Bad Idea

Whee! Special shouts out to the friend who was kind enough to, of her own free will and without any prompting, meet me up for a walk and chat, entertain me thoroughly, buy me a few drinks, feel sick from food poisoning, stagger back to my flat draped on my arm (which earned me those "ah, slipped her a roofie, didn't ya" looks from frat boys/NY suits, the "you evil scumbag, you slipped her a roofie and you're going to jail" from professionally-dressed women, andd "that looks like it's gonna be pretty boring by the time you get her home" from legions of the cynical throughout SoHo and the East Village.). With friend resting in bed, YCT texts, to which I respond not in kind but in phone call. Which goes on for quite a while with no clear way into "what are you up to tonight." Friend dying of food poisoning is now cold, miserable, has vomited at least once if not more, and wants to go home....to.....BROOKLYN. Cue cab, cue phone call saying I needed to get friend home, but would call from Brooklyn. Told the driver from the outset "two stops," dropped friend off, pointed cabbie in right direction, called YCT and said "So, I'm coming over, where do you live again?" She had been trying to figure out how to get me over there anyhow...we are, remarkably, On The Same Page(tm). How often does that really happen? Anyhow, I'll probably disappear for a while what with the happiness, YCT and all that. Or not. One friend voting for 6 weeks, just so breakup carnage can kick in while we still work together. I put the minimum at 8, until the end of classes, and the maximum at capital-T "Trouble." Ah, bliss....unappealing to others, and not half as fun as bitter/hyper-sensitive Polish teenage drama queen, but we'll see.

hurry up, wench

10 days. 10 days from when she left? But when people say they're going on 10-day holidays, they tend to play a bit fast and loose with the "10" part. 10 nights? 10 days not counting travel days? Counting travel days? Some nefarious combination or variation thereof or thereupon? YCT ain't back yet, but should be back soon. Or not. Remember, faithful reader, that YCT only arrived on St Paddy's day, except inasmuch, of course, as she's a Co-Teacher, and therefore somebody I see 5 days a week. Ohmygod. I really haven't thought through THAT side of things. Yay! Something new to fret about! I've never had an office romance. (Well, ummm, not in the sense I first meant that sentence at least). I've never formally worked with someone and been involved at the same time. It's excitingly tasteless! Some new transgression of mores it hadn't occurred to me to transgress! Will it be obvious to all and sundry? She's definitely capable of frosty ice-queen, as I discovered, having been lightly frozen in those quaint old pre-YCT days, so perhaps she won't be the one to give it away. Me, I'm a touch more open-bookish. Vulnerable, even, as a friend put it recently on a long and luscious walk through Central Park. (Ah...the park....I am going to bloody miss this town. Although I've formally decided I'm going to re-fetishize London, rather than New York, as my soul's true home. Too many bi-coastal sorts as it stands, I see 'em, and raise 'em a Pond. The sequel to the hit series on Channel 4 - LALON...hmmm.) So if not the immediate co-workers (and it's a giant shared office, so rhythms and balances are delicate), well, that leaves the kids. Trapped in the throes of hormones, of being teenagers. They'll smell it like blood, like fear. Or not. God, this is a deliciously bad idea. Stay tuned for drama updates as soon as she bloody gets back. Unless, of course, everything goes swimmingly. Then no updates. You takes your chances....and I stoled you're chalks.

detracting distractions

or, how i learned to live with the debt and stopped worrying about it. Or not, as the case may be. moneymoneymoneymoneymoney. Ate my fucking day, ate it like a lion scarfing a fucking rabbit. And it shall continue for a bit longer yet, the crisis born of my trying to be responsible and getting bit in the ass for it.

Did I mention I have grading to do? You know it's grim when the grading seems flat out fabulously fucking appealing compared to the rest of the shit taking my time right now. Although last night's drunken post is amusingly coherent.

Edit. I'm counting five love posts before the whingeing appeared. That, then, must be my "thing", as a friend would put it. Not just ventriloquising interior monologues for others, not computerz, not just being the gay/straight/metro drama queen, but kvetching about it. Born to kvetch, as a different friend pointed out, alas has been taken as an autobiography title. Nothing like being in a hurry to get a momentous life/money thang out of the way so I can get back to shameless romantic lust with YCT. I should probably write EVV1, as well as QFF (Quickly Fading Friend), but bugger it.

and then

dinner and drinks (and a splash of telly) with a friend. With a friend who is a friend because she's a friend, not to be confused with the friend who's a friend because she was a friend, and should be a friend, and probably will be a friend, but isn't quite a friend at the moment. Mutually, probably, as friend (who's a mutual friend) and I established this evening. I've chosen against spending abundant and frequent time with the friend who first took me in when arriving on these shores. (I spent 4 days there on their couch before moving to a flat of my own. Nobody has helped me move in this town, ever. Neither males nor females. They have money. I don't. But I don't know when at least offering to help people move got pulled off the table. It did, and does, piss me off.) So it has been a mutual process, agreeing to be distant, somehow, or at least a mutually recognised issue. Not one that can be cured with a walk and talk, as our mutual friend observed to me this evening. It'll probably all be fine, with distance, with time. Perhaps I'm better with friendships with distance, with time. Unable to step up to the plate of daily reailty, distracted, as I am, by the possibility of love, however faint or farcical it appears to other.

Is that wrong? Even when I've been ludicrously wrong about suitable partners, is my ability to ditch friends ot pursue what, at least inasmuch as I think at the time, is love, hurtful? unjust? unbalanced? In some ways, I kindafuckinghopeso. Surely that's the point, the definition of love. Just give me a few weeks of unbalanced, I'll be back. But those few weeks, spread amongst four now five women, over 15 months, a month to six weeks per, suddenly one-third of my time here has been spent pursuing something else, in the midst of something "more important" than time (fine dinner, fine wine, fine conversation born of fine minds and long histories) with my friends. A character flaw, but non-understandable? A reasonable choice - you're in love, why shouldn't I be? Friend drama. I'm opposed to it, but particularly in the absence of lover possibilities (10 days - is that Wednesday? or Thursday? or even Friday?), well, lots of time for friend drama. Until, apparently, they leave for Panama on Wednesday. Nice to feel in the loop. Thanks, friend of friend....

vague

a vague sense of malaise, a vague depression, a vague sadness. To be leaving NY, as I wander its streets. To be alone, as I sit here, reading a well-written novel by a colleague, evocative but not devastating. Perhaps because of the money woes, the penultimate corner to turn, imminently? Accepting youthful indiscretions both emotional and financial, and taking on the cross-cum-albatross of the latter, at least, monthly payments and all. Scarily, I've probably taken on more emotional responsibility and accountability than financial.

The two nights of YCT not enough to do more than smooth over some rough edges. The rough edges of who I am with EVV1, with friends who are becoming unfriends if I'm not careful, and of not necessarily caring that much if that is indeed the case. I never really thought of myself as ambitious, mostly just arrogant with reasonably good reason, so it was a touch startling to hear a friend ask, "Was winning enough? Or will you get lost in trying for the next victory, the ever diminishing returns on conventional successes?" And I just fucking might. And is this a bad thing? In some ways the dichotomy ties back into what friend and I are silently not discussing but feuding about. God, my deepest darkest character flaw, a largely concealed and rarely indulged taste for musical theatre going back to coping with an ugly childhood, raises its pithy head, "Once I had dreams / now they're obsessions / hopes became needs / lovers possessions." Gag. Excuse me.

OK, me, snap the fuck out of it. Just hung over on a gray day.

in passing

but not. rather than following the time honored formula of inpassing.org, or the infinitely less satisfying but occasionally spot-on overheard in new york, a Columbia oriented blog (found after trawling Gawker talking about some hot and heavy riot action going on in Morningside the other night...keep up, folks.) has what they're calling digitalia - items and scraps from documents found on computers at Columbia and Barnard. OK, good concept, certainly. And this one perfectly captures how deep altruism runs in many of the over-achievers out there, "After working on global AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) in a developing country this past summer, I am convinced that I am interested in a consulting career." Go forth, consult, and prosper...(link)

Note to (singular) reader: when the hangover clears, I shall probably write something of substance. Last night was unexpected. But not quite a return to the legendary "improbable" days of London departure. Hmm. I need a zeitgeist word that captures the exit period for NY. Though the only recent spontaneous addition to my vocabulary, embarassingly enough, and entirely connected to YCT but showing up in more general usage, is "hot." I gotta do better than that. Suggestions gladly taken.

we interrupt

the regularly scheduled broadcasts on love, money, and the otherwise lamentable state of my otherwise exquisitely perfect existence (depending, alas, on a complicated formula involving the temperature outside, the day of the week, and the rate at which my liver is detoxifying my blood of the formaldehyde-type substance produced in the processing of alcohol consumed last night, plus or minus 100%) to bring you the ultimate in political statements....

Marxist lego

money

Well, love will have to take a back seat to money for a moment here. I don't know how many of you know, truly, what it is to live, breathe, sweat, sleep money, to know a two or three digit bank account balance to the penny, the time until the next paycheck to the hour, and how many weeks away it actually is. To combine the impossible poverty with a rejection of it as "beneath" me - I'd rather go hungry some days than fail, publicly, to buy a glass of wine casually, as if it weren't three days' groceries. At my age, no less. Part of it is criminal financial irresponsbility, and trust me, I'm fine admitting that. Part of it was the large five-figure sum donated to "The Ex to end all Exes" (Hmm. Professor Ex? Ahhh. SWMNBN - She Who Must Not Be Named. Purrrrrfect.) to keep her and various and sundry afloat. Because there's nothing like a starving graduate student living off student loans to leech off of in a pinch. Anyhow, I made my (bad) decisions, made the bed, and despite scrubbing the sheets repeatedly, it's still ugly, and I'm still in it. I'm back from the UK, and They found me yesterday, meaning whole new realms of the shit. Then, going to do my taxes today, I discoverd that 1) I earned an embarassingly small sum of money in 2005 and somehow managed to both quietly starve to death and also drink a lot of good wine and beer in Manfuckinghattan, and 2) Between fed and state, they want an additional 3% from me. Blood from a stone, fuckers, blood from a fucking stone. Thank god we don't have debtor's prison.

I'm grateful, too, that YCT is out of the picture at the moment. Much better to get this shit out of my system so I can fall back into the swoony unreality when she returns. Sigh.

the other phone call

From EVV1. Now, that went badly. "Fuck you if I'm repeating myself. OK, goodbye." I hate being hung up on.

Update. She called back. There were tears, a little bit of yelling, and all in all a very unhappy woman. I feel a right fucking asshole. To paraphrase a friend's comments, "yeah, the old you ain't back at all. He wouldn't have blinked at this." So I've got the asshole touch without the asshole soul...what a charming combination for all involved. Nevermind the fact I'm systematically lying to her about the reasons why, for which I don't feel particularly bad - just the fact of it, and my own poor handling of the beginnings as much as the end. Though her rebuttal, "it's not just about you," should indeed serve to wedge its valid point into my head somehow.

Update 2. Is it wrong, basically, to have allowed the situation to arise where EVV1 was always going to be hurt, despite not actually intending or meaning to hurt her? Bollocks. I glanced at a few original tpt archives on the way back machine. I'm not obscure enough by half....

unexpected phone call

One, I'm still bloody dying for a cigarette. I think that EVV1's run-prone healthy influence on me had me jonesing less for fags than the removal of all nicotine from my system would otherwise indicate. I haven't caved yet - I think 6 months clean will be required before I attempt that holy grail of holy grails: the social smoker.

To get ahead of myself, YCT just called. From the University Parks in Oxford, no less. It's difficult to explain how pivotal a place the parks were in my years there. They kept me sane my first year there, the daily walk across them, around them, through them, with them. The benches and the willow tree and the duck pond and the river. YCT called, totally unexpectedly, from the near the pond, wondering which Oxford was mine. Interesting that she should call, unknowingly, from one of the centres of my Oxford. She was wandering, wondering what Oxford was when there were no ties, no obligations, no responsibilities, when Oxford's eternal neglect of "its own" doesn't actually matter. I'll never be there, as I'll always have the books, the Bodleian, some one thing to do. Yet another bizarre reminder, though, of what it might have been like to be in Oxford with someone, rather than in Oxford apart from someone. YCT touched something deep and resonant with an unexpected dusk phone call from the parks. I wonder how much she's playing me, playing the obviously reverberant strings...

rise and fall

an interesting question, how friendships rise and fall. how friends remain friends because they _were_ friends, not because they are friends. How friendships endure the transition from the day-to-day of college, for example, to long distance occasional phone calls. And then have to negotiate the switch back to the proximate, the daily, the mundane. And the solution, of course, probably lies in the semi-imminent transition back to the long distance. We're friends because we're friends, but don't seem to have the time of day for a friendship when it becomes inconvenient. 13 years I've known this woman, and I'll know her for years to come. Best friends, lovers, not talking at all, disapproval, unequivocal support, not caring to comment. I'll always love her, who she was, who we were together, who she is, even. But not necessarily who we are together, now, who she is along with me, now. 13 years, I should bloody well hope we've changed. And it's not surprising that we're both complex enough to have changed, evolved, matured not along strictly parallel lines. this is something in our favor. But it's time, soon enough, I think, to "phone it in," as they say. A friendship better with distance befitting the time. Which, in turn, makes me sad for the other close friendships I've had, and had to watch change as I've moved from one place to the next. For they, too, change from day-to-day to the email, the IM, the letter, the occasional phone chat. And they, too, are probably not susceptible to the re-co-locate. And thus I, too, am off to where I started, to the beginning of an ambition stretching out longer than many of my friendships, misgivings but not hat in hand.

EVV1, Part The Second

A stranger observed that she doesn't know who I am, merely my name. And I'm probably more comfortable in this pseudonymous space, talking about inner rubbish and not outward rubbish, than otherwise. Plus, it will all come out eventually, and I suspect there will be few surprises for anyone. Part of my charm, surely, is my naive willingness to believe it's all different for me, somehow, that the secret things are secret and the things I don't want people to see or know aren't, well, seen or known. Perhaps I should adopt "Scooter" as a pseudonym, as that's all clearly bollocks. I've re-created TPT here because too many areas of my life are now "No Whingeing Zones", and you know what? Born to Kvetch, baby, born to fucking kvetch. Also, most of my friends have no patience for my shit any more - it's fun to watch, apparently, but not to provide fatuous comfort for, especially as the years roll on (and yes, I caught the typo in the invitation last night just after I sent it out. Apologies.). Thus, rather than having p2p'd episodes of my shit, I'll just dish 'em out for all and sundry.

OK, where'd I leave off? Emotionally Vulnerable Victim 1, numbered as Ms. Double-Barelled was taking pity on my state of aloneness and had another co-worker/enemy in mind with whom to set me up. EVV1, La Canadienne, well, she was a charmer. Deer in the headlights, frozen, uncertain, smart enough to know I was bad news, lonely enough to be persuaded out of her instincts, interesting enough for me to fall for, blank enough for me to paint the canvas. Alternately, smart enough for me to fall for, lonely enough that my "fallen sparrow" complex kicked in and I wanted to save this broken bird, interesting enough to cover what might be untold depths of blankness...

I knew from path-crossing (date? gag) 2 or 3 that the Proustian overtones were dangerous. The more firmly hesitant she was to get involved, the less I could resist her - there's nothing like the pursuit of that which we desire and how it becomes obsessive, a desire in itself. And indeed, the pursuit trumped all. As a blood relative observed, "You need to work out the differences between dating and falling in love." I seem only to have an on/off switch. EVV1 may well have been lobbying for dating, in hindsight, not ready for a relationship. I was wrapped up in my desire for the unavailable, the unobtainable, knowing full well, of course, that obtaining the object is death to the desire.

I'd like to pause here and point out that I may be an emotionally immature manipulative asshole who occasionally preys on women. That said, I'd also like to remind you that by reading this you agree that I am, in all cases, the real capital-"v" Victim. However improbable the contortions of history, perspective, time, or space may be, by clicking OK you have accepted the fact that I'm always the Victim, and that any unseemly pleasure I may seem to take in the misfortune of others is always vastly outweighed by the pain (public or private) I experience because of aforementioned pleasure.

Back to six weeks, the new three weeks. Luv! Lurve! Passion! Romance! Clotted cream and fan-fucking-tastic walnut and stilton scones in Central Park! Walking across bridges! Reading the NYTimes, intertwined on a sofa! Ah, bliss. Not a big eater, though. And a tendency to run around the entirety of Central Park every other morning. OK, recently ex-smoking me is willing to cut some major slack for the healthy and excercise-prone. But the working-class background, the raised up by her own bootstraps aspect, which formed a deeply compelling corner of the attraction, had some other implications. Wine igorance. Food finicky. Other expressions of OCD and not buried enough neuroses. I realise that some ridiculous proportion of New Yorkers are in therapy. I'm not, and probably should be. She was, and will probably need more, now.

Did I mention everybody's out of town? EVV1 should be back tonight, YCT is gone until the middle of next week, leaving lonely, lonely me here writing the saga. Gotta run and go meet a friend, now...But in the next episode, we have somebody playing me (for a change - about farking time), the difference between being attracted to people because they're attracted to you and attraction, and, time permitting, a hot and heavy game of footsie that ended up being with an inanimate object.

jesus, mary, and joseph what AM i doing

Well, I don't think I'll be retrieving the old TPT archives here, despite a friend suggesting I might share them with someone. An interesting idea, that. And I won't be buying the domain back, or re-crafting that perfectly nice layout and site itself, with its aspirations to, umm, I dunno, a wasted week or two of my life. (Which, in geek hindsight, wouldn't validate for love or money, so not a big deal). Only one thing to say - transition time. The original tpt began at a transition, a rough time in the ford of Oxen shortly before abortively heading to the Bay Area for something that proved to be both disastrous and a blessing. Re-reading the dwindling end-archives a few weeks ago, the result of leaving London, moving to New York Fucking City, being broke and disinterested, having an uncertain future but not much of a present and way too much past, I let the original die. To pursue a present, first and foremost, and then a future. And guess what? It worked!

For the next 4 and a half months I'm veritably rolling in future, at which point it starts, and I'm shit out of luck on the whingeing front, given that I've managed to, oh, achieve 11 years of ambition and purpose. (Can I mention here that I have not had a cigarette since January 2, 2006, making it almost 3 months, and GODDAMN I want one right now.) So, when confronted with a departure, what do I do, my loyal readers (other than drink - no points there)? That's right, I bring on the capital-"D" Drama. And, true to form, it's all well underway. Except for a brief breather for the next week or so.

Allow me to explain (this is going to be a preposterously long entry, but hell, it's feeling good and I'm on holiday. And have vodka to hand). Enter, approximately a month ago, EVV1. The coinage is not mine, but that of an old friend of mine - Ms. Double-Barreled (English, obviously, living here in NY). EVV1 - "Emotionally Vulnerable Victim 1" was a co-worker of Ms. Double-Barreled. Knowing that I'm a danger to all I survey at the best of times, and out and out evil at the worst of times, and knowing, too, that despite all my best efforts and protestations "I've changed! I'm different!" that none of that was the case, Ms. D-B set me up with EVV1. All, of course, went according to plan - I was in lurve, precisely because EVV1 was holding back, reluctant, timid, a bit afraid of getting involved with 1) my imminently leaving ass, and 2) my "all warning labels blazing" self (this, of course, is my new tactic: "Damaged goods! Half-off!" As effective as it ever has been, historically speaking. Which is sad, but true.) Just a reminder, boys and girls, and do keep up - 6 weeks, it's the new 3 weeks. The next installment, if there ever is one, involves not only EVV1 but a puppy, a shotgun, St Patrick's Day, and YCT: Yummy Co-Teacher...

you're too twisted by half

Perhaps one of the most genius song lyrics, ever? Up there with the Pixies' "You're so pretty when you're faithful to me." So much to say, no forum in which to say it. Suffice it to say my inner Polish teenage drama queen has temporarily assumed control of my life. Suggesting, yet again, it will be exit, pursued by [a bear of a past].

(The quote is a Sundays' lyric. The post is a re-post from that "other" blog that I don't really post much to, anyway, so who cares if I repost my own shit. This, of course, is the forum...)

something slightly odd

in the state of blogger. Or denmark. Is it me? Isn't it? Is this working at all? Why are there still links to Oxford colleges and Bay Area towns?