Things about the people who I work with at Rainbow Acres Natural Food Store

“Fany, could you tell this customer how much the discount is for baby food, I have no idea.”
“Uh-haa.” She answers. I love the way she says it, not uh-huh, but uh-haa with a beautiful Latin accent.

Michelle is always laughing, I love that laugh, and it’s genuinely cheery and enough to make you feel a little better every time.

Jessica’s deep melancholy voice, sometimes a smile escapes, betraying her past which one can glimpse the details of on her forearms.

Richard went to Humboldt, is there anything more I have to say?

Jamal’s politically incorrect, oh so stereotypical Indian impersonations.

Is it Damien, Damen, pretty to look at but to “emo” to be worth the trouble, according to the girls, although Jessica seems to flounder in spite of herself.

Skinny Esteban always asks me questions, like “Do you like history?” “Do you read books?” broad sweeping statements that if answered with a yes or no would end the conversation, and if answered in too much length would take an hour.

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I pass the test. I met him with frazzled feelings, which developed within the twenty minutes of warning I had. It was awkward. I found myself retreating for something solid, some nook to park myself, and brace myself and hide myself, the way I do when I am overcome with shyness. I found my bed behind me; sitting cross-legged I wrapped my hand around the circle bars at the end of my bed. I told him random things, things that didn’t matter, things to make sure I didn’t talk about anything I wasn’t ready to say, things I didn’t want to regret later. In this way that fighting impulse to keep me driving towards that un-named reason for doing this all in the fist place emerged and stood there like ghost. Then it was time to leave, I was rushing off to dinner, off to my sisters, the moons that would soon rise above the concrete to show me. We hugged goodbye, and melted in to each other. I fought then, hard with my inner chemicals, which were blooming all over my body. My eyes grew wet anyways. And for fear of being noticed, I strangely rested my head in his chest. I pushed him away, saying, “I’m getting your shirt wet again”. I was feeling sickly about the way his sighing and breathing in my hair felt so familiar, and so good. After that I scrambled to hang out with him, just to see. To see what the heck I was going to do. How easily the feeling of wanting to be with him again, the way we had for two years, not even as friends not even in a relationship, but just next to each other. When we finally did, I went cheerfully, and then realized as I was talking and smiling and feeling genuinely good all of a sudden. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted, but then I found out I was prepared to go on the way I had made it. Not with him. The only strong feeling I had was how much I wanted to be his friend so deeply. He’s not ready I discovered. It was too much for him still; three weeks had not been enough, even though for me it was. Now I know I am ready to go on, ready to handle days on my own, but being around him brings back that wanting feeling again, and hugging him makes it even worse. But I can stagger away still strong with that unnamed conviction. Maybe eventually it will wither away completely. But I was rushing him, and now I am away for an unknown length of time, and who knows. I just know that I am not dying inside the way I was for months, and that I was mourning that whole time. But now I have fond remembrances, sad feelings the way you do when something has come and gone.

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Dream Of The Language Wheel
By Tom Robbins

Ancient elf bones
stewing in the rain,
Angels the size of fruitflies
circling a buddha turd,
Star maps drawn in lipstick
on the mud of walls of opium towers.

Images like those,
scenes sucha as these-

The red midgets of hell
challenge Suzy’s friends
to a snowball fight
Or
In the cave behind the waterfall
the ant king licks the clitoris
of the sleeping anthropologist.-

existing only on paper
are yet more important
than flags, bibles, gold,
guns and reputations.
So
throw off your armor of acronyms,
your layers of numerical padding
and
come bathe with me,
come slide beside me naked
into the world’s steamy honeycomb
of words.

(From Wild Ducks Flying Backwards The Short Writing of Tom Robbins, published in 2005 by Bantam Books)

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This post is the previous post re-written, or returned to its original format, if you get my drift. Sometimes I returned to the original writing and put it in there, unclean and revealing, other times I rewrote the issues all together.

I analyze daily. I’m trying to discover explanations for humanity. Perhaps it is only my humanity. Why I may feel the way about this sometimes doesn’t follow through on a similar issue, and so a lot of the time I have to rethink life over again. I find I am continuously finding new factors for things, psychological and socialized factors, that make me think, feel and act the way I do. Sometimes I wonder if I ever loved James the way I thought being in love way like. I loved him, have that I am sure. But it’s strange the longer I go the more I don’t feel like my heart was ever breaking about losing him, it was always more about losing the safety and breaking him. Movies seem to make these scenarios that I have yet to see happen with my own eyes.

There was an intense devotion between Grealy and Patchett, they were able to express themselves to each other because of their talent, and I think it only strengthened their relationship. They knew what they were saying to one another, and there was no need for testament of their devotion, because deep down they knew it was there always. Maybe that’s how I approached James. He was just a friend I used for my own needs, but always down there deep there was devotion and faith about the relationship we had. But it was never more then an exceedingly close friendship. I’m doing it again, analyzing.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t keep my friends close enough. When I get glimpses of what it is like to not be with friends I realize I don’t appreciate or try hard enough with the ones I have. Specifically Olga and Anna. Boys who are friends are an entirely different manner, for the most part. But I feel like that’s boring and I don’t want to write about it. But I always take for granted how entirely lucky we are be here, and that ever moment I let my friends not know that I am lucky to have them I am not thankful enough.

I want to be a person who writes long letters to distant friends about my life, letters about my romantic travels. But that is not me. I realize I want to be this floating wisp of summer dresses and tan skin covering a useful body, walking across lands so faraway. But it’s not me. People don’t have to write back. In fact I have the strangest feeling that I would want them to sit at home and fall in love with me. It may be a good time to say that I am writing this after a numerous amount of terrible beer and have just staggered in from being driven home by a notoriously awful driver who had also been drinking. Perhaps I am just floating above my chair. I want people to wish they were me sometimes. To be beautiful, unobtainable, unstoppable, unchain me.

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I’m reading Truth & Beauty by Anne Patchett; the strange thing is I sort of know the story from Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy. You see Grealy’s autobiography was published in 1994, and is the story of her life until that point. Patchett her best friend, later wrote Truth & Beauty about their friendship, and it includes all the events after Grealy’s autobiography leading up until her death in 2002. The point I have so elaborately taken time to explain is that I wish I had the power to write the way these women can. How does someone decide they can start a novel, a memoir? How could they possibly plan it? I think these books are about their lives, but more of a testament about how they write about their lives. In the end they are just people and everyone has just as much of a good life story as anyone else, it’s your ability to convey the stories in a different way then everyone else out there. If I were to write about my life, I would have to continuously take notes of what people said, looked like, what I did, where and when. I think that is a reflection of how much I would be worried about screwing up the details all that would most likely get in the way. My worries about what I was conveying untruthfully, in the end I would have a few sentences beaten to a pulp like chicken breasts about to be marinated. I suppose my lack of eloquence, vocabulary and lack of organization would eventually get in the way too. In fact I believe that I prefer to write short spurts about interesting and important things to me in a public forum, either in letters, emails, Blogs, Instant Messages, profiles and all the other technology driven things we do these days, because I don’t have to go on with it, and if I am missing something it’s excusable because it’s just some short piece. Also I find that I cannot express myself in talking as much as I can in writing, which could be positive and negative in many ways, and something I notice more and more.

I recently read Bill Bryson’s A Short History Of Nearly Everything, which was quite enjoyable, especially if you are into science but not wishing to delve into heavy-duty texts to get the information. He presents it with his usual wit, and brings it to a level that anyone could understand. However I found that most of what I was reading I have learned about in many general education courses at school. It just goes more deeply, talks about the who what where and how of the science and what it actually means. However the main idea is that we are very lucky to be here indeed, and take it for granted because ‘civilization’ and its recorded history has only been written during tranquil times of existence. Sometimes I was left mortified that an asteroid would collide with the earth, or an ice age would descend upon us, but tats the point, we aren’t used to thinking of these ideas.

In other news, all my pain and panic about my situation with James has subsided rather unexpectedly. However I still get that strange panicked disoriented feeling, where I realize I am alone and everyday I lose James more and more and he in turn is losing me, and the though of breaking his heart, and losing something safe still plagues me everyday. But now its sort of like a limp, the collision happened, I went through the pain, and now all that’s left is this limp which occasionally makes my body ache due to over compensation for it. Last night I genuinely had fun for the first time in Los Angeles. Don’t get me wrong I love spending days and days alone with minimal social contact from time to time, but last night I went out with a crowd I hardly see and it was refreshing and different then all the times before. Perhaps it was because I was alone, meaning not with my best girlfriends, I wasn’t going because it was an obligation, and I was single but not interested in anything to be had there. So I genuinely enjoyed myself without worrying about all the shit I generally tend to in my garden of anxious twelve story weeds I am always talking about.
I feel like I have tons more to write about, but this will do for now.

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I have so many moments interrupted by nauseated pain of disorientation. I expect to see someone sitting on my left, but all that’s there are windows. Olga says you have to mourn the end of relationships. She’s right. But I don’t know if I’m ready to mourn mine yet.

I finally did it, I cancelled WoW tonight, uninstalled it from my computer. And I had to so that I could move on either two paths, which are set before me. I haven’t the slightest clue which way to go, and I am so scared, and my face is so burnt with tears, I just want to forget all of this.

I just need to peer into the future, I need more time, I need to not be selfish, angry, I need to follow what I want for myself too though. I’m so sorry I don’t know, I’m so sorry I am putting you through this, I am so sorry…

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I flew alone to LA last night, leaving Humboldt County quickly, no slow death for me.

Past few weeks writings from oldest to most recent.

I’m at the Mad River today. The water looks like melted liquid malachite, gorgeous. It’s cold, running from the mountains. (Later I will walk by the mouth of the Mad at the beach, and wonder if the water is the same I swam in this day.) A breeze, not all together warm, sails through the ravine that the river has cut.

Colin drunk means many intriguing interrupted conversations on what me, what I want to do in life. The key here is me, not him. I leave here four days from now. For a while I was frightened, now I have an ache, but it’s old.

I’m reading “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson.

Tonight was the first time I asked myself if I was still “in love” with James in almost two years. I’ve asked myself in passing, the way one might ask if oneself if they like breathing, the answer of course is yes. But this night the answer was different. The answer was unclear. I do not know if I love him the way a lover or a girlfriend loves someone, meaning I am loving him as a friend, as an ex. Now I find myself selfishly missing the comfort of another body, a male presence in my life. It’s strange how much we’re coded to want that so terribly.

It’s amazing how utterly lovely I actually feel at this moment. It’s entirely new to me, entirely frightening. Soft sounds of Humboldt county float in my window. I am pining. Dreary fall drizzle, tight arms and hundred pound blankets. The next moment I am surely to feel lonesome again. Ah! Here it comes now. I imagine dark woods, the moon covered up, no stars circling. Probably mumblings of anxiety, related to the decisions I have made. Decisions I thought could be altered if it came to it. But it seems the longer I leave them, the deeper the indent, eventually a hole will be gaping there. As I had predicted in my shelter, my shield, my chains only a few months back now, that if I wandered this other path alone, for too long, the distance between James’ and mine would grow too great. It has. In my limited experience I thought that it was impossible to let go of someone to the degree that I have let go of James, I gave myself the time and the parameters to do so, and it is just going on naturally.

“If I wasn’t with you, I would be a flight attendant”, spoken by large breasted, annoying voice of fellow plane passenger.

Good-bye Humboldt, I didn’t cry.

I’m working on my Chaco tan…I’ve turned into a Humboldt Count poser. I drove around LA today and already I am weary of it. At home in my old room I am strangely at ease, maybe I am numb.

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