28 June 2003 ~ Project Blue Book...

Finished a chapter of my book this afternoon. Ohhh, what a thrill! I love my book; I can't even tell ya how much I love my book...

After finishing the chapter, I decided to go through my "research," organize some crap, etc. The research consists of: actual research; notes; outline-stuff; and my big blue paper journal, spanning 1997-2002.

The big blue paper journal, more properly known as either "Project Blue Book," or "Diane," is an absolutely fascinating study of my life. From 1999 onward, I've had this journal, so the entries in Diane are sparse and much more private than the stuff here...

Much more private? What the fuck, Helena? What the hell HAVEN'T you told us here?

Well, mostly sex stuff, pillow talk, me cheating on various people with other various people -- you know, stuff I didn't want getting around... You're really not missing much. The past couple of years read like a bad erotica novel. A REALLY bad erotica novel, come to think of it.

But, prior to the existence of Wet Cleanup, Diane's content was absolutely fascinating. She had MANY benefits. For one, I could carry her around, so she was excellent for doodles, notes on people-watching sessions, and spontaneous bursts of emotion. Having an online journal is different; it still includes spontaneous bursts of all sorts of things, but often, typing them up is merely a recollection of previous spontaneous bursts... Another benefit to Diane was that she looked so unassuming. Nobody bothered with my stupid journal, and I told her a hell of a lot of things, without bothering to make corrections if I happened to say something embarrassing. So, there are plenty of instances of me having very, very weak moments. It's harder to delete paper than web entries

[...After all, I tend to view writing as somewhat sacred; if I want to dispose of something I've written, I go through a ritual of burning it...]

Anyway, Project Blue Book...

In 1997 and 1998, Diane was chock full of crazy stuff... What intrigues me most is that I've had a relatively fascinating life so far. All sorts of crazy shit has happened to me, stuff that NEVER happens to other people... But, sometimes it seems like I'm just such a fucken NORMAL person... Diane is a combination between the ravings of a lunatic, and comments from the growing-up years of an average American female.

I mean, I talk about failing a math midterm, and in the next breath, I'm talking about cops coming to my parents' house and telling them I'm a Satan-worshipper and that I nearly killed one of my (then) dearest friends. Or, I'm talking about having a crush -- a nice, normal, average, teenaged heterosexual crush -- and on the next page, I'm trying, all by myself, to rationalize homosexuality.

In one entry, I'm making out with somebody I particularly like, and in the next entry, I'm breaking into the house of his ex to retrieve Diane, whom I had accidentally left at the ex's apartment.

...And in an entry a couple of years later, I was making out -- with someone entirely different -- on that same ex's bed.

One day, I wanted to be a poet, and I was going to try to memorize all the poetry I'd written (its AWFUL; don't even ask); in the next entry, I was waking up from a bad drunk, trying to recall details of having walked across town in my socks and a Hawaiian shirt in the middle of the night.

Page 77: I'm bitching that I want a cheeseburger and that I have to go buy some batteries for my Walkman. Page 78: I'm setting a fire in the middle of the Parlor City Commons, in downtown Binghamton.

Page 60: I'm outlining the Christmas presents I got for everybody. Page 61: I'm trying to determine if my friends are actually incarnations of evil, in the literal sense of the word, and am attempting to find the spiritual center of the world.

I would love to write a book review of Project Blue Book. Of course, the writing is hideous and embarrassing, and I'll never show it to anybody else. But I'd love writing the summary...

Helena starts off 1997 in "love" with an asshole, dating another asshole, and just having been initiated into a group of people with some very odd spiritual ideas. She dumps both assholes, falls madly in love with a remarkably nice guy who refuses to sleep with her, which pisses her off. The nice guy ends up hooking up with one of the assholes, and she walks in on them in bed together, which just about wrecks her very-impressionable life.

Helena gets a shitty-ass job as a door-to-door solicitor, which lasts two endless weeks. She throws a party on Labor Day, at which there are several threats of homicide, from several people. She meets yet aother asshole, who promptly decides he's in love ith her, and threatens to kill himself if Helena won't go out with him. Alas, Helena succumbs, and is drawn (even further) into a world of crazy people, hallucinations, drugs, seizures, paranoia, etc. She's still in love with the nice guy, who is probably the only reason she survived the turbulence of this period of her life with any modicum of sanity. They have a weekly "date" to go out and have Buffalo wings at a bar called Sharkey's.

...During all of this, Helena is trying to find a producer/director for her one-act play. The play never happens. Because of various arguments about the play, she removes herself almost entirely from the world of theater, and vows to have nothing to do with theater ever again, at least on an emotional level. The one-act is never produced.

Helena puts a curse on asshole number one. The next day, asshole number one has to move out of his (then) current residence, and begins to have a generally shitty life. This makes Helena feel deliciously happy.

Helena dumps the crazy asshole she's dating, removes herself from most of her friends, becomes obsessed with David Lynch, and spends much of her free time learning about the fine points of Freudian psychoanalysis, and cinematography. The nice guy, and all three assholes sort of disappear.

...Until about a month later, when Helena retrieves the first asshole, sleeps with him, and is then traumatized because he refuses to speak with her. She spends that summer drinking too much, smoking too many cigarettes, and crashing at the home of two gay guys, both of whom are obviously unstable. She also attends a ridiculous number of drag shows.

Helena moves to Santa Fe, generally embittered about life. She immediately finds herself a boyfriend, who happens to be in love with somebody on the other side of the country, but it doesn't really matter because Helena's just sort of traumatized by everything and mostly just needs a friend to hold her together. She develops a crush on a kid in her English class, and spends innumerable pages wheezing out exhalations of lust for English-class boy. Then she goes home to Binghamton for a month, returns to Santa Fe still more traumatized, and spends the next four months in desperate confusion about absolutely everything. Two days before Helena leaves Santa Fe, probably forever, she finally kisses the English-class boy, and spends the next several years privately hoping for a second chance with him...

Helena goes back to Binghamton, gets kicked out of her dad's house, takes up residence with her grandparents, then moves in with the Asshole. All sorts of drama and trauma ensue, which causes Helena to become probably as nutty as she's ever going to be. Three more people eventually inhabit that apartment, all of whom are insane, and one of whom was actually removed to a mental hospital. Alas, the others were probably much worse off, and did not end up in mental hospitals.

At one point, Helena has a two-day Secret Affair, which she's sworn never to disclose in this journal. It makes her very happy, and sort of renews her faith in people and love in general.

She gets a job at a coffeehouse, (the same one in which Project Blue book actually began its life), meets another nice guy, falls in love, and spends the next year trying to figure out how the fuck to have a normal relationship (with a somewhat abnormal person), and how the fuck to have a meaningful job that paid a living wage. This is probably the most normal time of Helena's life, despite the fact that everyone she knows is very eccentric.

(Helena, who still feels awful, cheats on her nice boyfriend with two different people, one of whom was a former coworker, and the other of whom was the boy from her English class in Santa Fe... Only, the boy from her English class kind of broke her heart, even though Helena didn't mean to get her heart broken, and the boy didn't mean to do it... Helena and the English class boy don't ever look each other in the eyes, ever again, but they remain long-distance friends...)

Project Blue Book is abandonned for several months. Helena moves to Olympia and immediately gets dumped by several people she wasn't actually dating. Project Blue Book again breaks off for awhile. The last entry is about Jake, about meeting Jake, about beginning to fall in love with Jake...

...And that skips all the stuff about the cops, the runaway, the graduation, me running away, getting molested, the weekend of debauchery in another town, making out with girls, etc., etc., etc...

Have I ever mentioned that I really hate epics?

Well, I do.

But this one is at least interesting.

Having read through it again today, I've come to several conclusions. But generally, the main conclusion is: I am a VERY weird individual, with a very baffling history, and a very cool life...

~Helena*

PS -- Oh yeah, and even though Diane is just a little old binder with a lot of looseleaf pages in her, even though she's got no lock on her, I DO keep her in a suitcase that has a padlock on it. And, to my knowledge, nobody knows the code... Just letting you know...