Countdown to fall semester: seventeen days
It's not that I'm antisocial, mind you, it's that I've taken a sort of, ahem...sabbatical from the internet for most daylight hours these days. And most nighttime hours, too. I've sort of taken a sabbatical from most social interaction period. This isn't really a huge deal or anything to be concerned about, really -- I've been focusing on catching up with the chores around the house and on my writing. Oh, and sleep. Most of my daylight hours are now spent asleep, as I am most productive at night.
Of course, this is nothing really new; I haven't logged on to AIM in a very long time, I've spoken with Daisy and Zedral over Skype and Facebook off-and-on, but for very short times, and as I've mentioned before, as I am out of phone minutes, my phone has been turned off. I haven't turned it on in at least two weeks. Who knows how many messages and/or texts I have from people. If I can even receive anything when my phone is out of minutes, that is.
I've drafted out several poems to edit and work on as of late to add to my thesis as last-minute additions to its first draft, which is due on the 14th or so. That's less than two weeks from now, so I have to get everything wrapped up nicely and taken care of as quickly and efficiently as possible. Whether these poems will be included in the final version of the thesis in May is beyond me, really, but as it stands the thesis I have sits at 28 pages, and I'd like to get it close to 40 or 50 before it's done. This means that over the course of this next week or so, I'll be fairly closed off to most folks as I hunker down, cigarette hanging from my lips, 44oz. cup of coffee on my desk, and spend several hours a day typing, writing, revising, editing, and formatting everything to look and sound just right. My thesis is the culmination of my entire graduate school education and experience, and will probably end up being my first published book of poetry, so I am spending a lot of time tweaking it here and there in order to get it done.
Today is August 3. It is a milestone of sorts; it means I've completely made it through the summer. I get paid today. It's "pending" in my bank account now, and will clear within the next several hours. I also checked financial aid via my student account, and found that my student loans will drop on August 11 -- that's next weekend, in case you weren't keeping track. The rest of this month, from this point forward, looks fairly interesting. Yeah, there will be a lot of expenses and responsibilities I'll have to take care of, but I'll also be able to have a little breathing space, some peace-of-mind. Money doesn't buy happiness, but having a bit of it to spare sure as hell helps to solve a lot of problems.
Here's a short list of stuff I have to do over the next few weeks:
- Do grocery/essentials shopping, both in person and online
- Order whatever books I need for the fall semester (shouldn't be many)
- Put gas in the car (there's about 15 miles' worth left in the tank)
- Schedule maintenance for said car (expensive, but necessary)
- Pay off credit cards/other bills/rent
- Pay parents back the money they loaned me (duh)
- Finish thesis (again, duh)
- Attend orientation for the English department (should be the 16th or so)
- Tweak and update syllabus/assignments for the classes I teach
- Finish the first collaboration post with Adam (started but never posted it)
- WATCH FUCKIN' FOOTBALL (so won't lie about this)
- Continue to ignore the Olympics
- Purchase anti-spider/anti-insect spray, coat the house with it
- Mow the grass again (provided, of course, that it ever rains again)
- Figure out when Lady is getting back into town (more on this below)
- Run errands (mailing things, copying keys, getting furnace filters from ACE Hardware, the only place in town that sells the size I use, etc.)
- Clean off the back deck and hose it down, get rid of the trash/junk on there
- Refill my phone minutes
- Attempt to detach from the rest of the world and actually watch some of the movies I have never watched all spring/summer, yet have waiting for me in the living room's DVD rack
- Figure out if I'm going to make a trip to sell the DVDs and games I've been trying to sell via Craigslist and other places for the past month
- Complete some custom dye projects for two different friends, who have been waiting on me to do so for a while (as I've been, well, broke)
- Pre-order Pokemon Black/White 2 (shut up, it's the only video game vice I have)
- Try to see The Dark Knight Rises before it leaves theaters
- Many other little things.
There's a lot to do. There really is. Just because I'm not teaching anymore for the next two weeks or so doesn't mean that all of my responsibilities just stop -- it means that now that I'll have some money (not a lot, but some) I'll be able to take care of a lot of the stuff I've been unable to do or unable to afford for most of the summer, stuff like the aforementioned car maintenance, running errands like the ones mentioned, and refilling my phone so that I can actually use it again.
I also mentioned above, on that list, that figuring out when Lady is going to be back here is something that I'm concerned with and/or need to deal with. I have talked to Lady infrequently over the summer -- for those of you who don't know who she is, she's my ex who broke up with me in late May/early June -- and she told me that she is going to return to her former college about 180 miles from here to get her bachelor's degree (even though her college is a two-year school, they just started a four-year baccalaureate program in several disciplines -- including English, which is her major). However, while Lady and I are on friendly terms, we haven't talked in almost three weeks now, and her coming back out here for school again is a bit...well, troubling for me, to say the least.
I have always said, and will continue to say that even though Lady and I had a, well...shall we say, very rocky breakup that wasn't pleasant at all, the girl is still very important to me, and I'm sure I am to her -- in fact, I'm guessing that the only reason she decided to come back to school out here instead of pursuing a cheaper, easier option which was closer to home for her is because she wanted to be out here close to me. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Daisy said to me once "You planned a life with her," and that sentence keeps echoing through my head. Like I said, it's troubling. It's troubling to know that she probably chose to return to the midwest for me and me alone, even though she hates it here, and even though she and I are no longer together. It's troubling to know that more than likely, because she will be out here, she will probably enter my life again in some capacity. Lady has not made it a secret that she knows she made a mistake in leaving me, and that she wants me back, she still loves me, etc. I've known this for a long time, yet for the summer have kept silent on the subject, both to her and to most other people. It's because I don't know how to respond to it. She became very, very jealous and upset when Daisy and I briefly dated, and even though Daisy and I aren't in a relationship now and never will be again, that doesn't mean I'm going to turn around and suddenly say "well, Lady, you want me? You can have me." No, not at all.
Again, as I've said before, I don't want to drag anyone down with me if I end up failing at life over the course of the next nine months or so. I don't want to be in a relationship with, and certainly don't want to "date" anyone right now. The concept frightens me, and the thought of Lady returning to the midwest for school frightens me even more because of that fact. Like it or not, whether I want to admit it or not, Daisy was right -- I did plan a life with her. And there will always be a part of me which will love Lady dearly, and miss the good times we had. But even though those times have been over for only about three months or so, they seem like ancient history. I feel so far removed from them, so distanced from the girl that the concept of her suddenly popping back into my life (if she does) seems so foreign and strange. Yet, I know her very well. I know she won't be out here and back in school for more than a week or two before she calls me and says something like "let's work on us again," and I...I won't know how to respond to that, or how I should respond to it. I won't coldly push her away and ignore her, yet I won't sweep her up into my arms again, either.
I don't know how I feel about that prospect, and it scares the hell out of me. It's a total arm's-length scenario, and with a much, much longer proverbial arm than Daisy and I ever held each other at. Lady is very important to me, yes, and I've written about that at length here before -- but I'm not going to forget everything that transpired between us that ended things in the first place. There's a reason (many reasons, actually) that I'm guarded, that I keep myself closed off from nearly everyone these days. And most of them are things that I have not and will not cover here in this blog.
And meanwhile, friends in different cities are calling my name, especially those in Portland, where my dear friend April lives -- she and our mutual friend Michelle have basically been begging me to move to Portland once I graduate. As mentioned before, April's been trying to get me to move out there for years. Years, folks.
Daisy wrote this earlier this week, in reference to me:
Slightly related, I told [Brandon] he should move to [city], yet I am now being to question that. I wanted him to move to [city] because I think [city] is a great city that he’d enjoy and selfishly I like the thought of him being closer to me—I like knowing I can check in on and him and make sure he’s ok and I like the thought of hanging out with him more often. But, then I realized something, I’m being like some people in his past and asking him to move to a location simply because of me. And then, what, if I decide to move I should tell him to move there as well? He’s spent too much of his life living for other people, it’s wrong for me to try to encourage him to do that again. He needs to move to whereas it is that he wants. I can’t be his everything and it’s wrong for me to ask him to follow me when I know how he operates.
I know Daisy wants me to move there, to where she is, after I graduate. She hasn't made that a secret. And while I might really enjoy doing that, I have to examine all of my options first, of course. She makes a very salient point, though -- I have spent a great deal of my life living for other people. Those of you who know me well know that I've really done nothing but that for the past, oh, seven years or so. You know I moved to Missouri, and then to Kansas, to be with my ex while she completed school. I'd planned a life with Lady on the east coast before we broke up, as well. It is only in snippets, a few months at a time, over this past year that I've realized I have to live for myself -- something that is completely new to me, completely new for me, and something that I've covered at great lengths here in the blog before.
Daisy is very intelligent. No matter how close we are as friends, she knows as well as I do that's all we'll ever be, and she doesn't want to be selfish and tell me to do something (or move somewhere) that I may not end up enjoying just because she wants me to be geographically closer to her. She loves me -- truly loves me, and I understand that, but she also understands how I operate (a line in that bit of her writing that I adored, because it says so many things in so few words). It's scary how well she knows me after we've been friends for only two months or so. Underneath it all, Daisy is just as scared of losing me from her life as I am scared of the rest of my own life and where it will take me. Regardless of what happens, regardless of who I'm in a relationship with or not in a relationship with, Daisy just wants to metaphorically grab me and not let me go, keep me here, because as she's told me in the past, I'm the "finest man she's ever known" and one of her closest friends. I can't and don't fault her for that, and never could. I can't describe how much having her in my life has been a blessing to me, and if I do end up moving to Portland, or back home, start dating someone (long shot), or hell, even getting back together with Lady (the longest of long shots) and moving to the east coast after graduation, I don't want to make her feel like I've abandoned her in some capacity -- but I know she will feel like that to some extent anyway. Daisy and I have this weird, special bond. It's a strong one, a very strong one, but one that can still be damaged depending on what I choose to do in my life over the next year or so. And as she is probably my closest friend at this point, I do worry about hurting her feelings or disappointing her. A lot. I can't and won't lie about that.
Then again, I have my own "abandonment issues" I've written about here in the blog from time to time as well, so this sort of sentiment isn't exactly new to me.
One of the friends I mentioned last week, in passing in my "Hot Blooded" post, one of the friends who criticized me and basically said I was a horrible person and gave me a laundry list of reasons why I was, in her eyes, sent me a message earlier this week asking if I was going to "stop pouting" and talk to her, or if we were done speaking.
I haven't spoken to, written to, or contacted this friend in any way since she went off on me, out of the blue, at basically one of the lowest points in my life (and certainly my lowest point of the summer) financially, spiritually, and emotionally. The fact that this friend knew this and went off on me anyway not only hurt me very deeply, but I really had no response to it. I still don't. As I've mentioned before, I don't take kindly to being lectured or talked down to by anyone, or being treated like a child who needs discipline. I am rapidly approaching age thirty, and I am well aware of who I am and what choices I've made or didn't make in my life when I should or shouldn't have -- going off on me about it solves nothing and isn't productive in any way, and to do it when she did was basically kicking me when I was down. Her message to me earlier this week that asked me if I was going to "stop pouting" and talk to her only serves to prove that my choice not to respond to her was the right one, as apparently she still feels the same way she did then -- otherwise she would have apologized instead.
Those of you who know me well or who have been reading this blog for a long time can probably guess who this person is simply because I haven't mentioned her name here in the blog in almost a month. I do that out of respect for her -- she and I have been very close for a long, long time, but I don't know what to do about this situation. When I don't know what to do about a situation, the best thing for me to do is just let it go and forget about it. I don't have any ill will towards this friend, of course -- I somehow doubt that I ever could -- but I'm not going to be lectured or talked down to by anyone, especially not my closest friends. You make your choices, I make mine -- you do you, as Daisy would say. Will I talk to this friend again and "make up" with her? Probably, eventually. I hope so, anyway. Will this happen anytime soon? I don't know. Will she read this and see how I feel? Who knows.
Not many people have been reading my blog at all lately, actually. I haven't had a hit from Wichita in almost a week, which means none of my friends in the department have been reading. Daisy reads it, Zedral reads it, and my parents read it, along with a few friends scattered around the country, but that's it. I'm okay with this, really. Eh. I know I'm fairly uninteresting most of the time; I accept that.
As for me, and my weekend plans? Well, like I said, once my paycheck clears my bank account, I have to do some grocery shopping and put some gas in the car. I've been flirting with the idea of ordering a pizza for dinner as well, just so that I can get some real food in my stomach that I don't have to cook for once. Last night I made fajitas with the fresh vegetables and tortillas that Daisy brought down here for me earlier this week, but I am so tired of being creative. I want food delivered to my door. That may sound selfish or lazy of me, but keep in mind that this past month has been really rough on me, folks. I deserve a little bit of a break, a little treat.
So, that's what's been going on as of late. Yes, it's a lot, I know. More updates will be coming soon, probably. It depends on how much more of my thesis I can get finished and when. For now, though, it's almost 8AM, and I'm going back to bed.
