[Editor's Note: Uuuugggod, i can't believe i still have this exercise in self-pity still up here, particularly since i've come to find only recently that people ACTUALLY READ THIS... but i'm far too self-indulgent to take it down, so i will merely say, this was the chronicle of the WORST YEAR OF MY LIFE. for current journal, surf here.]

Tuesday, May 9, 2000

I almost died today.  If there had been traffic coming the other direction, or closer behind me, I would have hit them when the sharp curve and wet streets made my car spin out and leave me stopped facing the other direction on the other side of the road.  I live my life with one food in the grave.  I’m not sure I like it that way, but I feel strangely nailed to this cross I am to bear and die on.  How do I undo these wounds and loosen this rope?

Friday, August 4, 2000

I’m sitting at a table at the Rickshaw watching Eric’s cig burn… Now he’s taken it away.  Aah… fresh air.  Well, sort of.  I wonder when it was that my life became so complicated and my mind so simple.

Last night I danced at Neighbours, as usual, but last night was not usual at all.  All because of one boy, and I only know his name.  When I first spotted him, Eric and I were standing outside, cooling off.  He was with a blond girl and a guy who looked sort of like Kris.

He is the skinniest little thing, no more than 5’9”, reddish-brown hair and a Germanic look to him, but he could also be Irish.  When we went back inside, I saw him again on the floor.  There was an aisle of space leading to him and I worked my way over towards him, forgetting about Eric momentarily.  At first I kept cool, but then I couldn’t help but look in his eyes.  I thought I would stare at him to get his attention, to see if he would look back at me, or look away like so many club kids do.  When he did look back, it was amazing.  I felt this profound sensation of peace fill me, and that everything was going to be all right… that there was nothing to be afraid of.  I couldn’t look away.  I didn’t want to look away.  When I looked at him, he was beautiful to me, and I felt as if I knew him and had known him forever.  He was dancing with me and looking at me.  This was real.  He was the only thing on my mind.  Then he turns around… we get closer and closer.  So I put my hand on his shoulder… he doesn’t flinch.  I move lower with my hands and he doesn’t flinch but gets closer until we’re bumping against each other with the beat.

My hands are on his waist, moving up and down on his stomach, and then he takes my hands in his, acknowledging everything I had felt up to then.  Or perhaps I had misread… Because then he starts to walk away saying he has to leave… I follow.  I have never followed someone off the dance floor before.  I ask his name.

“Jeff.”  Jeff is his name.
“I’m Jonathan.”
“Nice to meet you Jonathan.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“I have to go, my friend is dying... I’m sorry.  If I wasn’t seeing someone…”

If he wasn’t seeing someone…  I feel deflated, emptied.  How could he dance with me like that and be taken?  How could my West Side Story moment be lost like this?  And how could he be with someone that so obviously wasn’t pleasing him in the way he needed, because a happily married man doesn’t dance with a stranger the way we danced unless he’s either a slut, or not entirely happy.  And these are the thoughts I’m left with… confusion, disillusion, deflation.  How can I dance after this?  How can I even speak?  I saw him again as we walked out, early.  I couldn’t dance anymore.  And all I know is his name… Jeff…

Maybe I’ll see him again someday… If I do, I won’t be able to walk away quietly this time.

Sunday August 6, 2000

Dream Journal (The Stranger, warmth)

I was in a bed, in an apartment that was unfamiliar to me.  It was a typical looking Seattle apartment—a studio, but with a kitchen area across from me and I kept thinking how stupid it was there and how I wished they could move it to another wall.  It was cloudy.

Then my memory of the dream is more sketchy.  I’m in a bed, but further over, distanced from where I was in the room and looking back at my friend Eric, sitting in a recliner looking fatherly, with glasses on intently looking at a section of the newspaper—the want ads or something.

I’m in bed with a guy who is a stranger to me.  Eric is peering out of the corner of one eye at me.  I’m not sure, in the dream, whether I’m attracted to the guy or not, though my thoughts of him are that he is really sweet and nice.

I’m limp and listless, almost falling asleep in his arms and it occurs to me that I wonder if he’s drugged me, but he doesn’t seem to be taking advantage of me, just sort of cuddling and playing with me in the bed.  He’s trying to do something with my computer or television while I’m in this state.  Then at one point he puts me behind him, wrapped around him and I’m holding him.  He seems to be blond with longish hair.  His complexion is very pale.  I notice that he has tiny, delicate-looking hands.  At some point I fall over and my face is on his legs.  He’s wearing shorts.  I an see that he shaves his legs, because there is stubble, and three fresh drops of blood coming down, which I get on my forehead and then try to wipe off because I’m afraid he’ll be embarrassed.  Then we’re still sort of cuddling, and he  covers me with a blanket completely, then covers himself with the blanket, and I find myself wondering why I’m not suffocating under this blanket and can breathe cool air.  Then I wake up.

Monday, August 7, 2000

My stomach hurts.  It’s hurt for the past nine hours.  What’s wrong with me?  I feel out-of-control… I don’t want to go to Eric’s fucking party.  It has nothing to do with me.  Why should I have to go?  Because if I don’t he’ll never shut up about it.  And like it or not, he’s my only real friend here.  If I didn’t show he would be hurt.  But part of me wants to make a statement.  I want him to listen to me.  I want him to shut the fuck up just for once and LISTEN TO ME!  I want to hear the silence of my absence.  I don’t know why I want that exactly.  If I only understood myself, but I don’t…

If only I could explain myself.  Part of me wants to die.  I fantasize about death.  I fantasize about myself atop the Aurora Bridge ending my pathetic, useless little insignificant life.  Will it make sense?  Will it be like flying, if only just for a second?  My stomach is just killing me.  There is so much I want to say and not enough time or ink in this pen to say it all.  Why did I waste my time caring about such a lunatic?  I can’t really help him, and at best, I’m only a replacement for Forrest.  I can never live up to the standard or the expectations of what I must be.  Everything I do and say is wrong.  Everything about me is wrong.  Does he have any idea how much he’s hurting me?  No.  All he thinks about is himself.  I don’t know where he gets off thinking that he’s such a caring person.  He hasn’t shown it to me in months and months, and it was probably fake anyway…  If he really cared about me he wouldn’t lace his insults with “I love you.”  Fuck that.  I don’t care how many times you tell someone you love him or her.  When you treat them like shit, they start to feel like shit, and you should admit your own responsibility in that.

I want to get away.  I want to go away from all of this for a while.  I want to talk to someone who is nice, not bitchy.  I’m so tired of bitchy.  I don’t think I can take another word from his whiny little mouth.  But I have to go to this party.  There are obligations here and I am stuck.

Wednesday, August 9, 2000

I’m sitting on Eric’s porch with the blinds closed, waiting for the hair dye to work.  Sharon and Eric are in there doing… something.  God knows what.  Something for the silly party Friday.  I guess I’m okay with it now.  For some reason it all really frightened me, but I don’t care now.  It’s like, whatever… Eric and I had it out yesterday on the phone—aired out our dirty laundry and now things are okay again.  It’s amazing to me how we can go from screaming at each other at the top of our lungs to I love yous in less than an hour.  It occurred to me that our relationship was really just a power struggle.  Neither one of us has been able to achieve the dominant position that we prefer and so we fight like cats and dogs, but because for some reason we like and respect each other on another level, we stick together like glue.  I think we are like a binary star system.  The gravity of each pulls the other into an orbit that is basically just the two of us spinning around each other.  It’s crazy but somehow it’s lasted.  So anyway, now we’ve blown off steam and reached a state of calm again.  I no longer feel angry.  I think I got through to him just a little, though I don’t think it really stuck.  Maybe it eventually will, after he bitches at the wrong person and gets in trouble for it.  And as for me, knowing that he has said something positive about me to his boss make a world of difference.

Friday, August 18, 2000

So much to say, it’s been a week since my last entry and so much has happened, and most of that in the last 24 hours.

His name is Tony.  He sat down next to me at Neighbours at a quarter to three last night, almost closing time.  I was sitting in an area where I never sit, contemplating things I never do.  Then there he was.  And he started talking to me.  That was really cool.  I may have changed a great deal, but I am still shy around strangers, and no one is polite and conversational at Neighbours.  It’s almost the story I’ve always imagined and now it’s happened to me.

He has the most indescribably beautiful blue eyes.  And he was so sweet too…  I mentioned I was dehydrated and he went and bought me water.  How fucking cool is that?  No guy at the clubs has ever been so needlessly nice, or any guy I’ve met in Seattle for that matter.  So after that I already liked and trusted him.  Then I followed him home, or he followed me, I’m not sure which, but I guess the best way to characterize it is that it was mutual.  He seems so nice and truly a gentle and loving soul.  Am I really this lucky or am I just being naïve?

The poor boy lives in an almost bare apartment on the other side of the hill.  I brought him back to my place, decorated by my grandmother’s money.  Eric was on the phone the moment I walked in.  I made him feel awkward and depressed.  I wish that had not happened.  But I was really just so happy and taken aback by the surprising turn my evening had taken.

Tony and I talked for a while.  Then I couldn’t stand my smell any longer and took a shower.  He sat there the whole time I think.  I’m still not sure what to make of him at this point.  I offered him a Sobe and then a shower and he accepted.  Then I offered to let him stay because I just didn’t want him to leave.  He asked if he should sleep on the floor and I tell him “hell no.”  I mean, how rude would that be?  But he says he didn’t want to be presumptuous.  So we slept, or tried to.  He stared at me with those amazing eyes of his for the longest time.  Can he be for real?  We touched and eventually kissed.  He’s extremely sensual and not a bad kisser at all.  Wow.  Tony.  I get to see him tomorrow.  I’ve only known him a day and I think I love him. How cute is that?  Mr. Hard-ass goes soft over a boy.

Thursday, August 31, 2000

Tonight my ex-boyfriend and Tony met once again.  I don’t know exactly what to say about this one except the facts.  Eric got Tony way drunk.  Tony doesn’t handle his liquor well, especially when he hasn’t eaten much.  Though he was happy drunk at first, at some point that turned to a sort of catatonic state.  I wanted to dance.  Selfish me.  Eric took him home.  Should I have followed?  I checked on him at 3 after Neighbours closed.  He could barely make it to the door, and had to stop and rest.  Then he ran back to the apartment and threw up.  Poor Tony.  I care about him so much.  I hate to see him suffer.  He has no bed, no furniture, and no money.  I must help him somehow, of only to save my own soul from growing darkness.

Friday September 1, 2000

Today I got really drunk and broke down under the strain of Tony’s distance.  He doesn’t love me.  I see that now.  It hurts.  Oh well.

Thursday, September 7, 2000

So I gave him rent money.  My heart told me to do it.  I hope it was not a mistake.

Friday, September 8, 2000

So Tony was a flake, just like the others.  You’d think I’d be able to spot one by now, but I just seem to be incapable of being as bitter and jaded as I’d like to be.

Specifics?  There are so many…  In the car on the way home from Eric’s Wednesday he said basically that we’ve “just been friends” all this time.  Only thing is hunny, we fucked twice.  I mentioned that and he said “oh yeah.”  I don’t know what it is about him or what’s in his head, or what he feels inside, or what he thinks right before he falls asleep.  Obviously it isn’t me, but maybe it could be if I could help him get past that terrible, dark thing lurking just beneath the cheerful exterior.  Or maybe I’m just playing that game of thinking any boy who doesn’t want to be with me must be traumatized.  Maybe he’s just a young guy with a taste for cock and he can’t get past those youthful immaturities.  It’s time to hook up with the old guys.  If I could just find one…  It does hurt…  about Tony.  But I’m okay.  Really.  I’m fine.  No, I’m FINE!  I’m thankful it happened now instead of three months or a year from now.

New subject.  Today was Chicago and United Airlines Flight Attendant interview.  I thought there was so much promise, but the gossip afterwards got me down.  First of all, Chicago sucks!  Or at least, it looks like Houston, smells like Houston, and sweats like Houston.  Christ it was humid!  Anyway, the interview…  I didn’t much care for it.  The interviewers were less friendly than Larin.  They gave us one of those personality tests.  I was honest.  Good little me.  It all went find, but the word is, the poofy-haired girl got it and the rest of us were just there for fun.  I don’t know who to believe, my interviewer or the girl who said we all got taken for a ride, afterwards.  I did meet lots of cool peeps, whom I’ll never see again.  Sad.  L  I spent the most time talking to this girl Melissa.  She was cool.  I think we’d all make kick ass FAs.  It’s too bad we had to get excluded for nothing.  So what should I do now?  I don’t know.  I was so excited about maybe moving to San Francisco.  Now it’s back to Seattle and on with Amazon.com training.

Perhaps I should apply at Continental or Southwest.  Yes, perhaps.  Or try ticket agent instead of FA, since FA seems to be so competitive.  I can’t help but feel this is the right move for me now, where I am in my life, but I also want more education.  Can I do both?  Should I do both?  So many questions and uncertainties right now...  Well, I know I must get my financial house back in order.  That is priority one.  So I must stick out this thing at Amazon, no matter how horrible it is.  I can do it.  I know I can.  I just have to believe.

So I guess I’ll write some more since I’m stuck here on da plane with nothing better to do.

Let’s talk about Eric… the best friend I’ve ever had.  I’m going to get him liquor for his birthday.  I hope he appreciates it.  Even though we have so much tension, we always kiss and make up, which is important.  I know I’m not the easiest person in the world to befriend, and hey, neither is he, but there’s a lot to him, and the rewards of having him in my life have been tremendous.  He admitted to Tony that the reason for our strife two weeks ago was Eric’s shock and unpreparedness for the new, fully moved on Jonathan.  But that little wound healed, and he was totally there for me during the whole Tony saga.  I just had to explain that part of the reason I snapped at him during his dinner party was my growing insecurity and fear over what was so clearly developing with him.  I do love Tony.  I wish I could tell him, but I never can.  That’s one between just me and me.  But Eric I love as well, in a more important way, because we’ve bonded, and we BOTH care about each other.  I’m not saying I want to be with him though.  It’s not like that.  We’re not at all right for each other.  But I’m really thankful to have him in my life, and so lucky.  And I hope he sticks around.  I need to remind myself more of that—how lucky I am to have him, even though he annoys the hell out of me sometimes.

So where next, on my sublimated quest to find true love?  Lance was a dud…  I’ve even lost what I once felt for him, though I do crave friendship.  He’s shown his true colors.   Never writes, never calls.  I give up.  It’s becoming a waste of effort with him.  I just wish I could find someone amazing that is also totally into me!  Is that too much to ask?  Apparently.  But I’ve never yet met a decent guy when I was actively looking.  So I guess that means it’s back to single, celibate me.

I might move in with Tony. Then again, it might be too hard.  I really need a roommate to reduce expenses and improve my finances.  I guess I can sublimate my feelings and it is true that we get along fabulously.  Ack… Decisions…

So what should I do tonight?  Go get plastered with Eric?  Go get plastered with Tony?  GO dancing?  Go home and go to bed?  I am at a loss.  Stay tuned.

Monday, September 11, 2000

I got the big story out of Tony.  The reason why we became just friends, why he distanced himself, is that he met some other guy, Brian, and he likes him more…  because he’s cuter and sexier.  Words from his own mouth.  It’s his loss.  He doesn’t have a clue what he could have had, had he trusted me with his heart.  Of course, this only came out of him while he was drunk at R Place Saturday night.  I don’t think he can even remember telling me.  What do I think about the fact that I was almost kinda sorta cheated on?  I’m okay.  Because I’m mature.  And we weren’t really that close, or together that long.  I pity Tony, not me, for he must be an incredibly lonely person.  And he is young and idealistic.  He thinks Superman is out there waiting for him. I’d like to burst his bubble and spare him the pain later on, but I won’t.

Besides, I’m moving in with him in a few weeks.  I want things to be stable.  He’s introduced me to Chris, and I’m totally into him.  Dunno if he is into me.  We’ll see.  More on him later.

Monday, September 12, 2000

I tried to tell him… once you’re hurt, it never hurts the same again.  And each successive time hurts less and less until you no longer hurt at all (“you’ll find the shame is like the pain; you only feel it once”  Dangerous Liaisons).  You begin to tolerate it.  It becomes common.  Then I realized it was me.  I was the one who no longer feels.  Because I heard what he said and I let it go.  I guess I was being a big person… a mature person… a nice person… a considerate of others person.  So now they will all walk on me even more.  Why am I wasting my time here?

I should just leave… leave it all.  I feel like letting go of everything.  I look out and my life and it’s just a clutter of people and things.  What does it all mean to me?  What is its worth?  I’m 23 and I still feel like that lonely 18/19 year old who feels so isolated and unwanted.  Because I am the one that everyone throws away.  No matter what Eric says.  He can’t change what he did to me.  They all hurt me.  All of them…  And I can’t stand it anymore.  I just can’t stand it.  I just want to run away into the mountains and never come back.  What’s the point, no one is really going to care about me, or love me, or want to be with me.  It’s all just one big waste of time.

Friday, September 16, 2000

Here I am at work.  Discussing positive and negative energy with Cal.  He’s interesting…  A lot of lessons to be learned from him since he comes from a generation lost to me with my parents as they are.  I miss my parents though.  I want to go home very badly.  So much is going on and I know I need to get away for a while.  Cal suggests Cannon Beach near Astoria.  That’s kind of far, but maybe it would be worth it.  My first thought was to invite someone and yet it’s all these someone’s I really want to get away from.  I’d invite Eric for sure, since he needs a break as much as I do, but he has to work and then I have to work the days he works.

So about last night.  Tony threw himself at another boy.  I’m sure they fucked after they left together.  My feelings are a jumble.  I feel protective and I guess maybe a little jealous.  The boy looks a lot like me.  I don’t understand why I’m not good enough for Tony.  I know I shouldn’t think all these things, but I can’t help it.  I love Tony.  It’s just been easy to transfer it to a motherly sort of love.  I feel this profound need to look out for him.  He is standing at the edge of a cliff and will really go over it without me.  At the same time, there’s the predator/manipulator issue.  Is he really another Tawmee in disguise?  Eric and I discussed this last night.  Thank God for having him to talk to.  Eric thinks that Tony is massively insecure—this explains that rip-off beauty school, his boy crazy flinging of himself at every cute guy he sees.  And being with them makes him feel like he’s somehow good enough maybe, but it never lasts because he dumps them…  he runs away from commitment.  I need to write down all my psychoanalysis of him sometime.  He’s extremely complex and almost terrifying in the sense that lurking beneath the surface is such incredible horror.  I must help this boy.  That is what my gut tells me to do, even though it may not be smart, or safe for me.  It feels like the right things to do.

So he made me take this little test.  Pick your favorite color, favorite animal, complete the sentence “the sea is…” and name the one activity that you lose track of time while doing.  Here is what I had to say—green, a lemur, the sea is female, and talking on the phone.  The last one is supposed to be what you should or will make a career of.  The sea = your perception of love.  Tony said “vast.”  The animal is how others see you… Mine was something about—cute, happy, exotic, energetic and small.  Sounds like me huh?  For the color it was, cool, alive, vibrant, fresh, and something else.  Tony’s was blue, and one of his words was sad.  This in itself is intriguing.  I told him that I found it curious that he chose for his favorite color, one that he finds to be sad.

So it’s Friday.  A new weekend is coming.  This one will be all for me.  I need to take care of myself better.  I also need to slow life down and get my personal life under control or I’ll never be able to hold down a steady job and thus, survive.  Unfortunately one must survive.  I don’t believe in suicide.  What if there really is a master plan?  What if you’re missing out on something really big the next day, like maybe if you had just held on you would have met the person of your dreams, or won the lottery?  There are always possibilities.  I truly believe that and that’s why I’m a closet optimist, and a repressed romantic.  I just wish my glorious future wasn’t always tomorrow and never today (always winter but never Christmas…).

Maybe I should go to church.  I need a crutch right now.  Too many big thoughts and momentous happenings it’s been hard to deal with it all alone.

Sunday, September 17, 2000

I got fired.  I don’t even really care.  That job wasn’t well suited for me, and I guess in some ways call center customer service is.  I’m so nervous about that, but it’s a good-paying job, and I feel like I should give it a real try this time and see if maybe I can do it well.  That’s all I’m doing is trying.  No one can criticize me for that.

So Tony didn’t sleep with that boy.  Jeremy isn’t really into him I think.  I told this to Tony and he got all upset.  Hey, what goes around comes around.  I just wish he could see that I’m standing right in front of him ready to love him completely and totally. I can’t believe I’m moving in with him.  It really is crazy, but I need to reduce costs.  And he needs me.  It’s already been established that we aren’t going to be together and I’m not sure I really want that unless he grows up a little.  So it’s decided.  I’m moving in.  And it will be fun.  We’ll be great friends, and I already know he enjoys my company at least.

Tonight we watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s… good old sentimental romance.  It made me kind of sad.  Tony started smoking so I stole the cigs and put them in my pants.  Then he got all pissy but forgot his pissiness within a half an hour.  I flushed the cigs down the toilet anyway.  Hee… Good riddance.

I’m really floating on a prayer now.  I need some luck or my life could fall apart in two seconds.  I miss Mom and Dad and Sam, and of course Lance… and Daniel.  Airfare is running very high.  It is too sad.  I’ll have an entire week off now and nothing to do but worry.  I think I will go to the beach though, with Eric.

Time to go to bed and say my prayers.

Tuesday, September 18, 2000

Much progress has been made on getting out of my old lease without my doing much of anything.  So things are looking up in that area.  Three people are going to see my apartment tomorrow.  Yippee skippy!  I will survive after all.

I’m sitting on Tony’s porch waiting for him to come home.  We’ll he’s here… more later.

Monday, September 25, 2000

Here I am, at work.  New job.  I’m very tired.  I met this wonderful guy last night.  His name is Kyle.  I hope he doesn’t flake out.  He seems like a decent boy.  He’s 26, very attractive I think.  Reminds me of Kevin in appearance, but better.  We got a little involved last night, but not too much so.  I don’t want to rush, but we were both a little drunk.  He smokes.  I wish he didn’t, but he’s still fabulous.   He kept saying “sorry” all the time.  I wonder why…  I’ll have to cure him of that.  I wish I were in bed right now… I wish I could be there and just stare into his beautiful eyes.

I noticed him when he first walked in.  He was wearing this black coat.  His hair was slicked back and he looked very stunning.  I think I said “whoa” or something like that.  Tony didn’t notice him.  I certainly did.  I kept staring at him.  He kept looking back.  Tony thought he was looking at him, but he was looking at me, because he came to me, not Tony.  And he doesn’t really like Tony… called him flighty, superficial and young.  How true.  It took him how many hours to pick up on this?  Fabulous.  I hope Tony doesn’t get jealous or try to go after him or anything.  Christ, I’m sounding like a teenage girl.  I trust this Kyle boy… I think he’s a keeper.  It’s going to be hard not to get totally lost in him.  I’m trying not to be afraid.  But I’ve been through so much.  I feel like crying right now and I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be in this room right now, sucking up coffee to try to stay awake.  It was so cold outside this morning.  I’d so much rather be out there though, outside in nature.  I’m just praying I can do this job and then maybe something real will come along.  Break is over now.  SO sad…  Au revoir.

Here I am again… I think I’m slowly realizing how wrong the path is that I’ve chosen and how far I’ve strayed from my heart.  I love to dance.  I love to sing.  I love to write and be creative.  This is what I should be spending my life doing, not sitting here in front of a computer in a stuffy room with ugly brown walls pretending to fit in.

Friday, September 29, 2000

This should really be Wednesday’s entry, because everything that leads me to this point happened on that date.

I don’t even know where to begin… The day went on inauspiciously enough.  I put in job applications, worked out, ran, wondered why Kyle didn’t call… Then Tony finally came home.  He was grumpy… another bad day at work.  Half the staff didn’t show.  So he wanted to go out and get plastered for some insane reason.  I tagged along to a small bar where we met up with two of his older friends.  I told him I didn’t feel like going on to Neighbours with him…  I was in a bad mood because Kyle didn’t call… So apparently his friends bailed on him and he decided to come home…  on the way home some homeless people mugged him.  This is where the story really begins for me.

He gets home all in a huff.  I ask him what’s up and he says he got mugged.  I put my arm around his shoulder and try to be consoling… He doesn’t say anything.  Then I move to the bedroom (my bedroom) and he goes to the bathroom, throws some of my stuff out of the medicine cabinet.  I tell my friend online what happened and get offline because he starts demanding to talk to Eric.  I call but can’t get a hold of Eric anywhere.  Then he’s in the bathroom saying how I “wouldn’t understand” and how he was “almost raped.”  “They were going for my belt.”  Will I don’t know if it was what he said, or the tone of his voice, or the look in his eyes, but it was so harsh.  I felt like he was attacking me.  Me.  His roommate and probably the person who cares about him most.  I’m speechless.  So I put on my clothes to take a drive.  Well, I end up driving to the Rickshaw to get Eric or find him somehow.  I mean, that’s what Tony wanted.  I would have felt so bad if I hadn’t found Eric and just abandoned Tony at the apartment in his moment of need.  But I guess I misinterpreted his need.

I found Eric drunk at the Rickshaw.  I tell him to call Tony, and he does, and then he rushes back out and says we have to leave… On the drive down, I tell him what Tony said and how hurt I feel.  He makes some lame explanation for Tony’s actions.  Then he starts doing the whole “I love you so much Jonathan” thing he does every time he gets really drunk.  As we get to the door he whispers “I love you more than him.”

Well, I shouldn’t have let that hussy into my apartment alone with Tony because in the fifteen or so minutes it took to part my car, I come back to the sounds of them making out, turn the corner, and there they are, ripping each other’s clothes off and “oohing” and “aahing” on MY BED.  How fucking perfect is that?!?  They didn’t even notice me enter.  The boy who was apparently so upset because he was almost raped is now being molested by my best friend and ex-boyfriend.  I don’t know which one to blame… Which one to consider more fucked up!

So I leave.  Then as I was about to pass the WaMu, something clicked inside me and I realized that if I didn’t say something to them, I was not a man at all, but a spineless, gutless flab.  So I went back and walked up to them and said.  “If you think I can be friends with either one of you ever again, then you are totally off.”

***

I was shaking for hours afterwards.  I escaped to Minnie’s and had a cinnamon roll and pretended to read the paper…  but I was just reading words.  Nothing digesting at all.

I hid in my car and listened to Tori the rest of the night and then got some contact lens solution and a case at the Safeway and slept in my car for the night.

When I returned here at 9, they were both gone, thank God.  I pulled the sheets from my bed and slept on it bare fore a few hours, then started calling/e-mailing other friends.  I also bought tickets home, so I’m going back next Thursday.  Friday night I told Mark and he opened up his home again to me.  That in itself helped me decide what to do.  Today I rented a storage unit for my things so I can move out of here and never have to see either of them again.

Sadly, I wrecked my car again tonight in the dark and the rain.  What will I do?  How will I get out of this one?  I’m afraid there will be witnesses and I may be in big trouble, but of course, I plan to disappear quietly by tomorrow night and leave no forwarding address or anything.  My car is okay, just a wrecked door and another big expense I didn’t need right now.

So that is the shitty story of the absolute shittiest three days of my life thus far.  I can’t believe it all happened.  Can you?

Saturday, September 30, 2000

Rough draft…

Rules for this apartment:

1. Eric Peterman is not allowed in this apartment, ever, under any circumstances.

2. My space is my space yours is yours.  I will not be in yours if you are not present, and I expect the same in return.

Howzat?

Thursday, October 5, 2000

I’m on a plane again, this time looking at puffy white clouds just about to disappear in the twilight.  We are flying over one of the least populated places in the country.

I’m not sure where to begin.  I’m on this plane headed for home—a gut reaction after what happened with Eric and Tony last week.  I’ve restored some semblance of stability in my little household.  Eric is out of my life for good.  He’s been desperately calling but I refuse to answer or call back.  He was the aggressor… Tony, his usual passive and horny self… he believed Eric’s lies, disregarded me and my feelings and ended up fucking Eric at Eric’s new place.  Perhaps I am being too soft on the boy because I love him but I can’t help but look at Ton as almost a boy, being manipulated into Eric’s grasp and his bed.  That’s certainly what it sounds like happened.  It doesn’t surprise me.  I know Eric wants to blame it on the alcohol, but this is the last time I put up with that drunken whore.  He’s done this before, and he needs to take responsibility for his actions, drunk or not drunk.

So things have been okay.  I almost moved out.  Mark was kind enough to open his home to me yet again.  I don’t know what I would do without him.  I had bought a storage unit and prepared to move to Bellevue or back to Houston.  Mom wants me to come home of course.  Well, I guess it was a very good thing I didn’t act so rash and gave Tony the chance to speak, because now I have the best shot at a 26K a year job at Marquand Books downtown and a good hold on the job at Island Video.  I know it would be insane to turn down 26K a year, but I am apprehensive about this job.  There is little to no training and supervision.  I am afraid I’ll be thrown into the lion’s den without armour.    I don’t want to fail, and yet I think I’m becoming afraid of success, because this is the break I’ve been waiting for… So I guess I can’t pass the opportunity up no matter how scary it may seem.

Will my life finally come to order?  I hope so.  I’m so tired of chaos and topsy-turvy.  I’m nervous about the whole Tony—roommate thing…  he’s so immature.  But I can’t do without him.  I need his friendship, and I like having someone else around.  So I guess as long as he abides by my rules and I can put up with his sexual voracity, it will be okay.

So I’m theoretically coming out to my parents this weekend in hopes they will offer me support.  More later…

--Thinking against the publishing job right now…  I don’t think this is the future I want.

We’re back in Houston.  It was 80 degrees when we landed.  Ugh.  Nothing’s changed, except the growing sprawl.  I’m feeling very conflicted right now.  Part of me still wants to run back here; part of me doesn’t want to be here at all…  and yet, I’m a man on a mission.  How am I supposed to accomplish my goals when I feel like this?  I need redirection… a new plan.

Friday, October 6, 2000

Today was rather disappointing.  I was supposed to see grandma, but she was in bed already.  Then I tried to find Daniel, but couldn’t.  So I came back here and called Tony to get his number, only to get voicemail, and later, what is apparently Daniel’s new roommate.  Then I just missed John at Crossroads, so not knowing where Rich’s is, I came home in defeat.  So… this means the order for tomorrow is: grandma, Daniel, Tammy, John, Rich’s.