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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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part XVI: just last night i was reminded of just how bad it had gotten
hiya, sweetheart, i'm down here at "the other location" (TM lea) doing laundry and taking advantage of the connection. internet, that is. so i had coffee with the mayflower this morning. her lab work is going well, she was in good spirits, and she actually provided some well-placed perspective on the neo situation. (upon which my brain is still chewing a bit because i'm still worried about the whole having to see him in school thing. i mean, i haven't done any of this kind of thing. . .well, ever. okay, no, there was that time i slept with my boss and had to deal with that later, but that was when i was young and stupid and didn't know any better.) but, so, enforcer is off to sacramento next week and mayflower and i are going to do some serious betty time and some dinner things together then. last night there was dinner and a movie with lea and ama and a neighbor carrie over at ama's new apartment. ama's place is not in a decent location and it's not a great place, but it's a huge one bedroom place and only $20 a month more than i pay. (still, i like my little home better--as did ama). anyway, of course we let her pick the movie, and we therefore ended up seeing "head of state" starring chris rock and bernie mac. it was actually pretty funny now and then, but on the whole, not something i'd see again. the biggest thing about the whole night, i'd say, was the affection that i saw displayed between lea and ama--not explicit, of course, but very...oh, i don't know. it was nice to see that perhaps all that time ama had some respite from her angry existence. they were both pretty relaxed about the whole thing, which was not something i'd ever seen either of them display in front of those not in the know, you know? so we ate nachos and ben and jerry's and watched our movie and i kept sitting there thinking about things too big for my head and my brain was going a thousand thoughts a second and i kept feeling as though i haven't run nearly far enough. so i got up this morning, my lungs rebelling from the whole smoke 'em if you got 'em plan for dealing with all the recent shiznick (TM carrie), and took a nice long walk. i find that getting some exercise tires me out at the end of the day so that my brain can't really keep me up at night too late with the chew-chew-chewing. and then max came and got me and since it is our anniversary today, he had brought a card that made me cry. and then i had coffee with mayflower and told her about the thing and cried again. so it's been a day. and the day's not over yet. tonight is dinner with people from the studio who have no idea about the whole my living in my own apartment situation, so that should be fun. i find it much more difficult these days to get into that headspace where i have to play the good wifey (or at least the overbearing wifey), so i'm not too looking forward to it. man, this whole truth thing? not my bag. but neither is the lie thing apparently, as so is conundrum (TM guofeng). um. yeah. i also find it quite relaxing to sit around my apartment and try to knot bits of my hair into beads. (this is the hair that i cut off a year ago and saved.) knotting one's hair is not as easy as one might think it would be, let me tell you. i finally came up with a few strange but decent looking beads (as well as several that look like fuzzy brown caterpillars). i'm so going to have the scariest piece of jewelry on the block when this is done. i'm looking forward to it. also, there has been much napping. i'm finding that a nap in the afternoon is a nice thing. the chinese all seemed to know it, as they always did the collective napping at around 3, but i never could get into the spirit of things. i always felt a bit winston smith in front of the viewscreen doing half-hearted calisthenics-ish during that time. but now? i'm a convert, baby. i'm a napper. i may never go back. much later, like a week or so: actually, i say a week, but i'm in that weird time warp between semesters where you can't really say what day it it. the big news is the tattoo that i'm getting on wed.-- the hand of fatima on my back, right in the center. i feel as though i need a talisman and a reminder of this time that marks the acquisition of my life. anyway, mayflower is going with me, as may max. it was kind of funny last night going to look with mayflower at all the flash on the walls over at hardware. she was going to "make" me get a tatt last night if i saw one i couldn't pass up, but it was flash, you know? so the passing up? not so difficult, really. none of it was acceptable. there was a lesson to be had from the trip however: there was a really beautiful young woman there--real high value placed on the external kind of girl. and she was looking through the books for japanese kanji and she had, when mayflower and i sat down, narrowed her choices down to the kanji for "compassion" and "honesty." and i thought, isn't that cool that she has all the external trappings and also is looking for a way to express what is important to her in terms of internal values as well. well, not so much. as we flipped through the books, the young woman tried to decide between her two options and what it came down to was: which one was the prettier kanji? so she finally decided on honesty. (honesty's prettier, you know. compassion? you might get all sweaty or something expressing compassion. ewww.) and i decided that i needed a few days to think on this lesson and about exactly why i was getting my skin marked permanently with a symbol. was it because it was "pretty" and i need some distraction? or is it because i truly believe and identify with the symbol and want it as a permanent reminder of this very important time in my life? anyway, deciding on the design brought some clarity on the neo situation too. i realized as i tried to choose between a spider (the symbol of female sexuality) and the hand of fatima, that it was the whole "madonna/whore" thing recast--not in my choices, as i suspect that i'll end up with both symbols eventually, but in neo's mind. his comparison of me to the pastor but finding out that i was really a woman interested in sex was the madonna/whore dilemma in his mind. as long as i was seemingly invested with some purity of heart and not interested in sex or expressing my sexuality, i was fine to associate with. but as soon as i expressed some aspect of my sexuality, i became the whore. i can see how, in his mind, i had tricked him somehow into believing a (good) thing about me when in fact the other (bad) thing is true, you know? so, there it is. still, i get the feeling that it's not over between neo and me. i don't mean that things are going to be as i had wanted, but that we still have some role to play in each other's lives. i know that some aspect of this may be delusional--my not wanting it to be over and refusing to accept that it is. but that doesn't feel right, you know? i will accept that it is over if it truly is and i will mourn the loss of this important and troubled young man from my life and my inability to connect with him in a meaningful way. i will mourn and move on from it and not feel guilt or embarrassment. but if it's not over, i want to try to keep an open heart and do good without expectation. we shall see. anyway, darling, this seems long, but maybe it's just dense (that's chinesian if i've ever heard it), so i'll bid you a fond farewell (can't spell "adeieu"?!) and take my leave. your ever lovin'-- sublingua
More lies:
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