13 March 2001 ~ The hammering party, and general nastiness...

From the beginning, it was destined to be a bad day... I was awoken at like, 6 in the morning or something when the upstairs people began loudly having a hammering party.

What, Helena, is a hammering party? Well, I'm not sure, but it was loud and it was fucking EARLY in the morning. I trudged upstairs, knocked on the door, and said, "hey, is everything okay?" The upstairs girl had a mini-hysterical fit of apology, explaining, "Oh, I thought you were out; I thought you worked in the morning."

Well YEAH, I work in the morning, but I do not work at the ass-crack of dawn! There is nothing more heinous than being awoken by some horrendous noise... (As Kundera might point out, there's a reason they call them ALARM clocks...)

From the beginning, it was destined to be rotten.

Work was fine. Nothing unusual.

Came home to check my email, talked to David for a minute or two, and decided that maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all... Until, that is, David signed off and I found a somewhat horrendous message in my guestbook... Two of them, actually.

"...you know you're gonna miss your little [Peter] because you're still in love with him. just another fag. just like [Norman]. why must you always fuck queers? you'd think you were a ho. hmmm..."

I'm not even looking at this shit anymore. I'm calmly turning on a new CD (This Mortal Coil), programming it to the good songs, lighting a cigarette, and thinking about the safest, warmest place I can think of, a little bistro with mango tea and key-lime pie with raspberry sauce...

"kevin and [Jo] were right - you are a sad sad case. bet you'll erase this, tho since you're such a egotistic bitch - only positive things from your little [Aaron] can be there. ... PS: i saw you the other day at work. nice shirt. not."

Safe warm place... Key-lime pie... Cigarette... Track seven...

What the FUCK, man? I don't fucking like having enemies, you know? I cannot imagine what this person's problem with me is, especially since I haven't seen ANYBODY at work who knows all the real names of my various acquaintances, except people I work with. Makes me fucking nervous, you know? That somebody seems to know a little bit about me: my friends' names, my website address, where I work... Who the fuck would know all that, AND would have a serious problem with me?

Of course, I'm not going to erase it, just going to ignore it and go on with life. Not going to be scared of walking down the street; nobody who's chickenshit enough to leave an anonymous guestbook entry is bold enough to do anything to hurt me.

[Helena is closing her eyes, Helena is listening to a beautiful song, Helena is a million miles away with a cup of tea. Helena has her eyes closed and she's inside one of Norman's songs: the one that sounds like a lady lying on a beach with a big white hat and an exotic drink. Helena's not paying the least bit of attention to any of this guestbook nonsense; Helena is busy marvelling that the woman with the exotic drink looks a lot like Isabella Rossellini... Helena is turning off her computer and going downtown for a real cup of tea. Helena is going someplace where she knows she's got somebody who fucking cares about her. Helena doesn't put up with this shit. Helena's a god-damned goddess and there's an enormous brick wall between her and anybody else who has comments like this to make...]

~H.T.*