Saturday, June 28, 2008
Goodbye
I am leaving New Orleans tomorrow morning. I want to say something about this, but I don't know what. I want to cry but I can't.
I finally did get it on with J a few times. It was a good experience, and he was very sweet to me. God knows I never had any illusions about him as relationship material. I made a very calculated decision to do it, and in a way I almost had to talk myself into it. We had a very warm goodbye. Really, this should have been the most enjoyable, pain-free affair anyone could have, and I still feel empty and alone after watching him walk away. Clearly I am not fit to ever be close to other people, because it takes so little to hurt me.
Anyway, it's not just J, of course. He's kind of a talisman for all my sadness about New Orleans. The rest is copied from an email I sent last night. I don't have the stomach to try to re-explain:
You know, it's my second-to-last night in New Orleans. I've lived here for eight and a half years, and I have only two people to say goodbye to, not counting a couple of friendly ex-coworkers. My friend D is close to me, but she's the kind of person who instinctively creates a lot of unnecessary drama. She's devastated that I'm leaving; I'm sad to say goodbye but I'm also a bit relieved because she's just too much for me right now. My other friend is a guy who I've know for almost as long as I've lived here. He always let it be known that he had a thing for me, and there was at least a spark of attraction on my part, but there were lots of good reasons not to act on it. However, I decided to have a little fling with him before I left, and so I did. It hurts my womanly ego a little bit that I am no longer the unattainable object of desire now that I have been obtained. But still, he was very sweet and kind to me and we were close for a moment and I'm glad I let myself be obtained. I just said goodbye to him. And now I am about to move myself to a new city where I know no one at all...
And the point is? I don't know. I'm not good at making friends or having relationships. I can't seem to sustain the kind of suffocating closeness that many people seem to need. D kind of wears me out. But I appreciate a kind of less clingy intimacy, with a lighter touch. However, by definition you can't cling to it, just let it go. I'm having a hard time with that right now. I'm having a hard time saying goodbye to a town I loved that never loved me back. I feel very alone and peripheral to everyone else on the planet, and I'm afraid I'm always going to be this way.
Life is a continual process of letting go, isn't it? I know that there are people who have profound spiritual experiences of oneness with everything, and I take some comfort in thinking that is true, even though I haven't experienced it.
I finally did get it on with J a few times. It was a good experience, and he was very sweet to me. God knows I never had any illusions about him as relationship material. I made a very calculated decision to do it, and in a way I almost had to talk myself into it. We had a very warm goodbye. Really, this should have been the most enjoyable, pain-free affair anyone could have, and I still feel empty and alone after watching him walk away. Clearly I am not fit to ever be close to other people, because it takes so little to hurt me.
Anyway, it's not just J, of course. He's kind of a talisman for all my sadness about New Orleans. The rest is copied from an email I sent last night. I don't have the stomach to try to re-explain:
You know, it's my second-to-last night in New Orleans. I've lived here for eight and a half years, and I have only two people to say goodbye to, not counting a couple of friendly ex-coworkers. My friend D is close to me, but she's the kind of person who instinctively creates a lot of unnecessary drama. She's devastated that I'm leaving; I'm sad to say goodbye but I'm also a bit relieved because she's just too much for me right now. My other friend is a guy who I've know for almost as long as I've lived here. He always let it be known that he had a thing for me, and there was at least a spark of attraction on my part, but there were lots of good reasons not to act on it. However, I decided to have a little fling with him before I left, and so I did. It hurts my womanly ego a little bit that I am no longer the unattainable object of desire now that I have been obtained. But still, he was very sweet and kind to me and we were close for a moment and I'm glad I let myself be obtained. I just said goodbye to him. And now I am about to move myself to a new city where I know no one at all...
And the point is? I don't know. I'm not good at making friends or having relationships. I can't seem to sustain the kind of suffocating closeness that many people seem to need. D kind of wears me out. But I appreciate a kind of less clingy intimacy, with a lighter touch. However, by definition you can't cling to it, just let it go. I'm having a hard time with that right now. I'm having a hard time saying goodbye to a town I loved that never loved me back. I feel very alone and peripheral to everyone else on the planet, and I'm afraid I'm always going to be this way.
Life is a continual process of letting go, isn't it? I know that there are people who have profound spiritual experiences of oneness with everything, and I take some comfort in thinking that is true, even though I haven't experienced it.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Johnny J
If he was in a slump, it's done with. He just put out this great album, produced by Dale Hawkins. (Get it at CD Baby). He's a great, great guitar player. And there's nothing sexier than skills. I'm definitely going there.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The long goodbye
I have a month left in New Orleans, with nothing particular on the schedule. Everyday I study for the bar and do little tasks preliminary to moving. I go out to see bands. Why didn't I ever see Rotary Downs before? I carry around a camera so that I can take memento photographs, but so far I haven't snapped any.
In the last few months, my nightlife has gotten good again. I know I will not have such a nightlife in Richmond. The idea, though, is that the rest of my life will be better, and that the rest of my life is more important than my nightlife. It helps to think that I'm just trying out Richmond. I can come back if I want to. In the meantime at least I'll miss a hurricane season. It also helps to consider that I put my hat in the ring for the few appealing jobs in New Orleans that came available, and was completely ignored by those employers.
It's unsettling, though, that I have chosen this new place based on a good first impression and a judgment that it has many of the qualities I'm looking for. I know no one there. And yet it will be the stage for the next chapter of my life. I wonder if this will be a bad idea, yet I don't think it will.
I haven't (yet) been the weeping wreck that I thought I would be, but I am melancholy about the end of the New Orleans era of my life.
Today at the Rue I saw the underaged deejay who fled from my romantic advances a few years ago. Add that to the brief encounter with Torres the day before my graduation and my most recent romantic humiliation. My love/sex/romantic life in New Orleans has pretty much sucked from beginning to end, starting when David dumped me and took up with my nutty co-worker. Followed by painful and/or humiliating episodes with JT, Adam, Brent (tho in that case I inflicted the pain), James, Mr. M, Torres, The Psychopath, the Brit, the deejay, the bartender, and several other minor players. I'm thinking of breaking off a piece for J before I go, because I might as well give it to someone who really wants it for a change. And perhaps I strung him along in an unkind way.
Unkind. I wonder if my real or perceived unkindness is part of my problem. Darcy insists that guys are afraid of me. It would be one thing if they were afraid of me because I was so smart and lovely that I seemed unattainable; but I'm afraid their intimidation has at least as much to do with me seeming snarky, judgmental and mean. Darcy has made me aware of how often I sound sarcastic, even when I don't mean to be.
I've mentioned before how much I identify with Enid in Ghost World. To me she is hearbreaking and sympathetic, but I don't want to be a 40 year old Enid. But the snark has become automatic; I don't even notice I'm doing it, really.
I hope that I can get over that; and I hope that, even with my fears and misgivings about intimacy, monogamy, and the like, I can find a way to have better experience with sex and love and relationships in my next chapter.
In the last few months, my nightlife has gotten good again. I know I will not have such a nightlife in Richmond. The idea, though, is that the rest of my life will be better, and that the rest of my life is more important than my nightlife. It helps to think that I'm just trying out Richmond. I can come back if I want to. In the meantime at least I'll miss a hurricane season. It also helps to consider that I put my hat in the ring for the few appealing jobs in New Orleans that came available, and was completely ignored by those employers.
It's unsettling, though, that I have chosen this new place based on a good first impression and a judgment that it has many of the qualities I'm looking for. I know no one there. And yet it will be the stage for the next chapter of my life. I wonder if this will be a bad idea, yet I don't think it will.
I haven't (yet) been the weeping wreck that I thought I would be, but I am melancholy about the end of the New Orleans era of my life.
Today at the Rue I saw the underaged deejay who fled from my romantic advances a few years ago. Add that to the brief encounter with Torres the day before my graduation and my most recent romantic humiliation. My love/sex/romantic life in New Orleans has pretty much sucked from beginning to end, starting when David dumped me and took up with my nutty co-worker. Followed by painful and/or humiliating episodes with JT, Adam, Brent (tho in that case I inflicted the pain), James, Mr. M, Torres, The Psychopath, the Brit, the deejay, the bartender, and several other minor players. I'm thinking of breaking off a piece for J before I go, because I might as well give it to someone who really wants it for a change. And perhaps I strung him along in an unkind way.
Unkind. I wonder if my real or perceived unkindness is part of my problem. Darcy insists that guys are afraid of me. It would be one thing if they were afraid of me because I was so smart and lovely that I seemed unattainable; but I'm afraid their intimidation has at least as much to do with me seeming snarky, judgmental and mean. Darcy has made me aware of how often I sound sarcastic, even when I don't mean to be.
I've mentioned before how much I identify with Enid in Ghost World. To me she is hearbreaking and sympathetic, but I don't want to be a 40 year old Enid. But the snark has become automatic; I don't even notice I'm doing it, really.
I hope that I can get over that; and I hope that, even with my fears and misgivings about intimacy, monogamy, and the like, I can find a way to have better experience with sex and love and relationships in my next chapter.
Monday, June 02, 2008
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