Beastmomma's comment made me think that I need to clarify something here. Lots of people are going out of their way to make me feel better. I'm getting presents and drinks and offers of more presents and drinks and phone calls and emails and all in the attempt to make me feel better. And the horrible and terrible truth about depression, real depression, disease depression is that I know I should feel better. With everyone trying so hard, I feel awful about continuing to feel awful. And my continuing to feel awful is absolutely no one's fault. It just is what it is. The hard part is finding a way out of it, which gets increasingly difficult. But thank you for all of the corncern and the positive comments. It does, despite appearances, mean a huge amount to me.
Cleavon: A man drinks like that and does not eat, he is going to die!
Gene: When?
-Blazing Saddles

When I went to PA, one of the Eye Guy's friends asked me how all of us at the local know each other if we don't work together. We are certainly an eclectic group-an English professor, a PR person, an optometrist, a vet, a fashion designer, a musician, a camp director...the list goes on and I realized that pretty much no one worked in the same field as another. Nor do we come from the same state/hometown. Nor do we share the political beliefs. Or religious morals. Or film tastes. In fact, it seemed upon reflection that there was absolutely nothing we had in common.


I told him that what we had in common was we were all misfits. True, we were all misfits in different ways, but misfits nonetheless. For whatever reason, most of us were odd man out. We had bad relationships. We didn't "hang out" with our colleagues. We feared returning to our empty apartments and listening to our non ringing phone for the messages from the boy/girlfriend we don't have. We didn't have to worry about attending weddings or baby showers because our crowd was defined by our inability to form any bond except that of friendship. And even those bonds were formed in unusual and tenative ways.


You noticed the shift to past tense in that last paragraph, didn't you?


But now the Amazon is moving in with Big Bad and Mu has already moved in with High Life and my bar is being invaded by talk of going to Ikea and colors for bridesmaid dresses. I've become a failure even amongst them now. Odd man out amongst even the misfits.


I went to a formal event this weekend, and I was seated next to a 95 year old man who had a date. I was there with my mother, and he had a date. Friends of my ex-boyfriend came up to me talk about their grandkids who are going to law school and their children who are getting married and I thought, "Just fucking kill me." Seriously. I was in a bathtub marinating this weekend thinking, "I am not going to be able to handle 40 more years of this crap." Forty more years of other people's bachelorette parties and baby showers.


And this is supposed to be something that I should have accepted by now. I knew by the way I was treated in middle school and high school that although I'm attractive to the opposite sex, I am not the type of woman that men want to marry and certainly not the girl they want to have children with. I knew it. There isn't a question about it. And yet, even at this late date, I can't help but wish that things could be different. It wasn't my dream at 31 to be going to Montreal with my mother.


The Amazon tells me this is a good thing for her because "you know, I'm not stable." Right, you have a job and you are moving in with your boyfriend, who also has a job. I, on the other hand, as of May am going to be without a job continuing to live with only my cat. And of course there is always my disability-you know the one that has covered my body is scars and prevents from the pleasure of being able to walk up a flight of stairs without considerable effort. And the depression.


And the only viable solution is to switch bars.
Yesterday, I was in a staff meeting discussing the proficiency exam that all NYU students have to pass. We were considering "low passes" or, in other words, the minimal amount of proficiency a student has to demonstrate in order to pass. Some of the "low passes" would absolutely curdle your brain were you to read them. One of the newer professors remarked of the standard "Wow you really have to try to fail, don't you?"


It reminded me of what my former directing teacher Travis Preston used to tell us about making good art. He used to say, "You have to dare to suck. You have to look it in the eye and be one with it and hug it and take it to bed with you at night. You have to know, absolutely know, that you can pour your heart and soul into a project. You can lose sleep and weight and friends and all to produce something that people hate or worse don't even bother to see."


Of course, now his comment has an entirely new context for me. It has gotten to the point that a student actually has to put effort, more effort than it would take to pass, into failing the exam. The student would have to get up early and have focus and dedication and a plan into order to fail this exam. Because you have to dare to suck.
Before I even go home, I stop at the bar. I just can't bear going back to that empty apartment, not after this. I need to be around familiar faces. Surprisingly there is a crowd there, big D and the gay Vet. They ask me about my trip, the gambling, the shows, the food. I don't lie, but I don't tell them the truth either. I sit in my cowgirl hat and smile and talk about Princeton's ball ringing incident, the gay bar, the Frog Prince. And they laugh, as they do at my stories. How much of my life has been sacrificed to making people laugh at my life? How much of it has been lived just to make them laugh?


At three, I ask to borrow somebody's cellphone. Kiss Kiss has left me two messages, in one he says he would have waited on my front steps if he knew when I was coming home. Thankfully the poor boy didn't hold a vigil there, but it gave me the strength to face the apartment. He promises to come over the next night, just for company. He has learned to read me by now. The sound of my voice, even when I'm silent, he knows what it means.

The next night he comes over, just to sleep, just have his body next to mine so I won't be alone. He's exhausted and so am I, but I start to cry. He asks me what is wrong, but I can't even begin to say. There aren't even words. He tells me that it's over, that I'm safe now, that everything is ok, but, of course, it's never over. The rest of you live in the shadow of Vesuvius, but I'm already burned. It's not me anymore, this person, I don't know who she is, just the cinder outline-like those at Pompeii. Perfectly preserved in their last moments. Even the dogs. Frozen in their loss. And there is no comfort for this. No getting over it. There are some losses you do not recover from. All there is, all there can be, is how long it takes to kill you. Some believe that time heals all wounds, and I'm sure that it is a comfort to those who can believe. But Time can be like acid on the skin, not healing, but eating away through flesh and bone and muscle until there is nothing left to heal because there is nothing left at all. But there are no words for this. And even if I could say it, who would want to hear such a truth?



While he attempts to sooth me, while I am thinking these thoughts Princeton calls and leaves a message. Turns out he remembered leaving his Michael Kors blazer at the gay bar and went back to retrieve it. Miraculously, not only was the blazer there, but when he went to claim it, the woman running the door said "Oh where is your little friend?" That's fame for you. When you can walk into a gay bar at one in the morning on a friday night in Vegas, stay for an hour and two days later, they still remember you, you are at the very least a memorable and entertaining shade of the person you used to be. He says that he misses me, that I was the only fun thing about the trip. He says we should do Vegas again, only this time stay in a hotel and go to the shows and the spas. Just the two of us. Sitting on a balcony at the Venetian having morning tea and croissants before indulging in fullbody massages or spending the day losing at blackjack. We know how to be decadent, he says, and have fun.


But, of course, I don't answer the phone so I can't tell him there is absolutely no fucking way.
Blogathon has posted this year's date. I promised my mother I would blog for her hospital this year-48 posts about 24 boys, but you know I've had so much fun with horror community this year and I think they might enjoy my little trivia game. Since I don't have anything vaguely ressembling a life this year I've decided, and this is going to painful so I'm going to need a lot of support, I'm going to do two blogs one to raise money for the American Heart Association with my horror trivia and the other for my mother's hospital.