i may as well come out with it: i think i've been dumped (sort of...keep reading). i feel supremely disappointed because i really like him but he acted with integrity and honesty and i really really value those things and somehow, that makes it all the worse. and of course this changes very little in reality because our relationship had only progressed so far and we've gotten to be wonderful friends and feel a connection neither of us has felt in a long time and of course the chocolate thing is still moving along swiftly. nonetheless, rejection is rejection and it stings and i feel pathetic and trapped and how do you keep meeting people and liking and loving them and being hurt by them and then find more people and do it again? and why did it have to be this person? i felt the need to disagree and talk him out of it and say but what if it could work because you said it isn't about me and i'm inclined to believe you? (and i do) but it is about me cause i'm the one in the passenger seat of your mom's bmw bawling over something that i have no right to care so much about. but i didn't say that because for once i knew when to stop.it hurts because it's a fraction of a hurt i've known intimately this past year. and this is a twofold hurt in that sense, it hurts for both of them. and it's hard to realize that in this case i probably didn't make a mistake, that i consciously decided to put my whole self out there and listen to my intuition (was it wrong? i'm still unsure because this isn't really over i don't think - it's changed, but also not) and he told me last night that the worst part is over and i wonder what he meant by that or if he even knew himself. part of me is relieved because i've come to expect this; i was waiting with my breath held for something to fall out of the sky and hey look, here it comes now! but he also said i'm not abandoning you, i'm not going anywhere and i don't think he is, so that really ruins my expectations of human beings, at least the male ones that i happen to care about (.xxxxx nnrwfsdfdcwccccccccc <--- lorenzo has that to say, although it is very much not x-rated unless you consider unabashed navel-gazing x-rated and you should). and part of me is relieved because i can relax into the situation and realize that maybe i think i've found the man who will be my best friend (not counting you meme) and who is so painfully like me that i don't know what to do with myself when i'm around him because there is nothing to do except be me. my experience told me yesterday to run run run for the hills as fast as i can to get away from this because the more i care about this person the more i risk hurting and losing in the end. but then my intuition and head and heart all ganged up on me and told me to wait, just give it time. because maybe it was something in me that made this different, something that compelled him towards integrity for what he says is the first time in a quarter century. and that's something i want to be a part of, the change/birth of a person, especially if that birth doesn't involve the potential tearing of my nether regions.
so in the end this was less of a dumping and more of a ... something else-ing.
but as it turns out at 1.07pm i have more to say (wouldn't you know it?) [but first you should know i've been lovin' on big head todd and the monsters (hey austin that was you, wasn't it? carry on, in restless peace. that we'd belong. we long to be. inside someone. inside of me. and all my wrong be left at sea. but if you know bht&tm at all, you know somehow that isn't sappy and sad.) and i had frozen corn for lunch (to punish myself? i don't feel any more virtuous and why should i, it's corn for crap's sake).]
and because i'm sick of referring to the chocolate thing as "the chocolate thing" i'll henceforth (but not forever-forth because eventually, soon eventually, i'll reveal what is yet to be revealed) be referring to the chocolate thing as ldv (which is an acronym for something in italian and the first word is la (!) and it is the name chosen for our business). i told ben last night, after much blubbering on both our (mainly my) parts (i respect and cherish a man who can cry and not apologize for it, especially a man with piercingly hazel eyes that make occasional, if fleeting, contact), that i should've been kicking myself for committing to ldv but that somehow i wasn't. but that he needed to know that it was his dream (initially) and that i wasn't going along with it because i've always wanted to make organic chocolate and hawk it at farmer's markets or because i believe he makes the world's finest chocolate (though he does) but because i believe in him, as a human being. and in believing in him in a platonic way (because it is separate and apart from the fact that knocking boots may or may not be in our future but is currently not in our present and not in our immediate future) i've come to realize that this is my dream too, my way out of something, my way into something better and that i'm willing to do anything, anything, (but i won't do that, oh dear lord i'm turning into meatloaf? (not MEAT loaf, meatloaf) and in case anyone is wondering, i totally would do that.) to make it succeed, for both of us. and shit, i've given it a name so it really is part of me now.
*gotta go get parker from school. bbl.*
parker is picked up (she did fantastically, no tears). resume blog at 2.58pm. this feels like it could be a very long post eh?
earlier (yesterday) i had blabbed on and on about how i'd found this great book on the golden ratio (phi) (because he believes that if this can be applied to architecture and art and music and nature andandand, then why not chocolate? i understand this strange obsession as not really so strange at all because allegedly i am the type who gets rid of my two cd cases that hold four hundred cds so that i can instead, with a huge sigh of relief, finally put them in clear plastic envelopes and alphabetize them) and also the two book edition of da vinci's notebooks, which i'm quite sure is out of print but that the library still owns and i'm going on and on to forestall this: he interrupts me and says celeste, i have to tell you something. and i'm quiet because i think i know what's coming (i'm wrong, partly) and he tells me what it is he has to tell me and this cuts me to quick but he probably doesn't realize the idiom and i'm there on the porch collecting leaves in a bucket that lorenzo keeps dumping out and i'm pretty sure it's a little bit windy and i wonder briefly, but later, why he told me what he told me over the phone and somehow, and even though it should make me mad, it doesn't, and this in turn makes me mad. we hang up and i nurse 'renzo madly (yes) and plan a screaming litany of obscenities and accusations, which is yet undelivered.
later he picks me up and we drive and he talks and i listen and don't speak so he asks me if i even care and i tell him that the worst part is that i do care. so we park behind an office building (medical?) and for a few minutes all i do is notice the way that the shadow from the stairwell cuts the window in an almost perfect diagonal, almost perfect, and i wonder if there is a time of day when the angle of the sun would make it precisely perfect. and then he starts talking again and the things he tells me make it hurt more and less at the same time and i feel compelled to shove him or hug him but i'm quite convinced either would be almost perfect, but not precisely perfect, so i leave it and that isn't in my nature. the more he talks the more i realize that i've been here before (not in a déjà vu way) and it makes me sad, because i've never even come this close to a place like this with r, even for all the cajoling and pushing and emoting i did to force the issue. anyway, i've been here, in this place where someone forces you to realize something about yourself that you cannot name, something that you cannot unrealize and that maybe you did or didn't want to realize in the first place, but you're probably better off knowing it sooner rather than later. part of me hopes that i've given him a shadow of the same but i cannot be sure at that moment because i've become paranoid and convinced that he thinks i only like him for the potential of sex and because he is undeniably beautiful on the outside (others would agree with me, and do) when i really like him because he is blazingly insightful and intelligent in a way that makes me feel puny and challenged and its good to be knocked down a peg or two sometimes in the brains department. i imagine him shrugging at this statement; he understands paranoia, intimately.
and then we go and he gets the biggest tea ever and i get spirulina because it's a super food and i'm a super gal (right?) and for some reason i'm not embarrassed to be seen crying in public but i keep putting my sunglasses on and taking them off like maybe i actually am and he says he wishes i'd say something so i ask him to tell me he's sorry, not because he has anything to feel sorry for (he doesn't) but because i want to remind myself that this one person isn't empty, isn't a black hole that will suck me into non-existance (as opposed to the kind of self-contained black hole he started to describe and then interrupted himself because, as i've mentioned, he's paranoid too), ultimately that he isn't like r in this regard. and as luck would have it, and as i know he will be, he is kind and apologizes and for a moment he looks like he's going to stoop in front of me and for a moment i wish that he would. i believe him, not because i want to delude myself this time (i do!), but because i know it is the truth. and then he says something better, that i have only myself to blame for the wonderfulness (or something like that) of my children and he's broken me down completely.
i'm cold (but not frigid as i've been led to believe in the past) so we leave and when my phone rings for the third time and its a number i don't recognize, i answer it. it is my lawyer finally bothering to return my call and i feel i should be happy to be distracted by something that feels like it might be in my control. we talk and i realize (again) that it really isn't in my control (is anything?). and when i come to 15 minutes later i realize we're at whole foods and it's dinnertime. and i've lost my appetite (as i usually do in these moments). i choose the macaroni and cheese and that loverly looking (but dry, why are they always a dry disappointment?) chocolate cupcake pictured above. he wants to pay but i am acutely aware of his potential to feel sorry and i don't want pity and fuck maybe he's just being nice because i'm poor, so i buy his mile-high sandwich too (it crosses my mind that i'm not part of that club either and wonder how many of the people in line actually are). we eat in the car and i tell him about breastfeeding (he's perplexed by the idea of formula and i take that as a good sign; i'm always on the lookout for good signs) and why i believe that circumcision is wrong. don't ask me how we got there; i have no idea.
when he drops me off i sit half in and half out of the car and don't try to drag it out like i would have in the past (and still long to) but i linger nonetheless. he tells me it's going to be okay and, though it maybe should, it doesn't sound trite or contrived (see: this post). and when he does something that i don't expect him to do i blurt something out and i immediately wish that i hadn't or that i could take it back. i try to make it okay for both of us and while i'm not satisfied that it is i decide i'm okay with ambiguity and confusion. and he backs out and i stand there in the driveway for a minute while he drives away and i feel both deflated and invigorated and i can't precisely say why. i try to feel hopeful because apparently, i'm a hope junkie. i put the kids to bed; i read; i eat only two bites of the cupcake i had honestly intended to share and i fall asleep. when i wake up i realize i've dreamt and dreamt and that i'm glad for once that i waited a few hours before facing my laptop.
and right now, for some reason, i remember that when i was in my first college creative writing class i wondered if anyone would ever write anything as widely read or earth-shattering as the bible/qur'an/etc or shakespeare (i'm not comparing the literary genius here, just the impact). i still wonder that and hope desperately that it won't be found on oprah's book list (though she has made some good selections in the past). is someone out there typing on a computer (or even better, a typewriter) composing something wonderful? do we still have it in us? is it someone who feels the desperate need to experience things so that they can be written down or rather, someone who writes to prove that they exist, to survive varying and incomparable kinds of pain? (dear god, i don't imagine it is someone who writes in the midst of the chaos wreaked by a toddler who has always got his hand down your shirt and a preschooler maybe a teeny bit obsessed with berenstain bears videos despite the fact that she doesn't own a tv. oy.) someone hurry up and write it, let it be our (or even just my) salvation. and if it is already written point me in the right direction (warm, waarmer, hot! you're getting hot! coldcoldcold!, okay waaaarmer...).
ok, that's it for now. i don't have it in me to look this directly in the face but maybe after the kids go to bed...
7:something pm, i want to be the one to drive downtown tomorrow so that i can dictate the soundtrack to yet another disaster and i've decided to put a sign on my door that reads: please don't bother entering unless you adore me or plan on doing so in the near future. and don't worry i know what it is to think you exist only in your head. it's a falter, not a fall, not a fault.
*putting the kids down, back later.*
[and i should tell you now that i've switched to semisonic and no one had to introduce me to them; i'm feeling escapish or 90's retro (has it been long enough?) (how like you to make the whole world disappear and how like you to make everything seem so clear and how like you to make me want to stay forever here behind your door.) i'm a sucker for strings and their website says at the top: i've got nothing left to pray for which means things are either very good or very bad. and feeling less deserving yet, i had half a roast beef and avocado sandwich for dinner. the bread was stale ... it's my hairshirt. (remember that? and yes, i could totally shoot anything with a brain smaller than mine, both literally and figuratively. you need your gun? what? it's legal to hunt homeless people in san francisco in the winter? that's awful.)]
i fantasize in these situations or situations similar to this one (which one? you're wondering) what would happen if i just said no. willfully and self-righteously, NO! no, i'm sorry, you may not leave me to raise these kids on my own while you fuck someone else. no, you may not assume that because i have two children and no wedding ring i am a whore. (if only!) no, you may not go to mexico but yes, you may (and will!) come home with bowel shaking dysentery and herpes. no, you may not dump me, i'm far too loveable and you can't resist me. just try, you can't. i reject your offer of dumping me. NO. and then i'd stomp my foot and feel sorry for myself. *rolls eyes*
(any other fool would be out on the roadway trying to spot her rusted pontiac she’s gone to the movies now and she’s not coming home she's gone to the movies now and she's not coming back)