Chpt 9 The End is Near

I want to start by apologizing in advance for those of you who do continue to read this entire blog post. It may be confusing however I've rewritten, edited and pondered over it many times, but like most things in my life right now, something feels unfinished and improperly presented. What normally feels like a nice clean package complete with a card and bow, feels unfinished... but so are Annie and I.

The last several weeks I've been thinking about writing a lot! Really I have! I mull over sentence structures and clever metaphors which I should write down. But I've been anxious about how to write this blog. I want to make sure to convey my true feelings without stepping on anyone. Annie says she's an open book but I fear there are things I want to write which would be to hurtful and destructive. How do I describe the chaotic events that ended my 'coming out affair'? That's the issue at hand.

Chapter Nine: The End is Near

Each morning I wake up hoping that things will be different, the confusion and hazy fog surrounding the last 2 years of my life will have lifted and reveal a beautiful scape. In this fantasy my heart is filled with simple pleasures and I am loved. But each morning I wake up and for a split second I feel that potential within myself, until only moments later it slips away, lost between the sheets and my opening eye lids. I rise to continue with my life, a life that seems clustered and simultaneously desolate. This blog is a product of that confusion and mirrors quite wonderfully the last two weeks spent with Annie.

The last two weeks:

Annie and I didn't break up in the traditional sense, there was no exchanging of the things, no splitting up our friends, there wasn't even a 'let's try to make this work' effort. We simply left. She left first on a plane. I left by car a half day later. That was it. Annie was next to me one day and gone the next and we were both completely powerless. I'd like to say we ended on a good note, with kisses and kind parting words, maybe even a present, but the truth is we didn't. The last few weeks left at camp became chaotic and scary, so when Annie left we didn't say much. We didn't kiss, my bitterness and anger combined with sadness made our parting an uncomfortable scene.

But how our loving and healthy relationship turned so sour was complicated. There are things that happened which I still don't understand and I think honestly I'll never be able to completely explain what happened. But like I said in the beginning, I love Annie, I always will and she will always love me. I'm not afraid to lose her love. So this is the truth as I experienced it with no apologizes!

There was another girl, that's what happened. Annie had another friend who was rapidly becoming more then just a friend and invading into my relationship. The alone time I had grown accustom to was being invaded by this parasite who I couldn't destroy.

Sam (as I'll refer to her as) was everywhere, not just following Annie but leading too! Sam wasn't an attachment that Annie had grabbed, but I feared they were becoming something more. I was threatened, scared and felt like a wild animal trapped in a cage. The anger toward Annie, resentment toward Sam was building up inside of me and there was no shortage of fuel for the fire. Annie was less convincing in her declarations of love and devotion. She was pulling away from me and it was easy to see. The other counselors began to notice this as well and rumors began to fly.

What had been a very discrete, no-drama summer romance between Annie and I was escalating into a full out tabloid story. People were talking, to me, behind my back, about me and about Sam and Annie.

The facts weren't know for sure. But here is what I think happened:
Sam didn't know Annie and I had a history. But Sam was interested in pursuing something with Annie. I can't hold that against her, attractions are natural, she was entitled to her feelings.
Annie feared that my attachment and she was headed for relationship disaster. Annie loves me and wanted to spare me the pain that our separation would bring, so she preemptively jumped ship.
Where her actions right, were my reactions flawed? It's hard to say.
But now... nearly 14 months later, I'd like to say I'm ok with it all. I've made my peace with her last minute abandonment, what felt like betray. It wasn't betray, it was a desperate attempt to prevent someone you dearly love from being hurt. Like the mom who secretly replaces a dead pet to share her child the pain of death.
I'm no longer a child, but I do still fear death. I fear being alone, because when everyone else is gone, you're left with just yourself, your thoughts, actions and beliefs. And there is no clear answer for any of it. Just the hope that when that day comes, the haze is lifted a beautiful scape will be revealed.

Water and Oil

Somethings just don't mix, no matter how hard you try they will never congeal. Politics and work are two such thing. Ir-regardless of how diligently or sensitively you try to discuss it, politics is something that's best kept away from the work place. To exemplify my point let me tell you a short story about my co-worker slash friend Seth.

Seth is normally a great guy, we hang-out outside of work and he's half the reason I make it through most work days. He's a big old homo-loving, gay right supporting, straight, white republican which to me seems like a GIANT oxymoron (please note 'moron' is hidden within that word, just a coincidence) .

So Seth and I were AIM-ing today at work and here is what was said among other things.

Red Eagle: BTW ur democratic run house of representatives voted down the bailout proposal that could have otherwise saved our market from crashing and now we're all fucked. How can you vote a Democrat into the white house?

DelENDa: eh i don't care about that bailout proposal. It's a lot of money and we should take a moment to think it through besides... i want to be able to get married one day, i think people need to be treated equally first and foremost, then we can all worry about our money. but not until then, i believe in social equality not money, unlike the republicans who are too worried about their 20 houses to care about equality.

Red Eagle : um...no?

DelENDa ummm... kinda yeah

Red Eagle : if our economy goes under there will be no point to treating people equally

DelENDa: why? because respecting other human beings is sooo expensive

(is it obvious i'm p.o-ed at this point and I sense i'm talking to someone who is fundamentally different from myself aka a republican)
Red Eagle : the whole marriage thing isnt about respect it's about people being ignorant

Red Eagle : and if people dont have money they will be worried about that and other issues will be moved to the back burner

DelENDa: bush got us here in the first place so i don't understand how people think the republicans' plans are financially sound

Red Eagle : how did Bush get us here? the President has nothing to do with legislation being passed

DelENDa: but anyway you and i are just going to fight about it. so let's not please
(completely ignoring my suggestion...)

Red Eagle: people need to stop blaming the president

Red Eagle: it's congresses fault, congress passes the laws

(Mr. Ranting McRanterson)

Red Eagle: even Iraq, congress could vote anytime to stop giving money to Iraq but they don't

Red Eagle: they are the ones who have to approve military spending

Red Eagle: and congress is predominately democratic

(yeah he's still at it)

Red Eagle: and now, a bill that could preserve the economic stability of our country was voted down because too many representatives are worried about their re-election in 5 weeks
DelENDa: welll i'm soooo sorry. i'm voting for mccain anyway so don't worry about it ok?DelENDa: and only because palin is so hot!

Red Eagle: LOL

I would really like to say this was a one time occurrence. But OHHH NO!!! Prior to this Seth had managed to get into a screaming match with our BOSS across the offices. My boss was sitting in her chair in her office, Seth was at the front desk and I was squished in between at mine. I don't understand how in the hell Seth thought it would be a good idea to debate politics with someone who signs his pay check. Money is money, it doesn't change.... political affiliations aren't set in stone but arguing doesn't always lead to a resolution, in fact is might just lead to a pink slip. So please please, in the midst of this intense political climate I ask all my fellow employees to please leave the politics at home. Work is fucking hard enough as it is.

Thanks you very much!

Worst Non-Date

So this is a brief recap of the horrible non-date I had last night.

Background history- I met this girl (I'll call her Tam for now) at Soho many months ago. I don't remember much about our initial meeting because I was 1) Kinda drunk 2) distracted by Laura and the Karaoke singers and 3) she wasn't that memorable. What I do remember though was initially exchanging phone numbers and then later being horrified by all the red flags this girl was throwing out. She has just been dumped by her first gf and was still in the process of getting back on her feet. This is for me a huge deal breaker. So I in an effort to back peddle I did the reasonable thing and told her not to call me until she was over her x!

Now in MY mind, that's a clear indication that we would never speak again and in a 6 months I'd be cleaning out the contact list in my phone and her number would be deleted along with that kid i met at some party who claimed to hook me up with tickets to see Damien Rice but fell threw and the lab partner I had for my intro bio class freshman year. However to my surprise about two weeks ago she started texting me out of the blue. So I thought, what the hell why not text back. After all I gave her my number initially so there must have been some reason.

Eventually what transpired was plans to meet up at some point and go out for drinks.

But what actually happened was this:

The Lead Up

I met up with Oli at Soho, we shared a few drinks before the girl got ill and cut the night short to deal with her sickening state. I however decided to stay and had a wonderful conversation with Anthony (who is awesome ps) then tam texted me

11:12 Tam- how was your day

11:13 Me- it was ok.

11:13 Tam- what are was doing?

11:15 Me- At soho having a drink with a friend.

11:16 Tam- Oh hey I'll come up and see you
11:66 Me- (nothing: ignoring the text and brainstorming a nice way to say no)

11:17 Tam- I'll be there in like 20

This is the point when I started to get worried because mind you I've met this girl ones and made no indication that I wanted to see her that moment (did I?). But she felt like that moment was as good as any to pop on over. But I'm still feeling semi ok at this point if not a lot nervous.

The Arrival

She shows up and she was NOTHING like what I remember her being. She not as cute or funny or clever or interesting as she had seemed. Beer Goggles anyone?

(Baby Clare)

So then began the slow fall into the bottom-less pit that was this non-date. She doesn't go to school. Nor does she have a job, hasn't for months, isn't looking for one, doesn't have any money and her main goal is to get discovered dancing at a club. So unlike normal people who fill out resumes and go to job interviews in hopes of finding employment, she prefers to shake her ass and move her feet at various establishments. In my head I was thinking "Who are you?"

She told me she was training for the Olympics, she runs 20 miles a day. And I was pretty impressed cause there is no fucking way I could run that much. Until she told me she finished 7th in a 3 mile run at the Detroit zoo. The run was out of 1000 people but still 7th place at a local race is not exactly close to Olympic gold. Clearly the girl was delusional, I'm thinking.

I brought up music, a subject which I thought I'm relatively good at relating to. It's the one subject that I fall back on when conversation is running low because for the most part I've heard of a lot of bands and can at least appreciate other people's taste in music. But this girl managed to strike a very sharp chord (no pun intended). Not only does she have ridiculous taste in music, she had no substantial knowledge of other music genres. So that was killed.

She did however mentioned that she was learning to play the guitar, and I perked up a tiny bit when she said this. She had in fact 'just recorded a song she was working on'. Wow i thought, we do actually have something in common, we both like guitar, and it's a total turn on. But to my dismay she followed that up by saying and I quote "I need to take my guitar somewhere to have it tuned because I think it will sound better if I get it tuned"

STOP HOLD UP!!! WTF. There is no one on earth who legitimately can play the guitar (even at a beginning level) but doesn't know how to tune it! Stop the music, this date can't get any worse....but it does.

She mentions that she didn't drive to soho, instead she "jogged over". Well fuck it was almost 1 am and I felt bad, so I had to give her a ride home.
When she got out of the car I gave a big sigh of relief. There goes one less person who I know I'm not compatible with. I'm one more person closer to finding a soul mate/someone who I can be happy with.

Being single/dating can be really hard and scary. I feel like giving up and throwing the towel a lot of times, but I think all this hard shit, the bad dates and failed relationships, the drunken mistakes and moments of weakness are not in vain. Cause when it does happen, when the ja-ja-joo occurs and I meet someone who realizes how ridiculous not knowing how to tune a guitar is, I'll fight like hell to not let it go.