greener grass

Lately I think I would enjoy being a man with a huge beard who wears flannel shirts and glasses and looks extremely serious all of the time. I'd smoke a pipe and all of my books would be hardcovers and I wouldn't laugh at things that aren't funny. I might not laugh at all. If anything, I'd have a baritone sort of chuckle that I'd let out only on worthy occasions. I guess I'm just having a gender dysphoric kind of day.

"home"

A little over a year ago (2/5/09, according to this blog), it appears that I came to the decision that I needed to move back to Ohio to focus on applying to graduate school. I decided this because I felt that I was becoming too depressed, too annoying -- I could barely stand myself, and I was fairly certain that no one else would be able to tolerate me for very long either. But then I didn't go through with it. At least, not until now.

Maybe this happens late every winter. I'd hate to think that I just moved from Utah back to Ohio just because I was grumpy from lack of sunlight. So let's say that I had a good reason.

No sudden movements today. No decisions. I don't want to do anything stupid. I mean, anything else.

No, not nice

My personality seems to be changing. I am not particularly nice anymore, in fact I'm kind of angry and confrontational. I feel a bit out of control, but at least I'm not so sleepy anymore. Probably better to spend one's life awake, even if that means one will be spending a lot of time screaming at people.

unplugged

So, I'm traveling again. Hotels, motels, Holiday Inns. Mostly Holiday Inns. I've noticed this before, but it never ceases to surprise me: I'm happier when I'm on the road. Or not happier, maybe, but less miserable. There are clear tasks to accomplish, and I can accomplish them. Not like in normal life, when I can't figure out what the tasks even are. Get married, buy a house, have kids? That either sounds ridiculous or impossible. This, I guess, is why I haven't done anything of significance to me in the past 6 years. I get distracted by work. I mean, I guess that's what you're supposed to do -- work hard, make money, spend the money, die of cancer. It's not that I really think there's more to life than that. It's just damned depressing is all.

Sang arias at a bar last night. It was sort of nice. Oh, hell, it was really nice -- the nicest thing that's happened to me in quite a while. Yes, I am an approval addict, and yes I would have wanted to die if I had sounded bad or been met with blank stares or awkward throat clearing. But everyone was nice. I did not make eye contact with anyone as that is not my style, but I'll assume no one made a face. It is frustrating to have praise heaped upon you by someone who does not actually want to be with you, but common sense tells me I would be equally terrified of me if I were in his position. I do not know what to do. I never know what to do, and I feel no closer to figuring it out.

It's only been three months, and I'm itching to move again, though there's nowhere in particular I want to go. And I like everyone in SLC. I suppose that means that I am the one I don't like, which is too bad because I really thought I was becoming a better friend to myself. I must have been wrong. 6 months of winter, and I'm trying to get off my pills. Seems like maybe I need to be more unhappy in order to see what I need to do. But maybe it's just my brain. Maybe my brain is just wrong. Science is rather useless to me at the moment. You can't prove a damn thing.

8

So you want us to love each other

You can make me out of ashes

The trash of my belly laughs

Out of what's left of my boredom

You can doll-face

You can grab me by the hair of my short memory

Hug my night in its empty shirt

Kiss and kiss my echo

And you don't even know how to love

   - Vasko Popa as translated by Charles Simic

Vasko Popa is much better at being angry than I am.  I'm a little embarrassed, actually.  But I'm fine.  I'm going to read more and I'm going to try to write about things that are a little more interesting than my latest jiltings.  Why can't jiltings be a word, blogger, why?  Also I really want to mow the lawn, but somehow I can't make myself.  I want a sense of order, but I still haven't finished unpacking.  Also order and I have never really gotten along, but jumping over boxes and turning things upside down looking for a shoe is only fun for so long.  It is still a bit strange being here.  Possibly I should try to write poems.  I don't want to write fiction right now, because I know where my head is and even I am no longer interested in exploring that cave.  And I can't meditate because I just fall asleep.  The life of the party, I am.  Well, anyway...  

Actually, you're wrong

After weeks, or years, or possibly forever of trying to be calm about these things, because women are expected to be hysterical and the idea of being thought to be hysterical makes me watch to punch someone in the testicles .... I mean, after let's just say a lifetime of trying to seem well-composed, I am actually fucking livid and may in fact actually be angry enough to say, fuck you, I am appropriately angry. I can get angry too. I can say things I will later regret.

Except that this should not have come as a surprise. Some people cannot tell the truth and some people cannot accurately identify their emotions. And some people are cowards and some people just aren't that into me, which is not a fucking epiphany regardless of what that book says. This would all be fine, except that I don't like being alone because it reminds me of the fact that I feel pointless and am probably one weekend spree away from becoming the filthy mess I already suspect myself of being. So I want to find some kind of prettier mess that reminds me of me, that I might be able to focus on a bit, or hide under for a while except that anyone who seems like me is unhappy like me, is stubborn like me, and is ultimately useless to me because I either can't get close enough, or when I do, the mess is more than I can handle. And I am angry that these are the only options that seem to be available to me. Because, believe me, I would go out with some nice boys if I could, but I can't. It depresses the living hell out of me to be with someone who isn't neurotic, or who is neurotic in the wrong way. I can't do it, and I won't. I'm too tired. I know you can't be tired and angry at the same time, so maybe I'm just tired now. But I am not and never was hysterical, and I will hit anyone who disagrees.

In other news, I live in Utah now. It's actually quite nice here.

One week left

So, I really am moving to SLC.  I'm not going to go into the various arguments I've come up with as to why that is not an insane thing to do.  It's not, really.  Everyone is leaving San Francisco anyway.  No one here has any money, and San Francisco is depressing when you don't have money, or even when you do have money but no one you know has any money so you have to feel guilty when you consider buying a $75 purse made from organic cotton (i didn't buy it, by the way, but only because I somehow convinced myself that I could make one for about$1.50, which I maybe could if I cared to learn to use my sewing machine, but I don't really).  I am, of course, sad about leaving the friends I have here in SF, but I'm always sad about something.  If SLC is a disaster, I think it will at least be an interesting disaster.  

Mum is arriving shortly to assist with packing and driving the Uhaul.  And this evening we are hosting Wendy's birthday whatnot here at the apt.  Tomorrow I guess packing begins in earnest. I am trying not to be too melancholy about leaving.  Mostly I am happy, but if I sit still for very long, I do have a slight feeling of impending doom.  I think that is normal though.  Georgia, of course, has no idea.  She is snoring peacefully and making little gurgley noises.  She will miss the chicken bones, but she'll be gaining a yard, and yards are nice things to have.