week end. april 17th.

i have been waiting for today for a while.

i had an ultra shitty week.

there was drama, there was an excess of stress.

there was more than one day of crying. there was even crying at the bar.

and all i wanted was for the week to end. and for it to be the weekend.

and now it is.


everything that happened this week was an ordeal.

going to the house to have ever sign the tax paperwork was an ordeal. i literally walked in halfway through my workday to have him sign everything and planned to walk right back out.

but the dog, and him, and the talking. i ended up there for a chunk of a while. and it sucked.

squeaky's dog had just died this week, and i had already cried about that. and seeing mine just hit it home. i just realize that she's not going to be around forever. and how awful a person am i that it's so hard for me to see her that i can't bear to see her?

so i cried over that. and i had been mourning the loss of my house all week. something about the time of year, maybe? i don't know what set it off. but i just keep thinking about how much work and stress and time we put into it and how sad it is that it's gone from my life.

i loved that house. that house changed my life. for a long time, it was what i was most proud of in my life. my biggest accomplishment.

i know what it was that set it off. my fall mix has a bunch of songs i used in the documentaries of the process of renovations. so the songs make me think of the process of fixing the house, in tiny stages.

but i just got homesick.

and the thing is, that wasn't my home.

there was no room for me in it.

and ever will deny it til the day he dies, but he didn't leave any room for me in that house. and i simply slept where he worked.

and it makes me sad. it was an incredible house. and i guess if i can't live in it, i want the money from selling it so i can buy another someday, and do the same thing again, only alone this time. or with someone who cares enough to give me my own space.


the other ordeal was getting the new apartment.

what a story.

so i went to see this apartment last weekend. and it was nice. new wood floors, new kitchen. but the white walls and a run-down bathroom made me hesitate.

so i went to see a few others. and they were tiny or had creepy landlords or just weren't nice.

so i decided that i'd settle for the one with the crappy bathroom.

and then i put in my app.

and then the guy called me. and called me. and called me.

spaz.

he was trying to push me into signing a lease that night. this was the day of the ever visit, so i had already been crying. i had just gotten home from work when this happened.

and because of seeing the dog that day, i said that i couldn't remember if he allowed pets.

and he said cats are okay, wanted to know why i asked.

and i said that ever has the dog, but that he goes away on occasion and that i couldn't remember if he allowed dogs or not.

and he talked to me for a while. about how big she was, and the new wood floors and not scratching them. blah blah. ten minutes later, we're still discussing the fact that he wants me to drop what i'm doing and sign this thing.

and i wasn't so enamored with the apartment that i had to do it. and i had plans with kit. and i'd already had a beer because my day fucking SUCKED.

he was really frustrated, but agreed to meet me the next day.

and one minute later, my phone rings once. it was him.

and five minutes later, my phone rings again. so i answer it.

and he doesn't even say hello. just launches into this tirade about how you can't just spring a dog on someone and what was he supposed to say. how i put him on the spot and how, no, he really doesn't want a dog and that if he did, he would have put it on the posting.

i said, fine. i don't care. it's not a dealbreaker. i just couldn't remember. i was just asking. and he talked over me.

i got pissed.

then he starts in about how he had a really bad day, and how some company triple charged his credit card and how inconsiderate it is that i won't go sign the lease tonight because now he has to do all this other work, showing the apartment.

how people come to see apartments with a checkbook, because they want to commit.

and i said that honestly, i was on the fence about his place. and he's telling me that he has people who are willing to pay more than me, lined up to see it. and i just keep saying that he should show it.

i don't know. it went on for a bit, and i was all choked up fighting tears. and i said i needed to call him back in 15 minutes to tell him if i could work it out to meet with him.

and i sat on my stoop and smoked two cigarettes, hands shaking.

the whole thing was, i couldn't figure out if i was genuinely hesitant to sign the lease because the place wasn't my favorite, or if this is just some commitment hangup.

so i called nina. and she said that he was out of line. and meet him tomorrow. and what will be will be. and i called kit. she said the same thing.

so i called him back and said, you know? i'm sorry i can't meet with you tonight. show the place tomorrow. if someone takes it from under me, then i'll have to live with that. but i can meet you tomorrow at 2. and you'll have to let me know if it's gone or not.

so he said something like, fine then, and hung up.

and i was thinking, god i don't want this guy to be my landlord. what a drama queen. his problems are not my problems. and if he has to show the apartment for a few days to get rid of it for a whole YEAR, then fuck him. that's not work.

so then i got pissed.

and i found two more listings to go see the next day. 2 bedroom apartment for $50 more a month. which i really really wanted.

but when i got to the place, it was a shithole. i mean, not awful. but linoleum tiled floors! who does that? it was ridiculous. when i turned in the keys, i asked if they were going to fix the floors.

it was just horrible.

and in processing that bit of information, and then realizing that i had let my backup plan go, i really started to panic. i searched the listings time and again.

nothing. realized that the second place i wanted to see was the same exact apartment. different realtors. but the same place.

and then i emailed the spaz back. and twenty minutes later signed the lease.

don't get me wrong. i do like the apartment. but the panic of not having a place lined up (despite kit telling me that it is no big deal) was making me shake.


so we pseudo-celebrated. her being done with her presentation. me having an apartment.

only that was when i was crying at the bar. and we just had our heads on each others' shoulders. mopey.

and i had too much to drink. i was drinking like it was a friday, but it was only thursday.

and went home spinny. and ate a bunch of weird food and fell asleep.



so this has been a strange morning. following a night out on the town.


it's super windy out, nice and chilly. a cold front blew in last night, the storm made us opt for a cab out and back in the drizzle. which i have never done before. but it was just too shitty to walk.


i feel pretty cracked out this morning. and a bundle of nerves.

not nearly enough sleep all week. and even less today than any day this week. and something tells me that i won't get enough sleep tonight either.

we got in around 4. in bed at 5. asleep by 530 but then awake until after 6. woke up at 9.

YUCK.

i was up at 630 every day this week. i really really really do not like having to be up at that time. 730 is perfect. 630 is just too early.


not that anyone needed to know that.


i'm excited for today.

i'm cooking a big meal for a handful of people i've never met. it's been a while since i fed a traveling band, and i enjoy it so much - it occupies my mind.

and i'm seeing an old friend i haven't seen in many many years, and that i'm much better friends with now thanks to email than i ever was when we were around each other. which is strange in a way, but also very nice.

and having portraits taken? a first...

and then seeing a show.

and possibly talking publishing to get ideas on what i should do with my novel.

and probably hanging out til the wee hours.

and hopefully not drinking too much.


i want to start my day. i'm waiting as patiently as i can. but i feel sleep-sick and slightly hungover probably.

poor hum.

we'll get em next time, tiger...


my stomach is in a constant state of tumbling. i'm too nervous. and it is entirely nina's fault.

no. not entirely. i probably would have felt a piece of this anxiety a little bit later in the day. but since we caught up yesterday, it's tenfold now and has been since last night.


time to start my day. i wonder what i'll have to write about tomorrow.

2302. april 12th.

it seems the girl at 2302 has ended up feeling a bit like a ship lost at sea.

i don't know what it is.

maybe it's a feeling that life will go on.

maybe it's recognizing my desire to slip into the next thing.

maybe it's just missing my dog-daughter.

but for a girl who was so determined, so focused on having goals and aspirations, i feel like i'm just moving between mini milestones.

maybe it's because the nine week chalkboard calendar that used to dictate my life hasn't been viewed in just over five.

when kenna explained the safe harbor thing to me, it sounded very foreign. i thought i'd never feel that way. because ever was never a safe harbor.

i didn't feel like i was losing any sense of stability by leaving. i felt like i was gaining it.

spoiler alert: maybe it's the book i'm reading.

i love the choose your own adventure quality, approach, to the story.

and i love seeing the contrast between what might have been in each possible life.

and how the perception of what you have and what you're missing out on shifts, depending on which life you're in. it's exactly how i have thought about my not choosing coffee, or my not choosing the sun. it's going back in time and rehashing the decisions i made at various forks in the road.

i wonder, for tonight, what i'd be doing at this precise moment in time if i was still living with my husband in our house.

i'd probably have made the same dinner, the same quantity of food. only there wouldn't be leftovers.

he'd probably be stoned, watching the same shows he always watched with me, or without me if i was taking my time to write, thus avoiding him.

i'd probably be pissed at the amount of housework left for me to do at the end of my workday.

he'd probably have eaten my ice cream. and i'd probably have gone downstairs to have a tiny bowl. and then i'd probably have thought, 'why? he will do this to me until the day i die. he has no respect for me.'

we'd probably have had an argument, or a discussion, because he'd probably have proposed sex, and i'd probably have turned him down.

or, worse yet, maybe i would've obliged, and i'd be laying in bed disappointed. or in the bathroom after, crying because he selfishly left after he finished.

i'd probably be looking for the least wrinkled thing in the pile of laundry he'd thrown onto the couch, waiting for me to hang it all up and put it all away, to wear to work tomorrow. because the last thing i need first thing in the morning after a night of not being able to sleep is trying to find an outfit in the dark, exhausted.

knowing these probably outcomes doesn't change how i feel right now, at this very second.

i wouldn't be reading this book. i wouldn't have had time to read the three before it. because his life would be my life, and there wouldn't be time for me.

it has been 37 days since i left him. it seems and feels like it's been a lot longer than that.

it has been two months (58 days) since we made the transition from 'working on our marriage' to 'getting a divorce'. and i can't even remember how my hand used to feel with two rings on it, dictating that i belonged to him.

i was sitting outside, and thought, 'i should call ever and see how he's doing'. and i think it's because one year ago today, it was easter. and his grandfather died.


kit and i watched dream for an insomniac yesterday.

and though it is chock full of cheese, i love that movie to pieces.

it gives me hollywood hope that somewhere, out there, there is one person who is so completely me that i won't want to live my life without him.

that he would realize, no matter his current relationship status, that i am the one for him, and that anything other than me is settling.

i had to write on paper all day at work today. it was agonizing. because i was going in many directions, only it was on paper, so i knew that i'd have to type it later.

and one place that i went, on paper, was financial.

after i get the apartment behind me, i will have about $900 a month that is unclaimed, after all of my bills are paid.

if i can just make it there. everything will be okay.

i'm sure the first month will be spent on installing internet and opening accounts with utility companies. a bed that is worth sleeping on. a dresser for my clothes that cannot be hung. and plane tickets home and back, and a ticket here for nina.

sometimes, in this apartment, i feel like an intruder. i guess with the window closing on my short time here, i feel like i should be on my way. i feel, some days, like i've outstayed my welcome.

and every day, a few times a day, i feel gratitude for kit. because she has given me a place to live for two short months. and in two more weeks, i will finish the chapter on the halfway house portion of my life. and close the book, and move on to what comes after.

memory lapse.

it will be short and sweet, because i've written more on here in the last 24 hours than in the last week.

i remembered what i wanted to say yesterday, more than once.


it directly related to the ghost dream. and to the end.


see, when i lived in the house, i used to have the same dreams. making out with people i'd like to make out with, even some sexier things than just that.

and there was this guilt-by-association that i would feel upon waking. having been really into and turned on by my dreams of other boys, and then seeing ever when i opened my eyes.

it was awful. it felt like cheating.

and that's the beauty of the situation now.

when i wake up, i can will myself to go back to sleep. and there's no guilt. it is slightly more sad, because now i realize that the things i do in my dreams are things that i'd love to experience in real life.

anyways, for hours at night, before we were over, i would lay in bed and concentrate on other boys. just to get my mind off of the situation i was in and how neglected i felt.

and i would cry in doing it, because i wanted something different so much, but also because i was happy in my dreams.

i couldn't do in real life what i did in my sleep, the guilt would have been too much.

but now, i have hope.


every time i get sad, i just need to think that nothing was as bad as facing away from ever and crying at night. because all i wanted was to be held and kissed and touched, and he felt no need to be the person who provided that for me.

some of the similarities to post-birthday world revolve around what happened in bed.

staring at the wall and crying. staring at the wall and thinking about someone else. staring at the wall and trying not to cry.

i'm so glad that is not my life anymore.

it wasn't healthy.

i wasn't happy.

pretending when you're awake is so much worse than what happens when you're asleep.