Untitled.
1 February 2004
although i was still keeping my entries offline at this point, the following parenthetical was posted live to magicbeans:
[ you may have noticed that the entirety of january's text is one short, cryptic message. likewise, this bit of meta-text will probably be the only february update for a while. but i wanted to post something, in order to roll over the calendar page and return you to the regularity of daily images, as well as to tell you that yes, i'm still here, yes, i'm still writing, and yes, i'd love to hear from you. ]
if you are reading the rest of this explanation, it means that i have since updated the site with those offline entries, and the parenthetical is really only still here for the sake of historical interest.
more dreams about stef. another miserable morning.
sat around at home most of the day, didn't accomplish much.
i was planning on watching the superbowl. today was to be the first of three days in february that i've known for a while would be particularly upsetting. but i was going to watch the superbowl anyway. i don't know when it was exactly, but a few years back i kind of half-heartedly started following pro football. i've never been into sports, and no one who knows me would really ever expect me to be a football fan. it was towards the end of last season that stef found out. we were watching a game together, she assumed i was only watching because she was, but the truth of the matter was that i probably would have been watching it at home if she had been at work that day. i made some comment that exposed my knowledge about the game, and she was shocked. we watched a few other games together, and the superbowl last year, and had been following this year's playoffs together. and we would have been watching this year's superbowl together too.
and so it's one of those things that i think i wanted to do more because i knew that she would be doing the same thing at the same time than because i really had a whole lot of interest in doing it for myself. i'm depressed. (i know this.) i don't have a heck of a lot of interest in doing anything.
alex.l had posted a message on friendster asking his new york peoples what they were doing for the game. i wrote back telling him that i didn't have specific plans, but did want to watch it. and probably drink a few beers. he wrote back telling me that the game would be on at the life cafe, for whom he delivers food on his bike three nights a week, and he was probably going to be there, why not give him a call on sunday if i thought i'd like to meet up. i called him this afternoon, he said he was off to install a monster, but would give me a call when he got back to brooklyn.
i talked with george online. i noticed that i had received an email from robin, bachelorette number 3, the one with whom i had exchanged the least amount of personal information. she said it was sunny out, she was nursing a hangover, would i like to get a cup of coffee with her. i had gotten the impression for her previous emails that she was a little older, early thirties maybe, but still somewhat immature. she attached a photo to this email though, and looks mid-twenties. i fought with my fear of phones for about an hour before forcing myself to hit the call button. ('okay, you're going to count down from ten, then call. no backing out. deep breath. .. okay. 10, 9, 8..')
'hi robin? it's bean. so it's not sunny out anymore, but i still thought i should call.' we talked for an hour. her voice and cadence reminded me a lot of sonali's, which was comforting. she's 24. from virginia. designs women's underwear for a living. which is sort of an odd job, but she enjoys it.
'so i should do some cleaning,' she was wrapping up the conversation, 'my roommates had a party last night, plus i had guests from out of town. but if you don't hear back from your friend about the superbowl party we should hang out.'
i called george. we talked a little about this, but mostly other things. i followed the live play-by-play for second quarter of the game online. hadn't heard from alex.l. called robin back.
we went out for thai food. a trendy sort of place near where she lives, but quite reasonably priced. and tasty. we talked and told stories about ourselves. afterward we went back to her apartment to watch a video, donnie darko, which one of her roommates owns but neither of us had seen. i really enjoyed it. she was tired out from her weekend of visiting friends and fell asleep.
things got a little awkward when the movie ended. how do you wake up someone you've only just met, in their own house. or do you not wake them up at all and just slip out quietly? with or without leaving a note? and of course, amongst all this were thoughts of stef. here is a girl who i met through a personals ad that i posted, in which i said, basically, that i was looking for someone with whom i could have a slightly more than platonic relationship to temporarily fill the void that stef had left in my life. which is really a weird thing to ask of someone. but i am lonely, and that's a void that i don't have the personality to fill with an empty sexual relationship (or series thereof), and i don't have the capacity (currently) to fill with a truly connected emotional relationship (with or without sex). what i really want is stef. and so where does this girl, curled up in blankets, sleeping on her couch, fit in to all of this? a new friend? certainly. but there is already the expectation of a possible something more, simply because of the way that we met. and a large part of me is second guessing that i would even want that.
and i still didn't know how to go about waking her up. then chris called, and my talking on the phone was enough to shake her from sleep. 'i feel terrible,' she said, 'i'm an awful hostess.' but i understood. we talked for a few minutes more, but i left pretty soon after this.
on the train on the way home i was thinking about old and new friendships. i was lamenting the lack of contact from some of the friends that i have reached out to. i don't blame them for it, i know that they are busy, and/or have their own major life issues to deal with. i'm not judging them for falling out of touch, because i have certainly done my own fair share of falling out of touch. and it is times like these, when i'm low and lonely that i reach back out, which is really kind of selfish on my part. i just wish that we could be closer. there's people out there who i love dearly with whom i almost never speak, and that's sad. when i got home there was a message from sonali. she's working on a reply to the long email i sent her about the sorry state of my life. she just wants to find the right words. in the mean time she wanted me to know that she was thinking about me. which warmed me up inside for a little while.
until the thoughts of stef came flooding back in like the tide.