21 June 2002 ~ Going to Buffalo...

I know, I've been slacking off with these entries... I suck ass. I suck ass, and not in a nice, wholesome way. But you've been slacking off on reading, too; nobody really comes here anymore, so I'm wondering if you all might not be getting bored with "Wet Cleanup"?

Better to burn out than to fade away, as they say. Maybe I should have sent this garbage heap of an online journal to the incinerator long ago. Oh well. Guess it's a bit late for that.

Spent two days in Portland this week. Portland's okay. I like it, it's pretty, there are lots of pretty young people and lots of trees, but I get the feeling that Portland really has no use for outsiders. It moves quickly, it moves quietly, and nobody ever asks you for anything, nobody ever offers you anything, nobody notices you're alive. In some ways, I guess, that's a good thing, but I still like Seattle better.

So anyway... Still no job, still no phone number, still no internet access from home. Give me another week, and I can guarantee I'll be hooked up with at least two of the above. If not, I'm sequestering myself in my room until I DO have at least two of the above.

I still feel a little bit like running away. I guess I don't really know why. I don't feel like the Man is dragging me around by the hair anymore. I don't feel like I'm starving to death anymore. I just feel like... like I have no personality anymore. Like I'm losing grips on what I ever DID have of a personality. I feel like I'm possessed. I catch myself talking like my grandmother; like the only joy in my entire existence is pointing out things to other people, such as, "look, dear, a chickadee!" I feel like I don't have any secrets anymore. I feel like being Super Rebel Helena and running off to Buffalo. I only know one person in Buffalo, and he may have moved away by now. That's a good thing. I want to go, if only for a few days, where nobody knows anything about me, so that *I* can have a few minutes by myself to understand a few things about myself. I have no independence anymore. But I do know that, independent of absolutely ANYTHING else, I love Buffalo chicken wings.

I think tonight, I'll take myself out for wings.

Or maybe a rum-and-coke.

What the fuck; maybe today I won't do a DAMNED THING for anybody else on this planet. Won't do anything to make somebody else feel all warm and good about themselves. I'm going to go to my apartment, and I'm going to take a bubble bath, and I'm going to have a soda, leave the empty can lying on the floor, and spend the rest of my day and night writing letters to Norman and to Greg, my very favorite penpal in the whole wide world...

Maybe I'll go down to the Spar tonight for a rum and coke, and when the old man comes up to hit on me, I'll say, "look, dude, you can pay for my drink if you want, but I'm not going to sleep with you and I'm not even going to pretend to like you, so if you can't handle that, please just pay for my drink and go away..." No ego-stroking, no pretty smiling, no demure crossing of my legs. Fuck it; I want a Girl Night Out. I spend too much of my life making everybody else feel special and important. And frankly, aside from my family (in which I include Norman, and usually Aaron and David...), and my very favorite penpal in the whole wide world, very, very few people actually deserve the time and energy I put into them.

I really ought to learn to use people.

Not for money, not for sex, not for rides, not for attention. I really ought to learn to use people for little things. Like, say I'm really jonesing for a night by myself, doing my own thing. I think I should learn to use people so that, while I'm doing my own thing, taking my own little bubble bath and drinking my soda and writing my letters, I have a friend, acquaintance, lover, or some such thing in the next room, reading quietly: half ignoring me, half expectantly waiting for me to say, "hey, can you get me another soda since you're closer?" I think I go out of my way FAR too often for other people, to make their lives more convenient, more interesting. I think the reason I never update this journal is because I'm spending all my damned time making other people feel good about themselves.

A couple of times, I've fallen for this game... This game of, "I'm going to look tormented and hurt if you won't have dinner at my house with me." I've fallen for it before, thought, "yeah, yeah, I REALLY have things to do at MY house, but what the hell... Gee, I really should be home working on my homework, but I guess I could just make so-and-so happy just this once and then not have my homework to turn in tomorrow..."

Yeah, and if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk.

...And if you give him a glass of milk, he's going to want a cigarette, and for you to help wipe his ass. THAT is where I'm going to end up, you know, if I don't take some fucking time for myself, take a little bit of a stand, and say, "hey, either be quiet and let me write, or get away from me..." I'll end up doling out cigarettes and wiping asses.

I should go to Buffalo before that happens.

Just for a day or two. Nothing permanent.

I wake up in the morning... I'm rubbing my eyes and fumbling for my clothes, sipping some juice, staring out the window... And one of the very first things I hear is: "I'm getting in your way... I should leave..." I feel like screaming: "I'm barely out fo BED yet! I'm not even out of my pajamas! How COULD you be getting in my way; and moreover, how DARE you sit there and whine at me for attention and reassurance before I've got my eyes all the way open!" But I don't scream. I just say: "No you're not in my way."

"I WILL be getting in your way."

"All I'm going to be doing is washing the dishes and then maybe picking up some of this shit I've left on the floor... You're not in the way. If you want, you can talk to me and keep me company."

"Okay..." Then, thirty seconds later: "Now I'm really getting in the way... I'm so sorry..."

Yes! You ARE getting in the fucking way! I feel like you're jealous of the attention I pay to my dishes. If I'm not paying STRICT, COMPLETE attention to you, you start this mopey shit about how I don't like you, and you're only getting in the way in my life, and... all these stupid fucking mind games. And I HATE IT. I mean, f'gahd's sake, I sit at YOUR table talking with you and keeping YOU company when you're doing your own dishes. I don't NEED you to be touching me, talking to me, breathing down my neck, serving me peeled grapes on a platter, every fucking second. But I'll be damned, I have nothing left of myself anymore... I try to tell you a little story and you interrupt. I put my music on MY stereo and as soon as the album ends, you turn on your radio station. You tell me you're bored at my house, so we have to go back to yours. You have to check your email, so we have to go to your house. You hate my food, so we have to go eat at your house. You want to watch movies, so let's do it at your house. You ate too much, come on, let's go for a walk. You want to get home quickly, I want to get home alive, so we do it your way which is 85 miles an hour. You want a cocktail and then you get pissed off that I don't want one with you, even though I'm perfectly willing to have a soda and sit with you, but what fun is drinking alone?

(Helena Thomas drinks for NO man; Helena Thomas drinks when she WANTS to... At LEAST I've kept that... Not much of anything else: my relatively light drinking and my love of Buffalo chicken wings... I think that's about it...)

You want to know, REALLY, why I didn't feel absolutely ecstatic about Portland? Because I felt unimportant. If I had been there alone, I would have sat down with a group of kids and shot the shit for awhile. I think I would have sang along with somebody's shitty acoustic guitar, and then had the whole posse show me something cool: some graffito, some pretty bridge, some coffeeshop, some fountain... I wouldn't have felt like you were taking me through YOUR life, pointing out YOUR life, and expecting me to be impressed by it. Portland felt like YOU. You made it feel like it was YOURS and not mine, and nobody else's, and like I should sit next to you in the car and look quietly out the window with quiet awe as you pointing things out to me. Yes, look at THAT! Every damned time I tried to say something, you'd interrupt. Every time I tried to say, "hey can we go over and look at that?" you'd talk about how we should go look at the Japanese Garden. I LIKED the Japanese Garden. I liked the fountains. I liked the trains and the park, and the mountains, and the shops... I liked all of it. I DIDN'T like feeling like there wasn't an OPTION of not liking it. I don't like feeling like my opinions don't matter. But all I did was sit there in that car, my mouth closed, while you drove, and said, "oh, that used to be the old Whatever!" every other block. Yep, I'm impressed. Yep, I'm impressed. Yep, I'm impressed.

I can see you now, in my own hometown. Not that I'd bring you to my hometown, but if I did... I can see you sulking in Java Joe's. I can see you jealously asking if I love the guitar player at Lost Dog more than I love you. I can see you standing in front of the Courthouse, next to the Isaac Perry Building, by the Stephens Square paper mill, and saying, "well, we have something bigger and older and more impressive in MY hometown." I can see you interrupting me. I can see you having a fit because Binghamton really doesn't know what a brewpub is. I can see you insisting that the Belmar is WAY too pretentious for you and Cheers is WAY too grimy for you. I can see you telling me that things really aren't very well kept up. I can see you making me feel like I am not important, like nothing I do, or am, is important. Like my history takes second place to yours. Like everything about me takes second place.

That makes me want to run away to Buffalo.

Just for a day or two. Nothing permanent. Someplace where I don't know a soul.

You weren't in my way the other morning.

I just had to get some dishes done. You were on the other side of the fucking room; you weren't in the way. You just wanted me to put the dishes down, wipe my hands, and come pay attention to you.

Today, I'm going to do my own thing. Whatever I feel like doing. I'm going to leave a note here for you. It's going to say: "Going to my apartment; if you'd like, after work, stop over..."

That way, if you want to see me, YOU get to do some of the work. YOU get to sacrifice YOUR housework in order to see me. YOU get to be in MY apartment, listening to MY music, half-heartedly reading MY books and magazines, while *I* am doing whatever I feel like doing: housework, writing letters, bubble bathing, whatever...

I just really don't believe I'm that important to you. I think you need me, I think you want me, and I think you have absolutely no idea who I am. And I really don't think you care much.

Today, my apartment is Buffalo. I'm going there, where nobody really knows anything about me, and if you want to come over, we'll have a good time doing some stuff I like to do, and you're not going to bitch about it, or tell me I don't like you, or I'll make you leave.

~H.T.*