He'd say things like: I remember those days, when you'd be walking home from class, with your long black hair and your cute little beantown baseball cap. And we'd just be screaming at you from the balcony, "Hey! Hey, want some suds?" 

In Madrid, one afternoon he took me to drink claras in the gay neighborhood. We went to meet his drug dealer, Ignacio, who was an American. He grew psilocybin mushrooms in fishtanks in his livingroom. We got high and listened to hip hop all afternoon, watching the tranny prostitutes bicker in the street below.

Once we went to watch the Real Madrid game at an old people bar. We had taken a nap that day in your awful, narrow bed. We woke sweaty and angry with each other. The bar was thick with smoke and the barkeeps wore bowties and vests and poured cider into glasses held at their waists from way over their heads. They rang cowbells. You took me to the greatest place, La Via Lactea, where they played Wanda Jackson and we danced all night.

My family raised two Woody Allen daughters. I guess they couldn't really help it, but there it is. Most assuredly I am a concoction, but most closely aligned with Holly from Hannah and Her Sisters. And I'm not just saying that because she ends up being a great writer and shacking up with a little nebby Jew, although that might subconsciously have something to do with it. Because the tension at work has lifted, since we've both been hired for equal time and equal pay, we're able to more freely psychoanalyze each other. We confessed our bungled adolescence the other day, how we became too sexual too soon, and how it may or may not have put ourselves at odds with our mothers. We had a really great time last weekend. It was one of those legendary nights that happen with alarming infrequency as I get older. ( Probably a good thing. ) After Friday's plummeting loneliness of all of my acquaintances and their companions and talking perhaps overlong about the fellow I'm interested in, my discourse having been fueled by a few too many sidecars, I trudged back to my vehicle in abject despair and drove home agitated and uncarefully. So Saturday was a boon, even though as late as 8 PM I was grumbling about how I hated my life, that fatal phrase—and my first use of it since the Real Dark Days of ATX. I drove out to have homemade gumbo with my coworker, her gays, and her cajun boyfriend. We took shots and it was decided that I was staying there for the night. We went out to see a country show and I learned a how to two-step a little bit. My immediate supervisor was there and alerted me to the Old Fellow's sudden an unexpected appearance. My heart froze. I had napkins stuffed in my ears, probably reeked of whiskey and was a little more unkempt than I would have liked, but I crossed deliberately in his line of vision to order a drink, and before I had completed the transaction he was behind me, asking me out.

A night of triumph. We parted ways, mostly because we were each awkwardly with a separate group of friends. Also it was so crowded it would have been impossible to talk. I saw him sneak a couple of cigarettes; this comforted me. After the show he tried to bid me farewell but I was snuggled up closely dancing with my coworker's cajun treat, so it seemed that I was otherwise popular and well occupied with men. I felt bad about deflecting him, but it might have done me a good turn—he mentioned how "popular" I was later in the week, on the telephone.

We closed the night by dancing in cages at The Gay Bar, which was really just a horrible half-decorated warehouse space with separate rooms. There was a decent drag show and I gave some money to Whitney Houston. There was nearly a fight in the womens' restroom, but I was secured safely in a stall and I have no idea. I fell asleep in the car on the way back and had a spare bedroom all to myself. Old Fellow telephoned as early as Tuesday and we had a really wonderful conversation that lasted for over an hour, at the end of which he politely declared his utter emotionally unavailability which lead to a breathless awkward pause for me, soon recovered, and some little disappointment. We set a date for Saturday. He was going out of town to DC, his favorite place on earth. That might be a bad sign.

Now he's stuck in DC until tomorrow, at least. I have a ton of work to do, I'm trapped at home in this ice storm, luckily still with power. I don't have all of the materials I need to meet all of my deadlines this upcoming week but in all likelihood they'll be pushed back a day. He telephoned me from the airport with just an out-and-out raincheck, postponed indefinitely, due to our respective work-catching-up and other inconveniences of snow days. Thursday I made my debut as a judge for the statewide battle of the bands contest. I sat on a panel, ate and drank for free. My handwriting, I fear, became more whiskey-slurred and serial-killerish by the end of the night: none of my wittier comments were farmed for the results blog post, probably due to sheer illegibility. Guess I should be more conscious of that in the future. Anyway, it's a blast, and good exposure. I gave my phone number out to one of the fellows who writes for the weekly, a college pal of Old Fellow's, but someone I might like to carry on with in the future, providing Old Fellow turns out to be as much of a pussy as a girlfriend predicts. I stayed out way too late, sat at a table of men and held forth adorably. It was good. I woke too early the next morning feeling wretched, only to be assured I didn't need to go into work. I would like to think that maybe, just maybe my fuckall, hapless Tom-Reagan-luck has returned. Maybe my penance is up, but I shouldn't bet too soon.

I can't tell you how it is. This past week was wretched and exhausting. We would be out doing radio spots at 6, 7, 8 AM. By Friday morning, I didn't want to be around her anymore. We had an hour and a half to kill before work so I just went to Waffle House in the rich part of town and read Infinite Jest. An old crusty trucker guy asked me if I was "studying hard." He thought it was a textbook. I read to console myself these days. It's at least something to make me feel productive in a moment of despair. Certainly does that thing that impulsive movie-watching doesn't do.

Last year when I was going through a break up I read The Heart of the Matter and Brideshead Revisited. I also read two books about Chicago, a famous one about America's first serial killer and one about the wealthiest whorehouse in the Levee District. I swam in brandy. I grew so frustrated with friends who weren't around to commiserate with me. Then I realized that it's not being any more alone than before, it's just part of adulthood. Your friends aren't always at your disposal to prop you up and drag you down the street when you've drunk too much and you're saying embarrassing things about your ex and trying to make a bad decision. Or, they're not around for you to make out with when needed and just put a temporary bandage on whatever it is you want fixed.

I was stirred around 2:30 AM, the night before the event. I thought my friend might be drunk, so I didn't answer the phone the first three times she called. She was sobbing. They'd been in a fight. Everything was over. It sounded horrible. I sat up and talked to her for about thirty minutes. She was distraught, but these people were supposed to get married, and this kind of thing was so uncharacteristic of them. I just held out hope. My gut twisted just thinking about how awful it is breaking up as adults. When you share a life, a pet, years. It gets harder and harder, I think. They're okay, though. I spoke to her yesterday. Things seem to still be in place.

The event was a huge success. We raised enough money to pay for our next event. There was a great turnout. I even got to dance. We ran everywhere emceeing, because the editor was sick and didn't want to do it. About 60% of my job, I'm aware, is on account of the fact that we're like hot cocktail waitresses. The whole editorial staff believes we can get what we want and do everything because we're young, smart, and attractive. It's been true so far, I must admit. We'll see about the rest.

The Publisher was quite impressed. He told us so several times over. Hopefully this means I can stay. The only reason I'm nervous about staying now, especially after all this bullshit and rigmarole with Smug, is because the older boring guy has perked up again. I thought I'd be a grown up and Jane Austen this shit out, and wait for a month to see if I ran into him at our event. But he didn't show. So I wrote to him, I'd promised myself it would be the last time I contacted him. He responded immediately, apologetically, and says he wants to have a coffee. We'll see. But wouldn't it be just awful to meet someone you like a month before you have to leave ? This always happens.

Smug has been a complete bullshitter. He won't leave me alone. Every time I talk to him, he's angry and incredulous. I have to outline the terms of this break up over and over again. How is it that women can handle the rejection, women feel sorry for themselves, they curl up and stay silent, they're so terrified of accidentally contacting the other person, or running into them, or seeming too desperate and pitiful, but men are so obnoxious with their grief ? They blame it on you, every day. They call you up to tell you what they think of you, not realizing it's too fucking late and my heart has dried up behind steel girders ages ago. He alternates cheaply between insulting me and trying to garner sympathy. He's such a feeble fucking manipulator. For shame. He says things like, "You're never going to meet anyone like me." And I can't help but think, "Good." Then I think, "What ? You really have no idea how little esteem I have or ever had for you ?" Fucking deluded. Ego is a friendless affliction.

Certainly I don't owe him this much. He dumped me in the most cruel and inopportune of circumstances ( my truck was in the shop from a car wreck, for Christ's sake ) and didn't so much as bat an eye or reach out to me. Why the fuck am I obligated to babysit his mental health ? Men are fucking infants, and if I don't fall in love with another good one soon, I swear to God I'm going to start eating them.

I promised my friend I'd write an essay on Shampoo for his zine. I think that's probably something I have to knock out today. I also have to pitch a feature for my second job, and I have no fucking idea. It's been a painful task, even pretending to brainstorm.

Saturday night when I was a little drunk, I volunteered to sell merch for the last band. I sat around talking to my publisher friend instead, trying to explain to him where I need to go with my career. He was asking me very direct questions about what I feel my greatest strengths are, and what I would find most rewarding. First thing's first: it might just be an affect of youth, but I think I'm a pretty damned fast learner. I pretty much need to ever be in a situation once to figure out exactly how to handle it in the future. If I do otherwise, it's likely out of ennui and I'm fucking around with people in that near-psychopathic way that women sometimes do for no reason, really. Secondly: I want to teach. I care about young people. I think it's an occupation that fuses my strange big-sisterly instinct with my performance gene. I descended from preachers, teachers, and salesmen, after all. I kept saying, in earnest, thrusting out my cigaret-adorned fingers, "I care about young people. I do, I really do." 

All I do is sleep, watch movies, masturbate, eat, read. I involve myself very little with others. I read two books in two days this weekend. I make a date with myself every week to go have a decaf coffee and read The New Yorker cover to cover. Once the movies at the dollar theatre get better, I will skulk about like T. Bickle watching bad shit from in between my fingers. I'm like a man possibly more than ever now.

I found something I wrote about Vic Chestnutt earlier this year, for work:

"I hate Vic Chestnutt. He’s an evil man. He’s like an instant powder that you can add to a mixed tape to make a girl take you seriously, and even ten years later when she’s aware that you were just trying to get in her pants, she hears that song and it still makes a pang in her heart. I guess because the song at least contains a sentimentality of its own. Way to give the boys more ammunition, Vic Chestnutt, you sorcerer of Sad Bastardness."

This was something indirectly written about my latest, suit-wearing crush, but even that is waning now. It was only a matter of time. It was only a matter of time before my hot desire dried up like a stone. I've got a lot of work. I bought Infinite Jest finally and I think I might pretend that 2010 is the year to read it. I haven't had a drink or a cigarette since 2 January, and I haven't missed it. This Saturday will be like a country ball and I'll be like the hostess. I must not get too drunk. Who am I kidding; I know I won't. I have to appear on local early morning television tomorrow, then on two different morning radio shows. Then I have to get cheesy pictures taken for the weekly paper. I'm judging their statewide battle of the bands for the next several weeks. I've become temporarily obsessed with my last boyfriend. I wonder if I'll keep doing that after each of my non-relationships implodes. I wonder if it's like I'm still exploiting his kindness, even from afar, such the villain I am. Or I wonder if I will still want him again one day. I wonder if I might still end up with him. But only abstractly, only when I'm driving at home after dark in the cold clean night and I have no better things of think of.

It occurs to me, standing over the kitchen sink washing my dishes from dinner, that I have been looking for him my whole adult life. Little incarnations of him. I'd think in Paris, "Oh, how smart he is, he's just like that," or lately "Oh, the way he poses with his hand under his chin so fake-pensively, that's just like him." But it wasn't, and I slept with them anyway. When I was drunk and confessed that he'd informed the basis of my man-standards, most of my attraction, it wasn't an exaggeration. Maybe I've always been crazy about him. I'd never thought about it before. I remember that time in Memphis when we stood and looked in the window of the cat adoption store, overhairy obese cats lying about in all formations in the storefront and so squalid you could smell the piss from outside of the glass. It's like the promise of such sweet perfection is actually just poison. I'm going to put my now-thick and righteous hair into a perky ponytail like an Anna Karina heroine. But my face is like a mysterious man's. I'm loving this longing thing. I pine and pine all day just like before and fall asleep to Wim Wenders or Preston Sturges films before ten o'clock. I'm going to a show in Memphis later this month in order to see my old boyfriend. I simply do not know how I'll keep myself off of him. He just sent me an album that made me half-fall in love for a moment. [ Smug made me a mix over the holiday and all the way home I just loved it in pretending it was from someone else. How positively vile of me. ] Could it be that only he has the power to fix me ? But I want the other one. The powerful one. One can be a balm and one can be an agitator. I leaned over the table and said, "I keep a coterie of men who adore me." Then I looked down and said, "Usually when I say that I point to the middle of my palm." He laughed, and laughed. Mercy, this man. I hope I can shake it soon.

This morning was like a movie. My boss and coworker drove up to me, while I waited in the snow, black-clad and cast against the thin whiteness. Long coat, leather gloves, black hat, red scarf. When I crouched inside the car he said, "You must know how dashing you look." And she said, "You look like you're waiting to catch the night train from St. Petersburg to Moscow." I felt a little Pasternakian. I felt a little like someone had written me to be there.

Except, of course, there was an implicit rendezvous, which was addressed, but not real. I'm drowning in Crushland. I think I may have parted my lips a little too suggestively at the sixty-one-year-old attorney we're trying to beg for money. He's tall and has brown eyes. A sense of humor. I can't help it. Liked a starved woman, like the town nympho in a Fellini movie, groaning like a stray in heat. When the truth is, I've been satiated and serviced. Why can't I stop myself ? What is wrong.

The break was good, long and long. There was no time when I hated my family. Smug sent me a love letter every day. I hung on the telephone, laying on my bedspread like a teenager, for hours trying to dissuade him. He said he was going to buy me a toy; marry me. When I broke up with him again, again, he said he'd wanted to "wife me up,"--and tried to sound so overly cynical as if to wound me with the grave unlikelihood of his woundedness. Fuck actors. I care about him in some way. I love his body. Otherwise he's not enough for me. He was a shit for too long, and I retained those grooming lessons from my professor friend who passed through town. He instructed me how to be a perfectly pert little cunt, always getting what I want and never giving too much away. I knew at that time it was my last chance to learn the game, to really learn it, before I missed my whole opportunity to be a normal composed woman, who is only two characters instead of three, who crosses her stockinged legs and removes her high heels at the right time, who doesn't communicate after not being communicated with, who seduces intelligently and with restraint, who is actually a grown person.

I confess, I fell in love again for two days. Then I fell again with someone else entirely. I know better, I know that it's a person who is better off informing my taste in men rather than being the one I need. But I choose to need him until I don't need him anymore. I told him all of this as we sat drunkenly arm in arm. I doubt he remembers. And I'm sure he doesn't feel this way about me, we can't both be teenagers again. Distance and transience are beginning to feel like a strangling thing. Beginning to feel like a cord tied to my tongue, that keeps me from having the things I think I want and excusing me from harmless distraction like a rude beast's choke-collar. I don't have enough water in my life. I have too much pork. I am ready to have my job. No one believes I should move to Chicago. I traipsed around town importantly in heels like the richest woman around, except for the attorney's wife. She looked at me in a challenging way, with examination. Perhaps I always sat a little too close to her husband. ( It doesn't matter, there's no love there. ) The death of the Mississippi Delta whitely dusted, yellow ditches filled with grey frozen mud and nothing. I looked up and pointed to the bleakness and clear nothing of the sky and said, "This is what I like about Mississippi."

Still exercising fake composure, great restraint. I weigh less than I thought I did. Nothing has happened except Smug's come a-courting extra hard since I left town. I told him I thought I was using these two weeks off to get my mind right. Then after we spoke on the phone I had that awful song "Two Weeks" stuck in my head. Not the Scott Walker one. I asked him why and he said, "It's because you love me but you don't want to." On the nose, maybe.

I had a dream about committing arson at the mall I didn't work at. I spent the rest of the dream loathing myself and preparing for the moment of apprehending. The next night I had a sexual fantasy about seducing my coworker against her will while she slept in the room adjacent to mine. I'd held her down by her wrists. When we got up in the morning I had to wipe the incriminating sex-fog from my brow.

The old bore never showed up as expected. It's enough to make me understand he's not that interested and it doesn't matter the fancy impression I make on him when we're in interlocking social circles. Maybe he really doesn't want a weird girl with tattoos. Perhaps he's running for public office. Do I want to live out the fantasy of having his over-six-foot well-coiffed frame approach mine from behind while we gaze over the pitiful city he will never leave from our austere tenth-story window at night, the river whipping its cold hopelessness into the night forever ? Yes, I want that. But for god's sake not there.

But I don't know if I want Smug, either. We agreed to have sex and then revoked it. I can no longer tell if I'm a shell of a human or more mammalian than ever before. I feel sexless, wise, eyes ice cold and mouth set like a soldier's. I've had an unfairly fueled fantasy or two about married acquaintances. Smug said something about marriage, out of nowhere. Who ever is so foolish to approach me about marriage--but it's what I want. I keep thinking if someone just threw down the Gauntlet of Marriage then maybe I'd been too cowardly to refuse it. I know those aren't the reasons to get married, but therein lies some mythology about the person brave enough to challenge me to marriage might be actually be bold enough of a man to handle me. Sigh, but I know that's not possible. I know I haven't met my match yet, no matter how much he worms his little digits into my heartflesh. I feel too much to feel anything. Did I say I care ?

I broke up with him. He was boring. He was balding. I think he'd grown balder since we'd been dating. He was going to age badly, he wasn't as funny as he thought. We're still going to be friends, I think. I hate all those whores he associates with. They have real jobs and could have real lives but all they do is behave like undergraduates who work at the mall. I showed a picture of his ex to my coworker and she said it looked like Frances McDormand.

The problem with that is: I think men secretly find Frances McDormand attractive. What she meant, I think, is that the chick looks middle-aged.

What really happened is that we tried to have a normal weekend where we stayed in. My other editor was having a huge Christmas party on Saturday night and I felt very important about this. Instead: he insists on going out to that horrible shit dive ( as in, not even a suitable shit dive ) on Friday, where all of the girls who he's fucked or who gossip live like roaches, and I humor him. He gets fucked up beyond belief, completely without any regard for the fact that I wanted to be in top shape for the big party. He pisses and moans the whole evening before the party. He postpones our departure over and over. I don't care if he had made me dinner--it wasn't really that good. I had been to a lovely Jewish wedding, had a glass of wine, socialized with lesbians, and still retained excitement for this party. He was such a bitch. We fought on the street on the way to the front door. When we walked inside there were so many grown folks and it was really crowded. I was too shy to speak to anyone. My editor paid me, in advance, for a piece I hadn't written yet, on a show that I attended quite drunk.

I was a bit nervous about that, too. I had some whiskey. As soon as the crowd thinned and I noticed that some interesting men wanted to talk to me I blew him off. I became the kind of girlfriend I was at twenty. I ignored the shit out of him. I was embarrassed of him. I was too busy being enjoyed.

There was this tall fellow I'd seen at an issue release party. I'd had such a crush on him that I'd spied his name on the register. He has a name like a rich person, and he looks like a tall Russian jew. I had seen him a few times since then and it was like an old movie. I was sitting at a table with work acquaintances, and old Smug, sitting very properly and enjoying this band at this venue, and one of the girls nudged me and he was standing right there, against the wall. I looked up at him, hard and wide, with big sappy eyes wet with wonderment. He noticed me of course. He also noticed I was sitting with a man. He walked away.

Then he was at this Christmas party. He was wearing a red sweater over a white button-down shirt. I hit on this girl and she responded by introducing me to her husband. We became fast friends. I latched onto her arm, and she and I wandered around the party together. She knew this fellow. She and I were sitting alone outside and he came up to us. Without much introduction, I told him I'd had a crush on him for two weeks. I told him his name. I asked him what he did, he said he was a documentarian. Bah, another filmmaker ! What's the use in resisting ? He works for some state nonprofit. He records oral histories and whatnot. He seems like he might be quite a boring guy but that detracts not from his immediate adorableness. He dresses like a dad. He looks like a husband. He has a goofy smile. He is the same age as my ex who I love but is a child. There was an awkward moment where I admitted I had a boyfriend and not very enthusiastically. My new companion urged me to break up with him, in front of the new gent. "I don't know anybody else," I said quietly, looking at my lap.

I hoped that I portrayed myself as an ephemeral highschool freshman confessing an open secret to the star quarterback. Not as a sloppy woman. I did breathlessly apologize once. He ate it up, I'm sure.

I don't even have a ride from the airport. He still owes me money. I think Conrad Veidt is so sexy; I can't help it. I dropped Hanukkah gelt down my editor's wife's cleavage. My coworker said, "I love you because most kids are rich and they go to college and become artists and try to be punk and authentic, but you came from a punk background and now all you care about is being rich." And it's true. I very, very much want to be rich. I'll marry rich if I have to, someone I don't love. I'm no good at it all anyway.

We can't quit. It's like a joke. It's like a dimenovel story about any fool-woman in a torturous relationship. This is how I feel about torture. He invites me out to do things because he knows there's no one else who can hold conversation like I can, there's no woman he could hang out with now who he wouldn't, at some point, become embarrassed of or frustrated with (limited intelligence-wise). We go out to the cheap theatre. We obsessively watch, discuss, recommend films. We try to teach other but the other is usually too stubborn. He invites me out for pitchers at the pizza place with a couple of his friends I have never met, one of them is apparently a comic genius but a rather small-town condescending kind of fellow. The other is training as a sommelier, which I have an active interest in, and so I'm perfectly delightful. I step out for a smoke and meet a really nice girl who works for a non-profit healthcare organization. I introduce myself as a failed writer with an expressed interest in grant-writing. She writes down her email on a hotel key card envelope and we shake hands, all this in front of Smug, who asks me about her immediately. I don't know why he asks, other than that she's attractive. He's the one who taught me how to network. He invites me out for a smoke and we go to the back, where no one ever goes, and he puts his face close to mine. We end up kissing. I knew it. No resisting. I'm unbearable. We tell each other we like each other. It feels good.

We go to a show at another bar and all of the usual local luminaries are there. I see my editor from the weekly and his wife, he toasts me informally on the success of the issue finally getting out. I compliment one of his pieces. Although I have met her before, his wife is amazing-looking. She's like Theda Bara with a long neck and a bob. Her nose is like Jordanian royalty. What a creature. Too bad she's painful to speak to. I see one of the fellows from the band I got into the issue, and he gives me a hug. He is recently engaged, and his fiancee is there, showing off her rock. I congratulate her. She has a lovely home.

Smug is bored so we finish our drinks in the next room, face to face. I apologize for the way I've acted recently; he apologizes. He tries to explain some things. He says the last time he masturbated he ended up thinking about me. I told him I masturbated today in the bathroom at the auto shop while my truck was being serviced. I said, I didn't mean to care about you this much. I said, I can't help but thinking there's a reason we're so compelled to each other, and I touched the scar on his forehead. He said he had a nightmare about our baby. He could see inside its ear and its face looked like his face. He said, it's because we're supposed to learn things from each other. We shouldn't torment each other anymore, but we probably will. He will probably throw another tantrum. I will probably lock myself in the bathroom crying again. I will probably tremble. I don't know what we'll do when I go back to Texas, or anywhere. I'm not thinking about that. I can't help myself. He's sleazy and disgusting, his hometown nickname is "Dirty." I always date guys with the worst nicknames. He excused himself to go to the restroom and came back, smoking a cigarette. With his greasy curls matted to his head, his uneven, coarse facial hair, and his Vince Gallo-style rust-colored, fake Members Only jacket, he looked absolutely dreamy. What's my fucking problem. He was visibly charmed by the fact that I went to the movies by myself Thursday night. He doesn't know what to do about me.

Okay. Okay. All right all right all right. It's getting to the point. It's getting the point where it sounds like I should be doing mounds of blow and screwing guys in squalid bathrooms at bars. You can think of that scene of Sharon Stone in the nightclub in Basic Instinct, but really with a little pyramid of urine-soaked tissue beneath you. I typically listen to more electronic music in the winter, which makes no sense, but it's been a pretty obviously sustained addiction now. Easily since December of last year. I can't quit.

I want to go back to Texas. I can't wait to go back to Texas. Even if I don't stay, even if I get a job somewhere weird and small, I will still have a glorious damned spring.

I want a book deal and a literary agent. I can do this. I know now that I can do this. Not to say that after my first national publication I am totally inflated, rather, I am driven. I know now I can handle this shit. This is what I'm going to be doing.

My body has been unpleasant, in part because of stress, I'm sure. Smug and I started dating again, for about five days. It didn't last. The first two days were great, the third went South, then Saturday the evening was bookended by two completely separate fights about equally obnoxious things that actually weren't my fault. His behavior. We were in some bitches' house to watch the fight and they didn't even acknowledge me. It was hostility. It wasn't perceived anything. When I asked him about this, he got defensive and told me I was being a smalltown cunt. Just the opposite. I walked away and drove myself home.

Do you know what I really need ? A young, very sexy boy. Who boffs like crazy, goes out like 3-4 nights a week. I'm aware these are things I have mostly grown out of, but those are the things I seek to amuse myself. I don't have to always go out with him, but when I want to go out, he should want to go out, too. Without hesitation. Especially if we're in a place as fucking boring as this.

The men in the 27-36 age bracket are not grownups. Most of them do not have established careers. They're not even close; they're just overgrown versions of their 23-year-old selves. They're just lazier, fatter, balder, hairier, meaner, more entitled, etc. I'm just tired of settling. I've never been this attractive in my life. Why do my suitors get uglier ? This is absurd.

I want to date someone stupider than I am. In dating older men, they often desire a woman of comparable intelligence, but can't stand her when they realize she doesn't worship them. This has always been the problem. If I were dating younger men, sure, my physical insecurities might flare up again, but then again, they might look up to me, or treasure me. I'm not sure if any of these theories are valid. In keeping with that promise I made myself, I will just do what men do. Date hot bimbos in their early twenties until it becomes socially offensive and I'm compelled to marry someone my own age. Do what the men do.

We were at work until 530 this morning working against the deadline. While waiting to proof corrections, we curled up on the sofa like chicklets at a slumber party and watched the beginning of Limits of Control. My editor gave me an Arthur Russell biography to review for the website. We were slap-happy, sharing a mug of green tea and a chocolate bar, a cigarette. Not sure what to do, but lingering like little couriers, dawdling till the next assignment. It somehow didn't feel abusive. I'm indebted, frankly. What more do you want to know ? I can't really say anything bad.

You're a rocker, you're a slag, you're a teacher, you're a politician, and I'm a scribbler. We have lots in life. I got just what I came out here to find. A good toe-hold.

Halloween is never fun for me. I don't know if that impression has been made, but I honestly haven't enjoyed one at least since 2005. And I think that one was only fun because it was three days of friends in town, an onslaught of parties, no real costumes, all culminating in our going to see Gogol Bordello while I was pantless, dressed like what was supposed to be a Roman slaveboy. The things I did at twenty-one.

Last night, after fretting all day and half-heartedly attempting to cheer myself up, Smug finally called me and invited me over to his house. I purchased a bottle of wine of which he hardly partook. We watched Candyman on the computer and at one point I warmly turned to him and said it was turning out to be a really good Halloween. The burden of some stressful news sent him over the edge early on, before I was even around, and a moment of sentimentality from me ( and not even directed at him ) lead to brief kissing. And whilst kissing, he broke up with me.

The normal stages: I got mean. I told him I didn't have any feelings for him. He embarrassed me. He was going to get back together with his ex and never have the courage to leave town. He was stupider than me, his stunts were bush league. He's a failure, a flake.

But then I realized how futile and unbecomingly desperate it is to argue yourself out of a breakup twice. So I shut myself in his bathroom and sobbed like a saint, murmuring, "I wish I never met you," and other such nothings. He cried too, a little bit. He was at times a self-absorbed asshole. He said that he had felt like he was in love with me, but his real-life dilemmae have blocked any further capability of romantic love. He felt like he was being unfair to me, because I'd expressed that I was growing feelings for him.

Okay: which was bullshit. I mean, of course I probably loved him somehow, but the thing I have learned is that I at least know when it is that I love totally and when I am just loving for the sake of love, which happens often. I like being in love; it becomes me. I like having men around to worship and dote, I like having sex whenever I want to with someone I care about, I like pampering someone who deserves it. But I know the damned difference between sincere heartbreak and hurt pride, being duped, feeling like somebody's mark taken out, some sweet rube girl at the mercy of a feelingless Binx Bolling; hell, maybe I am Binx Bolling. Anyhow, brother: that wasn't love. That was just feeling like a chump. It was being rejected by the first person you've liked in quite a long while, and someone that you knew you were kind of just settling for to pass the time, and even though they simply won't do for the longhaul, they undo before you. That's what smarts your cheek and makes you want to lock yourself in a vehicle you can't drive and call up every man who still loves you and actually knows. Though I only called one, and he was the perfect one to talk to.

There's a whole new element to this relationship business that I've developed with age. On one hand, I feel like the caliber of men I attract has decreased enough for me to be a little concerned: maybe I'm not as hot as I previously was, maybe I'm too picky, maybe I'm just old news and my social currency has wavered. But really, I know that I carry myself with sexual agency, amusing intelligence, politeness and certainly, above all things, an emotional composure I was sorely lacking as a flailing twenty-year-old beer-spitting thing. And I will continue to age well, as my parents are aging well. I know what I deserve and what I need and these shouldn't be mutually exclusive things. So why is it that all of my exes are such sexy lively things and every guy I meet is like a pale flicker of their handsomeness and vitality? In many cases, I would be embarrassed to bring some round the others, honestly. And embarrassment, in any capacity, is grounds for immediate dispatch. You simply cannot ever be embarrassed of your partner. It's horrible.

But having lived these few months with an old maid, I know I could not become one. I thrive on the companionship and affection. I need a sounding board for my ideas and paranoid delusions, if left alone I will be in significant danger of convincing myself that I'm right all of the time. And then I will be so insufferable and disgusting absolutely no one will want me. I'm never going to get fat or sloppy because I'm too vain, but I'm sure I could become mighty annoying in my lonesomeness.

The best advice I've received so far is from the publisher-friend at work. We don't work in the same office but we've found ways of passive communication and so forth. One day this week I woke with such a profound desire to see him and when I entered the building he walked out of the door of the first office and met me in the hallway, while I shook my umbrella. We're psychically connected like that. I do actually believe that our souls, if we have any left, are akin. He said so first, actually. I asked him if he and his wife would adopt me. He said it should be easy to adopt a twenty-five-year-old, he'd look into it. He says I remind him a lot of himself. I feel compelled to tell him anything. He assured me that I won't be alone forever, but with my isolating, diesel-powered intensity, it's best for me to wring it all out during my twenties. Basically, he says I have no business pretending I want to be in a serious relationship until I'm in my thirties. And then I should find someone whose personality is my complement ( my ex, for instance—which was the very problem at the time, his being ready to live like married people and my fear thereof ) and settle down. I believe everything he says; he told me jokingly that he was my everything. He's a good person. When we drunkenly walked the streets of Nashville I could feel his wedding ring pressing boldly into my fingers.

And all that being said, I like suffering. It also becomes me.

Today, to the day, is the year anniversary of my breakup. The worst of my life. I still don't know. I drove around today in the cold slashing rain, insisting subconsciously, silently, almost robotically on listening to the most emotionally wrought and intimate music my truck had to offer. Much of it was from this time. I had no control of my wrist as it flicked each number on the box, each sadder than the last. I tried to work on my article but it was tepid. Arthur Russell makes me think of him. Curtis Mayfield makes me think of him. Boards of Canada's entire corpus makes me think of him. I had a life with someone who was beautiful and I ruined it all by myself. I don't know if I've enjoyed being tough ever since. Something about this music makes me instinctually want to crawl onto my sofa, armed with a goblet of brandy with lemon and sugar. Leave the house only once a week. Smoke too many clove cigarettes indoors and watch nothing but 90s erotic thrillers. Scott Walker while napping. Totally vacant of any self worth, deservedly. Cracking up only to the point of a normal, well-adjusted person's development of a sense of humor. I will never love anyone the way that I loved you. And that still wasn't even enough.

Sure, in all likelihood I perversely enjoyed the devastation. My only regrets involved the usual: friend-abuse. I don't do that shit anymore, that's for sure. How am I ever going to forget him. That lovely coasting cygnet of a man. Everything I get I deserve. I almost want to vomit at the truth of this, and the pain. Today I went to the doctor for the last time and they said my pregnancy has definitely passed. A gift replaced to the hands of its giver.

I'm on the beat again tonight. This little spooky blues band from Seattle. Smug and I had a good conversation last night. The girls at work had been getting at me, telling me I've got to be forward about my secret sprawling sexuality. I dreaded telling him, because it's worse than being gay. No one except the whole of France believes the things I believe, and I don't want a fey Frenchman. I want an American boy who's a natural expert at football and a good dogowner. So the conversation went down, and we struck a fairly sexist compromise: I can still make out with girls. When I told Red she said, "What would Dan Savage say to that, now ?" And I knew exactly what he would say. I suppose that's lame. I don't think I'll struggle quite as much as before. As Smug said, "I think I've got that shit on lockdown." And that, right there, that confidence, is what I want more than anything.

Deficit. Hungry for junk. Just hungry. I need my ladyfriends. Red and I talk on the phone almost too much. We talk nearly every day in some capacity. I daydream about Austin. I know I was holed up in the flower-teemed guest bedroom of my parents' place all summer, but if you looked in my dreams you would see me at the greatest endless danceparty wearing naught but a bikini and a pair of sunglasses. What a laughable child I am. In real life, I sunbathed semiweekly and my body looked good. I did yoga in the Texas backyard one hundred-plus degree afternoon weather. I thought today if there was a way I could only summer in Austin, like an ancient fake tradition of pallid, bromide New Englanders. It is truly the only place I want to be in the summertime. Everyone is gorgeous. There's a lake and a frozen pond. You can drink and picnic. You can walk, ride a bike or the bus. Everyone is so nice. No one ever says anything. Nothing of value. "Things are great." 

I think I'm not actually an editor, I'm just a scribbler. I'm the detective. I lie and make two-point-five million facial expressions. Every time I move it's just a diversion. I'm behind the scenes. I straighten the bottles but I don't clean up messes, only my own. I have the single golden-egg profound thought. You provide the velvet pillow. I keep an ego in my shirtpocket, like a handkerchief. But I want to stack it below your ego, a cornerstone. You can be the public persona. I want to be the curious genius.

He's okay with this because he says I must have always been this way. It's not like I'm trying something new. I suppose it's funny to wake up from a playdate-long dream of drunklife only to understand that your destiny is in fact the only talent you've ever had.

But I've got to get dressed for this thing. This weekend there is a party on a boat that floats down the city-river. The biggest thing Hamtown is missing is a river, or any centralized body of water. Water of dying Industry. And I'm sure it would outflame the Cuyahoga because everything is putrid in our city. And yet I think about it almost daily. I've never been in a position where my worldliness depended actually on that city. Shaking an old man's hand and talking football. The city where my grandparents lived. Don't ever deny your Southernness, because someone will fetishize you for it one day. When I was hanging out with the band Smug studied me forever while we talked about drunk friends and impossibly forgotten parties. He sat back and said, "You are Southern. Must be what I like about you." That Midwestern twat.

I have always loved Midwestern twats.

I think living in cold houses has a natural detriment to my spirit. I wake up with this small coal of fear, perhaps of knowing that this man doesn't have any feelings for me. All I wanted were some feelings. And I long for the deep companionship and simple desire to enjoy each other's company that I had in my last relationship. It was effortless, and this one is at times like a fucking hourly-wage job. There's more warmth in an exchange of two text messages with my ex than hours of sofa-sitting with my boyfriend. I cannot stop talking. I need a drink, and I can't drink for a week.

I'm not in pain, but I'm starting to get angrier than I want to be. Maybe I should have gone out of town after all ? I could be sidling up to the money man. I watched one of his movies and I couldn't help but notice he and his ex were playing a couple and using perhaps eerily accurate descriptors of their real-life relationship. I have no problems being a stranger, I have no problems lacking allies, having nothing to prove, drifting in and out of this ingrown universe just long enough to leave a thumbprint, incite conversation, or at least sidelong-glance intrigue. I have a problem, I suppose, with smalltown cinéma-vérité. I have a problem being hungry for violent love. It might be the weather.

It's almost past fall already. It has rained the entire time I've lived in this state, it seems. It's cold and rainy every day, which seems like the wrong kind of weather for this region. We're not maritime, it doesn't make sense.

I thought things between my boyfriend and I were questionable, so when I went to Nashville last weekend for business it was a welcome diversion. I never doubted that he still had feelings for me, but he was already loafing around in sweatpants and farting into the mattress while watching football. I wondered why all of the intrigue and seduction had vanished so quickly. It wasn't supposed to happen within a matter of weeks, right ? So the trip was a blessing. We spent most of the first day up hanging around Memphis, our boss showing us most of the noteworthy sights. We got into Nashville late Thursday and Friday was spent meeting with the head historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame and then me catching a cab in the rain to make an author panel and meet a few writers with my immediate supervisor. It was another drab and wet day, as if it had followed me out there.

That evening was the big author banquet. There were cocktails beforehand, and I was hit on by a young gawky writer who seemed a little too Ivy League for my tastes. I accidentally ignored Brad Gooch, so I had to backpedal and pat his shoulder and compliment his recent biography on Flannery O'Connor. He's a really stunning gay. Used to be a male model. I stood trapped in an extremely awkward conversation with a young writer and we had nothing to say to each other. I fumbled through as best as I could and he didn't turn away embarrassed for me, so I suppose that's a good sign. I drank wine all through the dinner, the keynote speaker was pleasantly short and they thanked our editor personally, which was quite a surprise. My supervisor and I had our picture taken by a lady from the Nashville society papers I assume because we looked like sweet rich girls.

Afterwards we went to a weird venue with our business team, hung out on the Gibson Guitar bus, and after I excused myself to secret another whiskey I ran into a drunk lonely girl in the alley and my editor popped up right behind her. He wanted us all to go to the honkytonks, and the peer pressure mounted in the van on the way over, so that all but two of us made it out. I bonded with the associate publisher, I think we fell in friendlove or something therelike. He's married, but we walked around arm in arm or holding hands. We stumbled in at 330 and there was no funny business. We went out for drinks the next night to a posh bar with an old friend of mine. I embarrassed myself with a great feat of hubris that was so expected and hysterical I had to tell my supervisor the next day. You see, "I happen to have this natural charm."

One of my reviews was in the print version of the city weekly so I got paid twice, I think. I got my check yesterday and it was more than expected. I would love to keep doing at least one review a week, but since I came back from Nashville with a sinus infection I felt like I should stay away from the bars for a while. Of course, until early Tuesday morning when I discovered some rather disheartening news. I forced my boyfriend to take me drinking that night. We went to this douche bar, but it was littered with antiques and high booths, and as it was a Tuesday night it wasn't too loud or crowded and we just talked to each other like interested parties and I decided I really liked him. He extended he legs up on the booth seat, sprawled out like a lion. He looked princely and smug and I liked it. We talked about sports, just the two of us. Everything will be well, and I'm not afraid, and convicted in my responsibility. But I'm one of those girls now. This is the last song that I write.

I hate Octobers now. They have been over all horrible the past few years, and I don't care. None of us can even afford our Halloween. I don't see the point anymore. Sprinting away from a bad situation. Holding my dignity between my knees. He says "You don't try very much, brilliant shit just rolls off your brain." That is not a trick I learned from you. I don't know quite where I got it from. Due to my sense of humor and composure, she said I was her hero. She said I've reached new heights. I'm steel.

Be a professional. I should go to the bookstore today and read lit mags. I should go buy a light jacket. It's raining again, but it's colder now, so it's not as uncomfortable as before, walking into a din of mosquitoes on the way to the front door. The man who lives across the street is a bit creepy. He has that blue collar alcoholic look to him, very thin and sunburned, narrow facial expressions, drives a weird towncar really slowly with his sunglasses on the end of his nose, peering at everything. He lives with his parents who are elderly. I don't know why he's living with them, when the father is clearly spry enough to tend to his own yardwork. Fallen on hard times, I guess. Like the rest of us. Except the rest of us don't smoke a cigarette on their front stoop around the time I drive in from work, and shout awkward complimentary things about my cowboy boots and not remove his eyes from me while I walk up to the door. "You working long, girl.I didn't think any job was that good!" 

My first freelance gig this week. For the local, liberal free weekly paper. I met the culture and entertainment editor a few weeks ago and decided to pitch an idea at the last minute. He was pleased with the results and the fast turnaround, so he'll be giving me semi-regular assignments. Says he can't pay too much for the blog publications but he'll get me in free to the shows I review and give me $15 for drinks. I care more about the journalism experience and the publication / exposure than getting paid. Though if my reviews go into print I think I make a little scratch. It would be nice to make a little bit of pocket change seeing as how I'm working two jobs and all. This is me taking advantage of being in a small town, being somehow connected to everyone and everyone hungry enough for something new that you can just sort of amateurishly step in and try your hand. In my fantasy I'm one half of a power couple. In reality I'm beginning to think that my boyfriend doesn't like me very much.  It's mostly impossible to tell. He's smug. He shifts between being overly affectionate and basically ignoring me. He says he has no energy to hold me but then he turns over and tries to sleep with me. I just don't remember what it's like when a man is actually falling in love with me normalstyle. In the month we've been seeing each other it's like we've reactivated all of the crummy things we hated about being in relationships in the first place. We're already griping. He's already made awkward jokes in public. I hope that I get to go to the book festivals these next two consecutive weekends. It might actually be nice to be away from him. All of his buddies have long distance girlfriends. I wonder if that's what he's after.

I had a long conversation with his friend who we watch the football games with. He's a criminal defense attorney. We talked about child pornography and Roman Polanski. He's wickedly smart but the way he talks sounds like he's delivering Wayne Campbell's lines. It was hard at first for me to decide if he was serious. He says he's excellent at detecting lying. I asked him if, in turn, he was a good liar. He said that he could be. He explained to me very rudimentary things I didn't know, for instance that federal crimes are most often associated with interstate commerce. And I said, "Like the Mann Act." He put down his beer and said, "Why, yes, the Mann Act is a perfect example." 

What I like the most is that the boy is a complete autodidact. Everything he knows about filmmaking, the books he reads, the things he knows about acting and technique, his writing, his vocabulary, everything he does is self-taught. He went to undergrad for about three semesters. He sounds just as pretentious as anybody. He's not well traveled and doesn't speak a foreign language, but the fact that he's built himself up entirely amazes me. It's like what I've been looking for. I told him so, and he just kind of cut his eyes at me like I was embarrassing myself. Maybe I was.

A friend, to avoid confusion, calls him No. 2. But maybe it's actually Boyfriend Number Five: The Filmmaker. We'll see how long this lasts. My supervisor leaned in the office today and said that I'd almost beaten her at the three week mark. The editor seemed fake-impressed and asked me why it is I do the things I do and I said simply, "I'm about a mover." 

The truth is, since I don't have feelings anymore, I've got this one down to a silence. As I told him, "I'm playing this one extra cool." If I squint and think too hard then something is out of place but then I realize that it's just being older, you don't feel things the way you did before. Some of the gunpowder has been used up. I might hate his movies. He says he likes smart girls. I have to navigate his hometown friend group and his exgirlfriend just the way the new bitch had to navigate past me when I was an especially ruthless and scrutinizing self-imagined local scene princess. Is it good luck to eat your eyelashes when they fall out ? The best part is, I ain't got shit to lose. I'm not worried about a thing. I've realized at the very least, it's a shrewd time to receive a boyfriend when you aren't gainfully employed.

Multiple record-listening parties. Pretending I know what I'm saying. Lonely music men with trembling hands and business cards. My number is twenty. I'm working and thinking, actually, as a music critic. I failed to schmooze properly while in attendance at last week's three consecutive schmoozing events. I do think I was poised enough to catch the eye of the money man. And boy, did he smell nice.

No. 2 has that asshole in him. He has that self-significance, that shit-eating actor's face. I can never read him or predict his reactions. I think he hates women a little bit, but likes having a girl around. He wants to dote on someone but not actually be responsible for their feelings. The mix he made me was good, and so different than other boyfriend mixes. It's like we've both aced relationship class and we're just kind of coasting and enjoying the partying part. Neither of us have expressed any seriousness whatsoever. I am falling in love a bit with Jerry Lee Lewis. Like a fool, I identify a lot with him. I think some people have an earnest desire to be morally upright and kind, giving folk, but instead just wrestle their evil until it breaks through every now and again. I do believe that some people just have the devil in the them, and that's me, and I don't even believe in the devil.

I love it when men tell me I'm fearless. I love that I am totally transient. Every day I wake up and love that I am not living your life. And when I was closest to living your life, I evicted myself, not out of cowardice or fear, but knowing exactly how miserable it would make me. I said the other day at work that I wanted to have four husbands. They might not be legal marriages, but I think I've figured out how it is exactly I'm going to pull it off. You may think you're really gangster and that no one can get it more right than the way you do it. You should know baby that you are laughable, a fucking phony. I am the truth, and I hustle that shit. I've never realized it before but I can fucking hustle, and it makes me feel good, and that's the biggest difference between us. I am a thousand years old, but for my youthful exuberance. I've said for years I was a twelve year old boy. I am a total popfreak. And you ain't never gonna be my girl.

Dirty revelations:

1. Last night I thought I looked beautiful without make up for probably the first time in my life. At least since I was a child. And by child I mean actual pre-pubescent.

2. I did the right thing by ending my relationship last year. No matter how much it hurts, there are times when I have the facts laid in front of me. Irrefutable evidence. An easy to love, easygoing man is just not enough.

3. I predict that it will be another year before all of the crazy has passed. I've done a lot of work in one, but I'm still too emotionally aggressive. I'm still a little too poisonous, and I imagine I won't have another significant relationship until this has been handled, and I stop terrifying people.

4. I just want to be fucking touched. I'm aware that's the saddest thing I've ever said.

5. A Letter to Three Wives is an amazing film. It's up there with Mildred Pierce or Laura in terms of fascinating stone-cold female characters lacking melodrama or schmaltz and plots of mysterious circumstances.

I don't have any reasons. I don't have anything at all. I was happy enough the other day. I suppose this is what happens when I'm not working.

Now I am lonely in such a different way than ever before. As I moved, someone asked me to be their music muse for life, and I have done such a poor job in keeping that up. I enjoy spending all of my time working and reading, I'm feeling more confident about my dormant talents, like being a writer-for-hire. My mind keeps drifting to men, and I am starting to realize they must be my fatal flaw. I'm doing the most fulfilling work of my life, and I'm still blabbering about men. I'm still trying very hard to remember what it is like to be spooned. I'm a joke person at work, a dancing gorilla. It's taken me a while to charm to younger, sweeter, greener girls but I think they've gotten past thinking I'm old and creepy and some kind of washed up circus performer. I know what my next tattoo will be and I'm just having trouble deciding where to put it. I'm a stickler about that sort of thing, I don't want anything on my arms, and I'm afraid if I ever move back to Texas anything I get on my shoulders will be rapidly expunged by the sun. Because it will. How hilarious that Austinites are so frivolously decorated in ink while they live in the most unforgiving, desert-strength sunshine. Red once said, "Like San Francisco with a tan, and more tattoos." At least in some places.

Other amazing quotables from Red:

"No more gin and candy !" 
"You look like you're going to a Kennedy funeral." *

(*That was, of course, before Senator Kennedy passed. That's been nearly the greatest compliment someone has paid me, to date.) Lately I have been calling upon all of my resources, as it were. Everyone I've ever known remotely or otherwise for help. That's been a rather pleasant exercise in stalwart friendships. And my Hamsickness has taken a different turn, I care less for the pettiness and fear of old boyfriends and I'm more or less just eager to be around good, long-term friends who crack me up more easily than anyone else. I don't think I'll ever live there again, but I'll admit I'm comforted by being so close by. I miss Red so much, though; we fell in love too late. But I've said that before.

(A lover-friend told me someone said I was "Gil Elvgren hot," which is exactly right, if you don't mind my being superficial. That was also an excellent compliment.) I need a good camera. I left my camera somewhere in a box of things, because I take images for granted, I've already learned to eccentrically avoid the lens in hopes that I'll become a celebrity out of sheer self-manufactured elusiveness. It helps to live in a weird half-place as I do. Last night we went to a reading at the public library, a very famous author who lives here, and we played Exquisite Cadaver by writing on honeydew melons. You know who's weird ? Small town people with culture. They are fucking wack. They think they're all geniuses but their every single utterance sounds exactly like some drivel from a self-serious freshman intro to philosophy course. It's cute, though. And I'm a prick, because I'm either going to be doing yoga with these people at the free class on Tuesday nights or end up exactly like them, in my batty gardening hat at the local Friday night "cultural event" directly quoting from the latest Derrida text we've discussed in the book club / knitting circle on Monday night. The scene from The Third Man where they discover Joseph Cotton writes Western dime novels.

I have said that I would sincerely convert to Judaism, if needed, to marry. But I will amend that to convey that I could never marry an Orthodox Jew. The sabbath depresses me. It's quiet and weird. My housemate just sleeps, watches TV, or reads. The sky is apocalyptically dark today in hopes of rain. I just want to sneak away and go shopping, or sit at a bookstore, anywhere there is light and other humans and sounds. The music in my room is sending this cruel ripple through the peace and observance of the day. How can you go without listening to music ? I don't care. I'm making myself sick listening to mixes my exboyfriend made me during our courtship, over three years ago. They're all exactly fucking legendary. They still kind of make me feel the same way. That's been the problem this whole time. Keith Carradine said something in a television show about not being privileged to date because he'd already had one exceedingly beautiful relationship. I am not beyond thinking that is my very affliction.

"Kuntmasta Flex." Can't stop listening to the Wild Cub mixes. I wish I had them all summer long, instead of just now at the end of my pointless joyride. Last night whilst drunken yard-sitting, I claimed I am not as Southern as I portend to be, which is of course the opposite of what I portray on any given day. There are certain things, but my ladyfriend argued that I am, though I'm crasser and more open about the less savory items of my personal exploits than she. And of course I think she's up there with the pearl-fingering, fake-smiling, cake-making kind of traditional Southern girl, except with a good solid brain and career ambition. I take my lessons from her on most points of etiquette. We took drunk family portraits in the yard with the lapdog and everything.

I am almost done packing. I move in three days to a place which I have never been. Somehow I'm not exactly afraid. Lady assures me that I'm good at making friends, and I move quickly. I like this assertion but I'm not so sure. I hope this is just the beginning of many beginnings. As in, this is one move into the house of the Future and there can be many more strange moves and strange futures. I have claimed recently, soberly, candidly, with my index finger of authority pointing in the air a motion of heed: 

"I am going to be rich." 
"I am going to be hot forever." 

I don't know who says these kinds of things. It is true that I never fully realize how beautiful my mother is until we're out in public together. Then it sort of hits me when I see people respond to her. This is a good sign for my vain future, I think. I told the eighteen-year-old kid that he could be my master. I think the scariest certainty is that I'm beginning to feel ill at ease with my lovelessness. I think I would actually like to fall in love, as if to supplant some void, but I hope that this minor discomfiture is simply because I've got nothing else really going for me yet. The job should quash this. The job should be my new boyfriend. I'm afraid I said things last night that will lead my Lady to send me a carepackage with her spare Plan B pill. I hate being a hapless whore. But I love it.

The truth is, I have never not loved someone, and that someone intensely. I stare for endless hours of photos of my exes as if trying to remember what it was like when I cared for someone with so much desperation I wanted to tear their hair out, or throw myself in to a fire, or something that felt like feeling. I told a story of relationship violence today, one I never tell, and it felt like a distracted recitation from an abandoned Altman script. It was like someone else was telling it, there wasn't any pain or embarrassment associated with it, and my memory of loving someone that passionately has completely dissipated. My voice just kind of trailed off and I looked into the distance like I had forgotten the words. An expression that might have been mistaken for reflection. I just have not met anyone really remarkable at all. And of course there is still open flesh from when the last tether was torn out. And I do not know what, or if there is anything I can do about that one. More penance. Penance every day. Give me another fresh asshole with women issues and we'll see about him later.

There's a disgusting and most amusing habit I have where I potentially contract out marriages between myself and certain worthy gentlemen. Mostly because I suppose I believe that's what marriage means to me. So I have these friends who are great, who I have fucked or will fuck, who make laugh and make me feel great and who have lovely brains and similar interests to myself and seem to have promising careers. Sometimes, though not often, I am about ready to make good on one of these halfhearted proposals. I mean them when I say them. I think these men understand me, I think they know exactly what kind of animal I am. I fear that the only men who match me in drive and wherewithal are major mindfucking assholes on whom I will burn out quickly and the kind sweet supportive love-forever boys, as my record proves, struggle with motivation and are practically upwardly paralyzed. I don't know what I'm going to do, probably marry one of these friend-fellows, but I am definitely not dealing with any dick. And frankly I have no idea how any man has consented to being my boyfriend anyhow. I just don't really see how anyone could mistake me for some kind of proper partner. I found a photograph of Bianca Jagger, Liza Minelli and Jackie O all on the same settee. If I had a fireplace, I would frame it and put that shit on my mantle.