14 February 2004

Five years ago today, while sitting in a fairly raunchy dorm room in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I began this website and made my first posting.

It took me about twelve hours to figure out enough HTML to make it legible.

I'm feeling sort of nostalgic today. It's difficult to explain. I don't get all mushy over the whole Hallmark Valentine's Day thing. I don't send cards, or expect Jakey-pie to buy me roses or any of that crap. I really couldn't give a shit about Valentine's Day. But there's something reflective in the air, and I find myself thinking about Valentine's Days of the past...

* * * * * * * * * * *

In 1997, I was dating a boy named Erich. I'd donated my virginity to him three days earlier. He had long dark hair and a very pretentious swagger. He always looked like he had something wrong with his hip. He drove me to school that morning, and we ate bacon and drank coffee in his car on the way. We both loved bacon and coffee. At school, he presented me with a little plastic box of Gummi Worms (tm). This sounds sweet and adorable and all -- that nice "aw, high-school-sweethearts" sort of crap -- but really, all of this was some sort of twisted mind game. Erich had chosen Gummi Worms (tm), because he said I tasted like them when I drank Diet Coke. I always drank Diet Coke. And then, Erich would maul me with his tongue, which was large and sloppy and gross.

Erich, in general, was a dick. He had his redeeming qualities, but overall, he was a manipulative little bitch. He was always suffering. I should say, he was "suffering." You don't actually suffer when you're sixteen years old, but Erich was always whining about this or that agent of torment. He had learning disabilities, he had an overbearing bitch for a mother, he was too smart and eveybody hated him... You name it, he had an ailment -- emotional or physical -- because of it. And he used every single one of his ailments against me. His back would ache, so I'd have to rub it. His parents had yelled at him, so I'd have to comfort him. He'd gotten himself hooked on speed because he was so damned smart (?!?!), and I'd have to sleep with him... I mean, nothing so expressly stated, but this was the general idea, and Erich subtlely DID say all of these things.

On the afternoon of February 14th, 1997, we left school at 2:30, and gathered ten wandering eighth and ninth graders into his gold Toyota. Miraculously, we squeezed everyone in. Then Erich put Rocky Horror in the cassette player, and we all sang and danced to the Time Warp to the very best of our abilities. I suspect several unintentional pregnancies may have occurred during Erich's Time Warp sessions. You haven't lived until you've seen ten people gyrating in a tiny little Toyota like that...

* * * * * * * * * * *

On February 14, 1998, I was drinking with Meg and Rachel. Meg bought six or seven bottles of wine for a Girl's Only Anti-Valentine's Day party. By morning, only two were left, and we'd only had three people attending the party. I'd never been drunk before that night.

The night is sort of splotchy. I remember spreading four cans of frosting on a cake shaped like a heart. It had strawberries in the middle. I remember how the cake looked like a large tampon after we'd baked it, and Meg's room-mate (and, I supposed, the love of my life), David, was the only one who would eat it. Later, Peter told him he was getting fat.

I remember walking across downtown wearing three of David's Hawaiian shirts. We were also in our socks -- no shoes -- despite it being FEBRUARY in upstate New York. We sang Tori Amos songs the whole way: "And if I die today I'll be the happy phantom..." I don't think I've ever really loved anybody of the female persuasion as much as I loved Rachel and Meg that night.

I remember Meg setting one of David's towels on fire. It was a green one. It was the towel that David's horrible, nasty, mean girlfriend Ariel had been wearing one afternoon when I knocked on David's apartment door. She'd been taking a shower, and emerged, in all her fat, ugly glory, in this green towel to tell me she'd like some private time with David, and that I ought to find something else to do. So Meg found a lighter, and we torched the towel. Despite our best efforts, we never did convince anybody that it wasn't pre-meditated. We had, after all, replaced the green towel several days in advance of torching it. When Meg lit it, it went up in flames almost immediately. Don't ever think a bath towel is going to protect you in a house fire... It took me a couple of minutes for me to get Meg to agree to bring the flaming towel out of the apartment. The apartment had only one exit, and it was on the third floor. As we found out several years later, as a bar on the same block burned to the ground, brick apartment buildings aren't immune to fire. So we burned the towel in the smack middle of downtown Binghamton. David had to walk past it on his way in the next morning.

I remember watching "Four Rooms" with Rachel while Meg disappeared into the bathroom for awhile. She'd drunk at least one bottle of wine alone, and she had a bad kidney infection at the time. So Rachel and I watched the movie together on David's little computer monitor, which he'd rigged up to his VCR. Neither Rachel nor I has any recollection of what went on in the movie.

It was also the last time we saw Neil. He was checking his email at the computer in the coffeehouse downstairs. He was wearing a hat that may or may not have had leopard print on it. And a dress. Neil wore dresses for special occasions, like Valentine's Day, and the day he secretly disappeared from Binghamton forever. No one heard from him for several months, and no one saw him for almost three years. I was trashed, but I'll never forget the look on his face. It was a horrible goodbye. I don't even remember if I hugged him and said goodbye or not. I don't even remember if I knew he was leaving. The next morning, he was heading for New Orleans.

The next morning, I lay on the floor and played Portishead CDs so loud that the woman downstairs began pounding on her ceiling with a broom. I remember David's face; I remember him actually stopping the flow of drunken, hungover tears. I don't remember much of what he said. Mostly just, "in two years, none of this is going to matter."

That wasn't entirely true. Actually, it was mostly untrue. I believed him, though, because David didn't lie -- at least not to me. Not ever. And so everything was okay. And, on the evening of February 15th, 1998, when my dad came to pick me up, I was completely sober. Just very tired. Oh, and I had fosting in my hair and a scorch-mark on my fingers.

And after all was said and done, I got my turn with David's red towel. Eat your heart out, fat nasty girl.

(Sorry, I HAD to....)

* * * * * * * * * * *

On February 14, 1999, I sat in my dorm room, smoking Camel Menthols and feeling friendless. I think I had a paper to do. I did it at the last minute. I was trying out a new experiment. I got an A in my creative writing class for my unique project, which utilized modern technology as a mode of publishing. Whatever. None of my professors ever READ this shit...

I suppose I must have played Portishead. I liked to play Portishead and sit across the hall in the public bathroom, smoking underneath the paper towel dispenser. I imagined myself lit up entirely in a deep magenta red. I imagined being a music video.

I had no friends and I was bored and lonely as shit.

* * * * * * * * * * *

On February 14th, 2000, I was recovering from "An Evening With Miss Diva Divine," a drag show starring Peter. I remember walking home in a few inches of snow and ice. I remember the nasty expression of Peter's face. I remember him being a gahddamned fucking DIVA. Pretending to be a fucking woman, pretending to be a fucking queen of the damned universe. I remember the feathers and dresses and the shuffle of chiffon. I remember the stupid wigs. Peter was so damned ugly. And he hated me so much. I don't remember any of the rest of it anymore, although I think -- I think -- that at the time, I thought I loved him. I really don't remember that part anymore.

* * * * * * * * * * *

On February 14th, 2001, I loved a man named Norman. I had an apartment building called the Oak Street Apartment. Norman lived two blocks away. I regularly shared his. Norman had more books than God, and approximately thirty guitars or something. (I may be exaggerating somewhat.) I slept over at Norman's place a lot. It was a comfortable place to sleep. There was music, and there were books, and the windows were small. You had to make your own entertainment. Or, you could just let your eyes relax, and fall asleep into it all: the books, the music, the happy, sleepy sort of affection Norman and I had for each other. Before I fell asleep at night, I always looked at the black window above Norman's head, and thought: if a nuclear bomb hits tonight, I will be okay with that. I am full and satisfied.

But I wasn't full and satisfied, really. I was horribly unhappy with my jobs, and I always smells of rank fishsticks. And I knew I wouldn't ever be beautiful if I were standing next to Norman for the rest of my life. He outshone me with his ecstatic mind and his perpetually hyper body. So I left within the year. Not for lack of love, but -- I think -- for lack of self.

* * * * * * * * * * *

On February 14th of 2002, I was wandering through the Evergreen State College's forests, talking about my longterm hatred of Courtney love, with a cute Jewish boy from Spokane. The cute Jewish boy was too young for me, and I knew it, and he knew it, but I liked playing with his hair. He called me a few days later and told me we had to break up. Break up, I thought? But we weren't dating! We were talking about Courtney Love, for Christ's sake! And walking around in the woods. We got lost in the woods. We didn't kiss. Or hug. Or look each other in the eyes for more than a few seconds. The Jewish kid from Spokane was a fucken moron. All I wanted was to play with his hair and hang out with him. Maybe talk sometimes. Maybe make out a time or two. But noooooo, the Jewish kid from Spokane would have none of it. I was so pissed at him that, that weekend, I seduced a kid down the hall from me who believed in dragons and was a member of the S.C.A. Yeah, don't worry about it -- I don't see the logic either.

* * * * * * * * * * *

On February 14th of 2003, I was in the hospital. Jake had driven me a night or two before when I started bleeding profusely. So they checked me in, made me lay down in my own blood for the night, woke me up every few hours to make sure I was still alive, and then gave me some very horrible drugs to make me fall asleep so that they could stick a tube down into my lungs. Then they removed gahd-knows-what from my uterus, and I hemorrhaged so badly that they gave me two units of blood. They didn't even think they'd need one. When I woke up, I couldn't talk because the tube in my lung had scratched the fuck out of my throat. I managed to bang on the side of my bed and whimper to catch someone's attention. My throat was so dry that the whimpering ached. Everything ached, but I think it was more a mental anguish than a physical one. A nurse asked me, "how are you doing?"

It took all of my strength to say it, but I managed to say, "where's Jake?"

The nurse said: "what?"

"Jake. I want Jake. Get Jake."

I remember that night, Jake lay beside me on a little cot the nurses gave him. He held my hand and made fun on my catheter, and laughed at me when the nurses gave me an antihistamine that got me stoned. We watched Star Trek on TV in the hospital room. I remember that Jake had the nicest face, and the prettiest hair... I remember being a disgusting, broken piece of worthless filth, and Jake loved me until I was almost whole again. I remember being too weak to walk down the hallway without a walker. And I couldn't love Jake as much as he deserved. I remember that that boy wouldn't let me die, even though I wanted to. Even though I think my body was trying to die. It took a lot of months, but finally I'm glad that Jake didn't let me die.

* * * * * * * * * * *

On the morning of February 14, 2004, Jake yelled something rude and mostly incoherent at me when I woke him up. That was fine; I know what it's like to wake up. We don't agree on much, but we do agree that mornings SUCK. So we smoked a cigarette together, and we glued together a newspaper -- a prop for a short movie Jake's friend is making. It took a number of hours to put the whole newspaper together, but it looks pretty damned good. I said: "happy Valentine's Day, darlin'," and gave it to him.

I've been typing for awhile, listening to Stereolab -- slightly more upbeat than Portishead, for sure. Jake is out making his movies. I haven't been doing much at all...

I have a ten-page paper due Monday, and I haven't begun it yet. I suppose I ought to do that.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Thank you for the past five years. All of you.

This past year is dedicated to my family. All of you, biological or not. You know who you are.

Love,
~Helena*