Sweating

They ‘cool’ this house with a swamp cooler. That is, a pump pours water over the four fibrous walls of a box that a giant fan is sucking outside air through, adding ‘cool’ water to the air and blowing it into the house. So right now I’m covered in a thin layer of 100+ degree water, some of which I hope is sweat.

I’m drinking a strawberry-flavoured citrus wine. The first bottle will be empty, probably before the end of this post. The second bottle is actually honeydew-flavoured. Depending on how I feel I may save that one to drink in Pine. I practically glows. I think I may intentionally be teaching myself to appreciate the wine-ness of wine, and there’s a reason for that which I don’t like to admit, even to myself. Something about together, perhaps, or the hope of it.

I’ve seen both The Italian Job and Wrong Turn (which open tomorrow) while in Phoenix this week, and if I were more on the ball, would probably have seen Finding Nemo as well. I am thinking of writing a pseudo-review of The Italian Job tonight. I also saw Bruce Almighty today, and by telling myself for a week or so beforehand that I would be disappointed by it and that it wasn’t going to be very good, I really liked it. It surpassed my (intentionally low) expectations. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much of anything going into Wrong Turn, so had almost no expectations for it (positive OR negative), and can only say that it seems to have done what it set out to do, and was effective as the sort of gory horror-type movie it is … except that going against genre (and its R rating) there was no nudity or sexual situations. I mean, really. They had Eliza Dushku spread-eagled and tied down to a bed, but fully clothed, and fully non-sexual. What a waste. Believe you me, if I had Eliza tied to a bed, I’d be more effective than those inbred, killer hillbillies were. She’d be screaming, and not in terror. (If you know what I mean.)

What I really want to post about is Sara. If not for the wine, I doubt I’d be able to. I’ve been actively not posting about her for the last three-plus weeks. She’s been traveling Europe for the last three weeks with this other guy she likes. He’ll be staying in her home for a month, starting Monday. She called me tonight, but … I didn’t want to have the conversation I want to have with her in front of my brother and sister (we were on the way to the theatre for Wrong Turn when Sara called). I’m not even sure she’ll let me have that conversation with her. Or that I’ll be able to have any more conversation with her after Monday than I did while she was galavanting around Europe. Maybe I should call and talk to this ‘Colin’ person some time… make friends with him. I’m a nice guy… no reason he wouldn’t want to talk to me, is there? Friends, now there’s something I know how to make.

It’s the relationships with people that I want to be more than friends with that I seem to have difficulty with.

Heck, if Sara likes him, we probably have more than enough in common to be friends.

It’s hard enough to win someone over from 3500 miles away without them falling in love with someone else. Part of the problem is that based on the years I’ve known Sara, if she did fall in love with him, or start officially ‘dating’ him (though if they’re living together, where do you draw that line?), or whatever, she wouldn’t tell me. Even if I asked. Until it was already too late, and over. Or they were married. Whatever. She’d be all telling me about how they celebrated their first wedding anniversary, and it would be the first I heard of them even having a relationship. Or she’d come crying to me when they broke up.

Am I whinging?

Whatever. I’m getting a good buzz at the last swallow or two of this bottle. And I love Sara. And alcohol really does reduce my inhibitions, like denying that I’ve never wanted anything more than to be with her. Not writing, not painting, not anyone else, not even living and breathing. When I pray, more often than not, the only things I can think of to pray about are thanking God for all the blessings in my life and praying for Sara, for her health and safety, for her well-being. When I wish, such as blowing out candles or on a falling star or on holding my breath through a tunnel or whatever, I wish for her safety. I can’t think of anyone else I know I’ve dreamed of. I can’t think of anyone else I’ve ever considered or offered to up and move for, to leave the country for, to change my life so wholly for. I have asked her more times to marry me than I’ve thought of marrying anyone else, and these days I only ask her when she brings it up. But I still want her, I still love her, I still ask her.

Tomorrow I return to Pine. I’ll either be working the store (unlikely) or be building a ramp and/or boardwalk to the new, small buildings (highly likely). The latter project will involve quarrying stone and a fair amount of work. Maybe I should open up that other bottle now. I hope this weekend in the store will be more profitable than last weekend, painting sales or not. I hope there is/are painting sales in my store this weekend. I need the money. Especially if Cafepress decides my store is worthless. Sigh.

Alright, the second bottle is open now, and my glass is glowing green. iTunes is doing well tonight, judging my mood, playing music like U2’s With Or Without You, Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You, R.E.M.’s Half A World Away, NIN’s Something I Can Never Have, and Pearl Jam’s Indifference.

I think I want to shower in the morning before we go to Pine.

I miss her. It’s more than an emotional thing, I physically feel her missing from my life. There is a memory of touch, and with my fading memory of reality and my increasing reliance on hope and imagining a better future together, sometimes I remember the brush of skin on skin, her hand in mine, her lips on mine, and in a way that is like remembering breathing or eating, like something I need to live but have not had in … so long. Like I have been fasting without her touch. Her voice has been ringing in my ears, her voice over my phone cost me $150 for the month before she left (I have since changed my calling plan to account for loving her), her voice is like a delicious massage across my eardrum, though I crave so much more of her than the electronic transmission of her voice to me across thousands of miles. I crave her presence. Her scent upon my nostrils, her soft skin under my fingertips, her beauty in my eyes. Her warmth within my warmth for her.

Yes, I am obsessing over the idea of her right now, tonight. Yes, if I were trying to date someone else tonight this would be a problem, a stumbling block. But fuck. I’m not dating anyone else. I’m not really trying to. The person I’ve been most interested in (in person, as opposed to over ridiculous distances for courting) in the time since I’ve moved to Pine is married with children, neither to nor of me, respectively. As far as I know there is no ‘dating scene’ in Pine. And trying to date someone from 100 miles away (ie: someone from Phoenix or Flagstaff) is just as ridiculous as trying to date someone from 1800 or 3500 miles away. So I’ve decided that going back to just loving Sara with my full being is just as reasonable as anything else I might try to do in that area.

RealAge just emailed me to let me know that “In a recent study of older people, those who were in the habit of providing support to other people were 60 percent less likely to die during the course of the five-year study, compared to unhelpful people. Assisting with housework, childcare, errands, or transportation all counted as helpful acts.” Heck, I am in the habit of providing support to other people for a living.

I got up to get another glass of the green stuff and commented to my sister that I was approaching stumbling drunk. Thus, I definitely need another glass. I went to pee after filling my glass with the green stuff and I couldn’t feel my dick. I’m getting there.

Counting Crows’ Raining In Baltimore followed by (the currently playing) Moby’s Natural Blues.

This summer my brother and I are going to learn Japanese. Maybe this Fall I can arrange to fly out to Japan to stay with a friend of my grandfather’s. Really immerse myself in the Japanese culture and art. I would love for my art to be directly influenced by Nipponese art. If I knew how to get them to show up properly on my website, I’d write “Japan”/”Nippon” and derivative words in the appropriately native characters. I know them, I can draw them, I just … I can’t type them. Yet. Maybe Heath and I will go to Japan together. Maybe the money will come together (that’s a laugh) and he can be an ‘exchange student’. Hah!

I know I want to study in Japan. I bet I could get a job there teaching English.

I’m growing my hair out again. Did I mention that yet? I had been growing my head and face hair for the 90 or so days until 111.0 A.C., and said I would make a determination ‘at that time’ as to whether I would go back to shaving or haircuts or whatever, and I may not have mentioned it here, but I seem to have decided to let my head and facial hair both grow out. I’m going to let my facial hair grow for at least until 111.1 A.C., and my head hair potentially indefinitely. I had long hair, once. I liked it. I think I’ll do long hair and a beard. Fuck it. Regardless of how ‘thin’ it gets on top, and how bald I get. I think long hair suits the me I want to be, regardless of where on my head and how thick it grows out.

My (AWAD) email with a fancy quote in it just sent me this:

“He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.”
-Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

I’ve heard this sentiment before. It may even have been a ‘theme’ in The Catcher in the Rye, which I will comment on in detail at the upcoming MEVBC meeting (assuming anyone shows up). The idea that being imaginative and clever does not mean nearly as much if one is not also educated. Classically educated. I tried going back to school to study Art ‘appropriately’. I could not afford it. I’m taking a correspondence art course instead. Sort of. I got upset with the school due to some poor communication in the last unit I read and despite the fact that I have two more units already in hand to work on and another three (probably already in my PO Box in Pine) on their way, I haven’t been working on it since I got upset. I’ll probably start working on it again next week. Go through perspective in a day and basic drawing in another.

I just sneezed, then blew my nose, and basically didn’t feel either at all. Ah, numb.

Too bad I’m not numb to loving Sara.

Here we go again.

Before she left in the first place (now years ago) I offered to ‘follow her anywhere’. To move to New York of Ohio or Spain or wherever she was going. I told her and showed her every way I knew how that I loved her, and she told me she didn’t know how to react to that. She told me not to follow her. She refused to make plans that I could take part in.

She says (again and again and again and again and again and again…) that she doesn’t deserve the love I’m offering her. Can you imagine how that makes me feel? I love her. I love her. I love her. I believe she deserves even more love than I can begin to offer, and she just tells me I’m wrong, I’m out of line, I shouldn’t love her, she’s not worth it, she isn’t worth my love. And I just go on loving her. My fight has been to try to convince her she is worth loving, and I fear I may have done too good a job for she is now looking for someone else to love her as I already do. She seems to be beginning to believe that she is worth all the love I am offering her, but is looking to someone else to give it to her. Fuck.

The Cure’s Trust, and now Joan Osborne’s Man In the Long Black Coat.

She wouldn’t tell me a thing about how spending three weeks with him went, except to say that she had ‘a great time’, which says so much. She almost wouldn’t tell me that he’d admitted to liking her (a question before the trip, apparently) whilst on the trip. Am I repeating myself? I suppose I’m only repeating myself in my mind.

Oop, there goes the last of the second bottle into my glass. I think my tolerance has been going down, what with the not drinking around my grandparents and having no real source of income to even BUY alcohol. My hands are moving faster than my mind right now, and with just about as much accuracy as my poison-addled mind.

I almost want to go out and wander around in the middle of the night. Wander down to CoupDeFeu’s house just a couple of miles south, or Zoe’s place just a couple of blocks from there. Make some sort of half-drunk excuse for showing up in the middle of the night on a weeknight, and try to have a good time anyway. Bah. She lives with her parents and they’ve both got work in the morning and … how long would it take me to get there on foot anyway? It would probably seem like nothing to me, but I live in the land of the slow-motion living AND when I get drunk the world seems mostly in fast-forward to me. So it would be like I was already there, regardless of how long it took me to walk the two miles. (Probably half an hour or so.)

Or i could just sit here and keep writing. This post isn’t long enough, you say? Bah!

I really do want to get out, get outside. Find human contact. Spending time with my family is not human contact. Not really. Certainly not contact. Is there a bar near here where I can pick up some unexpecting young woman and get the physical connection I haven’t been able to get from any of the people I care about in literally years? Hell, last call isn’t for another 40 minutes or so. Too bad I’m fucking broke. And care about meaningful human interaction more than cheap sex.

Oh, and don’t know of anyplace like that in walking distance.

I wonder if I have any numbers I could call re: a traditional ‘booty call’… I’m pretty ‘lonely’.

Sigh. Maybe I’ll just go to ‘bed’, by which I mean ‘couch’.