name: amber
age: 22
location: new orleans
aim: sapgirly mail work
June 30, 2004
I made a relevation about childhood while I was in San Diego visiting my father. I realized that often when we are children, our parents hurt us. They can be too critical and judgmental (like my own father) or perhaps they are neglectful or perhaps they are simply mean. As children, we do not see their errors as character flaws. We are unable to look at their actions in context. For me, my father was critical and I saw that as him disapproving of me. Now that I am older and (I should hope) wiser, I understand that my father is not critical because he wishes to be critical. It is a character flaw in him. He should be caring and supportive but instead is harsh and nothing seems to please him. He has told me in the past that he is proud of me and I have rejected this thought because of the many times when I have thought myself to have done well and he chides me for it. Now if he is mean to me I am more likely to see it as a problem he has than one of my own. Perhaps I have grown arrogant and egotistical over the years.
My stepmother, on the other hand, I have always seen as an inferior being. Every action she has ever taken I have seen as the workings of someone of less intellect and maturity.
In other news, I have three days off. I managed to entertain myself most of today. I think I will go to a poetry reading in a little bit. It is something I haven't done in a long time, like writing. As infrequently as I update this "blog," I have failed to write any poetry in nearly a year. I used to feel the need to do so, now I hate most of what I have written. And it's a pretty thick stack. Poetry readings always put me in my place as opposed to making me feel good about writing. I see that everybody else has some actual talent and I get knocked back into place. Ah, well. Such things happen.
I purchased plane tickets today to visit my ex. Either we have a healthy friendship or we have a really fucked-up something else.
I think I "chose" my Chinese line-cook because he is non-threatening. Everyone else is so abrasive, so in-your-face about everything. How can anyone not feel threatened? I had my ass groped by 3 different people tonight. I swear, I'm going to bust loose and knife someone at some point.
Soulseek recommendations for me based on "things I like:"
Pink Floyd
Jimi Hendrix
Radiohead
Beatles
Nirvana
Bob Dylan
Coldplay
And then down the list all those bands you think only you and maybe a couple people know about because they're not on MTV. Oh well.
Came back from San Diego yesterday. It was mostly uneventful. I didn't cry which makes it the first time I've ever not cried when visiting my father. Why do our fathers have so much control over us? It doesn't seem mothers do, or perhaps this is because we're so much more likely to have lived only with our mothers. A guy on Dr. Phil today found himself disgustingly overweight and was only 200 pounds (5'6"). His dad did that to him, having only seen him a few times. It's not fair, really, that our fathers should exercise so much control when they really had no say in our upbringing.
I said this in the 8th grade:
"Yo quiero soy amor"
meaning this:
"Yo quiero ser amada."
Goddamn I was a fucked-up 8th grader. I kept all the letters I wrote to boys but never intended to send and it was so much DRAMA. When I should have said, "I'm not attracted to you," I said things like "Our friendship is so much MORE than a 'b/g relationship.'" What a ridiculous kid I was. What a ridiculous semi-adult I am.
So I "picked" the person at work I wanted. It was a really weird pick. Did I have to pick? I don't know. It's like a last-man-on-earth situation. You kind of do have to pick. In my entire working situation, who would I be with? I picked and I got to hang out with him today. He's Chinese and something (like I know) and is a line cook and is probably 35-40. He studied electrical computer engineering or some shit and then decided he wanted to cook, which is my kind of dude. I know he's my kind of dude just by looking at him. I'm weird like that.
It's a cool attribute that I seem to possess, though. I can look at someone even for a minute or two and pretty much judge their personality or more accurately whether or not I will enjoy them. Maybe this is just the projection I put on this person when I talk to him. Maybe I don't have this ability at all and since I've only really tried it out a couple times I can't judge accurately. Or perhaps everyone has this ability and I am nothing special. Of no matter.
In any case, I've been listening to a lot of Counting Crows and talking to my ex-boyfriend and having strange but entertaining conversations with random people on AIM. And having trouble getting Linux things to work when I really want to play games.
I have the day off tomorrow, write me an email (alupin@tulane.edu) and tell me you want to hang out and we'll go to the library or the museum or we'll make out. I'm in a weird mood today.
What the hell does this stupid name even mean? It is the opposite of lightheartedness and exactly the way I do not wish to be thinking... for the most part.
I have started reading Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States and so far it has been mostly things I already knew, minus some subtle details. I have gotten through the first two chapters and on the whole it has been rather entertaining. Tales of Columbus and his men's destruction of the Arawaks and such and the European rejects' destruction of the Iroquois, among others. Second chapter was about the slave trade and the nature of their shipment, etc. and also the way they conducted themselves after arriving in the "New World" -- rebellions, etc.
I don't have a definitive view. I think it was all horrible and that the people that ran these institutions were probably pretty messed up in the head but I also think it's not a lot different than what goes on today. I believe I will continue to see that throughout this book that is obviously meant to dissuade you from having much faith in America. Which is fine with me. One of my majors is Latin American Studies, after all and I am in this major more to get the dirt on the US than to study Latin America. But once you start you can't really stop. Or feel any less desperate. I have made a complete turnaround. I find that you can't really do anything about anything. Everyone is so set in their ways and the rich and powerful get away with... anything, again. So I have to just let it ride. And I try not to spend my money on something I know has been made under the exploitation of someone, which, in itself, is a ridiculous and arduous task. I don't even boycott Walmart anymore. They have the cheapest everything.
Just spent three hours talking to him. He still puts me at ease which is both interesting and very... good.
I'm glad we can talk and share and all that crap. It would be doubly awful to lose him all the way. With my other ex I didn't really want that connection to stay. He and I had been moving away from intimacy for some time. It's so strange that we can find it again after it's over.
And hope. Which is very thin but we're all allowed to have some hope, aren't we?
To avoid thinking, I am going to check out a plethora of titles at the library today before work:
Catch-22
Choke and Diary by Chuck Palahniuk
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
A People's History of the United States
A Wrinkle in Time
Games People Play: Psychology of Human Relationships
Ecstacy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance
and whatever they happen to have and I happen to find interesting by Henry Miller (I have to balance my Anais Nin, of course).
I finished Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut this morning. I didn't want it to end. It was entertaining and I liked how all the chapters were very short.
In other news, a girl in the 6th grade continues to bother me online. She things like "whassup" and "nuttin much." I wish I could redo that part of my life. I would have made out with one Chris and dated another. But then again, maybe Kelly wouldn't end up marrying him. Who knows! Life is crazy!
So he wrote me and says he misses me a lot and it's hard for him. And that he's not coming back to school. Which is rough. I am trying to sort this out for myself. I cried last night which is the first time I cried for him in a long time. I think I was still half-hoping that we would be together again when the year started back up. I didn't think we would be able to help ourselves.
So it is best we don't talk. Because both of us need to get over this relationship as fast as possible and then move on with our lives. Who knows what the universe will throw at us -- I don't believe in destiny or anything but did we not get that one stolen night?
In any case, I don't think I'm going to be able to read any more Anais Nin for a while.
So about a week ago, my ex-boyfriend and I started exchanging emails.
Just had an IM conversation with him. Trying to sort out my own feelings. For him, our "magic" last night wasn't closure and it apparently doesn't seem to have been kept in its own box for him. He said he feels now like he's "leaving something great" or some such thing (which I am making the last amount of attachment to possible). It's real rough to have him tell me that he's all torn up about us breaking up. I'm supposed to be the one that gets to be all mopey and stuff. Well, I suppose I went through that phase.
Honestly, it remains comforting that he still harbors a little feeling for me. I was worried that when we broke up he would be completely withdrawn from me -- see me as someone he wasn't interested in having any contact with anymore. Of course, over the course of the last month or so I have come to realize that I always thought of him as having less emotional attachment. And because of this lack I saw in him, I pushed to bring out more but this only drove him further away (and, fittingly, this is similar to what happened in the end of my other relationship). I don't know if I could do it differently given the chance to start over. I didn't want to feel that way, I just did.
I've been trying to analyze where this came from. My father? My mother? Ahh, but it is so useless to look for blame. Instead, I can only try to prevent myself from doing it the next time.
It's still funny to me, though, that we were so much happier first semester than second. I thought knowing he was staying would make me more attached to him and able to give myself freely. Because I never really did give myself to him. I was holding back and I justified it (when I tried to justify it) by thinking that he wasn't going to be coming back to school. And then second semester when I knew he was staying, I was even more distant. I don't know what happened. I certainly had a lot more stress on me second semester but that can't account for everything.
In any case, I know how I felt. I knew it wasn't working just as much as he did. We had our talk and nothing was resolved. Normally we had our talk and then we both felt better. This time, he kissed me on the cheek and said goodbye. And that really was the end. At the time, that was okay with me. But I remember when I came that one night to work on my paper all night in his room (roommate's computer), I looked at him and I knew I still loved him. I remember that and I try to think about how I feel now and the two times get mixed up.
I just keep waiting for time to pass. I know that in a month, I will feel much better, I will be moving on, I will be living my life freer. I know that in two months, Dwight will be here and I will think of Josh less and less (Dwight is merely a friend, but a very good friend). I know all this through wisdom and experience -- I was so hurt; I was so damaged at the end of my other relationship and this time I'm okay. After a month the other time, I still cried. I haven't shed a tear in weeks. I feel like we had left our relationship long before we "broke up." All this stuff now is it boiling down.
I'm glad we will still be friends. All the people we know are the same people.
I would not say this to him, but I wonder about us at the end of the summer. I know this time last year I was beginning to become intolerant of him. I didn't want anything to do with him. The only thing I was holding onto was our one week of enjoyment and I attributed that to lust. And it really was a very strong lust. We are definitely drawn to each other through chemicals or pheremones or something. I worry that when we return to school we won't be able to (want) to fight that. I don't want a fuck buddy. I don't even know if I want a boyfriend. If there's one thing I want to figure out between now and the end of summer is what I want from him. And if I still want to be with him, and he does not want to be with me, then I know that I will be okay with that in 3 months. In three months, I will not be making a decision with my heart but with my head.
