i am empty.

depressed. bored? uninspired. questioning everything about my life. this is normal. for myself anyhow.

at this point i do nothing and am nothing. ok there's graduate school. the class is multicultural education. i don't have anything inside of me that wants to come out about that. all i have right now is what i am feeling and the dreams i manage to remember. today there were none specific, except something about a rope ladder. ha. maybe i am the one on the rope ladder and it's about to break and it is strung between two cliffs and i have no idea what is below it because of the fog.

i was manic for a period this summer. over the fourth of july holiday. i was convinced i was being followed by an old friend. earlier he and i had had some conversations, more talk of what was previously talked about a year before (that of my going to visit him). then the mania took hold. the weed may have had something to do with it, but i was out of control. i believed (or at least said it was part of the story that i was writing in my head) that he was a song writer and had managed to get all the songs he had written onto my mp3 player. the songs were all about me. i realize that this is not true, but the songs took on meanings of their own. kind of like they all started to make sense and they were all about the same universal theme: love. at one point i also imagined he was somehow connected to franz ferdinand and all of franz's songs were about the same thing too (he WAS vantango, from the song on their bonus CD).

i was sick.
i was exposed.
i was lucky i bounced between husband and mom and didn't make any new friends. i would have been friends with anyone, i thought they were all involved. involved in the grand scheme to put me and him together. i thought even husband was involved, that he had been paid off to marry me and keep me safe and hidden until the time was right. he had been paid off to keep me a secret.

i remember having a distinct fantasy, a vision if you will. i may still retain photographic evidence, though it will be on the hard drive (purchased with mania) i bought this summer. the fantasy (i was high at the time and doodling on a mirror with a dry erase marker) was that i was from this irish guild and was reincarnated as who i am today. that this is why i can crochet, this is why i have an artistic side to me. that he was once an italian artist or something like that, a designer's apprentice. and that we were meant to find each other again. what i doodled on the mirror really had nothing to do with my fantasy, i was indulging my manic propensity to document everything. somehow everything was so important and i wanted to share every moment. with him. by uploading photos to the internet.

this was my mania.
my manic episode
my delusions
and i don't even know how much he saw.
now that i am in a saner frame of mind i would like to know.

for instance, i want to know if something really did happen, or if i made it up, told it to a friend, forgot about it, and had that friend ask me about it.

the last time i saw him we had argued over whether i would go to his house for the night. i would not. i refused because he had a girlfriend at the time. so he drove me half way home, and i got in a taxi the rest of the way. i did not arrive back to the place i was staying until sunrise. this was because the taxi driver appeared to be a senile old man. he had to stop three times to ask for directions. in the fever of my delusions, i supposed that my friend had paid the taxi driver to get lost, in the hopes that i would get frustrated and call him to come to pick me up. i was talking with an old girlfriend of mine one night while i was high when i told her all about this guy. in my delusions i kept getting confused, thinking that he was hacking into her chat account and talking to me though her. so i was saying things to her that were really meant for him. a couple of times my friend had to stop me and say WHAT? and i would giggle and say "not in a sexual way, silly!" i was manic so the conversation continued ad infinitum, my thinking i was really talking to him, and then i tired my friend and was talking to myself. or i moved onto some other poor soul who was still up and online, still thinking i was talking to someone besides the person who was really talking to me.

i'm pretty sure i made up the part about the tachero being bribed. and there is no way my girlfriend had any contact with my friend because she would have told me.

of course mixed in with all this were the real conversations, by internet, that i managed to have with the object of my delusions. because i kept talking to people who i thought were him, i have no idea what things i told him, i have no idea what he knows and what he said to me and what i made up on my own. when i was at my granddad's house, someone was talking to me who said they wrote the da vinci code, that they had "pooped on a toad." i told the person, thinking it was mister delusion subtly asking my forgiveness for fucking something up (or somebody), that he should wait to see what the toad does, then clean up his mess. i proceeded to tell about a time when i was a young child, i had taken a dump outside in the yard and our neighbor had stepped in it. then whoever i was talking to cheerfully led me into a "good night."

sometimes i feel like i saw too much, like i got too close to the sun, too high, saw too much truth, and am still having a hard time coming back down. husband unfortunately was left clear out of my delusions, but he was there to rein me back in when i needed it. i wasn't sleeping. and if i was it was maybe an hour each night. i would get in bed, feel restless, then get up and do something else. there was one night i got up and went into the bathroom with two dry-erase markers, a camera and a tripod. i wrote silly things on the mirror and drew mermaids (my personal joke with myself that was meant for him - nada - swim to get to me, and also, nothing). this time the fantasy was that i was somebody's inspiration - that i was the inspiration behind a movie that was being made. all the pictures i took had that look, i didn't pose for the camera but instead looked like a director taking still shots on a movie set. of course the movie was the breakdown of my mind.

the movie theme must be common in bouts of mania. one of my delusional fantasies was that he was connected to a movie that was currently being made, or being written. that i was the inspiration for the main character. it didn't help the mania that a well known young director was in his country making a movie. that was one of the dots in my web. another dot connected to the movie fantasy was this: once while driving down to my mother's house i passed a grey bus that had "la fuga (the escape)" painted on the rear. as if were a tour bus for a band that was somehow involved in this delusional movie. i smiled and laughed and made the hang ten sign with my hand as i drove past them.

hipotética

cuando me case te voy a invitar al casamiento

porque me vas a poner el anillo


le respondí, ja, riiiight. y cómo están las cosas con la hija de tu jefe, osea, tu novia?

pero igual, por QUE me tenés que decir cosas así? qué harías si algún día te dijera, bueno ok, voy para alla. qué harías, robot? cómo vas a manejar a todas tus mujeres entonces?

fanTAStic FRIday/quotes of the week

aaaaahhhhh this is the freaking mid-winter BLUES!

not really. i am fine but the monster has come out of its hiding spot in my skull and is now at the surface and it feels like it is sticking a knife in the part just above my temple.

AND I CAN'T FIND THE EXCEDRIN! IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS!

i have vidocin, but it makes me sleepy.

being sleepy isn't so bad;

maybe a nap and a patch?

what will make it go away? i have SOOOOO much work to do this morning. i mean, tomorrow morning. see the monster is even trying to hijack my thoughts.

i love my bed.

*************
quotes of the week

miss e: [allows the four dogs to run in the house as she returns from work. it is a freezing freezing cold day]
miss e's dad: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS LET THE DOGS INSIDE? THEY WANT TO BE OUTSIDE, THEY WERE MADE TO BE OUTSIDE!
miss e: [visibly annoyed] no they're not. HAVEN'T YOU EVER HEARD OF SELECTIVE EVOLUTION? look at the bulldog. on its own it wouldn't survive. BESIDES, I'M NOT ALWAYS THE ONE WHO LETS THEM IN! you cannot argue that they are designed to be outside when it's this cold BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT!

(sh*t i had another one but it is currently unavailable b/c i forgot)

*************
ok so for real this is going to be a marathon post because stuff keeps coming to my mind.

i'm feeling quite uncluttered lately. i feel like at the beginning of the week i freed myself from a ridiculous entanglement.

i have mentioned JPB numerous times. you know, the machista robot. but at the beginning of this week i think was the first real, mature conversation i have ever had with him.

i kept pressing him for information about his girlfriend. i don't want to talk about her with you. why not? i just don't feel like it. then of course i explained to him that i'm not a masochist, i just want to know what kind of person he is. then, getting to the point, i ask him are you not talking about her because you're afraid of ruining lo que podriamos llegar a tener? (not really sure how to put that in the right words in english).

basically this question comes from the ideas i have about giving the "right" answer in order to acheive desireable results. am i jaded? the thought goes as follows: if i talk to her about my girlfriend i don't think there's any chance of blah blah blah so i'll just be evasive about it.

so i continued my interrogation. "but doesn't it just tear you in two? telling me what you tell me [ie, i miss you, you should have stayed with me, etc.] while estando de novio? i would be in a crisis, trying to be two people!"

he started trying to change the subject, ya paso, hablemos de otra cOOOOooosa (that's me imitating the argentine accent). and me, "pero no te rindas! contame!"

but the rest of the conversation just kind of fizzled into silence.

i can't stand the willful disacknowledgement of the elephant in the room.

virtual breakup

it's not a stupid question.

i just can't believe you would ask it.

how twisted must your mind be relative to mine? asking me why i didn't come to your house with you to sleep when you invited me, knowing full well that i knew that you have a girlfriend, and also knowing my stance on "mistressship".

plus you never tell me about her!

i'm not a masochist; i just want to
a) stop thinking that she is imaginary
b) be convinced that you really aren't made of stone
c) understand how you treat someone you call your girlfriend

you also mentioned to me that i'm one of your last remaining "amigas." i asked why; you told me that they got married and your relationships with them inevitably changed. then: no te cases. ni te pongas pregnant! you must have had some very permissive "amigas." i can understand your disappointment at discovering (though you really do seem to fail to acknowledge it) that i'm not going to be one of your permissive amigas.

how can i give all of myself to someone who can't do the same for me?

and as i tell my students, IT'S A RHETORICAL QUESTION; THERE'S NO NEED TO ATTEMPT TO ANSWER.