Soujourn of Truth

I'm going Home. For the first time in a year and a half, I'm going to spend time with my family and friends. More then a two-day one-night haunt. I can share the fullness of my life with those I love best, not the serial novel version hastily told over beers before I drive off again.

Many terrible, wonderful, confusing, haunting things have happened in the last few weeks, and I desperately need the perspective of Home.

But, to sum:

Paul and me are over. At some point during 10,000 Lakes he had an unexpected, and unexplained complete reversal of feelings. I'm a fun girl, but he doesn't feel that way about me anymore. He doesn't even understand it. But more painfully, isn't interested in trying to figure out what happened, or work for the good we had. I don't fully believe the human heart can do that -- close itself so suddenly, so completely where once loving kindness and beauty reigned. A trippin' head can. We're meeting tomorrow to talk, to find closure. Once I know what's happened, I'm be able to write about it and hopefully not feel needlessly abandoned.

And with perfect timing, I also went crazy. The worst I've ever been. And I came back from the woods with Unhappy Bowels. Who would of thought that getting dumped for no reason, protracting a stomach parasite and have a four-day extended psychotic break would be the easiest diet ever? Not being able to get out of bed because of crippling uncertainly, paranoia, nausea, diabilitating hysterics and lack of any nutrition turns out to a high-energy fat burner? But hey, at least they decided to finally give me the good pills.

May a manifold of blessing rain down upon those who helped me through. Without them, I honestly wouldn't have made it: tall buildings are just too tempting. Bryan, Dad, Alii, Andrew, Ayse, Eric, Adam, Yitz, Igor, Katherine: I thank you with my life.

Again, more about this, and many more things soon soon soon. There will be much sitting on Dad's porch and figuring myself out all over again. And ya know what? I'm due for a good protracted sit-and-think.

When all this started, I asked the Oracle Book for words of wisdom: "It will nourish your soul."

I lost my center somewhere. Or willingly gave it to someone who misunderstood that great wonder he'd been entrusted with. Or maybe he understood only too well. Does understand? I know his feelings were real; I doubt the sincerity and emotional honesty of his hasty change of alliance.

Either way, sometimes you have to go back into the woods. Sometimes you have to go Home.

Not Since Seventh Grade

The Hookah Lounge
wanting tasty soup. . .
3:12 pm
Thursday, July 6, 2006

Per my annual tradition, I always go in for a little mind-expansion on the Fourth of July. It's such a great thing: you always remember where you were on the Fourth, what you did, how much beer you drank. That is, until you drank too much beer and then things get real fun. It's the one day of the year where it's your constitutional right to be loud and obnoxious, drunk and disorderly. You have the right to persue happiness, so by god, get out there and do it.

Last year, Alii and I had a Indiana Dune adventure. This year, Paul and I decided to indulge the evening of July 3rd so we could watch the sunrise on the 4th and get epically drunk as we come down from our own sweet adventure.

We drove to Hyde Park. We tried to break into my apartment. We had horrible stomach pains: who'd a thought that dropping some acidic chemicals into a stomach full of beer would be a bad call? We tried to set up Ayse with Polish John. We walked. We talked. We wandered around a church. We talked about God. We talked about family. Paul lost his shirt.

We swam in the lake with some naked, drunk girls, whom Paul happened to know. Yeah, awkward as hell. We instinctively walked in the opposite direction from they're hollar, splashing, booby-flopping selves. Wandering in to the deep-blue velvety expanse of forever, the moon shining, skirts swirling, water cold, hand-in-hand. The ripples we make now will some day be waves. Each ridge in this sand bar was made by waves from across the way. Each ripple goes on forever. Paul then picked me up and spun us around in circles, circles, circles until we were too cold to enjoy it anymore, kissing, drenched in moonlight.

After splashing, dunking each other and generally creating a giant hubbubaloo, we emerged dripping. And then! 8,342 cops showed up. Turns out, someone was robbed blocks from the lake and they though all the fucked up people on the beach might have seen something. "What were we doing, officer?" as I wring water from my dress, "Oh, ya know, just reading a book."

As the sun showed signs of rising, we decided to go home, change, NOT GET DISTRACTED, and come back to watch the sunrise. And, glory be, it worked. Tapestry in hand, snacks and beer in a bag, we laid on the deserted beach feeling luck to be alive. After an indeterminate time of staring, looking at things, and general gawking, Paul turned to me.

"So, we've been seeing quite a lot of each other lately."
"I'm pretty okay with that."
"Me too, but uh . . . do you want to date or something?"
"Well, I'm not sure. . . I'll have to ask the Wills, but uh, probably."
" . .. Uh, . . well, you could check it out and let me . ."

That's when I kissed him. Insert a several minute time lapse full of mushy-gushy stuff.

Then I sit up, smile like a demon and say, "Wait, did you just ask me to be your girlfriend? I don't think that's happened since like, seventh grade? Are you serious? That may well be the cutest thing that's ever happened to me."

Then Paul blushed and poked me, tickling me into giggling submission. I've decided I'm going to have to make that whole turning-red-and- being-adorable thing happen as much as possible.

This, this feels good.

Updating-ness

My House
2:03 am
Sunday, July 2, 2006
Sing it to me John M.
Waiting for Paul . . .

Since the last time I've written so much has happened, yet nothing much really.

I had a job.
It sucked. Specifically, it sucked small portions of my soul from my body each and every time I had to ask someone for money, which was pretty much the extent of my job description. I deeply respect the people who can canvass for a living, but the ups and down, the financial instability inherently dependent on the generosity of the masses: not so much for me.

So, I quit. Well, more specifically, my mom called while I was at work. Ya know, standing on a corner, bothering people. She asked innocently enough, "How's life?" and before you could say "save the planet" it all spilled out. Then, I'm just standing on a street corner crying, wanting my mom to fix everything. And ya know what? She did. The main problem was that I couldn't feasibly afford to be unemployed. Mom may not be the most generous when it comes to fundage, but she came through here.

10 minutes after quitting, I was serandiptiously called with a job offer from the Hookah bar. I of course accepted.

Tonight was our first full night. There's a staff of seven people total, all of them amazing. Three of us, plus the two managers/cooks/owners. I'm the only waitress. And it's a spectacular place to work. I totally sat around and smoked Hookahs for a couple of hours with my bosses, sipping my free latte, loving life.

I completely agree with Alii's sentiments last summer: this is the last official summer I'm going to have for a while, so I might as well do as little as possible. Three months of vacation are hard to come by in the working world I hear.

Don't get me wrong: I've been filling my time well. My personal enterprises are going remarkably well and I drink a lot of beer pretty much every afternoon. Live music as much as possible. Lots of walking miles upon mile around the city, followed sitting by the lake with Paul. I've seen every sunrise for the past three weekends.

Yes, I've been spending a pretty ridiculous amount of time with Paul (aka: pretty much every day and many, many if not most sweet nights) but for the first time since forever, I'm completely okay with that. Ayse likes to be a doom sayer, pointing to her own tragic tendency to spend too much time with boys, completely abandoning her own life and friends. I don't fear that for me. For one, I'm not like that. Two, I'm not deserting my dear Hyde Park hommies. I'm making new friends as well, and you'd suck if you hated on that. Do I not sleep here very often? Yea. Do I chill frequently at the Devon House? Yup. Do I feel bad for finding another amazing group of people who want to do exactly the same things I do and are fantastically not stuck in any sort of Ivory Tower? No, not at all and don't try to convince me otherwise.

So much upcoming dankness. We're heading to Summerfest some time next week. 10KLF is in three weeks. Disco Bisquits and Umphrey's are playing a late night ALL BEATLES COVER SET during Lollapalooza. Woot.

To sum, I love my life.