Woke up this morning at exactly 8 o'clock. Slept twelve hours.
The water and the sky were blue outside my window. Gulped down the last of the orange juice and lay in bed, reading and staring, reading and staring.
A good day for a Sunday breakfast, despite the fact that it's not Sunday. With no Argo, no Lost Dog, to go to, I chose the Spar. Sat in the non-smoking section there for the first time in my life. Ordered a cheeseburger and fries. And a side order of bacon. And a seven-up. You can never trust the Spar to keep their caffeine to themselves.
Have been smelling smoked pork now for the past three days. Have been chewing gum to rid my nose and my brain of the smell, but had to have some of that bacon.
Read the paper, The Olympian, for two hours. Wished I had coffee. Or cigarettes.
I do have cigarettes; I left them at home. Haven't smoked any of them since Monday. Will give them to Louise, or to Jake's mom, or the girl downstairs from me.
Came here to the Olympia library. This library sucks. They only have one Kurt Vonnegut book, and no Tom Robbins books. They do, however, have an abundance of Cormac McCarthy books. Tried to read "Blood Meridian" and hated it. Norman recommended it to me a long time ago, but Norman doesn't know me so well as he thinks he does.
But what does it matter, anyway?
Looked through the papers from this past week. Found Jake's arrest in the police report of The Olympian. Am thinking of stealing the paper and sacrificing it down by Capitol Lake tonight.
FUCK this shit! FUCK IT! FUCK IT ALL!
Did you know that in domestic violence cases, the alleged victim isn't even allowed to communicate with her alleged boyfriend?
I WISH EVERYBODY WOULD STOP CALLING ME THE FUCKING ALLEGED VICTIM AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!
I got some shit in the mail yesterday from the "deputy prosecuting attorney" and the "victim advocate." I wonder why they don't call her the "alleged victim advocate"? The stuff they sent me was that social-worker bullshit about "early indictors that YOU TOO could be dating an ABUSER!"
I read through all of the indicators. Not a single one of them fit Jake. A number of them fit Peter, and a few more of them fit Jürgen, but not a single one fit Jake. I cried when I got to the "may abuse animals or children" part. I've never known anybody who abused animals or children, so far as I know, unless you count me chasing my kitty around the apartment when she ate my Cheez-its. And Jake... abusing animals or children? Never. Never, ever, ever.
Why don't they all just leave me alone?
I'm all alone anyway -- what gives these people the right to harass me? So everybody I'm close to is a million miles away, either in body or in spirit -- and these folks just send me letters that make me feel like I'm being poked with lit cigarettes...
This isn't good for me.
This isn't good for us.
I found out on Monday, just before Jake's first hearing, that I'm pregnant.
If you need to throw up now, please don't do it near me. I hate vomit.
Jake knew before I did. He told me he "had a feeling," and Jake's feelings haven't been wrong, ever, in the time I've known him. He asked if I'd been feeling okay lately, and I told him, yeah, of course, why wouldn't I be? I told him there was no way I could be pregnant, that my period would show up in just a day or two. I wasn't even late yet.
The next evening, Jake was arrested.
Sunday night, I spent with Louise. Was going to try to talk her into going with me to a 24-hour drugstore, but I chickened out. Couldn't tell her that part of things. Only told her about Jake's arrest. She sympathized.
Monday, did two tests -- one at my apartment, which wasn't working fast enough for my liking, and one at the county courthouse. The second one immediately showed two lines. I'm pregnant. Hell of a verdict.
At least I didn't throw up when I found out. Though I imagine I was mighty pale for a few days...
I have no way of telling Jake. Won't see him again for another three weeks -- at the pre-trial hearing. His trial doesn't begin until mid-December. Who knows when it will all end?
Everybody's got something to preach. This one's pro-life, that one's pro-abortion, and me, I'm pro-choice -- and it's MY choice. I know the consequences of anything that might happen. I can't take the preaching anymore. This one says, "not to preach at you, but you can't handle this right now..."
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!
THIS LIBRARY HAS ONLY ONE FUCKING BOOK BY KURT FUCKING VONNEGUT. THERE'S NO FUCKING JUSTICE ANYWHERE IN THIS WORLD.
I can't handle the aloneness.
The Creators of this fine world decreed that babies be made by two people for one reason and one reason alone... Has nothing to do with evolution, either. The thing is, one person does the manual labor, so to speak, and the other person does the comforting. The other person brings the tea, doles out the hugs, and takes the blood pressure every half-an-hour, just for kicks. I've gotta do it all alone. Of course, I CAN... I CAN do anything. But dammit, how do I DARE bring somebody else into a world like this? A world of Jerry Springer, deputy prosecuting attorneys, animal abuse, and newly-pregnant women whose closest friends desert them, and leave them to procure their own tea, and barf at the very thought of such trauma...
My boyfriend's an "alleged felon," I am an "alleged victim," and I'm pregnant. And 22 years old, unmarried, in my third year of college, and working two jobs and STILL not scraping by. All in a town 3,000 miles away from where I grew up, where I can always guess that there's somebody who'll look out for me...
My mom, maybe...
Aaron, maybe...
Fuck it, who cares... This isn't a "people I can count on" list (Ivan Illich has a long and extensive one, by the way), this is me, and I'm scared.
And this fucking library sucks ass.
If you see my alleged-felon-boyfriend, wink three times at him. Anything more might be construed as an attempt to communicate.
I'm lost, guys... I'm entirely and completely lost. Think I'll walk to Tumwater now and look at the water...
~Helena*