In Plain Sight
This is the type of thing that girls like me fall for. We’re convinced that someday, someone is going to say something like this and mean it:
My life was a series of self-implosions. Every time I got within sight of something I really wanted, I threw a landmine in my own path to make sure I never achieved it. I just think that you need someone to help you avoid your own landmines and to help you believe you deserve some of those things you really want.
* ~ *
Pay attention, this is important: Before the Big Bang, before time itself, before matter, energy, velocity… there existed a single immeasurable state called yearning. This is the special force, that on a day before there were days, obliterated nothing into everything. It is the unseen strings tying planets to stars, it is the maddening want we feel from first breath to last light.
I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet…
My head hurts from lack of sleep and not enough fluids, but I open a beer anyway. At least I’m not breaking any laws doing this, right? It’s the socially acceptable way to cope badly with things. Sometimes I think that now I just substitute “beer” for “pot” when I have the find-something-to-turn-my-brain-off craving. And because I haven’t made it a crutch yet, it’s okay. It’s amusing to watch Allyson drink and try to balance her tenuous control over her roiling emotions.
But I’m 29 hours into whatever span of sleeplessness this will be and I don’t want to have to do another night awake. So, in true Allyson bad-decision-making fashion, I’m going out to the bar with drink some more, but it’s better, socially, because I’m not drinking alone! Plus, I’ll get some exposure to the queer scene to remind me that even if my boifriend is being a douche, he’s still better than anyone that I could find around here.
Drunken stupidity, here I come!
Protected: look how low i’ve sunk, don’t ask me to rise, i’ll only lose you when i’m high…
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I woke today, suddenly nothing happened…
“At its strongest and wildest and most authentic, love is a demon. It is a religion, a high-risk adventure, an act of heroism.” ~ Cristina Nehring
An act of heroism, huh? I sure don’t feel like a hero. Days like today, I barely feel like a human being. It’s been raining non-stop for days with the sun scarcely able to peek through in the early mornings, if at all. I’m surrounded by the sad and hurting. I’m choosing to live some very hard questions right now.
What is it about days with no sunlight that makes me feel ugly? It’s not even that I like the way I look in the light, because I’m unsettled by my own visage regardless. But damp, dark days are harder than usual, as are days laced with hormones and emotion.
* ~ *
Sometimes I listen to music that really, really makes me want to learn the harmonica.
“All that I need for to be satisfied is a woman who’s nothin’ like me…” ~ Jackie Greene
* ~ *
I’d really like to be picking out imaginary bridesmaid dresses and picking out names for my future pet monkey but, somehow, all of my bipolars went into a downswing at the same time. So, could everyone please pull themselves out of their funks and/or start getting laid? I am really sick of having to hide my happiness because everyone is so goddamn miserable.
The End.
Fearful and frantic, hopless and a romantic…
Touch me again in my dreams till I feel, touch me again till I wake and it’s real…
In the hazy light of morning, my scars sometimes seem to glow. Paper-thin, precise lines on my ribs, my hips, my shoulders. They replaced the scratches and rough cuts on the delicate skin of my inner arms, the ones that people couldn’t help but notice. When I realized that I had to hide it, that’s when the ritual set in. Bandaids, gauze, neosporin, a wet facecloth, a disposable razor, alcohol prep pads; these were the basics of my kit, laid out before I could even think of starting. The preparation itself was a kind of meditation, settling me into ‘the zone’. I never hacked away at myself, it was always a completely calm action, very deliberate.
I never cared if it hurt, I’m not even sure I noticed. It’s the secondary pain which is the reminder. I was a dancer, and every movement, every stretch and bend would pull at the cuts, tear open the wounds. The pain, pulsing to the beat of my heart was my constant reminder that I was broken. Bro-ken, bro-ken, bro-ken.
Someone always noticed, of course. Girls like me, we secretly want people to notice, to ask what on earth would make smart, pretty girls like us do such horrible things to ourselves?
I’m twenty and sitting in the Hartwick library doing study hours for Kappa Phi. I’m in the middle of pledging, which means that I haven’t slept in a week. I’m dating Sarah who is still in the closet. Christina has been calling me for days, begging to see me. I spent the entire previous night carving myself like a Christmas turkey, trying to relieve the pressure that seemed to be suffocating me.
I have been avoiding Sarah all day, but she knows my schedule, and study hours are mandatory, so it’s not long before she shows up in search of me. One look into my eyes and she’s dragging me towards the bathroom. This is the first time that I’ve ever seen someone lock the door to a public bathroom that isn’t in a movie. This is the thought that is ricocheting around in my head as Sarah strips me down to my bra and underwear, tears welling in her eyes as she run her fingertips over the bandages that cover my ribs and stomach.
“Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you come and wake me up?”
It’s pointless to try to explain to her that I couldn’t call anyone. Not her, not anyone. That damage like this comes from the knowledge that you are truly alone. I don’t tell her that I’m going to have to have this conversation again in a few hours when Tim hugs me and sees me wince. Both of them believe that I love them less for not bringing them this pain, when the truth is that they wouldn’t have known what to do with it. Answering the phone to a sobbing girl in the middle of the night is the most helpless feeling ever.
We love each other fiercely, the way you can only do when you’re 20 and perpetually heartbroken. I slide to the floor and hug my knees. Sarah rocks me for what feels like forever before helping me get dressed. As she unlocks the bathroom door, I feel relieved that no one knocked, though the relief is more than that, and I know it.
That night she will stay with me for the first time, whispering when she thinks I’m sleeping, hoping to convince my subconscious that I am worthy of love.
Scars are stories. You can trace the evolution of my pain on my skin, can follow the lines straight to my heart. I used to try to hide them, the same way I wouldn’t let anyone touch my face, afraid the the reality would only create more distance, but this is me. This collection of blood and bones and muscle and scar tissue. This expanse of mottled melanin and fine lines. The scar on my right shoulder from surgery when I was 18. The cut in my right pinky finger that still has a piece of glass in it from two years ago. The Harry Potter scar on my forehead from when Tom Peterson hit me with a baseball bat when I was 12. Crooked toes from years of ballet. A red birthmark on my left temple. A million flaws put together to make a woman.
THIS is why women are evil:
As I am in the process of finding happiness and figuring my shit out, I get messages from people who can’t let go.
“I’m moving back to Boston. The rest is up to you.”
I have so much to say to that. I hate you, you coward. You spineless, pathetic, selfish brat. You’re a helpless child and I will not be your last choice, your consolation prize now that life is not working out the way you want it to. Don’t come back here expecting a simpering waif, because I’m better than that now. I don’t have to compromise myself in order to feel worthwhile anymore, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.
I say these things, not to shock you, lover, but to tell you the whole truth. We owe it to each other, especially now. You make me wish I was hard and cold. You make me wish that I knew how to exorcise you from my heart. Get thee behind me, Satan (woman, my long-lost lover and failed best friend). Get behind me, and watch me walk away.
The way you say my name, like I am the only woman you’ve ever known…
Everything about the way he loves me can be boiled down to one word: “you”. Such a small word, but the way he says it to me turns it into something so much more. “Hey you” and “Bye, you” have become my two favorite phrases, meaning “I love you”; “You’re beautiful”; “You’re important to me” and “I miss you” all at the same time. It’s a hard thing to just know, to be invested in the intangible. I work at it every day, wrestling with my demons and my doubts.
Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that he doesn’t have the words. There are some things that, if he said them out loud, might shatter me. Knowing in my heart things I have no right to know, believing in a boy I’ve never met, finding a connection to something higher inside someone else… The fact that this is still half-dream makes it easier to sweep away the doubts. I voice just enough of my feelings to keep from exploding, but even then I’m still full enough to burst, and the words wouldn’t do any of it justice. Somehow, this time, it’s easier to just know.
The fact that the craving is inside him, that the words are on his tongue, that’s enough. I know exactly how he feels. At least once every conversation, I find myself biting my tongue to keep the sound from coming out. The fact that it’s a fight I’m bound to lose doesn’t change anything.
We know that just about every facet of this is crazy, which is why we’re struggling, for everyone else’s sake as well as our own, to do this the right way. We’re walking through the minefield of everyone else’s mistakes, trying not to get distracted, caught up. Trying so hard not to get ahead of ourselves.
“I thought you were going to be mad…”
I was going to be mad. And hurt. But all I could manage was a smile the minute I heard his voice, all I could think about was how much I missed him. The fact that he gets lost in his own head for days and still finds a way back to me… that’s enough. It tells me everything I need to know.
Tell me now, baby, is he good to you…
I couldn’t sleep, again, so I stayed up painting my fingernails & toenails while watching the entire first season of Secret Life of a Call Girl and eating Twizzlers. Wee! (also, I secretly wonder if I’m the only one who thinks Belle has an f’ed up face?)
The sun is burning off the fog of a New England summer morning and I’m headed out to the porch with my coffee and cigarettes and the newest of my journals: Pro Incendia – “For The Fire”.
So leave the ways that are making you be what you really don’t want to be…
I fell asleep this morning to a particularly vivid fantasy and woke up with fistfuls of blanket, every muscle in my body tense. Even when I’m dreaming, I have bad timing.
* ~ *
T: In a lot of ways, you *are* like a small dog – you shake when you get excited, your size is inversely proportionate to your volume and you want to be touched/held all the time.
Seriously? He was the last person I thought would agree with the Chihuahua analogy.
* ~ *
After last night’s grocery extravaganza, I’ve decided that I basically exist on chicken, pastries and juice/soda. Oh, and rice. Sometimes cereal, when I can remember to buy milk. A nutritionist would kick my ass, but it’s better than when I lived off of Snickers bars and chicken fingers.
* ~ *
For all my whining lately, I really am fairly happy. The summer is moving as fast as I expected it to, and for once, I’m looking forward to the fall. I’m also discovering that I have a lot more patience than I ever thought possible. Sleep is important in the cultivating of patience, so I think I’m off to nap.
peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. -unknown
the moon only shines with the help of the sun…
Even the brave may depend on someone…
I avoid sleep. I push myself until I’m completely exhausted, until my head is nodding and I can’t keep my eyes open. When I’ve gotten to that point, I know that I’ll crash hard and fast and I can avoid the tedious process of trying to turn my brain off. I won’t have to masturbate myself into an endorphin overload to drift off. I won’t grope the bed, half-awake, searching for the warmth, the weight of another body next to me. I’ll sleep through the fumblings and bangings of my roommates getting ready for work.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I feel like the only person would could possibly be awake. There are moments when I’m convinced that it’s just me and the cabbies. I know the city of Boston better at night than during the day, know all the overnight construction detours, I know what time the birds in the tree outside my window start the day (between 4-4:30am, before the sun has even peeked over the horizon), I know every single infomercial that is on cable TV.
Everyone knows that I’m the girl to call when you’re stressed out and can’t sleep, when you’ve had a fight with your lover in the middle of the night, when you get struck by the pang of loneliness that accompanies the feeling that you are the only person in the world who is awake… Unfortunately for me, there is no one that I can call at 4am when the owl outside my window is the only sound I can hear.
i feel the melancholy, i feel it…
Days like today, I could really use a Jules pep-talk. Things seem infinitely simpler when she’s walking me through the land of academics. When there’s someone who brings reality to my dreams, my aspirations. I need the verbal exploration as much as anything else; the praise for my strengths, the stark assessments of my weaknesses. I need a conversation where the other person is completely there with me, is invested in me and my goals, wants to be part of helping me plan my future. I feel like I’ve lost that excitement.
Ugh. This neediness and self-doubt needs to go away. It is not my idea of a good time. I’m good at so many things, and I’m meant to be great at one of them, I’m just not sure what yet.
Protected: cause i’d rather waste my life pretending, than have to forget you for one whole minute…
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i’m just a normal man, i wouldn’t hurt nothing at all, but here we are…
I actually began this a few days ago while the boy was on a mission, but my wrist started acting up and I left any extraneous typing alone for a bit. Then, talking to CRDV tonight, it came back to me. He’s the reason I’m playing the game again, the don’t-ask-don’t-tell game that I used to play so well. I hate this war, but I have nothing but respect and admiration for the people fighting it. They’re all doing something that I know I never could.
Days like these serve to remind me that I’ve done this before. I used to be a pro at this. The mentality of being a military spouse is something you don’t forget and similarly you never get used to. It requires a certain strength of will to exist in a limbo that not many other people understand.
When they’re deployed or stationed far away, you’re alone but you’re not. You do things by yourself, but you’re not single. You don’t quite fit with your single friends, constantly looking for the next big thing or your friends who are coupled and doing all the things that you’re patiently waiting for. All that great long-distance relationship stuff made more intense by the military – yay!
You’re in a relationship with someone who is not able to be there. You feel their presence, but have to sacrifice the creature comforts that other couples take for granted. You strive to make a place for your spouse when they return, to give them a life to come back home to. You operate simultaneously in the present and perpetually planning for the future.
You have a bigger world view than even the most intelligent of your friends and acquaintances. They watch the news, read CNN.com and think they have a grasp on the geopolitical situation in the world, but are still ignorant that they’re being fed a pasteurized version of the truth. You know the difference between what is being broadcast on TV and what is really happening in the world. It gets hard to look at the people in your life without picturing them as a herd of cattle oblivious to the idea of slaughter, eating the pretty grass that the media feeds them.
Being a queer military spouse is even more fun. The branch of the military, the rank and MOS of your partner, their specific unit and the base they’re stationed at all determine how “out” you can be at any given time. You learn to be the public “roommate” and “friend” and the private lover. In my case, it means a lot of time spent in situations where you’re assumed to be the “straight friend” and you learn to parry the advances that get made. You learn to play the game better than they can.
It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. You get a secret storeroom of pride in your heart, and it helps you through. My boyfriend jumped out of a helicopter and blew up an island today, what did yours do? He literally saves lives. He defuses bombs and still saves enough energy to laugh at my jokes, to dial 41 numbers and send his voice 5000 miles over desert and ocean and listen to me ramble. He tells me that I’m beautiful via grainy webcam video at 3am after blowing up rockets. He’s my hero.
The truth is that my heart has been in this war since the day it started and I’ve hated it for just as long. I’ve already worried every worry I can. I’ve had the bad dreams, the dread of the phone ringing. I know the bitterness in the moments after learning that a friend was killed or lost a leg or left their sanity in the desert. There’s always an ache in my chest watching the news, because it could just as easily be someone I know, someone I love. This time is no different. Every time my boy goes to work, he risks his life and saves countless others and he makes me proud.
Nobody ever said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it, and it is.
Quandry:
Was this an “I’m-so-happy” (celebratory) binge or an “I’m afraid of being happy” (panic) binge?
I like you, but I like you better with music on…
Mike Doughty – Unsingable Name
I want to be your absolute ultimate
Want to be your only one now
Feel the wave come up from your sulkiness
Feel the rays you radiate now
Sweet and plain unsingable name
That rings in my mind now
That strums me like a string
Shine, unsingable name
Over everything
Beware the thrum of hearts in your presence and
Watch the breeze that snaps at you now
All the dogs that bark from the fences and
Everything is wanting for you
Smirk on the face and fists in the clenches and
Make the radiator blow now
Crack the planks and shatter the lenses and
Mix the salt, the sugar and flour
Slushing, sleeting through the blue gloom
Some long bell’s lonely ring
Chime, unsingable name
Over everything
I want to see the mountains in silhouette
Want to split for Singapore now
I want to see the mystery trees
Want to hear the womanly sound
* ~ *
Blue October – Calling You
There’s something that I can’t quite explain
I’m so in love with you
You’ll never take that away
And if I’ve said it a hundred times before
Expect a thousand more
You’ll never take that away
So expect me to be
Calling you to see
If you’re okay when I’m not around
Asking if you love me
I love the way you make it sound
Calling you to see
Do I try too hard to make you smile?
To make a smile
[Chorus]
I will keep calling you to see
If you’re sleeping, are you dreaming
If you’re dreaming, are you dreaming of me
I can’t believe you actually picked me
I thought that the world had lost it’s sway
(It’s so hard sometimes)
Then I fell in love with you
(Then came you)
And you took that away
It’s not so difficult
The world is not so difficult
You take away the old
Show me the new
And I feel like I can fly when I stand next to you
So while I’m on this phone
A hundred miles from home
I’ll take the words you gave and send them back to you
I only want to see
If you’re okay when I’m not around
Asking if you love me
I love the way you make it sound
Calling you to see
Do I try too hard to make you smile?
To make a smile
I will keep calling you to see
If you’re sleeping, are you dreaming
If you’re dreaming, are you dreaming of me
I can’t believe you actually picked me
* ~ *
Alison Krauss – When You Say Nothing At All
It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What’s being said between your heart and mine
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
The Trans Question.
I was asked the question again the other day, the one that so many people seem to need an answer to: If you’re a lesbian, why do you date trangendered men?
I don’t know if I’ve ever expressed it out loud, but I HATE that question. It’s a step up from, “Why do you date girls who look like boys?”. Are you serious? You really think you have the right to ask me that? And masculine lesbians who question my attraction to transmen piss me off even more. Who the fuck do you think you are?
While the question ultimately isn’t about gender, the transmen that I’ve dated have been some of the gentlest, most honorable men that I’ve ever met. They strive to engender all that is respectable and chivalrous, all of the romantic notions that girls are bred to seek and rarely find in bio men. They haven’t had male aloofness drummed into them. For some length of time they have all been forced to live their lives as female and their insight might not make them perfect lovers, but it does fundamental things to the way that they treat women in their personal relationships.
Also, the majority of the transmen I’ve dated have known and supported the fact that I will always identify as queer, as a lesbian. And the transmen I’ve dated have actually been *less* worried that I’ll leave them for a bio boy than most of the lesbians I’ve had relationships with.
The biggest point, though is that all of these reasons are specific to me. Any other queer who is trans-sensual will have their ideas of what is attractive about FTMs or MTFs. As an uber-femme who lets everyone know that I’m attracted to the more masculine end of the spectrum, I am similarly not ashamed of loving transmen. I’ve dated other femmes, albeit briefly, but enough to know it’s not my cup of tea, so I’d never question someone else’s idea of what is attractive.
And, while most people assume that it’s all about sex, it’s really not. Not all transmen are Tops. And not all femmes are bottoms. And neither has to be either, all or any of the time. It’s just not that simple.
In situations where I’m asked these audacious questions, I have to stop myself for a moment. First, to reassure myself that my attraction to whomever I’m being questioned about is perfectly okay. Second, to put into perspective that the only reason that someone would ask me a question like that is out of pure ignorance. And that is where I shine – in moments when I am surrounded by ignorance. In the same way that I explain my queerness to people who have otherwise assumed that I am straight, I find myself explaining my attraction to transmen and that, yes, I am still a lesbian.
Maybe once people have found a new way of asking these particular questions, instead of hurtling them like accusations, the answers will be a little bit smoother.
