Yeah, but still.

Not much going on today. I am too lazy or too depressed or too unfocused to upload the picture of the gloves, although I did discover the difficulty inherent in a right-hand-dominant person taking a picture of a glove that in on one's own right hand.

My insomnia seems to peak during one of two times of the year. I think we're in that time now. Twice this week I have laid down to sleep and gotten up 45 minutes or so later. Last night I got to sleep on my second try, around 4:30am.

I have been writing some during these times, though. I've barely been able to put a sentence together in the last year but I've written a few pages of dialogue and notes and such. I have a couple things gestating; it's been too full of a year to be able to process much until now.

I think that I also, for the most part, hate theater people. This might be (probably is) nasty emotional detritus left over from this spring, but still*. Mr. ARS once told me that, in his opinion, I wasn't an actor at all, but a writer. Keep in mind that he never saw me act, although he had a great deal of respect for me as a writer if not as an actor (or a person). Anyway, I have an awful fear that, ultimately, this will prove true, and I am sick with the notion that I will never perform again. However, I have been toying with the idea that, maybe, I'm a solo artist, and that's all it is. I don't play well with others**. Not that I'm an utter social maladroit. Merely a partial one.

Or I could just be in a complete funk (read: depressed) on account of the recent bout with not leaving the house, which in turn is on account of the high winds and flooding rains of the past two days. It's dark all the time.

But I did get paid! I did a nice custom order for a lady in Chicago: an over-elbow pair of fingerless gauntlets (hand-dyed, fair-trade Suri alpaca, vintage buttons and ribbon) for her 22-year-old daughter's Hanukkah and received her check and thank-you note today. She purposefully overpaid me, as well. That made me feel a hell of a lot better; apparently I am not yet completely worthless in the eyes of American capitalism!

Man, I gotta ease up on myself.


*James maintains that "yeah, but still" is the ultimate end to an unwinnable argument, the final, desperate gambit when you know you have been proved wrong but are just too contrary to admit it. It is a common phrase in our household.

**This is an awful pun. I'm sorry. Completely unintentional.

Radio Silence, or Eleven Days and Twelve Nights In A Stone-White Room.

I'm back.

I feel...

...I don't know. I don't know what I feel.

I read yesterday in this book, a book on why people who commit suicide do so, that two conditions must exist for a person who can and will commit suicide (as opposed to the equally-dangerous if less premeditated accidental suicide by suicidal gesture): they must perceive themselves both as a burden on their loved ones and lacking a community, involvement and belonging, to something, anything.

I guess that's where I am. I do feel a burden, I do feel removed from meaning, from belonging.

On November 30th, 2007, I checked myself into Harborview Medical Center for severe depression and anxiety with suicidal ideation.

It was good for me. Right after I got out, I was feeling a little (okay, a lot) better. But now, almost two months out, my meds have stopped working and all of the wonderful people who came out of the woodwork to support me have gone back to their lives. For the which I can place no blame; they have their own lives which I do not want to interfere with. I haven't been able to see anyone to get my medication adjusted. I can barely go to my day job, I rarely leave the house, I see almost no one. A few months ago I couldn't sleep past 9am; now, when I sleep, I sleep until 1pm, sometimes waking only to stay in bed, quietly and warmly, and wondering what would happen if I didn't leave.

The sole bright point, the only thing to look forward to without the guilt of my own absurd existence marring it, is a writing project that I seem to have fallen into with Mr. ARS. A rock opera. We're writing a rock opera. Which, since that's the most absurd thing I could possibly think of to do, seems right somehow. Good. He saved my life, too: he was the one who talked me down at the crucial moment when I am almost certain few, if any, others could have. He knew what to say. He did not cry, or beg, or coddle, or tell me that I had so much to live for. Rather, he calmly stated that, although not a sin, it would be a waste. He knew he could not stop me; he could only ask.

I understand that what I have is a disease. I do not hold myself to blame. I hold my parents somewhat responsible due to their abhorrent parenting, though not entirely because of the overwhelmingly vast mental illness streaking through my family, running wild like a sophomore on Spring Break in Tijuana.

Neither do I hold anyone else to blame. How could I? I only wish that I were a healthier person in order to be a better friend or family member to them.

I feel? Grateful that I have such a beautiful life, angry at my ungrateful self that I do not or cannot appreciate it in all its beauty. Utterly alone at times, although I know in my head that is a lie I tell myself, like the lie that I feel empty.

I know that I'm going to get up tomorrow, eventually eat, knit for a while, and try to breathe and stay calm.

But I do, oh I do, wish that I had a reason to get up tomorrow.

Strangers when we meet.

Men want me, kind of.

All my friends
Now seem so thin and frail
Slinky secrets
Hotter than the sun

No peachy prayers
No trendy rechauffe
I'm with you
So I can't go on

I guess that's my absurd lesson for this winter week, because it's been all about men, boys, whatever. Listen to these shorts:

My Very First Boyfriend Ever contacted me this week. Fine. Good. Complicated. We met when I was a troubled, suicidal teenager and he left me without a word after a year of blissful first teenage love. Or so I thought. What really happened is that he was beginning to develop Crohn's disease and had to move away, and though he kept trying to get in touch with me, my parents told him to stop trying to contact me. So, he gets sick, has to go away anyway, stays sick for years, and eventually finds me on MySpace. This is a gross simplification, of course, but that's basically what happened.

Well, one expects one's first love to fuck one up, of course. However, the initial episode compounded itself with my nascent abandonment issues and began what I would later recognize as the beginnings of my massive intimacy issues. You know the ones:

Don't breathe too deep
Don't think all day
Dive into work
Drive the other way
That drip of hurt
That pint of shame
Goes away
Just play the game

Sing it, Mark. Anyway, flash forward to this week and these events. So I meet the guy at Elliot Bay Bookstore, and he's sweet and charming and apparently still cares deeply for me and is awfully sorry for everything that happened. Which is gratifying but not an end in itself, so now I'm left with looking back on my past relationships thinking, Could I have made this different? How much was me?

I know I could never have changed some things: the one that cheated on me, the one that really and truly did have to move across the country to find himself, the one I rebounded to that I just couldn't love enough even though I wanted to. But for years I've lived with the bitter presentiment that every man (woman are a different case) who has ever loved me has left me, with the notable exception of a violent alcoholic that will neither save himself nor stop asking me to save him. (We'll get to that later.)

All my violence
Raining tears upon the sheet
I'm bewildered
For we're strangers when we meet

So I find out that this isn't true and everything I know is wrong. Fortunately, I had my therapy right after I met up with him, but that just means that my real work is just beginning.

Mr. VNRS told me that I'd start having weird dreams after this, and he's been right. My brain is trying to process this new information and it's being a little too efficient for me to rest properly. So I slept hard last night, but woke up anxious and restless sometime in the middle of the night.

Speaking of whom, the Very Nice Rock Star and myself had an unsettling conversation last night. I was explaining to him about something I had talked to Jaime (my hippie, Buddhist therapist) about: my intimacy issues. I have this problem which is somewhat freeing but ultimately unhealthy, which is my inability to rely on a person that I'm dating -- or, to a much lesser extent, my friends. In other words, I assume that every time I see them will be the last. This might be lovely and Zen if I didn't actually believe it so much, but as it stands it means that I don't really feel that these people are a part of my life so I don't let them affect me either positively or negatively. If they aren't in the room with me, they might as well not exist at all. That's cold. It helps if I don't date around too much after I find someone I like, otherwise that's an excuse for me not to avoid intimacy.

The next thing I know, and I'm not sure how this happened, but Mr. VNRS is saying, "I don't want you to be disappointed, but you know that we're still in the non-exclusive part of our relationship, right? It's just that some women have conveniently forgotten that..."

Which filters to the Angry Woman portion of my brain as: "Oh, it must be very painful for you to not be close to people like that. Well, maybe that's good, because you really shouldn't, anyway. Nobody wants to be close to you, you know, because innately broken women who have spent time in famous insane asylums aren't attractive. Except to that one guy you told me about who was freakily into it."

When what he really meant was: "I really like you, I just like going very slowly and I know you do, too, because we've had really great, open conversations about it."

The Angry Woman wants to reply: "What, you think I don't know the score? I get it. You're talking to the girl who gets regular complaints from actual boyfriends -- you know, people who aren't paralytically afraid of commitment like you and I are -- that she's too distant. Also, you treat me like your girlfriend and you probably treated those other women that way, too, so how much is conveniently forgotten and how much is you not bothering to define a clearly-recognizable boundary? Fuck off, asshole, I do know the score, I've been here with other people and I'm over this kind of bullshit, so I'm leaving you right now. GOODBYE FOREVER!"

When what I should say is: "Your timing was awful and that hurt. A lot. Look, tonight was really great for both of us, so let's not ruin it by talking about our relationship. I feel lonely enough lately, thank you, and I have a lot to deal with emotionally, so please don't. I love you, good night."

I can't remember what I did say, but I over-analyzed it until I fell asleep. Cue the intense dreaming. I woke up pointlessly angry and cold and went to work.

I check my e-mail when I get there. There's something from Mr. Alcoholic Rock Star:

Things have been crazy. I'll wait until you're
entirely better so I can tell you all about it in
person.

Okay. Well. We'll see how that turns out. If it's anything like past I have something I need to tell yous from him, he'll probably tell me he's seeing someone (last time he got back with an ex-girlfriend), at which point I'll tell him that I don't really care because so am I.

Maybe he's getting married.

Blank screen TV
Preening ourselves in the snow
Forget my name
But I'm over you

Blended sunrise
And it's a dying world
Humming Rheingold
We scavenge up our clothes

All my violence
Raining tears upon the sheet
I'm resentful
For we're strangers when we meet

On a final note, Jinny is not, in fact, moving to Portland. I want the best for her, so if she's sure, I'm happy. I want her to be with me right now. I want to go away from the boys and either hide under the covers until they all go away or go out with my girls to the Wild Rose and say fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, break their windows.

I learned that one from a man who left me.

Cold tired fingers
Tapping out your memories
Halfway sadness
Dazzled by the new

Your embrace
Was all that I feared
That whirling room
We trade by vendu

Steely resolve
Is falling from me
My poor soul
All bruised passivity

All your regrets
Ride rough-shod over me
I'm so glad
That we're strangers when we meet
I'm so thankful
That we're strangers when we meet
I'm in clover
For we're strangers when we meet
Heel head over
And we're strangers when we meet

I love you more than you know.

I've been on this kick of reading personal essays lately, and last week it was I Love You More Than You Know by Jonathan Ames, which I was finishing at the gallery in order to pass on to my co-worker Ellyn. One of my bosses had propped open the door (we have an annunciator, one of those things that discreetly beepbeeps when someone opens the door) but I was keeping, or trying to keep, vague attention on who was coming in. I must have gotten engrossed since I heard a rap on the glass counter in front of me.

I look up, and there is Mr. Alcoholic Rock Star. I stared at him blankly for a moment with that dreamy, just-waked look and feel one gets when intense reading has been interrupted. I forget that he does this every so often, drop by my work. He always seems smaller and out of place there.

"Oh."

"Hi." He's uncomfortable, unsurprisingly for the way we left things last. He's always a little uncomfortable anyway when he's sober, and since it's the middle of the day and he's presumably on his way back from class he's sober.

"How are things?"

"Things? Fine. Busy. The theater opens in a couple of weeks."

He gets his derisive look when I mention my work, or maybe it's my imagination.

"How's class?"

"Good. Fine. Look, I still want to write music for you. For your plays. I just need to know how long they are. How long it needs to be."

I don't even bother getting into how that doesn't work in live theater. Another battle, another time.

"Yeah, okay."

"I have to go catch a ferry."

He hugs me and is off, like that. I briefly note that he doesn't smell like liquor. A few days later at the gallery I'm still reading the Ames when a small, slight woman in her fifties comes in on a rainy day and wanders around. She mentions that she works across the street in the Pioneer Building.

"Oh, do you work in that antique place?"

"No, I'm lawyer."

I'm embarrassed at having presumed based on her adorable graying presence that she was not some kind of professional woman, but I suppress it, wondering if I should apologize. I don't and she seems not to notice, being perfectly happy to browse. We chat and it comes out that she's a defense attorney.

"One of my friends used to be a pretty well-known musician in the area --" she brightens with interest; everyone loves a celebrity, even a minor one "-- but he's in his third year at the U-Dub now to go into defense. In fact, he used to work in the Public Defender's office."

"Really? What's his name? I worked there a few years ago."

I tell her and she thinks it's familiar. "I can't place a face, though...but he must be pretty good to be at the U."

"He's one of the smartest men I've ever met." I get sad when I admit that.

And then she's gone, and I go back to my book, and I finish it that day.