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.

May 30th 2008

email from stefan

……I just read your blog.

You wrote…..

“I’m not allowed to shake free the missteps of my past, you see. I’m forced to replay those same chapters of my life over and over, again and again in my head. Never spoken of, never addressed, that massive elephant in the room that stinks of rotten histories, but there it stands… a monument of unforgotten flesh ever barring my inclusion.”

I felt very strange and stomach achy reading this……..obviously because it’s words I speak and think referring to myself all day.

…..I live in my own past hell…..I hate that I can’t shake the filth…..thinking of mainlining drugs and battling euphoric and scary fainty type spells all the time…dealing with a myriad of unspoken pains….crying and screming in anger because their is NOTHING…..i can do to stop it.

…..I don’t know what or who or how that blog was geared to work towards…….but I felt weird reading it.

speaking for myself……when I express my hatred towards myself and humanity………..you are not lumped in.

……I don’t drive at the drop of a hat for anyone……except you.

……..that’s why I won’t assume that you think I’M neglecting you.

…….and I’ll assume you understand I’m going through shit as I always do when you are. I know what alone is……not YOUR alone specifically……..but I know MY alone.

…..I won’t write a blog comment like……”I totally hear you,like,totally alone..let’s get together soon and do lunch!”

……..that’s condescending shit. ,…….and cleary they don’t get it.

……..so this is why I send you mail only you can read………whether I’m going through shit or not and hating the world or not right now in my own personal hell…………….

…………..DO NOT FORGET WHO WILL DROP ANY AND EVERYTHING TO HELP YOU NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE………even if I was,a little ticked at you……wich I’m not…….I would still come and help you.

………..I am an asshole……I hate people……and……I am testier and angrier than I’ve been in a while……….

……..but make NO MISTAKE.

……..I DO NOT(just to let you know)….neglect you.

……..I always respond to your cries……anytime I read,hear,smell….or feel them.

…….but….you already better know that.

……..so yell and hate the world…….I understand that……I write shit that gives no one a fair shake too……….but I know of your friendship.

……I know you’d help me. that you’re different than them.

…….fuck…….there is nothing I wouldn’t do…….for you. ……..that is a FACT.

….these are weird times for both of us…….I feel our lives are both individually kicking the shit out of us mentally&physically.

…..so it’s important we remind eachother of our loyalty that much more at these times. …..I like writing how I feel about you.

……because it hurts…….like that hurt when your nails scrape my back.

……I NEVER see you as……..”people”.

…..make no mistake. You are not……alone.

……I will even kick someone aside with a wretched smile……if you needed me.

………I’m sorry you feel like your drowning.

………I’m sorry at times it seems we can’t help each other.

………I’m sorry I’m mean.

………I’m sorry these times are brutal.

………I will do what I can for as long as I can.

………I wish my anger…….and your pain……….and our problems……would just ease up a bit.

……..I feel I’m punching through constant walls to protect us and my knuckles are swollen blood mits……and every wall just has another wall behind it. I don’t care…….I will keep trying.

I have no clue where this email went…….I’m crazy and sleepless……I’m your friend…….I am evil………your evil friend……who cares deeply for you. I wish I could help more. As I will humbly assume you wish the same.I think. ……we are wounded soldiers.

---

email from me

(DISCLAIMER: i’m in a while lot of pain and sleeping is wierd, and the weather is perfect for my mood but killing the rest of me, and I’m trying to not dwell on terrible things, so this might be a very long and rambling letter)

I’d read your email before we spoke, but not completely and while in a wierd haze. I don’t know what’s going on with me and my health but my sleeping has gotten… wierder. Not less exactly, not worse exactly… just… wierd.

I don’t… mind… the way we communicate on different channels. It goes along with my vibrant colors in an um-muddied pallette theory… and… well, as with most things, we seem to be on the same page. Most especially with regards to expression and communication.

Writing letters (granted they are emails, and not the written on paper kind, but still) has a different tone. It’s a different meduim of expression entirely than that of a phone conversation. Maybe it’s all a matter of a sliding scale of personal proximity. I mean, in the midst of sexual moments, to start speaking words would be lesser – it would be clumsy and no where near as accurate and honest as our screaming whispering flesh.

A phone conversation… has an immediacy and satiety about it. The comfort of imagined nearness. But it almost always carries casual atmosphere about it.

But writing… perhaps we’ll be the last generation of people who actually write to one another. Most people my sister’s age prefer to text, according to studies and polls, because emails seem to dauntingly formal to them.

Writing… It not only gives free space and unending time to the writer to phrase what s/he means… but also the distance that is often neccessary when weilding certain words.

It’s all about the physical proximity…. determining the language of communication. But it’s all… saying different facets of the same thing, I suppose.

it’s like…. I think you work the same as me, with regard to present giving. I love finding/making something awesome to give someone (well…you), and I’m giddy to give it… but there’s always an awkwardness. It’s always slightly embarrassing. Or something. I find I look away. If it were possible, I’d fold up a present into a paper airplane and throw it at your head, so I could be busily scribbling away at my own desk, shyly grinning and biting my lower lip with my head down, so you couldn’t see my face by the time you looked up and saw.

Maybe that’s also part of why… writing makes for a different tone of voice.

And.

You assume correctly, sir. Of course I don’t think you are neglecting me. You are the only one who can see me.

I… god, it sounds stupid, but really….

You can see me.

I… I don’t mean this to sound egocentric. But months and months ago, when I was rambling about wanting to learn how to fight, wanting to be ‘badass’… you told me that I WAS badass in my “own sort of way”. It wasn’t the complimentary aspect that made such an impression on me… it’s that… aside from maybe <Vermont Friend>… nobody has ever seen that in me. Maybe I’m kind… maybe I’m good-hearted…
I’m only clumsy, scatterbrained, and overly animated to most. Or perhaps irresponsible, lazy, and juvenile.

It meant alot to me. It means alot ot me. How you see me.

….

Someone asked me recently about you, and in a wierd assuming way asked “why don’t you two make a commitment towards each other?”

What a strange thing to say. A committment? To what? A committment to feel a certain way? A commiittment to only want certain things and not others? How does that even work? Shall I commit to a certain visiting schedule too? There is a difference, for example, for someone who helps out in a homeless shelter or medical clinic every day, and does so simply because they are personally compelled to help others…. as opposed to being caught drunk dirivng and having to promise a judge that you’ll put in a certain number of hours of social work a week. Who would YOU rather have in charge of handing you a blanket on cold night? I mean, I’m devoted and committed towards…..you… being there for you….. I’ll do whatever is within my power to make things better somehow…

But “Making a committment”. That sounds like “you HAVE to”. That sounds stale and limiting. That makes it mean so much less.

(maybe i’m terribly lucky I’m a girl. maybe this would sound terribly cliche and prickish if I were saying all this from a male perscpective)

Instead… why not just… “whether you do or not, I do, I want to (even though my heels have been dug into the earth against gravity pulling me towards you, and still are, somewhat) and I don’t know how I could NOT.” Why not… “I respect you as a human being, so I needn’t make wierd grand promises that should be covered in ‘being an honest and decent person to one another’, which we already are”. Why not… “you are my best friend, and I will treat you as such, of course”

I’m… I have alot in my head. I’m a bit batty. This pain is getting alot worse, and I’m spending lots of time rolling about in bed clutching at my side. Time for the TENS perhaps.

but if I’m coming off… with my words… as odd…. extra random and scattered…. and wierd….. well, I apologize.

And….

If at times it seems like we can’t help each other… well, knowing that you care, knowing that you wish you could do something (as I always wish in turn)….. that means a massive amount…. and is a fantasic help in it’s own way.

and…

thank you.

you make me want to be so much better than I am. you make me want to be fit, be beautiful, be strong, be able to carry you on my shoulders the way you’ve carried me so many distances, be better….

i want to…. take your bloodied hands in mine, lick them clean, and let you heal… I want to let you rest while I take my own turn at these walls behind walls behind walls.

I’m going to stop. I’m rambing. Writing too much.

May 24th 2008

email from Stefan

I have been feeling disgusting for so many reasons that I can’t even explain it……..people,things,ideas,dreams…..insomnia…..the usual.

I have been having a hard time controlling my anger…as you know.

It seems the truer I try to be….the less it means and I see the world melt into eachother as one big disgusting social,mental and physical fuckfest. I’m grossed out by this.

I do NOT include you into this.
……but I was meaning to tell you something that threw me COMPLETELY off guard.

It literally made me question if I am anything more than….”some dude”….to you…..and not a ….”real friend.”

I was under the impression that you and I are under the agreement that we offer escape from our living spaces by offering our own to eachother. Yet……after I tell you me & <Prime Roommate> got into it and are on weird terms…..and after I told you they don’t quite respect women……annnnnnnd after I told you when he gets drunk….he can be unpredictable………and……you know this stuff because you told me if i need a break from him and want escape to come by you……..

then out the the most unpredictable clear blue sky…..YOU give him a solo open-ended invite to your house right in front of me?!

I………..am speechless. ………………………………

You just grabbed me by the face and said….”You don’t have a get away from your house anymore. I want your unpredictable roommate to come to my house unannounced whenever!…..and to come with you or get mad whenever you come without him! Whee!”

Did he put some sorta spell….on you?

Or is it that easy to forget what I told you and what you offered the second someone else enters the room.

Very insulting and/or disturbing……….but more so….depressing…..because i know you have only good intentions.

So the depressiong part is me realizing how easily i’m disreguarded in the company of others. I thought we had a refuge pact of sorts.

You don’t even KNOW him……why would you give MY housemate a endless invite to YOUR house?

Do you want him over that bad.

Now anytime I want to come by you I have to fuckin’ sneak out.

Or……….just find a new refuge.

You…..surprised me.

I mean……this is the fuckin guy that said………”You know when you meet a pig and just want a blowjob?”…….and punches shit when drunk.

Are you interested in having this by your house?
Don’t make me believe you want to hang out with dudes like that……

cause i’m gone if thats true.
you already explained to me once of victimizing yourself like some ignorant helpless girl…….and let your fear pass over to me and think I could do nothing as well……..you were sorely mistaken……but I backed off.

I am a real fuckin friend………..I’ll get bloody for you……and smile while covered in it. but i digress………

I got aggravated when I see you inviting them into your private life………..I don’t care what you show or who you show it to…… but these are MY housemates. I was doing you a favor by telling you it’s a waste of your time.

I myself don’t understand why you tell anyone that you talk to for more than five minutes every hair color you had and how much shit is wrong with you……I poke fun at you…..but you shouldn’t. if you ask me.

It makes getting to know you pointless.

Make people earn details of your life. and ya’know….generally someone that barely knows you truley……doesn’t care about your hair colors. trust me………..i know. they mostly pretend to be.

I couldn’t even fathom what it feels like to think strangers give a shit that I had every hair color and am a junkie.
,,,,,,but then again,,….my past is dirtier than yours….more embarrassing and scary. So we differ there. i just don’t understand wearing your past and problems on your sleeve because i’m more private than anyone…..i know……I’m a scumbag perhaps.

Youre fuckin awesome……..you should make your life and privacy more sacred……make people earn it. otherwise it makes those who have, feel like anyone else.

I am very fuckin private……..i mean……there is so much that never passes my lips……..and I have ALWAYS been private in my intimacy of any sort……I am a part of NO ONES “sex tree”……that’s why i was grossed out when I heard you made out with <Mutual Friend>.

….but…..yuck. grr.

And then sorta agreed in saying that you have been intimate with almost all guys ….and girls…..you’ve known.

I HATE the idea that i am another face to connect by a line when faces you know are sprauled out.

I am not saying i’m better than anyone…..just…..I don’t….fuckin want to be a fuckin statistic……to you.

There is no indication I’m anything different.

That bothers me.

I felt like you shouldv’e mentioned that to me…….I don’t come from a hooked up with eachother……and more.
I don’t like that shit. Or the excuses always used to justify them.
I’ve always went and formed my own situations far away from people I know. Immersed myself in my own separate life……alone. So I suppose….again…..that you weren’t in anyway thinking it was bad…….so again…..I know your intentions are good.

I……..hate…..the fact….that I think of all these things and form the opinion that …..”I am basically……like EVERYONE else”.

There is nothing special,sacred…..or different about me.
What I thought meant something was throw in the trash in front of me when you offered <Prime Roommate> to come by you anytime.

You aren’t here to hang with him and offer your home to him.

….but if it’s that important…..then i’ll step aside and find another get away.

You would fuckin loath him if you ran into eachother in a public place.

It doesn’t make sense me.

Is all I’ve said,done…..and made with you all for nothing?

I’m no ones time killer. If all you need is a willing man,woman….or other to sit around and do things with you……and how good or bad or different that person is makes no difference……..then I don’t need to be around you. do i?

I drop anything and everything whenever you need help.

I will NEVER go back on a single word I say to you.

I am a real friend……flesh and blood………….two things I also offered you.

Do you offer your flesh and blood to everyone?

I know I don’t.

Do I just THINK……we have a close friendship full of art,fun,understanding and a sci-fi & macabre sense of errotica?

Do you watch Lynch movies,have sex….and draw with any human willing?

I ask because I……..don’t know anymore. These are real questions.

We are both unconventional people…..so these questions aren’t so odd.

….and they are asked in a genuine tone……I ask to truely know.

I would never be rude to you for no reason.

You threw me for a serious loop though.

I’m starting to think I am living some sort of joke.
Like I think I have close friends who understands me but I’m not even thought of or taken seriously.

I am NOT sensitive.
I just want to know what I am that is even REMOTELY different than anyone else.

……because I sure as fuck…..do things for you and my few other close friends i don’t do for anyone else. because you’ve earned my respect.

……because you’re awesome and deserving of good friends.

……and I offer you treatment i don’t offer to everone i meet.

………sigh…….how could you compromise the “get away” factor….just like i wasn’t even in the room. (head in hands)

…..fuck………do I have no friends?

It’s a bad time for me.

You see…….I have problems with friends……..problems with family………..even with strangers………everyone hates me.

I meant it when I said you aren’t the cause of any of my anger……but this all snowballed when i was trying to make sense of what you said to <Prime Roommate>. So this is the shit I’m asking you.

I’m sorry…..it’s not like me. I’m just trying to see where I really stand with people who say they are true friends.

You’ve came to me a few times and asked “weird girly questions”…..

….so here is my FIRST…..weird question……………I’m making NO assumtions……..and obviously you don’t have to answer.

but…why……..did you do that?

why take what you offered me and throw it at my PROBLEMATIC room mate right in front of me?

…….and……what makes me ANY different than anyone else to you?

……..is there even a point to caring?

….am i over thinking?! probably.

…….is ones personal details…….friendship…..sex…..creativity…..and understanding…….something everyone should offer everyone?

tell me……..because this last month has completely fucked my understanding of all people.

…..and out of the few people I need to understand……you’re one of them.

So give me some answers………what the fuck am i?

explain me to myself.

and……I apologize for how long this is…….my fingers are possessed by anger and i’m probably going to regret writing this.

you’re a great friend and I’ll still do anything to prove that……that hasn’t change…….this isn’t an angry email……..just a rambly one full of questions that depress me.

………….you can tell me to shut up.

see……i only say that sorta shit to a few people.

---

email from me

Honestly.

I started kinda laughing outloud when reading your letter.  Not because anything you had to say was funny in itself, not that anything you’d issue with wasn’t entirely understandable, but….  ha ha ha…  the idea that you’d be just “some guy” in my world…  the notion that you aren’t the ONLY human I can EVER remember knowing who I feel not only accepts most of who/what I am, but even understands it…  the idea that you aren’t, uncomfortable as this may be to hear, the single most important person in my universe…  well, it’s all somewhat lucidrous to me.

Regarding the <Prime Roommate> hooplah…  I hadn’t considered it a SOLO open-ended invite.  I’d meant, and rather stupidly assumed, I suppose, that my invite only went only so far as a kind of satellite invite onto yours.  You’d mentioned in the past that you’d passed on my hospitality, and that most just weren’t willing, or didn’t take the offer seriously.  I thought I’d offer personally…   I apologise if I come on a bit strong in the “get to know you” category, if I’m heavy handed with the friendliness…  and while *I* tend to think of your house as primarily YOUR doing, YOUR baby, and YOUR aesthetic success….  Being that I’m not paying rent and spending days on end in your house, I just instinctively attempt to befriend your roommates.  Because I’m still in their home.  Because in SPITE of what might be their opinions of women and whatnot, your friends have been gracious and accepting of me as a guest in the home you all share.

You are right – I wasn’t thinking that invite all the way through, but it was by no means any sort of insult or black mark against our friendship.  I know you’d had issues with him recently, but from what you’d said it seemed that things were being resolved, or at least buried between you two.  I know your friends say deroggatory things about women, and I’ve heard the awful things that come out of thier mouths.  But they are your friends…  and being that I know they respect you, and that I’m your friend, I just had some sort of assumption that there was some….  respect spill-over in my direction?  I’m not un-used to that kind of ultra-male-macho mentality, but I often figure most of it is just talk…  is just comfortable speech patterns…  the same way people make random racist jokes without any actual malice or racism behind thier words. 

However, your few words that tried to touch on the issue that evening… regarding your friends and that you may have lowered your expectations, that you’d settled in some way, well, they rang true in my head.  They made me think that I, too, have been too accepting of lesser people in my life.  And, again, uncomfortable as this may be to hear…  the idea that I could have higher expectations for others, that I could strive for and might even deserve better people in my life…  well, it has alot to do with you drastically raising the bar.

You think better of me than I do.  It’s not something I’m used to.  I’m not…  I don’t think much of myself.  When that whole wierdness with <Abusive Man> came to light…  I was having alot of trouble with it.  I was actually crying for a large chunk of that IM conversation.  Not because I was reliving some sort of past horror, but rather…..  because I didn’t want you to think less of me, and moreso, I was amazed and embarrassed and some-other-emotions-i-can’t-put-to-words that you’d….  fight for me.  For ME.  The idea that you’d go through ANY trouble whaatsoever….  it made my insides swell and glow and go “eeeeeeeeee!” all girly-like, and at the same time, made me hate and cut and stab at that sort of glee.  Because it meant too much?  Because you deserve of better quality than me, and I’d shown myself to be more floppy and tarnished than I’d represented myself?

I offer escape to you.  Yes.  And I take your offer of escape to me.  Yes.  But I don’t visit you for the escape.  That’s happy extra bonus.  I visit you to visit you.  If I just wanted escape, I could go other places.  I suppose….  maybe…  I have started to raise my expectations of other people in comparison to you.

And….  yes.  The whole web of sexual pasts and the mentioning of <Mutual Friend>…  My random hooking up with <Mutual Friend> was something that happened maybe three times, and so long ago AND so inconsequential…  and had absolutely nothing to do with anything but drunken messiness, that it seemed not worth even bringing up.  We weren’t, at any point, “sleeping together”.  It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, and I was somewhat horrified that it had been gossiped.  

And…  I think you somewhat mis-interpreted my response when we were discussing the whole concept of fully platonic friends.  I’ve not had a sexual past with most of the friends I’ve had, but I can’t say that there wasn’t a moment here or there were I didn’t feel I had to narrowly avoid some sort of potential situation that I wasn’t reciprocating with most.  That’s what I meant when I was realising that perhaps you were right, and perhaps most of the friendships I was thinking of as platonic weren’t entirely so. 

But.

Nor can I say that those I’ve HAD a sexual past with I don’t end up remaining friends with afterwards.  I am still friends with the first three boyfriends I ever had.  Sex just for sex is….  disgusting.  But I haven’t always been who I am now.  And…  it took me a long time to realise really simple things, like that everyone isn’t so blase about nudity, or any number of strange far-too-sexually-open things from my wierd mom upbringing.  I still do really stupid things without realising how they are interpreted.

…….

See…  and maybe I’ve been over compensating.

Because….  errrrrg….  your questions….  about “what makes me any different to you” and “what the fuck am I?”…..  well, fuck. 

You asked.

I…

Overcompesating.  Yeah.

My emotions.  Towards you.  Are often rather overwhelming to me.  And by no means fit in the category of friendship.  Now, I have no problem with this, because, while this might sound terribly saccharine and cheezy (and I’m sure it does)…..   I think it’s rare enough to enjoy someone and care about someone as entirely and intensely as, um, I do towards you….  so…  whether or not you have anywhere near the same sort of feelings towards me isn’t the point.  I don’t think there’s anything terribly tragic about it.  And even if there WERE, I don’t beleive in asking anyone for anything.  It should all be freely given.  Offered.  Not requested.  Um.

And not that I get much more affectionate than I am with you.  Because, while it’s probably not evident to anyone who hasn’t known me for 10 years, I’m positively ooozing with uncommon displays of real and true …..  um….  trueness.  things.  towards you.  But strangely, I don’t think of you in my head as….  my boyfriend…  or someone I’m dating…..  honestly, it all sounds so cheap and common.

But….  because I’m afraid that something might….  slide out.  ….  that some sort of terrible pink electricity might escape from inbetween my words or my eyelids at some unintentional moment…..  And that you might notice….  and you might think that I’m going to have some terrible clinging future demanding moment with you (which i wouldn’t do)…… 

And so I’ve been trying to make sure I keep everything in check and don’t….  cross any lines or fuck anything up.

I’m not really addressing the issue.  Really.  What makes you different.  What are you to me.

I don’t know how.

But….  I must admit, I’m almost shocked, almost disappointed in myself that somehow, in spite of my own attempts to consiously curb any non-friendship colored feelings I might have swirling in my head….  that I’ve not made it ABUNDANTLY clear to you….  inbetween the ferocity of erotic mornings….  squinting cigarettes…..  long silences of mutual distraction….  paintings and drawings and conversations….  stupid smiles…. 

I know I’ve ripped out my laptop and I’ve rambled to people incesasaantly about parts of my life.  But those things are all…. external.  I don’t SHARE MYSELF….  not….  not the ….  I don’t let it be SEEN…  not even in the dimmest of lights….  what I’ve ….  let you see….  I even lit a few candles for you.  I’ve…  never given anyone else…  what I have you.

And….  I don’t want whatever odd and inappropriate romanic colors I might be painting you with in this long long letter of mine…. to lessen the appreciation I have for you.  Even if the strange painful feeling I get sometimes that I’ve been kicked in the center of my chest, like a chi punch to the sterum or something….  even if that went away, and I was the pinnacle of platonic towards you in my insides….  You’d STILL be the most important person in my universe.

I am going to send this to you now.  Because you must be done with your cigarette by now and this is just as long as your letter to me and if I don’t stop I’ll either say something worse or erase it all and start from scratch so I’ll just….  send it.

Because I’ve probably said too much.  And you can ignore any and all of what I’ve said if it’s….  inappropriate.  Or not what you were asking.  Or….  just awful.

(this was longer……i cut it down.)

---

email from Stefan

well……you’re certainly braver than me with your words and….er…..umm…….feelings?

I….had to ask some questions because if even god himself…..opened the gates and said……”come Stefan,you are welcomed and forgivin.”

…….I’d still feel unsure and think he’d rip his face off and really be the antichrist. I guess that example is indicative of how much I hate the world……or myself. boo hoo….whatever.
besides…..god’s not real anyways.

sigh….questions. I question everything.

I just never….ask…..the questions.
I’m full of wonderment…..but feel like I….don’t know anything most of the times.

…..and as abundantly obvious it is that we get along like gangbusters…….for lack of a more worthy term……I’d still feel audacious and egocentric if I just…assumed that……I am different.

Mabye today there is a insecure 16 year old girl inside of me that needed to see it written………..because…….I too……….in my dark and emotionless defensive posture(my social default)….surrprised that you consider me someone that can come to your house….on a whim if I need to flee my surroundings.

I find it hard myself to except that you like me…let alone consider me anything closer. Again…..self issues.

You have to understand the possible complications of inviting people I want to escape from at times…….and you seem to….so…..okay.

…and…..you couldn’t “fuck up” our friendship…..unless you disrespected me in a way that would display you have no reguard for my well being…….or encourage the opposite.

I think all the stuff we’re writing is stuff we can say on the phone…..or……i don’t know.

We’re not shy people…and I’m painfully comfortable talking to you….so…… eh whatever….i’ll keep writing.

We….as far as I think……. have many modes together.
…..and they’re all good.

<roommate>…in his sheltered red-faced tentative state said to me……”so….uhhh…..ten this morning I heard ya guys….geez man.”

…..and I looked at him in eye and said what i said to him the last time………..”We’re good friends.” …….with my emotionless face.

His brain exploded….then he ate a piece of pizza.

……I hate the fact that the men I know…..besides a teeny tiny few……can even somewhat grasp the concept of my friendship with you.

Not that I really explained it to anyone ever……..it’s….our……friendship.

So only two people need to……get it….us.

It’s…..a……grr…god dammit…..i’m loosing words.
…..but……I am……your friend. anyway you want me to be.

…..sit and stare……sit and draw…….drink tasty beverages………seal off a room from light and drape ourselves on eachother and watch movies…………..sit out and smoke cigarettes………………anything.

I like it all…….you cleary get me more than anyone ever has.
and the golden bonus is that you are also a flawless person to me.

broken……perhaps…….but so am i……..my flawless is different.
……our time together is beyond what I’m able to describe…….wich……in my opinion…………….is where our sex comes from.

I feel like I’m explaining how important you are to me when we’re kissing…….and our sex…..well……..I can’t explain what that is to me right now………i get welled up with fury and lust and it’s a platinum bonus that we…..have sex that exceeds any words I can spew out.

so i’ll stop about that……

…..and yes……I’ll jump into trouble for you…….anytime.
…….I will do things for you I wouldn’t for others.
……I am almost scared of the length I’d go.
…….I’ll never let you feel there is a limit.
……I fail as a friend…..if I do.

………..I don’t know if I can ever explain certain things……..and fuck that boyfriend/girlfriend shit……….we are worlds beyond that.

though……refering to me as that by accident or a slip of sorts….wouldn’t make me uncomfortable or mad…….though I doubt you’d say anything like that.

we have a real friendship……unlike most…maybe any….that’s the important thing.

You have yet to see the things I will do for you.
……but the important thing is we’re super friends that are super comfortable with eachothers company.

actual real…..friends…..that respect eachother.

you can say you hate yourself and ache and i’ll come to you while you twinge in bed just so you can know that there is someone in the other room quietly drawing and waiting to talk to you……if you want.

that’s all I care about at the end of the day.

……that you know I’m flesh and blood……and that I am……we are….different.

Throughout this time, I’d been working on The Sticky Friends website. Though our collaboration was over, I wanted to preserve our creative efforts, and give them a place to live that wasn’t associated with only him or only me. I finally finished the site, sent him a link.

I mentioned and made note of a person in Paterson who was obsessively looking at my tumblr blog and now the Sticky Friends site.

I was well aware that the other woman Stefan was dating lived in Paterson. He feigns total ignorance.

---

February 6th 2010

email from Stefan

There are plenty of internet stalkers that would (and do) obsess over you, me, and probably will on the SF site for as long as we have content to read, and see. Nothing could come of it. Creepy or not, it’s innocuous. I can’t set up a sting operation or anything. It’s not worth putting thought into. You know I don’t look at your pages anymore, and haven’t heard anyone coming to me saying anything,..so, I don’t know who may be looking at your pages, or anything about it. If you get a weird virus, or threatening emails. I’ll handle it, (not that I know how to handle a computer virus) other than that, it’s their harmless online right to look at your page a hundred times a day. That’s someone else’s headache. Not mine, or yours.

So, as far as who’s looking at what, not a clue. Even still writing words about this sort of thing is an exhausting parody to me at this point, and a good waste of our scanty thought exchanges. It’s just a void issue. I’m retired in that topic. I need to be “aware” of a lot of things. That, isn’t one of them. If it truly affects you little, PLEASE GOD, END THIS TOPIC. ::drops to knees::

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Emailing about innocuous internet stuff, conversation civil, I revisit loose ends.

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February 8th 2010

Email from me

You will always get my honest and legitimate praise when it comes to matters of your artistic abilities, your drive, and your impressive force of will. 

But.

the problem with apology:

You’ve said some really cruel and hurtful things to me. 

Things with teeth.  You’ve told me how little you care for me, you little you think of me, and followed it up with things like “i mean it.”  How is that different than you telling me how MUCH you care for me, and how MUCH you think of me, and that it’s the truth?   If i’m to believe your words, then I’m to believe I am the most selfish and ungrateful person you’ve ever known.

But…  ok.  Words said in anger.  Words said in a moment of furious passion.  Maybe you didn’t mean them.  Maybe they slipped out.  Maybe that’s something I could forgive.  Maybe that’s something I could let go, on it’s own.

Maybe.

But.

((I was rightfully offended and angry at the notion that we’d been sleeping together without a condom for years, thinking we were monogamous.  I’d not have DONE that otherwise, regardless of our first few encounters.  Regardless of the emotional content of the matter, it’s really uncool to keep someone in the dark about that.  Responsible adults need to be upfront about being with other partners if they aren’t using condoms.  Seriously.  There’s just no excuse for that.  Plain fact.  But aside from the basic inter-personal decency that any two people who are regularly sleeping together should show one another, there’s the emotional.))

You didn’t think I deserved a straight answer about whether you’d been with other women, and had been keeping me in the dark about it for years.

And I was supposed to be the one who knew.  If anyone did.  You said it was me.

Your life was filled with secrets, this I knew, and accepted.  You’d told me that there were parts of your life you just didn’t share with anyone, but if you were to share things with anyone, that person was me.  that I knew more than anyone.  that if it could be known, I was the one who’d know it.

But that wasn’t true.

I certainly didn’t know that you were with other women.  But they, these other women, they knew.  They knew what I didn’t. 

It isn’t just the bedding of other women.  It’s….  it’s my not even being aware that it could have been a possibility.  No, you aren’t a whore.  That’s what made it all so much worse.  Don’t you see?  You’d been having relationships with other women.  Relationships close enough to be intimate.  You are not a chummy fellow, not a physically friendly person, not a guy who has random drunken hookups, you don’t HIT on women, and you’re someone who makes it clear how much he looks down on the casual hooking up of friends. 

For you be intimate with someone is significant. 

All the while, I didn’t even know such close relationships existed in your life.  I didn’t even know you’d had other people in your life that you’d feel close with or were interesting or comfortable with that you might bed someone else.  Not even remotely.

I was your “best friend”, a phrase that supposedly meant something sacred to you.  I was your “most important person”.  I was the person you supposedly were most honest with.

You’d gone off to Atlantic City, a place you’d been telling me for over a year how much you’d wanted to bring me to, something we’d talked about often, something I’d asked you questions about, was very interested in…..  and when you went with someone else, you refrained from even mentioning with whom.

She knew what I didn’t.

I received Facebook messages from a girl I’d heard you speak of perhaps a dozen times in two years, a girl you’d mostly referred to as “your friend’s cousin”, and she’s telling me that she’d like to get to know me because of how very much she cares for you, and how very important you are to her, and doesn’t even use the word “friend” once in her description of you.  I’d hardly known you were any more than the most casual of friends; that you’d hung out any more than a handful of times, I thought she was more <your brother>’s friend than yours.

She knew what I didn’t.

You’d invited a group of people to your house to decorate for Halloween.  I was not invited.

My visit for decorating was a solitary one, without any of your friends present. Once again, I was removed from a whole section of your life.  Hanging out at your house, no one else about, and stuffing <your friend’s cousin>’s clothes with paper. 

You’d had a whole separate realm of interactions and relationships that were kept from me.  Significant and meaningful ones that affected the other parts of your life.

Meanwhile, you’d told me again and again that if anyone knew it, it was me.

I’d not have thought it so very implausible that you’d be with other women, it would not have been such a shock to the senses, if I’d had any idea that there was so much of a life you’d been leading from beyond my view.  But because I believed what you’d said, because I believed we were so very close, such confidants….  because we were in contact on a DAILY BASIS…  I didn’t think there WAS a life you’d been leading from outside my view – not a life of significance, not a life with close relationships with people you’d not mention.  Not anything that mattered at all.  Why would I?

I trusted you implicitly.

I trusted you with everything I had.

I believed everything you said to me. 

I ignored so many things, glossed over so many telling tidbits of information, out of my unwavering trust.

I sat back and read the many photo comments on pictures of you (including ones of US TOGETHER, of adventures we’d had together, pictures I’d taken of you), about how very handsome you are…  oh, those lips of yours, oh, that naked midriff, and me, shrugging it all off…  because you told me anything that could be known, right?  So clearly, there’s nothing going on there.

(how do I not feel the fool?)

Because I’d made it clear to you how important you were to me…  because i knew you wouldn’t DO something all secretive like that to me, knowing how much I’d be devastated,  and because we tell each other everything there is to know that’s important and shareable, and since you’d not mentioned anyone of significance, since you’ve said so little about anyone else and haven’t mentioned any role another woman plays in your life, clearly she doesn’t have one. 

I trusted you.  Gave you your space.  Kept my distance. 

I thought we were a team.  I thought we were invincible.  I thought it was you and me against the world.  I thought I knew you better than anyone.  I really did.

You’ve brought up the interactions between us when we first started as justification for why I should never have assumed we were monogamous – how we’d been in a “maybe you are but it’s none of my business” sort of agreement. 

But… that was when we’d first started.  That was when we’d hardly known each other.  That was when we didn’t refer to each other as “best friend” or “person i’d glady die for” or “favorite person on earth” or “person I’m most devoted to” or “PERSON WHO KNOWS IT IF IT CAN BE KNOWN”.  That was when we didn’t talk daily, or make plans together, or tell each other that “if a portal in space and time appeared that you would be the one person I’d bring”.  That was before you’d spent 4 days a week at my house for months, before I’d sobbed in your arms, before I’d been brought to tears by the emotional overwhelmingness of kissing you, or before we had practically matching tattoos.  Before you said that you’d not mind if I referred to you as my “boyfriend”.

I wrote you a letter in August, explaining you much I cared for you, how much I’d fallen for you, (it was all about LOVE) and made it clear that I didn’t think you were with other women, or that it was even a possibility.  You didn’t correct my error, and let me continue to believe the lie.  You continued to be physical with me, after I’d BEGGED you, trusted in you to not do so if you didn’t want to be part of a romance, explaining that it would be torture.  I trusted you’d be honest.  I trusted you’d not hurt me.

Three months later, you vaguely implied that we’d not been, and wouldn’t be, exclusive.  Three months later, you told me maybe we shouldn’t have sex to maintain our friendship. 

You weren’t honest with me when it was most important, when I was giving you my heart.

You say that I can’t erase the past.   All the things you’d done for me.  That they stand up as proof.  But the past also contains years of you telling me that I was the trusted one who knew…. and me now seeing that it wasn’t the case.  Of you actually lying to me, and purposely keeping things from me.  Things that you shared with others.

Me remembering your stripper party, and how you told me you SO wanted me there, but then turned down my offer to take the train to Newark to come to the after party… and then you went to Newark to pick up <your friend’s cousin> who’d taken the train from Rutgers just to attend your party – the one i was told not to attend, not knowing that it’s because you’d have a different girl stay in your bed that night.  Me, the one you referred to as your “favorite person”.

And knowing that there’s so much that I still don’t know.  That I’ve been kept in the dark about.  Wondering what else I wasn’t trusted with, that others were. 

That‘s what the past is filled with. 

I wasn’t that person.  I wasn’t who, if it could be known by anybody, it was known by me.

You told me I was. 

It wasn’t true.

You never apologised for all of that.

I wouldn’t know how to forgive it if you did.

I’d really really really like to.  I’d really like to not still feel betrayed and hurt.  I’d really like it if the briefest thought of you didn’t make my face still flood with tears and snot.  I’d really like to not grow sick to my stomach at the thought of our daily interaction, knowing that some of those days, you’d bedded someone else before emailing/texting/calling me.

Feeling nothing at all would be an amazing improvement.

I’d really love to feel the release of any kind of forgiveness and not feel so terrible constantly.  But I don’t know how.  I don’t know how I’m supposed to believe anything.  I don’t know how to forgive you for anything when I’ve been utterly destroyed by this. 

It’s believing you that got me here.

I already trusted you with the most fragile insides I have, and they ended up crushed.

I really really really wish I could.  I really really wish I could believe you.

How do I believe any apology you give?

You broke me.  I put everything I had in you.  I accepted everything you were.  I knew your past, I knew that it could easily become your future again, and even so, I based my everything around you.  You were the structure of my universe.  I built myself around you.  I wanted each one of my few friends, every important person I had, I wanted them to meet you.  I was proud of knowing you, of caring about you.

but for you I wasn’t enough. i was reprimanded and talked down to.  to you I was too naked and open.  you were wary of my past. you feared my future might lead me far away.  you didn’t WANT your friends to meet me (if you had, I would have met them). you never thought to show me to the important people in your life even when they themselves were interested in meeting me.   you kept a whole universe of yourself from me that you shared with others instead.

I’d been proudly screaming my love for you from the rooftops, and you’d been telling me to keep my voice down in case anyone hears.

You told me it was safe, and I trusted your words.  I let myself need you. 

I let myself make you my everything. 

Now I’m filled with nothingness.

It won’t go away.

I’m a broken person, and all my happiest memories, every glittering thing I hung my survival on has turned brittle and grey and crumbled to my feet.

How do I forgive that? 

How do I believe you in anything?

i’ve been beaten down to nothing. 

I will continue to work on thestickyfriends, and welcome anything you find that I should ad to the site. 

I will continue to speak highly about your work and abilities whenever given the opportunity to do so.

PS.

I understand that I might be off on some of the specifics I bring up.

This isn’t me trying to rub your nose in everything I think you’ve done wrong.

It’s just …. what has made me feel as intensely hurt I am, and will always be.

How I felt my trust had been betrayed.

And why.

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February 10th 2010

email from me

Also.

<Art blog reviewer> wasn’t being nice.  She wanted interesting and engaging content for her readers.  She was reviewing your work, and doing so honestly.

She didn’t overlook something.  She stated herself that she KNEW some of the images were collaborative, and used them anyway.  Someone who is involved in the art world, who is going to review people’s work should know better, shouldn’t make that kind of “mistake” in the first place (and should correct it when it’s pointed out, of course). 

In the world of art, that’s seriously offensive.

She probably WILL review your work again.  She did state that she was planning on doing a review of your painting.  I’m sure she’ll follow through, if anything out of some wierd vengence towards me (since I CLEARLY have no part in it), which… I applaud.

(also, something you weren’t aware of, she didn’t just block MY ip address, but she blocked EVERY ip address that viewed the article from my blog post.  I’ve friends in Canada, Brazil, and Brooklyn who have now been blocked.)

I hope you now realise that my repeated frustration at the credit given in this blog article and on your Flickr really wasn’t me projecting or inventing something to be annoyed at.  It’s a real issue to me.  I’ve tried to make sure that I’d given you credit for every photograph you took, or that we worked on together, either on Flickr or Facebook.  I know photography is secondary to your true artistic passions of drawing and painting, and so it may not seem as big a deal to you…  but to me, it’s my primary (and last remaining) means of expression and creation.  It’s what I put all of my artistic spark into.  I don’t want anyone else’s work to be confused with my own, or vice versa. 

(I did notice, by the way, when tracking down the MotP videos, that you captioned them (both on youtube and myspace) with “I” and “my”, not “we” or “our”.  It represents MotP as a project I simply aided you with, something I was in, not something we worked on together as a team.  Rather a harsh reality.)

I’ve gotten more response and praise for thestickyfriends site content than I’ve ever gotten for my solo work.  It’s a bit disheartening, but I’d rather it be this way, sharing the credit publicly with you, than have the images in a folder on my Flickr or something, and have people oogle over images they thought I’d sole responsibility for.  That would be like getting praise for a painting my teacher half rendered for me. 

You may not have noticed, but I used the photograph of you in the mirror with the red lipstick and scarf on the stickyfriends site.  I did indeed take that.  It was in with my files as taken by my Pentax.  (Also, I made sure that I captioned the drawings with which one of us drew them, because while they were for/of thestickyfriends, they were independently created.  I didn’t want your superior drawings to possibly be confused with my own lesser talent.)

I just…  wanted to make all that clear. 

P.S.  If you have ANY files of photographs of StickyFriends stuff, or just ones that I took from 2009 or earlier, please consider sending them to me.  The Great Harddrive Theft of 2009 still causes a great gaping void in my artistic/personal history.

Thank you.

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February 10th 2010

email from Stefan

As far as <art blog reviewer> goes, I don’t know how much more I could agree with you. I don’t need you clearing up what I said about it over and over until your wording of every single aspect is said in unison by all involved or aware. You’re right. She’s wrong. Okay.

The only reason I would ever say that the MOTP was a “I” project is by accident, not intention. You did write to me, and say on many occasions you felt bad you fell asleep on me during the editing and felt like you didn’t contribute to the story or direction. That you were glad to help me. That was your description, that I always tried to correct you on and assure you it was an effort by both of us. Please, don’t try to do this whole <art credit> shit with me, based on me writing some description on myspace or something. You won’t win that, but if you want to recruit an army of online sloths to attack me, go ahead. You’re mere implication of that is stupid, and you know it. Yeah, you’re obviously angry but, I need no extra guff. All of the things you say you need to clear up, never strike me as something I didn’t know. Do you think I haven’t been reading your minute to minute updates on all of this? Unless there is even more, you haven’t showed me?

You have more and more to say about all you think and are involved in. Though, you read something I write and all you can do is send me a link.(though, you clearly didn’t go past the title, otherwise you’d know I’m not in the mood or deserving of more shit that I already give myself at the moment) I’m not gonna write about what I think you don’t understand, have very wrong, or just…made up as far as myself goes. I’m not in the mood to have you dismiss it in a title wave. I’ve ling accepted you’re not open for even trying to understand, so, fine. I’ll save my breath on that. Now you tell me she may review my work in spite of you. You are perhaps unable, to think of anything or anyone having a point to make instead of you? So far now as to think, a review of my work, will perhaps be with you, in mind. I’m not going to start sending her mail saying, “how dare you”, and whatnot…because, you sent a salvo at each other. I agree with what you did, and almost every way you chose to handle it. Is that not what you want me to say? You want me to have some sort of opinion on this, otherwise you wouldn’t keep me informed. You’re right. I agree, I don’t need a lesson on what’s important in the art world, or a explanation on how photography is your weapon of choice. ( Please, let’s not pretend we’ve just met ) I know what’s important in the art world, that’s why I break my back trying to improve my own daily. Though, it seemingly gets me no where.

I wish you’d just write to me what you really want to happen to me. If it’s not fatal, I’ll film me doing something to myself and you can show all your friends who hate me, and eat popcorn while you watch it. I don’t want to argue. Why do you think I’m in the mood for this? Did I indicate it anywhere? No. I thought we were just sending random harmless emails, why do you keep having to drag me into the shit with that girl? Please. For the billionth time. Stop telling me. Now, it’s at a point where you are correcting me on the tiny opinions I have on it because they aren’t worded right according to you. Do you not realize how militant you are in that respect. Please, don’t write another, art, copyright, importance speech. I know all of that. Very well. I’ve had photographs I took in boston used in a magazine and i received no credit or money, so…I know all about this sort of wrongdoing. You’re right. You’re right. You’re right. I can’t for the life of me, understand what else there is to acknowledge hear. I’ve read all you sent me. I’ve thought about it. I agree with you. How in control do you want to be of my thoughts. Down to the point where you hand me the correct phrasing as to how I should think of it? Are you losing it? You won this, okay. People back you on it, and I’m one of those people. I think I’ve exhausted my use of the word exhausted.

You know I don’t wanna be talking about this shit, and I thought you weren’t furious with me. Was that a trick? How could you just, keep hating me, and writing to me to remind me. You think I don’t know? You think I’d even TRY, to explain my feelings on everything now, knowing how ardent you are in your mind? No way.

You’re right, she’s wrong.

You’re right, I’m wrong.

You’re opinions of people online ,directly or anonymously referenced are correct. My opinions of people online ,directly or anonymously referenced, are incorrect. I think I fairly assess my feelings against others these days. I admit that I’m not right on everything. My flesh can take the twisting of knives. Keep twisting them. You’d obviously at this point, would like to hear that I’ve hospitalized myself or something. I’ll keep you posted on that. I am shit. I’m sorry. I am shit. I can’t spell. I am shit. I’m not deserving of my own opinions. Okay? Now, i’m gonna go play in the snow.

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Email from me

Sigh.

I’d clarified that she wasn’t being “nice” in a  defense of you and your art, not as an attack on you.  Your work DESERVES a positive review, and even the slightest chance that you might have felt indebted to her really bothered me.  “Nice” would be if she said kind things to not hurt your feelings.  She wasn’t nice.  She gave an honest review.  You don’t owe her jackSHIT.

I’d mentioned that she had intended to review your painting only because you mentioned that she’d probably never review your stuff again.  I was trying to assure you that the disagreement between <blog chick> and myself didn’t ruin your potential interaction with her, and would probably only make her MORE determined to review you again.

I sent the link because I thought you would want to correct your blog. (incidentally, the girl on the right looks strikingly like <your friend’s cousin>, sans bangs.)

I brought up the issue of proper credit regarding photography, because when i’d originally brought it up ,you’d responded with this:

So…what the hell are you caring about my flickr for if that’s the case? Or some review that is long buried form a random flickr contact, who told me seeing my blog…was what made her decide she wanted to write about me.  Come on Rachael, she’s just a random girl who writes blogs. It doesn’t matter.  It’s already gone.  I’ve not made a penny off it. Nobody cares at all.  I am my own creative enterprise, and will always be. Stop using this dead blog write up as fuel for anything.  If you’ve chosen that for material, then just admit you’re trying, to hate me.

It was really important to me that I clear this up.  It’s not TRUE that “nobody cares”.  I care.  I care about this issue a lot.  This is in no way something I’ve decided to use as my fuel in an attempt to hate you. The internet is VIRAL.  One instance where credit is wrong can easily turn into hundreds.

You removed my comments on your Flickr that mentioned me by name.  You’ve had dozens of photographs we worked on together in your Facebook that you never thought to caption with any credit.  it’s still important.  So is the way you caption the MotP when uploaded.  Maybe it WAS just an accidental oversight, but it still matters.  As much as you respond with frustration at me bringing it up, much as you assure me that you agree, that you understand, there are still dozens of things that we’d worked on together where you haven’t mentioned/credited my involvement.

….

I have never said that I hated you, that I didn’t care for you, or that I didn’t like you.

(though, you have said those things to me a number of times)

I don’t, and I won’t. 

However.

You were sleeping with me for years without a condom, not letting me know that you were with other women.  You told me I knew anything that anyone else could know, and then hid that you shared yourself with others.  You weren’t honest with me when I professed the love I had for you.

You risked my life and betrayed my heart, when both would have been avoided by being as honest as I thought we WERE with one another.  Whether or not you are in the mood, or “need extra guff” or not doesn’t dictate or sway the content or timing of my (re)actions at this point.

You hurt me and betrayed my trust in bold and exceptional ways that I’ve never experienced before, and that I’ll never recover from.  It is because of how much I trusted you, how much I gave of myself to you, how much I grew to depend on your existence, how unconditionally I love you that this has so wounded me.

I do love you.

I told you, I always will. 

That doesn’t mean I am going to care about your take on things, or concern myself with anything you claim to be true.

I have no trust in you whatsoever anymore, and the thought of you fills me with nothing but feelings of nausea, betrayal, and anguish.

Your dishonesty has destroyed everything I’d based myself on, everything I thought was most real.

I can’t have you as part of my life.

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email from Stefan

You’re a liar too.  You betrayed me too. You, got more than some specifics wrong. You are diluted and created false realities to follow as truths.  Just as you say I have.  You have said much worse than anything I’ve written. I’m well within my rights to have that opinion. All feelings are mutual. You lied to me, didn’t let me care about you the way I felt was important, you put a collar on what I was able to do for you,  and never once, extended a affectionate hand outside of a bedroom. Those are just tiny droplets…of the things you don’t want to hear. I know, those are all lies right?  Fine. PLease, we’ll just agree that their lies.  I make you so nauseous? Yet my opinion on anything you do, is judgmental graffiti posted for your team to say, how dare he insult your art.  It really is amazing how self righteous your world works.

I wasn’t going to bother telling you this, mainly because I didn’t pay it any mind, but apparently, two of your twitter friends messaged me. To wrote something about you, in my favor. They attempted to be anonymous, but saying they were you “tiresome twitter friends”…kind of gave away where they were from. I won’t paste it, but I’ll tell you that I said to them, I don’t need there defense, and they should be writing what they think toyou, not me, instead of agreeing with you, out of some goofy fear, that you’ll be you’re , “next target”.  I promise you, I didn’t want to open this can of worms, I’m really not going to say another word of it.

Lastly, and most aggravatingly, this was the first paragraph that was erased because it seemed really poorly written and out of place on the blog.

“This is a weird representation of me and someone I know, if I was a women as well.  I think it fits the way I’d be seen. I, am the one happily carrying the other one. It’s a nice overcast day at the lake.”

The person “happily carrying the other one”, is me Rachael. That’s not <my friend’s cousin>. It’s fuckin’ me.  As for the person I’m carrying, well…do you need me to say it?   I have no conceivable reason to lie about that. I don’t even wish that’s what it was now, but…to be honest…as much as I don’t want to right now, that’s the truth.  It’s us Rachael. I wanted to draw a picture of us, but really drawing us, seemed like a odd thing.  I was gonna make myself a grim corpsey woman, but, I just decided to make them both look like humans. The picture went were I took it. It’s, undeniably us though. I decided to make you like a Dave Cooper type character.(as much as I loath comparison) I felt weird about it so just, erased the paragraph and left it be. Since you say it looks like <my friend’s cousin>, which it doesn’t, I really…need to set that straight.

You’re side comments, are consistently wrong.  A testament to the illusory world that you’ve taken residence in seemingly permanently, as now I see others you talk to are somewhat creeped out by, and definitely tired of. Hating me, (which you do), isn’t as interesting as you may think.  People don’t care about me.  I seem to know this better than everyone.  You don’t want me as part of your life, yet, I’m constantly asking you, to leave me alone. All you do, is constantly insult me, and let me know what I ruin.  Yet, I’ve been cooperative enough to keep reading it, while being friendly about it. I’m a nauseating site, but you never said you hate me.  Do you think I could believe you don’t want me to hate myself? Or feel I’m not worth anything?  I hate myself, okay?.  Please. just go celebrate and stop telling me you, can’t deal with me, when I’ve done nothing, but ask you countless times…to leave to rot like the filth I am in peace.

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email from me

You lied to me,

When?

didn’t let me care about you the way I felt was important,

How?  I let you care about me how you wished.  I just wanted to know what that was.  Had I known that you had other close relationships with women, I might have slowly built my caring for you in a different way.

you put a collar on what I was able to do for you, 

When?  When I didn’t want you to find <Abusive Man> at work and physically accost him?  The nidea of you beating down <Abusive Man> put a big smile on my face, but that all happened because of MY stupidity.  Yes, he got violent with me.  No, I didn’t DESERVE to be treated that way, but I certainly paved the road to end up in that situation.  It happened YEARS before we met.  And all that aside, I woudln’t have been so against the notion if it weren’t for the fact that the only place I knew of to find him was at the bar he worked at as a bouncer.  To accost him in that environment would bring a barful of people to HIS aid – and the merest possibility of you suffering ANY harm (physically or by the hands of police) because of MY bad decisions in the past wasn’t something I was willing to let happen. 

and never once, extended a affectionate hand outside of a bedroom.

Neither did you.  I wanted to.  I didn’t know how.  I wanted to kiss you hello.  To kiss you goodbye.  To make out with you on my Aunt’s couch.  I wanted to giggle and kiss you with affection.  I wanted to very much, and very often.

Those are just tiny droplets…of the things you don’t want to hear.

ok.

Thank you for telling me about these random twitter people.  It’s good to know.  I suppose I’m a more pathetic person than I’d possibly realised.

My online world is no longer a place I look at kindly.  I am more alone and without a single person to turn to…   even in the distant sad thin land of the internet that I clung to as my last raft.

gosh.  i really don’t have anything at all.

goodbye.

---

February 11th 2010

email from me

I apologize for that last email.

I keep forgetting, while in the midst of things, that you are someone that I cannot trust.

Ignore my questions, and my acceptance of your twitter allegations as truth. It’s likely a desperate stab in the dark, like your allegations that I’d written terrible things about you on other people’s blogs. In the slight chance that you HAD actually been contacted by someone from my online life, they clearly aren’t friend to me, their words can be trusted as little as yours, and I care not.

Y’know what? Maybe I AM talking shit about you. On blogs, on twitter, on various news feeds and messageboards and facebook mail.

Maybe I have been spreading unkind truths about you to people you know, and people ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Maybe I could just as easily tell you what someone in Paramus thinks of you, as I could tell you how you’re thought of in Denmark and Australia, and neither of them would be kind.

Or maybe not.

Wonder.

---

February 12th 2010

email from Stefan

Pity you negated what was your first sane email, showing tiny bits of starting…to understand things. You think making me wonder cares?  You really have read nothing I wrote. I know I’m hated. You know I have no real issues with people not liking me. I mean, you’re really scraping here. I don’t care of your acceptance of what I said. I told you the truth. Tell someone else, you don’t believe me. Need we go through this shtick again? You don’t believe a word. Understood. Wanna talk about it more? Waste your time thinking that’s a story.  Or pretending I’m even one tenth, as sensitive as you. Tell Denmark, go ahead. I fight the whole country…sigh.

I told you what you never did when we were around each other.  “Neither did you”, doesn’t help your point. It helps mine. In fact, it supports mine very well.  So, you missed my point completely. Almost to a frightening degree, that showcases your fight against what you know, I’m right about. “Neither did you”?  Of course I didn’t. How much more child, pointless, and dodging could you be of the point that neither of us did.

As far as the <Abusive Man> thing, well…you say you didn’t deserve it, but you also say it happened because of “your stupidity”. I love when women say that.  Then you give me some lame story about how I’d get hurt, even though the sentiment brings a gleeful smile to your face. I don’t leave things like that at a sentiment. Especially after what you’d told me about it. You really, didn’t realize what that meant to tell me that, then tell me what I want to do makes you grin ear to ear, then tell me, “but don’t do anything”.  You just…will never get what that did to me, and what that let me know. You got that wrong, as well.   

The real issue here is the email you wrote, and how the one you just wrote came barreling in behind it.

You almost showed that you understood some things.  That you were just about to step into the objective arena.  Back to RACHAEL WORLD.  Where everything is a lie, conspiracy, and eeeeeeeveryone just wants to have you write to them over and over about how terrible they are.  What, is wrong with you?  

You say one thing, then say “ignore my questions and acceptance”. Then you say you “apologize”, for the first logical things you’ve written in quite a while.  Wow.     And you say you can’t trust what I say?  I didn’t even absorb the word, “acceptance” from you when I read it. You are the antithesis of acceptance.  You’re acceptance is nothing more than a empty mist. It’s nowhere near substantial enough to be revoked by you. That’s like pulling thin air by the arm and saying you’re taking you imaginary friend back.

You slightly pissed me off. Which is interesting because writing to you has become a somewhat apathetic activity,which, unlike you…I’m consistent with. You, change your demeanor, as you clearly displayed. I, do not. Which my repetitious points have also clearly displayed. A], because you think I’d lie for no reason…which you still haven’t answered ANY, of the times I’ve been asking why you think I write things over and over, answering to your emails.  B], because you finally said some things that made sense and traded them in for one of your go to junk conspiracies that never seem to tire you out. And C], because, you admitted not appreciating me, or considering what you did then, and how insulting it was, then admitted, that you never did, let your actions do a second of talking, outside a dark bedroom, and still…….you claim to not get any of this?   Oh that flattery of being kept in the dark, literally, even when just around me, for years. I don’t live on paper, or computers. I don’t care how clear you think you’ve been on them. NOT ONE SECOND RACHAEL. You never gave me a SECOND, to indicate you actually meant it when we were together, even alone.   You’re either deranged, or a dishonest,  self centered story teller.  Which one is it?  Skin talks.  Words are kind, but skin talks. You never, ever, ever, ever made that real, unless we were in the dark. Words are kind, but if your going to talk about words being proof, we may as well have been pen pals.  You really don’t get any of this?  Really?  I can’t believe that.  Come clean, and admit what’s long over do.  Or start a conspiracy theory website where you talk about people all over the world that want to be insulted by you as a way to pass their precious time.

If you just tried to understand, which you did…for a second…you’d begin the process of actually understanding how much I cared about you before you turned into the hate hungry scheme machine you seemingly, and pointlessly have become.  One day, you’ll see this was all split down the middle. Difference is, I can admit it. And I lost just as much as you did. You have no more ammo. Nothing left. Even if you think you do, it couldn’t hurt me. Write…all…you…like.  Or, go talk to <tumblr follower>. Start a movement. Make arm bands, badges, and have the world know that you are an angel…who was violated by the demon of all demons.

Whether you talk to me or not ever again, (which, preference aside, I accept one way or the other) even though you still have me writing to you OVER & OVER, just to keep telling me how terrible I am, I can’t understand why you want to keep writing to me.  Just, don’t.  That’s all. I know all of your opinions. You can’t clarify anymore. I don’t post these for others. I entertain in other ways. I don’t need you writing anymore about this. I got it. I’ll assume all of your prior opinions stand firm. Okay? If anything new, comes up…let me know.  Other than that.  I’M A LIAR, I’M WRONG, IT’S ALL A TRICK.  Okay?  Please, don’t keep making me wast my time. It’s getting past the point of tiresome. You have nothing new to add.  I’m the indescribable scum of  the earth, and you’re a victim.  I can’t make you think otherwise, so I know that’s the reality for you. i can’t do anything to prove it’s not, if that’s how you feel.  Don’t, make me keep wasting time on this dried up, obstinate issue.   Good god all mighty. I’ve written too much on this shit to someone who doesn’t let a opposing notion past the door. Great, and my pizza’s cold. Figures. I bet you’re happy about that too.

---

February 12th 2010

email from me

Look.

You told me you were honest with me.  You told me you shared with me everything you were capable of sharing with a person.  I built my relationship with you based on what I was aware of, and I thought I was aware of everything relevant.  My feelings grew based on thinking I knew what was going on.  You having close and intimate relationships with other women has a huge effect on that.  You concealed that from me.  You slept with me without a condom, while being with other women, which put my health at risk.  You didn’t tell me any of this when I offered you my heart, and continued to be physical with me, after I told you that would wreck me. 

You didn’t let me know what was going on.  That was a rather KEY element in me buidling and developing a perception of what we were to each other.  And is KEY in my feeling as betrayed as I do now.

Those are big betrayals.  That’s significant deception.

I said I wanted to leave the country.  I wasn’t affectionate.  I had a sexual past you were wary of.  I didn’t want you to beat up an asshole who attacked me.  I didn’t communicate myself properly.  I wrote too much and kissed too little.  I expose large parts of my life online.  Fine.  Those might all be valid reasons for not wanting me the way I wanted you.  I’m sure there are more.  That much, yes,  I’ll agree that it was down the middle.  I am a broken, sickly, lonely, crazy, manic depressive woman with a grim future who can’t manage to take care of herself.  You are probably right to want to avoid the noose of a romance with me. 

But nothing can justify or explain the deception.  You should have been up front with me.

The truth is in the flesh?

[REDACTED]

I guess that’s what’s real?  I guess that’s what I should have been paying attention to?  Is that what you mean?  I guess that’s RACHAEL WORLD.  ok.

From my perspective, i’d first tried to kiss you, and you turned from it…  in every step of our physical or social interaction, I tried, and you were apprehensive….  in each phase of our sharing of bodies,  it ended up being YOUR call when and how it happened.  you had the lead.  I didn’t want to push.  I knew you were wary of being close to people.

I’ve never been good at being physically affectionate outside of sex.  It is one of the problems I’ve always HAD in relationships.  I’d thought I’d explained that to you.  It’s difficult for me.  And the more someone means to me, the more emmense it becomes.  I thought we were both a bit scared.  I thought we were both unsure how to approach one another.  I thought we were BOTH a bit awkward when it comes to initiating closeness, especially with how important we already were to each other.  I thought it was a big deal, a significant step.  The more I cared for you, the more difficult it was for me to show you affection outside of the bedroom.  It MEANT so much more than it ever had with anyone else.  That’s why, after years, I still asked you if I could kiss you.  Because the physical WAS how I showed you how I cared, and I cared so very much.  So much it scared me.  So much I had to ask, because I didn’t know how.

I wrote to you my heart-pictures letter, explained how I cared for you, and said that I’d kiss you when next I saw you, while not in pajamas.  I was going to try.  I was going to kiss you at the door when you arrived, or in your car.  But….  you didn’t respond kindly to that letter.  I didn’t think you WANTED that kind of affection after that.

I guess you didn’t.  I guess I should have payed attention.

In the real physical world, you didn’t care to share me with the people that matter to you, the people you care about, the people who are important or meaningful.  You didn’t invite me into your world. 

I guess I should have listened to what that told me, too.

Regarding <Abusive Man>…  Do you really think I told you that just to get you angry and gauge a reaction?  Do you really think I work that way?  I told you because it was a part of my life.  What it should tell you is that I already hate myself for getting into that situation, and I’d hate myself more to possibly risk you getting hurt or arrested by attacking him on HIS turf.  If i’d had any idea of where to find him where he WASN’t working as a bouncer at a bar-full of his biggest fans who I feared would all leap on you, or hold you down while they called the cops, I WOULD HAVE EAGERLY TOLD YOU, AND JOINED YOU FOR THE RIDE.  To me, the idea that you were so willing to defend me was impressive and as significant as the act in itself, not a TEST.  But by all means, if you still care at all, and if this would do ANYTHING to settle or alleviate some long standing frustrations, or if you just ever want someone to take out some agression on:

 HERE is what he looks like, only fatter: [DEAD LINK]

if he isn’t working at the door of VasMay Lounge (on Houston), he’d be sitting at the bar.  If not there, ask.  they’d probably know where to look.  Try CakeShop around the corner.  I hope he bleeds.  Take his camera as a trophy, and get yourself a DSLR, if he’s still got it.  Enjoy.

if what I’d said to you about <Abusive Man> in those first few months was so offensive, if it so limited the scope of what you’d ever be able to share with me, if it made you think so little of me, if THAT from those early days is what has stuck in your mind all these years…..  I wish you bothered to let me in on that fact.  I wish you just left me then.

It would have spared a lot of hurt.

I don’t hate you.  Like I said, if I hated you, this wouldn’t hurt.  I have a handful of maybe 5 people I converse with online.  I only talk about you insofar as explaining my own perspective and current predicament.  Most of my online people know you as the person with whom I’ve actually appeared HAPPY in my photographs, which is a rarity.

I know my demeanor hasn’t been consistant.  Neither has yours. However, my core beleifs and emotions have remained constant.

I’m profoundly hurt.

I care for you, I miss you, and it kills me inside.

I would do anything for things to be ok between us, and I don’t know how.

I never EVER cared about someone this much.

I cannot bear to be near you if I’m to assume you are with other women.  The pain is too great.

I love you, and always will.

The words between us have only been as biting as they have been, because of how very important we’ve been to one another.

I deeply want to be able to TRUST you again.  I want to not have a broken heart.  I want to not feel like i’m dying.  I want to not think that the one person who was the best friend I ever had would keep such important things from me, and have hurt me this terribly.

I know I can’t go back to the way things were as friends, even if that were possible.  Maybe, given a few years to heal, I could be your non-romantic friend.  But not now, and not anytime soon.

I would really like selective amnesia like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and forget everything I ever knew about you, and get to try again.

as terrible as things are, and as ridiculous and unwise as this is…

If you ever were willing to really be with me, if you’d ever feel one person could fill your want, if you actually wanted to share with me the honesty I thought you had been all along…  if ever you wanted to share affectionate moments with me….   wanted to kiss outside…  wanted to have a romance…  wanted to start over…   learn each other…  and how to trust each other all over again…

I would.

I would try.


I know that will never happen.

i’m going to stop the emails. i have to. i guess, if ever you’ve words for me, call.

---

February 13th 2010

email from Stefan

I read this, and…I agree with a good portion of it. I am, obviously at odds with a protruding chunk of it as well.   I, woke up on no sleep and went to see if i could investigate some galleries for potential exhibitions. Of course, I read the site wrong and most of the building’s galleries were closed. There was a opening for some abstract bullshit, so I walked around (after a brief attention grabbing argument with the desk man), just to justify driving in. Artsy schmucks with fur coats were talking to me about nothing, so i left.  Maybe i’ll try again on monday. Anyway, I know…this is pointless stuff.

My point is, I have to gather some thoughts to respond to this right. There are a few things you really, need to know. It’s not just that <Abusive Man> thing that set the stage for me thinking you were not interested in my intervention of the entirety of your life. There are, some other things. I will, definitely explain when I could sit still. I’m too shaky & angry from my failed journey to write the things this stirs up. I will though.  You deserve a response, and I definitely have one.

 I saw on facebook on a comment you left me way back on a image, you’d changed your default. Knowing that means you took a new picture, curiosity got me. I like that picture, a lot.

I don’t know the lady, and don’t mean to sound like I’m critiquing, but, you should be in front. You look really attractive. I know,i know,…if you were in front…then the wine would be canceled by the color…and you’d need to tilt forward a bit, et cetera. I obviously have a bit more to say about it aesthetically, but I could only view it at like, two inches, so, i’ll shut up. Whatever I think, it’s a really nice picture. That’s my opinion on that.  I’m sorry, I’m really rambling, and my stomach is furious with me. I should go out and feed it. Which I will…now.

I will write to you what I think are a few more things…you’re really, really, forgetting. I’m just surprised what you leave out, (or, to be fair to you…what you don’t think about), considering how much thought you put into this. I need to calm down a bit before I could respond( a practice I’m trying to permanently employ ). I guess, apparently, I still care.

It’s difficult trying to gauge how you feel about me letter to letter.  As it is for me, trying to determine if it’s even worth it to write. Or if it’ll even be read. I don’t like any of this, and I hope whether tomorrow, or in ten years, there’s not just a tennis game of insults still going on. Bye for now, I need to eat so I could attempt to be creative. Also…I, wait…no.  I have to stop writing nonsense.  I’ll write again soon. I hope you read it.

---

February 14th 2010

email from Stefan

Now, what I wanted to say was…

…again, I agree with lots of what you wrote.  I know you’re not affectionate in public, and you did always tell me that. And, that it was an issue for you in past relationships. I agree with that totally. It’s been an issue for me too. The last “girlfriend” I ever had, was a two year relationship. I never once, ever…exchanged an “I love you”. Not in person, on the phone, or in a letter, and we never talked about that. She wrote it once, but in a piece of writing that was about me, that wasn’t for me. So, I never really found use for that word.  I just, don’t know what it is, I always feel like it’s…cheap. That’s not to say that it is cheap though. I don’t even think of that word. I think about intensions, actions, constructing of things. Drawings, writings, ideas. These things speak louder than any three word combo on the planet.

I…need you to understand this though. It’s, very important. It’s also, a key part of understanding how I feel, and felt. Since I’ve known you.

When we first started hanging out for extended periods of time, and I would spends days on end by you, I wasn’t looking at your myspace, facebook, and such daily. I remeber one time specifically, we had a great couple days, (as we usually did) full of meat, tens unit play, picture taking, movies, drawing, and lots of long talks. I remember, spending money I didn’t really have to spend but telling myself, there’s no better way to spend money than with a friend of this rare breed. Maybe the only type of friend, of this sort…in existence. Then, after four days of hyper fun, I drove home. One hour. Then, I hopped on the computer to send you a link to something I remembered.  You’re status read something like, “I’m dead, alone, and fading”. You had just wrote it.  This happened a few times, and didn’t seem to subside. It made me very uneasy. Obviously, because you weren’t feeling stable, or generally good. Though, it made me really uneasy. I remember feeling like I should put some serious thought into how it all goes away in an instant. Hours and hours of connecting with a human that makes you feel like you’re not crazy, alone, or judged. Then, to go home and see, it’s not only as if it never happened, but that it seemed you were even worse. I thought, a lot…and could only come up with, you were happy, and genuine when you were with me. There was no faking involved. Yet, it’s as if I don’t exist in your life, and thoroughly displayed to others, when I’m not around. I saw this as a open door for others to step in when I wasn’t there. I said to myself, “well…sometimes it seems like that, and sometimes it doesn’t. To be safe, I’m not banking on inconsistency. No matter what she tells me. She may really care, when I’m with her. Though, why would she wave a red flag at others, as if no one is brightening her day. This, made me think that you could have had other people in and out of your life. I didn’t think they’d be placed next to me, or above me. For I knew, how much I cared and gave, but…Rachael. I really, wondered, but felt good, and respectful, not to ask. Which is exactly why, I didn’t. You, think I didn’t want to inquire? You know, and said it yourself. You shared with  me, quite a roster of unconventional activities, lifestyles, tales of revenge, and turmoil, that any realist would think anything is capable, of happening whether I’d like to think of it or not. I did the best thing I could think of. I got somewhat upset when you offered up information, but I never grabbed my bookbag and said, “you make me sick”, and walked out the door. I never lessened my generosity. Most of all, I never stopped caring about you. Things you’ve said made me upset, and at times a little turned off, and even a little wary of how credible your stories are, but…I never stopped anything. I reacted when you told me things. I never pried. I never asked you things I thought were not my place to ask, or my business. Partly because, how would I know, they were true. How do I? There is no way to know. 

Now, the things i’m not touching on are things I don’t agree with at all. [REDACTED] Now you’re just admitting I was sexually undesirable. The way I worked and moved, wasn’t to your taste or liking. Fine, you didn’t like me then. If you’d like to hurt me, and make me feel very undesirable , well….ya did that. Like I had some tricks up my sleeve, I save for the people i really like. That’s just you, not liking me in that way. And you say to me, on trivial issues, you wish I’d let you know earlier. Anyway, if you want to be blunt about sex, [REDACTED] You think I offer this to anyone? You really, should be more careful and considerate with your words in that respect. Unless your claiming now, that the sex was never complete to you. If that was the case, I’m sorry. I wasn’t satisfactory in that way. Another unfortunate blow the realist must own up to. I never claimed to be satisfactory in any department. Or told you that such persons said that I was, as you have. If you believe you’re better overall in bed, fine, i’ll agree to that. I don’t understand why the fuck I’m talking about this though.  Things are not as you think Rachael. You have LOTS, of things wrong, and maybe sometimes forget there are two very, different sides to this story. You just have some things wrong, in my opinion.  We’ll butt heads till the end of days of some of this stuff.  The issue of trust, is something that is a bit more multi dimensional than you make it out to be. There are handfuls of examples I could give to all the above topics. This isn’t all coffee talk for me. There are lots of big issues and examples you don’t..sigh. Certainly, you don’t understand what gets to me.

The <Abusive Man> thing. I remember where he worked/s and what he looks like. You think I forgot? Of course not. You think I didn’t consider taking a drive one night to send a message on your behalf without you knowing? I don’t need to knock his teeth out. I wanted to for you. Or at leat do whatever he did to you. I know this is a dead issue. But, I would’ve moved through him like a hot knife through butter, if you wanted me to. I don’t want to do it, for myself. Like I said, I know I could get hurt,( if it were a bunch of them ), and I know, that you know I’m not afraid of pain, or any other human, so…it’s not really flattery I guess. I just thought justice needed to be done. I could never imagine someone hitting you. So, I didn’t think it should be tolerated. Anyway, I could write a lot about that. we’ve said all we could on that topic. I did fill you in on this. Don’t pretend we didn’t talk a lot about this and write quite a bit about it. You wish I “left you then”…is, really a bit much. That wouldn’t be worth, throwing out anything for.

As far as all of your last statements go. Well, they’re so confusing to me.
You say I hurt you terribly, you wish I didn’t kill you so, I stabbed your heart, and bludgeoned your soul, but…then you say, you love me. That…is really, the way to ensure fucking someones head up. I’m sure yours is not on straight, but how could mine be. Why do you think I’m just miserable, and gruff all day?  I don’t know what to believe either. Sometimes, I’m very callous and don’t care about these issues, because it gets me nowhere. I think how, you just…use key words and nail them into me. Then, I feel terrible, ( which is the point of the words ),then I get mad at you, like I am now. (I know you don’t care, and you only think I should be mad at myself, please, don’t explain that again, I promise, that’s loud and clear )Then, write myself into nonsense…and I just want to…leave it all, and draw, like…i’m gonna do now.

As far as your very last statements go, I can’t touch that right now. I’ll assume you’ll write something that rips that statement away soon. You know I have good reason to think that. I’m never sure what you’ll stick to meaning, email to email. Another reason, I try to not get caught up in it.

Yes, I know you’re hurt. There is no clearer message than that. That I am the cause, is my wake up alarm, my dinner bell, and my mental soundtrack ensuring tossing and turning when I lay down to sleep some days. . I feel bad, a lot. For things being the way they are, for generally not liking myself, and for knowing that the things I try to approach realistically, usually hurts me and others. I really, despise the entirety of what I am.  This has been a loss that can’t be forgotten. What hurts most is, certain words you choose to use to describe me. I can’t even type some of them, it’ll anger me and take me off course. So, i’m gonna go on to my conclusion.

I’m sure I’ve written a lot of garbage just now, and could have explained some things better. I’ve written enough to say, I’ve put some thought into this. I’m taking a brain break. Or, trying.  I’m gonna hide now, and smoke in bed. Which, I shouldn’t do…but, I feel like it. I feel my face getting tighter.

---

February 14th 2010

email from me

i have a funeral to go to in a few hours.  Maybe.  If I ever sleep, and if my headaches decide to fade.

I certainly wasn’t saying that I find you sexually undesirable.  Christ.  But really,[REDACTED]  If you are saying the truth is in the physical, that I wasn’t consistant in what I said and how I behaved, that “neither did i”….  then I think of our physical moments.  (I still don’t understand what you were trying to get across by that.  That i’d missed your point entirely with your “neither did i”.  Why didn’t you ever cross the barrier and be affectionate, then?  I’ve explained why I didn’t, and that I really WANTED to.)  I enjoy “the way you work and move”…  and I’ve told you, that I’d never had my head stop yammering at me with anyone but you.  That’s significant.  But… [REDACTED]  And if the physical is so much more real to you than the words said, I have to wonder what your reality is, and what you were conveying with the physical.

It’s not just a matter of my being affectionate in public.  It’s being affectionate period.

I’m…  I’ve been in a sad and lonely place for a really long time, now.  When you’d come to visit me, you’d brighten my world.  When you’d leave, it would darken again.  Your presence stayed with me, and kept things from getting as dark as they would have been otherwise, but…  sometimes, the light you’d bring would end up making the dark seem almost darker in your absence.  It’s an unfair position for you to be in.  You’ve been the one and only thing I’ve had to look forward to, the one shining thing in my life.  The single thing that had kept me going.  Maybe it’s…  that whole “give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime” of whatever that quote is.  I’m not saying…  you could have taught me to fish.  In fact, you probably DID, as much as my life could be taught to produce anything.  But really, you’d come by, and you’d feed my soul.  And I would’t have anything when you left.  Again…  the thoughts of our time are what kept me from utter dispair when you weren’t about.  But I’ve got a whole lot of dispair.  The moment I’m not being distracted or engaged….  in creeps back in.

your take on my life…  makes me sad.  it’s almost as if you read the stats, but missed the content.  You never wanted the details, and recoiled from tales of my past, so you only got the cliffnotes.  It doesn’t give the same story, or reveal the same person underneath.  No, you never left, you never stopped caring.  But you thought less of me.  Thought me utterly untrustworthy.  You thought me incapable of… 

i appreciate your words.  i appreciate you explaing this.  i am glad to have some idea of what your perspective has been for so long.  but everything you’ve said explains why you didn’t think I had the emotions and intentions and complete and utter dvotion to you that I posses.  Everything explains why, for a long time, we weren’t seeing eye to eye. 

Nothing you’ve said explains the actions that I’ve felt so betrayed by.  Nothing you’ve said explains why you’d tell me again and again that if a person could know it, that person would be me, when that wasn’t true.  Nothing explains why, when I made it clear that I didn’t think you’d possibly be with anyone else at this point in our companionship, that it took you months to tell me to “assume that you were”, and slept with me in the meantime.

How do you know if what I said was the truth?!  Why would I lie?   

It’s really sad.  You didn’t think I could be honest with you about the content of my life.   And I assumed you were being utterly honest with me about yours.

I don’t want to write anymore.

My stance is the same as it has been for months.  My tone has changed, and I’ve had momets of lashing out in frustration and anger, but ….  I’ve not once said I didn’t care about you.  I may have said I couldn’t care about certain aspects, but I’ve NEVER said that I didn’t still feel ….  the way i feel about you.

I can’t keep this up.

If you ever want to try… let me know.  I will try harder than i’ve ever tried at anything in my life.

But I can’t go back.

if you ever think you could…  well…. 

if so, give me a call.

I don’t imagine you will. 

---

This same day, he takes shirtless Sticky style photos with <his friend’s cousin>

January 12th 2009

email from Stefan

I wish you answered your phone, as fast as you respond to emails.

---

January 12th 2009

email from me

Congratulations on the blog review.

I can’t say it’s not a bit frustrating that so many of those pictures were stickyfriends shots – kinda why I’d tried that whole getting-the-sticky-friends-it’s-own-flickr thing and keeping our collaborative stuff there, but… well…  stickyfriends is dead in the water anyway.

But your stuff is good.  and you deserve recognition.  so that’s good.  i’m glad your work is appreciated.  I’m proud to be part of it.  She says such lovely things – I hope you might actually let yourself beleive some of them, because everyword she says is true.


…..

i’ve been a bit too chummy.  you were right about it not being good with the rapid writing back and forth.  i’m sorry i asked you about the talking to aunt mary thing, and it wasn’t really right or fair and started things back and forth again and ….  it’s all still the same situation it has been.  The one I can’t be part of.

i know you want to help me, and things sure aren’t going well in my world and seem to kep getting worse….  but help…  that can’t happen the way things are. 

i mean, i just realised i should go and get tested for things.  i got tested right when we first started…  but hadn’t since then cuz, well, i didn’t think there was a reason to.  that’s all sorts of not very happy in my head.

and um.

everythings not what i thought.  what it meant.  what kept me going. 

and now everything is very cold here.

i’ll be quiet.  I’ll try.  So you don’t have to worry.

---

January 12th 2010

email from Stefan

That article is nice, but it’s only been up for a few hours,& it’s already lost in the labyrinth of the internet,and probably will never get viewed. I will try to get more things noticed, though….with the attention on my blog & site.

She started following my blog. I was going to refer her to yours so maybe she’d do a write up on you, but I see all you’ve put up is old sex poetry & movie clips. It may be art to some, but I’m not referring her to that,especially when I know you can actually,draw & paint. I don’t know what kind of following you have that reads that shit, but I would shack up with anyone of them as fast as I could, if I were you. I mean that. I’m not joking. I don’t want any response to this either. It’s my opinion, I don’t want to talk about it.

I tried to help you with your aunt. Again, I tried to help you. I know I did the right thing by you. I hope you do, try to stay quiet. I don’t feel like being bothered anymore right now.

Take care.

---

January 12th 2010

email from me

Once again, you prove the terribly low opinion you have of me.

Please, then… remove all your photos of or taken by me from public view, so that in the future your success neednt be tainted by my presence. I will do the same.

---

and really.

I would shack up with anyone of them as fast as I could, if I were you.

Maybe you would.  But I’ve only been with one person for the past 4 years, and had no desire to be with anyone else.   It’s not because of my sexual practices that I’m going to get tested next week.  It’s because of yours.

---

January 13th 2010

email from stefan

You said Congrats,then went on to talk about blood tests & how cold your world is again. I’ve had my blood checked & it’s juuuuuust fine.Check yours once a week for the rest of your life, I don’t need to hear about it. You couldn’t let me enjoy a moment of happiness through the duration of one email, but I let you talk for hours the other night about your troubles & tried to help you.    So no, I erased them again, I’m sure it said, I’m a monster , blah blah blah. I gave you enough time,find someone who believes you & will stand by you more than me, then rub it in my face.  Until then, stop bothering me, for the love of christ.   I’m fine being hated.  Get in line.   

…and just to save you time,even though I’d erase it again…..I’ll respond for you.     “You’re a scumbag, you don’t care, I do.”    Okay?  Good.

Take care.

---

I quote Stefan’s words publicly online:

“I see all you’ve put up is old sex poetry & movie clips. It may be art to some, but I’m not referring her to that,especially when I know you can actually,draw & paint. I don’t know what kind of following you have that reads that shit, but I would shack up with anyone of them as fast as I could, if I were you.”

I do not state who wrote these words. I simply offer this up, and ask if this is a reasonable criticism.

Stefan pretends that he isn’t looking at my social media. He claims that <The Brother> is alerting him to my posts, which is clearly untrue.

---

January 14th 2010

email from Stefan

<My brother> told me what you wrote.  Not very surprising.  Wish you didn’t write it. So….I looked at your blog. Of course. You quote me.  I wish you wouldn’t quote me on something I wrote to you in an email. Also, something that was written in the heat of anger as a response to something I thought was very offensive. I feel you’re editing the conversation to make it seem as a stand alone comment.  Ya know, I can’t stop you, but….I hope you know that you’re doing that. You know, I’m not deserving of that. As <my brother> told me this though, I’m just…eh….about it.  He told me it’s amazing considering the world of things I’ve done for you, not at all, being mad at you while saying it or anything. Though, he’s not happy about it. I’m not happy about it.No one’s happy about any of this. You know quote mining is not fair. You don’t have to think i’m right, but take into account the offense I’m entitled to. Eh, you probably don’t care about any of this any more than I do at the moment. It’s just, wrong for you to nail in your head something I said that’s far, from the weight of what I’ve done. You can try and represent me to the public any way you like.  You know how much I’ve done for you. I’d do it again, if you needed it. I tell you that because I can’t dismiss it.  We aren’t friends anymore and all that.  It sucks but, I’m a realist. So, I’ll just chalk it up as , another stupid sucky thing I have to move on with that I have no control over.

After my brother brought some things to my attention , then, on my own volition, I checked your blog…and read that. As if that’s, the epitaph on my tombstone in your friend graveyard. That, bothers me. You know it’s not true.   You know it.  You know it’s not a representation of my opinion of you. Only a representation of the unstable anger these arguments led to.  You know I wouldn’t do the amount I’ve done for you, without it coming from something of unspeakable size.   I still care about you.    That’s not going anywhere. Not for a while at least. I’m not going to feign I have the ability to throw that away so fast..   I can be without your company, and want to strangle you right now,while holding my true feelings just fine.  

 For me, the life I’ve lived, the pain I endure/d, the Hell I’ve seen & dealt with, and the view I have on the world…what I’ve given, is impossible to be forgotten. I’m proud of so little I’ve done. What I’ve done for you, leaving me on the edge of my own responsibilities, is something I’m proud of.  I’m proud I seen & related to how hurt your life was, and was able to ease your pain.  I am NOT, a better person than you. I don’t think you’re LOWER, on the human ladder.  Quote me on THAT.   Not on something you know is fueled by anger at the moment. 

I just want you to understand, to defend myself, and the hard work I’ve put into our friendship…I have to say;  Even though you paint me a specific way to anyone and everyone, I know who I am.   …and miraculously, in the middle of all the disappointment & hurt, I’m proud of it.

I know you probably disagree with a lot of this. I know you are well aware you couldn’t just cast aside my sacrifices. As I am well aware how you are, and can be hurt.  I guess I’m somewhat impossible to like. Through and through.   Also, because, I’ve been thinking of things as realistically as I can, I just want you, please…..to ask yourself.    “If I called Stefan right now, even if I knew he was livid with me, would he go out of his way, or drop anything to help me in any way I needed at any possible moment?”       

Sometimes, I do….sit around and put deep thought into it,and come to conclusions.

Today’s was: I’m proud of who I am to you.  Even if I’m dead to you.   

---

January 15th 2010

email from Stefan

I just took a break from drawing, and I checked to see if you removed that. I see, you didn’t. Sigh…I really wish you didn’t require an audience. That’s private text. Why do you want to put our issues online for discussion? You know that’s a whole different level of wrong.

I see the comment, that I didn’t notice before.

No one EVER, would say a bad thing about you in my sight. If if they did, I’d rip into them. You’re really doing the wrong thing. I wonder if <that commenter> knows what I am.  What I do.  What I’ve done.  It’s not right Rach.  You’re painting a false picture of me.  That is, by far…as low as it gets. Please. Stop.

I am upset, obviously. Though, this is more just, sad at this point.  You’re doing something that you know, is intended to hurt me. 

This is my reply to his comment, if I were to post one on the page,which…I won’t. 

“I agree, there is most likely two sides to this story.

That oddly angered compliment about knowing her talent,but not seeing it…makes me feel that this quote, is not a stubborn stump in a quiet forest, but a a tiny branch on a massive burning tree.

It is bullshit,and this person is a huge asshole,IF this is an anonymous letter. Though, who knows, maybe it was.”

You see, exactly what happens when you don’t show everything.  Do you feel good that some steampunk named <that commenter> is calling me and asshole?   You’re gonna let him say that?   About me,and agree with him?    

Amazing.     You know what I said was a heated response to me feeling incredibly hurt.  Wrong or right , but you…..you’re really just, proclaiming unwavering reason.   You truly believe, you’re right enough to justify anything you do or say.  You are, never wrong.  You’ve never been wrong.  You Mom, Dad, Aunt, Sister, <Abusive Man>, <Abusive Ex-Girlfriend>,….and others you’ve given me background & stories on. I’ve always listened and tried to understand all you’ve told me. I was even so angered someone could hit you, that I offered to get revenge. Remember? I’d put myself in danger happily, for your name.  You’ve only told me the good things you’ve done and the horrid things they do and have done.   I don’t want to believe, you can’t see the troubles of anyone, but your own. You posting this stuff, selectively, tells me…..it, may be true. I don’t know,and it’s creeping me out thinking you may have a sickness of that sort.  Please, tell me I’m wrong. 

 You have posted time & time again, things you’re mom has written to you.  Now,I’m in a world, where you can do the same to me.  I have to believe it’s your mission, to make me a monster, so you can have a new tale of woe, to bait your next friend. (I hope t goodness, that’s not the case)   Though, as long as you post my private thoughts as graffiti , I will continue to write to you privately. The only way I want to.   The difference between us, when you lay out what I know of your life, next to mine and the things I’ve heard others say.    Is that, you need a audience, and I…am quite the opposite.

This is what I’m left to believe based on all this, I don’t what else to think. This would make the transition for my feelings go much quicker and smoother into thin air than I had thought it would be.  What you’re doing is parading around my face like it’s propaganda to start a movement against me. When you know the truth.   This is what I’m left to believe.  

I wish you wouldn’t write to the public, I wish you’d take it down. I wish you’d call me and clear up some of the things I’m thinking, because I’m not saying I’m resolutely standing by these thoughts. I just, am running out of definitions for the stuff that I keep hearing about when I’m just drinking coffee and drawing. Again, I wish you’d call me and talk to me about this and tell me I’m wrong about some of this shit.  I’d listen. I still care to listen at the moment. I want you to erase that stuff and tell me I’m not the equivalent of your mom or some abusive ex.  I don’t deserve that.  I’d rather be non existent to you, than your go to exemplar ,for unkind.

You know, that’s not real, or correct. You have to know it when you think of about it.  I wish you could let me ask you on the phone to take that down.  Remember who would never lay a hand on you,would give you his last penny, and who believes what you go through.   Even if I don’t want to talk to you, or you hate me, or whatever……those things are still true.   Know it when you sleep, think about how wrong.   It’s so….fuckin….wrong. 

  Not that I think this will matter, and…I didn’t plan on writing this as a valid point. It seems now to be as valid as it gets.  Seeing that person who doesn’t know me, comment on me, and you….just letting my private words be poorly seen and discussed without defending me.    It, tears me up.   I wish you’d call me so I could at least ask you…to please stop. 

I’m not trying to harm you with any of these words. I want you to explain, and clear up some things I may or may have wrong ,with your voice. 

..also, I beg of you, for my own sanity. To respect these words as private. You know I’m trying here. I’m not writing because I DON’T care.  Can you at least give me that much credit?

I already have one demon that calls me & beats me down daily.  I’m a fighter, and afraid of no one, but I don’t crave things to fight.   

Please…..just……call me.  I want to talk to you, not hear others tell me what your saying.  Though,the realist in me will assume you won’t respond ,and I’ll just get back to  minding my business, drawing and such, and hope to goodness I won’t hear anything else as I’m wiping crust out of my eye over my first cup of coffee from others.

It doesn’t make for a chipper Stefan,…and I like to think that you know more than anyone ,and have always accepted how unchipper he is already, because you know who he is.

---

January 15th 2010

email from me

I was going to ignore your emails.  But I decided that I may as well write back.  I’ve been so weepy all this time, with all these emails, and since you’ve finally ignited in me the sort of appalled anger I should have had from the start, I decided I may as well write it all out, even if you don’t bother to read it. 

So.

Again, I ask that you please remove any and all photographs from online viewing that I am in, or had a hand in creating.   Especially considering most of the photos the author pictured in that ecstatic blog review were images that I modeled for, took, collaborated with, and/or did the post production of, and have received no credit for.

No, no I clearly DON’T know that those words I posted were something that you hadn’t meant, and that it was only in anger.  You did include the phrase “I mean that.  I’m not joking.”  You don’t think people DO things when drunk they wouldn’t otherwise be willing to do?  Well I don’t think people SAY things in anger they don’t already think.  In everything that has gone on between us these past few months, it’s THIS that has finally struck a chord in me.  It’s what i quoted on my blog, that finally drove me to a fury; what drove me to post what i did on my facebook. 

You of all people are going to tell me my writing “isn’t art”, and reduce it to “sex poetry”?  Really?  You have the FUCKING nerve to have sex with other women while i’m utterly devoted to you for YEARS, and then tell ME that I should go “shack up” with anyone who will take me?  Is your self esteem really that fragile that you can’t handle the idea that I’d had good sex before I met you?  Grow the fuck up.  I’m to let that go and understand that it’s just words said in anger?  Oh, because angry words don’t count?  Angry words don’t hurt?

Every good thing you DO in the world doesn’t negate the hurt that you cause.  Thanks for the bike, but i’d rather someone who didn’t again and again say things that made me feel like shit about myself.  Things that STICK, things you infer again and again, things that I can’t convince myself you didn’t mean.  things that nobody wants to hear, especially from the person they trusted the most.

I don’t  CARE about what you think of me anymore.  I can’t.  It changes too much for me to keep track or put any faith in it.  You can call me a liar, and say that I never appreciated anything you ever did, that i’m the most ungrateful person you’ve ever known…  and then turn around and say how you’ll defend me to the ends of the earth; that everything you know about me is meaningless because it has already been told to the world, but then tell me how you cherish our special moments.  I just can’t keep track.  I can’t put FAITH in your words.

How many times am I supposed to let you say terrible things to me, talk down to me, and convince myself that you just didn’t mean it?  Would you like me to go through your emails to me and compile a list of all the hateful accusatory things you’ve written to me?  All the things I’ve told myself were just you lashing out?  After a while, that doesn’t work anymore.  How many times in the past three months have you yourself said “i didn’t mean it”?  Don’t get me wrong, i’m sure you’ve cared about me, and devoted time and effort to help me in numerous ways.  But that doens’t mean you haven’t used me for my adoration, done and said things just to hurt me, lashed out with anger again and again knowing it would be without repurcussion, and played me like a fool.

How well do you expect me to take being told that you don’t think I deserve the right to get a fucking straight answer out of you if you’ve been sleeping with other women, when for over 3 years we’ve been having sex without a condom?!  That is fucking inexcusable. 

i’m not trying to represent you in any way, good or bad, on facebook or my blog.  Those are my places.  It’s not quote mining, it’s me showing the exact words that sliced me open and lit me aflame, words from an anonymous source.  In fact, I don’t think most people would imagine that someone as once beloved and cherished as you’ve been to me would SAY something like that.  Because people who really CARE about each other don’t SAY callous and cruel things like that to each other.  We don’t HAVE any of the same friends, we don’t know any of the same people, save <your brother> and <Mutual Friend>.  I have no effect on the ever important popular opinion of Stefan Decarlo.  The fact that <The Brother> even NOTICED my Facebook page is astounding.  Your name is not mentioned on anything I’ve posted, and as far as I know, you pretty successfully made sure that the world saw me as the ever platonic “Friend Rachael” of “single” Stefan, so worry not, your reputation is safe.  And my profile isn’t public anymore, anyway.  It’s not about slander.  You’ve kept me seperate well enough that I couldn’t slander you if I tried.  It’s not to hurt you.  It’s not ABOUT you.   Do you think every song writer or poet is creating things to besmirch someone’s name?  It’s about me feeling fucking boilingly betrayed.  It’s about making sure I have a constant reminder of the kind of hurtful shit that can come out of your mouth.

It’s sad and telling that my many beggings for understanding and calm conversation were met with days of quiet, of “i don’t want to talk about it”, or angry words, but a stranger saying something unkind about you gets reams of calm and rational writing from you, and pleas for us to come to some common ground.  My tears and heartbreak and feelings of betrayal never got a fraction as much calm effort from you as your concern for your reputation has.

I did use protection. I’m not a male whore, or a pimp.  I even stopped talking to some people I knew, because I didn’t….have sex with them.  Or want to.

Congratulations for not sleeping with everyone who wanted to bed you, and using protection with some of the people you were sleeping with simultaneously.  Forgive me if I don’t take your word on that, since you never bothered to use condoms with me.  Yeah, and you seemed REALLY upset for losing <random chick> as a friend, too.  Big fucking loss.  She seems a bit too assertive for the way you handle things, anyway.  And besides, she drives.  I’m not sure that’s really your scene.

Here I was, thinking that… you couldn’t share everything with someone, but that I was that one person in your life that, if you could share it, you shared it with me.  You fucking told me that.  Honored me to have that special place in your life.  You also told me on numerous occasions on how tasteless you found the notion of causally hooking up with one’s friends was.  Oh, the distaste!  But meanwhile, you were bedding other women in addition to me, women who were neither a girlfriend nor your oh-so-important best friend.  You were bedding other “friends”.  So, either you’d been misleading me, and lying about your opinion on casually hooking up with friends…  or these women have been more than friends, more than casual people in your life….  and I, your “best friend” that is sooooo important and trusted, had no idea that these more-than-friend women even existed.  Significant and non-casual relationships in your life with people that I hardly heard mentioned from your mouth, and certainly were never important enough for you to feel that I, that most important person to you, should possibly know them.

Oh, but you’ve been nothing but honest and upfront with me, right?  You’ve opened your life to ME more than anyone, right?  If anyone could know it, it was me, right?

And all the while, you’ve been making ME feel like shit for maintaining completely PLATONIC long distance friendships with people I’d been with a fucking DECADE ago.  Criticiszing me and citing the fact that i’d been with friends of mine as part of why you felt you couldn’t really TRUST me.  Telling me again and again that I never shared anything with you that was special, anything that someone else didn’t already know.  And you said this to me while you’ve been having INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS with other women AND ME AT THE SAME TIME.

You fucking hypocrite.

Don’t even ATTEMPT to pretend that the reason I have NEVER been invited to a social event, or gathering, or to interact with ANYONE in your life aside from your roommates is just by fucking chance, or just because you cherish our alone time so very much.  Is that why, for years, you’ve been IMing and text messaging <your friend’s cousin> while you and I were spending time together?  That’s how important our time is?  Next time you ask a question, why not ask: “Hey, do you think it’s shitty that after being friends with Rachael for almost 4 years, I’ve never invited her out anywhere aside from that one time we went to Loop Lounge, and she’s never met any of my friends aside from the Halloween Party, even though she keeps asking to go places and meet people?”

Your first stripper party?  Yeah.  You fucking PLAYED me that night.

Until this fateful October, not 24 hours would go by that you and I would not have some contact.  Not one day.  There would be an IM conversation, or a text message, or most often a phone call at dawn if we weren’t physically in each other’s company.  It had been that way for at least 2 years.  And now I have to realise that…  that means you’d chatted with me after (or on your way to) sleeping with someone else that night.  And it makes me want to vomit.

I adored you from the very fucking beginning.  You have no idea the sort of devotion you’ve thrown away in me.  You do so love to remind me again and again and again how I’ll never find someone who will treat me as well, or do as much for me as you do.  That’s bullshit, and you know it.  You might not have ever been as kind to somebody as you had been to me, but you aren’t exactly a paragon of beneficence.  I could with ease find someone else to give those same morsels of kindness you shared with me.  (I always could have….   but brilliant me, I only wanted you.) 

It’s you. 

It’s you who won’t find someone who will fit as well, who will be as patient, who will go YEARS without demanding answers or prying into your life or messaging your friends online to wiggle my way into places not yet willingly revealed. 

It’s you who will never find someone who will appreciate you for what you are underneath, instead of being blinded by the moody artist veneer they are soooo impressed with, fawning over the facade and never bothering to look for the bleeding flesh underneath, as I have.

It’s you who won’t find someone who really honestly WOULD have gone on the run with you if you asked, without a second thought.

It’s you who won’t find someone who will see in you a kindred gradeschool kid, ripping off our scabs and eating them together, like I did.

It’s you who won’t find someone who will shirk her other paying jobs to spend weeks of time making a website for you, just in the hopes that it will make your life a bit easier, as willingly as I.

It’s you who will NEVER find someone who will trust you so implicitly and to a FAULT the way I did, always handing your phone to you without looking to see who was calling, looking straight in the eye at the evidence of half truths, and preferring to believe your fanciful words and assurances.  “but he says he trusts me, and he says he tells me more than anyone, and I’m his most important person, and he’s devoted to me, and he’d run away with me, and we talk every day, and he doens’t believe in casual hookups, and he never mentions any other women that he really hangs out with or that he’s particularly close to, and i’ve made it clear how much he means to me, and since he knows how much it would hurt me,  I’ll just beleive that he’d never do something like that – instead of looking at the series of facts that would prove to any other rational person that he’s got another woman (or maybe a few) he’s seeing, and that he has been going to some lengths to make sure I don’t know they exisit and that I never meet her/them, while always presenting our relationship to the world as totally platonic.”

It’s you who won’t find someone who will really and honestly not judge you on any of your past whatsoever as I have, and will stand forever with open arms and acceptance, knowing that it’s still part of you, but not what defines you. 

It’s you who won’t find someone who will give you $200, when that represents two weeks worth of income, just to compensate you for Diner jaunts.

It’s you who will NEVER find ANYONE who thought as highly of you and believed in you as I did and wrapped their world around you, while still being able to hold thier own with you intellectually and artistically.

It’s you who won’t find someone who will cast aside the fact that drawing and painting is an excersize in demonologie and tears for me, and make for you gifts of my artistic creation to convey how VERY MUCH you meant to me.

It’s you who won’t find anyone who will look at you with complete joy, trust, devotion, and wonderment as I did when I looked at you.

It’s you who already can’t find someone to spend a quiet sober NYE with, a companion who would find sitting next to you on a stool to the best time they could imagine. 

That one person, that one human who’d be all of that for you was me.

I’m livid, and you hate me.    Things are ruined and over.

Be as livid as you fucking want.  Because you’ve nobody to be livid at but yourself.  I didn’t do a goddamned thing but make you my world, give you EVERYTHING i had in me, and then get my heart broken and betrayed for the effort.  And then get namecalled and character-attacked when my tears deigned to instill in you some feelings of possible uncomfortable guilt.  You know fucking well that I don’t have anybody in the world.  And I want you to understand that I would rather be alone in this life than have you as the person I turn to.  You did this to us.  Not me.

I don’t hate you.  I told you.  When I care about someone enough with my heart, they always stay.  The reason it took me this long to be fucking angry about things, the reason that up until now I’ve had the emotional spectrum of “a fifteen year old” when I’d try to talk about things is because I was more wrecked and heartbroken over you than I’ve ever been over anything in my entire life.  I gave of myself and trusted you more than I’ve ever given or trusted anyone.  It took FOUR MONTHS and your snyde hurtful words just for me to stop crying over you.  Do you fucking feel special yet?

No, hating you would hurt less. 

I am instead  left with the predicament of knowing I’ll forever care about you as much as I ever did, but hating myself for it.  I am left feeling so very stupid, and so very naive for letting myself buy into the game…

…and wishing I could carve you the fuck out of me.

---

January 15th 2010

email from Stefan

Sounds good. I just appreciate you getting back to me. Take care.

---

January 19th 2010

email from Stefan

started erasing the flickr stuff the other day. My client just left. I’ve erased a few more. Flickr is loading pages slow right now. You’ve given yourself credit for some you didn’t take. One specifically, (we’re I’m wearing a red scarf & matching lipstick), that you weren’t even there for. That was on a timer in my medicine cabinet. I knew after reading your response ,you’ve unwavering in your side,(you know I couldn’t agree with a word of it,or accept that you were thinking,”he played me”, through all those steak dinners…that’d obviously say you weren’t being honest…..but you weren’t harboring anything and always spoke openly, right?), but I hope, that you aren’t actually recalling things that didn’t happen. Like you being at my house and actually holding a camera on a day that, you were in OG. I’m not interested in being open to the possibility of that sort of weirdness right now. I hope, it was a mistake,is what I’m saying. It’s not an insult. So, just relax, please. I’ll get rid of the ones you’ve targeted. I’m doing it now. Though, if you were further than 80 miles away at the time of the picture being taken, I’m not deleting it. Okay, I have to eat something, this guy bumped one of the burners and apparently I was inhaling gas unbeknownst to my allergies,until I started feeling odd.

Anyway,I was just telling you I forgot to go back into my flickr, but I’m there now.

Anyway, if you want to hear what I have to say about your response. We can sit on the phone and go down the list. I really, had a hard enough time trying to care as if, I didn’t know it’d be your unlocked files of how terrible I am and how amazing you are,still I went through with skimming your last response. Call me if you have words. Or,keep auditing over my internet life, and remind me what I should erase when you see something, then…i’ll erase it. That’s fine by,and less work for me.

Anyway, pizza and painting.

Okay, off I go. Not looking for an argument, I know your views are quite airtight. I’d erase a written response, but i’d listen and shut up, if you wanted to call and talk to me.

My life is going on just fine, but my cupcake party offer still stands. Though, judging by these,I’d have to make new ones.

---

January 21st 2010

email from Stefan

I’ve never said I have anyone who could give me what you have, conversely, you seem to have had a line of candidates who could ” with ease give those same morsels of kindness I shared with you, and always could have”.

Show me. Show me who Rachael. Get those Stefans lined up and i’ll stand with them in beige militant outfits, with arm bands with black Rs on them. I promise.

So…what the hell are you caring about my flickr for if that’s the case? Or some review that is long buried form a random flickr contact, who told me seeing my blog…was what made her decide she wanted to write about me. Come on Rachael, she’s just a random girl who writes blogs. It doesn’t matter. It’s already gone. I’ve not made a penny off it. Nobody cares at all. I am my own creative enterprise, and will always be. Stop using this dead blog write up as fuel for anything. If you’ve chosen that for material, then just admit you’re trying, to hate me.

I don’t know if you still have that comment up on your blog, but…again. I DIDN’T MEAN IT. IT WAS AN ANGRY RESPONSE BECAUSE I WAS HURT YOU DIDN’T LET ME ENJOY A SECOND OF ACCOLADES. SO I SNAPPED A BIT. I USED THE FACT THAT I KNOW YOU CAN CREATE QUALITY TANGIBLE ART AS A VESSEL FOR MY COMMENT. IT WASN’T RIGHT OR JUSTIFIABLE. I’M SORRY.

So….you go ahead and keep believing whatever you want.

Please, stop bothering me about pointless stuff no one looks at. I already wasted time going through this shit when I should have been getting a transfer ready. Also, if you just picked up, we could have talked for a few minutes, but instead, I have to sit here and write to you, after you pledge your disgust for me.

Okay, I hope you can just accept my views for now. I don’t think I really attacked you here.

Also, try real hard ,and pretend you don’t think my heart is made of maggots and crushed glass for a second. I was wondering how you, me ,and/or <The Brother> might do in a debate against some collegiate university teams. So, I looked up on youtube, Rutgers, Ramapo, UPenn ,and the word, debate. Still watching some. They’re absurd. If you want to laugh, watch these kids try to appear, to have opinions. They should be ashamed of themselves. I would jump in any of these. There’s one on health care you would dominate in too. Okay, back to my heart of maggots and crushed glass.

Bye for now, short from now, a long time from now, or forever.

Okay, I could relax now. :::knees bend back into themselves, fingers grow long and sharp, bottom teeth protrude, ears flop down,nose gets red & wet, eyes turn black::::

….ahh, back to normal.

---

January 21st 2010

Email from me

You wrote: “I’ll get rid of the ones you’ve targeted.”  I’d hoped to sever any remaining ties between us so interactions like THIS don’t happen.

The photos in the stickyfriends set (aside from the spiderweb) were taken by me.  The term “stickyfriends” doesn’t MEAN anything as a credit anymore.  The stickyfriends is dead.  When the pictures weren’t removed, I’d put my name as a credit in the comments under every image I was a part of.  All the comments are now gone, but some of the pictures remain. 

The lipstick scarf image was indeed a credit mistake.  I confused it with a different image.

…..

Let me make this clear.  I don’t want to have a conversation with you.  Nor cupcakes.  Nor anything.

I want this done.  Over.  That comment on my blog, the one you didn’t mean?  It’s there to remind me.  That’s the response I received when I told you it finally occured to me that because of your actions I had to get tested for STDs.  That quote is just one in a whole list of times you’d put me down and accused and inferred that i possess some immoral or degenerative sexual nature.  All while I’ve been nothing but responsible and devoted and monogamous, and you haven’t.

The following phone conversation shortly after, in which you didn’t feel I deserved a clear answer about whether or not you’d had sex with other women, while we’d been having SEX WITHOUT A CONDOM FOR YEARS? 

(( In the past few months, you’ve told/written me that I’m a waste of your time, that I’m the most ungrateful person you’ve ever known, that you don’t like me, that I’m stupid, that I’ve lied all along, that I’ve never cared, that there’s nothing to me beyond the internet…   But THAT?  ))

That day, those two comments, they became the inexcusable straw that broke the camel’s back.

I don’t want to be associated with you.  Erase me from your life.

---

January 25th 2010

Email from me

It seems you’ve decided go back on your offer to remove the pictures I pointed out to you.

I should not be surprised.

---

January 25th 2010

email from Stefan

No, you shouldn’t be suprised. I didn’t “go back” on anything. I just, didn’t get to it. I’m setting up for a client now ,so…I’m already writing this and gonna be scrambling.

You can’t post a private message I sent to you ,to the public,and let nobodies talk shit about me(and still be their friend). Then, nearly order me to take down something posted for the public to begin with. You don’t get to call those sort of shots. Plus, you know, that’s not fair. So, no…i’ll leave up whatever I choose. I don’t look at my flickr more than once a week anyway, and others…even less. The views count proves that. Please, stop bothering me with that.

You’ve chosen to make your own story…fine.

I’m glad you got your sense of sexuality, and self back. I’m actually glad to read anything that indicates you’re in a good mood,or out of bed.

Whenever my name is googled, your name comes up on some other blogs you speak of me on. I don’t care. I don’t wipe away everything you’ve done ,because you haven’t followed my every thought and expectation. Stop looking at my pictures. That’s the first step to not seeing them. You can’t be an online dictator. Don’t look at, what you don’t want to see. That was your unbridled belief you’ve always held.

I’m glad you’re feeling liberated. I…care about you,and like that you are feeling more…anything. I like…hearing/reading that. Always will. I could care about you just fine while you blame me as if I was some kind of shackle around your neck. I wasn’t. I’m nothing more or less than you or anyone else. Besides making it my passion to help you feel better as much as I possibly could,but…let’s sweep that mountain under the carpet. It’ll be our little secret. :wink wink: I can’t explain to you how fine I am with myself as well. Only difference is, you want me to feel bad. If you truly listened when I’ve exposed my life to you, you’d know…I have enough reasons to feel like shit daily,with little room for much else to infiltrate.

I miss you, I care for you, and I’m mature enough to know that’s resolutely true. I also can deal with things most couldn’t hear about. So, I…am not in tears.

I know,…you hate me, I’m a joke, you don’t need me, you’ve spread new rainbow wings. Take on the world. I’ll be HAPPY, to see you do it.

Anyway, I’ve been lucky enough to have lots of work, that’s been lucrative, and easy. So, time to set up.

Please stop with the emails,and the attitude. It’s lame, ineffective, and unnecessary. Just, stop looking, that’s what I do…and it’s not hard. You shouldn’t spend a second wasting your time looking at me. I’m a worthless wretch.

I’m glad you’re feeling better. That makes me, feel a little better. In contrast to your best efforts to make me feel worse. I couldn’t be bitter if I tried. That’s the proof.

There never was a conspiracy. I really do care about you. As a person,who also, struggles through things most don’t see, understand, or believe. :gasp: Now, be nice…or stop bothering me. You don’t need me to breathe, I don’t need you to pump my heart. That doesn’t mean you have to be angry.

Stop making me respond to these things. It’s just gonna be the same thing every time.

Okay, back to my life now.

Bye.

---

January 25th 2010

Email from me

No, you shouldn’t be suprised. I didn’t “go back” on anything.

Really?  Because two emails ago, (and long AFTER you’d seen my blog quote) you wrote this:

… remind me what I should erase when you see something, then…i’ll erase it. 

Whenever my name is googled, your name comes up on some other blogs you speak of me on. I don’t care. 

That isn’t true whatsoever.  Your name comes up once connected to me, from my old site bio.  That is IT. 

However, when your name is googled what DOES come up is a number of different places your flickr photographs are mentioned.  As I said, most of those pictures on that blog review were collaborative.   “The Sticky Friends” or “Team Sticky” doesn’t mean anything anymore.   Neither “The Sticky Friends” nor me by name were credited in the review, and you didn’t think to correct her.  Therefore, I’d asked that they be removed from public viewing to prevent something similar happening in the future. 

Fine, don’t.  Continue to get sole credit.
 

Just, stop looking, that’s what I do…and it’s not hard.

Really?  You don’t look?  Then why tell me “I’m glad you got your sense of sexuality, and self back.”?  Where did that information come from?

I miss you, I care for you, and I’m mature enough to know that’s resolutely true.    

You must have forgotten about the many things you’ve said and written to me that state exactly the opposite.  How many times you’ve told me how you don’t care about me at all anymore, how I’ve been a waste of your time, how stupid I am.  How many times you’ve sworn that you really mean it. 

Which am I to believe is real?

I no longer trust a single word that comes out of your mouth, or typed by your hand.

I’d never dreamt of saying/writing the sorts of cruel things to you that you’ve said/written to me.  You pat yourself on the back for all the good things you’ve done for me, as though they cancel out the everything else.

You made me feel like shit about myself, my sexual outlook, and my past.  You made me feel ashamed for who I am. 

It didn’t have to end this way.  It could have just been over and bittersweet.  But your words these past few months killed the kindness in me; your actions have retroactively changed my whole perspective on our time together. 

Someone who really cares about me would not put down and demean me as you have.

---

January 26th 2010

Email from Stefan

Of course you’re not going to pick up,so, now I have to write you again.

Sole credit, amazing. I give two people credit. The Sticky Friends means nothing to ,you. You, threw away our friendship, remember? You admitted that. Misconceptions, that you’re sorry. All that stuff. Then went on to take a more passive-agressive slandering approach that’s the sole reason that things are the way they are now. I’m not making this up,and even your story telling skills can’t make me,or anyone else, believe otherwise. It means nothing to you. You. Not me. You.

Check your stat counters Rachael. I don’t look. It’s not a lie, or a secret scam angle of anything. Do you understand, you emailed me today, and I was updated and seen on your facebook fan page that you posted something. So, I checked it. Christ. Make that one whatever you want. Besides, I was happy to read it. Still am. Sorry.

I do indeed remember what I’ve said to you. I also, being the adult out of the two of us, can admit where I spoke horribly, for….a fuckin reason. I wonder if you think my harsh words sprang from thin air. Do you even know, where they came from. Did you ever, try to understand, where they may have came from. Yes. You did, when you thought that bittersweet, mutual misconceptions route was the way to go. Amazing how right, you can think you are, in a two sided issue. You couldn’t care, of any issues other than your own.

You don’t have to believe a word I say. You’d be insane to think someone would go out of their way, to tell you,many times, they are sorry for what they said, and keep resurfacing what they’ve done for you, if they, didn’t care. Do you think I believe you’d shower me with gifts,if you believed me?

I’m telling you the truth. The truth doesn’t need to be believed. I guess that’s what makes it as concrete as it is. I don’t care what kind of bittersweet break you think would have worked better. It doesn’t matter how you see a second of our time, with your retroactive space goggles. It doesn’t change anything. You don’t have the room, to say how any of this would go better. However, you do seem to think you are pardoned from anything and everything you’ve written to me. You sent me a letter that says, you care about me more, than I do you. You don’t understand the affect that had on me, nor do you care. That changed everything for me.

You can write novels of your one way street, immune to objective thinking. That’s fine. Not good, but fine. I guess.

I think,do,say,act on,create,and live however I want. I need no ones approval. I seek no consensus. What stupid reason would I have for saying I’m sorry,and think you are not being fair to my misconceptions,unless it truly bothered me,and unless I actually care about the issue. What would be the point? What kind of paranoid masochist would you be, to think, someone who doesn’t care about you, would keep saying, “sorry, please believe me”? I mean, make sense of that for me. Please. At least, try to come up with an explanation. At this point, I’m curious to see if you could do it.

Don’t think I’m not pissed and hurt, or don’t care about it, but remember…I asked if I could come to see you so I could apologize in person. What, and how…could you not believe that? Have you gone to the last point of madness, or just desperate to believe I’m a monster, on a mission to psychologically mess with you to fulfill a fetish? Sigh, exhausting. Seriously. You don’t believe, much of what you write. I know you don’t. You’re not that nonsensical.

…and here i am writing again, because you won’t pick up.

Ready for the default conclusion; I miss you, I care about you, I feel I’ve done right by you. I think you’re under many, fallacies. Thus, I live and breathe in the company of others,or not. My own mental status is secondary to being a decent person. Always has been, probably, always will be.

Here’s the additive. I don’t need you,or anyone to believe what I know is true. However, it is psychotic, for you to believe otherwise. For the aforementioned reasons.

My feelings are fixed.

---

January 26th 2010

Email from me

Then went on to take a more passive-agressive slandering approach that’s the sole reason that things are the way they are now.

No.  That is not WHY things are the way there are now.  I was done with you the moment I read your words that recommended I go “shack up” with my “fans”.  The reason things are the way they are now is because you WROTE those words.  Not because I posted them to my blog.

You’ve been having sex with me for YEARS without a condom, while sleeping with other women.  I don’t care if it’s 2 or 200.  I deserve to be aware if something else is going on.  Your behavior shows how little respect you have for me, and how little you care for my well being.  To refuse to tell me when directly asked, and respond with hostility because you don’t like having to answer questions is childish and selfish.

Ready for the default conclusion;    I miss you, I care about you, I feel I’ve done right by you. I think you’re under many, fallacies.  Thus, I live and breathe in the company of others,or not. My own mental status is secondary to being a decent person. Always has been, probably, always will be. 

Here’s the additive.    I don’t need you,or anyone to believe what I know is true. However, it is psychotic, for you to believe otherwise.  For the aforementioned reasons. 

My feelings are fixed.

Your feelings are fixed?  That’s probably one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read.

Here’s just a small smattering of YOUR WORDS from the past 4 months.  This is not, by any means, a complete collection.  Just a few key phrases that stood out as I scanned through.  No, they aren’t in context, that’s true, but there’s little to misinterpret:

____________________________

Well…..let me tell you what I had to swallow for the duration of our friendship that you loved so much when you had so little….
…..all it takes to see every single inch of your naked body….and know every detail of your personal,mental,ontological, and physical problems…..(which covers everything there is to know)……is to own a computer.  Everything you’ve shared with me…..is available for all, and has always been with a random neon sign to the public pointing out that fact. That….is the ONLY thing….you have continuously done…since i’ve known you. 
____________________________

I could make calls when i’m social ,like a big boy.   I forgot though, you’re already shopping.
____________________________

You really can’t tell me I know more of you than anyone else that you know.
So….you smile.  Smile big and proud.
____________________________

You want to get away from me, and you’ll go anywhere….to anyone…..and probably do anything……to do it.
____________________________

You DON’T respect ANYTHING I’ve said, done, or believe to be meaningful.   …..and clearly never will.      I’ve wasted my time. 
____________________________

so, I felt all the guilt you gave me, was not justified…..and that you in fact….HAVE been lying through your teeth through most of our relationship.
____________________________

Have I heard you name attached to narcissism by multiple people, yes…..yes I have. 
____________________________

You just a lame, liar.    I feel…..nothing but ick towards you.    Even the background care, is just about gone.    To the point where, it just, has no affect on me.   You too stupid, and inexperienced at this point to believe you can assess anything anymore past your internet connection.
____________________________

…I could give less than a fuck, what you think of anything I do now.
____________________________

You are now in the history books as the most unappreciative person I’ll ever know.
____________________________

You don’t like me…..I certainly don’t like you.    I’m no longer someone you know. 
____________________________

Again, I really…..don’t like you.    I promise. 
____________________________

The only trait you’ll keep is the bitterness that permeates out of you now. Bitterness towards everyone who doesn’t give you there full attention and sympathy at all times. 
____________________________

You’re not as smart as you think, and you don’t illuminate anything for me.
____________________________

Look what you’ve fuckin done to us.    Look what you’ve fuckin done.    You’re so stupid.
____________________________

Clearly, these are the words from someone who really cares about me; who’s feelings are fixed.  Oh, but you have an explanation for all these mean spirited words, right? 

You sent me a letter that says, you care about me more, than I do you.   You don’t understand the affect that had on me, nor do you care. That changed everything for me.

Of course.  That explains and justifies everything.  And it’s not as though you’ve ever said something like that to ME, right?

____________________________

Take it all……but don’t pretend you care that much…..when literally everyone you know……could see that you don’t.
____________________________

I am nearly sure you don’t care for me as much as you think.
____________________________

You COULDN’T possibly…..care for me the way you claim. 
____________________________

I invite you to go through and read the back and forth of our correspondences from the end of October on.  It’s rather illuminating.

However, you do seem to think you are pardoned from anything and everything you’ve written to me.

Nope. not at all.  Go ahead.  Read through it all. 

You jumped to crazy legnths accusing me of dismissing your entire life, when I said that having me as the person you talk to every morning, email every day, the person you know who will always be there for you, being like a girlfriend in just about every way a person uses a girlfriend…  while sleeping with other women….  well, it kind of is having your cake and eating it too.  Having that kind of partnership and emotional devotion is the pay off for being monogamous with someone. 

I got pages of anger about how terrible your life has been in response, and how I don’t care.  How offensive it was for me to use that phrase!  As though you’d not told me that your friends had accused you of EXACTLY THAT in the past with regards to how you deal with women.

Whatever.

It’s all backwards. 

Everything you say is a mirror game.

---

January 27th 2010

Email from Stefan

You didn’t respond to my email. You are the quote mining scourge of communication. You can’t differentiate statements, birthed from nothing, from replies, born of raw emotion…misguided or not. You are afraid to say the most obvious thing.

You read, about five times now…my apology,and take it as nothing, accept it as nothing, and continue to slip into a ass backwards world where people ask for your forgiveness because it’s a fun thing to do, or something. Yet, tell me…that reading, “my feelings are fixed”, is the most ridiculous thing you ever read. Hmm…okay. Of course it’s ridiculous to someone who only hears what they want, and makes up stories to justify what they choose not to. Again, you didn’t respond to my email. I asked questions. You didn’t answer them. You just cherry picked quotes, (as if I couldn’t do the same)…and dodged,every single question.

Yes, it’s a mirror game. Just you & your reflection,having conversations. I’m just here to have my questions ignored, my repetitive apologies ignored, and my right to the privacy I grant everyone else, ignored. You still believe lies. You still can’t answer any questions I have. You’re still not interested in anything other than your own side. You brain edits reality in real time. As it always was when you copied and pasted your emails gripes from ex’s and family to me. I’m glad to be on the conveyor belt in your factory. Feels so empowering to be a tiny wind up tin toy parody of myself. Rachael’s big toy factory. That’s kind of what I feel like it is right now. I probably won’t feel that way for long, but as of right now..yes. That’s what I feel. Or, am I wrong and not allowed to be mad? Or, deserve to be bashed for it.

Mirror game, shut up Rachael. Please. It’s stupid to believe that. There is no conspiracy, no mind games, mirror games, reindeer games, board games, or any other kind of games. When will you stop ignoring things,and let yourself see that.

I drink coffee, draw, read, paint, write gibberish, and lend someone money,(these days my parents) every week. That’s the only guaranteed game I’m known to play daily. You think I’m trying to throw things back at you, or, “flip the blame”even still? No. Clearly I’m doing the exact opposite. Telling you what I’m sorry about saying,trying to hope you’ll understand where it could have come from, admitting what I think was wrong, and unjustifiable on my part,telling you what I think I still am fixed on, and having you ignore it…all the while, watching you pretend I’m not, and then insulting me for it. Again, you didn’t answer anything I asked, even though I’m putting in the time to respond. Again, another sure-fire way for you to see I don’t care, right? Or, do think my automated response bot is on duty, to scheeeemingly make the innocent Rachael believe somebody cares. While I’m having parties and cackling away with wine and money piles?

You just, want…to believe bullshit.

I care about you, you ignored my email. At least do me the the nominal respect of answering me when I write you back.

Mirror game. Please. I said I care about you and I’m sorry. Let me elaborate on the “self-editing brain” theory. I’m not trying to insult you. I just think your anger is blinding you a bit. You can’t use words,(mine) to prove anything. If you keep ignoring words I’m writing over and over now. That is the definition, of cherry picking words. You’ll use those, ignore those, take some of these. It’s not a textual salad bar. You want to be mad, you want, to be angered and hate me.

You definitely have a wonderful fail-safe mechanism to ensure this hatred. Though, it has one giant flaw in it. That you can’t quite see. That tells me, you just want it this way. Let me say this clearly…I am not carving these opinions in stone. I just don’t know how to feel right now. So, that’s what I am left to stamp it as. I know it’s tough to believe there a few wriggling worms of emotion inside this frigid flesh drapery I have over my shiny wet purple demon skin to fool the rest of the humans, but anyway, always a pleasure to respond. You’re wearing me thin though. Maybe you like the redundancy.

I’ll check this email account in another few days , or…sometime to see if you bothered.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some wine & money piles to attend to. :::automated reply bot unhinges from keyboard and starts pouring wine for guests:::

---

January 28th 2010

Email from me

I said I care about you and I’m sorry.

You’ve said a lot of things.  Which to beleive?

I can no longer pay any mind to whether or not you care, or how you feel about anything.

I cannot continue to put any faith in your words, positive or negative.  Your apology means nothing.

You won’t take down those photographs?  Fine. 

Fin.

---

January 31st 2010

Email from Stefan

You won’t take down your bullshit posts about me. (I assume you didn’t) Fine.   (see, I could say it too…imagine that. Someone other than you, having a problem with something. Shocking huh?)

My apology means lots. Just, not to you. Have you not read anything I’ve done you the respect in replying to? I told you, you can’t say it means nothing. It’s not about you. You can’t erase years of substantial incontrovertible niceties. There is no discussion or inquiry to your take on it. It is real. It will never be a fairytale. It’s real. This is why, you…are going to explode from your own ego one day. You think your emails can change history to cater to your take on any given thing. I didn’t ask you to pay mind to my apologies. I said, how could you pay mind to anything? Or, one thing over another? Furthermore, how you could,(for the thousandth time) think I want, to be talking about this, like it’s recreation for me.

I have said a lot of things. 

You don’t need to pay mind to whether I care or not. You know enough facts to not be dumb enough to think there was a conspiracy to make you believe you were cared about. If that is what you settle on in your thoughts. Go to the nearest ER and demand a lobotomy.

You didn’t need “faith” to see what I did for you.  You’ll never believe that,and if you do now…in time you’ll get tired of denial.  What I gave you was as tangible as the keyboard you hide behind.  You think your indifferent, undecided, negative phrases could take any of that away. It will never, ever…budge it.  Your words, can’t change events. Nothing, for eternity, will ever change what I’ve done…for anyone. When will you be a realist.  Hate me if you want. Go right ahead,but don’t pretend,deny,or change the world of generosity and warmth I gave to you. Or, should I say again, there is nothing you could say to change that.

“Faith”. That’s funny. Desperate to encourage your subterfuge, but funny.  You can hate me, question everything, or just throw it all to the wind and say, “eh, i’m done with it all”…but you can’t change events, or their meaning. You HAVE, to be saying that you think it was all an effort to trick you. This would be the definition of a ego-driven paranoid schizophrenic. 

You don’t get it. You obviously will never get it. You have power over nothing that concerns me. You get no online rights to unilaterally slander my name, and request that I take down harmless entertainment because it, was a collaborated effort. You can cry about that all you want. Or huff & puff in a self righteous power trip. Neither will accomplish a thing. 

You can’t deny everything forever to support your story, and continue to think everything was pretend from my side. You can’t convince me that the money I was putting aside for us as long as I remember(even up to your birthday), which I didn’t touch even in times of financial trouble, for us to go to Europe. Was this imaginary money, for an imaginary trip, with an imaginary person?( you)  You think your, “I can’t take you seriously,so it all means nothing”, type of jargon could have any affect of the reality of that.  I laugh Rachael.  I laugh at those things you write.  I work hard so I could help people, and to show the heart I have, when someone deserves a part of it. That’s why I used(most),of that money to help my mom & brother/s out recently.  I also feel good I was able to do that.  It went to help someone I care about. It was all for us.  I wanted to give you the opportunity to do research on the healthcare industry and functions of it hands on…and, I wanted to be with you to support you and make sure you got taken seriously.  I may have to make some more now for even just me to go somewhere now.

I want to make something clear: I do care, but I don’t want your opinion on any of this. Whether you care, don’t care, believe me or not. I’m not asking for your feelings on it. I’m just telling you the facts. Not asking for opinions. 

You, could never…take away what I’ve done, and wanted and worked hard to do.  Now, it’s moved on. People who encourage me, will get my attention, and get help if I could lend a hand. 

Your reply, meant nothing. Not because I don’t care about it,or anything like that. Rather because, it doesn’t change anything. I told you, I know what I’ve done, and who I am.  I’ve been terrible at times of my life. I’ve also been more giving and selfless as most people on this planet would ever even consider being. 

You know me enough to know, I don’t need your faith. Or anyone’s. I’d like for you to believe me, but Rachael…I don’t, and will never need for you to.

“Your apology means nothing”.     Those are just four typed words Rachael.   Words that don’t hurt me.  Words that can’t change the fact that I’m drinking Dr. Pepper right now, the fact that I gave you all I could for years out of the kindness of me, or that I’ve worked hard to try and take you away to find answers to a better life.    “Your apology means nothing”.   Just four typed words Rachael.  They change…nothing. You deserved good, so I gave you good.  People that deserve it, will get it.  I don’t need praise or denial from anyone.  So much you never knew, or learned of me.   “Faith”, that word that proves that. 

One day, maybe…you’ll wake up and join the ranks of what you’ve dismissed.   Until then, don’t let yourself believe that I’m interested in whether or not you, or anyone believes me, if they’re only interested in what makes sense, to them.  It doesn’t matter what I care about. That doesn’t change anything either.

Enjoy your life.   Continue to hate and misunderstand me, and I’ll hopefully be more…fine with that daily.  I’ll continue to wonder how your health is and know the rare roll I played in concern,belief, and the intentions I had in wanting to help you, when I think of you.

You’re as much of a ghost to me as I am to you as far as how much we want to see or hear from each other. I’m sure you’re like me in how infrequent I think of you anymore.

Go ahead. Write one lazy word of mumbling indifference or a novel of discredit.    Or, do..what I prefer at this point…and write nothing. 

If you really have no feelings in any of this…please…(I’m tired of writing this stuff)…don’t reply. 

I’ll check this in a few days or next time I think to.  I’m gonna draw and eat pound cake.

I posted something on my tumblr about Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

---

January 1st 2010

email from Stefan

Call me.  I really hope, that shit isn’t about me.   I reeeeeally hope it isn’t.    I hope you, of all people….who have no answers for anything you go through,are not diagnosing me. Especially, not diagnosing me in the most unflattering, incorrect, sickeningly, bitter way as to say the root of MY problems…..is that I simply have a fat head.    If you are saying that, you aren’t just belittling me, but you are belittling me on crack.  You are injecting steroids…..in the belittling. You are crossing lines that I can’t even begin to explain. Even more especially prior to giving a laundry list of your ailments.   That you claim are perfectly legit, and that I have given you my support on all the way through.  Though, I….have a……ego.    That’s my ailment.   Right?

That so…..better not be about me.    If Rachael Fox is going to illegitimately diagnose Stefan Decarlo on her twitter…….he is going to have to believe that every last penny giving and mile driven, are probably just…..symptoms?   Or….. disregarded niceties?   

How can you say you suffer from A to Z, and just……look at me and say….no…him, he…no…that’s not real problems….he just suffers from narcissism…….sigh. 

Don’t let it be true.    Please call me and tell me i’m wrong.    That….that wasn’t written about me.

Especially not after I already told you I felt you belittled my personal issues already.  This would not……be good.  I couldn’t begin to explain the reality of my anger.   Please set my mind at ease, and tell me that has NOTHING, to do with me, and I’m just between depression and paranoia. Or, do you not believe those things can be felt by anyone other than you either.   I never thought you could say such shit about me.   I hope to goodness…..it’s not….about me.   

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narcissism |ˈnärsəˌsizəm|
noun
excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one’s physical appearance.

• Psychology extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.
  See note at egotism .

tell me…..you’re not insulting me this much. At point of knowing me, did you get any of these impressions. SELFLESS maybe….selfish….no. I love myself? I love my looks? I love what I’ve done to my whole fuckin life? I love being a fuckin loser drug addict constantly being haunted by the ghosts of my mistakes? Yeah, I’m a fuckin super hero.

I’ve never heard you talk of your issues and pointed to your head. Never. I wonder what you’d feel if I told you I honestly feel your a liar and suffer form nothing. Just a normal case of hypochondria mixed with a few visible ailments. You’d…..be torn up by that.

I can’;t believe you call me a narcissist. It’s…..the single most insulting thing to dub me. Especially at a time when I particularly hate myself. Read that fuckin definition. Erotic interest in myself? Selfishness? Grandiose view of my own talents? I’m gonna fuckin vomit.

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January 1st 2020

email from me

First of all…  I think perhaps you didn’t read the description of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder beyond the title.  The definition you’ve just quoted is from a dictionary, and has nothing to do with what the Narcissistic Personality Disorder consists of.  The clinical term “narcissicist” is in reference to the Greek mythological character, not the way the word is used in common vernacular. 

My blog post clearly states that using the term “narcissistic” is misleading, because the disorder it comes from a severe insecurity and/or self hatred of oneself, not from a high opinion of oneself.  The disorder has to do with the afflicted individual relying on the perception that others have of him/her for a preferred self-image.  It is the opposite of self love.  It is a constant struggle to overcome the immense and overpowering self hatred that one has for oneself, by instilling in others a favorable view, a kinder version of oneself.  The “narcissist” prefers the view that others have of him/her than his own, and so strives to control and keep the opinion of others pristine.  S/he might present a grandiose view of his/her talents to others and hope it is fully believed….   but in reality the “narcissist’s” self-image and opinion is far more harsh and grim than anyone would ever possibly have for him/her.

If you actually paid attention to the content of my post you might have realised that.  Do you not realise the dark irony of you reading a blog post about narcissism, and your assumption that it’s all about you?

Secondly….  no.  I am not diagnosing you.  I started researching the disorder the other evening when I was thinking of people who are not you, and for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you whatsoever.  Do you have some of the elements of the personality described?  Yes.  Yes you do.  Does that mean I’m accusing you of having NPD?  No.  No it does not.

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January 3rd 2010

email from Stefan

Save the dark irony routine. You are by far the last person on the planet that should accuse anyone of it. Though, I see you blew your own mind with thinking you’re pointing that out. That is as lame as you telling me you know I posted the meaning like it wasn’t intended. Also, I did read the whole thing, and am plenty aware of the greek origin. Vernacular is always….common.

If I paid attention? You mean….read it. Which I did. I always read your posts……as you indeed, unlike myself, post every single thing wrong with you, over and over….for the world to read, and even assume it’s that important to the people you know, to ask for money.

Do I do that, no….no I do not. Have I heard you name attached to narcissism by multiple people, yes…..yes I have.

Is that dark irony? Or, did you coin that line? You’ve posted tons of unflattering shit about me. Is it only logical,for me to think that would be about me. Don’t pawn this off on me like I’m being ironic……I’m being logical. Also, I’m pissed,and reactionary, but still asked…..don’t give me your unrealistic angle on it.

I know you think I don’t read, or can do much else. I know it pains you to believe I’m…..:gasp:….slightly intelligent. Though, it still hurts when you insult that crumb of logic I cling to.

You just a lame, liar. I feel…..nothing but ick towards you. Even the background care, is just about gone. To the point where, it just, has no affect on me. You too stupid, and inexperienced at this point to believe you can assess anything anymore past your internet connection.

You could have at least sent me something the other night in response. This response as well…….doesn’t prove much more than you have an ironic ego yourself, and again….that you don’t care about my feelings what so ever. Anyone and everyone would see exactly why I would assume that was about me if this was presented in front of a group.I’ve never ignored you. That’s the real difference it all comes down to.

You’re not as smart as you think, and you don’t illuminate anything for me. You forget, that I…..DON’T share with the world everything I know as you do…..include what I research, read , and expose myself to.I don’t need or crave accolades. I only wanted and enjoyed them from you, but I could give less than a fuck, what you think of anything I do now.

Good, you keep your assertive email attitudes. Don’t ever apologize. Don’t ever tell me you could objectively understand why I could be angry, or question things like we live in some alternate universe you can’t POSSIBLY understand. You wear disingenuous better than anyone I’ve ever seen. Playing dumb is dried up.

The only trait you’ll keep is the bitterness that permeates out of you now. Bitterness towards everyone who doesn’t give you there full attention and sympathy at all times. I put in my work. Try to question or challenge that. I fuckin’ dare you. I will drive right to your aunt’s house and tell you what’s what, if want to ever demean that again. When you find someone who exceeds my genuine efforts, give them a fuckin’ trophy.

You are now in the history books as the most unappreciative person I’ll ever know. Somehow, without me ever talking about it…..other people we know mutually, and otherwise, see this clearly as well. Though……I’m sure they’re all wrong.

You don’t like me…..I certainly don’t like you. I’m no longer someone you know. If you’d like to hear that on the phone ,call me…..and if in person….I’ll come right over.

You can go complain to your next confidant about how evil I was now.

Again, I really…..don’t like you. I promise.

---

Look what you’ve fuckin done to us. Look what you’ve fuckin done. You’re so stupid.

---

January 4th 2010

email from me

I wrote to you last week, and told you that my emotions were the same, that time hadn’t changed things, that it was great to see you but I couldn’t continue with our relationship while you were possibly with other women and while I needed things you weren’t able to offer.  the end.  no blame. 

I already said goodbye.

I didn’t respond to your text message on NYE.  You read my blog and decided I was slagging your name when I was not, wrote and accused me of doing so, insulted and debased me based on your assumptions, and grew angry that I didn’t immediately respond. 

No, it IS NOT about you.  No, you ARE NOT the impetus for my researching the traits of NPD.  Yet, from you I still receive nothing but bile and hatred and accusation.

You are what is making yourself upset.

“You could have at least sent me something the other night in response.”

Yes, I could have.  But I didn’t.  I was being social during a weekend of world-wide celebration, and I didn’t want what happened on Christmas Eve to happen on NYE.

“You’ve posted tons of unflattering shit about me”

No I haven’t.  I don’t know what you are referring to.  That’s simply untrue.

“I know you think I don’t read, or can do much else.”

I don’t know why you are under this impression, and it’s entirely false.  I’ve always had a very high opinion of you, your abilities, your intellect.

“Have I heard you name attached to narcissism by multiple people, yes…..yes I have. “

“You just a lame, liar.”

“You too stupid, and inexperienced…”

“You’re not as smart as you think”

“You are now in the history books as the most unappreciative person I’ll ever know.”

“You don’t like me…..I certainly don’t like you.”

“I’m no longer someone you know.”

“You’re so stupid.”

You don’t like me, you think I’m stupid.  I’m a narcissist.  etc etc etc.  ok. 

No, I don’t need to hear you say it, so I won’t call.  No, I don’t need to SEE you say it, so I won’t jump at the opportunity to see you face to face.  If you have such a low opinion of me, then just walk away, and be glad to be free of me.  If you really mean these words, then there’s no reason to want to be near me in any way.

Through most of December, I had wanted to see you, to do this face to face, but that had been when the words were kind, when maybe we could kiss goodbye.  You blew me off.

Now you want to see me.  I don’t have the hard words you claim you want to hear me say in person.  But neither do I have any apologetic whimperings of forgiveness.

Expect from me what you have instructed me to expect from you: nothing. 

I don’t want any part of you or your life.  Not while it hurts my feelings that you are wanting to see other women.  Certainly not while I’m being name-called and denigrated and treated in such a manner.

No, I’m not going to tell people about “how evil” you were.  That doesn’t mean I’m glutton for punishment.  That doesn’t mean I have any desire whatsoever to see you right now, nor for the foreseeable future.

Goodbye.

---

January 4th 2010

email from Stefan

I didn’t say anything about WANTING, to see you.   I was saying I’m sick of your email attitudes that you never displayed a shred of in person the entire time i’ve known you.

Forgiveness?    Didn’t ask for it.  

You were being social, so you didn’t respond?   I was being social too.  I could make calls when i’m social ,like a big boy.   I forgot though, you’re already shopping.

You haven’t posted things that slander me?     Are you insane?   Yes, you are.   I have innumerable emails that are nothing but reminders how you care more than me, and drill into my head how I’m awful I am.    That’s a different story. I forgot if you don’t understand it, it’s not real.  I know I’m talking to a brick wall in most respects with you now.

You don’t get it Rachael.    Emails are it.  That’s the emphatic medium in which you talk to me.   Years of emails when talking could have done. Now, you have some lame notion of wanting to talk about things for the last few weeks, like i’m avoided you. That story will never be true to anyone but you. You’ll never see the reality of who you are when next to me, and how you are behind a keyboard.  I wanted to give you the opportunity to say what you have been saying in person.  I wasn’t in the mood to see you, let alone want to. All you do is shit on me.

So you go ahead and believe you were being social, and not responding because of that.  You haven’t returned all my texts tonight.  Why, were you being social?    Did you not pick up my call because you were being social?    Please stop lying and admit you don’t have courage to say the nicest things, or the rudest things, unless behind a keyboard.  You won’t though. You’ll be in denial about that forever. You being social doesn’t make any sense of why you wouldn’t pick up the phone tonight?    More lies. At least you admit you would not be able to say harsh words in person, even if you pawn it off on some, “i’m so tired of it all”, bullshit line. 

I texted, called, left voice mails…..I tried.   I didn’t want to end it all through email.   That is 100% your doing.    I’m not afraid of you. You’re afraid of me.   Don’t give me bullshit.   Don’t pretend your not.    I’m was willing to compromise. You’re not.  In so may ways, that’s been the story.

You’ve never said, “first of all”, to me in your life while looking at me.   Or anything close to it.    You never will.    Accept that I’m right to be pissed at your cowardly nature in that respect.  I deserve you looking at me while you say these things.  More severe disrespect.   None of shit means anything to you right now.   Just email drama.   Nobody on the planet could be that afraid, or say it all means nomething.  You have a lame excuse for everything.  

I’m really angry for one reason.  The effort, that you so clearly had stopped acknowledging.  That time & effort doesn’t go away.  I know what I’ve done, and given.   It’s very substantial to me.   It will be for a loooooong time.  It hurts.  The wasting of my time.    It’s humbling and annoying.   You…..no….i’ve given up on you already. You don’t even have basic respect for me. I now have to just be angry at my vain efforts. You, don’t know what that does to some one like me.  Maybe one day, you will.  I’m not crying. I’m pissed at the mistake I’ve made. You don’t make me feel like I did the right thing by you.  That’s why I, don’t like you at all now.

I wish I didn’t feel the way I do about you, I didn’t think I could.  I never thought I’d be in a world where Stefan Decarlo is completely turned off , and angered by Rachael Fox.   I guess I’m just colder than I,had even imagined.  I didn’t ask for it.  Or wish it.

I just hope the next person I give even a fraction of the time and effort I gave to you, will appreciate it and won’t make me regret it.  I honestly mean that from deep inside of me.

I only have shit to hash out with myself now.  You don’t have it in you ,and never did……to talk about anything in person without breaking down anyway.    I could never be convinced by anyone , that I’m afraid to confront anything.  I’ve scars of all walks to prove it. You could never take that from me, or ever saw it in me.  Again, someone will one day, maybe appreciate those parts of me.   Not that I really give a shit though.  I’m pretty worthless and void of, emotions.   I’m one of those people who actual put in work, and time, and drive to someone over and over to…..well…you know, all that useless bullshit I did for us. 

You’ve written “goodbye” to me a thousand times and then wrote again without any response from me. many times.   So, you didn’t need to say it.  You’ve shown me how words are theatrical……not literal.    I don’t care if you write back or not.    Not even a little.  I’m not being rude….I’m being honest.      I’m pissed I even read this.   More pissed I wrote back.    Whatever is in me that makes me care enough to even do this, and give in to your, “email or nothing”, way of conversing…..stills shocks me. 

… continued

March 13th

The cartooniness of the red fox brings Stefan back to this illustration I’d drawn this in 2010 representing Stefan and I, with the seam of the book between us. I’d reposted it to my art instagram in 2020.

Stefan combines them to draw a demon smiling hello. [IG]

March 15th

---

Everything green. Trinity knot easily seen. [IG]

---

One day prior, I posted two images that I’d drawn on cardboard boxes. [IG]

Again using the lines of shadow to replicate his bloodied face in his photograph. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

March 16th

and then to other photos of my living in Queens in 2004.

His drawing takes the green color from nature, the pig lighter and wooden items makes a wooden pig creature, drooling like the pond. [IG]

(We saw The Jesus Lizard play in Chicago.)

---

with these details

So he digitally edits his older painting of me, gives me long hair instead of pigtails, and dots of light for eyes. [IG]

March 19th

He combines the poses. [IG]

---

His portrait matches my sunset face, and he picks an appropriate song. [IG]

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The above sunset photo from July of 2009 brings him to our Chicago trip one week later. [flickr] Right before it all went wrong.

March 21st

Repost.

insensible, énouement • vertigo

---

---

“Enouement” is a French word, meaning the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turned out, but being unable to tell your past self.

---

---

I post a series of album covers as prizes to give away during my radio show for the annual fundraiser. [IG]

brings him back to flowers in a parking garage.

He photographs himself in the same pose, tinted to match the pale lavender flowers. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

March 22nd

His gripping hand. Demonic glyphs to match the icing. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

March 23rd

Marilyn in red, as he goes in for a kiss. [IG]

On my radio show of January 2022, I’d narrated the circumstances of my first kiss, which took place while listening to a track from the soundtrack to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stefan repeatedly plays a different romantic track from the film, one titled “Love Remembered”.

---

And so, he photographs himself with wings. The wings matching the red of Dracula and the pale blue of the New York City skyline. The song is again Love Remembered.

---

The arm pulled back in motion and the knife leads Stefan back to this yellow-skinned Ocean Grove shot with an arm in blur and a knife in the sink.

He combines them, uses the red exercise bands for blood, tints himself yellow like the murderer’s raincoat. [IG]

Eyes closed.
Remembering. Reenacting.

---

Bloody days in Ocean Grove and yellow leads him back here.

He combines the images, a dot of red for the mug. [IG]

Eyes closed. Remembering.

---

He recreates his basement pose, but with the fist and color/texture of Carlin’s background. [IG]

---

That same [WFMU] playlist of January 2022 also contains this gif from Batman: The Animated Series.

The orange color and face half in shadow brings him to this self portrait from 2005, before we met.

He copies the tones of my portrait, but photographs himself upright, and adds a hardly perceptible edit to his upper lip, raising it on the shadowed half, like Harvey Dent. [IG]

March 31st

Repost. [IG IG]

Desperately wishing to be seen and heard and befriended

by me.

---

which brings him back to my drawing of us again.

His face wearing the demon’s frown, the curve of the tail behind him. [IG]

He is his own demon. Hand in hand.
(Boadicea again.)

---

He positions himself with the same triangle of lines above his head. He has blurred out his photo – except he’s kept the neck glyph and his hair point in focus. I suspect this is thinking about H and needles. (Boadicea again.) [IG]

Eyes closed.
Remembering. Recreating.

---

lead him to this photo of me about to get a spinal tap November 2008, my hair in a diagonal straight line, with lines of molding beside me at the same angle as the album cover.

He adds a hardly perceptible straight line of black for the proper angle creating a halo of white from his hood. He duplicates the gritty texture of my photo, mouth the same. [IG]

---

Brings him to our trip to Chicago. Orange and yellow stripes, bright blue, and Stefan showing his midriff.

(Stefan trying to stay deadpan. This picture always makes me laugh)

He combines these shots into one, his gripping hand, the red and white tub in the back seat representing Mutual Friend. [IG]

April 4th

His black fingerless glove making the speech bubble shape, green and yellow in the background, and a stripe of blue matching the window’s glow behind me, like an eyepatch. [IG]

He has no words.
He’s struck silent.

April 6th

brings Stefan back to this Ocean Grove photo. (This is what happens when you try photographing boots for eBay with Stefan around.)

Remembering. Reenacting.

April 13th

Text to Stefan’s brother

April 14th

He is me in the passenger seat, his hoodie string like my tendrils of hair. [IG]

Remembering. Reenacting.

---

They are combined, but I am given an open singing mouth. [IG]

---

Combined, it inspires a fox wrapped around a tree, the eyes large and circular like the fox’s eyepatch, drawn on newspaper article about community support alluding to the non-profit nature of WFMU, and with thick block lettering, like that on my logo, the page tinted blue grey like the background of my logo. [IG]

April 15th

brings him to my photos from Queens 2004 with polkadots, next to each other. [flickr]

The polkadots duplicated, the tablecloth becomes mountainous terrain, the hand reaching. [IG]

April 17th

He revisits the span of time when I was scanning in items from when Colin died.

The pool hall ceiling lamps make the mountains, half naked me makes the babe (as it has before). The devil sticker makes the centaur theme, the accidental elf ears from his hair, the color of the TV glow, buck teeth from the Bugs Bunny shirt, the silly school-girl costume pose provides the hands. [IG]

---

Five days prior, I post photos with a friend in Vermont where I’d gone to witness the solar eclipse. She was the friend whose wedding I’d attended in September 2010. [IG]

He redraws an old cartoon; one that he originally posted in 2010 days after I’d attended her bachelorette party, and days before her wedding. He makes a new background with a full moon wearing my expression, tilted like the R2D2 on my friend’s shirt, and matching the color. The gravestones and clouds inspired by blurry background objects. [IG]

He’s still in terror of me.

---

The hoodie and the green tea jug to replicate the shapes of shadow and light. [IG]

April 19th

Our first autumn.

I don’t know why this one makes me cry so much.

---

Hands and mouths brings him back here.

My doubled reflection makes for the heavy facial lines. [IG]

April 21st

Joelmusicbox • Melody of Memories

April 26th

Text to Stefan

no response.

April 27th

A mashup of the life in 2004.

April 28th

May 1st

Lyrical reference to that time we were at his house, outside smoking at dawn, and I had fainted and had a seizure and he caught me in his arms and brought me inside. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

---

Being in his arms brings him back here.
Haunted hayride. Our last Halloween season together.

Trinity knot and Marilyn. This is painful to look at. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

---

My position on his back for the hayride leads him to my splayed childhood pose on New Years Eve.

The hose makes the antennae, the styrofoam the pattern on it’s back, the (coke?) mirror becomes the snail eyes with a line of white, the hearts match the color on my cheeks. [IG]

---

and then in turn to this old self portrait from 2005. [flickr]

He combines them, using the color of my drawing. [IG]

we would have been so glorious

May 7th

Repost. the wedding approaches.

---

Ocean Grove. Smoking at dawn.

[IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

May 8th

He combines my faces, with the metallic sheen of the jacket and wallpaper of the Chiller hotel. [IG]

My Chiller shoulders, faces combined, my ear, his ear.

---

---

Maera: The faithful dog of Icarius and his daughter Erigone. Ever loyal, Maera threw herself off a cliff rather than live without her master and mistress.

---

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He continues looking through my tagged facebook photos. He is brought back to this again from December 2019, with me in profile and eye makeup.

Which brings him back to these photos from March 2006 / September 2007

The green of the bar walls, the shape of the mirror (paired with the T-shirt of the man in the center) inspires the cartoon mouse head, the curtains for eyes, the blackened discoloration for the face border and smile, with mattress pattern for the hair and ears. The mirror discoloration also inspires the blood spit. [IG]

May 9th

Another tagged facebook picture: this tagged photo from Chiller 2022. [fb]

He combines me with a Gremlin, angled eyes, textured skin, portuding jaw. [IG]

May 13/14

My wearing a fox mask makes him emulate cats. He’s going to the very beginning of my flickr at this point, modeling after all three of my old kitten photos from 2003. [flickr]

Shadows of blinds, one eye lit, with a bar of shadow down the middle. [IG]

Another kitten. He is in half shadow. [IG]

These two photos atop each other in the flickr gallery. The pointy tail, even. [IG]

May 14th

Then to this facebook tagged photo from May 2017. My blonde wig and sexy dress [fb]

May 15th

My sunglasses becomes cartoon eyes. He finds hearts in my hair again. My belt buckle becomes a robot head. A background of trees and nature because of Vermont. [IG]

May 16th

Stefan feeling the fool with his brother. [IG]

May 17th

And then, a few months earlier, that time we hung out with his brother and friend on Christmas Eve 2008.

The jaw shortening of the scarf and the rare photographic evidence of a smiling Stefan. [IG]

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Which leads Stefan to this Sticky Friends photo.

The blue from my photo, the texture from Stefan’s sweater, the long curved fingers from the shadows of Stefan’s elbow wrinkles. [IG]

(I don’t have a digital copy of this Sticky Friends cupcake photo and forgot it existed. It was lost to the hard-drive theft of 2009, but evidently Stefan had a print out of it, which I received after his death, kept in perfect condition in his lock box since 2008.)

May 18th

Ocean Grove / Asbury Park canal. April 2009. [flickr]

The clouds part and make a path towards the bottom left of his photo. He has all my photos in his head, ever-ready to capture a reminder. [IG]

May 22nd

Three days prior, I am tagged in a photo by Jeff Moore. [fb]

which then leads him to this photo about to get our photobooth photos taken, October 2008.

He photographs the blur of the money-holding hands at nearly out of frame. The line of booth hitting his brow. Black and white and in profile like his own photobooth image. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

May 24th

Five days prior, I am tagged in this photo by Jeff Moore. [fb]

My hand position brings Stefan back to this Sticky photo.

When we took this photo in Ocean Grove, it was because there were renters in the main house and so we had only access to a bathtub in the back apartment. He called me into the bathroom because the water looked like milk and he thought it would photograph well.

His new photo uses the blue of my coat to now represent water. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

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Two days prior, I am tagged in this photo by Jeff Moore. I am seen in the window reflection. [fb]

This leads Stefan back to this photo from 2007.

He recreates the scene, the coffee cup nearly out of frame, the wooden chair, Marilyn to the right. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

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He posts himself with red tones in an American flag, the light from blinds hitting him. Hindi words blurred out. [IG]

May 27th

And this tagged facebook photo by Jeff Moore from January 2013 [fb]

The wall in the background of his photo is the same color as the sticky one. He frames the square in the background where the box is behind the man in the facebook photo. Marilyn partially highlighted and in focus in the foreground, like my face. [IG]

Remembering. Recreating.

May 31st

Still here.

brings him here. A stained ceiling, ornate bookshelf frame, wallpaper, diagonal heads.

I’d posted this illustration July 2017 to showcase one of my all-time favorite comic book panels. It’s the long awaited first kiss between two characters, a writer and an artist, in the graphic novel Berlin by Jason Lutes. I love that it gives them modest privacy. It makes the moment truly intimate.

His hand and outfit match my bloody knife pose, but he is looking upwards while I am looking down. His image matches my pale lavender hat in color. [IG]

If you straighten the comic panel and slide it to where his head is obscured, it lines up. It’s the exact same angle.

Stefan and I, we were very physically shy with each other. It sounds ridiculous, being that he and I were so often in front of a camera, so often scantily clad, so often sexual in our art. And yet, we had never before kissed without already having gotten in our pajamas and in bed, like shy gay teenagers at a sleepover. Only when we’d tired of watching nature documentaries or Columbo or Inland Empire or whathaveyou and finally lay with limbs entwined, hiding from the dawn and pretending to wait for sleep to descend, only then did we cautiously approach each other intimately. Every instance with the tentativeness of a first time. But living with my Aunt, and times turbulent between us, we’d not spent a night together in many months.

And so, about to walk out the front door of my Aunt’s house one night:

“Wait, c’mere...” I call.

I lead him to the hallway stairs, stand up on one step (because I’m eight inches shorter than he), reach for his shoulders and pull him near.

“Here.”

With a subtle hint of panic he asks, “What are you doing?”

My shoulders square with determination. “I’m going to kiss you. Standing up.”

He is visibly frightened. So am I.

It is sweet. It is significant.

It is our only kiss without our masks.

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And this tagged facebook photo taken by Jeff Moore in January of 2013. [fb] My black and white almost profile with a flip of hair curling upwards from the back of my hat, the background of shelving with a slight diagonal composition…

brings Stefan to this photo of me, house siding lining the background behind me and the doorway at a slight diagonal. Stefan took this in Ocean Grove with my camera, tweaked it to hard contrast, and digitally added an extra hair swirl.

So, hard contrast and digital hair curl is what he did to himself, mimicking the man’s downward gaze and pensive hands. [IG]

Eyes closed.
Recreating. Remembering.

June 5th

leads Stefan to 2009 photos I took in my Aunt’s backyard of baby fawns. [flickr]

So Stefan takes a video of a baby fawn with Marilyn. [IG]

June 7th

Three weeks before the wedding.

Now partially inked, colored, captioned.

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He combines them, the blue from my headphones, the shape of my hood and face mask. [IG]

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Repost.

Trinity knot partially transparent, all tattoos concealed except for the H. Captioned “Mood“. [IG]

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Months earlier, I post a film screening. [IG]

He draws a similarly toned pig, the hard shadows of the hand against the body, even adding some small blood splatter next to the pig’s foot. [IG]

.diedlonely • in the bleak midwinter

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Back to the facebook tagged photos. This shot by Jeff Moore [fb]

brings Stefan back to 2007. Our early Ocean Grove days with my elderly cat.

So Stefan combines them. But why the pink? [IG]

June 8th

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Tagged facebook photo. Chiller 2019. [fb]

He combines the images, wears a shirt with text like mine, but about plants (like truffles), with his gripping hand. [IG]

Eyes closed.
Remembering. Recreating.

June 19th

My silly pink hair, the dark of the radio studio, the circular jewelry. [IG]

(Boadicea again.)

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We were so afraid of each other. [IG]

insensible, énouement•vertigo

June 19th

Nine days before the wedding.

My video of Miss Kitka from the previous December, swaddled like a baby. [IG] He replicates the phone shape and color. [IG]

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Leads Stefan back to one of our earliest of Sticky Friends photos.

Wearing a brown shirt, the hint of frame around the edges of his photograph like the yellow border he put around this early Sticky Friends photo, his skin a bit more orange like the walls behind me. [IG]

(Boadicea again.)

June 25th

Four days before the wedding.

Antent • Are We Dreaming?

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Antent • Are We Dreaming?

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Repost, but now with white highlights. [IG]

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WFMU post marathon show. He combines them. [IG]

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June 27th

Two days before the wedding.

Remembering. Reenacting.

IHOP 2007. Bright, blownout, blurry.
He’s watching me move, as the lyrics suggest, and is silenced. [IG]

June 28th

After midnight the night before the wedding.

October 2008.

A track he uses often on his reels, but now it’s faster. Momentum. Trinity knot. [IG]

“Holding up in Brooklyn tonight“

I didn’t know he was already here. I’d have invited him over.

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During the wedding:

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Text to Mutual Friend

July 2nd

“The unhinged part of me carries the broken parts.
When the unhinged part is the Captain of the ship,
…you know you have a healthy crew” [IG]

Xori • warm nights slowed + reverb

July 6th

I go see a matinee.

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Text from the brother

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part Three:

RADIO SHOW

[ a compilation of the music Stefan posted to his instagram reels ]

PART FOUR:

EPILOGUE