"Oh no you DIT-en!" I said loudly to Aaron. I don't remember quite WHY I said it, but then I liked the sound of it so much that I said it two or three more times.
We'd gone to Aaron's walk-in clinic of choice, then to Denny's, then to the town of Deposit (FYI, there's nothing in Deposit really, but Aaron wanted to try out his new car a little...). Then to Walmart (yuck) where we purchased: a ouija board, a bottle of Boones "wine product," a teen magazine, and an ice cream sandwich. The clerk at the counter had a REAL problem with the ouija board, but apparently no problem whatsoever with a 22-year-old guy reading magazines for 11-year-old girls and drinking Boones. Gahd bless Walmart; they REALLY are family-oriented! But only if your family lives in a trailer park subsisting on lily-pad soup, and manages the miracle of procreation without ever dating...
Aaron and I were going to contact The Spirits. Why, I have no idea. Really, I just thought it would be a good idea.
So we set up the porch: Boones, Britney-oriented magazine, candles, ouija board... I skipped to the kitchen to get the two wine coolers I had bought the day before.
No wine coolers.
"Oh no you DIT-en!"
Aaron: "what?"
"SOMEBODY took my wine coolers!" I shrieked.
I searched everywhere for the missing wine coolers. Where could they have gone? I checked the living room... The bathroom... The recycle box... No wine coolers. When wine coolers go missing, where do they go? I briefly considered making up "missing!" posters for them and hanging them at truckstops. Posters and a low-cut shirt might get me some wine coolers at a truckstop, I reasoned. But this was no time for begging for alcohol at truckstops. This was a time for contacting the Spirit World, and dammit, I wanted to find my wine coolers NOW.
On a hunch, I checked the freezer...
No wine coolers. But I did find some convincing evidence of where the wine coolers had gone...
I withdrew from the freezer a brown paper bag, and carefully unwrapped it. My bottle of vodka -- my SPECIAL bottle of vodka -- was missing a good four or five big gulps.
Before I go on, let me just mention that I DON'T drink all that often. I had exactly three sources of alcohol in the apartment: the wine coolers, which are mostly bubble-water anyway; the Special Vodka, which was supposed to be a GIFT for my friends in Seattle for letting me stay with them and all; and a bottle of red wine which sort of blends in with the rest of the knick-knacks in the pantry.
I spent an entire DAY trying to track down that damned vodka: Smirnoff vanilla. It even came in a pretty bottle. The downtown liquor store didn't have it.
Norman chose that moment to walk in the door, carrying a six-pack of beer. Aaron chose that moment to forget about setting up our ghostly experiment, and disappear into the bathroom.
"Um, Norman... do you know where my wine coolers went?"
"I just went out and I was going to get you some more..."
"...And why half of the vodka in the freezer is gone?"
"It's not half gone!"
"It's been OPENED."
"So?"
"So it was SUPPOSED to be a gift for my friends in Seattle..." (The words "vanilla vodka" must have been mentioned forty times while Brian was visiting here... I'm not sure why, and we never did get any, but it seemed like an appropriate gesture of friendship to bring a bottle to Seattle...)
"Well I'll buy you a new one!"
And this, my friends, is how the trouble began.
A few days ago, I had EXPRESSLY said, "Please don't drink the vanilla vodka." Norman had agreed. I had said, "If you want, we can have a little system where we put stickers on food we don't want each other to eat." Norman scorned the idea, saying he might munch on the collective stash of Ramen noodles, but that if I'd brought home a steak or something, he'd leave it alone. So I repeated: "anything that's here now is fair game, except the vanilla vodka, and if you see anything that looks like it probably isn't yours and it's sort of special somehow, maybe just leave it alone until you can ask?" He agreed. He looked so responsible. He looked so sweet. He was even defensive: of COURSE he'd never use up my stuff if I didn't want him to! I'd insulted him!
And just a few days later, I'm suddenly some nagging shrew for asking where my wine coolers went and why my Special Vodka was opened?
Norman stormed out, not bothering to say another word. I bit my lip and decided to postpone being angry. I smiled as I said to Aaron, now emerged from the bathroom, "oh no you DIT-en!"
We began our, uh... ouijing.
We contacted a spirit named Gus. I'm convinced Aaron was pushing the thinger. Gus had a major fixation with anal sex and homosexuality. Gus took a short break and left us with someone called Tim, who claimed to be a mass-murderer, having killed 168 people, and tried to enlist us in his crusade for vindication: "L-I-G-H-T-T-H-E-W-O-R-L-D-F-I-R-E-B-O-M"
Yeah.
Norman returned. The ouija board called him a dork. He offered me a wine cooler. I smiled and took it, determined not to be pissed off.
The three of us spent an enjoyable evening with Gus and Tim; Norman making repeated comments about Britney Spears, and Aaron making repeated comments about jackasses. It was nice. And at 3 or so, I followed Norman to his room, where I curled up next to him and fell asleep...
So I should have awakened peacefully and ready to start everything over, forgetting the stupid ordeal with the wine coolers and the vodka... But I awoke jarringly at 10.40, to the sounds of my bird greeting the morning... He's pretty damned shrill, and I usually keep a black towel over his cage until I'm awake and willing to deal with him. I mean, it's not like I'm torturing him or anything. Norman had evidently decided, on his way out the door to work, to untowel the bird.
He raced back in then for his keys or his wallet or something. "Hey, you're up," he said.
"You woke the bird up and he woke me up."
"He was already AWAKE. I took the towel off his cage."
"Mmm... I just put it back on his cage," I replied sleepily. "I think I'm going to try to go back to sleep."
"Sounds like something you should do," said Norman, and his voice was colder and more distant than usual. "I know that if *I* didn't have anything to do all day, all the time, *I* would want to sleep in. If *I* didn't have to work or anything..."
And now, I'm angry. Now, I'm just absolutely furious. Now, I'm contemplating staying here in this apartment somehow, and bringing all of my earthly possessions back here. Why did I EVER think I could have a housemate again? Why did I ever think this could work to anybody's satisfaction?
No, no, really, you don't understand. This is not about wine coolers and vodka. That is NOT the cause of my anger. So those things can be replaced. The anger comes from the fact that *I* am the one on whom the blame is placed. I asked Norman to leave the vodka alone. And he was so OFFENDED; like I'd said, "please don't murder me in my sleep." He was so shocked; he'd NEVER do such a thing. I was the bad one, for assuming such false things about him. And then a few days later, the vodka's open and Norman acts like, "well shit, it's no damned big deal, what's YOUR problem? Why can't you just lighten up?"
I CAN'T LIVE THAT WAY. I WON'T LIVE THAT WAY ANYMORE.
Peter did that to me for fucking YEARS. LONG before we moved in together, *I* was always the one with the problem. It was that classic style of manipulation: you love your doggy when it's sitting on your lap snuggling, but when the doggy drools on you, it's, "Helena, look what your dog did to me!" The subtle twisting of things, the blaming, the sweet innocent eyes that ask, "why are you being so MEAN to me when you're the one who messed up?" I WILL NOT FALL FOR THAT AGAIN.
There are tears in my eyes right now. In that one stupid confrontation last night, so much shit came back to me... It's not really memories of specific events, but just one long, ugly span of time in which I was conned into believing I had done wrong, that I WAS wrong. I IDENTIFIED with "wrong."
Well, I'm not wrong this time, and this shit is NOT going to go any further.
A FEW THINGS I HAVE LEARNED IN THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS:
I have guts.
I know what I'm talking about most of the time, and if I don't know what I'm talking about, I have the guts to admit it and to look some stuff up.
I have friends who love me. And a mom and two brothers who love me, too.
I have friends whose love for me is NOT contingent on anything sexual. Or monetary. Or alcoholic.
I bet you anything I know more about David Lynch than mostly anybody else who might be reading this. Tom Robbins, too.
I have survived a LOT of things.
I have EVERY intention of continuing to do so.
I am smart.
I am pretty.
I can be sophisticated if I feel like it.
I can cook well enough so that nobody's ever gagged.
I'm a good lay.
I am nice to people who are nice to me.
I am a good student, when I bother trying.
I'm different, and I sort of like it that way. But I don't go out of my way to prove it, because I'm okay as I am.
I am not afraid of much of anything, really.
I can love. I can be in love. I can feel love and lust and passion and ALIVE. And NONE OF THAT IS WRONG.
I have courage. I have courage. I will continue to have courage. I have lots and lots of courage.
I don't necessarily deserve whatever comes my way. And I have the courage to stop people from hurting me.
No one can hurt me unless I let them. NO ONE.
I don't deserve to hurt. I don't deserve all the blame all the time.
It's useless to keep these lists going forever; it's better to just inhale, exhale, and move on with things.
~Helena*