Hello. Today is my birthday. I'm 21. I called my mom and ask her, now that she's gotten all of her kids to 21 alive, what her new goal in life is. I got the machine. I left a message.
I've been learning how to juggle. One of my brothers and his wife got me a How To kit for solstice. The balls that come with the kit are these hard leather bean bag things, which I found fairly difficult to use. A couple days ago Maryam and I were at CompUSA picking out a CD Burner ad they had these little fish bowls filled with these nifty gel pack "stress reliever" balls. I bought three. My juggling has improved significantly with the new balls. My current best is 11 cycles. I basically know how to juggle, I'm just not very good at it yet.
Anyway, back to the 21st birthday thing. As some of you may know, Maryam and I were born on the same day (she's 5 hours older, as she likes to lord over me) so she was having a party Saturday night.
We went on a beer run at exactly midnight.
There are nebulous plans to go out to a couple of bars, go bowling, etc. later today. Nothing was particularly nailed down as, ahem, who knows how we'll all be feeling in the morning?
The party isn't my main interest, however.
Maryam was hoping Alborz, whom you may recall being mentioned in previous rants, would show up so she could fuck him. He didn't, shitty for him, eh?
Pamala once asked me if it bothered me when Maryam talked about other guys (In response, I believe to Maryam babbling on about some guy she met in a club and danced with and how she wants to fuck Alborz and how such and such is in her PoliSci class, etc). I told her I was wondering if she was trying to test me, push me away, or if I just simply didn't enter into the thought process.
Anyway, I've noticed when I'm drunk or otherwise not my usual self two things happen. One, my tendency to observe people produces useful data at an astounding rate. Two, I have a tendency to tell them about it.
Case in point, I was watching Maryam talk to some fellow at the party whose name eludes me. She was blinking about once every 2-3 seconds. This is a signal of attraction from whence we get our phrase "batting her eyelashes." This was checked against control of her conversations with other people shortly there after... she blinked at a normal rate of about once every 6-10 seconds.
I shared this information with her and Chuckie (a friend of the fellow whom Maryam was batting her eyelashes at) at which point she denied it and looked rather annoyed. She then started flirting with Chuckie to disprove the point.
Apparently, the chuck-meister sayed on top of his game because he managed to spin that encounter from spite out into an evening's worth of flirtation with the occasional cheap thrill perks.
Last I knew they were planning to spend the rest of the evening (morning, bah, whatever) together.
I am becoming increasingly obsessive. The gibbering fool once thought laid to rest is alive and well, prodding me to pointless curiousity. I want to check to silence the fool. But I do not want to check... because imagination made reality ends the cycle of self-deceit that allows me to continue being polite to her.
Have you ever noticed the similarities between the words "polite" and "politics"? It's not an accident. Someone who is polite is hiding their true feelings about you just as surely as a politician is hiding some nasty bit of the truth. Not to say that it's a nasty bit of truth that I've been hiding the whole time. For a while it was a maudlin optimism that, if I could maintain my feelings for her, she would eventually return to feeling as she once did for me. Actions and comments she has made have soured this optimism. Statements and suggestions totally alien to the very concept have engendered a hefty current of disgust. Even so that naive devotion remains... thus the growing obsession. Were it not that I still loved her in some way I would simply cease to have anything to do with her.
The growth of the obsession is a fairly simple one. I'm developing a Virgin/Whore concept. As my desired view of things is alternatingly reinforced and shaken my feelings and actions towards her become increasingly polarized. The obsession, such as it is, grows from a desire to end this cycle. I would like to think I'd rather my hope be shattered beyond the reach of self-deception... that I could finally see her as she really is than these alternating stylized versions. Then, with somewhat objective information, I could decide whether I still like what she has become. But as I said... I would like to think this.
Still the gibbering fool prods.