20 July 2002 ~ The Man Conspiracy...

Things are good. Keep this in mind. Things are good. I have a job, a second interview, and a chance at getting a GOOD job with the City of Oly. I made friends with some of my new neighbors the night before last, and spent much of yesterday with Louise, catching up on gossip and plotting to steal bigscreen TV's from the dumpster of an electronics place, sell them, and use the proceeds to buy a drumset, and cable television. Things are good.

Things are good.

However, I'm unbearably frustrated, and I need to kvetch a little. I mean, we've got some stupid shit going on here...

Every time I turn around, there is another man in my life causing crises. Now, this would not be the case if these various men didn't have some appeal to them. So to clarify, every time I turn around, there is another endearing man just waiting to fucking piss me off, or cause lots of damage in whatever way he can.

They do it on purpose, I know they do.

There is not a man I've spoken to in the past two months, who hasn't created some sort of a scene, caused ME to create some sort of a scene, made a total nuisance of himself, or otherwise attempted to ruin my life. Well... except maybe Douglass. Douglass is about the most harmless person in the universe.

Norman... Norman, of the whole lotm of you foolish men, has been causing the least amount of chaos... Not surprising, because Norman is THREE THOUSAND miles away... Still, of course, obviously being in on the plot to try to make Helena into a man-hating lesbian, Norman has been doing his share. Don't get me wrong; I love the man like you wouldn't believe. However, Norman is the second moodiest person ever (I'm the first), and I never know, when I email, or when I call, what kind of reaction I'll get. The emails are sweet, then humdrum, then sweet, and then the phone calls are brutal. We exchange emails every day, and then a week and a half goes by without a word. "Nothing's new," he says. I know Binghamton hasn't changed a bit, because it never really does, but "NOTHING" is new? Maybe it really isn't Norman, as a human being, who's driving me nuts, but my stupid imagination.

It's 10 o'clock on a Saturday; I wonder what Norman's doing? I'm walking down the Fifth Avenue bridge; I wonder where Norman is? I've just met the new kids down the hall from me, and we're getting drunk on Heineken and red wine; I wonder who Norman's with, and what they're doing? I wonder what has taken the place where my futon used to be in our apartment? I wonder how the hell Norman's life goes on without me; I only know how mine goes on without him, which is beautiful, but lonely; constantly wondering and thinking of "what if's." Sometimes I think, "any day now, I will win the lottery, and I can go back for a visit..." Sometimes I think, "any day now, I'll manage to forget all about Norman, just stop caring, just stop remembering, just stop wanting..." And, almost invariably, Norman is having the opposite thought as me, and then we both end up sad. At this point, if Norman walked up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, I would throw my arms around him and never let go. But at this point, merely because I'm thinking that, Norman's probably out at the Belmar, trying to mack it with somebody else, trying to forget all about me.

It's a conspiracy...

It's Murphy's Law: be prepared, because anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

...and me without a screwdriver...

(It's like rain on your wedding day, like good advice that you just didn't take...)

It's like, gahd-dammit, why couldn't I go to Evergreen, get out of Binghamton, AND stay with Norman? Why, to make myself a halfway free-thinking, enthusiastic, informed, and alert individual -- the kind of person Norman should have fallen for in the first place -- did I have to leave him? And why the fuck does he have to wait so long sometimes between emails? And why the fuck am I so moody?

Men are stupid. Somehow, they always makes me cry. Why do I have to care so much?

The phone rings as I'm typing...

I answer without thinking. Or rather, I'm thinking about Norman, and the Man Conspiracy: they make you like them, they make you love them, and then something goes terribly wrong and you feel like crying every twenty minutes...

...I hang up the phone. It was for me, even though I'm at Jürgen's house.

I made a vow to myself that I would never pick up the phone here again, no matter what.

You see, as you know, I broke up with Jürgen a week or so ago. You can go back and read about that if you want. But Jürgen IS a pretty nice human being, and I DO care about him. One day, I was feeling bummed out, so he drove me to Westport, WA, to watch the sun set into the ocean. Then he bought me blackberry pie in Aberdeen: just to make me smile. And while such niceties do not a fantastic boyfriend make, they DO make a good friend. So, in THOSE ways, I didn't WANT to "break up." Never talking to Jürgen again was pretty much out of the question; I LIKE him. You don't stop speaking to people you LIKE, unless it's me and Aaron, and eventually we're going to start speaking again anyway, and everything will be back to normal, as things GO with Aaron and me. I LIKE Jürgen; he's, as they say, a good kid. I want to be his friend.

So we came up with this arrangement: instead of being boyfriend and girlfriend, with way too much invested in "the relationship" instead of in ourselves and each other, we'd be friends who went on "dates." That way, we'd have a little bit more free time, and nobody would feel strangled, and things would, theoretically, be awesome. In some circles, it's called having your cake and eating it too.

Except that didn't work. The "dates" extended overnight, and then through the next day, and within days, everything was the same as it had been. And Jürgen forgot half of his promises not to spend a day being a cranky asshole and then proposition me for sex. Fine, fine, great, so it was ALMOST time for Helena to once again lay down the law: "listen, if you're going to be a jerk, and spend your days griping about work and the people who trim your hedges, it's going to make me unhappy. And an unhappy Helena is an unhorny Helena, so don't even try."

It was ALMOST that time, when the telephone rang a few days ago.

I'd been expecting a call; Jürgen had instructed me to use his phone to make calls regarding work. I called one lady, and she promised to call back in ten minutes. Ten minutes later, when the phone rang, I was expecting it to be a potential employer, and not who it actually was... ...which was Jürgen's girlfriend.

("Enh?")

Jürgen had this girlfriend overseas. And then he moved back to the U.S., leaving the girlfriend to moon over him. He never told her that it was over. He never told her that, almost from the time they were separated, he was seeing other women. The overseas girl, naturally, has followed his cues, and was WAITING for him to come back to her. I confronted him about it once, and he promised to fix the situation. But when the overseas girl called, and freaked the fuck out that a female voice was answering Jürgen's phone while Jürgen wasn't home, I knew that Jürgen hadn't fixed a damned thing.

So, it's over. Again. For REAL this time. Because, you know, while I'm a modern sort of girl, and I can understand loving two people at once, I CANNOT condone LYING to two people that one loves. THAT, as I have said a dozen times, is a bullshit way to love somebody. Now, theoretically, if I was merely Jürgen's friend, if we were bar-buddy sort of friends, if there was never any hint of romance, or sex, or whatever, I would be able to walk up to Jürgen and say, "Dude, I think the fact that you're fucking other chicks, and keeping this overseas girl waiting for you is fucking SICK, man..." But... it wouldn't necessarily jeopardize our talking to each other, our "hangin' out," or whatever... So, after some careful consideration, instead of handing Jürgen his book, his contact lens solution, and the beer he'd left in my fridge, I sat him down, looked him in the eye, and told him that he was fucking sick to be treating this overseas girl the way he was.

Then, I made him promise he would write the girl a letter, telling her everything, and apologizing.

He promised. He woke up early the next morning to do it. And in the evening, we went to Lakefair. (Lakefair is Olympia's celebration in honor of Capital Lake... Remember how Oly likes to party? Yeah, they throw a party for their lake every year, even though it's not even a real lake...) We rode the ferris wheel. We had a nice evening. Carnivals are cheesy, and the only people who seem to go to them are really super-trashy people, and me. But it was a nice evening. Maybe, just maybe, Jürgen and I can make this last, this friends thing. Maybe someday I'll even trust him again. Don't know about THAT, but maybe... That will be nice. Jürgen is an asshole, and treats his girlfriends like crap, but he's a pretty decent friend.

But still...

Why do these things never really work? Not even in a bland, kind of boring way? Why can't I meet a man, and like that man, and spend some time with that man, and go about my business like a normal human being? Is there a sign taped to my back that says, "available only to beautiful, somewhat-tormented geniuses 3,000 miles away, and dudes who are really nice but treat their girlfriends like shit"? Must I always live my life meeting men I like, even love, even fall IN love with, and spending some time with them, and then spending a good portion of time doing penance for thinking that a man could be sane, AND the circumstances of our relationship could be sane?

Why can't I meet somebody boring, whom I like, but have no attachment to? Somebody who will just materialize whenever I don't feel like going out alone; somebody who will appear whenever I need a glass jar opened and am not strong enough to do it myself; somebody who will amuse me but not annoy me; somebody who will smile when they're supposed to, and be miserable with me when I feel like being miserable; somebody who will be my lover without decreeing that we must be in love. I want to meet somebody who's just not attractive at all, kind of stupid, completely off in his own head most of the time, and who has the power to disappear whenever I want him to. Is that fucking ASKING TOO MUCH? It's not like I'm asking for true love or anything... I mean, I'm not asking for the impossible here. I'm just asking for somebody I like, who I don't have to care about, who can occupy my mind when I'm bored or lonely. That's all. A prop. I want a prop. Somebody with no redeeming features except for their presence and absence at the right times.

Actually, I do have a male friend in whom I have almost nothing invested, who's been doing a pretty good job of being around at all the right times, but not often enough to become a crisis. This male friend, of whom I speak, is an acquaintance whom I talked to for fifteen minutes at a coffeeshop. This male friend managed to cheer me up that day, and cheered me up a second time by sending me a cool card in the mail. To pay him back, I made him a mix-tape, and I expect probably never to hear from him again. Which is fine; he's served his purpose and then some, maybe: amused me, kept me from being lonely, kept me from thinking too much, and made me smile. TWICE. And then he went away again, and I could go about my business like a normal human being. This friend's only downfall was being very attractive, being very intelligent, and having the kind of eyes one falls in love with before knowing a damned thing about the individual. Thus, hopefully, I will never hear from him again, because this sort of individual is the sort that causes trouble: once you start to like somebody, you're fucked, and you can NEVER go back to not knowing them, and you've got way too much invested, and then when there's trouble, it actually matters.

...And hurts. A lot.

Why can't I hate men?

Or at least not CARE about them?

.....But when all is said and done, if these are the least of my problems, all is well...

Was in the bathroom last night and happened to reread a short story I'd printed out and left on the back of the toilet. It's a long enough piece so that my butt went to sleep. But when I was done reading, I found that I was completely inspired. I found that I wanted to write a sort of sequel, a sort of spin-off. I began writing, in my head, as soon as I'd zipped up my jeans. I've been crossing-out, starting over, and wadding up since yesterday evening: a fantastic process. It's a piece I'll be working on for a long time, because I have an idea of how beautiful it could be.

Had berries for breakfast and finished reading the book I started a week ago.

Will go down to the Spar tonight to listen to the jazz band. Of course, the jazz band is the highlight of my week.

Things are good... Despite everything, things are good. I endeavor to keep that in mind...

~Helena Thomas*