magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

one of my first thoughts this morning was that i have been too hard on her. (about this. i still think that i've been much too easy on her about other things.) in a way, this is exactly what i went though with lindsey, the simple reflex of saying, oh look, there is someone else out there who i might be compatible with, maybe even more compatible with. the differences of course being that it was stef's negligence of me that pushed me towards lindsey, and that unlike stef i don't believe that any one thing is 'supposed to be' more than any other.

but, i'm stepping up on the higher moral ground again. which is something that i'm trying to avoid. (if for no other reason than that it is an unbecoming posture, and is the sort of thing that is likely to push her away.)

maybe that last bit shouldn't be in parenthesis. maybe that's really a significant part of this whole equation. the recognition that a lot of my responses are calculated. to provoke more favourable counter-responses from her. and not completely so. not to the point where it becomes a game of chess and part of my mind is actually so divorced from the situation that it can rationally plan possible moves and responses to them. but at least to the point where, often, i think about the full effect of something before i say it. (typical of me under any circumstance, i guess.)

the point being that there is a part of my brain weighing the levels to which is should be mean. to which i should follow up any mean act with a nice one. the level of acidity in my tone. the length of my pauses. and to some extent these things are unavoidable. communication is based on the little things like inflection and pacing and tone of voice and choice of words that convey the truth of what we are thinking. it's not simply a one-to-one correlation between thought and language. (debatable, as language encompasses all those other things. but that's another topic entirely.)

it's just that i don't want to be playing this as a game. i don't want things to get clouded with that extra level of interpretation.

so, simply, to stef, what i want, which is all i can really speak to with any degree of authority: i want you to pick me up at the airport on may fourth. i want to see if we can work as a couple again. (maybe the again is presumptuous, maybe we never worked all that well as a couple from the beginning. but this is another digression, and another game move.) for my last few weeks in italy i want to keep receiving things in the mail from you.

maybe we can't even remove ourselves completely from the level of game playing. for instance, to say, i want to continue talking to you on the phone. there arises the matter of motivation. and, on the simplest level, the first time we stopped talking regularly on the phone you found someone else. when i couldn't reach you for two weeks in february i found someone else. and now that there is a specific someone, i worry what not talking would lead to, would mean. or, to say, i don't want you to see anyone else. well of course, but where does that line get drawn? you told me that you didn't want me to even think about lindsey in that way. i told you that it wasn't that easy. it's amazing how quickly things flip, and flip again. and i don't want you to even think about him. but how can i ask that?

i can just hope. wish, although wishes are always dangerous. and try my best not to push you towards it. but, again, we come to calculations, to games.

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in my dreams stef was playing the part of lindsey. we were on the ehp southern tour, provisionally, and staying in a hotel above the ocean. many, many steps above the ocean. sam was there as well, but can't recall what role he was in. i kept climbing and descending the many marble stairs. at one point ezio asked me if i was waiting for, or perhaps had plans with, stef. the question was asked as someone on the outside of the situation would have asked. someone who had seen that we were close friends, maybe not known that anything more had ever transpired, or maybe had an idea that it had, but also did not know that things had gone badly, that we were no longer speaking to one another.

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fifty more dots. in the rain.

and in the darkroom this evening, printing contact sheets of my southern tour photos, i had flashes of a happy future with stef. but, and there's always a but, i wondered if maybe i could have been seeing that future with anyone. that it's the desire for that sort of comfortableness and security that's still very much at the base of what i'm all about and i'm only projecting it on her. i wondered if maybe i'm just the sort of person who could be okay with almost anyone, as long as they could deal with me. i don't think that's really true, i don't think it's true at all, but sometimes the thought creeps into my head.