any moment give an attitude and be pointlessly mean or heartlessly cruel because of there selfishness…….no matter how long or well you’ve known them.     ….and they usuallly were.

Inconsideration ruins everything……selfishness takes a true friend and makes them……just a friend.

I wouldn’t give you any unnecessary negativity……only the respect to remove myself if I felt mad at the world or something.    ……umm….perhaps I’m digressing…..my forte it seems.

I think I lost my point back there a bit……fuck……I’m not even sure what I’m writing.

Unfortunately, many things in the past few days and honestly,even some of these recent emails have put my  mind in a place where I kinda have been wanting to back our of this trip…..I can’t seem to shake some of the chest aching feeling I have…….I want to fall like a limp puppet into your lap in your room right now and try to sleep……..but……I can’t at the moment so…..here I am……unrested and hours sway from a drive from one side of the country…..to the other.     Why can’t I enjoy things?

Why do I hate myself this much that I think I’ll be forgotten by the human race when I’m gone?

……..god dammit.     I need to live in a cave.        ……I’ll only be gone for a few fuckin days…..that’s it.

….and I don’t even feel like going…….originally……I had the thought that <Prime Roommate> would be gone so I’d be able to enjoy your company by me, and we could get some work done……and I could have some get togethers with You,Justin and a select few……now I just feel like disappearing……this sucks.

……I hope to science, that I get out of the mindtrap…….I will be online whenever I can be hoping anyone I know,preferably you……to help hold my sanity down like a group of ward guards holds down a flailing pyschopath.         

……Though……I also feel I should leave everyone alone and fade into madness. 

…it must be….because I dwell on the things you’ve told me that I don’t want to visualize(wich is not easy…or like me),and focus on my faults and all the things I can’t do…..and I also…..had a dream that repulsed me I won’t tell you about……but I woke up…..very uneasy.    …..my head is stupid though.

……….I think….it’s a bad time for me……I am…..slightly fearful of myself.   I hate it.   blah.

………hopefully,you’ll tolerate me during this bullshit I am dealing with.

………I can’t even tolerate myself.

---

email from me

I’d wanted to plan it out so that I could… come and see you off.

Maybe I still could. I’d wanted to… well… I had wonderful ideas of “happy trip” presents, but i kinda fell apart since you left and ended up with this stupid assigniment of making a real estate email ad that “tells a story”. This is so frustrating. Anyway… I’m doing that now. So if I finish the mock ups in the wee hours, and my money comes through, maybe I’ll find my way to you with dollar store goodies and comforting hug for good luck.

PS.

If you spaz and can’t go on the trip for some wierd brain reason, you can come hide here.

But, I think… it might be good for you to go. Because like I mentioned.. even if it’s awful, at least it’s a DIFFERENT set of problems for a change. At least it’s not the same old shit. At least it’s something you could bitch about to someone, instead of not bothering to mention because it’s the same thing you complained about yesterday. Y’know? Maybe it will give your brain a strange sort of rest. Like using your left hand when the right is too broken.

---

email from Stefan

I don’t really know what the problems are…..so it’s a bit….harder. I don’t know.

If you came here…..it would be even harder for me to leave……so….coming here wouldn’t pan out well.

……I…..don’t know…..what’s going on………I’ll be in touch.  hopefully.       

---

August 22nd 2008

email from me

I imagine you’ll end up doing the driving when the other two are passed out in the car.  If so, I’d like to keep you company.  How, you ask?  Well, maybe..  if keep this in the back of your head, and when next you are driving…  zoning out…  staring at the road…  maybe it will drift in and be vaugely comforting.

Ahem.

I’d be like a spectre.  A half ghost thing.  A thing of impossible stretch and fluidity and half-substance.  And while you’re driving, hands would slowly emerge from the ground beneath your seat…  like a slow motion upsidedown dive…. my outstretched hands…  wrists…  arms…  slowly slipping upwards through the floor…  reaching…  finding you…  ghostly fingers sliding effortlessly between cloth and skin…  up the curve of the calve…  the soft inner thighs… my head and shoulders creeping into view…  sliding up between your legs…   forehead grazing knee…  arms reaching upwards… hands feeling, slithering, seeking…  discovering… the hips.. the waist…. the ribs…. the chest……. the collarbone…. fingertips just reaching your jawline….delicately….just….  graze….  lips…..  and then I retract slowly…  fingers tracing an invisible map ….  to the small of your back…  my arms circling around you…  my hidden torso curling in, under you…  sliding and curling behind….  against you…  my ribs press through your seat and bend against your weight….  knees, thighs, glide up against your back…holding you snugly…  the curve of me pressed against the curve of you…  my cheek resting against your thigh…. my forehead pressed lightly against your hip…  in a hidden skin to skin embrace.

I’ll stay there, that place of comfort.  A silent partner.  Your quiet company.  If you like.

---

email from Stefan

I think in a delusional state…..I already thought of something like that.

…..but…..in my hallucinatory,sleepless state……..that read was interesting.

I just walked into the marriot in Davenport,Iowa.

……and yes…they have internet……and……i traveled an hour back in time,so far. 

…..I left at midnight, I drove till 7am. (through,NJ,PA,OH…..then I let someone take over from IL to IO.      …….I did alot of driving……it’s 2:22pm(3:22pm for yoooou)…..ans I still have not slept……I will go find food while walking the carpeted hall ways of the inn…..then……fall down for a couple hours until our next destination……Denver,Colorado.

…..I can say lots so far……but I took lots of pictures of the painful nothingness of the afformentioned states.     I’m hallucinating……severely. 

…..I’ll………write again in Colorado…….whenever the hell that’ll be.      So far…….I did about half the drive.    It gives me confidence I could drive us farther places than I thought.    
……..but……there are things…….weird things……I’m still…..not okay……and…..thinking too hard about……dumb things.

just got back from eating raw….and i mean raw….meat…at some dark,weird place here in uneventful old,davenport,Iowa…i’m hallucinatory with anger and joy…..i…wish you were hanging with me and having a cigarette. I’m to lost in the brain to write anymore.

---

August 23rd 2008

email from me

I have decided to do something generally…  unwise.  That is…  I’ve decided to be amazingly hopeful. 

Yes, this usually gets my soul torn to shreds and takes me months to recover from, but, hey…  I’d rather be somewhat pleasant in the NOW than coddle my insides for fear of the future.

So.  I’m going to assume that I have something fixable.  AND I’m going to assume that I’ll get it fixed.

Therefore, I’d like to ask you, if you find yourself available when the time comes (probably not for a year or so), if you’d be my partner in crime for some sort of extended roaming tour.  This could take place in the US, Canada, or preferably Europe.  If I could be free of my ever preseent looming black cloud of health, I will want to do all that which I’ve been putting off for years and years and do as much world-experiencing as possible.  Months or wandering and truly directionless unfettered living.  And I can’t think of who I could possibly enjoy the process with more than you.

So…  during this trip of yours, take mental notes.  Remember things that are good ideas, things that are not, things to do again, things to avoid, things to try, etc etc.

Because if I can shake free…  oh, I’d love to live!

---

email from Stefan

I’ll keep this brief……because my mind is gone…..and I just arrived in Vegas…..it’s over a hundred degrees……or at least it was in the Nevada desert a hundred miles before Vegas in the dersert when we over heated!……yes…..we had to stop in the desert and put anti freeze in……we had some but we got out of the car and the desert heat actaul stays inside of you when you get out of it……i was….going mad……walking around snake holes and cactus……i’m not kidding either…….i am not posted all of my pics and probably none except fot the colorado mountain moring one on myspace………even though it’s there just for my close friends…ahem…..to see.

….but……I have taken hundreds of pictures…..and lots…..of video……..just to show you for the exact reason for us to acess the info and discuss places to go and not go.

…….because…….they’re not good travel companions……..I am truly traveling across this country……alone……but…..i’m in Vegas in a fancy smhancy hotel and……well……it’s hot out….and i don’t feel like going downstairs to gamle…….so……..I am here……writing…….and tired……I have slept……ten hours so far since we left the house in jersey……..5 hours in davenport iowa……and 5 hours in denver,co.      ……i don’t understand……..I have many many things to show you………i couldn’t write it all…….i’ll be soon…..and show you stuff…………
I have traveled far…….alone…….but…..with our journeys in mind…….without that thought…….pressing through hours of the midweat mountains……wich……..can only be explained my my pictures……..wouldn’t be possible.

……..I am in Vegas.           couple days……in L.A.     …..then I return via plane and run to you crying in your lap. of the tales of scroching sun and madness…….true madness.

…..things could be alot better for me right now.

---

August 25th 2008

email from Stefan

I was just reading comic forums…….because I like comics.        ….and <Comic Artist Guy> came up.

(This is not true. He can’t stop thinking of me with others and was seeking out more information.)

So……I bursted into and angry explosive bulletin on shit artists ruining our world…..and that white, new england ,wave of rejects who moved to brooklyn and manhattan and ruined the last bit of the new york in the nineties.

…..Then I digressed…..and my personal anger took me elsewhere.       So….I didn’t post it…….but I wrote you an email…….saying……”Ya’see….ya’see how I can’t even read some comic forums without reading about tons of these shit artists…..like <Comic Artist Guy>…..now I have to think about this amongst everything else I have on my plate.        …..and I pasted the unposted bulletin in the email I wrote to you so you could read how much it side tracked me and how crazed with general anger and lack of sleep I’m suffering.          fuckin christ.

……so…..yeah……I didn’t send you the email……it’s full of fuming anger……..of mine………It’s a saved draft…….I think It’s too angry.

…….I shouldn’t dump my anger on you………..I really just……am having a hard time right now and want to sorta give up caring.

…….and being in Vegas…..I don’t want that feeling.

---

[ After IMs and text messages ]

August 27th

email from Stefan

I was reading some comic forum shit………and…….well………………..<Comic Artist Guy> popped up.
 needless to say,I became angry……I tried to purposely not…..get really into it ,and leave the anger out of  view……but……..I started to write a bulletin…and my subconscience mind just, took over and I digressed like ten times.    ……so…..I didn’t post it…because it was too directly personal…..not enough stefan metaphors………and….umm….he really pisses me off…….I’m angered right now.

…….and…….it really makes me…..just…..yeah.   angry.

here was the bulletin that I didn’t post…..and am not going to, because it’s not what I wanted to post…..because my anger flies off to personal metal struggles.

BULLETIN

Just because I was reading through some indie comic forums and came across his name again…..I have to say…..<Comic Artist Guy> is to comics what locusts are to crops.   

Although,people like him: instead of a vast freak explosive population swarm eating crops……they are a balding,beer gutted,plagiarizing,egocentric,morons…usually from the woods(like Vermont)….and moved to Brooklyn with that wave of white,ignorant,northern folk who wiped out the very last trace of new york that was left in the nineties……and they never seen it for what t is.      Ever.

Growing up in the eighties in north jersey outside the city,I was in the five boroughs with my parents constantly,because we were city people…..and liked art and affordable activities……I remember an actual nyc that was real……and helped shape exactally who I am now.

A human……with artistic standards.

This bulletin is about alot of things…..but I’m using <Comic Artist Guy>,as an example.

……in this “new art world”…… as soon as some country boy puts on a urban jacket, and traces a few photos, and has just enough common sense to stitch ’em together right……or spray paint a fuckin wall with some half assed graffiti…..we praise him as a genius and put him on the cover of juxtapoz. 

So….fuck you <Comic Artist Guy>…..fuck you right where you breathe…..not only will you,and others like you, NEVER understand what the city is,because you’ve never really been there…..and ruined the last bit of it……..but you’ll never realize you are the WORST candidate to tell a urban story……….you goofy moron.        What the FUCK do you know about being a young latino girl in the fuckin’ city?!           You’re a balding white New England boy……not a intelligent,healthy,New York man.     

I put more effort into one sketch that no one will ever see, than you do a whole comic.

…..and you call yourself a “comic designer?”        You’re a pretentious clown.

…..Why don’t all of you northern morons who moved into the city and ruined the last trace of it, just go back to the glue sniffing, bad sex orgies out in the fuckin woods…………how much more can you ruin?…..you’ve somehow made good trashy……bad trashy…….go back to that upstate area, sniffing toilet cleaners someone told you was speed, and your tree bark rashes….you fuckin’ walking diseases.    I HATE………hate you.

….You’re all whores.    Even prostitutes have a fuckin’ REASON for their lifestyle.

…..You needn’t shuffle into the city and hoard together pretending life is hard by creating tiny problems that could be solved with drinking and fucking and autobiographical drawings you call…comics?!

…..we’d prefer it if you stayed where you were.

…..I really……don’t think I’ll be coming back to reality anytime soon.

…..nothing means anything to anyone………..words……are cheap…….bad art is bad art……..and trashy people are trashy people……….I’ll die out in the desert before I join in.       The thoughts in my mind and the things I know are real………make me sick.        Fuckin sick.    

I want to burn out in the desert…….

……and watch as my flesh burns so that with my last bit of conscienceness,I could feel what it’s like to live without tainted skin on this ruined planet.

…..You over sensitive people can go to hell too…..I’m tired of everybody loving everyone…….although it’s better than fucking everyone in that seedy “scene”..as you call it……..it’s still equally as sickening……….i’m literally going to scrape away at my flesh tonight….

….and walk around all day in 107 degrees just to become a ticking time bomb of hatred……..who’s going to receive it…..hmmm?

…….boy am I glad i started reading comic forums…….nice to know i can’t even do THAT, without thinking of a thousand things that make me want to break out of my skin like a bird hatching from an egg……..pink,wet and slowly gyrating off the outer layer……..only…….the shell is my flesh……..and there is NOTHING……I can do about it.   My brain,my flesh….the art world……is ruined.

….the scene is a stain that won’t come out…..it is sadly the ONLY thing they have to talk about…..old happenings that gave them NOTHING but weathered bodies and liver problems…….stories that are spoke of as if they still…or EVER,lived some exciting life a post Vietnam east village artist.

……So….I will pay homage to all of you spread eagle culture rapists and your stink of industrial teeth rotting faux drugs and whisky…….by being what you all made me.

….you’re stain left on me has taken away something I could NEVER….get back…..self respect and hope.

……No one has EVER had the respect to think of what I am or what I may think of anything….or excepted my help where it makes sense most………wich is why my stories of struggle were alone……and not spoke of because few would understand…….wich is why….I hate the skin i’m in……..and have for a very……long time.

END BULLETIN

…so yeah…..I didn’t post it because it was a run away train of personal anger…….I hate that I do, and still do rip into that northern white brooklynite thing….but,it’s true…..and even though you fit the description of “white brooklynite in the nineties……I am not speaking of you………my hate is my hate……it defines me…………but..I have no hate for you.

…………….All of my gripes are legit.    

…………….There are so many things on my mind right now that I don’t talk about to anyone and I have to live everyday in my own personal hell.  The pain never ends. 

……I……did have more to write to you about how you’ve put yourself out there in those last other emails………..but..I feel…it doesn’t matter.       

…….so now……i’m going to just……..be mad……..about all the personal things……i’ve been angry about…..but now also the fact that I can’t even read comic forums without being reminded of bullshit…..from mostly his shit contribution to the art scene(wich is my real gripe with him)…..to the thought of you “dating”….and……having sex or…whatever happened that makes me feel reeeeeeeeally weird and uncomfortable inside.   It’s unfair to my pysche to put myself through such thoughts……

……..I am NOT……those people…I am different……I am so different….and I will kill myself……if that’s what it comes down to to prove that to everyone.

As much as you say you think I AM, different…..I need you to believe me even more.

Enough so that if one day our lives split ways……you’ll still and always know.

……..nothing i do…..will ever separate me from the animals…………I am a cow in a herd of thousands of the same color……trying to be noticed……..in otherwords……..I waste my time.

……..It’s not fair that I have to be this unhappy all the time……and i was angered by this fuck before I even knew you’d defend him…….so I would be just as mad even if you’d never told me you knew him.    so you,are not at all the reason I feel the way I feel right now….in fact…..I wish I didn’t know anything……but….as much as you tell me tales of,”forgotten pointless pasts”,I only know of this because you posted pictures of you in his lap while he’s giving that spine tingling smug expression of,”check it out dude”…..so…..and,you chose to display this as a window into your life…..in wich case……I’m glad I know.   I don’t know why……I don’t personally understand why any of those pictures were posted…that whole,”i’ve no idea who took this”,with you’re skirt picked up in the middle of a bar…and making out in his fuckin lap…..clearly being very into him…..and your happy smiles showing glee that I myself,have never seen in your face to such an ear to ear way…….not that I ever expect to deliver more than others in the happiness department………….it makes me wonder is all…..i mean…it would be weird if I didn’t wonder…..and even weirder if you tried to explain something that’s clear as day……because it’s a captured moment in time….there is no denying the feelings of ones expression……pictures speak volumes.     ……..and fuckin’ scumbag shit like Brain pointing at every fucking part of your body he can in all the pictures.

I don’t know what’s worse.       The fact that he made the same fuckin’ asshole face every time you planted your ass on his crotch……or that you don’t understand what those pictures display and that you were a piece of meat to him.      How….can you think a few agreements and a lent camera could nullify something so obvious?   It just……..doesn’t fuckin add up.         I feel like there is something I’m going to discover sometimes……..something….strange.
Pictures speak volumes words can’t.

So……what can I say…….I’m sorry I’m depressed?

I’m upset that the world ropes me into what I consider to be filth?

Why do I always end up in situations with no warning?


No……..I can’t say those things.       …….that’s be a waste.

I know you explained you’re end willingly,but…..my mind reopens things I can’t make sense of…..often.

……so i will try and do what I do best……….wich is try to not care……wich I can do if I convince myself of a few things……..but, there are many downsides to that route.  

one of those downsides being….well…..as I said…..not caring as much….about anything.

……and yeah……now i have said all I could on that topic………I hate him……….with true genuine hatred……whether you told me you knew him or not…….but yes…..more because of that.

……I am……….so fuckin twitching with anger…..I’m going to blindly spend money now…….the respect I have for you sometimes…….gives me a headache.

….and I just read that facebook message……about you riding a motorcycle through the city and tunnel.

….again…..you’re words of Kurt you choose to tell me without me ever asking……are nothing but negative and highlighting his ego, ignorance ,and overall “impossible to respect” character.   

….So….you clutching yourself to him, flying on motorctcle ,anywhere….well.    Swelling his head with even more undeserved feeling of, James Dean stupidity……I don’t get it.   

….You explained to me that whole, Kurt is dating/chasing a racist…..like you were ahamed even knowing him.
….and you…….press against him as he speeds in potentially fatal testosterone ego.

….You seem to be someone else when talking to me….I don’t know if I’m sure you have any resepct for yourself, or just like the idea of having it when you talk to me.   I’m never dishonest with you…..I back up all my words with actions and proof if need be.    You…..kill me withhow  what you say and what you do……display the lives of two different people.     I just want a friend who is true to their words………whatever you do is you business and life…..and I’m noone to tell you what to do.    ……but holy shit Rach……I want to believe that you are who you say you are.       I really do.

I JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH YOU

I didn’t erase anything…..because evven though I’ve said alot of this and we’ve went over stuff.

I was able to,on the phone…..let you see my points more cleary and you seemed to….see my point much more cleary……that is,IF you were not just telling me what I wanted to hear.  Wich I;d like to believe you weren’t.

I;m sorry I get mad and confused and concerned nad my wording is crass,but….I don’t like to pillow my words because….ya know……I am not a soft boy.     

I’m your friend.     I care about you.      Alot.

sorry I think about things the way I do.   It really tortures me more than anyone else.

I suffer.    ….and it sucks.       …..now I lay down a little depressed and weird.    …..but,I’m glad we talked……as always……talking and hanging out with you always lift any confusing air.

That’s why we are friends.        I think.       ugh.

---

August 28th

email from me

I’m not offended by your words. 

Explaining your stance on something, and why, and the way it effects you emotionally isn’t offensive.

I can understand why you’d say everything you have.

But I’d like to address some of the things you’d mentioned…..

I don’t know why……I don’t personally understand why any of those pictures were posted…that whole,”i’ve no idea who took this”,with you’re skirt picked up in the middle of a bar…and making out in his fuckin lap…..clearly being very into him…..

I was thinking about this before.  Your mentioning of me making out on Brian’s lap.  And I’d no idea to what you’d possibly be referring.  I thought perhaps I just didn’t remember something.  And so, I went and looked through every photograph I have of those “Drink Ups”; not what I have left on Flickr, but everything on my hard drive.  And there is not one photograph of me making out on Brian’s lap.  Nor sitting on his lap.  I’ve gone through all the pictures four times.  Not one picture.  Aside from one image of my arms around his neck, one of my arm arond his shoulder, one of his arm around mine (not copping a feel, as you’ve previously assumed), there’s no pictures of he and I in contact.  You are welcome to look through and see the pictures I have.  There are pictures of Lauren doing all sorts of exhibitionistic things.  Leaping on people and licking them and pretending to give people lap dances for the camera and making people feel awkward often.  Being “affectionate” and groping of me in public more than she’d ever do alone.  She especially invovled Brian in her antics because he was the one person in our group who was actually invovled in comics and more “popular” on the message board.  Perhaps you inferred I’d done the same as she?  I didn’t.

The “I’ve no idea who took this” is because…  when I didn’t take the picture, I usually give credit to whomever did, if I can.  Whenever these events happened, there would be two or three people with a camera (usually Lauren and I was one of them), the pictures would be posted a few days later on the messageboard we all trolled on, in some odd party competition to the LA and London crowd who did the same.  I saved a bunch of the images on my computer at the time they were posted, and never throught to take note of who took what.  It’s not a photo of total anonymity. I’m not sure why that is bothersome to you.

The reason those pictures were posted.  The reason I showed them to you….  Is because it happened.  I was there.  And you and I were getting to know one another.  Because that was a wierd period in my life I lived.  And I don’t like the notion of concealing…  because you are right to a certain extent; regardless of how much the past still effects things.  it still happened.  I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clear enough that Brian from my pictures was the same as the comics guy.

to the thought of you “dating”….and……having sex or…whatever happened that makes me feel reeeeeeeeally weird and uncomfortable inside.

As far as “dating”…  even that seems too strong a term.  Brian used to visit me at work on his lunch break…  after a while we went on one double date, and one solitary date.  I ended up going home with him the once, but we were too drunk to really DO anything and I left early the next morning.  The next time we hung out,  I ended up drunkenly hitting on him, and he wasn’t interested.  And…  that was it.  He still visited me at work, but there wasn’t anything going on.  There were no “vibes”…  was no “interest” between us.  There WASN’T any degree of “clearly being very into him” whatsoever in those photographs.  It simply didn’t exist.  He was my favorite of the people in that group I’d socialise with, sure, but that’s it.  Miserable and crazed with frustration and confusion as she made me, Lauren was my girlfriend and I DO NOT POSSESS interest in anyone else when I’m “with” someone.  Any sort of antics or romping going on in pictures was a matter of hamming it up for the camera, usually instigated by Lauren, who used me and Brian as her attention props.  You can find that tasteless, I understand that.  Maybe it was ALL just terribly tasteless, and maybe it portrays me in an unflattering manner, and maybe he was being terribly pig-ish…  but there are things you infer that just aren’t there sometimes. 

It’s unfair to my pysche to put myself through such thoughts……

I’m sorry, and I know that you don’t want to read about this, you don’t want this brought into your head.  But I can’t just leave half explinations and skewed interpretations left hanging…

I don’t care if you dislike the guy for his comic making and niche in the NYC scene.  I’ve read few of his comics, really.  While I do think he’s a good graphic designer, he’s not skilled whatsoever as far as being an artist.  And the stories I’ve read were rather thin and one dimensional.  The popularity was all based on the STYLE of the thing, and that doesn’t impress me.  I won’t bother defending his “work”.  I don’t care, or like it, or pay enough attention to do so.

And.

…..and your happy smiles showing glee that I myself,have never seen in your face to such an ear to ear way…….not that I ever expect to deliver more than others in the happiness department………….it makes me wonder is all…..i mean…it would be weird if I didn’t wonder…..and even weirder if you tried to explain something that’s clear as day……because it’s a captured moment in time….there is no denying the feelings of ones expression……pictures speak volumes. 

My smiling?  What you said about the ear to ear grin you’ve never seen?  That actually…  makes me sad and makes tears hover in my eyes.

Pictures do often lie.  There’s that.

You’ve never seen me drunk.  Or generally trashed.  There’s that.

But…  I’ve often wished…  found it unfair…  that you only know me now, as the much more sad and broken and beaten down by the world sort of person that I am.  And that you didn’t get to know me before.  When I was a bouncier, happier, more creative.  When I had…  more spark.  Before I hurt as much as I do now.  Before I felt like I’m dying a little bit every day.  Before I had the fear and the terror and the doubt ALWAYS going in the back of my head.  Before I was the crying every day Rachael.  Maybe it’s life, maybe it’s age, maybe it’s sobriety that brought the more solemn colors to my face.

But.

You really never saw such a grin on my face?  You really never saw me show that much (or more) glee?  Not when you give me impromptu puppet shows from under the bed, or make a kneaded eraser robot, or say the same thing that’s already going in my head, or come home randomly with a bicycle, or Baker Boys, or  ….  when you arrive….  or

Really?

But I feel so many more colors…  so much more vibrant… 

I can’t express to you how terribly depressing and disturbing that is.  Because you are the best person I’ve known.  And you deserve a better version of me than what’s obviously a worn-out second-hand thrift store special.

I give to you the best that I have.  I’m really very sorry that it’s not as shiny…  not as gleaming and fresh as it should be, as it used to be, as I wish I could give you. 

I’ll try to use this as added incentive to get myself well.  To climb.

……I……did have more to write to you about how you’ve put yourself out there in those last other emails………..but..I feel…it doesn’t matter.

I’d like to know what that was. 

……so i will try and do what I do best……….wich is try to not care……wich I can do if I convince myself of a few things……..but, there are many downsides to that route.  

one of those downsides being….well…..as I said…..not caring as much….about anything.

and

…You seem to be someone else when talking to me….I don’t know if I’m sure you have any resepct for yourself, or just like the idea of having it when you talk to me.   I’m never dishonest with you…..I back up all my words with actions and proof if need be.    You…..kill me withhow  what you say and what you do……display the lives of two different people.     I just want a friend who is true to their words………whatever you do is you business and life…..and I’m noone to tell you what to do.    ……but holy shit Rach……I want to believe that you are who you say you are.       I really do.

and

I feel like there is something I’m going to discover sometimes……..something….

strange.

I know I mentioned this yesterday, but, if you feel I’ve been dishonest in presenting myself to you, if you don’t feel you can trust the undercurrent of who I am, then by all means, withdraw.  Care less.  I’d rather…  feel slightly hollow…  feel like I’ve been stripped of the comfy down socks that so softly kept my feet warm and snug and instead find myself slipping and clomping uneasily in shoes that no longer fit, that leave too much empty space, that scrape and chafe in the hollow places….  I’d rather THAT….  than know that I cause you thought agony.  I don’t want to be someone who misrepresents herself – that’s one of the most terrible things a person can do.  I’ve had friends and exes both who fit that category, and it’s one of the most awful ways of betraying someone.  Caring about a person who doesn’t even exist under the mask.

I want to tell you I am the person you know me as.  But I don’t know exactly what you see.  I know your view is more kind, more filled with potential and possibility than mine.

I thought…  that perhaps it might help for you to witness me in front of my friends, see that who I am is the same as it is in front of you…  but most of my friends are from years and years ago.  Most of my friends I’ve not socialised with in years, and don’t know me as the sober person I am now…  don’t know me as the less impetuous and less submissive person I’ve ended up as.

And then I thought…  that maybe it’s a matter of degrees.  I am now far less impetuous, far less manic, far less subserviant to those around me, far less apologetic for myself than I had been, than I’d become….  But maybe to fully appreciate how much that is, you’d have to have seen me beforehand.  MAybe from your perspective, even just the tiny remnants of “What Was” are significant and disturbing…  but to me they are hardly there.

What I know is…  you make me want to be a better person.  In wonderful ways.  You make me want to be beautiful.  You make me want to be bad ass.  You make me want to be crazy confident.  You make me want to be amazing.  You make me want to try.

But then, you already have made me a better person.  In most of those ways.

I;m sorry I get mad and confused and concerned nad my wording is crass,but….I don’t like to pillow my words because….ya know……I am not a soft boy.     

Don’t be sorry.  I really do appreciate the fact that you…  care enough to tell me, to be honest with me.

March 19th 2010

unsent email from me

A letter I wont send. A letter the recipient will likely never see.

It’s a beautiful day. Seventy degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. The sort of day I wish I could appreciate, instead of hiding like a troll under a bridge from the garish light and child laughter.

I’ve not been sleeping.

Things aren’t going well.

I just don’t sleep anymore.

I’d grown adapted to my medications, started to crave and want and tense the hours before my next dose. I decided to try and quit. The first day or two, I’d just the constant nose running, sweating, and angry intestines. Seemed easy.

Then day three everything became horrific.

I started to feel myself curl into emptiness of my insides, twisting and turning like being stuffed into a nautilus shell, filled with sheet-thrashing, wall-punching chemical want. But even that was something I could deal with.

What is wrecking me is the pain. and the loneliness

Oh god, the pain in my back. My shoulder. My neck. My legs. Sobbing and twisting in bed. TENS unit, heating pad, assorted vibrating massagers, goosebump balls, all pressed against me, doing nothing. Like all the pain I’d avoided for months was coming back in one wrathful vengeful blow. I cried and wailed.

I almost called you.

I didn’t.

Instead, I piled my pillows next to me and wrapped my four limbs around them, pretending it was you. Wishing for nothing but that. Clutching you to me, making your chest damp with my tears.

Everything is going wrong. She’s taking away my insurance. I was going to use it for surgery on my hump that makes my right shoulder and arm always hurt, the veins in my legs that ache and make me hideous, and my right eye so I could maybe see sorta properly. Even without the one painkiller I’m purging, medications are over $100 a month WITH coverage, and I’ve no idea what I’m going to do. She’s decided that I’ve been dragging my feet with my medical issues, and I can’t seem to say or do anything to convince her otherwise. Why I’d do such a thing, aside from financial reasons or scheduling, I can’t imagine.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I… I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I can’t sleep anymore.

Every sort of weather makes me think of you. Each time of day, each change in the weather, it brings me inconsequential and non-specific memories of you and I.

Every day, I imagine that somehow it can all come back. I pretend that there’s some way that they’d let me have my old living quarters back, and you could visit, and we could be eating and driving and romping and picture taking and cupcake buying and boardwalk strolling.

I wish… I wish that’s what could be happening. Instead of this. Instead of this lonely terrible time. Instead of my days filled with pain and restlessness and doom and insomnia.

For the past few years, I’ve been plagued with the constant feeling that I’m running out of time. That feeling has mounted as time passes (which only makes sense). It’s growing. More and more. The more terrible things become, the more that feeling rises like a dark tide. And things do keep getting more frustratingly grim than before.

I wish…. I wish I were spending the seemingly short time I have with you. I wish my time was filled with the simple subtle joys of eating icecream in bed watching horror movies; of eating pancakes and sausage at dawn; of draping my body around yours in comfortable slumber; of silently drawing and computering side by side as we listen to scientists talk about the beauty and majesty of the tangible; all the while, feeling the silent battering ram of the intangible knocking me senseless, making me so simply and innocently happy and filled with glee.

I wish we had gone to museums together. I wish I’d had more NYC memories of you and I. Walking through the Met, appreciating true art together, and then walking through Central Park as dusk fell. Attending gallery openings together and schmoozing, giving each other looks of silent understanding through the entire superficial ordeal. Going to the Bronx Zoo, and being just as entertained at the kids’ reactions as the animals themselves. Going somewhere new, and making friends with strangers together.

I … still keep hoping that maybe you’d … write and explain some things. Kill off some of the brain demons that gnaw on my wonder. I keep hoping that you’d come find me and say you want me. Most selfish of all, I keep hoping maybe you’d be able to save me, though I know that’s impossible.

I’m drowning.

I miss you.

December 13th 2010

private blog post to Stefan

so.

I’ve got some questions.  It’s really really all questions.  I’m asking.  Yes, these are all things you’ve heard but….  ok.  follow my logic.  not as accusation, but as…  trying to put pieces together.  understand how things go.  maybe…  my confusion can make sense.  why i’m so lost.  why things don’t seem to match up.  Please.  Read this slowly.  Read what i’m saying. 

I am mentioning things that might have hurt me, but I’m putting the emotions aside and really approaching this in a purely logical and unemotional way, and trying to understand the things that confuse me. 

You um.  You were upset when you found out that I’d hooked up with <Mutual Friend>, even though it was ten years prior.  You’ve strongly against the casual hooking up of people in friend groups.  Ok.  I accept that.  I don’t see things that way, but you do.  We understand that we have different views. 

(This very strong stance of yours was….  well, it was just another one of the many reasons that I was convinced that there was no chance you were with anyone else.)

You’ve said…  many times…  that you are against the chummy social cirlces of people fooling around with each other.  You find it tasteless.  You don’t take part. 

Now…  I’d felt left out and kept apart from your life for a long while.  Since I was in Ocean Grove.  Since the Stripper Party, and ever since.  A party that I was not allowed to. Aside from your Halloween Party, and a single outing to The Loop Lounge three years ago, there’s not been one social event that i’ve been invited along to.  Even things that happened at your house. 

I’d been really excited when you got your house.  Before you moved in, you drove me just to SEE the place so I could help you paint.  I thought I’d get to see YOUR world, instead of always just you visiting me in my lonely one. 

And…  i’d brought this up.  This desire to be…  occasionally included.  Invited by.  Sometimes I did so rather choked up.  And, as it’s been mentioned many times, you explained that I lived far away, and that you lived with others while I lived alone, etc etc etc. 

ok.  I still wished to feel more included every once in a while…  and I was bummed, but I accepted.  It made sense.  And I understand that perspective. 

And another year went by.  During that year, I moved.  Lived but 45 minutes away, and didn’t live alone, and couldn’t have you stay over.  And you’d admitted….  you’d admitted that “I KNOW how it looks, but that’s not how it is.”  So I figured that eventually, there’d be something.  That you’d show me how it REALLY was.  And what happened?  When <The Brother> had some people over for his birthday, and you told me that I could ask HIM to invite me over, that I could ask HIM for a ride.    

So here’s my first quesion:  If you prefer my company to most, and if you know, for example, that your house is going to be populated by other people, some/most of whom you are fond of, some of whom you find to be less than ideal company….  and if you know that I’ve been dying to get out of my house, and would leap at the chance of the rare event of a social evening with others, meeting your friends, even if they are obnoxious…  why would you never bring me by?  If I could come by to help you paint your house before you moved in, if i could come by to help decorate for Halloween….  why not have me by, just every once in a while, when you were being otherwise social?  Why not have me by for solidarity, if nothing else?  Why not have had me over when you invited everyone else over to help decorate for Halloween, for example?  I could have always come back again by myself, if you wanted us-hanging-alone time.  Why could your tattoo clients have hoardes of obnoxious friends by, but your working meant I wasn’t allowed over?  What is wrong with me that you don’t want me in front of others? 

Still…  the only friends of yours I’ve met were the mutual friends of yours and <The Brother>’s that stopped by at <The Brother>’s invitation.

When I bring this up, you tell me that you HAVE no social life.  That you rarely hangout with anyone.  Ok.  And I don’t…  I don’t want to tag along every time you hang out with someone.  I’m not trying to make you feel guilty for hanging out with people.  OF COURSE you’ve every right to engage socially without inviting me or telling me of every interaction.  But…  I really empthathize with <your friend’s cousin> desire to know something about me, to be interested in someone that was a figure in your life.  Because I feel the same way about your entire social life. 

And that brings me to my point.

As anti-social as you tend to be, you were hanging out with <your friend’s cousin>.  Sure, you’re not a very social person.  But you see her on a regular enough basis to meet her dad, her friends, close enough to draw her birthday cards, give her sketch books, be the object of her drawings and attentions.  Close enough that she messaged me to ask about you, sees you often enough to find her lack of any knowlege about me and place in your life somewhat mysterious.  Close enough that the notion of upsetting you made her unfriend me.  Close enough that you getting angry at her made her tear up. 

You defend your right to hang out with her.  And that’s fine.  You are right.  You’ve every right to hang out with her.  You say she’s nice to you.  Well, based on her photo comments and drawings, she clearly adores you.  That’s obvious.  She’s written to me that you are very important to her.  I’d probably LIKE the girl.  She seems sweet and nice and wierd.  I can understand why you’d like her.  She’s very pretty, too.  I’d made a point to say hello to her and TRY to talk to her at your first Halloween Party.  Why?  Well, for a similar reason that she’d written to me on facebook.  She’d gotten to stay at your house before I did.  She commented on your online images.  The rare mentionings of her were always of your extending friendship, help and support to her.  And yet, I’d little idea of who she was.  This isn’t me “putting on my sleuth hat” or prying.  But similar to what she’d said in her writing to me, you are an important person to me, and I’m curious to know about the other people you enjoy.  You can call me jealous all you want.  That’s simply not the case.  You could throw me in a room with her today, and I’d have no issue interacting with her and befriending her. 

The point is, you didn’t tell me.  You didn’t tell me you were hanging out with her.  You only mentioned her in the vaugest of peripheries.  Only when she HAD to be mentioned.  You were IMing her regularly from my house, for months, but mentioned her name perhaps once.  Always minimised the window or closed your laptop screen.  Again, I was never prying, but I could not keep from registering her screenname after seeing it a number of times.  (i only knew who it was when she friended me on flickr) While you are generally private, you are not as secretive or private about most people you engage with as you are with her.  Especially with me, given how open and honest we were about our lives with each other. 

And now, you’ve slept with her. 

Look, personal hurt and issues aside, seriously:  My mind has been blown by this.  You’ve been clearly against fooling around in one’s social circle, clearly disgusted by casual sex, and have said she’s of little importance to you, that she’d be shocked to hear you consider her a close friend, but also, that she’s a good friend.  What does that leave?  What is left?  This is something that i’ve been very confused about, and would truly like to understand.  Not because I want to get in the middle of your personal relationships with others, but because…  it seems to contradict most of what you’ve said to me, what you’ve presented yourself as “being about”, and I’m not sure if there’s something I’m missing – some part of the way you see things that I just haven’t conceptualized.  It seemed that you’d looked down so strongly on me when I’d mentioned having hooked up with friends; when I’d said it was no big deal.  <Mutual Friend> being the prime example of that. 

I’m friends with <Mutual Friend.  I like <Mutual Friend>.  I don’t have any attraction nor romantic or sexual feelings for <Mutual Friend>, nor did I ever.  I just liked the guy.  Is that how you are with <your friend’s cousin>? 

If so, why did you have an issue with <Mutual Friend>, or any other part of my past where I’d slept with someone I was friends with?  How is it that you see the situations differently?  Why would you have looked down so strongly on my behavior, if it’s something that you felt capable of yourself?  When I’d mentioned having slept with someone, explaining that so-and-so “was never my boyfriend”, you’ve told me that it “doesn’t make me look good”.  So what are you and I?  What are you and <your friend’s cousin>?  Where are the differences? 

How is it that you’d given <your friend’s cousin> a sketchbook, drew her a card for her birthday, have known her for years now, have visited each other’s homes, slept together, but say that she’d be shocked to hear you considered her a friend? 

If her comments, her drawings of you, are all painting a picture far beyond the actual level of connection and friendship between you, if she’s making FAR more out of your relationship with one another, why do you still enjoy her company?  From tales you’d told me of previous friendships you’d had, when someone oversteps their bounds, digs into your life without cause, pries into your personal life, and makes themselves out to be more important than they are…  you take them down a notch and remove them from your life.  If she’s so distant, of so little importance, someone you aren’t “interested in” or pursuing, why continue to befriend her after she messaged me just to get to know what I am to you?  That seems a far more bold and offensive act than anything you’d described of <random chick> doing.  And yet, you tell me that she is “nice to you”. 

I’m sorry for the barrage of questions.  I…  really need to understand how sexual and/or friend interaction works in your mind, for me to understand anything about us, or about how you see me, about what you feel is acceptable, and what you feel is offensive.  I’m really terribly confused.  I feel as though I must have had it all wrong, given how things have played out between us, and the relationships you’ve had with others.

ok.

It’s been established that….  you don’t like to mix your social/sexual things, right?  You find it distasteful for people to have social circles where people have been with each other? You “don’t do that”.

But…  ok.  Asuming that somehow <your friend’s cousin> doesn’t count as part of this distasteful hooking up with someone in your social cirlce. 

And… assuming that the reason I never ever interacted with a large section of your social circle was just… because, I guess?

Please understand that this is difficult for me.  I have to push aside a great deal of what really does seem to me like a very convincing argument.  I have to beleive….

• That my insecurities are wrong, and it wasn’t for some reason that you felt justified in lying to me, like you did with your Stripper Party.  That there is no possibility that there’s been a litany of OTHER things that I’ve said that have rubbed you the wrong way to give me reasons that I can’t come by while others are there – that even though it’s happened once before, it’s never ever happened since.
• That my insecurities are wrong, and it wasn’t because you had interest in other women (or vice versa) you were social with and didn’t want me present in that environment where you’d appear even vaguely attached to me.
• That is wasn’t for any reason other than chance, distance, and never happening to be in the mood; perferring to be alone and relaxed in each other’s company…   and every single time that you were going to be in the company of others, every event or gathering that you ever attended or held at your home there was never a day where there would have been time or warning or nor a social viable environment for you to want to invite me along. 
• That you’d forgotten how insecure and left out and isolated from your life I’d felt….  forgotten that the way things looked did indeed support my suspicions of separation….  forgotten my feelings of how I’d no social interaction aside from us alone in my house (which I fully enjoyed and loved and preferred to all else), and you well knew that I would be giddy at the idea of meeting people just every so often….  that you somehow couldn’t remember how much it’d have meant to me to be included in some sort of social event.  and it’d have been easily remedied with minimal and rare interaction.

These are all….  a bit hard for me to swallow, honestly.  It’s….  it’s a lot to take in.  It’s….  it’s hard to beleive without feeling like i’m being naive.  That i’m being made a fool of. 

But I’m really honestly trying.  I’m trying really hard.

I’m explaining this, not in accusation…  but trying to show you….  that this is the internal struggle I’m dealing with.  That this is part of what has been so difficult for me.  Trying to quiet the voices in my head that whisper everything I’ve just mentioned.  Trying to logic it all away, trying to find facts, evidence, something to use to push everything in the other direction.  Trusting you with my LIFE, but being confused by things that seem to me to be….  flying straight in the face of logic and reason.

I DON’T WANT TO THINK THESE THOUGHTS.  To not think these thoughts, I need to understand. 

For the moment, lets assume that it wasn’t for ANY of those reasons.  That it really was just….  because things just happened that way.  That I’m entirely crazy and paranoid and off my rocker.  That it’s all me in my head. 

But. 

Again, you don’t believe in socially mixing circles where people have fooled around with each other.  You just don’t do that.

And, assuming that some sort of sexual/affectionate/female-company isn’t the reason why I wasn’t involved in your social activities previously… 

(and let’s just pretend that in the future things between us could be even more amazing than they were before)

Would I possibly be invited along now?  How could I possibly be invited to an art event, a gallery, a show? 

<your friend’s cousin> is part of not only YOUR social life, but of a large section of a social life involving people who are very close to you.  Her cousin, who you’ve been friends with for a very long time; <Friend>, a close and dear friend.  <The Brother>, who regularly hangs out with that crew of people.  These are the people you are most likely going to hang out with, right?  <The Brother> and <Friend>? 

Would I ever be part of your life, then?  Will I always be kept apart?

I support the idea of you remaining friends with <your friend’s cousin>.  I like that she is nice to you and appreciates you, awkward as that might make me feel.  I like that you have people you enjoy, people you feel deserve your kindness.  It’s rare in your world, I know that.  I have people in my life that I appreciate as friends regardless of (and completely unrelated to) a shared sexual past, and I feel it’s emotionally healthy to do so.  I like that you have something similar in your life.

But…  has the fact that you’ve shared my bed, and the bed of another, now deemed me unable even occasionally socialize with others in your life?

There has been a massive amount of pain and self reproach, self consiousness and creeping worthlessness that I’ve felt,  – justified or invented by my own paranoia – from the apparent separation of myself from most of the people you consider friend. 

Regardless of whether this separation did or did not exist previously, does it exist now?  If it IS something that exists now….  What can we possibly be to each other?

December 12th 2010

private blog post to Stefan

I can’t sleep.  I’ve emailed you, and I feel stupid and guilty about it. 

I’m thinking about sex.

I’ve said it before.  I’ll say it again.

I find you immensely physically attractive.  I always feel a bit wierd saying that.  Maybe I should do it more often?  Let you know how attractive you are?

I mean…  facially you are gorgeous.  Your phsycique is impeccable, perfectly complimented by your sense of style, and really, my ideal in every way.  It is really and truly rare that I meet someone I am uncontrollably physically attracted to.  The only other time I was physically desiring of a man I was with was at age 16.  Most of the time, I grow to be attracted to someone based on personality, and they become generally attractive to me.  But you….  you are physically beautiful to me. You are alluring.

I…  I don’t like saying it though.  It seems, to me, like quite an insult.  It’s not what I so appreciate about you.  Not at all.  It’s not what makes our intimacy something important or enjoyable. It’s nothing to do with why I am so drawn to you, and it seems like gushing over your looks is negating what I find truly exceptional about you.  Your aesthetic loveliness is wonderful, but….  that’s objectifying, and I don’t see you as an object.  So, wierd as it is, I feel like it’s insulting to let you know that I find you emmensely physically attractive.  Because that’s not what truly attracts me to you at all.  Sure, you are nice to look at…  but what actually makes me want to TOUCH you is…  the person you are.

Our sexual encounters were the most meaningful and touching of anything I’ve ever experienced, and it’s nothing to do with your exceptional looks.

hmmmm….

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this.  I wonder… 

I mean, do you see sex as inrinsically gutteral and base?  Because that ‘s an outlook I can understand.  Did you perhaps feel that I was using you for sex?  Maybe you feel I HAVE been objectifying you.  God, i’m really sorry if that’s the case.  I never ever felt that way about you, and if i lead you to beleive that, I’ve been quite an asshole.

I …  in highschool, I used to look around at all the students, and I’d…  I’d conceptualize their souls.  I’d look around and see everyone and imagine that floating above thier heads was their …  well, “soul” makes it sound too christian….  I’d see thier ethereal selves.  the self of pure thought and emotion.  I’d imagine I could see this true self floating, transparent, above them.  and every true thought, every pure emotion, it would tug on some invisible string and the flesh would react.  It was a grotesque meat marionette.  This fleshy display that lacked all finesse or sublty.  I’d look around and be so disgusted at every tiny emotion being tainted by meat.  Each smile. 

I’d think of kissing.  Of tounges.  And be repulsed.

I’d wonder why every sexual area of the body was invovled with the basest of functions.  Eating and expelling waste.

I have always had a very clinical outlook on sex.  And perhaps that’s why I rarely attached meaning to it. 

And yet, I’ve always been a romantic in my head about things.  I guess it seems I’m contradicting myself.  But i’m not.

I’ve always striven for the sex I’ve had to possess some meaning behind it.  But I think that’s because it’s always been my nature to see it as …  just bodies doing what bodies do.  And because of my sexual abuse…  because of reading my mother’s entire freaky erotica collection by the time I was 12….  I guess it skewed my perspective and I’ve been trying to figure it all out.  Her books weren’t romantic erotic novels.  I mean, she had an Anais Nin book, sure, but most the books were raunchy and wierd. 

There was one that invovled some victorian young man who seduced older women by playing the virgin, and also taught his two younger sisters the ways of sex, all of whom ended up having sexual encounters with each other.   There was some collection of short stories, the first one involving a brother, a sister, and a german shepard.  I mean, my mom got me the Anne Rice “Sleeping Beauty” erotic trilogy for my 16th birthday.  The prince found Beauty, fucked her awake, and brought her home to his kingdom as a slave.  In this kingdom, all the surrounding royal families sent thier princes and princesses as tribute to spend years being trained.  All the slaves were always naked, always on hands and knees, and everything was about S&M.  Whpping, bondage, subserviance, and a lot of serious wierdness. She ended up absorbing it into her collection after I’d read it.

I was reading all of this before I’d ever even kissed anyone.  But was hearing my mom and <stepfather> have sex constantly.  They didn’t wait until I was asleep or anything.  I’d be trying to do my homework, and hear fucking.  My mom…. my mom really messed me up.  I never had any physcial privacy.  I didn’t understand the concept.  She’d bring me the phone when i was in the shower.  Conversations would continue while wandering into the bathroom with the door open and relieving oneself.  I didn’t think that couples or friends of the same sex ever closed the door when they used the toilet.  To do so seemed strangely formal.  She would comment with envy on my bowel regularity.  It really only just this moment occurred to me that most women haven’t casually witnessed thier mother change a tampon in front of them.  (i’m sorry – that probably grossed you out terribly.) 

But it..  It’s difficult for me to…  I’ve had to learn proper behavior.  Train myself as to what is inappropriate.  i still get it wrong. 

My mom…  I remember her suddenly sitting on the kitchen tile floor, spreading her legs, and investigating her privates, complaining of some sort of yeast problem. 

She’d pet the cats testicles often, giggling, saying that it made them purr.  I can remember driving home late at night from going out to dinner, or to the city, back when we lived in Parsippany (so I was in the 4th grade or younger), and we’d always be listening to the Doctor Ruth show on the radio.

My mother bought me Victorias Secret pajamas when I was 15.  A box of assorted Victoria Secret underwear for me for Valentine’s Day when I was 16.  Both she and <stepfather> signed the card. I was sleeping naked most of the time by age 14 or 15.  Walking to the bathroom naked as long as <stepfather> wasn’t home.  The notion of being modest about nudity…  wasn’t something I understood.  My mom was actually very angry with me when I refused to help her take nude photographs of herself, because somehow, that still made me feel uncomfortable. But honestly, I probably said no out of teenage belligerence moreso than any morality. 

When I was 16, with my first boyfriend, a fellow who’d waited months to kiss my nervous self….  well, we’d only kissed.  He’d never even taken off his shirt.  I was very skittish with sexual activity.  Afraid.  But there was a complete disconnect between THAT, between trembling at someone fumbling with a bra strap, and my own casual nudity.  I remember hanging out with him, making out a bit, and then…  I was getting changed or dressed for something, and while I was stark naked I realised I had to ask my mom something, and I ran out of my room to ask her.  The only reason I even know this was wierd was the look of total horror on his face when I came back in the room. 

“you’re NAKED!” 

“it’s ok, my mom doesn’t care if I’m naked.”

“yeah, but I’m here.”

it took me a minute to understand what he meant by that.

“oh.  Well….  i doubt it’s something that even occured to her.  I mean, it didn’t occur to ME!”

and it hadn’t. 

She had to tell me when I was 18 that she didn’t want me walking around the house in my underwear in front of <stepfather>.  It had never occurred to me.  It had never been an issue before.  <Stepfather> would go to the bathroom at night wearing only his speedos.  I didn’t see him as something sexual.  So I didn’t see a difference.  I thought it was all just…  natural bodies.  I thought most people were like that.  Or at least, I thought it wsa in the same spirit that people went to nudist camps.  It’s not about sex, just about being comfortable naked.  THAT part I think is healthy in itself.  But my environment was….  weirder.

(There is, of course, the things I’d mentioned to you….  um.  From earlier in life.)

But all the nudity, It’s never been an issue of confidence.  During this same time in my life, I’d actually sit crying in my closet because everything I’d wear was horrible and I looked awful in everything and hated myself.  It just didn’t occur to me that naked….  meant anything.  Bodies were never sacred.  Never mine to give.  I was just….  not connected to my body.  I always felt very much like a large brain, carrying this body behind.  It was….  just there.  

So with sex….  I guess I’ve always been disconnected.

And that explains the….  seeming contradiction.

It helps if the sex means something.  And that doesn’t have to be sweeping romance.  It could be just…  appreciation.  Some form of bonding.  Mutual enjoyment of one another. 

Because sex just for sex…  I…  I can only think of the flesh.  Or the technicalities.  I mean, I can do that, and treat it like an experiment, like drugs.  “what reaction do I get if I add this to this?”  But that gets old quick.  There’s no connection.  I’m so disconnected to my body in that way that…  The emptiness grows.  So I….  I cling to any meaning I can.

But. 

Meaning became less and less easy to convince myself of.  And..  I mean…  I guess as one ages, people become less and less special.  Less impressive.  Every human has that much MORE to them with every year that passes, that much more information and input to aggregate and match…..  and I become less easily impressed, more suspect, more aware.  More realising at how common most things are.  How un-special.  It became tiresome to find that such a banal act turned people into doting puppies.  As thought it meant anything.  

The less I drank and did drugs….  the less it appealed to me. 

Maybe since my body has hurt since I was a kid, the the hurt has slowly been mounting since, maybe that only furthered my separation of flesh and mind. 

And also, with age…  novelty wears off too.  The interesting giddiness of trying something totally new…  well, there’s less uncharted territory, and…  the notion of trying new things just isn’t that interesting.  I mean…  eh.  The last guy I “dated” was into the whole bondage S/M scene.  Eh.  It was my last ditch effort, I guess.  I was intrigued.  It guess I thought maybe that was what I was missing.  Maybe THAT was my “thing”.  Nope.  It was just…  It was that much more staged, that many more steps, that much gear…  and therefore that much more….  disconnected.  It was LESS overwhelming.  So I broke up with him after three months.

And my sexual drive completely disappated.  Every so often I’d be interested.  Maybe fool around with someone I already knew.  But that ended up being….  a handful of times over about five years.  And I’d wonder why I bothered. 

But…  like I wrote previously on here….

From the very beginning…..

You.

You were different.

You’ve no idea how very important and monumental my experiences with you have been to me.

You…. swept me up.  I’ve actually felt…. like….   well, I’ve actually felt. 

I actually lose myself.  I’ve lost myself just kissing you.  Breathless and so emotionally overwhelmed that I feel I might cry.  It’s like…  the metaphor of what sex is supposed to represent has only now come alive in my being with you.  And like I always thought it was supposed to be….  but more.  like that highschool imagining of mine…  It feels like….  those flimsy flaoting beings of true self, it feels like they are winding, entwining, merging.  It feels like I am not just stimulating the marionette of meat, but directly communicating. 

I….  I even kind of almost open my eyes with you.  That’s never been important to me, mind you.  Seeing the act, to me, makes it almost more physical, less connected.  But because I trust you, and are at that place with you….  wanting to connect and share…  I sometimes look.  Just a quick glimpse at your eyes before we both look away.  And.  I touch your face.  When I kiss you.  I never….  I never touched anyone’s face before. 

(why am I getting choked up at that?)

And it’s not just the sexual interaction.  Even just…  touching.  Just….  *and my eyes close*….. god.  Just curling together.  That actually feeling physically COMFORTABLE lounging.  Feeling right.  Not awkward and obligated to be embracing.  That moment of settling into bed as a movie starts.  That first firm snuggle of readying for sleep.  That feeling of safe perfection. 

Do you…  do you understand then, why I’d still ask if I could kiss you?  How ….  important it was to me?  How…  I can’t really always understand how I’m supposed to react/interact?  Why…  why when I moved, it was so crushing to me that we’d no longer share those moments?  Why I’ve been so upset at not being invited over your house?  That it’s never been about prying your life open and leting myself in?  Why it crushed me to find you were with others?  Why you’d be with someone else when you could have been sharing THAT with me?  Why I keep trying to understand?  Why I tried to see….  if you could want to be with others, if I could too?  Tried to figure out what I was missing?  Why it’s so difficult for me to be platonic?  non exclusive? 

I’ve truly not been trying to drag you through some sort of trial.  Or hurt you.  Or anything.  I’m sorry.  i’m really really sorry.

It’s been just so…. 

It’s probably my most vulnerable place, you see.  A place I didn’t even know I had before you touched it.  And that’s why…  i’ve been trying to understnad what it means to you.  is it usually like this to you?  and if it was all just me…  just in my head….  and if you weren’t feeling….  if….  um….  was I all alone?

I just really have been trying to understand.  Not punish you.  Just….  understand.

Because it’s been so important to me.

And….  that it’s not…  it’s not about sex.  Not….  not…  not really.  Not about people getting naked and genitalia and getting off and orgasms.  That’s….  that’s all gross and pointless and too too biogical.  That’s an unfortunate itch that needs to be scratched sometimes due to being human. 

That’s…  not what I saw us sharing.

And when it all went away, I thought…  maybe it WAS just that.  And I started to think that maybe I wasn’t good enough.  Wasn’t…  performing well.  Maybe you didn’t like my parts.  Maybe there was something wrong with the phsycial of me.  Maybe you didn’t feel anything.

Even…  even the silly giddy times.  The ones that weren’t overwrought with passionate grasping.  Even the leaping under blankets and having silly fun.  Even then.  It was…. It was expressive of something shared.  Not something base and stimulating.  It was…  right.

If you could crawl inside my head, you’d understand the ridiculousness of you feeling compared or threatened to anyone ever.  You’d understand how thin and insubstantial the interactions I’ve had have been, in comparison to you. 

I’m probably ….  I’m probably being scary.

heavy and over-much.  

too much.  too much.

i miss you.