House Party

This morning when I walked out the door, I was greeted by two familiar, yet incongruous-for-6:30-AM items of sensory input:



1) unidentifiable gospel music

2) the intoxicating, stomach-growlingly delicious scent of barbecue.



From the backyard of the house directly to the east of mine--Len and Phoebe's house--a cloud of smoke poured forth--carrying, as aforementioned, the unmistakeable tang of woodsmoke and yumminess. So I knew SOMETHING had to be up--for a moment, I wondered if maybe this was the weekend of the block party. (It isn't, but we can't be far from it.)



By the time I got home, a full 12 hours later, the cloud of smoke was still going. (Though since I'd had lunch, it wasn't quite so awe-inspiringly delicious.)



I'm pretty sure it's someone's birthday, or a family reunion--lots of kids, lots of strange faces, lots and LOTS of food!!! Regardless--within an hour of my arrival, the music had started.



Now, understand--I love this music, truly I do. But as of 10 PM, I have now been regaled twice with "Booty Hop"--a guaranteed earworm for some day next week--twice with "Saltshaker" by Lil' Jon, the East Side Boyz, and the Ying-Yang Twins--and with at least three variations on "The Casper Slide". (I shouldn't complain; for a while there, the DJ was playing all sorts of dusties, and at one point I even took a moment to pause and e-mail CR; they were playing "Housequake" as part of one of the mixes, and that reminded me of him more than just about anything else. If I miss anything about him, his music is that thing; honestly, though, I miss his company too. Not enough to ever, ever forget what a howling, outrageous asshole he was--but enough to not hate him for the rest of my life.



Mostly I'm just lonely, I guess. It's a mark of regression, if you ask me, that most of my social life in recent days has been conducted in a technological medium--I've made contact with several other bloggers, among them Anonyboy, Standing Bear, and Kevin at the CTA Tattler (all of which are really-freakin'-cool blogs which I highly recommend to everyone reading this) and that's been the far edge of my horizons lately. Generally when the only place I'm meeting people is online, things ain't goin' well (exhibit A--North Carolina, 1996-1997. What a fucked-up time that was for me--JP not gone even a year, and here's good ol' Gladys in her resolutely FINE mode--working 2 jobs, forcing myself to write 8 pages on the novel every night before going to bed--and on AOL just CONSTANTLY. I thought I was fine after 6 months--it's now almost 9 YEARS and I'm still not over it.)



I'm just at the end of my rope, is all, with about 75% of the major components of my life. The job--sucks immortal ass. The house--I still LOVE the house but the process of getting it taken care of, getting things fixed, is just fuckin' KILLING me. My plumber has the WORST luck of any human being on planet Earth--in fact, that constitutes a blog post all its own. Money---holy shit, could I HAVE any less money?? I'm really scared that we won't make all the bills this month, and I don't know how to make it better--yeah, I know, "spend less or earn more". Ha ha ha. If I could get everfucking Peoples' Energy off my ass, with their $350/month bill, things would be sooooooOOOOOoooo much easier. I want to know--who are these "People", anyway? Because they're some very RICH "People" and I'm just about tired of them crawling into my wallet every month and sucking out all my money. And the $220/month to the clinic will be nice, once it's no longer going out--but I've done as much cutting-back as I can in THAT regard. I went down from 15 mg to 12.5 mg, and then the night before last, down to 10 mg. Today I noticed some beginning withdrawal symptoms, which means "stop where you are and let the body adjust." I know I have to be patient, but I've been on methadone for 6 years and at $220/month x 72 months, that's nearly $16,000 I've spent. I'd like it back....but then again, I'd like the money back that I spent on 5 years worth of heroin, too. And I know for a flat-out FACT that I spent MUCH more than $220 a month on THAT...



The only thing that's not making me insane--and it's an on-and-off sort of peace--is LJ. If he would just talk to me more and tell me what the hell is going on that's making him so distant and hard to get close to--if he would just TELL me that, he would be absolutely the perfect boyfriend. (I mean, not PERFECT perfect, but perfect in terms of "doesn't do anything that pisses me off and does LOTS of things that make me happy.") Today I came home and he'd cleaned the kitchen, stacked the mail, and shovelled the dead mouse out of the basement. (White Cat apparently had a little fun the other night; I went downstairs last night to do laundry, and there was...the corpse. I was squicked beyond repair; it was apparent that this rodent had died a death neither natural nor peaceful. As LJ so beautifully put it: "I -think- it was the mouse...I mean, the cat had already fucked him UP!" )



I really do love LJ; I've just been through so much bullshit with men who said one thing and did another, who lied and cheated and hurt me...and then, behind those memories are my memories of JP, and how happy I was. I just want to be treated in a certain way, and sometimes circumstances are such that I can't have what I want when I want it--but because it's been so long since I WAS treated that way, it's hard to be patient. Plus, he's Mr. Totally Pragmatic, Non-Affectionate, The-Only-Way-You'll-Ever-Know-I-Love-You-Is-That-I-Haven't-Left-You--and I'm a little bit more needy than his personality will accomodate. It's just a matter of adjustment, and of remembering: I'm only Girlfriend #3. He's never had to deal with someone like me before--so what I take for granted he should KNOW, he's never even considered, nor had to.



It's now midnight, and the music is still going strong. I'm jealous, actually--too much fun within my hearing.