I think I’m gonna grow my hair out again.
I miss my hair. I loved my hair. It’s a fucking bitch, but I love it. I’m growing it back out. That’s that.
Category: nostalgia
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2004 
2006 
2007 -
I love social media. First it was Friendster (remember Friendster?) and then MySpace (eww) and now I’ve moved on to Facebook. I know that there are some privacy rights issues, and I have never played Farmville or anything, but I love how Facebook reconnects people. Instead of wondering what the hell so-and-so is up to these days, I can type in their name, send a friend request or message, and find out.
picture taken by Joey Shevelson So take the picture above, which was snapped at my 10 year high school reunion. The girl in the blue dress is me. I’m dancing with Kersten W., and off to the right by himself is Austin L., who was my date that night.
I met Kersten in fifth grade. And I hated her. She was cool. I was not cool. She was blond and perfect and wore the right clothes and was popular and pretty… and I was dorky Kate from the sticks, who didn’t make any friends for the first three months I lived in Carmel. All through middle and high school, if you’d asked me to name the girls in my class I liked least, Kersten’s name would be mentioned.
Sorry, Kersten.
Years later, she and I both commented on something a mutual friend said, and I realized… Kersten’s kind of awesome. And then we chatted one night and I figured out that this person I’d decided years ago was never going to be my friend was actually smart, hilarious, and very genuine. But I never knew, and I wouldn’t have ever known if it weren’t for Facebook.
Austin Lovell, the fetching lad to the right, is someone I met at 12 and crushed on for years. We never went to the same school or had much contact, but whenever I ran into him, I had trouble not drooling. He was/is that cute, and three years older, and… deliciously unattainable. Kryptonite to an adolescent girl. He, of course, barely knew I existed. Until I found him on MySpace in 2008, that is. And we became friends, talked on the phone sometimes, made vague plans to hang out if we were ever in town at the same time. We also joked about coming up with some weird back-story and having him be my date to my reunion, but then we fell out of touch for awhile.
I was very, very poor last fall and didn’t think I was even going to get to go to my reunion, but my mom called me three days beforehand and said she’d bought me a last-minute ticket into Monterey, and that I’d land a few hours before the party began. So I called Austin and asked him if he would still accompany me, and he was coincidentally going to be in town that weekend anyway, so he said yes, and…
God, we had so much fun. We hadn’t seen each other in 13 years, but he somehow made me feel incredibly at-ease. He was the perfect date for my purposes, since what I really wanted was to show up with the hottest guy I knew and look fabulous and make an ass of myself. We bought a bottle of Malibu Rum at Safeway and smuggled it into the party. It was gone by the end of the night. We made snarky comments about the other partiers, made out in front a table of “popular” girls (he just shoved his tongue in my mouth at the perfect time, and I did not object,) danced and chatted and ate the airplane-quality food we were served, and he helped my drunk ass back to the car when it was time to go home. And he came home with me, and left the next morning, and… uh. Yeah. I basically high-fived my 12-year-old self after he left. Because I totally hit that.
There are many other people I could give “Hey, I found you again on Facebook!” shout-outs to, but here’s justa few: Richard, who is the second boy I ever kissed and who rebuilt my computer last fall; Drew, who I hadn’t seen since I was 15 and visitied in Denver in May, which was awesome; Todd, who I kinda-dated in 1999 and who I hung out with yesterday and am seeing again tomorrow; Sarah Adams (and the rest of the Adams family) who I’ve known since I was four; and a bunch of old friends and family members who I can easily check up on and keep in touch with.
I am glad to live in the age of social media, even with all its flaws. It’s made moving back here a lot easier, scored me a trip to Colorado, and gotten me laid. All you naysayers can go naysay to someone else, I’m gonna go have coffee with an old friend who I haven’t seen since Clinton was president.
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I really meant to send K a goodbye letter before I left Portland. Ideally we would have met for a drink or something, but I didn’t even expect a reply. I just wanted to say farewell.
I forgot to write the letter. I left Portland and I didn’t say goodbye because I forgot to.
I’m both sad and happy about that. Ten weeks ago, and for a whole two years, I couldn’t stop thinking about this person, and now he’s an afterthought. It’s better. But it’s sad.
I met someone. That phrase should induce dread in all who read it, but it’s ok! No, it really is. Because it’s got me thinking. I’m realizing all the things I’ve done wrong in the past, and I’m trying to do better. Sure, I’m still throwing myself at the emotionally unavailable, but I’m doing it with eyes wide open. Isn’t that good?
Oh, hell.
Because no one wants my 3am rants about my feelings, even if he’s charmed (now) by my writing. No one wants everything that comes along with that. And as much as people appreciate the attention (at first, maybe) they don’t want to deal with the force of a fully infatuated Kate. I’m allowed to have these feelings, but I need to rein them in a bit. Otherwise I’ll go crazy. I don’t want to tear myself to pieces again. I don’t want another situation like the one I had with K.
Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be going in that direction. Both on my end and on his, this is not the same situation. I still have my wits about me. I don’t have that feeling that I’m being swept up in a current and helpless to fight it. I am not in love. I am not in love yet? Who knows? But right now it’s cool. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s a nice distraction.
I wonder what the world might be trying to teach me. I wonder how much I’m learning.
What would I change about my history with K? I can’t think of a single thing, because I learned so much from all of it. And I like knowing what I know, even if sometimes it wasn’t fun. Sometimes it was absolutely wonderful. And I have never loved anyone like that, and for the last year I’ve been wondering if that was my one shot at it–the one time I’d get to love so fully, intensely, recklessly, sincerely. I’ve been sad to think I might never love anyone like that again. But I’m starting to think it might be ok. I don’t want to get swept up. I don’t want to get lost, not like that, not ever again.
I’m worth more than that. I’m better than that. I don’t want to throw myself at the indifferent/ambivalent/apathetic anymore. I need a more measured approach, and I’m working on that. Maybe I’ll eventually even fall for someone who has the ability to love me back.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
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I just wrote this haiku:
what is there to say?
you were my worst decision,
and i hope you’re well.…in response to the stubborn continued existence of someone with whom I share mutual friends on Facebook. Someone I used to know, but don’t know anymore. The “who” in the answer to “what is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Every now and then– more often, recently– I think of this person. And I want to say something, but I don’t know what to say.
A few months before The Worst Thing I Ever Did, I wrote this (rather embarrassing) poem:
I will break open wide
and spill all of this nonsensical poetry
i’m keeping in hereif you were to merely beckon
or
touch me soft like that again
I know I wouldfor all the promises
oh i never
I couldn’t, I am not
that kind of girl
[anymore]I know that you would merely have to touch me
soft, like that
[please]again
I would spill
That’s how hung-up I was. Hung up enough to eschew the common parenthesis for the more angular, distinctive bracket. Such was my longing. And this is all just a long way of getting to The Worst Thing I Ever Did, which is:
When I was 20, I slept with my friend’s boyfriend.
There are mitigating circumstances, and they are these:
- He was 33, and should have known better.
- I was obviously and obsessively infatuated with him, and he should have known better
- I was high on LSD, and so was he
But on the other hand:
- I was 20, and should have known better
- It’s not like it “just happened.” I’d been infatuated for months, and I did, in fact, know better.
- I went to his house and took LSD knowingly and willingly and with the idea that something might occur.
I was no innocent, is what I’m saying. I don’t know if he saw it coming or not, but he would have been an idiot not to. I, in my complete lack of defense, saw it coming a week off and even postponed our evening together because I was having second thoughts. I didn’t know if he wanted me, but I knew that I wanted him, and that if the opportunity arose to have sex with him, I’d do it.
I’m sure I didn’t think of it so crassly. It wasn’t crass sex, either. Certainly not gentle lovemaking, but it wasn’t heartless lust-fucking either. We did genuinely care about one another. There was love there– fucked-up love between fucked-up friends, but love nonetheless. And if you can take that one night out of the context of cheating and just see if for what it was, damn it, it was sweet and it was grand and it was a long time coming.
But you can’t take it out of that context. And I was no innocent, but she, the friend/girlfriend, she was. Innocent. And sweet. And undeserving of the wretched sort of person she had for a friend in me. I didn’t just betray her, no. I didn’t even have the audacity to lie. I didn’t have to. She knew, she knew, of course she knew. And she didn’t want to know, so for the next seven months she talked to me about how she had suspicions, she had fears, she felt that something had happened. We’d have long, long conversations on the phone and she would talk and cry about how she suspected something must have happened that night, but she never once asked. And so I never had to lie, and damn it, I never did.
Of course, I told her eventually. And eventually she even forgave me. But I have never forgiven myself. And it’s been nine years, and sometimes I look him up on Facebook. I look at his picture because he looks exactly the same and I wish I had something to say. It seems like I should have something to say other than wanting to blame him. Because the shame of what we did almost killed me. It really did. I was so horrified with what I’d done that I tried to kill myself, maybe not very effectively, but sincerely and more than once. And still, nine years later, I want to blame him. But I also want to say, hey, I hope you’re well. You look exactly the same. Thanks for introducing me to some really good bands, letting me smoke pot and do acid and drink to excess in a safe place, for being my friend, for inviting me into your bed even though it was the worst decision I ever made.
We can’t change the past, after all. What would be the point of regretting it? I wanted it so badly by the time it finally happened, that if it hadn’t happened I might very well have exploded. What I regret, if anything, is not saying something to my friend. Not telling her, hey, I’m madly in love with your boyfriend and it’s eating me up inside. I didn’t say anything because I was embarrassed, and because I was holding out hope that exactly what did happen would– he would, even for one night, choose me over her. The exact thing I’d been hoping since the day I’d met him.
And I’m still pissed off at both of us that he did.
A friend in need’s a friend indeed
A friend with weed is better
A friend with breasts and all the rest
A friend who’s dressed in leather…–Placebo
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April 8th of last year was the day things ended with K.
This year, April 8th passed and it never occurred to me all day that a year had passed. That the day was important at all.
This is progress.
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This will never be forgotten. These are not just words.
Friday, May 30, 2008 at 4:13amHe didn’t come over tonight. It’s all right that he didn’t, I told him it was okay for him to stay home and get some sleep. The boy, he needs his sleep. He’d been drinking and wasn’t safe to drive yet. So I was magnanimous enough to let him sleep it off. Aren’t I a peach?
I have a picture of him that I want desperately to post here. But I don’t, for three reasons:
1. I believe he prefers anonymity
2. You won’t see what I see, so what’s the point?
3. My ex might hunt him down and kill himBut this picture gets me. Right in the gut. Or the heart. Or the pants. Or something.
I am not used to being helpless, of knowing so well that I only have two options: full speed ahead or jump ship. I can’t pull back on the throttle or whatever I’d have to do to slow this thing down and make my metaphor work. I’m fucked, essentially.
So, I have crushes. I have the option of other lovers. There are people for whom I have some interest in that capacity. I can kiss whomever I want. Whoo hoo. It makes for a lot of boring Friday nights. Many, many boring Friday nights. Usually he is here on Thursdays, but tonight I graciously allowed him to bow/pass out. I even fucking suggested it.
Which is essentially like a junkie saying, no honey, you shoot the last of the heroin.
I’m twitching and alone.
And all the other drugs just won’t do because all I want is him.
I took a bunch of photographs because I’m already getting ready for the time when he won’t be around anymore, when these pictures and a few saved IM conversations are all I’ll have to remember him by. I’m already stockpiling evidence of his existence for when he’s gone. So I’ll know. So I can remember.
There was a really bad night back in… March? I think it was March. I was really fucked-up because The Ex had come over unannounced and thrown my brain out of whack. I drove over to CGB’s. I wanted so desperately to be held, but I was afraid to ask for it. I needed to cry, but I didn’t want him to see me lose it. He made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread, and we watched “Hudson Hawk.”
Grape jelly. And a beer. And… a stupid movie that I hardly even remember. I want to keep that memory close to my heart for the cold times, the dark times, the lonely nights. He made me a sandwich. I even ate the crusts. I drank the beer, although I don’t like beer.
They say the only way to be ok with death is to really embrace it, to live your life to the fullest knowing it can end at any time. And maybe the only way to love somebody is to know that they could fall away at any time, that this too shall pass. So I’m already treating him like a memory. Because I don’t know what else to do.
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Chatted online with the love-of-my-life-of-the-nineties last night. We’ll call him Bunny! Anyway, for some reason it cheered me right the hell up. And about an hour after he went to bed (because he’s old and married with a baby, the wuss) I realized I didn’t hurt so much anymore. Somehow talking to Bunny gave me some perspective or something. Or maybe it’s just nice to know that there are people out there who, despite the time that’s passed and all the shit we put each other through, still care about me.
Thanks, Bunny!
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When I was 14 and had just started high school, I developed a crush on my brother’s best friend. The feeling was mutual enough that we spent four days talking on the phone in the evenings and eating lunch together at school, and I, being young and being me, dreamed up a future for us that involved going to prom together four years in a row, which of course implied that we would be together for at least that long. We weren’t even officially “going out.” On the fourth evening, he told me he didn’t want to continue our little whatever-it-was. When we got off the phone, I walked into my bathroom, fell to the floor and cried my eyes out. I felt like someone had taken a giant melon-baller and scooped out my soul. We had never even kissed. If memory serves, we never even held hands.
My heart was broken. It took six years for that particular wound to stop stinging.
What I’m trying to demonstrate with this rather embarrassing anecdote is that I tend to have very strong emotional reactions to things that other people could probably just shrug off. To put it another way, I’m kinda crazy.
Looking back, I see how silly it all was. I saw how silly it was at the time. Here’s the thing, though: I didn’t want to be obsessed with this person. I didn’t enjoy making an ass of myself when he was around. I knew that it was irrational how hurt I was over what had happened. I knew that it didn’t make any sense, that I should have been able to get over it, that it wasn’t the end of the world. But I had never felt pain like that before, like when I was crying on the bathroom floor.
I have felt pain like that many times since.
Anyway, now I’m almost 29, and my heart is broken over a guy I haven’t been involved with for almost a year. And it really feels sometimes like the fates or the gods or some mischievous imps are playing some sort of trick to keep him on my mind, to remind me how much the whole situation stinks. I removed him from my instant messenger lists, deleted him from my Facebook friends, un-favorited his OkCupid profile and have strongly considered deleting his number from my phone. Still these little things happen to constantly remind me. And today is his birthday.
And, of course, there was last night’s conversation with that guy I was in love with when I was 20. My relationship (such as it was) with K was very similar to the relationship I had with this other fellow, and so hearing that he was in love with me back then… well, it makes me feel like my soul’s been scooped out by a giant melon-baller. And it makes me want to punch someone in the face.
Because my reactions are oversized, inappropriate, irrational, unwarranted and unwanted. Because I fall in love so very easily, and so very hard. And it crushes me and it sometimes takes me years to stop hurting. Because hope might be the best of things or whatever, but it can also be a form of slow torture. I don’t want to hope that K comes to his senses and realizes he loved me all along unless he realizes it really soon. I don’t want to hope anymore. I don’t want to care anymore.
I’m more than a little unbalanced, and because love is something I have difficulty being rational about, I have a feeling that K will never want me enough to be with me. He told me he liked my enthusiasm. He said he liked my intensity. But those things are also, I’m sure, what scared him away from me. Just like that boy in high school. Just like that guy when I was 20. I can’t love without trying to be absorbed by the other person and wanting to absorb them into me. Without, as I like to put it, trying to eat their soul. K will never want to be with me, so what I want now is to be ok with that. I want to let it go, let him go, and move on.
Now that I have no choice but to be alone, I’m trying to want to be alone. I’m trying to fix whatever is wrong in me so that I don’t continue the cycle of falling in love like dry grass catches on fire and then being left with the ashes where my heart used to be. I’m trying to be good enough for myself so I don’t try to get other people to fill me up and make me whole. I’m trying, and trying, and trying, and it just hurts and hurts and hurts.
So here’s a poem:
Oh Yes, by Charles Bukowski.
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late. -
God Damn It.
About eight years ago I was in love with a boy. For many, many reasons, we weren’t destined to be together for the rest of our lives. But for one month, it was beautiful and pure and everything was wonderful and I was in love. Most sincerely and wholeheartedly in love.
And it fell apart. Like things do.
It took me… gosh… four years to get over him. Four years of thinking about him when I didn’t want to think about him. When my heart ached and I was sick of having an aching heart. I just wanted to be over him. I wanted not to care anymore. Eventually my wish came true.
We’ve communicated some in the years that have passed. Nothing too heavy. I know where he’s living and which girl he’s with and what he’s doing for money.
He instant messaged me at 3am, and I was up, so we started talking. And it seems he was in a sentimental mood. And he told me he loves me and misses me which, ok, that’s a nice thing to hear. An old friend misses me!
But then: God Damn It.
He told me that back then, all those years ago, when I loved him so purely, he loved me too. He was young, he was stupid, he didn’t know what he was doing, but he was in love with me.
Oh, and he’s sorry for hurting me.
God damn it.
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I had bad self-esteem my whole adolescence and, indeed, until a couple of years ago. I think that’s fairly normal for women. We don’t tend to like ourselves. Too fat or too thin or my boobs are too small or whatever.
Look at what a fucking badass I was! And I didn’t like myself. I didn’t think I was pretty. I must have been 20 or 21. And I could hardly stand myself. It was a bad time in my life. These pictures were taken by someone I was desperately in love with at the time. He messaged me tonight on Facebook and then sent me these pictures. It’s weird to see myself so young and remember who I was back then.
I like myself much better now.
I made a decision about two years ago that I wasn’t going to talk bad about myself to myself anymore. I wasn’t going to feel bad about my small boobs or my chubby belly or… whatever. What had happened was that I found some photos of myself at 18, and I remembered how insecure I always was about my body/hair/face/teeth and… how stupid that was. I had spirit, and it showed. And whatever “flaws” I might have, well, this is the me that I’m stuck with. I decided not to waste any more time despising myself.
I have good days and bad days. I still think my tits could stand to be bigger. And lord knows I could lose some weight. But… well…
I’m a badass. And some people think I’m pretty cute.
Self-Indulgent Drivel 