11.11.00 ~ Saturday Night ~ Lost Dog
Dear Diane,
Am looking around me and noticing that everyone else in here is a college student and either has with them a load of textbooks or a load of friends. Having neither, I'm not sure whether to feel lonely or stupid. Guess I just feel out of place. And somehow, frightfully old.
11.11.00 ~ Saturday night ~ Norman's apartment
Finally saw "Dancer in the Dark." Binghamton finally picked it up, and I finally got up the will to walk across the bridge in the cold to see it.
Two old women in front of me got up and left during the movie. I heard one say, "she SCARES me!" After it was over, I pretended to mingle in the lobby for a minute, just to hear other people's thoughts, as I couldn't get anybody to go with me.
"How was it?"
"Depressing," said a tall sophisticated-looking professor-type woman in a long overcoat.
"Intense," said her friend.
"Very upsetting."
(For some reason, it reminded me of me.)
Walked back across the Washington Street Bridge, pausing in the cold just long enough to stare over the edge in an attempt to determine which way the water really does flow. I think it goes west. Wished I could follow it and find out. For as long as I've lived near these rivers, I've never thought much about where they end up. Maybe if I followed it long enough, I'd end up back in Santa Fe, although in Santa Fe, my deepest longing was to be back in Binghamton near my river. For some reason, in Santa Fe, Björk's voice always brought me closer to the river.
"I go through all this before you wake up so I can feel happier to be safe up here with you..." --Björk.
11.12.00 ~ Sunday
Awoke from a dream that Peter was in my house. That Peter had evil in his eyes and was taunting me, torturing me. Felt like he'd tied me to a wall. He was putting things into boxes and carrying them out of my house. He had a posse of friends helping him, and commanded one of them, whom I couldn't see, to take my purple pen. My favorite purple pen, which I haven't been able to find in a month or two. The slogan on it, which I still don't understand, is, "your life may be the only Bible some people ever read." I love that pen; I think it's hilarious, especially since I looked up the company from which it came, and the company's business is produce, as in, corn and peas and tomatoes and things. What the hell? But Peter took my pen, and he left, cackling wickedly, leaving me tied up.
I opened my eyes wearily, powerlessly, having already slept 12 hours, and still feeling exhausted. Made love with Norman and fell back to sleep in his arms for another three hours.
Awoke just on time to dress, kiss Norman at the corner, get a bag of potato chips at the gas station, and walk home to feed my kitty before work.
Upon arriving at my house, I saw a man's figure enter my front door. Terrified that it was my landlord, who was no doubt, about to discover my kitty, I paused for a moment on the sidewalk to think up excuses, then clumped across the street, filled with dread, into my apartment.
On the stairs, I met Mike -- not Mike from Santa Fe, but Mike who is a friend of pretty much everybody I know, although not someone I've ever been particularly close to. Mike was carrying a box out of my house. "Um... hi!" I greeted him, bewildered. "We're just moving some stuff out," said Mike, looking dreadfully uncomfortable -- the way I would have looked had my landlord asked me what a kitty was doing in my apartment.
At the top of the stairs, I met Kevin.
Kevin, who refused to have anything to do with me when I wouldn't sleep with him. Kevin, who spread vicious words around about me when I slept with Chris. Kevin, who makes me absolutely sick. Kevin, who is about as welcome in my house as West Nile Virus. I said nothing to him save, "excuse me."
I let my kitty out to give her some food. It was easier to just feed my kitty and get the hell on with my life than to wonder what was going on with these people in my house.
"Don't let that cat out," I heard a woman's voice screech. Even more bewildered, I peered into the next room, and found a middle-aged woman bending over trying to scoop up Sabina Sweetpea.
"Who are YOU?" she demanded.
"Um, I'm Helena. I LIVE here?" At this point, I was belligerent. People were carting things out of my house. KEVIN was carting things out of my house. This strange woman, whom I'd never seen before in my life (although she looked a tiny bit familiar), was in MY house and demanding to know who I was??? And I'm supposed to NOT be belligerent? In Helena's world, that's not how things work.
"I'm Mrs. M.," she introduced herself. "We're just taking Jo's things out of here." Her words were clipped with her own form of belligerence. "I tried to pick things up as we went along, but it doesn't really matter. This place is a wreck anyway."
"I'm moving out," I shot back. "Of course it's a wreck."
"Well, I hope we get everything out to your satisfaction," she sneered, in the tone of voice that a pissed-off customer service representative might use with a nasty customer: an exaggerated "have a WONDERFUL day, ma'am," voice. "Now maybe you'll have a little more compassion for Jo's condition. She's powerless, you know, and she needs good friends to help her out right now."
So now I have no compassion. My house is a wreck and I'm not a good friend.
Kevin returned up the stairs. He didn't address me. He yelped, "How does one place get to smell so bad! What does she do, smear shit on the walls?"
Mrs. M. tried to shut Kevin up. She realized she was in MY home at least, and respected that enough to keep her remarks to a low sarcasm. Kevin, however, reveled in the power afforded him by Jo, or whomever had commissioned his assistance in removing her possessions, and simply wouldn't shut his mouth about how bad the place smelled.
Now, I'm well aware that I'm not a very good housekeeper. My dishes aren't done and I have an abundance of fruitflies taking cover for the winter in my kitchen. There are little piece of crap -- coin rollers, clothing, matchbooks, pens -- laying around everywhere. Sabina, my kitty, doesn't smell like roses and cotton candy, but she's fairly clean. My house may not smell wonderful, but gah-dammit, it doesn't smell like shit, and no one else has ever had any significant complaint. At least it doesn't smell like the downstairs-people's apartment, which consistently smells like garlic and snot.
Mrs. M., in an effort to distract me from murdering Kevin, which I was seriously considering, asked, almost kindly, "I heard you work at Java Joe's, Helena?" I nodded, almost smiling. Java Joe's is my Safe Place. "My son worked there for a long time," she told me. "You probably don't know him."
"Who's your son?" I asked, trying with all of my strength to be nice. Mrs. M. was trying too, even if she did look very much like she hated me.
"Collin? Collin M.? He worked there with Noreen, long before your time there."
"I know Collin," I answered, defensively. Before my time, huh? Before my TIME? "And I remember Noreen very well. Java Collin. I know your son. How is he?" Mrs. M.'s son had a knack for forgetting to wear gloves and popping spinach leaves into his mouth at the counter. He loved spinach, hated Neil Diamond, and always wore a blue baseball cap. I think it was usually a Yankees cap, although I don't remember that clearly. Before my time? Fuck that shit.
("Java Collin's hair looks fabulous.")
Kevin reappeared, made some snide remarks in the manner of "how could anybody live here, it's fucking disgusting," etc. Enough was enough, and I made my way to my room, slammed the door, and stood, motionless, tears running down my face, until I heard the three leave my house and start their car, at which point, I made a phone call or two, and left for work.
I read "Jitterbug Perfume" by Tom Robbins throughout most of my shift at work, underlining my favorite parts with lottery pencils, and occasionally scrawling, "I love you, Tom" in the margins.
I watched "X-files" on a black-and-white TV in the kitchen. I'm not very pleased with the new season so far. I want Mulder back down from the spaceship. I think David Duchovny has a sexy mouth.
Home from work, Sunday night, Monday morning. I surveyed my apartment. My computer disks are scattered everywhere. No, scratch that. MY computer disks are gone. Jo's still remain on my desk. My play. My book. My letters. My emails. The instant-messages Peter and I used to send each other; the ones where we actually sounded like we loved each other. Everything gone. All I have left of most of those is in various places online, and who knows if they're complete. The letters are gone forever.
My photograph of David, which stands in the living room guarding my Lynch videos, was lying on its face. The videos themselves were spilling onto the floor. Jo had had a clock standing behind those items, and I imagine someone must have grabbed them without heed to my most prized possessions. Even one of the postcards on the wall is tilted almost sideways. All that's left atop my computer tower is my battered copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," and a flattened box of Baci chocolate-covered hazelnuts. One of my Tom Robbins books is gone. I'm not sure which one. I think it was "Even Cowgirls get the Blues." The one with the quote in it about the tragedy of a strong person falling to the tyranny of the weak.
I picked up David's photograph. He's wearing his Java Joe's shirt and carrying a tray of salads (sans spinach, thank you very much, Java Collin). And grinning. I tried to grin back. I left everything else the way it was. I refuse to mourn my computer disks or my sideways postcards. They don't matter. Fucking, NOTHING matters.
So you know what? Yeah, I'm a fucking shitty housekeeper. I can't keep my dishes clean, I can't keep my kitty clean, I can't keep my housemates happy... I'm an uncompassionate friend. I'm a cunt. Yes, I thought that was the word that came out of Kevin's mouth, although I was behind a closed door and couldn't hear much, save Mrs. M.'s assertion that, "Come on now, Kevin, let her be. I'd be upset too."
I'm on my own. I'm free and independent.
I don't fit in with the rest of the world.
I can't keep a job for more than seven or eight months without things falling to shit.
I like movies that no one else likes, and I like music that no one else likes, and when I fucking sit at Lost Dog Café, drinking plain old hot water because I fucking ENJOY hot water, I DON'T fucking fit in because my friends aren't in the same major as me, and my bookbag is full of books I have no deadline on reading, no papers to write, no one to even fucking discuss them with.
I go to the movies alone and I come home alone, and I have no one to talk about them with, save a few freaks online.
I watch the river alone, and I wonder where it would take me if I followed its banks. And I realize that no matter where I went, there would be no one there on the other end to let me use their shower and give me a cup of orange juice.
I'm on my own. Free and independent. Envied because I can do anything I damn well please, and nothing -- no classes, no deadlines, are holding me down. Envied because all I have to do with my entire life is work for minimum wage and pay my rent. Free and independent. Adult and able to take care of myself.
But I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job.
I don't feel like I have much to envy. As a matter of fact, I feel stupid and lonely and old and unsuitable to let out into the rest of the world.
And pissed off that my purple pen is gone.
~Helena*