19 March 2002 ~ [Wish you were here...]

Oh dammit.

Was thinking of you today when I went downtown to have some coffee and escape the campus for awhile. It was snowing; the whole world was slush. Was thinking of the parking lot of the Hess Mart for some reason, and of that kid, Matt or Mark, whatever the fuck his name is, and how he has the same birthday as me. The kid on the bus next to me started talking about "the snow back home." He was from the Adirondacks someplace. He started talking about how, "back home," he drinks Saranac, not this Oly shit. I smiled. I though of Matt-or-Mark, and of you, and the Hess Mart parking lot.

Was thinking of you as I sipped my decaf americano; they bitched at me for asking for decaf. They said they don't serve that shit. I'm not kidding. The barrista really freaked on me. He said that only three people in his entire time working there have asked him for decaf. I said: "But you must have decaf, because I had a decaf americano here the other night!" He said: "Well, yes..." and pulled out a tiny little brown sandwich bag that had maybe ten coffee beans in it. It was dated "Jan 17." He said: "NOBODY here gets decaf. If I make you decaf, you can't tell anyone. We're supposed to be known as a caffeine den." He was serious; I swear he was. I thought of you. I wanted to tell you.

I went up to the second floor, and lit a cigarette, and stared at the wall for awhile. Then I read ten or fifteen pages of my book. I thought of you. It's really quite an erotic book. It's about three people all in various kinds of love with each other, and at some point or another, they've all fucked each other; real depressing stuff, but the words... the words are so beautiful. It's poetry, really, but better somehow, because I don't hate it. The really sexy parts make me think of you; some of our silly little games, and how sometimes you've made me feel so much, so fast, that I haven't known whether to laugh or cry. I smoked and I stared and I read, and I thought that I don't really sleep naked anymore. Doesn't seem worth it without you next to me.

Thought of you in the post office. The video I ordered on Ebay came in finally. It's a movie we watched together on "IFC Fridays on Bravo." It was a good movie, but I fell asleep somewhere in the middle, my head in your lap. I never got to see the ending. I don't remember, but I think I lied and said it was a good ending just so you wouldn't tease me for falling asleep AGAIN during a movie. Fuck it. But I DO want to see the ending.

I made dinner with Louise. All I had to make was the rest of the mushrooms and pasta I bought last week. I wish you could have had some with us. I brought the CD-player into the kitchen while we ate. I played the Rachel's CD that I found in Seattle last summer, but if you'd been here, I would have had you pick the music. Rachel's is too sinister and woeful for dinner-music.

I read another seventy pages or so of my book. The sexy parts still reminded me of you. Some of the parts gave me some ideas. The ideas reminded me of you too.

It should probably be around bedtime for me now. The thing is, I really don't want to go to bed. It's a tiny little bed, and I use about a thousand blankets because you're not here to warm me up. Sometimes I hug the blankets and pretend they're you, but it's not a very easy thing to pretend.

The thing is, I'm really kind of scared about a lot of things, and I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep. It's been a pretty good day, you know, and I've gotten a lot done, had some neat insights into some work I want to start doing, read lots and lots of pages of a really gorgeous book, had two meals and picked up my mail... I've really had a decent day. But the thing is, I kept you with me, all day. Every few hours, maybe every few MINUTES, I was thinking SOMETHING about you. And I don't want to go to sleep because I'm afraid that in the morning, you won't be lying next to me. As a matter of fact, I'm 99% sure you won't be.

I'm really happy here. Everything is going really well. And this is home now, really. I can imagine myself living here for a very long time. And I really can't imagine -- don't want to imagine, but can't even when I try -- moving back to Binghamton. They pick on my once in awhile when a little bit of an East Coast accent slips out, and I pick on the Tacoma kids sometimes (I'm not sure WHY, but none of the people I've EVER personally met from Tacoma are even remotely sane; sometimes that's a bad thing, other times it's a good thing...), and I still hate Oly beer, but I think I belong here, and I think I fit in pretty well. Stuff's good. I'm going to get my driver's license in Lacey maybe this week; the first step to being a resident. It will be good.

I really, really hate that you're not here. I really hate that, even though I'm a thousand times happier in general, than I was living in cloudy little old Binghamton, a part of me is still really very unhappy. I can't go back and live there; I really can't. It would just take away too many of the pleasant things about my whole life right now. It would just remind me of lots of dark things, and lots of hatred, and lots of times I really did a lot of ugly things. But I MISS you, dammit. I know you're going to stay there for awhile longer, and I'm going to stay here awhile longer, and what I've been thinking about today -- the thing that makes me not want to go to sleep right now -- is that it really isn't very fair.

See, the thing is, I'm really quite in love with you. I guess I have been for quite a long time. That in itself scares me, because I'm not very good at things like being in love. I always come close and then I get scared off at the last minute and find some way of wrecking things. I swear I wasn't actively TRYING to wreck things between you and me when I moved here -- it wasn't that at ALL. I was trying to sever ties between me and Binghamton -- all the Binghamton shit and drama and negativity -- not between me and you. But I figured that when I moved, my feelings for you would sort of start to fade... Probably pretty gradually, I thought. But they HAVEN'T. Not at all. And that scares the shit out of me. I'm just as in love as I ever was; maybe more so now that I'm finally feeling fairly healthy and don't have to expend all my energy on dumb shit like food service work and grocery shopping and getting eight hours of sleep a night. Now that I have a little time to think about things... I find myself thinking a lot about you. I don't have any idea what to do about that.

I've slept with two people since I've been here (yeah, yeah, no comments from the peanut gallery). I was thinking maybe it was just some sort of sexual frustration or something; gahd knows, for convenience's sake, I'd really rather NOT be in love with you; I'd much PREFER that it was just me feeling horny and such. But lying in bed one dark night with one of my new lovers, I accidentally said something to you. I honestly don't remember what; I was mostly asleep. But I know it was addressed to you. One of those silly, sweet, intimate things that only you could possibly understand.

I'm really kind of scared that I'll never see you again. Or that when I do see you again, I won't really matter so much to you anymore except as a part of history. I thought I was prepared for that, and I'm not. I'm not at all. I love you. Regardless of how much it scares me, I love you.

I have to go to bed now; I'm getting really tired.

Maybe when you read this, email me a story? Or just a hello? Or just play a song for me? Or just have a cigarette for me and blow smoke out one nostril like the freak that you are....

Going to bed. Wishing you'd slip through the door tonight and into my bed so I could hold you...

Love and all sorts of obscene kisses and things...
~C.J.*