Damn This Girl Has Fucked Me Up But Good and For a Long Time

One day at the dog park, I met this guy and we shot the shit. I asked him where he worked. he told me. My stomach turned and my heart beat harder. It was the store in the mall where Lauren took a part time job after she left. I said, “Do you know Lauren?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “I knew her in college.” He said, “Cool.”

A couple of weeks ago, I met a girl at a bar. We become Facebook friends. I scroll down her timeline to find a picture with her and Lauren in it. My stomach turned less and my heart beat some. Tonight I might be going over to this girl’s house. I try to daydream about mentioning the picture, “So hey, I saw on FB that you know so-and-so.” And she will say, “Yeah, I met her at such and such, she’s great.” And then I’ll say, “Yeah, she and I knew one another in college,” while shaking ever so slightly and not feeling my fingers. But I know I wont ask.

I will be very conscious though that I am in a room with someone that has been in a room with Lauren. Someone who doesnt know that Lauren used to have a first wife and it was me. Its almost psychotic the amount of energy contained in my memory of her, how I try to suss out her continued presence. When I drive down the highway that passes her school on any given Monday through Friday between the hours of 7:45 and 4:30, I think, “She is 100 yards away from me.” Or when I walk into a family friend restaurant Sunday through Thursday between the hours of 5:30 and 7:30 PM, I think, “She might be here.” Or when I walk into a bar on a Sunday night, I think, “She is definetely not here.” Don’t even ask me about my relationship to the mall over these past 2 1/2 years. This energy doesnt exist in the physical world, it’s inanimate, it is just the product of my mind. No one else sees it or feels it, certainly not someone who never met us.

And of the people who did know us, no one asks about it anymore. If they do, it’s always, “Do you ever see her?” Do you ever see her? Do you ever see her? It’s like when we got married and the only question anyone ever asked is, “Are you going to California?” Are you going to Massachusetts? Are you going to DC?” It’s like, If it hasnt happened to you, you can’t even really grasp it to know what to ask, regardless of whether you want to ask, because it’s a wedding, or you dont want to ask because it’s a divorce. But these days, with the way I walk around constantly feeling or not feeling her maybe-presence, it’s like the TV is talking to me and no one else knows. Like, I’m looking around saying, “Do you hear that? Do you feel that?” And everybody’s like, “What?” Did I mention in the beginning, how I would wake up to the sound of her voice? Literally, hallucinating. 

So, yeah. Tonight. I might hang out with someone who knows Lauren. Let’s bring it down a notch. I wont feel psychotic. It’ll be more like a celebrity sighting. Like, Michael Jackson or Madonna. “Oh my god, I am in a room with someone who was in a room with Rachel Maddow.” 

 

Breathing and Shaking

Today I saw Lauren for the second time in just a few days. The first time was almost as hard as I thought it would be, but not quite. The first time was at one of those postal stores, the kind that are positioning themselves to scarf up the task of stamps and packages upon the downfall of the USPS, the kind you didnt quite understand as they started to pop up, “Doesnt the US Postal Service do all this? And for less money, probably, right?”

The men staffing it, I decided that they owned it, and that they were gay. I also decided that they could read me and her. They could read the averted eyes, the shaking hands, the audible breath sounds and know we were married and estranged. At one point, she and I leaned up against a counter waiting for the guy to call the tag and title office because he didnt know what to do with the out of state title. She and I waited there for almost a minute, breathing and shaking next to one another and I began to imagine we were in meditation together. Her breathing was louder than I remember — anxiety disorder, asthma, she’s gained weight, she does that when she is happy – and I thought about how unattractive that kind of breathing is in a stranger, and how one might love it in a love, and wondered if I would love it in her now. I took a deeper breath and waited to hear if she would breathe with me. She said, “I’m going to go sit down,” and took out her phone. The guy got ahold of his friend at the tag and title office who said we didnt need a notary, that we could just come into the office.

When I got into the car, I could feel my insides, the girl ones. I was suddenly aware of my clit and my lips, and everything they lead to. Briefly, I marveled at how attached I must still be to her and or maybe just how attached I am to making a baby. Then I remembered that sometimes men get erections when they are scared, I realized that the fullness and readiness I was feeling was just the byproduct of my heart beating blood into all of my endings, that it wasnt about love or sex or babies. 

Today, at the tag and title office, it was easier and briefer, but still unsuccessful. The loan company shouldve sent the South Carolina title to Raleigh so that Raleigh could send me a North Carolina title, but they didnt. The lady said that she would send it, I would get the right title in a week or two and then we should come back. No breathing, less shaking. Lauren said, resigned, encouraging, “Third time’s the charm.” I didnt look at her or respond to her small talk, but I realized that I couldve, so I will next time.  

 

A Good Nausea

i am set to see her wednesday at 4. i paid off the car. she is going to sign it over to me. and then i will never see her again. im a little nauseous right now. but its a good nausea.

Facebook Status Updates I Thought Better Of

I just wrote a fantastically nasty email to Lauren and didnt send it. Jesus Christ, that there is a good feeling, yes it is. #almostover

Soft, Sad Bundle

I am in Flushing Queens trying to get pregnant. There have been a lot of ups and downs as it pertains to my visit. My natural inclination, and where my talents lay, really, is to create some sort of touching, bittersweet melange of disparate images and experiences which get tied up at the end in some sort of soft, sad bundle like a fattened pig. I would like to give you some happy, I dont know how to artfully, seemlessly mix the disparate experiences of sad and happy, just sad and alienating, or sad and strange, or sad and unjust. In order to give you sad and happy, in order to mix that kind of disparate, I have to resort to the most elementary of all art forms: the list.

HAPPY:

1.) Me and the donor, who is also my high school sweetheart, have gotten along really well. He’s been calm when I’ve been testy, I’ve been patient when he’s gotten us lost, he hasnt gotten moody, I havent been annoyed. He has met some of my friends. We have had some heart to hearts. We have definitely laughed.

2.) The timing is pretty good. I have inseminated everyday since Thursday night, some days twice. I will probably have my last insemination very early tomorrow morning and expect to ovulate on Wednesday. Not perfect timing, but not terrible.

3.) I had amazing chicken larb at a Thai restaurant with two friends, one of whom took the bus up from DC to rendezvous with me. Then, I had an amazing slice of smoked coconut cheesecake and a 5 dollar cup of coffee at a dessert bar. Then, the three of us had a sleep – over in Brooklyn and we played on Facebook. The best game was to go through our mutual friend lists and see how many people all three of us have slept with. Turns out only one. Luckily there was lots of dish about him. And by “him”, I mean that he is a transman. I am, after all, a cisgendered female and woman-identified femme queer, and I want to make these things clear. I know, it’s a cheap clarity, requiring me to qualify his maleness, but I am not evolved yet. Luckily, according to the dish, neither is he.      

4.) Right before I left Asheville, I closed on my house. I am now a homeowner.

 

SAD: 

1.) The friend that came up to visit is still friends with Lauren on Facebook. After two years of silently gnashing my teeth about it, I finally told her that it hurts me, but asked that she let me look at Lauren’s page before she defriended Lauren, which she agreed to do. I find out that Lauren and her new partner, the same one she left me for, because they did, afterall, fall in love, and love conquers everything, are fostering a child. 

2.) I have been arguing with the girl I am sleeping with the entire time that I have been here. She feels I havent maintained close enough contact with her, either about when I am inseminating or where I am and what I am doing. I have decided to keep a log for one month, tallying the number of days during she either a.) makes me cry b.) yells or c.) tells me she is going to “leave me alone”, “abandon”, “defriend”, “move away”, “get a thicker skin” or “distance” herself from me. When she is unhappy with something I am doing she doesnt tell me, and when she does tell me, it is always paired with this veiled leaving language. And let’s not forget the one week she did leave me so she could, at her partner’s request, devote all of her “relationship energy” to her primary partner, and then left her primary partner and came back to me with the caveat that if her primary partner came back to her, she would welcome this partner into her life. Again. (Why am I doing this?)

2.) I got hopelessly lost on the subway today, missed Quaker Meeting, spent 20 bucks on a taxi, and then spent two hours sitting in front of my donor’s door waiting for him to let me in the house, most of the while, sobbing. (Finally, his mother let me in.) I havent heard from him in 15 hours. I have no idea where is, when he is coming back, or if I will be able to do another insemination before I leave. He is not responding to texts and my calls go straight to voicemail. 

3.) He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last week.

Oink.

Still Life with Rice

I am sitting in my chair. I am wearing a pair of jeans and a cotton tube top. No bra. My knees ache. My eyes are burning. My dog is chewing her synthetic bone. I can hear crickets. I can hear my rommates, a sweet young couple in love, laughing. I have a strange taste in my mouth, equal parts tired and too much sugar. I have been browsing condos for sale on the internet. It was either that or sperm donors. Or vacation destinations.

Yesterday, I mailed in an application to become a notary public in this fine state. Tomorrow, I have an appointment to apply for a passport which will allow me to leave the country. Then, I go to a staff meeting at my new part time job, before a 12 hour shift at my full-time job. Next month, I might know if the federal government is going to pay off all of my student loans. But then again, I might not know. Or I might know for sure that they arent. Or I might know for sure that they are. This month, I put more than a thousand dollars toward my consumer debt. And I bought a new pair of pants for work. And a book about the history of walking. But they havent come yet.

When you throw a bunch of stuff up in the air, like rice, maybe, you have to wait for all the pieces to land before you can even start to clean it up. Some people are thinking about the clean up as they are throwing the rice. (I do not have this particular kind of sadness.) Then, you get a broom and a dust pan and survey the pattern. You are trying to figure out the best way to sweep up the mess, but in the fewest sweeps possible. (This kind, I do.) And then, for the next few days, if you are diligent, or weeks, if you are not, you find more pieces and pick those up, too. There’s nothing we throw up in the air in the event of something bad. Except our hands, I guess. But there’s no getting rid of yourself, now is there?

If People Would Stop Leaving Me, I Wouldnt Have to Remember Them. That’s An Idea, People.

I went on a not-date today. Lesbian-style. You know — the not date. It’s the opposite of a hot date. I liked it. I’ve never done that before. Given no air-time whatsoever to the fact that I may be attracted to someone and in fact, explicitly used the word “friend” a whole lot for the purposes of intentionally setting the not-stage. Typically, I am either bowled over by Cupid, in it for the sex, or some intoxicating combination of both.

She was cuter than I remember her and more self-conscious. We spent the last half hour walking around town looking for her keys. It was my favorite part of the night. Probably because she found her keys. And it was warm out. And there were so many people to look at and storefronts to catch glimpses of. There’s a lot I havent done in the world of dating. Blind dating, speed dating, just dating. I’m curious to find out what kind of single person I will be. I’m not even sure why I arranged this date. Will I be the kind of single person that always has several irons in the fire, who can’t keep still? That’s another thing I’ve never done. Dated more than one person at a time. Or not dated anyone at all.

In other news, my last girlfriend is largely ignoring me. I kinda knew that this is how it would go, but it is sad and uncomfortable nonetheless. Because my biological mother put me in foster care as a baby, abandonment has defined me, but it has never dogged me before. I feel downright hounded these days. It’s really relentless, at this point. It’s almost supernatural, the frequency with which I am being summarily dismissed by whoever I happen to be closest to at any given moment, loves large and small, creatures every one. I know I need to write about it, to decide what the lesson is, what the story is. Make an official version.

But, all I really have the energy for right now is to be hurt and avoid being hurt, to make the decision to walk past that restaurant or to not, to look at that thing in the room or not, to hear in my head that thing she said, or to not hear  it. Then to get mad at myself for the way I walk, for looking, for hearing in my head. I read somewhere that the same parts of the brain light up on an MRI regardless of whether you are actually experiencing something or just remembering it. I often stop myself and say, “It’s not happening anymore,” as a gentle reminder that I dont have to live things over and over again and therefore feel them over and over again. Some days its like: Death by nostalgia. Death by longing. Death by regret. Death by ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, RIGHT NOW? Except it’s not right now. It’s a year and half later, it’s six months later, it’s three weeks later. Now is now.

Other days, though, I have fun imagining I am a hero in an action movie and every new memory — new girl, new job, new trip — is like a piece of furniture I am throwing into the path of the old memories, trying to slow them down, so I can get away.

Caught Up

I’m not a fan of wrap-ups, catch-ups or catch-all entries. They lack a certain excellence when it comes to the quality of the writing. And they require too many tags. On the other hand, months and months of posts about failed cycles and hitchhikers might leave you wondering about the other things like, say, my job or my girlfriend or my divorce. I dont know, I mean, don’t you ever wonder how my mother is or where I last went on vacation?

But first, let’s get the basics out of the way. I havent picked up any hitchhikers, lately. And, I’m not pregnant. I’m also in a real bind when it comes to donors. (Maybe I could find a hitchhiker to get me pregnant?) Of the three I’ve been working with, I chose one and he has not returned my last two emails. I kinda need his sperm in 6 days, so I’m feeling, a little . . . how do you say . . . oh, nevermind, you dont say. Anything. Because it matters too much. And you dont want to bother anyone. And you have your pride. I mean, who needs  a baby, when you have your pride, right?

Aside from the hassles and tedium of the day-to-day logistics of trying to make a baby, I am also struggling with bigger picture stuff, especially in light of what seems like a new dead end. I mean, how fucking hard does this have to be, really? As I look past this guy and farther out into the horizon of my thinning and far-flung social network, I am envisioning approaching not just acquaintances, but acquaintances of acquaintances. I am imagining putting out newspaper ads and fending off day dreams about prowling sober through bars filled with men who are not. Should I wait for a year and try to get together a budget that can sustain the purchase of frozen donor sperm? Should I wait three years or four, until I have met the magical person and we have come to the magical place where we spend 20,000 grand on a baby?  Should I just start working on building a life that can sustain fostering a child and the million social workers and insanities that come with all that? Or should I just scrap the whole fucking thing and develop my tastes in the fields of art and travel? I pour over pictures of friends and their babies and strangers and their babies and try to stay in touch with what I think my big picture is, but sometimes planning a vacation to the Carribean seems like a really fun way to give up on a baby.

I have gotten a new part-time job doing on-call crisis assessments. I will be on deck 4 days a week for a total of 40 hours and I will earn three dollars an hour just for waiting by the phone. I will actually only end up working about 5-10 hours per week, but when I go in, I will be earning time and a half. It’s a dream job, really and it should bring in at least an extra 700 per month, at least. I hope to use it to pay off my car and credit card loans by this time next year. These are the debts I share with my most recent wife and I am eager to make them go away. Hopefully, I wont accidentally spend the extra income on therapy and sperm. You know you are almost 35 when therapy and sperm are your guilty pleasure and little luxuries, respectively.

My most recent wife. I have a new recurring dream in which I am taking an exit off a highway and the ramp  suddenly ends in the middle of a lake. As the car is going down and the water is pushing tons of pressure onto the window I am furiously trying to roll down, I am thinking, “Shit, now I have to call Lauren.” Aside from the pesky email she forwarded to me last week, the one in which she asked our lawyer how to render our wills null and void, the one on which she cc’d her rich daddy and new girlfriend, the one in which the lawyer said she could not give advice without my permission, oh, yes, the one which I ignored — aside from that (and the dream), there are no developments. I continue to practice breathing and visualization to get me out of emotional tight spots and feel the very tissues and sinews of my mind and body knitting together again. Other times, I Google her name at 4AM and obsess about running into her every time I leave the house.

My most recent girlfriend. It is hard to acknowledge that the end of that thing and the beginning of this thing are taking place at the same time, but they are and so I am. The new girlfriend and I are hitting our first rough spots. A poem about our first rough spots might feature nouns like touch, childhood, bar, communication, sleeping pill, public displays of affection, anxiety and medical school. But this is not a poem. It is a blog entry and since she and I have already had our internet-fueled disagreement for the month, I shall bring this paragraph to a rolling stop, California-style. (I still need to have the “Can I Talk About Your Life on the Internet” converation.) But I am happy to say that this weekend I am looking forward to 48 whole hours with her and some food trucks and a flea market and a roller derby. Here’s to that poem, OK?

I went to DC last week to see my friend Meredith talk about her new book, The Singles. It’s a beachy, chick-lit number about a wedding. It wont make you snore or barf. I have recently, today, really, discovered the poet Malachi Black which led me to really work on understanding the use of the word metonymy, which is featured prominently in his poem, This Gentle Surgery. It’s about changing and being changed. The last book I read was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax, by Rebecca Skloot and I am looking forward to reading When Women Were Birds, by Terry Tempest Williams. I don’t like the new Feist CD. My dog has had the runs for a month; I spent the day boiling chicken and rice and feeling tenderly toward her. Finally, my mother had car trouble this weekend, but it’s fixed now. 

Consider yourself caught up.

It’s Been a Year

It’s been a year since Lauren left. I’ve seen the anniversary coming for a few weeks now. I knew, but didnt know, how it would go, and I wondered, but barely planned for, how to pass it. Her leaving unfolded over the course of 16 days. I don’t get the satisfaction of citing the date on which the judge signed the order, so I have a bunch of little days, running around, wet and hungry, crying for attention. I’ve largely ignored them until this morning.

On the anniversary of the day she told me she was leaving, I was working. On the anniversary of the day she took off her ring, I was babysitting. On the anniversary of the day she told me she wasnt coming back, I was having dinner in DC with a friend. On the anniversary of the day she changed her Facebook status, I was eating a breakfast brought to me by a girl who loves me when she looks at me. On the anniversary of the day she moved out, I was working. On the anniversary of the day we met at the bank to close the joint account, I was at the bank changing my name on my account. The only anniversary that’s left is the day on which I sold my ring, shredded our marriage contract and delivered it to the doorstep she shared with her new girlfriend. That’s in February. I wonder, sometimes, when their anniversary is, where in the midst of all that destruction they choose to celebrate their start.

I don’t know what to make of it, this anniversary. I don’t know what to make of it like I don’t know what to make of any death and like I don’t know what to make of most suffering. It happens. Over and over and over. At some point, it probably stops. In the meantime, we wrap ourselves in thin blankets of meaning upon purpose upon distraction and hope the wind doesnt rip off too many of them in any given year.

17,000 Shouts

And 28 days after the miscarriage started, my period arrives on the 14th day of the month, to grace me with my first 28 day cycle since my second wife walked out. How’s that for full circle, kids? Sometimes, I feel like my period is a ballerina. Plie, eleve, releve.

Or whatever.

In other news, I went to Miami a little bit ago, as you may remember, and my trip coincided with a fair called Art Basel. The highlight was going to see the an exhibit titled “American Exuberance” at the Rubell Family Collection. I’ve always enjoyed looking at art and gone to look at art on purpose. As a kid, I had a good mother and grew up in the Baltimore Washington Metropolitan Area, which is just another word for the “Let’s go to the Smithsonian”. And, then, my second wife was really touched by modern art and had some tastes that she shared with me. When I went to the Rubell, I saw a few things she would’ve liked. I didnt text her, which was good. Not that I have a problem with texting her, but sometimes you just want to turn to the person who used to be your wife and say, “Look at that one with the pallet painted on the steak. Doesnt it remind you of the one you did with the boy hanging in the meat locker and the cover of the second mix CD you made me? “

But you can’t. You just keep walking. And come upon a naked blue girl sitting at a blue desk on top of a blue puzzle spinning in a blue room and squeaking, having splashed paint everywhere, during some time prior to your arrival, but now just spinning around and around, drying. And I thought that it was the perfect reflection of how I have felt this year. Naked, forlorn, stuck, puzzled, alone, going around and around the same three thoughts. Drying.

I like it that I don’t indulge in visual art very often. I will hound around for some poetry on the daily, but going to see art on a wall remains rarified and special. I texted a million names to myself to look up and love later. John Baldessari, Julian Hoeber, John Miller, Jason Rhodes, Richard Jackson, Juliao Sarmento, Nobuyoshi Araki, Rashid Johnson. Wow, that’s a lot of dudes. But you can be sure I am going to print their little things and run to Kinko’s, then Goodwill for the frames. (Sorry, “FedEx Office”.)

I left that building with my body humming. Positively resounding with meaning. Like my soul was a canyon and I dropped a 17,000 shouts into it.