5/8/00
Okay, so I haven't updated "Notes from the Cess Pool." I've been busy...
Friday night we went to see RENT at the Music Hall and it was fucking FABULOUS. I laughed, I cried...it was such an amazing show. Yes, it did make me horribly lovelorn for my theatre days. When Roger sang "One Song Glory" I just bawled. The whole show was excellent. And afterward, as we were leaving the theatre and I was contemplating begging a stranger for a cigarette, I hear someone yell my name and when I turned around, it was my friend M that I haven't seen in like, seven years, since her wedding. And we were really tight "back in the day," too. I haven't seen her son since he was in diapers, she showed me his school picture from last year and my God, now I really feel old because he's 10 and gorgeous. She asked me if I was doing any shows and I said no, I have no time, and she said, "me neither but I sing in the church choir!" Which is even more hysterical when you consider M is one of the most irreverent people I know. Then she lightened my career choice burden by telling me she took a job at the Cess Pool t.v. station as some programming big wig--"yeah, I sold my soul, but it's a kickass paycheck." I just love her, she was always the bitchy big sister I never had. I'm supposed to call her when I'm in town again so we can "do lunch." When you're young, you party all night, when you're old, ya do lunch. Times change...
Saturday, we got up super early and took the dogs to the doggie store to buy cat litter and chew treats and the like. Then we did a little yard work--I mowed and Megan put this red brick border around the front step. It's really cute, very cottage-like and SO our neighborhood. Then on a whim we went garage-sailing--ahoy, mateys, I see an "estate sale" sign ahead, aaarrrrr...! The first house we went into was a horrible experience. Apparently it had belonged to an elderly lady who had, by my observations, died of cancer (judging from some of the things in the house). She had dishes like my grandma's, a jewelry box like my grandma's, and jars of canned pickles and tomatoes in the basement, just like my grandma. I went sobbing out of the house. It was just so sad, I couldn't stand it. Megan was all "what's wrong?" and I'm sobbing like a freak, "this could be my grandma's house, you buy that bed, I'll be in the car." And we did buy a bed, a twin box spring and frame for $12.50. Then the next one we went to wasn't so bad, because you could tell a lot of stuff had been "placed" specially for the sale (which I think is shitty, but oh well). We got a 2-piece pine china cabinet, painted the same shade of sage green as my tablecloth, for $175. Kick ass. Then when we got the shit home, of course, the real work began--there was a 30-gallon fish tank where I wanted to put the china cabinet (and there were still fish in it alive) and the carpet still hadn't been entirely removed from the spare room. Shit. So we spent the next several hours working--me tearing down the big tank and setting up the 10-gal (I had it sitting in the basement) in my mudroom, making a huge wet mess, and Megan pulling up the rest of the carpet and moving the dog kennel to the basement and moving the curio cabinet from the dining room to the bedroom and then trying to put everything back in order. Actually we both helped each other with all that, so...then we made margaritas and got drunk while scraping paint off the floor. We went to bed around 2 in the morning.
Sunday, we got up and went to buy more plants. Some flowers for the front yard around the step and some herbs for the back yard. I bought six tomato plants that I have in a huge pot in the back yard. I'm too afraid to put anything in the ground because I don't know enough about vegetables to try it. But I bought basil and thyme and fennel and lavender and sage and some more lemon thyme. Lovely. And on the way there we pass ANOTHER estate sale, and this one has a twin mattress for $10. So we got the whole bed for $22.50. Damn, we're good. We spent the rest of the day planting and arranging in the spare room and all kinds of other shit. After yet another shower we went to get ice cream and then came home around 9:30, realizing then that we hadn't turned on the t.v. all weekend. Now I need a couple of days to recover.
Today was therapy day and I really didn't think I had a lot to talk about. But once I got there, I realized, hey, I'm actually getting somewhere. I just today (on my way back to work) realized that the "foxhole" they were talking about is of the military kind--get in the foxhole, there's shells a'fallin. All this time I've been thinking like, you know, Bambi and shit. So I didn't really get the metaphor even though I understood the concept. And when she said something about "now you don't need the foxhole as much" I just lost it because it was like, oh my God, I don't have to be that scared little kid anymore. I don't have to sit back and let things happen to me anymore. I don't have to hold on to that...but is it harder to hold on to it or to let go? It's like finding out there's no Santa, Easter Bunny OR tooth fairy all in one day, like everything you've ever believed about yourself and your life you discover--after many years--that it wasn't necessarily the whole picture. And THAT is fucking bizarre, man. Because my whole life, that's how I've always defined myself and who I am and why I do the things I do--I was the girl who was raped. I was the girl who was afraid of her mother. I was the girl who went through life without even really realizing that it was going on around her. My God, to no longer have that as your sole identity? It's a bit frightening, and a bit sad, although horribly refreshing...but the question is, "if I'm not that girl anymore, then who the hell am I?" I guess that remains to be seen, doesn't it? It was so strange, I went in there not realizing I had anything to say, and then one sentence comes out of her mouth and it's like, W-A-T-E-R all over again. "She knows, she knows!" When she said that, though, I just had this image in my head of me, at ten or twelve or whatever, sitting in the woods, and I thought, that's over. It's all over now. And that was such a kick in the head for me. I've been holding on to all that shit for so many years and now it's starting to look like it might really go away, to its rightful place in the past, for good. And that brings room for all manner of new things. When you finally decide to be (and are able to be) an active participant in your life, you realize there are all kinds of questions to be answered. What am I going to do with my life? Am I in the right work? Am I in the right relationship? What about friends? Where do I go from here? What do I do now?
"Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?"
Mental shit is strange.
Getting back to life, back to reality, I will not fail computer science. Will wonders never fucking cease. I "got" 75 on both finals. I say that's a collossal fuck-up on someone's part or he grades on a major fucking curve. And he gave me 98 on my paper! How cool is that? So life--and school--will go on...
Megan and I might consider relationship counseling. I personally think it would be worth a shot. I just don't know if she's willing to go in and be honest, I know she has a history of totally manipulating therapists (because she knows how) and rendering it all worthless. Who knows...
Next Entry