the old-school guestbook archives
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chopping wood and carrying water ~ February 15, 2002 - 12:22 a.m. we just got dsl hooked up at the house. no more creaky-slow-laptop-attached-to-cellphone connection. the internet is fast, even on my painfully slow laptop. which is, in fact, in my lap because I am, in fact, in bed. and online. isn't life nifty? it's valentine's day, which is something I'm pretty ambivalent about. most people seem to either love it or hate it, but I just don't really interact with it at all. if my partner's into it, I'm fine with doing sweet things for each other, going to dinner, etc. otherwise, I tend to just kinda forget about it. I do remember this valentine's day when I lived in boston... which would have been... something like six years ago now. I made up my mind that that was the day I was going to ask out this girl I'd been flirting with for two weeks. she worked at this cafe a couple of blocks away from the AIDS service agency where I worked. she had a shaved head and she was -really- cute. and I was only going to be in boston for a couple more months, so it was kinda one of those now-or-never type things. and I wasn't so good at asking people out, back then. I mean, I don't know many people who actually are good at it, but nowadays I surprise myself, sometimes. I can be downright aggressive if you catch me in the right mood. back then, it terrified me. and I was fairly new to the world of dating girls. and she was -really- cute. I leaned on the counter and drank my coffee (which she never charged me for) and chatted with her and then finally I just leaped in and asked. I was so nervous my knees were buckling under me, and I was glad I had the counter to hold onto. the answer was "yes... but--" of course there was a but. she had a girlfriend. so we all started hanging out, all friendly-like. we went dancing and stayed out until four in the morning on a regular basis. there was more sexual tension in the air than I knew what to do with. and my last night in boston, she and the girlfriend spent the night at my house and gave me a deeply memorable going away present. she did, eventually leave the girlfriend. and did, eventually, move halfway across the country to be with me. her name was clare. we spent three years of our lives together. don't ask why this is on my mind right now. or, you can ask, but you won't get a straight answer. I should call clare. she lives up in washington state now, and she's having a baby in may. ozone and I didn't do anything for valentine's day. we didn't really see the point. we had one of our usual dysfunctional interactions in which the having of dinner became somehow very complicated and which culminated in my bursting into tears. and then dragged ourselves out to a lovely thai place, sabieng-- which is, incidentally, walking distance from our house... and continued what had already started as a depressing conversation, which culminated in ozone bursting into tears and crying into his red curry. so, you know, a day like any other. what's funny is that I'm really not feeling so bad. maybe that's partly because yesterday I finally finished that writing residency application I've been working on for days. I got positively high off of finishing that thing. and I realized, you know, it's been a while since I've felt like I've actually accomplished something. it really feels like my life is getting back on track. like I've been wandering through this fog for months and things are finally coming clear. someone I adore said something last week about "chopping wood and carrying water", and I just resonated like a rung bell. I realized, that's one of the things that's really been missing over the last few months. not like I need to have a JOB job, but I just need to, you know, chop wood and carry water. the simplest realizations can have the most profound effect.
(((rings))) |