A circle has too much symmetry

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Installment 1a

Over the next few days the number becomes my salvation, I have made a deal with myself that I will dial the bathroom number before I call him. A hundred times over the first few days I reach for my cell phone yet stopped by the knowledge that just for a second I want to pretend that I am not crazy. That I am not the kind of woman who actually calls a number on a bathroom wall. I am not the crazy woman that stalks her ex-boyfriend. However the reality is that I am that crazy, but slowly my obsession changes from him to the number. By Friday I start questioning the number and its apparent secrecy and yet obviously meant for someone. It was in such an awkward place, surely to be missed by standard cleaning. Perhaps the recipient had not received the number yet, and perhaps they would be looking for it at the bar. In fact it might be tonight and after work I hasten to the bar to stake out the bathroom.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Everything But

When I was much younger and dating the first love of my life I had an “Everything But” list. The “everything but” list was my way of saving myself. It didn’t save me, I gave him my heart and innocence and he did not appreciate the gift. In retrospect it was silly to have an “everything but” list until I realized over a decade later I still have an “everything but” list. My “everything but” list in now based on things that are too intimate, that cause me to feel too much. Once again I am saving myself, but I can’t help but wonder if once again I am being silly. After all of these years is my “everything but” list really going to protect my heart??

Monday, October 23, 2006

Last Minute

I was called away on a last minute business trip and I was crazy busy before hand, sorry for not writing!

Today was the first day of the "meeting" and I was underdressed!!! I am usually over dressed for everything! Especially for conferences, I would attend a conference in at least slacks and a nice button down shirt and be over dressed. Today I showed up in blue slacks, a RLL button down shirt, fabulous red boots and I was the only one not in a suit. I was shocked but I am not in Kansas anymore, no more ill dressed and ill socialized scientists for me.

I am also the only woman under 50 in attendance which makes me stand out even more. Wow and this conference is even more boring than a physics conference. I did not think that was possible.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The Phone Number (installment 1)

My imagination carried me away with this one, and I think I will post it in installments.


Invent a character that sees a phone number on a restroom wall. Describe what happens when he or she dials it.

I didn’t think it was possible to be lower than I was when I started drinking this afternoon. I laid my soul bare for him; I offered my heart, soul and pride to him. I begged and pleaded with him to please just love me. I shed countless tears and fell to the floor sobbing unabashedly. No, lower than I had brought myself today really didn’t exist for me until now. Now I am lying in a heap covered with my own bile on the floor of a public restroom. Who knows when the last time this floor had seen disinfectant? What other forms of life lie on this floor with me? At any moment someone is going to walk in and see me on this floor barely able to lift my head. As I fight the spinning world that is my vision and struggle to get off the floor, I notice a number on the bathroom wall. It is behind the toilet, blocked from the view of normal eyes. It is in pencil and not very big, just large enough that someone with good eyesight could make it out from lying on the floor. The pencil lead was not meant to last the trials of time. This is number was meant for someone specific and not meant to share. There is no other commentary with the number standard to bathroom walls “For a good time call 555-1515.”

The number fills me with curiosity, and my head starts to clear and thankfully the spinning slows. Why would someone put a number in this bathroom? Who is the number meant for? Is it really some secret number or a number written on the tile by the installer, a work contact that was never wiped off? But it is in pencil and just to check I reach out and touch it. My sweat-wet hands are enough to smear the penciled number. I pull out my cell phone and put the number it in, I am not sure why. Maybe it is because the number has given me a moments grace and I am able to get up off the floor. While I sit there in the stall contemplating the number I am able to wipe the worst off my drinking binge off of my face and shirt. I am still looking at the number as I leave the stall and approach the sink. I clean myself off and leave the bathroom and the bar.

Friday, October 13, 2006

R Rated

Tonight I am going to an R rated haunted house. I am not really sure what that means, are they going to yell profanities at me? I hope it is not really lame and billed as R rated as just a promotion gimmick. According to the website, no one under 16 will be admitted tonight, there are no refunds, you will be subjected to tight places, vertical drops and may get wet. It is also not recommended for people with physical aliments or bladder control problems. It really does sound like a lot of hype, but I love haunted houses so I am sure no matter what it will be fun for me. I have fun no matter where I go and no matter what I do too. Despite feeling like this is a scam I can’t help but to be super excited about it!

The Kid is driving Brittany and myself and I plan on drinking to excess. I am also thinking of trying to talk the party into dancing afterwards, or at least going to a bar. I just found out that the Kid’s hand is quit a bit bigger than mine I wonder what that means…

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Can you go back?

Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again?” I wonder if this is universally true, can you go back to the person you once loved? Can you rekindle the flame and feelings? You fell in love once with person, though it was long ago and perhaps what you were looking for then and now have changed. Can you fall in love with that person again?

What happened to the two of you was nothing tragic or dramatic, no rehab clinics or trips to the emergency room. Over a couple of years it just happened, you fell out of love. It was a long and tedious process falling out of love; the falling in love was easy and seemed to happen overnight. Can you go back? Have you changed so much that you no longer can love this person? He is comforting and safe and knows everything about you, and is that enough? Oh and he loves you still, which is very intoxicating.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

A pill please

The Kid brought me a couple of CDs to work today and I am listening to Snow Patrol right now, and the phrase in the track 7 “Please just save me from this darkness” has struck a chord with me (no pun intended). I have repeated this phrase many times in my life and so has every one of my friends, it is a common feeling and it sucks. However it is part of life and many things that are part of life suck. Headaches and stomachaches are a part of life that sucks and for the most part I don’t wallow in self-pity when I have one. Oops as I typed that I so remember that I DO wallow in self-pity when I am not feeling physically well, so it is only natural that I wallow in self-pity when I am emotionally unwell.

I have been spending the last week feeling very sorry for myself, which is only natural considering I am in pain. The only difference is I don’t tend to have physical discomforts for more than a few days, and emotional discomforts last a whole lot longer. I just wish there was a pill or a medicine that would at least alleviate the symptoms, like taking a pill when you have the flu; the pill doesn’t cure you but at least the symptoms are bearable. Does anyone know of a “pill” for my discomforts?

Monday, October 09, 2006

The Rollercoaster

Many, many years ago I considered being a psychologist. I know it sounds crazy looking back, but that it one on the many major I tried as an undergraduate. In fact I started college as a psychology major and a dance minor. I only tired that hat on for a year before I realized that psychology was not for me, however the lessons taught in one of my courses stays with me to this day. Today I am reminded of one of them, we were talking about family dynamics, the entertainer, the lost child, the perfect child and to illustrate this point we watched Parenthood as a class. And I am still struck by the image of Steve Martin on the rollercoaster of life, the emotional highs and lows of living. Steve Martin wanted his life to be like the train at the amusement park, where the train never really speeds up and never goes over any bumps, but instead his life was a rollercoaster.

Whenever my life is in the down cycle I always think I want the train, but in reality I want the rollercoaster. I have tried the slow moving train and it is just not for me. I do not relish the lows and it is hard for me to see the rise when I am down but I know it is there not too far ahead. I am down but this time I don’t think I will be there very long.

On the flip side men are such funny creatures, I don’t think I will ever understand them. They are the quintessential rollercoaster in life, one-minute grand gestures of affection and the other minute completely absent. This morning the Casanova brought me candy; he left it on my desk without a note but I was certain whom it was from. A few men here bring me things but Casanova’s gifts are left with a certain flare, later this morning he walks by and tells me that he is not going to ever bring me flowers and the most I can expect from him is candy. Of course I thank him for the candy and the conversation moves onto to other things, and then he comments about the flowers I received on Friday and I say “I am a sucker for flowers” and he says I will keep that in mind. This was not 3 minutes before informing me point blank that he is never going to bring me flowers. I have not asked for flowers from Casanova or requested that he give me candies it is all so confusing.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

A Slow Sort of Bad

A Slow Sort of Bad

This is a true story that is occurring in my life right now.

It is hard to be 17, emotions, hormones and life out of control and understanding. It is hard to accept a new man in your mother’s life, her new man that is taking your place especially considering he is just a few years older than you. It is hard to accept the new baby, the perfect little family where there is no place for you. It is hard to be the almost adult child of a woman just barely in her 30s, in fact only 33 years old. Then add that this new man, who controls your life, your movements, your meals, your enjoyments, everything. What is a young man to do? He runs away and finds solace in escape.

It is not like it was the first time he did a line of meth, or drank to excess. He had been doing drugs for a while now, but this time was different. The pain was too much and the need for emptiness too great. The acidic burn in his nose, followed by that horrible draining down the back of his throat burning as it goes down and then the extreme cramping in the stomach, but what comes next is so worth it, absolutely nothing. No feelings, no pain, no emptiness in the depths of his soul, he just stops caring about anyone and anything. He is not sure that he really meant to do that much with complete strangers, was he trying to kill himself? In his the depths of his heart he is really not sure.

He laid there in his drug-induced coma, in his own filth among strangers initially and then all alone for hours. He did not die, but almost everyday since he wished he had, it was June 4, 2006 when they found him, and no one is sure how long he laid there. Long enough to go into complete kidney failure, long enough that the lack of circulation to his left buttocks and portions of his thigh died. They rushed him to the hospital where they tried to get his kidneys to function again, but an impossible task because the dying flesh was releasing toxics into his system that prevented the kidneys for working.

Surgery after surgery was needed to remove the dead sections of flesh, followed by infections that required more removal of the dead flesh all the while receiving dialysis. The whole time the amount of pain medication closely monitored because he is a drug addict, and all the while not being able to receive any liquids, dying of thirst. Finally the dead flesh was removed and the infection under control and the kidneys started working again. Finally it was time for the skin graphs, taken from his other side.

It is now October 5, 2006; yesterday he was finally moved to a transition area of the hospital. Where he can gain some strength to start physical therapy. First they are going to get him to sit up in a chair for an hour a day. The plan is then to move to a wheel chair and finally crutches before the sending him home. He does not know where home is anymore, and he does not want to get out of bed and there are times that he is not sure he ever wants to walk again. In the depths of his heart he is really not sure if he wants to live. It has been a slow sort of bad all summer, and the end of the bad is impossible to see from his hospital bed.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Hope

Hope is considered a positive emotion, one that gives people courage and a positive outlook. Hope that whatever your circumstance things will be better tomorrow. There is a serious down side to hope considering it can be based in unrealistic belief or fantany. Hope where even though the evidence is strongly against the outcome you still hope that things will be different. You hope so much that you fool yourself into believing it might be true, just maybe just possibly true. A dangerous self deprecating and damaging emotion, that is what hope can be.

Hope led me to drop my shield and hope, and once again that horrible emotion let me down. Hope based in fantasy, even when reality said otherwise, and the damn thing cut me again. Open up and be positive, and hope what you know is not going to happen will happen. If you try this a little more, or something different, if you say this, and don’t say that and hope things will turn out, hope.

And now I still hope, I hope that tomorrow I won’t sob in my car on my way to work. I hope that tears will don’t spontaneously appear in my eyes, threatening to fall. I hope that complete strangers will no longer tell me that I look so sad. I can’t help but to hope, even though it has so betrayed me. And if I dewell on it, I might still hope that it really isn’t over, hope sucks.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

I missed the wedding!

I missed the wedding! I forgot my invitation and called the “best man” early in the day of the wedding inquiring what time the wedding was, and she said “6:30”, and at 5:30 I had just gotten into the taxi when my phone rings informing me the wedding is in 5 minutes. I missed the actual ceremony but I did make it to the reception. I visited and drank and had a splendid time, and really enjoyed the food! I would of liked to actually see the ceremony, but I did get to see the bride in all her glory.

One of the things I find interesting about the DC area is that it is a city constantly on the move, a transient city for a lack of a better word. There is a constant influx of highly motivated, highly educated career driven singles AND that is what I miss about DC. I miss the people. I miss the people that are similar to me in ideas, background and goals, and in DC there are so many of them it is very easy to make wonderful friends. I have a lot of amazing friends in DC and I miss them. I do not miss the city I miss the people.

My new geographical location lacks the same type of friends I had in DC. I have made friends here, but not as close of friends. I also don’t have to work with people that I can’t stand anymore, which is a huge bonus. My current friends/co-workers fall into two categories, young and just figuring out life or older married couples with children, and unfortunately I am not either one. However I am beginning to realize that I have enough friends in my life even if a vast majority of them live in the DC area. I have not given up hope of recruiting them to come and work here. My first BAW turned us down and took an offer in the Midwest.

I'm Back

I just arrived, give me a moment to settle in and I will fill you all in on the details. The main one being I don't miss DC, I miss the people there and I have decided to move on with my life here in the UT. Oh and I am bleeding, heart and soul.