It's raining again... or still, I'm not sure.
Feeling lazy and depressed.
Feels like the balance of my life is kinda off again. Always seems like I'm either giving too much, or taking too much. I don't like either one. But I'd rather give my entire life away to the undeserving than feel like a burden on anybody. Right now, I feel like a burden.
Was walking home from the store yesterday, feeling kind of low because I'm out of food stamps. I managed to get a bunch of stuff with my last eight bucks or so, but I can't make it last more than a couple of days, maximum. Then... what? Fuck if I know. But I suspect it will involve me relying too heavily for my own comfort, on other people.
So, I was feeling kind of bummed. And these two guys walked past me right near where I live. Both of them were staring at me like they were starving to death and I was a big old cake shaped like a pair of titties. I don't mind people looking at me like I'm cute or whatever. I don't even mind people looking at me like I'm kinda hot and they wish they could get me into bed. It's actually kind of flattering. But I DON'T like people looking at me like they think they COULD get me into bed. That's how these dudes were staring. And then one of them offered me money. The other one jeered. Fuckers.
It's been a long, long time since anything like that has happened to me... Olympia just isn't like that. Binghamton was. But Olympia wasn't, and after three years, I'd kind of forgotten that people really don't have much respect for others. Not in the real world.
I thought about this later... About being completely broke... About my serious compulsion to shoplift the stuff I really wanted to eat... About the sad, sad half-dozen eggs I bought because I couldn't afford the whole dozen. I wondered if that's visible... I wonder if those two assholes could see the eggs in my grocery bags; I wonder if they knew... I wonder if they thought I'd actually go home with them.
I wondered what kind of desperation it actually takes to lose one's self-respect like that. I don't think it's always about drugs, or maintaining a ridiculously high standard of living. Maybe sometimes it's just too many years of not having enough. I have seen that before.
Don't get me wrong; I didn't go home with them, and I honestly think I'd rather bleed to death from my eyeballs than be a whore... But the whole train of thought depressed me.
I am thinking of making pancakes today for breakfast. That's why I bought the eggs. If I make pancakes today, I will eat them like each one is worth a billion dollars.
Kind of an odd thing has taken place over the past four or five months... Maybe not odd, exactly, but certainly not anything I expected... I have become completely unable to consider touching anybody but Neil. I cannot even fathom holding hands with anybody else. Sitting here and thinking about it now makes me feel squeamish: like squeezing earthworms or watching crows eat roadkill.
A couple of months back, somebody propositioned me -- "hey, if you're lonely and I'm lonely......" -- and I felt gross even stopping long enough to understand what the words meant. I said no. And then I had to explain WHY. But there wasn't any real answer. Just that it wasn't right; it didn't feel right. Didn't matter that nobody ever had to find out; it had nothing to do with that.
I suppose this is what monogamy is supposed to be like. Not some vow you take that you're not going to fuck other people or whatever... But the actual knowledge that you couldn't.
It's weird, because I never really experienced that before. I've made promises, and a few times I've even kept them. And actually, I was getting a lot better at promise-keeping. But now... I don't need to make a promise... I don't need to make one to myself, in any case, that I'll keep my hands to myself. Every other time I've had a boyfriend -- or something similar -- I had to use a certain amount of will-power. And now, there's nothing of the sort involved. I just don't want to. I'm just sort of sickened by the thought. That's it. I honestly didn't know that love could conquer desire for other people. I thought that was just some sort of stupid idealized concept invented by conservatives and morons.
Who'd ever have guessed?
I'm going to go make pancakes now, I think. And then I'm going to grab a Sharpie and draw little purple fish all over something, in honor of my friend's recently departed beta. Ah, this should be a fascinating day...
~Helena*