Okay. I am now officially sick of the Cubs. I live in hope that Friday, when the trains will be full of drunk-ass Cubs fans riding to the playoffs, that I will be off work for my closing.
...which would be more of a miracle, come to think, than the Cubs winning the playoffs in the first place.
I don't ever remember being as lethargic or as gloomy as I was today; I just couldn't find a damn thing to make me happy, to distract me from this simmering anger inside me. It's like 1994 all over again--September imprisoned in this house again, held to a standard of behavior devised by someone else, my actions restricted. It's not as bad as it was then, of course; but something in me says it shouldn't be AT ALL. And of course, my patience is non-existent; not only shouldn't this situation exist, but even if it DOES exist, I shouldn't be IN it. I should already BE in the house; I should already have moved, should be unpacking, should be settling in. I'm so tired of being in this room, this bed; living out of a laundry basket and a suitcase....a suitcase packed for SUMMER, with late-AUGUST temps in mind instead of late-September.
I'm half-tempted to pull out of this deal, but I don't know if that's just cold feet because of all the opposition I've been encountering. I wish people would shut up, really...but THAT, I suspect, is just more of this pissed-off malaise.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Saturday, September 27, 2003
"Why do you want to live THERE?"--answered
Okay. So I seem to have diverged slightly from my original plan here. But in some ways, I haven't diverged at all; this is all, exactly, about what I'm doing and most of all WHY.
But reading back I appear to have begged the question--what AM I doing? And further--why?
The first part is such a multi-layered question that I could ramble on for days and never adequately answer it; the second part is almost unanswerable. And the shorthand answer that JP and I always used for the unanswerable "why?" in this case is, although adequate, not necessarily productive: "because I can." It's true, in some ways, that's why I'm doing all of this; but that answer smacks of lack of forethought, insolence, randomness. And none of what I'm doing is ill-planned, insolent, or random in the slightest. (Though I'm thinking maybe I'll have difficulty convincing my neighbors about the "insolent" part--I'm fairly sure that at least one or two of them will take my mere presence, especially when taken in conjunction with LJ, as a very serious and deliberate insult.)
The house is one piece of the puzzle. If I agree with CR about one thing, it's this: I need a place to stand and fight. "But why THERE?" they ask.
1. Because I'm happy there--an answer with its own built-in "why?". I'll get there.
2. Because it's in the city, right in the center of the city, with a view of downtown.
3. Because it's a good investment, despite the current conditions in the neighborhood. I don't think I WANT it to gentrify, but if it's going to happen, I'd rather be there to reap the benefits if it does. If it DOESN'T gentrify, then I have a house in a neighborhood which suits ME, at least.
4. Because I'm not happy in suburbia and I don't want a condo; because I have no problem with being the only white person on the block; because the house itself has a ton of potential.
"Okay--why are you happy THERE?"
Somewhere in the past 15 years, I lost the ability to accept the status quo as desirable. When I was with Dave I thought I would be one of those suburban women with the house and the husband and the kids and the dog; I would believe what my husband believed and not make any waves. And that was one side of me. The other side was the side that ran the city with Mary Lee and Kelly and Darius and Gino, the one who explored as close to the edge as I could possibly get at that time. Looking back I don't think I was any different than most, except that I managed to get both halves of my life to peacefully coexist for so long. I mean, flirting with Gino and Darius, trying on different ideas and personalities...basic teenager shit, maybe toned down a little because I never drank or smoked or did any of that. It was typical late-80's geeky-teenager development, I guess...but then through college the thing with Darius took on more importance and intensity, and by the time Dave and I got engaged, I knew I was in love with Darius but I thought I could make myself NOT be. Dave was my REAL life, I told myself, and Darius was part of my unsustainable little fantasy world, a frivolity I didn't need and should forget. And then Darius introduced me to JP, and it was like...
It was like JP looked into my frivolous little fantasy-world and took out all the thoughts I kept there, the secret ideas and beliefs I kept out of my "real" life with Dave, and JP just held them to the light and instead of scoffing at them, or being shocked as I expected, it was like he examined them and said "Yeah? And? What's so unusual about THAT?"
I can't begin to explain how validating that was--to have it be NOTHING, just the usual to him, just the same stuff he'd been thinking forever. And suddenly that unsustainable little dream-world seemed.... sustainable....but only if he was a part of it. Suddenly it was okay to believe all the secret things I couldn't talk about to Dave. And I DON'T mean the sexual stuff (even _I_ didn't know the sexual side of it yet); I mean the politics, the sociology, the literature, all of it. But once it was out in the light it made perfect sense; like there was a click in my schema, and suddenly my secret life was my REAL life, and there was no room for my "real" life at all.
I realize that JP is gone and the plans we had are never going to come to bear; but to submerge myself into a life I don't believe in just because JP's not here, just to avoid conflict and not draw attention to myself, would be worse than never having known JP at all, worse than never having realized that there WAS another choice. I will never again be the girl I was at 20, and to try to pretend that the intervening 13 years never happened would be a total betrayal of myself, of JP, of everything. I can't pretend to be someone I'm not. I'm NOT corporate; I'm NOT suburban; I'm NOT attracted to corporate suburban white guys. I'm most comfortable in neighborhoods which have character; unfortunately, the only way for a neighborhood to have character anymore is to be sufficiently squalid or poor enough not to attract a lot of chain stores or Starbucks or whatever...and again, unfortunately, the only neighborhoods that fill those criteria are generally non-white.
I guess this is the question I get so tired of answering--that "Why would YOU want to live THERE?" As though I'm unaware of the neighborhood, or completely naive about what might happen to me there if I'm not careful. I'm well aware of all the drawbacks; it's just that I'm more willing to accept those drawbacks than I am to accept life in a neighborhood where everything I see is in opposition to everything I believe.
I wish I could just point people at this site and let them read the answers for themselves. But then again--everybody who needs to know has already got the answer; anyone who doesn't know yet wouldn't understand even if they DID read it.
But reading back I appear to have begged the question--what AM I doing? And further--why?
The first part is such a multi-layered question that I could ramble on for days and never adequately answer it; the second part is almost unanswerable. And the shorthand answer that JP and I always used for the unanswerable "why?" in this case is, although adequate, not necessarily productive: "because I can." It's true, in some ways, that's why I'm doing all of this; but that answer smacks of lack of forethought, insolence, randomness. And none of what I'm doing is ill-planned, insolent, or random in the slightest. (Though I'm thinking maybe I'll have difficulty convincing my neighbors about the "insolent" part--I'm fairly sure that at least one or two of them will take my mere presence, especially when taken in conjunction with LJ, as a very serious and deliberate insult.)
The house is one piece of the puzzle. If I agree with CR about one thing, it's this: I need a place to stand and fight. "But why THERE?" they ask.
1. Because I'm happy there--an answer with its own built-in "why?". I'll get there.
2. Because it's in the city, right in the center of the city, with a view of downtown.
3. Because it's a good investment, despite the current conditions in the neighborhood. I don't think I WANT it to gentrify, but if it's going to happen, I'd rather be there to reap the benefits if it does. If it DOESN'T gentrify, then I have a house in a neighborhood which suits ME, at least.
4. Because I'm not happy in suburbia and I don't want a condo; because I have no problem with being the only white person on the block; because the house itself has a ton of potential.
"Okay--why are you happy THERE?"
Somewhere in the past 15 years, I lost the ability to accept the status quo as desirable. When I was with Dave I thought I would be one of those suburban women with the house and the husband and the kids and the dog; I would believe what my husband believed and not make any waves. And that was one side of me. The other side was the side that ran the city with Mary Lee and Kelly and Darius and Gino, the one who explored as close to the edge as I could possibly get at that time. Looking back I don't think I was any different than most, except that I managed to get both halves of my life to peacefully coexist for so long. I mean, flirting with Gino and Darius, trying on different ideas and personalities...basic teenager shit, maybe toned down a little because I never drank or smoked or did any of that. It was typical late-80's geeky-teenager development, I guess...but then through college the thing with Darius took on more importance and intensity, and by the time Dave and I got engaged, I knew I was in love with Darius but I thought I could make myself NOT be. Dave was my REAL life, I told myself, and Darius was part of my unsustainable little fantasy world, a frivolity I didn't need and should forget. And then Darius introduced me to JP, and it was like...
It was like JP looked into my frivolous little fantasy-world and took out all the thoughts I kept there, the secret ideas and beliefs I kept out of my "real" life with Dave, and JP just held them to the light and instead of scoffing at them, or being shocked as I expected, it was like he examined them and said "Yeah? And? What's so unusual about THAT?"
I can't begin to explain how validating that was--to have it be NOTHING, just the usual to him, just the same stuff he'd been thinking forever. And suddenly that unsustainable little dream-world seemed.... sustainable....but only if he was a part of it. Suddenly it was okay to believe all the secret things I couldn't talk about to Dave. And I DON'T mean the sexual stuff (even _I_ didn't know the sexual side of it yet); I mean the politics, the sociology, the literature, all of it. But once it was out in the light it made perfect sense; like there was a click in my schema, and suddenly my secret life was my REAL life, and there was no room for my "real" life at all.
I realize that JP is gone and the plans we had are never going to come to bear; but to submerge myself into a life I don't believe in just because JP's not here, just to avoid conflict and not draw attention to myself, would be worse than never having known JP at all, worse than never having realized that there WAS another choice. I will never again be the girl I was at 20, and to try to pretend that the intervening 13 years never happened would be a total betrayal of myself, of JP, of everything. I can't pretend to be someone I'm not. I'm NOT corporate; I'm NOT suburban; I'm NOT attracted to corporate suburban white guys. I'm most comfortable in neighborhoods which have character; unfortunately, the only way for a neighborhood to have character anymore is to be sufficiently squalid or poor enough not to attract a lot of chain stores or Starbucks or whatever...and again, unfortunately, the only neighborhoods that fill those criteria are generally non-white.
I guess this is the question I get so tired of answering--that "Why would YOU want to live THERE?" As though I'm unaware of the neighborhood, or completely naive about what might happen to me there if I'm not careful. I'm well aware of all the drawbacks; it's just that I'm more willing to accept those drawbacks than I am to accept life in a neighborhood where everything I see is in opposition to everything I believe.
I wish I could just point people at this site and let them read the answers for themselves. But then again--everybody who needs to know has already got the answer; anyone who doesn't know yet wouldn't understand even if they DID read it.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
3wk.com, having to do with Why only integrally
:::inspired by www.3wk.com, headphones, and a desk:::
Only ALMOST everyone has forgotten. There are still small pockets of Us amongst the reeking masses of Them. The trick is to be in the right place at the right time to FIND Us.
I’m deciding I’m NOT a big Flaming Lips fan, Maybe my artsy sense of IRONY!! is not properly developed to appreciate FL, but the whole Pink-Robots thing jst leaves me cold. I always was a troglodyte, you know?
So. Much as I hate to admit it, the whole house thing is scaring the crap out of me. I mean, it is but it isn't; I know that all the things I've believed for a long time about how the neighborhood is, how it will be--I know all those things still hold. It just looked -sketchy- yesterday, somehow. Like it would look to someone who had never been there before; someone without the junk-haze over their memories, maybe. All the lecturing has dimmed it, maybe--but see, here's the thing: only -i- have changed. Not the neighborhood, certainly not the house. Not the future, certainly not the past--just too much listening I've been doing, maybe. I get tired of the naysayers, and almost everyone's a naysayer. What I'd really like is to just feel like I'm GETTING somewhere, move my shit and make my stand; me and LJ--and then everybody else can go fuck themselves. It's this limbo that sucks; once I've got a place to dig in my heels, nothing will slow me DOWN much less stop me.
("White Love"--One Dove--really cool fucking mix with guitars, better than the original. god oh god oh god...not that I don't miss JP but this is almost better for NOW than it was for THEN. Like he described it--standing in the second-floor window looking out over the snow and ice, warm inside in the winter, yes....but he never lived to see the winter.)
Back to work for a while. (And this is Day 12 Without. I don't even REMEMBER how I survived an 18-month drought, back in those platonic pre-CR days--if I even get to 18 DAYS this time around, I'm afraid I'll kill someone just to distract myself.)
Only ALMOST everyone has forgotten. There are still small pockets of Us amongst the reeking masses of Them. The trick is to be in the right place at the right time to FIND Us.
I’m deciding I’m NOT a big Flaming Lips fan, Maybe my artsy sense of IRONY!! is not properly developed to appreciate FL, but the whole Pink-Robots thing jst leaves me cold. I always was a troglodyte, you know?
So. Much as I hate to admit it, the whole house thing is scaring the crap out of me. I mean, it is but it isn't; I know that all the things I've believed for a long time about how the neighborhood is, how it will be--I know all those things still hold. It just looked -sketchy- yesterday, somehow. Like it would look to someone who had never been there before; someone without the junk-haze over their memories, maybe. All the lecturing has dimmed it, maybe--but see, here's the thing: only -i- have changed. Not the neighborhood, certainly not the house. Not the future, certainly not the past--just too much listening I've been doing, maybe. I get tired of the naysayers, and almost everyone's a naysayer. What I'd really like is to just feel like I'm GETTING somewhere, move my shit and make my stand; me and LJ--and then everybody else can go fuck themselves. It's this limbo that sucks; once I've got a place to dig in my heels, nothing will slow me DOWN much less stop me.
("White Love"--One Dove--really cool fucking mix with guitars, better than the original. god oh god oh god...not that I don't miss JP but this is almost better for NOW than it was for THEN. Like he described it--standing in the second-floor window looking out over the snow and ice, warm inside in the winter, yes....but he never lived to see the winter.)
Back to work for a while. (And this is Day 12 Without. I don't even REMEMBER how I survived an 18-month drought, back in those platonic pre-CR days--if I even get to 18 DAYS this time around, I'm afraid I'll kill someone just to distract myself.)
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Post-walkthrough
Fuckers.
Fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers.
DOG-fuckers. PIG-fuckers. Fuckers of SYPHILLITIC dogs and pigs.
As you may have guessed, I am not a happy girl right now.
Contrary to all my plans and the assurances of just about everyone involved in this clusterfuck, I will now NOT be closing on Friday. Consequently, no alarm consultation on Saturday, no appliance delivery on Tuesday, probably no move the Saturday after.
The reason for all this is simple:
TOM SLAUGHTER (the first real name I've used in this entire blog, and I don't give a random rat's ass if it DOES show me out in the long run)--he's the seller's agent--did NOT do at least HALF of the things he agreed to do. He did NOT install metal doors to the basement and the garage. He did NOT replace the water heater. He did NOT replace the soil-pipe. He did NOT run electricity to the garage. He did NOT put a door on the cellar room with the catchbasin. He did NOTHING, almost...or rather, he failed to instruct his WORKERS--who are two very nice guys, actually, and totally not the recipients of ANY of this wrath--to do the things he agreed to do. Despite what the FHA says, this house does NOT pass MY inspection!!!
And so--no closing. And I am none too happy with MY lawyer, who apparently--even though he's allegedly DEALT with Mr. Slaughter before--did NOT put the list of agreed-upon repairs in WRITING.
Did I mention "fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers"? I did? Oh good.
I realized on the way home--on the train, of course--that right at the moment, it's only tangentially about the house anyway. I WANT the house--I can't wait to start working on the house--but right now, today, my disappointment and anger and frustration has less to do with "I'm not getting my house on time" than "I was counting those days exactly because that's exactly how long it will be until I can sleep next to LJ again." Enforced celibacy just wrecks me; I think I understand how men feel, what makes them go to prostitutes. I am in a very, very bad state, currently. Add to this, that LJ is "not a phone guy"--not one of those men you can have hours-long conversations with over the phone--and I can honestly find only one real comparison for this sensation:
It's like being dopesick. Every last cell in my body is focussed on the one thing that can make this agitation go away; and every ounce of brain matter is devoted to trying to distract the body from its singleminded demand. And since the brain knows-- It's not gonna happen--the distraction is half-hearted at best. All there is to do is sleep or read, especially in this fucking house of horrors with no cable TV and all my large-scale projects packed up in the garage. AND my mother tried to make me watch "Ed" tonight. I'd rather eat my own puke.
So--no LJ. No decent television. No projects to work on. My best books--packed to avoid controversy. Writing--impossible, in this mental state. No paints, markers, art material, beads, embroidery thread; no car at the moment to procure any of the above. Work tomorrow. No closing Friday.
I am not, not, not a happy woman. If I could just go spend a few hours with LJ--even if the situation at HIS place still stands, even if we STILL couldn't go up to his room and fuck around, at least we could TALK for a while. At least I wouldn't have to sit here and fight all this unfucked insecurity, all these totally incorrect convictions that come upon me when nobody's touched me for weeks. I HATE this situation, and to then find out today that it's going to extend beyond the point at which I had absolutely refused to endure another minute of it...
I know, I know--everything happens for a reason. But I'm getting tired of reason, you know? Just once I'd like things to go RIGHT by MY standards, not the universe's. I've got my doubts about the universe's standards anyway--how, for example, can you trust a world which would claim to have a REASON for killing JP? And then leaving me with CR for all that time? come ON now.
I would dearly love to be able to put aside this frustration and anger and write something meaningful, something that fulfills the original goal of this blog. But I'm too pissed and scared and horny to make much sense, so instead I'm going to sleep.
Fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers.
DOG-fuckers. PIG-fuckers. Fuckers of SYPHILLITIC dogs and pigs.
As you may have guessed, I am not a happy girl right now.
Contrary to all my plans and the assurances of just about everyone involved in this clusterfuck, I will now NOT be closing on Friday. Consequently, no alarm consultation on Saturday, no appliance delivery on Tuesday, probably no move the Saturday after.
The reason for all this is simple:
TOM SLAUGHTER (the first real name I've used in this entire blog, and I don't give a random rat's ass if it DOES show me out in the long run)--he's the seller's agent--did NOT do at least HALF of the things he agreed to do. He did NOT install metal doors to the basement and the garage. He did NOT replace the water heater. He did NOT replace the soil-pipe. He did NOT run electricity to the garage. He did NOT put a door on the cellar room with the catchbasin. He did NOTHING, almost...or rather, he failed to instruct his WORKERS--who are two very nice guys, actually, and totally not the recipients of ANY of this wrath--to do the things he agreed to do. Despite what the FHA says, this house does NOT pass MY inspection!!!
And so--no closing. And I am none too happy with MY lawyer, who apparently--even though he's allegedly DEALT with Mr. Slaughter before--did NOT put the list of agreed-upon repairs in WRITING.
Did I mention "fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers fuckers"? I did? Oh good.
I realized on the way home--on the train, of course--that right at the moment, it's only tangentially about the house anyway. I WANT the house--I can't wait to start working on the house--but right now, today, my disappointment and anger and frustration has less to do with "I'm not getting my house on time" than "I was counting those days exactly because that's exactly how long it will be until I can sleep next to LJ again." Enforced celibacy just wrecks me; I think I understand how men feel, what makes them go to prostitutes. I am in a very, very bad state, currently. Add to this, that LJ is "not a phone guy"--not one of those men you can have hours-long conversations with over the phone--and I can honestly find only one real comparison for this sensation:
It's like being dopesick. Every last cell in my body is focussed on the one thing that can make this agitation go away; and every ounce of brain matter is devoted to trying to distract the body from its singleminded demand. And since the brain knows-- It's not gonna happen--the distraction is half-hearted at best. All there is to do is sleep or read, especially in this fucking house of horrors with no cable TV and all my large-scale projects packed up in the garage. AND my mother tried to make me watch "Ed" tonight. I'd rather eat my own puke.
So--no LJ. No decent television. No projects to work on. My best books--packed to avoid controversy. Writing--impossible, in this mental state. No paints, markers, art material, beads, embroidery thread; no car at the moment to procure any of the above. Work tomorrow. No closing Friday.
I am not, not, not a happy woman. If I could just go spend a few hours with LJ--even if the situation at HIS place still stands, even if we STILL couldn't go up to his room and fuck around, at least we could TALK for a while. At least I wouldn't have to sit here and fight all this unfucked insecurity, all these totally incorrect convictions that come upon me when nobody's touched me for weeks. I HATE this situation, and to then find out today that it's going to extend beyond the point at which I had absolutely refused to endure another minute of it...
I know, I know--everything happens for a reason. But I'm getting tired of reason, you know? Just once I'd like things to go RIGHT by MY standards, not the universe's. I've got my doubts about the universe's standards anyway--how, for example, can you trust a world which would claim to have a REASON for killing JP? And then leaving me with CR for all that time? come ON now.
I would dearly love to be able to put aside this frustration and anger and write something meaningful, something that fulfills the original goal of this blog. But I'm too pissed and scared and horny to make much sense, so instead I'm going to sleep.
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Bleah. Enough of THAT.
Okay, I'm done wallowing for now. Though I AM going to take a moment to bemoan the fact that it is an absolutely GORGEOUS fall day and I am cooped up in an exceedingly non-gorgeous office. In other words, the sad lament of the cubicle-hound. Such is life, right? and at least they pay me enough to BUY a house.
:::staring at the fucking phone which only rings for things I don't NEED to know...:::
Still waiting on the closing date. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and....Okay, see, this really sucks. This is like...this is like those minutes when you were a little kid, right? and it was Christmas morning and you woke up at like, 5:30 AM and your parents said "Don't you DARE wake us til 7:00 this year!" so you sat there, looking at the clock...5:45...6:15...6:45...6:58...6:59...and when 7:00 FINALLY came around you ran into your parents' bedroom, right....
...and then--EVEN THOUGH it was already 7:00 and you were about to spontaneously COMBUST from waiting so hard, EVEN THOUGH you'd done EXACTLY what you were told--even DESPITE those things, you STILL had to wait for them to get up, wait for them to put on their robes and slippers, get the camera ready or make some coffee or clean their glasses or SOMETHING stupid and useless from a kid's standpoint.
THAT's what this is like--that last five minutes where all the adults are fucking around with their boring stuff and all I can think about is how much I want to get at those presents under the tree. I want to get in with my tape-measure and figure out how big a fridge I can get. I want to schedule all my utilities. I want to call the movers and have The Day scheduled, and--apologies to Veruca Salt (the Willy Wonka character, not the mid-90's band)--I want it NOW!!!
I think a large part of my calmness, my seeming refusal to be scared even when 99% of the populace thinks I OUGHT to be, is this: no matter what, I refuse to make ANYTHING a catastrophe. I mean, I get pissed out of all proportion to things, true enough--but I don't EVER think ANYTHING is life-endingly huge in and of itself.
:::staring at the fucking phone which only rings for things I don't NEED to know...:::
Still waiting on the closing date. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and....Okay, see, this really sucks. This is like...this is like those minutes when you were a little kid, right? and it was Christmas morning and you woke up at like, 5:30 AM and your parents said "Don't you DARE wake us til 7:00 this year!" so you sat there, looking at the clock...5:45...6:15...6:45...6:58...6:59...and when 7:00 FINALLY came around you ran into your parents' bedroom, right....
...and then--EVEN THOUGH it was already 7:00 and you were about to spontaneously COMBUST from waiting so hard, EVEN THOUGH you'd done EXACTLY what you were told--even DESPITE those things, you STILL had to wait for them to get up, wait for them to put on their robes and slippers, get the camera ready or make some coffee or clean their glasses or SOMETHING stupid and useless from a kid's standpoint.
THAT's what this is like--that last five minutes where all the adults are fucking around with their boring stuff and all I can think about is how much I want to get at those presents under the tree. I want to get in with my tape-measure and figure out how big a fridge I can get. I want to schedule all my utilities. I want to call the movers and have The Day scheduled, and--apologies to Veruca Salt (the Willy Wonka character, not the mid-90's band)--I want it NOW!!!
I think a large part of my calmness, my seeming refusal to be scared even when 99% of the populace thinks I OUGHT to be, is this: no matter what, I refuse to make ANYTHING a catastrophe. I mean, I get pissed out of all proportion to things, true enough--but I don't EVER think ANYTHING is life-endingly huge in and of itself.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Status report
The repairs are done.
My homeowners insurance is going to cost $900+, which is SO not-what-they-originally-told-me. :::sigh:::
The appraiser has been out and all is apparently well; I'm waiting to hear back from the lawyer and the realtor re: the closing date. I'm thinking it could be Friday.
Suddenly I am very nervous.
Last night did NOT help matters. I spent the day, first off, cleaning all the JP-era belongings out of the garage. Most of it was neutrally-charged: old teaching books, for example, and all the books I'd bought when I was trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life; a bunch of VC Andrews, and pretty much everything we couldn't sell at the used bookstores for heroin money. Some things were gut-wrenching only if you knew their history: years and years of Rolling Stone and Spin and Alternative Press, cut up for our impromptu collage-work walls at the old place on Cortez. All those bands, all those gone things, all our reality--and I'm the only one who remembers. The worst part: I can't even do anything worthwhile with any of it, the artifacts nor the memory; everytime I think about it I just sail off into the sickly little clouds. THEN, to make it worse--cleaning out the bedroom closet I found a binder full of a draft of the last book. It was good enough--though five years of perspective tends to draw out the shortcomings and the awkwardnesses--but oh, god, it shredded me up inside--especially the descriptions I'd written from memory, like the night in the apartment on Maplewood. I'd forgotten--I'd MADE myself forget--what those nights were like, what HE was like, what we were like together--because nothing nothing NOTHING will ever approach that again. When LJ came into the picture, I was so fucking overjoyed--my sex life for the past 5 years had consisted of CR, who never wanted me; and Bob, who wanted me but didn't really do anything for me. LJ was...wonderful, mostly, and still is--no complaints, though I do wonder about a lot of things--but it's wonderful AS A THING IN ITSELF. If I give it a context any broader than CR and Bob, if I go back into my history any further distant than that--then it's like there's an obstacle there. JP and I were SO intense...and there are times I sense that in LJ, so I can't complain and I can't discount that maybe HE's as embarrassed about it as I am. But in the meantime I'm left with memory, or worse yet, left to avoid memory. I don't know which is harder to bear--thinking about it, going over in my mind what I will never have again--or avoiding the memory, knowing it's there, knowing it could sneak up on me at any moment and just incapacitate me, knock me completely out of this very tightly-wound happiness I've spent eight years building. I've given up on "Why?" of course, at least for THAT situation--but in a way I've never even gotten to the point where "Why?" is even a QUESTION. In a way I think I've never even gotten past "NO"...no, this is not going to happen, it is NOT going to be, I am NOT going to live in a world without JP in it, and CERTAINLY not for another 40-50-60-70 YEARS--oh, no, absolutely NOT, and I'm ALSO not going to live in that world SOBER--don't you fuckers think you're asking for a whole hell of a LOT??? Yes, yes, I know--the 12-step evangelists are priming up their keyboards and perking up a pot of coffee to tell me about how I have to "accept" the things I can't change. Well, fuck you, I say. I have accepted a LOT in my life--but taking JP was unconscionable. A -warning- would have been nice; one of those nice literary little second chances everyone always seems to get--but NO--one shot, a couple of struggling breaths, and that was that. No goodbye, no final words--a couple of snide-ass paramedics looking at both of us like we were something fished out of a dirty diaper, making snippy remarks to of all people his MOTHER--and the neighbors watching, and the cops cuffing me; then the next I see of him he's on that big metal table from all the forensic shows. Not that they HAD forensic shows in 1995; all they had was "ER" and believe me, what's-his-face Wyle would have been a far sight more compassionate than THOSE assholes were, and in the meantime there's this huge, awful FACT that they're expecting me to comprehend...
...I'm just not up to it, you know? Even now. Even eight years later, I am not prepared to "accept" ANY of it. He was the most talented and amazing person in my entire life, and he was pretty much singlehandedly responsible for how I came to look at the world even now, and instead of some kind of celestial fair play, some cosmic warning shot, he got THAT. WE got that. I don't know WHAT he got, or is getting, or where he is really--back to the post about the three big possible outcomes of death, I guess--but I know where -I- am, and it's a far lesser place without him in it, THAT much I can tell you for SURE.
So everybody put THAT in your craw and smoke it, or something.
My homeowners insurance is going to cost $900+, which is SO not-what-they-originally-told-me. :::sigh:::
The appraiser has been out and all is apparently well; I'm waiting to hear back from the lawyer and the realtor re: the closing date. I'm thinking it could be Friday.
Suddenly I am very nervous.
Last night did NOT help matters. I spent the day, first off, cleaning all the JP-era belongings out of the garage. Most of it was neutrally-charged: old teaching books, for example, and all the books I'd bought when I was trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life; a bunch of VC Andrews, and pretty much everything we couldn't sell at the used bookstores for heroin money. Some things were gut-wrenching only if you knew their history: years and years of Rolling Stone and Spin and Alternative Press, cut up for our impromptu collage-work walls at the old place on Cortez. All those bands, all those gone things, all our reality--and I'm the only one who remembers. The worst part: I can't even do anything worthwhile with any of it, the artifacts nor the memory; everytime I think about it I just sail off into the sickly little clouds. THEN, to make it worse--cleaning out the bedroom closet I found a binder full of a draft of the last book. It was good enough--though five years of perspective tends to draw out the shortcomings and the awkwardnesses--but oh, god, it shredded me up inside--especially the descriptions I'd written from memory, like the night in the apartment on Maplewood. I'd forgotten--I'd MADE myself forget--what those nights were like, what HE was like, what we were like together--because nothing nothing NOTHING will ever approach that again. When LJ came into the picture, I was so fucking overjoyed--my sex life for the past 5 years had consisted of CR, who never wanted me; and Bob, who wanted me but didn't really do anything for me. LJ was...wonderful, mostly, and still is--no complaints, though I do wonder about a lot of things--but it's wonderful AS A THING IN ITSELF. If I give it a context any broader than CR and Bob, if I go back into my history any further distant than that--then it's like there's an obstacle there. JP and I were SO intense...and there are times I sense that in LJ, so I can't complain and I can't discount that maybe HE's as embarrassed about it as I am. But in the meantime I'm left with memory, or worse yet, left to avoid memory. I don't know which is harder to bear--thinking about it, going over in my mind what I will never have again--or avoiding the memory, knowing it's there, knowing it could sneak up on me at any moment and just incapacitate me, knock me completely out of this very tightly-wound happiness I've spent eight years building. I've given up on "Why?" of course, at least for THAT situation--but in a way I've never even gotten to the point where "Why?" is even a QUESTION. In a way I think I've never even gotten past "NO"...no, this is not going to happen, it is NOT going to be, I am NOT going to live in a world without JP in it, and CERTAINLY not for another 40-50-60-70 YEARS--oh, no, absolutely NOT, and I'm ALSO not going to live in that world SOBER--don't you fuckers think you're asking for a whole hell of a LOT??? Yes, yes, I know--the 12-step evangelists are priming up their keyboards and perking up a pot of coffee to tell me about how I have to "accept" the things I can't change. Well, fuck you, I say. I have accepted a LOT in my life--but taking JP was unconscionable. A -warning- would have been nice; one of those nice literary little second chances everyone always seems to get--but NO--one shot, a couple of struggling breaths, and that was that. No goodbye, no final words--a couple of snide-ass paramedics looking at both of us like we were something fished out of a dirty diaper, making snippy remarks to of all people his MOTHER--and the neighbors watching, and the cops cuffing me; then the next I see of him he's on that big metal table from all the forensic shows. Not that they HAD forensic shows in 1995; all they had was "ER" and believe me, what's-his-face Wyle would have been a far sight more compassionate than THOSE assholes were, and in the meantime there's this huge, awful FACT that they're expecting me to comprehend...
...I'm just not up to it, you know? Even now. Even eight years later, I am not prepared to "accept" ANY of it. He was the most talented and amazing person in my entire life, and he was pretty much singlehandedly responsible for how I came to look at the world even now, and instead of some kind of celestial fair play, some cosmic warning shot, he got THAT. WE got that. I don't know WHAT he got, or is getting, or where he is really--back to the post about the three big possible outcomes of death, I guess--but I know where -I- am, and it's a far lesser place without him in it, THAT much I can tell you for SURE.
So everybody put THAT in your craw and smoke it, or something.
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Big and little questions...
There are the big questions, and then there are the little ones. I'm not sure, really, which are more annoying or demoralizing. Taken in the aggregate I'd have to guess it's the small ones. (One mosquito is a minor annoyance; thousands of mosquitoes is hell.)
Co-worker: "So where did you go this weekend?"
Me: "Me and LJ just hung out at my place and watched TV, ate pizza, whatever." (Said in a tone of satisfaction, not complaint.)
Co-worker:"Why didn't he take you out? I mean, you've only been dating a couple of months, but it seems like you're always staying in."
Me:"It doesn't bother me. I LIKE it that way. And besides, it's cheaper anyhow."
Co-worker: (Tsk.) "YOU shouldn't even be worried about that. HE ought to be paying for YOU, at this stage."
Me:"I've never really abided by that rule." (Thinking: Perhaps this is why you're nearing 50 and have no dates? Ever?)
Co-worker:"Well you SHOULD. You shouldn't even have to THINK about it. I mean...What does he do for a living?"
Me: "He's a substitute teacher."
Co-worker:"Substitute? Why not a -real- teacher?"
(Pause. I remember BEING a kid--what WE did to subs, and we were nice little Catholic schoolkids in the 1980's--so anyone who wants to do that job NOW, in the wonderful wilderness that is 2003--hey, whoever they are, they get ALL respect from me.)
Me: (moving to favorite fall-back answer): "I don't know. I've never asked." (Thinking: And I don't care, either.)
Co-worker: "HOW old is he again?"
Me: "Just made 30."
Co-worker: "That right there should tell you something. You don't want somebody who's not -serious-, not -responsible-. Not at your age, not unless you're just out there playing. I mean, if that's what you're doing, that's fine--but you're getting to that age where you should be thinking about the future, and for THAT you want someone -responsible-. A MAN--not a little boy."
(Long pause, while the following thoughts go through my mind: 1. "Spoken like a woman whose expectations probably chased off every man who was ever interested in her." 2. "Since when does the number of hours a man works per week define his character? Or the money he makes?" 3. "What the hell do you mean, 'at your age'? I'm 15 years younger than you, you judgemental old bat!" 4. "If we're going to talk about men vs. boys, how about this: THIS one respects me. THIS one doesn't cheat on me. If you ask me, things are IMPROVING. Maybe not up to YOUR fine standards, but goddamnit, I'm happy.")
Finally, me: "Well, I hear what you're saying, but I just look at things a little differently."
Co-worker: (Tsk.) "Believe me, I know about these black men. That's the main reason I won't date 'em."
Ah, the little questions. How much and why not and how come; why don't you and shouldn't you be and what the hell is WRONG with you, anyway?? And to try to explain it is just like digging a deeper hole. To try to just speak the truth as I see it--that if a man treats me well and keeps his own business handled, it doesn't concern me WHAT he does or how much he gets paid for doing it--is tantamount to heresy.
Sometimes, after the words are out , when I find myself in this office full of professional women all glaring at me like I'm a puppy that's peed on the carpet, and I sometimes think Is THIS what feminism was trying to create? I thought it was about the freedom for a woman to choose who to be--maybe instead, it was about the "freedom" for women to believe in anything you want, as long as it's exactly the same thing all the other women believe in. I do get tired of perfectly good ideas being co-opted by the forces of conformity, that's for sure--feminism, democracy, alternative rock... all lost to me now, it seems, because I can't and won't and CAN'T be like everyone else. I've NEVER been able to be like everyone else, and there was a time it actually used to BOTHER me, when I was a little girl trying to make the "popular" girls accept me...now, at 33, I find myself in a world where my time has come and gone, in a momentary blink of happiness. My reality is wrapped tightly around a core of 1994, a time when it was absolutely right to be exactly who I was. Anyone who wanted me to believe like everyone else, or act or dress or do ANYTHING like everyone else, was a negative influence, a disposable person, and that was a bliss made possible by one simple fact: for the first time in memory, there were as many of Us as there were of Them.
Whatever happened to that moment probably happened while I was otherwise distracted: by heroin, by grief, by North Carolina, by CR. But then again, by the time CR came around, the moment was long, long past. So--whatever happened to those days happened while I was obliterated. Lights on, no one home, Next Register Please. Your Call Is Very Important To Us.
The most frightening, and at the same time the most wonderful part of all this house-buying process is this: a small piece of me, no matter how wrong and deluded that piece may be, sees this as a way back in. The plans I have for this life in this new place--as I told LJ tonight--are vast and epic in their scope; as I also told him, the period of my past I MOST would want to emulate would be 1994 and 1995. Not that it could be done, you understand, nor even that I would want it to...but the FREEDOM of it, the POTENTIAL of those days, the absolute refusal to be cowed into believing anything that wasn't truly relevant to my experience....THAT's what I want to bring back. This life right now is exhaustingly mundane and too-easily manipulated, and I'm tired of it.
Co-worker: "So where did you go this weekend?"
Me: "Me and LJ just hung out at my place and watched TV, ate pizza, whatever." (Said in a tone of satisfaction, not complaint.)
Co-worker:"Why didn't he take you out? I mean, you've only been dating a couple of months, but it seems like you're always staying in."
Me:"It doesn't bother me. I LIKE it that way. And besides, it's cheaper anyhow."
Co-worker: (Tsk.) "YOU shouldn't even be worried about that. HE ought to be paying for YOU, at this stage."
Me:"I've never really abided by that rule." (Thinking: Perhaps this is why you're nearing 50 and have no dates? Ever?)
Co-worker:"Well you SHOULD. You shouldn't even have to THINK about it. I mean...What does he do for a living?"
Me: "He's a substitute teacher."
Co-worker:"Substitute? Why not a -real- teacher?"
(Pause. I remember BEING a kid--what WE did to subs, and we were nice little Catholic schoolkids in the 1980's--so anyone who wants to do that job NOW, in the wonderful wilderness that is 2003--hey, whoever they are, they get ALL respect from me.)
Me: (moving to favorite fall-back answer): "I don't know. I've never asked." (Thinking: And I don't care, either.)
Co-worker: "HOW old is he again?"
Me: "Just made 30."
Co-worker: "That right there should tell you something. You don't want somebody who's not -serious-, not -responsible-. Not at your age, not unless you're just out there playing. I mean, if that's what you're doing, that's fine--but you're getting to that age where you should be thinking about the future, and for THAT you want someone -responsible-. A MAN--not a little boy."
(Long pause, while the following thoughts go through my mind: 1. "Spoken like a woman whose expectations probably chased off every man who was ever interested in her." 2. "Since when does the number of hours a man works per week define his character? Or the money he makes?" 3. "What the hell do you mean, 'at your age'? I'm 15 years younger than you, you judgemental old bat!" 4. "If we're going to talk about men vs. boys, how about this: THIS one respects me. THIS one doesn't cheat on me. If you ask me, things are IMPROVING. Maybe not up to YOUR fine standards, but goddamnit, I'm happy.")
Finally, me: "Well, I hear what you're saying, but I just look at things a little differently."
Co-worker: (Tsk.) "Believe me, I know about these black men. That's the main reason I won't date 'em."
Ah, the little questions. How much and why not and how come; why don't you and shouldn't you be and what the hell is WRONG with you, anyway?? And to try to explain it is just like digging a deeper hole. To try to just speak the truth as I see it--that if a man treats me well and keeps his own business handled, it doesn't concern me WHAT he does or how much he gets paid for doing it--is tantamount to heresy.
Sometimes, after the words are out , when I find myself in this office full of professional women all glaring at me like I'm a puppy that's peed on the carpet, and I sometimes think Is THIS what feminism was trying to create? I thought it was about the freedom for a woman to choose who to be--maybe instead, it was about the "freedom" for women to believe in anything you want, as long as it's exactly the same thing all the other women believe in. I do get tired of perfectly good ideas being co-opted by the forces of conformity, that's for sure--feminism, democracy, alternative rock... all lost to me now, it seems, because I can't and won't and CAN'T be like everyone else. I've NEVER been able to be like everyone else, and there was a time it actually used to BOTHER me, when I was a little girl trying to make the "popular" girls accept me...now, at 33, I find myself in a world where my time has come and gone, in a momentary blink of happiness. My reality is wrapped tightly around a core of 1994, a time when it was absolutely right to be exactly who I was. Anyone who wanted me to believe like everyone else, or act or dress or do ANYTHING like everyone else, was a negative influence, a disposable person, and that was a bliss made possible by one simple fact: for the first time in memory, there were as many of Us as there were of Them.
Whatever happened to that moment probably happened while I was otherwise distracted: by heroin, by grief, by North Carolina, by CR. But then again, by the time CR came around, the moment was long, long past. So--whatever happened to those days happened while I was obliterated. Lights on, no one home, Next Register Please. Your Call Is Very Important To Us.
The most frightening, and at the same time the most wonderful part of all this house-buying process is this: a small piece of me, no matter how wrong and deluded that piece may be, sees this as a way back in. The plans I have for this life in this new place--as I told LJ tonight--are vast and epic in their scope; as I also told him, the period of my past I MOST would want to emulate would be 1994 and 1995. Not that it could be done, you understand, nor even that I would want it to...but the FREEDOM of it, the POTENTIAL of those days, the absolute refusal to be cowed into believing anything that wasn't truly relevant to my experience....THAT's what I want to bring back. This life right now is exhaustingly mundane and too-easily manipulated, and I'm tired of it.
The first question
So--with all THAT in mind...
Big question #1: "Aren't you SCARED?"
(This is not The Biggest Question, of course. The Biggest Question will be a post for another night, a night when I'm angry enough to answer it truthfully and without sugar-coating. There are other big questions to answer first, all of which lead into The Biggest Question.)
The answer--the SHORT answer--to this one is "No, not really." Like most short answers, it's only about half true; actually I -am- scared, or else why would I be taking all these security measures? I mean, deadbolts on the front door and an alarm system--those things I would have on ANY house I bought, regardless of the neighborhood. If I'm gonna pay on something for the next 30 years, it's damn well gonna be kept as safe as I can keep it. But in any other neighborhood, would I have the alarms on EVERY window, even the inaccessible one over the stairs? or the iron cagework installed over the inside of the basement door, so that even if a burglar got through the basement door itself, he wouldn't be able to actually get IN? or the deadbolt on the bedroom door, so if someone actually DID get in, I'd have somewhere to run while waiting for the police? In any other neighborhood, would I be planning how to carry an inconspicuous assortment of defensive weapons on my person every morning when I walk to the train, just in case--a boxcutter on my keychain, perhaps, or a utility-knife blade in a little sheath on my wrist?
But of course, to admit to any of these thoughts is to admit fear, and thank you, there's plenty of OTHER people's fear floating around THIS enterprise. So for the most part, I stick with the short answer, knowing that's the only answer I can give that will get me even the pretense of peace. It satisfies no one, of course. "Aren't you SCARED?" is not so much a question as an accusation; a kinder way of saying "You idiot, you're moving into hell and you're almost guaranteed to die. Don't you KNOW that?"
And really, it's a fortunate thing that no one actually phrases it just that way, because if they did, I'd be forced to give a REAL answer: "Actually, I -do- know that, and I'm not terribly concerned." THAT tends to be the answer that gets you locked away, you know? THAT tends to be the answer that answers the other questions too, the questions that haven't been asked, that have nothing to do with the house or the neighborhood.
So then: Corrolary to big question #1: "You idiot, you're moving into hell and you're almost guaranteed to die. Don't you KNOW that?"
That question, if they could ask it at all, is freighted with clear implications: that dying is a Bad Thing, that someone in her right mind would go to any lengths to AVOID dying. That any place where people have a chance to die is, of necessity, a bad place, something to be avoided. What I can't tell them--some because they would then know too much about me, some because they already do--is this: I'm not afraid of it.
My fear of death evaporated in October of 1995 when JP died. The moment when the policeman came into the locked holding room and looked at me with that mix of pity and contempt and said to me "He did pass..." Until that moment, I'd been ABSOLUTELY SURE that this was just another misadventure brought to us by the Wild World of Junkie--like my overdose, like his other allergic reaction, like cotton fever or dopesickness or any of the other crazy shit that we'd lived through that year--and since it was just another misadventure, the paramedics would be able to do whatever paramedic magic they had in their little bags and vials, and somewhere along the line they would bring him back to me. Someday we'd all look back on it and laugh, right?
When that didn't happen--when the magic didn't work, when the god who'd been watching over us so vigilantly for so long took the night off and let JP die--that was when dying stopped being a big deal for me. I'm not a Catholic anymore; I'm not an -anything- anymore, so the whole "afterlife" question is wide-open. Once JP was gone I had to face that question: what happens after? Between what little faith I ever had, and the biology I've learned, I've narrowed it down to a small set of possibilities.
Possibility #1:There really is an afterlife in the traditional sense--heaven, hell, purgatory, all those basic concepts--and when I die I'll end up in one of them. Purgatory is a temporary thing, from what I was taught; therefore, it's heaven or hell, and though I'll admit to fucking up I don't think I'm QUITE hellbound. (I know, I know--I diverge wildly with most religions about what would send a soul to hell...Heroin, no. Exploiting other humans for personal gain? Yeah. Hell will be full of corporate CEOs and Republicans, if you ask me. But I digress.) Ergo, Possibility One culminates with a joyful heavenly reunion with JP for all eternity; therefore, Nothing To Fear In This Case.
Possibility #2 is based on pure, unromantic biology. For whatever reason--old age or a bullet to the head--the body processes cease. No breathing, no pulse--end of discussion. Most importantly, NO brain activity. We die, we're dead, we decay, and though there's no eternal bliss of reunion with JP, at least I'm not walking the earth like I have been for the last eight years, thinking about everything that might have been If Only. Possibility #2: Eternal nothingness--the mercy of not having to miss him anymore. Once again--Nothing To Fear In This Case.
Possibility #3 gets a little less Judeo-Christian; though I have no evidence to back it up, it's still a nice thought, so I add it here to round out the set. In this case it's not about heaven or hell, or stillness and rot; it's about what you learned last time around. We were all very cool with the reincarnation thing in college--particularly after any minor sort of fuck-up, it was comforting to think we might have the chance to do right next time, to know later what we didn't know in time. In this case, it all gets put right: I come back, JP comes back, we're destined to cross paths again, and eventually--even though I don't know it--I get to make up for everything I did and everything I didn't do THIS time around. Possibility #3: I get a second chance. Once again: Nothing To Fear In This Case.
And that's the lot. Mind you, I'm none too excited about the PROCESS of dying; my little agnostic's prayer is this--Please let me die quickly and painlessly, and grant me much more mercy than I deserve. I've got absolutely no desire to age slowly and gracelessly, becoming less and less capable. My capability and my brains right now are all I've got with which to comfort myself, and the thought of losing either of them makes me MOST unhappy. Given the choice between a sudden yet incomprehensible death at 33, and slow deterioration til my final end at, say, 85--I'll take 33 in a walk.
So, to answer the first question: Yes, I'm aware I could die. No, that doesn't particularly upset me.
Big question #1: "Aren't you SCARED?"
(This is not The Biggest Question, of course. The Biggest Question will be a post for another night, a night when I'm angry enough to answer it truthfully and without sugar-coating. There are other big questions to answer first, all of which lead into The Biggest Question.)
The answer--the SHORT answer--to this one is "No, not really." Like most short answers, it's only about half true; actually I -am- scared, or else why would I be taking all these security measures? I mean, deadbolts on the front door and an alarm system--those things I would have on ANY house I bought, regardless of the neighborhood. If I'm gonna pay on something for the next 30 years, it's damn well gonna be kept as safe as I can keep it. But in any other neighborhood, would I have the alarms on EVERY window, even the inaccessible one over the stairs? or the iron cagework installed over the inside of the basement door, so that even if a burglar got through the basement door itself, he wouldn't be able to actually get IN? or the deadbolt on the bedroom door, so if someone actually DID get in, I'd have somewhere to run while waiting for the police? In any other neighborhood, would I be planning how to carry an inconspicuous assortment of defensive weapons on my person every morning when I walk to the train, just in case--a boxcutter on my keychain, perhaps, or a utility-knife blade in a little sheath on my wrist?
But of course, to admit to any of these thoughts is to admit fear, and thank you, there's plenty of OTHER people's fear floating around THIS enterprise. So for the most part, I stick with the short answer, knowing that's the only answer I can give that will get me even the pretense of peace. It satisfies no one, of course. "Aren't you SCARED?" is not so much a question as an accusation; a kinder way of saying "You idiot, you're moving into hell and you're almost guaranteed to die. Don't you KNOW that?"
And really, it's a fortunate thing that no one actually phrases it just that way, because if they did, I'd be forced to give a REAL answer: "Actually, I -do- know that, and I'm not terribly concerned." THAT tends to be the answer that gets you locked away, you know? THAT tends to be the answer that answers the other questions too, the questions that haven't been asked, that have nothing to do with the house or the neighborhood.
So then: Corrolary to big question #1: "You idiot, you're moving into hell and you're almost guaranteed to die. Don't you KNOW that?"
That question, if they could ask it at all, is freighted with clear implications: that dying is a Bad Thing, that someone in her right mind would go to any lengths to AVOID dying. That any place where people have a chance to die is, of necessity, a bad place, something to be avoided. What I can't tell them--some because they would then know too much about me, some because they already do--is this: I'm not afraid of it.
My fear of death evaporated in October of 1995 when JP died. The moment when the policeman came into the locked holding room and looked at me with that mix of pity and contempt and said to me "He did pass..." Until that moment, I'd been ABSOLUTELY SURE that this was just another misadventure brought to us by the Wild World of Junkie--like my overdose, like his other allergic reaction, like cotton fever or dopesickness or any of the other crazy shit that we'd lived through that year--and since it was just another misadventure, the paramedics would be able to do whatever paramedic magic they had in their little bags and vials, and somewhere along the line they would bring him back to me. Someday we'd all look back on it and laugh, right?
When that didn't happen--when the magic didn't work, when the god who'd been watching over us so vigilantly for so long took the night off and let JP die--that was when dying stopped being a big deal for me. I'm not a Catholic anymore; I'm not an -anything- anymore, so the whole "afterlife" question is wide-open. Once JP was gone I had to face that question: what happens after? Between what little faith I ever had, and the biology I've learned, I've narrowed it down to a small set of possibilities.
Possibility #1:There really is an afterlife in the traditional sense--heaven, hell, purgatory, all those basic concepts--and when I die I'll end up in one of them. Purgatory is a temporary thing, from what I was taught; therefore, it's heaven or hell, and though I'll admit to fucking up I don't think I'm QUITE hellbound. (I know, I know--I diverge wildly with most religions about what would send a soul to hell...Heroin, no. Exploiting other humans for personal gain? Yeah. Hell will be full of corporate CEOs and Republicans, if you ask me. But I digress.) Ergo, Possibility One culminates with a joyful heavenly reunion with JP for all eternity; therefore, Nothing To Fear In This Case.
Possibility #2 is based on pure, unromantic biology. For whatever reason--old age or a bullet to the head--the body processes cease. No breathing, no pulse--end of discussion. Most importantly, NO brain activity. We die, we're dead, we decay, and though there's no eternal bliss of reunion with JP, at least I'm not walking the earth like I have been for the last eight years, thinking about everything that might have been If Only. Possibility #2: Eternal nothingness--the mercy of not having to miss him anymore. Once again--Nothing To Fear In This Case.
Possibility #3 gets a little less Judeo-Christian; though I have no evidence to back it up, it's still a nice thought, so I add it here to round out the set. In this case it's not about heaven or hell, or stillness and rot; it's about what you learned last time around. We were all very cool with the reincarnation thing in college--particularly after any minor sort of fuck-up, it was comforting to think we might have the chance to do right next time, to know later what we didn't know in time. In this case, it all gets put right: I come back, JP comes back, we're destined to cross paths again, and eventually--even though I don't know it--I get to make up for everything I did and everything I didn't do THIS time around. Possibility #3: I get a second chance. Once again: Nothing To Fear In This Case.
And that's the lot. Mind you, I'm none too excited about the PROCESS of dying; my little agnostic's prayer is this--Please let me die quickly and painlessly, and grant me much more mercy than I deserve. I've got absolutely no desire to age slowly and gracelessly, becoming less and less capable. My capability and my brains right now are all I've got with which to comfort myself, and the thought of losing either of them makes me MOST unhappy. Given the choice between a sudden yet incomprehensible death at 33, and slow deterioration til my final end at, say, 85--I'll take 33 in a walk.
So, to answer the first question: Yes, I'm aware I could die. No, that doesn't particularly upset me.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
The background:
In June of 2003, I finally managed to straighten out my credit to the point that I could reasonably expect to be approved if I applied for a mortgage. I have always, always wanted a house of my own. Not a condo--a condo seems to me to be too much like an apartment with none of an apartment's advantages--and besides, I wanted a backyard and a front yard and a decent sense of distance from my nearest neighbors. I was prepared to share a property-line and a fence, but not an interior wall.
I had also decided WHERE I wanted this house to be, and it was that decision that is at the heart of the reason for this weblog. I wanted to live on the West Side of Chicago; my original plan called for finding a house somewhere in the area bounded by North Avenue on the north, Austin on the west, Western on the east, and Madison on the south. It was an extensive area, but I was fairly familiar with the eastern 3/4 of it.
In the way of humans, no one paid much attention to my plans; after all, they had their own plans, and most of them had heard my pipe-dreams before and were fairly indulgent. It was only when I found a realtor and started looking that the opposition began. Once I actually FOUND the house, all hell broke loose. Didn't I know, they asked, about that neighborhood? Its reputation? I'd be eaten alive, they told me; my possessions scattered to the winds or pawned for drugs, and my vulnerable little white body ravaged and raped and cut to ribbons by the residents of That Neighborhood. I heard this from all quarters; my mother, co-workers, assorted friends and acquaintances. Some of them claimed that They Know They're Right because... (Here insert spurious reason. "I used to be a cop, so I Know I'm Right." "I'm a black woman and I KNOW black people, so I Know I'm Right." "I'm 74 years old and I've lived a hell of a lot longer than you have and seen a hell of a lot more, so I.K.I.R." (It's just as tiresome to type it as it is to HEAR it, as I've just discovered.)
The opposition grew as I became more involved in the process. I'm approaching my closing date, and the office atmosphere, once fairly collegial, has gone to hell since a few days ago, when one of the people quoted above decided it was her "duty" to tell me how wrongheaded I'm being. I stopped listening when she raised her voice to a yell...though I'm sure everyone concerned would say I was NEVER listening. Since then I've resolved to treat my co-workers with very basic cordiality and share NOTHING about my life. My family situation, if anything, is actually WORSE than the one in the office; not only does my mother oppose where I'm living, but she also opposes the man I'm dating and the prospect of this man spending time at the house. She's requested that I keep my phone number, when I get one, unlisted--so that "the relatives", my aunts and uncles and their assorted offspring, won't know that I'm living in That Neighborhood. I somehow don't think the relatives will be spending much time poring over the White Pages or Googling me to find out where I live--but one never knows, does one?
Which is entirely the point of this weblog. One Never Knows, Does One. I would say I'm among the people in my world who understands all the implications of that statement, and perhaps the only one who's experienced it quite as forcefully. I know I'm not the only woman in the world who's lost a lover; nor even the only one who's watched that lover die, even at so young an age. I know I'm not the only one in the world who's known grief--but all the same, I don't think that's happened to anyone else in MY life. If it has, I certainly don't know about it. And that grief, that loss, that space where JP used to be--that is the same space these beliefs came from. I know I'm not the only one, but it changes you, you know? Your priorities shift after such an experience. Not all at once; not even noticeably, at first...but then one day you wake up and it's eight years later, and if you actually LOOK around you realize how different you are.
This is not a weblog about that difference, really. Nor is it a weblog about my house, or about LJ, the guy I'm dating; or the neighborhood I'm moving into; not about my family, or my friends, not my job or my past. But all those things are part of it. Mainly I'm writing this to try to explain, in case anyone actually CARES, why it's a bad idea to judge someone who isn't you. The people who are judging me are operating from an entirely different belief system than mine, and judging my actions and motivations by THEIR beliefs. And I will concede--if I believed what they believed, my actions would make no sense. But in the framework of my values, they make a great deal of sense indeed.
I'm not saying my beliefs are RIGHT....I'm just saying that they're MINE, and I've fought hard to get them and I've considered them carefully. I can't say for certain whether others have gone through this same process; some people have, I know, and others have just reflexively accepted what they're told--or rejected it, just as reflexively. It took me a long time to assure myself that I was NOT one of those, but I'm not--and that's why I'm writing this.
In June of 2003, I finally managed to straighten out my credit to the point that I could reasonably expect to be approved if I applied for a mortgage. I have always, always wanted a house of my own. Not a condo--a condo seems to me to be too much like an apartment with none of an apartment's advantages--and besides, I wanted a backyard and a front yard and a decent sense of distance from my nearest neighbors. I was prepared to share a property-line and a fence, but not an interior wall.
I had also decided WHERE I wanted this house to be, and it was that decision that is at the heart of the reason for this weblog. I wanted to live on the West Side of Chicago; my original plan called for finding a house somewhere in the area bounded by North Avenue on the north, Austin on the west, Western on the east, and Madison on the south. It was an extensive area, but I was fairly familiar with the eastern 3/4 of it.
In the way of humans, no one paid much attention to my plans; after all, they had their own plans, and most of them had heard my pipe-dreams before and were fairly indulgent. It was only when I found a realtor and started looking that the opposition began. Once I actually FOUND the house, all hell broke loose. Didn't I know, they asked, about that neighborhood? Its reputation? I'd be eaten alive, they told me; my possessions scattered to the winds or pawned for drugs, and my vulnerable little white body ravaged and raped and cut to ribbons by the residents of That Neighborhood. I heard this from all quarters; my mother, co-workers, assorted friends and acquaintances. Some of them claimed that They Know They're Right because... (Here insert spurious reason. "I used to be a cop, so I Know I'm Right." "I'm a black woman and I KNOW black people, so I Know I'm Right." "I'm 74 years old and I've lived a hell of a lot longer than you have and seen a hell of a lot more, so I.K.I.R." (It's just as tiresome to type it as it is to HEAR it, as I've just discovered.)
The opposition grew as I became more involved in the process. I'm approaching my closing date, and the office atmosphere, once fairly collegial, has gone to hell since a few days ago, when one of the people quoted above decided it was her "duty" to tell me how wrongheaded I'm being. I stopped listening when she raised her voice to a yell...though I'm sure everyone concerned would say I was NEVER listening. Since then I've resolved to treat my co-workers with very basic cordiality and share NOTHING about my life. My family situation, if anything, is actually WORSE than the one in the office; not only does my mother oppose where I'm living, but she also opposes the man I'm dating and the prospect of this man spending time at the house. She's requested that I keep my phone number, when I get one, unlisted--so that "the relatives", my aunts and uncles and their assorted offspring, won't know that I'm living in That Neighborhood. I somehow don't think the relatives will be spending much time poring over the White Pages or Googling me to find out where I live--but one never knows, does one?
Which is entirely the point of this weblog. One Never Knows, Does One. I would say I'm among the people in my world who understands all the implications of that statement, and perhaps the only one who's experienced it quite as forcefully. I know I'm not the only woman in the world who's lost a lover; nor even the only one who's watched that lover die, even at so young an age. I know I'm not the only one in the world who's known grief--but all the same, I don't think that's happened to anyone else in MY life. If it has, I certainly don't know about it. And that grief, that loss, that space where JP used to be--that is the same space these beliefs came from. I know I'm not the only one, but it changes you, you know? Your priorities shift after such an experience. Not all at once; not even noticeably, at first...but then one day you wake up and it's eight years later, and if you actually LOOK around you realize how different you are.
This is not a weblog about that difference, really. Nor is it a weblog about my house, or about LJ, the guy I'm dating; or the neighborhood I'm moving into; not about my family, or my friends, not my job or my past. But all those things are part of it. Mainly I'm writing this to try to explain, in case anyone actually CARES, why it's a bad idea to judge someone who isn't you. The people who are judging me are operating from an entirely different belief system than mine, and judging my actions and motivations by THEIR beliefs. And I will concede--if I believed what they believed, my actions would make no sense. But in the framework of my values, they make a great deal of sense indeed.
I'm not saying my beliefs are RIGHT....I'm just saying that they're MINE, and I've fought hard to get them and I've considered them carefully. I can't say for certain whether others have gone through this same process; some people have, I know, and others have just reflexively accepted what they're told--or rejected it, just as reflexively. It took me a long time to assure myself that I was NOT one of those, but I'm not--and that's why I'm writing this.
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