A Bright, Ironic Hell

Epiblogue (Part 236 of 236)

2009-08-21T20:40:00.004-04:00

How does one begin an ending? It helps to know that it is an ending, but it doesn't help not to have come to it naturally, or at least not by the envisioned design. But as there was no such (realistic) design, this must be, by default, the ending the blog must have. All this is to say that I'm not prepared, in attitude and intellect, to address all that needs addressing. But that won't stop me from trying.

The journal was born of the crush's inspiration, the blog of the journal's frustrations. The journal got a two-month headstart in May 2008, and it wasn't until late August that year that the transcription caught up to the writing. Before the journal became a blog I decided that it would remain a journal in all respects but in its medium of delivery, that even mention of the blog would be as of a separate entity. The intent was two-fold and apparently contradictory: to pretend that I both did and didn't have an audience. I needed to believe someone was listening, but I didn't want to know. Once the former pretense was abrogated by reality, the latter became even more of a pretense--and an absolute necessity. This was to be an exercise in candor, a "private" exhibitionism, a naked parade in front of my windows at which I allowed anyone to look and dared anyone to take offense and call the cops. Until Sergeant Chris told Captain Julie, I'd had little evidence that I had been writing in anything but a vacuum. Finding out otherwise, and that coworkers constituted the majority of my audience, mortified me. Some had been reading practically from the beginning, and if I'd known then they'd been reading over my shoulder, I could not have, at that toddling stage, continued with any confidence in the conceit or intent of my writing. But I had more than hit my stride by then, not just confident but certain that I had set out on the right path from the start. This certainty fueled my indignation when Chris broke the blog, and I briefly abandoned the literary conceit to dress down my readers as voyeurs. Yet that was precisely the audience I had set out to attract. Secretly, I was flattered, but, more that, I was embarrassed to realize that I was putting on a show for my coworkers. How many of them, knowing the day, place and time of my intent to ask Julie out, were waiting on tenterhooks for me to come to the back afterwards and give James the fist-pump of success? How many people now knew more about me than did the one person with whom I wanted to share myself? My first lesson on the power of a blog was hard-learned: Someone is reading it. Just as indignation forced me from the conceit, it forced me out of the public eye when I protected it with a password, but through my anger I could still see my hypocrisy (if at the time I considered it a righteous refusal to be cowed by a mob), and removed the protection.

If you've read from that far back, you know the outer details and how I felt at the time. I don't wish to rehash, but much of this is a dialogue with myself, if not strictly temporization while I search for myriad things I can't yet recognize. I didn't open a can of worms but Pandora's box, and I want to understand what I released, its overall effect and how it brought me to this point.

This thing I grudgingly call a blog could not have been anything else. Expression abhors a vacuum. I've kept journals, off and on, for most of my life, and the one thing they never had was a reader. I chopped down a forest of trees and never heard one of them fall. What expression is expressed without acknowledgment? The blog is a curious creature, a kind of written performance art, a volatile, malleable personal forum that can't escape the influence of its audience. Of course, mine was no exception, though only indetectably so, until Julie commented. After all, I was soliciting advice, if still pretending there was no one to give it. But Julie's comment was, if not the only one that mattered, the one that mattered most. The last irony of this bright, ironic hell was that it was the words of the one person I wanted to talk to me that shut me up. Was it what I'd wanted? I'd wanted Julie's affections, but, denied that, I wanted, at least, her attention; and, that denied, I simply needed to hear her say, "Leave me alone." Julie was right when she said she never led me on. I always knew that. I did not need to be led on. What else she did not do was stop me. I am stubborn, tenacious, probably importunate and definitely willfully ignorant of hints. Julie was right, too, in saying she tried to be sensitive to my feelings, but to which feelings was she sensitive? I am not the average male; there is no such thing. I have feelings, but they are to be shared, not spared. Beat around the bush, but I don't see the bush or the stick you're abusing it with. I'm staring at you waiting for the truth. I was staring at Julie, waiting, until she wrote on my blog.

There are many ways I could justify continuing A Bright, Ironic Hell, starting with a logical shredding of Julie's comment: No privacy but my own did I ever invade, and no word did I write that I did not feel. My feelings were real and valid, but not the truth. I could even logically refute the claim that I was insensitive. But I won't. What can the rational say to the emotional? Not a trillion of my words can invalidate Julie's hurt and feeling of invasion. I built up a rapport with my own emotions, but I never got to know Julie's. I was not so much insensitive to her feelings as ignorant of them. Or is that the same thing? Was that the hurt I caused? Upon understanding my own feelings, did I consider them unique? All my talk of shunning martyrdom while believing I was the only person who could be hurt by any of this! I understood why I deserved compassion, but was sitll arrogant enough to believe no one else was as deserving of it. From my awareness of Julie's lack of feelings for me I inferred that my feelings, whatever they were, were altogether irrelevant to her. I was not prepared to believe that she could be hurt by my ignoring her. When she said she was upset that I didn't want to talk to her, the blog whistled over my ducking head.

I daresay it was the blog itself that hurt her. My attention to her and interaction with her in the workplace was minimal, but of course my pen was not quiet. I had assumed that she had, as she'd told me at our second confrontation, that she had just read "enough," but when I suddenly discovered otherwise, many, if not all of my paranoias became solid realities and moments at work that had seemed at the time eerily coincidental to my immediately previous writing proved, under retrospection, to be reactions to the writing. (No one at work, for example, ever saw the reinstated picture, only the backside with its inscription.) Julie may actually been bending over backwards, in her fashion, to try to please, or at least appease me based on what she read in the blog. But she was, indeed, damned if she did and damned if she didn't, because what I really wanted from her was something I couldn't ask from her even obliquely, much less expect from her: Love. I knew at Stir Crazy (and probably long before) that love from Julie was out of the question, so I tried to scale back to friendship, but know already that that wouldn't happen, either, I hoped for at least conversation. What Julie gave me was not enough for which I was able to show gratitude. If Julie had not been reading the blog she could not have known simply by my actions at work what I was going through or trying to do. She could have left me to my own pathetic devices.

As she in her way tried to help matters, I suspect, too, that she acted in the same way on her frustrations with me. A non-assertive person is a passively aggressive person, after all. I'm certain that it is no mere self-flattery with which I translate some of her actions as goadery. And how could I blame her, as much of it as I did myself?

This was our conversation. I spoke to her with the blog, and she manifestly responded with her actions. The problem was, we were never speaking directly to one another. We weren't building a single bridge in cooperation, but two bridges in entirely different locations based on assumed specifications and smeared blueprints. Such has been, virtually, our entire relationship and how we have come to know each other.

Julie is (again) right to say I don't know her. Regardless of how closely my speculations on her character might have struck to the truth, I can never know how closely. What I know about her that she has not let others know is knowledge not freely given by her but taken from her, forced from her by anger and frustration. Yet I would not give it back even if I could. It's the knowledge that she is like all of us, a frail child who wants to be liked, and in order to be liked must hide what it's not proud of or what it fears makes it too different to be liked. It was, finally, my belated perceptioon of this frailty that turned her from the one-dimensional, perfect object of my desire into the moist-eyed, weary human being I had been haunting.

I have reached a point in this post where I must assess what I've done, what I've accomplished, what I've failed at, and what I've become. When I said at the beginning that I was not prepared, this was the task to which I was specifically referring, though I didn't know it then. Who was I kidding, thinking I could tame and categorize the ephemeral beasts shooting from that box of oppressed feelings after I'd smashed it to splinters? or that I'd even want to? And, right now, I don't want to. I can't. I've been trying for weeks, and I can barely form a thought around them. My intellect is no match for time. Closure may be years away. I have gained the confidence to heed my wisdom; now I must be patient while time ages and mellows the beast and sends them home to me, prodigal emotions returning as new wisdom.

I'm tired. I want to let this all go. What am I left with? I learned to express my emotions, but not to apply them to others. How much, then, can I say I've grown? Almost enough to have made it worth the trouble. But I did nothing I could have done any other way. I had to make the mistakes I made. I came out of myself, and if I accomplished nothing else, I wouldn't say it was all worth that result, but I'd say it was a good start. I've committed myself to be who I am. I can't regret the time it's taken me to make that commitment. It's finally time to go forward. Pride is not a friend, but, knowing that, I am more wary of its advice. I told Julie when we last spoke, "As far as I know, the feelings I had for you are no longer there. It's just bitterness, pride--or shame--that keeps me going." Since then, things between us have not improved, and I take the full blame without deference. There is no going back, no "normal." We exchange few words beyond greetings, no visual contact beyond recognition. Julie has tried a little bit, I have not tried at all. For me, it's back to the old attitude of "What's in it for me?" and still I see nothing. There's a lesson I haven't learned, or that pride is still able to occlude: Though Julie hasn't feelings for me, she still cares what I think of her, and to say this has nothing to do with her and everything to do with my pride, is irrelevant. But how much do I need to care about that? There really is no Julie anymore. (That was surprisingly painful to say, its spontaneity notwithstanding. I had to stop for several moments after, clench my teeth against the tears.) She is another coworker with whom I (might as well) have nothing in common, someone else to whom I have nothing to say, with whom I can't have a meaningful conversation. Mike told me he got over a girlfriend by hating the things she like. I can't do that, but I can open my blind eye. Julie is little more than beautiful now, and beauty has never been enough for me. I can't say it's no longer difficult working with her--her presence still kicks my pride--but maybe one day I can give her a smile that means no more than a smile I'd give Jennifer or Becky. What other goal could I have? To have no hopes that Julie will someday feel for me the way I once felt for her? Which goal will be realized first?

There is so much more to say that I'm sure I could go on writing for quite some time, but I have to put an end to it--the post and the blog--knowing I've said what needed saying and not regretting later what might have been said. The blog has the answers, and I trust they will be revealed to me, in time. Where I go from here, I don't know, but I know I can't stop writing. I will write another blog, but blogging has changed for me. I can no longer pretend no one is reading but it would be irresponsible and egotistical to think that I can command an audience simply by putting pen to paper. A Bright, Ironic Hell was inspired by and focused upon a pursuit. Where is my inspiration? and what is my pursuit? I have dreams, of course, some of them specific and maybe even attainable, but who will follow me, my guitar and voice to a corner in Carytown? That is not the essential pursuit. What is? I would love to be in love, but I can do little more about that than lay the groundwork, and what is that? I am rudderless, but I still, have a sail. I just don't know which way the wind is blowing. I trust it's not an ill wind, that I will hurt no one this time. I see nothing on the horizon. I can't tell if I'm even moving. Whatever I do next in the way of writing must be a continued exploration of this emotional landscape of which I know I've only taken snapshots. There is a place, I'm sure, where intellect and emotion are not separate, where emotion does not need to be picked apart and analyzed, where it is not a slider puzzle or a Rubik's cube, where it is not a curiosity. Somewhere, emotion and intellect exist as one thing. That's where I want to go. I'd like to take you there with me, because I know now that you are necessary. I don't know the way and don't know if we'll even ever get there, but is there anywhere else to go? I'll miss this place, believe it or not, though I doubt it will ever be far away. For me, it's been everything its title implied--a torture full of hope. It could have been nothing else. Whatever's left to learn from this will catch up, pass and lead us. So...let's go.

Prologue to an Epilogue (Part 1 of 2)

2009-08-01T13:45:00.004-04:00

When I opened my Hotmail Thursday and saw that "t.c. sinatras" had commented on my blog, my heart stopped for a moment before beginning to beat harder than ever. I could only stare. I actually thought that if I didn't open it it would go away and that if I did it would explode. It didn't go away. I opened it, and it exploded. First, the comment that prompted it:

Anna said...
What would happen if you couldn't keep [the pretense] up? Would she completely obliterate you? Not sure I like Julie anymore... ..not that I'm sure I was ever a big fan...

I was on the desk with Sofiya.

t.c.sinatras said...
Hmmm, not sure if you like Julie.....that would imply that you know me and you don't. Neither does Dion. You only know what you read about me in this blog and that's one person's perspective. Remember, there are two sides to every story. I have made it clear to Dion what my feelings were. Never have I tried to mislead him or play games. I have tried to respect his feelings but when everything you say and do, or not say and do for that matter, is publicly displayed, criticized, analyzed and second-guessed, it's hard to maintain that respect as I feel my feelings and privacy have not been respected. The result is that I no longer wish to speak to Dion at all. It seems to be a case of damned if I do or damned if I don't. How would you feel Anna, if you were in my position? Perhaps, before you judge me or anyone else, you should consider their position.

My heart pounded in my ears. I wanted to talk to James. Lunch was my next hour. I couldn't encounter Julie. I could go upstairs and write James before coming down to eat. Julie would have left the breakroom by then. I was otherwise a wide-eyed, trembling blank till the top of the hour. I wasn't picky about the computer. I immediately forwarded James Julie's comment with a brief note then read Unrequited Love Blog's "Forced Finality" because of the apparent parallel. (I could already hear the bell tolling for A Bright, Ironic Hell.) I invited the author to read the catalytic post. I didn't finish the comment.

Julie pulled out the chair beside me, spun it to face me, and sat. "I put a comment on your blog," she said. She looked smug and defiant. Her lipstick was deep pink, a tiny crescent of bare lip exposed on the upper border.

"I saw it," I said.

The mask crumbled.

"I've been angry--I'm very angry...that you don't want to talk to me anymore."

I stared into her moist eyes. My mind made no effort to formulate words in response. I was not going to interrupt her.

She stood suddenly, pushed the chair to the desk, and said, "I'm just tired of all this, Dion."

"I am, too," I said quietly.

She turned and left.

I logged off the computer, message unsent, and strode slowly to the back window behind non-fiction. My mind was anything but a blank but anything but coherent. I wandered to the stairwell and plopped down on the heating unit on the top landing. I knew Maddox would be up soon. When I first confided in him about this mess, he did the same in me about a similar situation he'd been in. I knew he understood. He came up, and I told him what had happened, what I had to do, and how he might help.

I was on holds the next hour, Julie was backup. When she went to the back to pack branch mail, I took several deep breaths and followed. She was kneeling on the floor in front of the Tuckahoe bin.

"Julie, can we talk after work tonight?"

"Um, let me think." The only sound for a moment was the thudding of my heart. "Yes," she said. "Sure."

"Okay." I turned and left. I told Stacey, my ride in, that I would be travelling with Maddox. I told her why. She said she would have waited for Julie and me to finish our talk to take me home. I told her I thought she'd had enough of this particular drama and that I'd rather not involve anyone the least bit close to Julie. I then told Maddox we were on but that I'd have to give him the details after work, when I would straighten them out with Julie on the way to her car.

"So," I said then when I reached her side, "where should we do this?"

"What? Oh, I don't know," she said, deflating. "I didn't really think about it."

I wasn't much help, and I flashed back to when I forced Julie to set the time for our "date" at Stir Crazy. I didn't want to suggest Starbuck's but couldn't think of anywhere else. A light rain fell. Her hair twinkled with tiny beads of moisture under the parking lot lights.

"Starbuck's?" she said, her tone matching my silent hesitation. "I could use a tea anyway."

James dropped me off, said he'd be in the grocery store parking lot, a discreet distance away.

Starbuck's was closed. We sat at a table outside. It had already stopped raining.

Ij won't try to transcribe our conversation. I am no reporter and can have little objectivity. I was a participant, not an observer. I can't even promise that responses will match there triggers. Time has left in my memory barely more than an aura of the conversation. There was little light and no indulgence for even my smallest attempts at humor, no smiles for either of us. Stripped of pretense or hope, what was left was the disproportion of both to the importance of what I'd been doing, a sharp outline of my prideful foolishness, and, across the table from me, the weary face of the damage I'd wrought.

"Look," I started. "I'm sorry I upset you. You have to know this is the opposite of what I want. It's not that I don't want to talk to you. I just don't know how."

"I'm just tired of it, Dion. I have enough to deal with with my mother and everything. I don't need the notes, the comments, the picture on your bike. I swore I would never comment on your blog, but when I read what that girl said, I blew up. It was the just last straw. I was furious. I was furious all day long."

I told Julie I would end the blog, but that I would liker her to have the last word, that she could write whatever she wanted and I wouldn't change a word.

"No, I won't do that, because I really don't want to, because that's been the problem all along, that it's so public. I'm not asking you to stop writing the blog. Write about something else. Just don't make me the object of it anymore."

"Well, that's why it has to end. You were the whole point of it. Your comment was the nail in the coffin."

"I'll write you something if it will help."

"It might, but. ..."

The silences filled the gaps like smoke under a door. I was the only one threatened by them, knowing that within every one was Julie's opportunity to end the conversation.

"I know my assurances aren't worth much at this point."

"What's done is done."

"Yeah, but what's done was done badly. So much for getting back to normal."

"I can't say it will ever get back to that. It's damaged."

"I thought that with all we had in common we might have had a conversation, but we never did."

The slight curl of one side of her mouth was all she bothered to muster. I had to let her go, let her go home.

I said, "Is there anything else you need to say?"

She met my eyes for a long moment before saying, "No. I don't think so."

"Okay." I let the silence offer her the opportunity to excuse herself. She said she was expecting a phone call from a friend and must get home to meet it. On our separate ways, as I passed behind her, a sympathetic reflex nearly raised my hand to pat her shoulder, but I knew it would not be understood.

"Goodnight," I said to her back, but she didn't seem to have heard me. Halfway to her car, without turning, she said, "See you tomorrow."

On the way home Maddox talked about anything but what was most on my mind. It was his way of being discreet. He wouldn't be reluctant to hear me out, but I would have to introduce the subject. I didn't.

Tearing Down Bridges to Build Walls (7/29/09 Wednesday)

2009-07-29T16:40:00.003-04:00

The battle is pride versus conscience. It's obvious which the victor should be, but justice is not always served, and as the armaments are shared, it's not likely either side will grab the flag without disproportionate losses. What's the prize, anyway? The princess doesn't care which knight wins the joust or which suitor wins the duel--the winner lives and the loser dies. Whoopee. This has always been the battle, but before Julie knew how I felt about her, the battlefield was on my own land.

I can stop the metaphors, but I can't stop the battle. Though my pride has no rights to anything my conscience can't break from its grip. Being nice to Julie is not an option. Neither is being mean, but the absence of courtesy can convey vindictiveness, and my conscience is sensitive to those occurrences. Yesterday, she obviously needed some help with a heavily laden Easy cart. I was there and could have pulled her clear, but I ignored her and continued past. She had asked Mike a couple hours earlier for similar help and that had stung me. Now I stung myself. I felt I couldn't step in without giving in to Julie in some way, though, of course, it would have been only pride to which I'd have been acceding. If I could have done it stone-faced and silent I might have retained my attitude. Having said that, it's suddenly apparent that I have more intent to save my pride than to appease my conscience, for I make no such strategic speculation toward the retention of goodwill. So be it, I suppose, though such glibness speaks more to my immediate impatience with trying to codify my logic than to how I really feel--and probably speaks volumes of the inanity of this strategy.

Steps Forward:Steps Back (7/26/09 Sunday)

2009-07-26T22:22:00.003-04:00

I've no doubt that the trees in the Irony Forest have continued to fall noisily while I was out of auditory range. I wandered close to its edge yesterday and heard this one: Of all my talk of integrity and candor and honest, organic, no-tricks resolution, I am faking it till I make it. I'm not, of course, pretending to be a nice guy off whose back adversity rolls. I'm pretending I don't give a damn. The objective--normalcy-is the same. This way takes less effort and is closer from the start to the objective. I hate it when I care what Julie is up to or what she's saying to whom. I need her to be a non-entity, and that can't happen if I pay her any attention outside the professionally necessary. If Julie plays by my rules I'll forget her and what I thought she meant to me. I need her to not talk to me, to avoid me as obviously as I avoid her. I only care a little bit how I come off to her, but it's caring too much. She' already helping one way, though: A quality for which I'd always respected her has fallen by the wayside: Previously above this kind of thing, Julie has taken on adversarial attitude toward some of our less-than-favorite patrons, joining the large, all-female club on the circulation staff. The retailer in her skin has finally stepped out of it, and it's not pretty. Even if I were still blinded by my inane hopes, I wouldn't have let that slide. This puts her that much closer to simply "coworker"--that is, where I need her to be. Monday, I will try to reclaim my stake in No-Man's Land. It was surprisingly easy land to grab last week, but also too easily lost. The knot in my neck had gone away by the time I no longer needed to convince myself to not look at her. It's a longer week this coming week than the last, though. I'll have four full days with her in which to test this flimsy pretense. I can almost hear the trees falling to clear a path for me. If only I knew where it leads--but would that stop me from following it?

Can't Stop, On Fire (7/24/09 Friday)

2009-07-25T17:52:00.003-04:00

I nearly talked myself into not writing again, so I have to. It's one those evenings when nothing I can think to do seems worth doing. Expressing that is the last thing I want to do, but essential, as if doing so is admitting something I have to deal with. Every day it seems easier to not write, given the cumulative unfruitfulness of this almost obsessive output, and I know when I start writing about it that I'm nearing that bottomless precipice into which I would throw my book and pen. Writing is the last thing I ever want to write about, and doing so seems to tell me that it is, indeed, the last thing to write about. It isn't, but it might be the last thing I can make an effort to write about. It's painful to continue talking about Julie. There have been many details of our interactions over the past several weeks that I just haven't wanted to write. I don't want to look in the microscope anymore. I took our relationship from innocuous to impossible in barely a year. I spoke three words to her this week, because I had to. Today she spoke to me--because she had to--and I just stared at her a moment and turned away. She didn't require an answer, so I didn't giver her one. Until today it had seemed we'd sunk into agreement--no contact if could be avoided--but when she emerged from the bathroom after changing from her bike clothes this morning, and there I was, bag in hand, needing to do the same thing, she said, "Your turn," and the deal was off, the day lost, and the week ruined. My pride balloons up, and the bitterness floods in, and I hurt all over again from the humiliation of what I put myself through and--worse--that I'm still putting myself through it. I haven't seen James in months, and as much as I miss him, I'm ashamed to tell him where Julie and I stand.

So this is all I have, these words. It's hardly enough, and I haven't convinced myself to continue, but I think of Richard Pryor running down the street in flames: "If I stop I'll die!"

Pride vs. Pride (7/22/09 Wednesday)

2009-07-22T16:32:00.003-04:00

One word from a romantic naif several weeks ago suddenly rings in my ears a sonorous toll of wisdom. As I sat trapping holds at Angie's desk, Julie behind me at hers cleaning DVD's, I heard an echo of Bethany's "Still?" and as I could not answer it, each faint repetition of the word seemed to damn me further. Indeed, why have I perpetuated this quest? Ask my pride, and I'll feel even more the fool. That's nothing revelatory, of course. Nothing is at this point--or, rather, it's nothing I haven't realized already. I seem to be weaving my way back through everything I've said already over the past year, adding a contextual texture ("contexture"?) to what seems now to have been merely logic, now applying experience to theory. For want of stroking, my pride has turned on a blameless person, who has returned completely to the cold-shoulder attitude. I've lost contact entirely with the one person with whom I most wanted it, and my pride won't yield to make amends, because it is not all up to me, and I would receive no help. Julie's cold shoulder does not hurt as it did before, I don't need to beg for a truce. I will not confront her, leave no notes. It's not that important to my ego to have her attention, though, as it would be a condescending attention at best, it is a step backwards in my emotional growth. For now, I'll let that awareness suffice for progress. But "Still?" Julie knows why I do what I do to her. What it does to her I don't know. I can't say I don't care, but I can't believe that I have offended her, seeing as I've made it clear that it simply stems from my feelings for her, which are anything but malicious. But that argument is probably much the same as the one she used in her disbelief fo my feeling for her: "I thought I made it clear." And, perhaps, it has the same answer and the same resolution: "It was clear to my head but not to my heart. It will go away when it goes away." Maybe it's not up to either one of us.

One, Last Easy Lesson (7/20/09 Monday)

2009-07-21T12:36:00.005-04:00

Julie could have said goodnight to me as she left. I was standing outside, at the lip of the rain, waiting for Stacey, when Julie passed close by me. I caught her profile. Isn't it amazing how you can tell when someone is trying not to look at you? I was hoping she'd say goodnight. I could have said it, but by the time I'd stopped waiting for her to say it to me, saying it would have been an indication of my wounded pride and a challenge to her to return the greeting. So I watched her. Her stride and posture made no concession to the rain. I wondered what she thought, what it took for her to ignore me like that. I know, given the decorum she protects, that she wasn't proud of herself. I was a little hurt, but mostly I felt sorry for her. At least I've learned to open myself to my emotions, but Julie is master to hers. They don't stand a chance of exposure. That's why I had to take joy, however seemingly perverse, in her embarrassment, even in her outrage. But if that's all I'll ever get from her--and it is--then I'll have to move on. This is the last thing I tell myself that will seep into my soul like so much else recently. I have moved on in many ways, but am I still in love with her? I want to be, but I don't think I am. I don't know what I'm leaving behind by moving on, but I miss it already. Julie is not what I need. How long will it take me to accept that in my heart? When will she be no more to me than anyone else there? and less than most? How can I ever look at her without hope? Tonight I watched a little, old lady walking through the rain to her car, her heels pullling water from the puddles in tiny rooster tales. Her white cardigan stretched across her broad, stooped shoulders as she clutched closed a permanent shopping bag. That couldn't be the woman I love, could it?

For What She's Worth (7/16/09 Thursday)

2009-07-16T22:51:00.005-04:00

Something is happening with me, and though I am reluctant to analyze it, my curiosity keeps me plucking at it as at a fat scab with smooth, new, pink skin beneath it.

I could have greeted Julie as she passed my desk, but as per usual lately, I avoided doing so. But when I relieved Angie at the window and Julie was at the printer across the counter from me retrieving the pick list, I looked at her and waited for her head to turn my way, as I knew--or willed--it would. It did, and I said, crisply, "Hi, Julie," not smiling, not not-smiling. While I was saying it, and for a slow moment afterward, I felt nothing, or the absence of feeling. There was no hope, or defiance or dread. There may have been meaning, but I was not privvy to it. She responded politely. I went back to ignoring her.

And I've done a pretty fair job of it. It's become easier, not, I think, because I want to or feel I have to, but because it makes more sense than trying to connect with her. I still care, still wish she cared, but hasn't that always been futile? I've said it all before, and as much as I was sure of its truth, I could never believe. Faith is not something I could come to rationally, right as it might be--and I have been right all along. The things I talked and talked about are more real and true now than ever, so it seems ironic to spend more words on them. But that's what I do.

I may ignore Julie for the most part, but I no longer hide from her voice behind blaring headphones. Her voice still tweaks my blood pressure, but I'm teaching myself detachment--or, rather, finally learning. It's still at the conscious stage, where it takes a reminder that she's not looking to keep me from doing things simply for her notice, but these anti-self-selfconscious acts are no longer born of an ironic defiance to be noticed. I'm finally believing she doesn't care, and my pride might finally be saying, "Oh, well," and moving on. My pride is not dead, though, and if I could flatter myself to give Julie any credit for noticing the change in me, I would wonder how she'd feel about the apparent loss of affection for her. Would it be relief or remorse? I'd like to imagine remorse, though it hurts me, too, to be believe that. To believe it is relief would hurt more. Either way, I suppose it's only my pride that's pained.

Who's Pen Now? (7/15/09 Wednesday)

2009-07-15T16:41:00.003-04:00

Monday, I sat on the sofa, this book in hand, unopened, pen beside me, sheathed. All remained that way as the cicadas sounded off. The traffic, so close to my door that it usually drowns every other sound, and flowing heavily still in the early evening, was only background to the buzzing waves. I had nothing to say, or nothing more important than the stasis that left me virtually unaware of any sensation but the strident call of those most hideous bugs. No sense reminded me of this book in my hand. I seemed to be barely breathing. The cicadas faded with the light, and I stirred to a car horn, resigned, not reluctantly, to not writing that night. I had nothing to say, or nothing ordered. It seems I've said enough--or, having said all of it wrong, would perfer to remain silent until I figure out how to say it right. I thought I had something to write when, once again, Julie flattened herself against the hall wall as we passed, but what more can I say about that from my perspective? What did she see? My own eyes aren't enough, and I haven't any others. I don't have hers, or a third person's. If someone else could write this for me, maybe I'd have a chance of understanding. I'd rather be reading it.

The Shame of Triumph, the Victory of Defeat (7/10/09 Friday)

2009-07-11T13:38:00.006-04:00

A triumphant day sets on a shameful evening. A day of liberating candor dons a dark cloak of confusing reflection. I've been telling people how I feel about things, and I have been stepping on toes and hurting feelings. I have not been mean, only blunt. I feel I have done my character a service if I've been dealing my reputation a blow. But, to be fair to my reputation, it's punch-drunk anaethetized. I made no friends of co-workers today, but I enjoyed a rapport with patrons. With both I was open and decidedly not taciturn (with one obvious exception). It was not something my co-workers were use to, which, perhaps, accounts for both their offense and the patrons acceptance: Those who thought they knew me were confused, and those who didn't talked to me freely. I chided Mike for taping a torn page, and he said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I just thought I'd save you some trouble. I won't do it again," he added, shrinking a bit. Brian, who is our newest member and part-time, and, therefore, the least familiar with me, got a chiding, too, for misreading the schedule and beginning to collect books from the drop while I was still at the backup station. My reflex was to be miffed, but to prick my annoyance I joked, "You trying to tell me something?" As he takes most things, Brian took this without offense but not without understanding my my meaning. "Watch out," I told him. "I'm a sensitive guy." Julie was present. I could have taken the joke a little deeper at her expense, but in the absence of a knowing audience, its full effect--the embarrassment of Julie and the discomfiture of the audience--could not have been attained. I don't do jokes twice, so I don't waste them on the unappreciative.

With Joe, I wasn't joking when I spoke my mind to him. Our new day porter is much more industrious than Jeff ever was, but sometimes seemingly for the sake of busyness. He was the first person I saw Wednesday afternoon, and he said to me, "I'm going out and have lunch at the picnic table, now that I've cleaned it up out there." I looked over his shoulder out the breakroom window. "Oh, no," I couldn't help saying over the sight of a small massacre of wildflowers, shrubs, and saplings around the picnic table--maples, pines, sassafras, blueberrries, and myriad flowers and groundcovers, gone. This was way, way beyond his purview. What did he even do it with? We don't have any yard tools here. I said, "I liked it better the way it was." "Oh," he said. I said, "That area behind the mulch"--an amorphous ring inside of which was an island of protected wild growth--"is supposed to be left alone." "Really?" "Yes." My reaction was probably so much the opposite of the gratitude he expected that he must have been as crestfallen as he'd planned to be elevated in pride. He walked away silently.

Mary Lou, however, received the biggest slice of what I was dishing out. After she left for lunch I noticed on her desk a pair of bulky holds--multi-media learning packets that I had twice put out on the holds shelf for pickup, because it's where they belonged. The moment she got back I confronted her. "Did you take these off the holds shelf again?" "Yes. They were annoying me." "Annoying you? You had no right to do that." I snatched the holds from her desk. I had nearly a complete audience and I could feel the fear like a deafening fog stop everything. "It doesn't matter what any of us here like! This belongs out there!" and I took them out and shelved them for a third time.

I'm at an intersection of many roads, and I've somehow taken steps down each one of them--and they each feel right. I'm growing out of myself and into myself. It's painful and exciting. The pain is the old me with its claws in the new me--the dreadful familiar trying to pull me from the tingly new. The shame I felt at the end of the day is a humble reminder of the society I live in, its expectations of acquiescence to a safe conformity. But I have never been a conformer, and the pretense behind which I pretended to be a conformer has been hanging between me and my own mirror. I have pushed it aside this week. Shame is simply what low self-esteem sees--a feeble leap at unreachable and arbritary standards: It's seeing what it thinks I should be and knowing I'll never be it. Well, it's right, because it's not me. The leap is feeble because I don['t really want it. I want what I am, and that's no leap at all. I won't cry over the shame, but I won't crow over the triumph, either, because I don't know what I've won. Whatever roads I'm taking will meet up again, I'm confident, in a better place.

She Just Points at It and Laughs (7/08/09 Wednesday)

2009-07-08T16:36:00.003-04:00

Julie is trying again, but I've given up. What she's trying is just to be civil, and I can barely muster that. Do I feel anything at all for her? or just for my pride? She won't allow me to connect the way I want to. I'm not worth it to her, but it's only my pride that cares about that. She's not the only person who feels that way about me, but I feel the same about them. Julie told me how she felt about me when she said, "It's all up to you," and I still seethe when I think of that line and how I so readily and humbly accepted it instead of turning it on her with its translation. I was still deluded that there was a chance for me. It is not up to me, because its referent is no longer valid: I don't want things the way they were (that was never enough) and neither does Julie. She doesn't care if I talk to her and would rather I didn't. Who's feelings are hurt by that? It astonishes me still that she could have no interest--of any sort--given all the common interests. She won't talk to me about bikes, Scotland, music, movies--anything--even when I bring them up. I don't so much hate the imbalance of interest as her knowledge of it. It's a power I've given her to wield against me. I'd say, "That's where candor gets me," but it's the naivete of the belief that candor would be returned that got me: I showed her mine, but she didn't show me hers.

Mirror/Mirror (7/02/09 Thursday)

2009-07-02T10:56:00.003-04:00

Bethany also asked after me last Friday. I told her what the problem was. "Still?" she said. She hasn't spoken to me this week. My anti-claque grows. Julie's willful disdain for me grows daily more obvious, but I won't say painfully so; in fact, to this old master of that affectation it is virtually heartening. Suffering is required to maintain such an attitude. Her misery is a comfort to me, as long as it's related to me; and as long as I'm not actively contributing to it I can suffer no remorse over it. And I'm not contributing to it. I have spoken to her more than once since Monday and have each time been met with--eventually--a grunted, barely audible monosyllable of indeterminate verbiage. This has served to lower my blood pressure somewhat (but not enough). I can't know that I am a cause of her behavior (I would not be as "happy" if I weren't), and I'm working hard to not believe it, because it's not a healthy stroke to my ego, attention though it might (or might not) be; but I will never know, because Julie would never tell me; behavior of this sort communicates its own inability to communicate all to clearly. If only she knew how well I knew her....

Unfortunately, her behavior towards me has fueled fantasies of her kindling interest in me. Don't let's start in on that again. My best attitude right now is disinterest, though at this point it must be feigned. Perhaps disinterest isn't quite the right word without "emotional" before it. I am not disinterested, feigned or otherwise, but to become emotionally involved is to hope that Julie actually cares about me. When I was acting towards her the way she is now acting towards me it was for attention. I don't know if she recognized it as such, but I think it best that, thouugh I recognize it, I don't acknowledge it. In the meantime I won't stop trying to talk to her. It's the best way to deny that acknowledgment.

No, Not Okay (6/29/09 Monday)

2009-06-30T12:25:00.002-04:00

This is one of those times when I just stare at the paper for twenty minutes or so, slack-jawed and barely breathing, before starting to write; when the entire first paragraph is temporization, a running start. I'm still running--where's the starting line? It's not a dearth but a surplus of thought that paralyzes the pen.

"I'm not going to try talking to you, anymore" was an interpretation of my note that came to me last night, and I decided I had to debunk that, first chance. Ten o'clock, Julie took over for me at the window, announcing so while turning her back on me to get something from the cabinet above her desk. I said, pointing to the cart of books, "These are check-condition." "Okay." "And there's probably quite a bit more in the bins." "Okay." "How was your ride back Friday?" i asked her back. "Okay." (What does that mean?) "Okay?" She finally turned but didn't look at me but with a brush of her eyes and a glancing, forced, tight-lipped smile. "Uhm-hm." Every aspect of her told me not only that she had no intention of telling me more but also, "Go away."
I did. What more could I say? What could I ever say to someone who didn't want to talk to me? The same hour Julie picked up a call. It was for Greta, who was not in the room. Julie left the window to find her. She did not ask me--the only other person in the workroom--to watch the window for her--a breach that she would not have dared to make in normal circumstances.

Again, I am on the edge of distress, yet no course of action presents itself to me. What happened? I can't be convinced that the note in itself had a strong bearing on her attitude. Distasteful as speculation is to me, it is all I have by way of an answer, gossamer as that might be. Her bike had been parked inside, where everyone gathers at the end of the workday to leave together. She may not have been the first to see that slip of paper taped around ther hand-grip, and was very likely not to have been at least annoyed, and given the pretense of work-place propriety she tries to maintain, that was probably a floor I laid bare as she stood upon it.

Is there really anything I can or should do? Is this sudden feeling of defiance I have justified? Is it defiance at all? Did I do something wrong? I mean, besides fall in love with someone who'd as soon have nothing to do with me. What have I done wrong in this whole year-long quagmire of misplaced feelings? But I repeat myself.

As I thrash in my cage, my blood pressure setting records for anything on the outside of a vacuum, I think of my only escape as writing. I think that I could be writing my nights away, putting my energy toward getting out of the library by means of my only obvious talent. Then I wonder what the hell I'm going to write, and I let go of the bars, lean my cheeks against them and stare, unseeing, at freedom. This--whatever this is--is all I seem to know. What is it worth?

Taciturn for the Worse (6/28/09 Sunday)

2009-06-28T10:53:00.003-04:00

"Ugh! I can't talk to you!"

Julie rode her bike to work Friday, and I desperately wanted to talk to her about it. I couldn't muster a word till four o'clock, then Judy interrupted us. I left the note around the hand-grip of her bike.

All day--all week--my blood pressure was so high as to prompt people to ask after me, my face being deeply flushed. It's probably like that now as I only fitfully write. Maddox--the nicest guy in the world--showed concern Thursday, and I told him what had been bothering me, but without mentioning Julie by name. I said, "I'm having difficulty--" and choked up. I didn't let the tears come, but at lunch Friday I sought a place to cry, but--practical me--I didn't want to come back with red eyes, however better it might make me feel. Instead, I plotted on either begging off the rest of the day or taking off Monday. I didn't leave early, and I will be in Monday. At the edge of distress, knowing how desperately sad and regretful and self-hateful I would feel over the weekend if I didn't claw my way out of this lead shell of taciturnity, I asked Julie how her commute had been. Then Judy interrupted to ask Julie to go to the desk to cover a hole in the schedule. That had been my last chance. That's when I wrote the note.

I realize it could be interpreted variously, and I considered other words, but I stuck with how I felt. Julie will say nothing, I will say nothing. I'm not trying to start something. I'm not going to provoke her into giving me attention. This may be an intolerable situation for me, but it's not her problem at all--at least I don't want it to be.

[What I didn't post Thursday (written after I got home that night):

It's official: I am now the last person at work with whom Julie will have a conversation. She was talking with Scotia today. Don't I feel special now?]

No Line, No Bait, No Catch (6/25/09 Thursday)

2009-06-25T16:28:00.003-04:00

It's not yet ten-thirty in the morning, and I'm drinking whisky--not out of distress or despondence but just because I want to. I've had breakfast and coffee. I've showered (but not shaved) and tended vigorously to my increasingly complex hair regimen. Now it's time--a couple hours before work--for whisky. I've nearly finished my fourth bottle this year, three more than usual. My inclination to drink it has become almost an imperative in facing down That Which Need Not Be Named. As imperatives go, it is a savory pill to swallow. (I believe I'll swallow some more.)

I wonder if Mr. Gold--Mr. Gold of the mutual amorous hopes--would join me. It seems now I see him every day in the library, and every day I want to introduce myself as a member of a society of common interest. I would like to sit down with him, if not over whisky, at least coffee, and discuss the focal point of our hopes. I know he's been rebuffed, but how? How much has he spoken with Julie? and her with him? The looks he and I exchange I have yet to fully decipher. I know how I look at him--with knowing and curiosity--but does his look self-consciously reflect that? or does he see something of the same in me? What's to gain? Who cares? Mike says he's a retired journalist. Surely as such he would be interested in reading my riveting reportage on our favorite subject. Or perhaps I don't give Mr. Gold enough credit in being able to do what I have not; that is, give up the idea of Julie as a paramour. To give him that credit would discredit his commitment. Oh, no, Mr. Gold, you aren't going to marginalize Julie's worth and denigrate my commitment by just shrugging off her rejection! I won't let you. Aren't you hurt? Have you no pride? Do you really believe there are other fish in the sea? Sure there are--fine catchable fish--but don't you want the white whale? Come on, Ahab! you know Moby Dick's the only fish for you! Wouldn't you as soon die as give up? Hey! come back here! I've got a boat!

Perhaps I should stop drinking now, an hour later and closer to work. Perhaps I should take the bottle with me, in case Mr. Gold comes in.

The Sympathy Waltz (6/23/09 Tuesday)

2009-06-24T10:30:00.002-04:00

I keep talking because hope doesn't die. Hope, the biggest, most ignorant fool of all. Hope doesn't make me any smarter, but it does make me happier. Reason may be the reason hope goes away. I can't stop reasoning, but maybe I can pause it when hope rings me.

Tuesday morning through lunch--Julie- and stress-free. After that it seemed impossible to avoid her, but I survived it much better than most days with My Mid-Life Crisis. At one o'clock we were at opposite ends of the workroom, she at the window, I at backup. But as we both had bookdrops to empty, we both had books to sort onto the carts on the battlefield between us. I took an assorted armful into no-man's land, scanning for the enemy, spotting her with juvenile fiction. I opted to unload my CD books onto the nearer cart, nearer aisle. I bent to put a Grisham on the bottom shelf. I rose as Julie rose from the other side. It was Groucho and Chico facing off in the mirror scene in Duck Soup. All that was missing was matching nightshirts and caps. We stared at each other a moment (how can eyes be navy blue?) before she said sharply, "Hello." I was the deer to her headlights. "Hello," I finally replied, surely without expression. We immediately turned from one another and headed back to our posts. There were no casualties, no victory claimed by either side.

The courier mail came, and Julie returned the favor of two weeks ago and helped me unpack it. It was a strange dance of reconnoitering side-long glances and intricate patterns of avoidance. Though I was becoming as hot as before, I also became increasingly amused at the care she was taking to avoid my personal space. We truly were dancing, with me leading. When the window called her away I missed her and wished her back. She didn't return, but at the end of the hour I was to replace her at the window. I marched up sheepishly and diffidently--from the same rostrum from which I declared to her "This cold-shoulder stuff has to stop," all I could do was stand there like a little boy with a message for his teacher. "Are you my replacement?" she said. I barely said, "Mm-hm," then, "Thank you for helping." "Sure." I don't know if she looked at me because I didn't at her.

I was caught away from the winbdow once that hour when a car pulled up, and Julie answered the call. I let her finish it, and when she did she looked at me. I tried to thank her, but when she smiled my lips moved but no sound issued. Oh, hope! Hope saw that smile, such a one as I'm sure it would swear it had never seen. Pride saw it, too, but what it saw was sympathy. Sympathy was the music to our dance among the mail bins. Julie isn't indulging me. She cares. What it is she's caring about I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know. She's thrown off the cold shoulder. Neither am I sure I want to know what hope I'm hoping. Hope certainly doesn't want to know.

Hope Is Rope (6/22/09 Monday)

2009-06-22T21:10:00.004-04:00

Julie has reverted to the cold shoulder. She can have it, because I've had it. It's not up to me anymore. I don't want things the way they were; I want them the way they can never be. How can I keep wanting that? The words are slow in coming because I don't want to repeat myself, and I don't think there's anything otherwise to say. The best I can do is pretend to care as little as she does. It is not all up to me, not if she cares. And if she doesn't, why should I try at all? That's where it stands as I prepare to shut up about all this. There will be no intervention or confrontation with her about this or anything else. I don't need to talk to someone who would rather not listen. But I've said nothing new, and if I'm giving up, why keep talking?

Not Even to Tell My Grandchildren (6/20/09 Saturday)

2009-06-21T00:27:00.004-04:00

The absence of and physical distance from Julie has engendered a certain nostalgia this weekend. Every moment together is impossible, replete to bursting with the unsaid and unsayable--the very things I dwell on once given the breathing room. Again this week, we didn't speak (I think my last crack was fatal), and were only once forced into prolonged contact--ten minutes of packing mail that produce from each of us an utterance that was only half meant for ourselves. Inches away, she bent to pack a box. Her hair parted from her neck. I wanted to plant the lightest kiss on the exposed nape. But's that only how I think of that now. Then, that neck was a taunt, and those unsaid words roiled through my veins. But I don't know what those words were, so I can't regret not saying them. Somehow, the scene is touchingly humorous as I write. If only that attitude could fortify me against the dread that will begin tomorrow night; but it's the only such recent memory of Julie that doesn't browbeat me. I've been thinking of our last meeting, and the more I do the more I feel I had only been indulged. I was confessional and over-disclosive, and she was the mom trying to say the right thing to the sensitive kid. Nothing nostalgic there. I'm not sure I can get far enough away from that memory to find amusement in its recollection.

Can You Imagine All the Questions I'll Have at My End-Life Crisis? (6/17/09 Wednesday)

2009-06-17T10:36:00.004-04:00

If there weren't Julie, would I be having a mid-life crisis? Was it just waiting for a Julie to project itself upon? Was it inevitable? Would it have taken another form? or latched itself upon some other object? I think it would have tried to attach itself to a great many objects, but only briefly to any one of them, the objects quickly proving to be without sufficient depth. I strongly considered a tattoo for my fiftieth, and I would love to shave my head and start what's left of my hair all over, but am averse to doing anything that says "Look at me!" (Though I suppose that eschewing haircuts altogether since the Train Wreck rather smacks of that, anyway.)

No, if there had to be an object for my mid-life crisis, it had to be Julie, who alone has been capable or sustaining my fascination. I've wondered many (usually bitter) times if she were worthy of my fascination, but did I pick her for the role? I've steadfastly maintained that it was not merely the convenience of her proximity and availability, but I have to admit that I've never convinced myself of that. How could I but to note that there have been and are eligible female co-workers who have held no sway over me whatsoever? Poor Julie--in the wrong place at the right time. She continues to fascinate me, to my own chagrin and frustration, and every day finds yet something else in common to add to a list grown impossibly long for a pair of "incompatible" people.

How long does a mid-life crisis last? How does it end? What makes it stop? If I stopped being in love with Julie, would that be the end of the "crisis"? or would I need a new fascination? When will I ever get the chance to answer those questions?

How Much Lower Does the Pendulum Swing to Reach the Pit of Despair? (6/15/09 Monday)

2009-06-15T22:35:00.004-04:00

Who was that guy who had it so naturally under control yesterday, who had it all figured out? He left town under cover of darkness after selling me that bill-of-philosophical-goods. How many times have I had it all figured out? How many times have I convinced myself of the course I should take? or of the attitude I must have? How many courses led to walls? How many attitudes have stuck? I'm sick of hearing myself talk. The words are getting cheaper and cheaper. From one day to the next I swing from hope to despair, hope to despair--but the hope isn't nearly as high as the despair is deep. I suppose I'd be bipolar if I wasn't mired so deeply in one that I couldn't climb the heights of the other. I'm even tired of saying stuff like that. I do have all the answeres, but I've forgotten the questions they belong to. (I've probably said that before, too.)

Prison or Fortress? (6/14/09 Sunday)

2009-06-14T21:26:00.003-04:00

What changes may have been wrought by Julie's Facebook page Friday were too subtly manifested for me to detect Saturday. At least, they defy my description. I felt no different--the same dread/hope of seeing her, the same avoidance, the same awkwardness with necessary interaction, the same furtive glances and heavy sighs. I can allow that there has been a change, but I'd rather not look for it or embrace it but let it do as it will, as it must. I noticed only that my pride was much subdued, though even that is so vaguely defined as to be ineffable.

Julie And I spent a silent lunch together in the breakroom. I didn't finish my food but stared out the window for long stretches between reluctant bites. I left halfway through the hour.

Megan and Sofiya were on the desk when I came out as relief. Sofiya motioned me to take over for Megan. I was disappointed to be left with Sofiya; we'd have nothing to say to one another. I adjusted the station's ergonomic train wreck--shoving the monitor back, pulling the receipt printer and mouse closer--when the door opened, which didn't register in my aural brain before "Sorry, Sofiya" and the creak-clunk of the chair on the other side of the register signalling Sofiya's departure and Julie's arrival. My first instinct was to say, "Tammy's made a big mistake" (in reference to the scheduling), but my little voice said, "Too soon." Instead, I sat, glancing, sighing, staring through Children's and out their window into the wall of trees at the street entrance...until Julie said, "It's slow for a Saturday." I looked over--she was leaving her seat--and I said, "Aw, don't say that"--she was rounding the far counter--"not without knocking on wood or something." She reached under the marble countertop and rapped on the panelling. "I think it's too late," I said. Julie inspected the flyers, salvaged precious rubber bands from the wastebasket beside the self-check and returned. Patrons kept us busy after that.

Of course, it's tempting to elevate that hour to Event, crown it with significance, but like everything else yesterworkday, I'll choose (as I chose then) to let it ride. Believe it or not, I'm not fond of analyzation, but sometimes the questions are too loud, the confusion too demanding of resolution to leave unattended. Attention to them is often stressful and not often productive. Raretimes, though, I don't induldge their urgency. Yesterday in living and today in writing, I chose to ignore the noisy pair. For someone who has always believed in the ability of the unconscious to glean the essence of experience for its unique needs, I have spent a lot of time since this started not trusting that belief. By no means is that trust entirely restored, but maybe by adding a brick now and then I can make it too strong to knock down with the huff and puff of neurosis.

Maybe another brick. ...

Suddenly faced with one of Julie's steel-rod stares, my eyes goggles and my cheeks puffed and blew out an exaggerated sigh. It was a coincidence, my action unrelated to her stare, yet it was, nonetheless, the right response. I saved the laugh for myself a few minutes later.

Fatebook? (6/12/09 Friday)

2009-06-12T22:54:00.003-04:00

We haven't spoken since I said goodnight Tuesday. She won't even look at me. She won't make eye contact.

I made a Facebook account to get Faith to talk about her mom, but she seems to be backing off, says her mom is "shy about these things." I won't press it. Julie is on Facebook. I knew that already, from when Chris, her rescuer, prodded her to get on there. I don't know if Facebook tracks profile views, so I also created a dummy account--fake name, school, birthdate, etc., to peek at herpage with relative anonymity--an ethical lapse of judgment, I know, but I paid for it on my first visit. What I found was someone who hardly needed me in her life for all the friends she had already. Of course, "friend" on the web does not imply friendship, but she's not the reclusive little old lady that I more or less took her to be--wanted her to be. I was numbed. All I could feel was sad for myself. By late afternoon, thought of Julie could not raise my temperature or my longing for her. Would I have anything more to write? Was this the end of my feelings for her? It might not be quite a void I'd be stepping into, but at least a change I'm not to ready make, a shift from something that I could always count on--painful as it has been--to a new unknown--a kick out of the nest. I'm not ready, because there has been no "literary" ending--no full-circle, no tied-together ends. It's just a car left in the backyard that will eventually grow a tree through its roof. Not even a twist, like we're brother and sister--which would at least would explain why, despite her "French" heritage, she's so interested in Scotland; and it might also account for my lack of sexual attraction to her--her body was never a factor in my interest in her. Oh, how glib I am now, at he end of a day that alternated blurringly between catatonia and blinding rage. Perhaps there was a catharsis in there somewhere; or I'm just spent. Or maybe there are no other feelings that I haven't exhausted. We'll see what feelings I have tomorrow, at work, with Julie.

Mantra, Mantra, Who's Got the Mantra? (6/9/09 Tuesday)

2009-06-10T10:40:00.002-04:00

"No regrets." That should be my new mantra, I thought today as I unloaded the mail (alone!). Then I remembered the other ones--"just keep quiet, no room for doubt," when I was steeling myself to ask Julie out; "no scripts, no scenarios," as I prepared for the "date"; et al--and how flimsy they proved to be in the face of a lifetime of self-doubt, and I chuckled softly to myself. At least I able to laugh. I have evoked "no regrets" three times now, and it has each time buoyed my confidence. The second time came today when Mary Lou said, "Dion's got it under control." I said, "I'll have it under control until Julie gets here." The remark was met with a laugh, and by the time Julie got in for the second shift I had realized two things: Regret at not speaking my mind is a catalyst for my anger; and going "public" with my feelings for Julie dissipates my resentment while helping me find the humor in it all. Maybe I can't yet exactly celebrate being in love, but why should I resent it? (I have a feeling I won't be long in trying to answer that.) And as it's no secret, why should I hide it as if I were ashamed of it? If I talk about it openly--especially humorously--it shows a matured and mellowed attitude toward what had been a serious humiliation. Now, I'm not letting Julie in on this just yet; that is, I'm not going to crack wise about it with her around unless I'm speaking to her, and in that case she will be the entire audience. I don't know why I would give her that deference (I'm hearing Eno's "Julie with...."), except that perhaps I want her embarrassment all to myself. I believe that my remarks to her flatter her, if only to a small degree, and that I would cheapen them if I broadened their audience. But that could simply be hope talking, hope of gaining romantic ground. Also, the knowledge of her dislike of this kind of personal stuff in the workplace puts me at a respectful distance from going tabloid with it. I feel I need to regain some trust from her after my remarks of the past two Mondays. Julie and I didn't exchange so much as a glance, much less a word, in our four hours together until I left work: She packed mail as I packed my saddlebag and squeezed into the bike shoes. Already, I was hearing "no regrets," and as I approached the door I said, "Goodnight, Julie." Her back was to me--or, rather, her butt was; it was all I could see of her bent over a bin. She half rose and half turned and looked up at my smileless but open face. "Oh. Goodnight, Dion," she said, smiling, and her gaze fell to my legs and then back around to her work. I'd caught her by surprise--I'm a quiet walker, and I hadn't exactly addressed her face when I spoke--but there seemed, also, a wariness in her eye contact. I'm glad I didn't have a line prepared, because "no regrets" might have set back the cause. That would be the ironic end to that mantra.

Pride Comes Before the Summer (6/8/09 Monday)

2009-06-09T12:23:00.003-04:00

It seems the best I can do right now is sit crosslegged on the sofa, listen to the dying traffic and watch the light leak away. What I'm trying to do is reflect on the workday, but it's painful. I've had days like this, and one not so long ago, but I don't think the words about it were so hard to come by.

Monday is a full day with Julie, and this one was replete with her, if mostly in my head. When the courier mail came in, I was scheduled for holds and Julie for backup. I waited until Julie wheeled the transit items to the back to pack for the outgoing mail, then started unpacking the incoming in order to extract the holds. she usually takes quite a while and there was a lot to pack so I thought I could knock out the incoming before she got back. But the mail kept coming, and before long I could hear the empty cart rattling closer and closer. I paused with a handful of books to look at her. she looked at me but didn't say anything. I expected at least a "thanks for helping" or something and began right then to panic. I already knew I'd be unable to speak with any sense. When she finally spoke to me after putting the cart away, she said, "Are you sure you want to help?" My reply was just a sort of gurgle that she must have taken for a "huh?" because she repeated herself. "No, I don't really want to be this close to you," is what I needed to say, but what came out was, "Well, I'd like to get my holds." My heart was thudding out of my chest, and my skin was sizzling. I couldn't look at her, I couldn't speak, as we worked within a few feet of each other, sometimes out of the same bin. I was in an agony of desire and self-loathing. I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to shake her and yell, "How can you be so goddamned casual about this! This is killing me! Stop mocking me! Stop acting like nothing is going on!" But I emptied bins and filled carts, sweating and trembling and feeling more the inept fool than I ever have. The stack of empty bins towered over me on the handtruck as I tipped it back. Would I get a "thank you" then? No. Julie turned her back to empty the bookdrop.

It was lunchtime when I finished sorting the mail bins in the back. Julie was filling the electric teapot when I entered the break room. I put my stuff at my usual seat and passed her at the sink to get a spoon from the drawer. I stared at that spoon as I sat heavily, then I said, "Don't let me do that again." "What?" "Don't let me do that again--help you with the mail. Too close." She chuckled lightly and said, "Well, you volunteered. So, thanks." It didn't sound like gratitude but indulgence. I couldn't eat for half an hour, then slowly choked down each bit of my pbj. My heart still raced, and the hands covering my face still trembled. I was little better the rest of the day--worse, for not having anyone to talk to about it.

Julie might think by now that I have nothing to say to her that doesn't remind her of how I feel about her, and she's just about right. The more she pretends otherwise, the more I have to remind her. She has got to at least laugh with me about this. It is not all up to me--and don't dare ask me why! because I don't know. Halfway is as far as I can go with her, and she's not covering the rest of the way because she doesn't give a damn. Yeah, yeah--she doesn't have to do anything--I'm tired of excusing her, rightly or wrongly. And, yeah, I shouldn't speculate on her feelings either, but I wouldn't bet against my judgment. If I'm being hard on Julie, let her tell me. I'm being hard on myself, and that's all. Its' the kind of talk that the ignorant thought was harmful to Julie six months ago. I told Chris then that I didn't hate him for blowing my cover, but I'm not sure I didn't lie. I at least hate myself for feeling that I might have. I haven't done the magnanimous, noble, christian thing and forgiven him, but the only reason I think I should have is that it is the magnanimous, noble, christian thing to do--turn the other cheek. Pride is destroying me. It sure gives me enough to write about, though, doesn't it?

(Dis) Connecting (6/7/09 Sunday)

2009-06-08T12:18:00.005-04:00

I tried this past week to reclaim some music from Julie. XTC was first--Mummer, then Skylarking. It didn't work--"Grass," "Great Fire Burning," "Love on a Farmboy's Wages"--every one of the love songs rang ironical. Julie introduced me to Trashcan Sinatras, so them I'm trying to take from her altogether or, rather, remove her from them. Again, failure. I'm not close to trying Prefab Sprout. Yet the music I play has little interest to me if it doesn't connect me with my situation. I'm doing the opposite of distancing myself from Julie--more unhealthy and pathetic behaviour, more hopeful delusion. Maybe I want the pain.

Faith at Good Foods wants to fix me up with her mother, and I'm open to it. Faith has read the blog, and she had her mom read some it. Her reaction, according to Faith, was along the lines of "interesting." I don't know what that means. Faith lives across the street, a few doors closer to me than Stacey, so all I know is that it would at least be convenient to see her mom. That's hardly a reason for a relationship. I don't know anything about her except that she's shy. That's attractive in itself, but it's not enough, of course. If after reading my blog she's still interested in me, I suppose that's a big plus, too; after all, who wants someone who's in love with someone else? I believe I could get over Julie if I had another woman near my age to talk with--not about Julie, but about just about anything else--hang out with, be with, do things with, do nothing with. I hope she's open to at least a cup of coffee or tea (but not at Stir Crazy!). It would be nice to be with a woman who is being open and not pointing a ten-foot pole at my chest. I certainly don't want this to be about getting Julie's wraith out of my heart. I want this to be about connecting with someone who's worth my time and energy, which I don't think is really a tall order. I can say, "All I want is honesty," but I know that's not easy for most people. I can only be honest myself and hope that it's at least appreciated, if not entirely reciprocated, though how I can recognize the former without the latter, I don't know. What makes me believe the connection won't be difficult to make is knowing that Faith's mom is not Julie; that's halfway there. My basic task, with Faith's mom or any other prospective relationship, is to make no comparisons with Julie--though god forbid they should love Trashcan Sinatras!

But Feel Free to Email Me with Suggestions (6/6/09 Saturday)

2009-06-07T18:30:00.006-04:00

Julie was back yesterday. We still said nothing to each other, and the only eye contact was a confrontation. I stared in her eyes as we were approaching each other in the workroom. She tilted her chin toward the side on which I was about to pass her, and her eyebrows rose just-perceptibly. I felt as if I were being taunted or dared to speak. I didn't. Over the course of the day the knot spread across the back of my neck. It's still there today, another full workday with Julie. Since "thinking about you," not a word has passed between us that didn't pertain directly to work. It's been dark. It's defeatist and pathetic to resign myself to this state, but how do I get out of it? Yesterday, "it's up to you" never entered my mind, but I heard it very early on today. Most days I resent it, and today is one of those days. Each time I tell myself, "she knows," I have to remind myself of what she knows; and now I also have to ask, "How is that important?" It's fading. I'm losing grip of it. Yet as I do I am experiencing vague fantasies of Julie coming around, warming up to me, talking to me, wanting to know me. Those have to go away if I'm to prevent myself from doing something catastrophically stupid to effect their realization. I can't entertain that kind of hope. I have written "My Mid-Life Crisis" on the back of her picture on my fender. I figure that's in the category of She Knows, so seeing that won't elicit any more than a puzzled look from the clueless, a smirk from the clued-in, and a roll of the eyes from Julie. Hell, what more could I do, at this stage of the game, that could produce more than benign effect? It's best I don't try to answer that.

Is Santa Listening So Long Before Christmas? (6/4/09 Thursday)

2009-06-05T12:25:00.003-04:00

For the first time in the two years we've worked together Julie took a sick day. I'm sure it is not something she would do frivolously or deceitfully, but I had no details and none were offered by Judy or Tammy. I didn't ask. I was disappointed and empty to see the word "sick" by her name on the schedule and a squiggly black line marked through her duties. I know that my vanity is predicated still on her audience, so her absence made me rue bothering to shave, or even coming in. But I thought, Well, at least I can relax. Not true. There was hardly a moment without her presence in my mind and no moreso did I find comfort from that knot in my neck. I'm really not alive without her, am I? I will no longer argue with love--rationality is irrelevant. It just doesn't matter that she feels nothing for me. It doesn't matter that I "understand" that. How could she have believed that telling me that would relieve me of my feelings for her? I am in love with her, and it sickens me to be so. I'm possessive and jealous. I miss her when she's gone, and I can't stand to be around her. There is nothing healthy in this. I want it to stop.

The Sleeves Are Too Short If I Can't Step on Them (6/03/09 Wednesday)

2009-06-03T22:31:00.005-04:00

I try not to kid myself that I made any romantic inroads with my "thinking about you" crack. I've embarrassed/flattered Julie before, but I finally came to understand that however I made her feel at that moment was not a reflection of how she felt for me but about herself. I feel good for having made her feel that way (if I can even flatter myself that much), but I know that it doesn't necessarily increase her affection toward me. In fact, if we're ever to get to "normal" again, I may have set us back a step. In retrospect, it was a good thing to have furthered the conversation by mentioning the movie, bringing to earth any thought of lofty romantic intention--hope for it on my part and fear of it on hers. Yesterday, though, was definitely not a step forward. We made no contact whatsoever with either eyes or voice. I glanced at her several times, but only once when her back wasn't to me. I sat in front of her, at Angie's desk, doing holds one hour, and finished sweaty and with a knot in myh neck from the effort of trying to work when my mind was behind me. Another day of that is likely ahead of me today.

And for My Next Trick, I Will Convince Myself to Not Read Anything Into It (6/1/09 Monday)

2009-06-02T12:34:00.010-04:00

Of course, my approach to the new work week was as predicted. How could it have been otherwise? Naturally, as per Mondays, I rode in with Stacey. When I got out of the car at work without helping put the shades across the windshield she chided me for shirking my duty. I scoped the parking lot entrance for a familiar car. I didn't see it. "Sorry," I said, "I just like to get inside before Julie pulls up." Inside, I went straight to my work, pulling old holds for deletion, hoping to lessen my chances of contact with Julie. By the time I was back in the workroom Julie was at the window, setting up. That meant I could do my job an entire expanse of room away from her, at the discharge counter--until I was done with the express holds and had to collect the old drive-up holds from under her nose. I started on the outside with the shelf unit between us. As I knelt I heard myself mutter, "It's up to you," and was surprised to not find any bitterness in the statement. Still, I was determined to not greet her. Instead, as I moved around to her side I said, "May I squeeze in here?" Slightly startled, having not heard my carpet-muffled approach, she said, "Oh. Sure." As I rifled through the books. I became as determined that she sould ask me about my week of as I was to not initiate conversation wih her. Then Julie said, "Did you have a relaxing time off?" I was so surprised and happy that I could have snatched her up and planted a wet one on her. "Yes, I did," I said, and my head got louder and louder with "Do it! No regrets!" I obeyed and said, "I was just reading and writing...[DO IT!!] and thinking about you." (YES!!) I said, "Sorry," immediately, but I wasn't. It was more like apologizing for a bad pun I couldn't help making. But she giggled! Not a dismissive, barely indulgent "tsh," but a genuine off-guard giggle. Score! I bet she blushed, too, but I couldn't look at her as I dipped to finish my job on the lower shelves; and I could tell, anyway, from her laugh that her back was to me. Not exactly emboldened by my little success but definitely giddy, I said, "I saw a movie you might like." I stood up, and she turned, and I almost forgot how to speak, much less what I intended to say. "The Flying Scotsman, with Johnny Lee Miller." Only through sheer willpower was I able to continue speaking and looking in her face. "It's about, uh, Graeme Obree--" "Who?" "Graeme Obree, champion--world champion cyclist in the nineties." Gah! Finishing that sentence was like finally breaking out of the water and gulping down air. She said, "I'll have to get that, especially if it has Johnny Lee in it." I took the holds back to the discharge station, where I sat heavily and used two shaky hands to lift the mug of chamomile tea to my lips. "She knows," I whispered--"boy, does she know!" The tea was no help at all.

The Rust Bucket and the Lyart Are Out of My League--Forget About the New Car and the Young Blonde (5/31/09 Sunday)

2009-05-31T23:06:00.005-04:00

Emma brought over the David Archuleta CD last night, and I figured I should hear it before I judged it. The girls told me the first song, "Crush," was a hit. (I hadn't heard it.) I told them "This is what A Bright, Ironic Hell is about." No reaction. Ah, well, I gave it a shot. I won't push it. Let's just call it a bug in the ear. Actually, anymore, it's not so much the girls I'm concerned about reading the blog as about Ann. I would never tell the kids to keep a secret, and I can surmise by what they tell me of their home life that they woulld be equally candid at home about mine. Come to think of it, they might have already told Ann about my blogs. That in itself would be no red flag to her as long as they gassured her they hadn't read it. Not that I'd care for Ann to read either BIH or Book Monkey Says--I'd rather have her judge me as a man than as a father--but the thought makes me all the more hesitant to give the girls the go-ahead to read BIH. (Book Monkey's a bit further down the road.)

Now there's a third blog, and I might never let them know about this one. It's actually my first one. I'd forgotten about it until I stumbled upon it a few days ago when I pulled up a bookmark portal I rarely use. There it was, at the top of the list. It has lain fallow for nearly three years, having last been posted upon in July or 2006, only three months and twenty-two posts into its life. Well, it's going to live again, though I'm a little embarrassed about it. See, it's, uh, not about love. Its' about sex. which makes it a fantasy, but a fantasy still featuring myself. The real people in it have new names, so let's call it fiction. (Me? Sex? What else could it be?) Anyway, I never promoted it, so it may never have been seen except for the click-throughs from the (pseudonymous) profile page, and there have been only twenty hits on that. I have a bit of tweaking to do on it before re-launching it--refresh myself with the pseudonyms and get myself back into character to write fresh material. Someone got the name Julie, more than a year before I'd met my heaven and hell, so that's gotta change; and one of the men is now a woman, but I think I'll stick with the original model. The cast, as well as the library, has grown much larger, but I don't think that will have a meaningful effect. But there are only two main things I need to do: Tweak the posting dates to bring them "current," and write a new post to kick-start the story. I'm looking forward to expressing another aspect of my personality and exercising another muscle of my imagination.

(I might have said the same about Book Monkey. Poor Book Monkey. He became difficult for me to handle with such a restrictive perspective. He may be dead.)

Looking at the cover of the David Archuleta album, I remarked, "I'd like his shirt without the picture on it." Emma said, "Then it's just a shirt." "No," I said, "it would be a ringer tee. Ringer tees are my new favorite thing. They make me feel like a little boy." Emma faked a cough into her fist and barked, "Midlifecrisis!" "Well," I said, "some guys get the red sports car, some guys get the ringer tees." I decided at that moment to refer to Julie as "my mid-life crisis." I wrote it on the back of her picture today.

Fourteen's a Good Place to Stop (5/30/09 Saturday)

2009-05-30T22:55:00.004-04:00

I've only read fourteen books this year. I'm about two months behind my usual pace. In try to reclaim my life from preoccupation with Julie, I've started back into things I'd all but given up in pursuit of her. I still can't listen to XTC or Trashcan Sinatras again, but as there's no chance I'll go back to Ellis Peters, I can always read without that awful pang of association better not made. That lasted until about twenty pages into Phoebe, Junior, when Clarence becomes "fascinated" with Phoebe, falls "a hopeless victim to her fascinations." Apparently, the charge of that word was strong even in the mid-Victorian era. I hope Clarence never actually speaks the word to Phoebe. I don't suppose pre-rejection flattery back then started, "You're a great guy, but..."--that probably got its start in the 1920's--still long enough ago to have since been embedded in the human female DNA. I tried reading this morning, but the entire brief and futile endeavor was clouded by "fascinated." There are words, too, that I can't hear or read--much less use. "Hope" and any form of "fascinate" top the list. The associations turn me cold and bitter and threaten to ossify my heart. Now I see "love" floating upward from the depth of verbal practicality to the heights of psychological malevolence, where sits the temple of irony. I don't want to go there, I don't want to see it. Have I lost those words there? Better to not use them, if I can help it.

One more day of this freedom, and it's back to work. I feel no more fortified against Julie's proximity than I ever did. Every morning I've awaken thinking of her, even when she hasn't appeared in that night's dreams. I've regressed. Even "she knows" has lost meaning, if only for the lack of context. I badly need that context, and not just to resuscitate a specious mantra. Why otherwise, I'm really not sure, but I suspect it's for the challenge. I think that's why I miss Julie when I'm not around her: I have to prove--to her and myself--that I can--what? that I can what? Be in love with her and still work with her? Get over her? I don't think that what I'm trying to prove is what I really want. I don't want to get over her, and if I don't get over her, I can't work with her. So my challenge, really, is to not go stark, raving bonkers over an untenable situation--i.e., I need to live a pretense to sanity. Fake it till I make it? Can you hear me laughing? Good, because I'm not. I don't want to say that I'll enter work Monday as trepidatious as ever to encounter Julie, because it's easily self-fulfilled. I may believe it, but I won't indulge it. Is that faking it? Absolutely--as much so as trying to read Phoebe, Junior.

I Hope (5/28/09 Thursday)

2009-05-28T13:01:00.003-04:00

The girls have known about the blog since they googled me. They haven't read it. I haven't told them not to; I think the title frightens them. They don't ask me about it. They'll be thirteen in a month. I would like to talk to them about it. I would like them to know this part of me. I would like them to know what I've been through. I want them to know that a man--and a man my age--can be in love, can want love, deserves love. I at least want them to know the father they see only twice a week. And yet when they finally read this will they wonder why there is scant mention of them while countless words have been devoted to someone who doesn't depend on me for guidance, love and support? who, indeed, depends on me for nothing at all? Could my passion have been better spent?

What will the girls think of me when they read all of this? Caring about that jeopardizes the candor of my writing, but it's a candid concern. Having no older siblings to corrupt them and being nurtured more by responsible grownups than by the media, they will, I hope have thoughts of their own beyond the easily taken for granted lies of tradition, and will not, by the time they read this already believe, say, that a man's emotional strength is his ability to suppress his emotions. Perhaps I can flatter myself to think that their reading this will positively solidify their thoughts on the subject, arming them against popular opinion. I can only hope, and I do. But I hope, first, that they do not judge me. If I have not been a great father it is not because of my preoccupation with Julie but because of my preoccupation with myself. In the process of getting in touch with myself and trying to become whole and learn to love myself without judgement, I have lost touch with the only beings who love me without judgment. (I am aware of the irony, but I don't embrace it.) They likely will be bewildered at first, then frightened, then aghast. After that? What connections will they make between my words and my actions? Consistent and integral ones, I hope; ones that solidify my dimensions, root me deeply and positively into the context of their lives. At the very least, what they read should shed enough light on their perceived shortcomings of me to illuminate a compassionate understanding.

A Guy Can Dream--Whether He Likes It or Not (5/27/09 Wednesday)

2009-05-28T12:47:00.003-04:00

Another dream of work, another appearance of Julie, as fleeting as the last. I was inside the library this time. It looked like a bookstore--one vast, bright room. I got only a glimpse of Julie--no eye contact. Her hair seemed darker than natural. I felt disappointed that she would color her hair. I remember little else about the dream, except the feeling of playing out a light comedy.

Shouldn't I be glad to be away from work and Julie? I can't need the tension. I have almost never dreamt of work or Julie. I don't want to be at work, and I can always live outside of Julie's presence. Or can I? Sometimes I think I need Julie just to remember I'm alive. I hate this love. I'd say it was unfair if I thought fairness was even in it. What is it good for? Am I supposed to learn from this? Patience, tolerance--are those my lessons? The patience to let love work for me, the tolerance to harbor unwanted feelings?

Know Way, Knowhere, Know How (5/26/09 Tuesday)

2009-05-26T15:45:00.004-04:00

The curls were happening yesterday, but nothing else was, really, at the cookout. I did manage to recapture some of my newfound conversational skills--drawing people out despite my actual relative disinterest in them--but there was no flirting to be done, no women I felt that kind of interest in or attraction to. To be back in Bellevue, though, was to be in an old comfort zone, the proximity to Stir Crazy (two blocks) notwithstanding. A place you lived for ten years, where you lived with a lot of other people your age for that long, is not easily gotten out of your system. I've lived in this apartment in the West End (surburbia) for seven years but I don't know anyone here and certainly haven't grown up with anyone here. Michelle upstairs was here when I moved in. I don't know her last name or what she does. I know that she leaves for work at twenty of eight, that she likes her gospel radio loud and that she's had sex over my head a few times in the past couple months. I lived in the Carytown area for the twelve years between Bellevue and here and made no friends or even connections. Though I'm drawn down there frequently, my nostalgic fondness for the place is drawn solely from familiarity of the streets and alleys I covered on foot and bike every day. There is no one there to recognize me. There was at least that at the cookout.

I have been dreaming about work at night and have been spending the days feeling guilty. The dreams, as nearly all my dreams do, have taken place in a gray half-darkness, but an element of stormy weather has been added. Julie was only in the first dream, in which I roll up through mud on my bike to the back door of work, though its not the library but, seemingly, a fast-food restaurant. I'm fumbling with my keys, trying one after another in the bike lock, when Julie comes out of the door on my left, fights through a throng, and brushes my back with her arm to come to the polite aid of a coworker. Presently, she brushes me again on her way back inside. I consider (in my dream) the contact significant, though not in a positive way, seeing as she didn't acknowledge me in any way. In actuality, we have only made physical contact twice, lightly and accidentally. In another dream, I was attempting, against the advice of other coworkers, to get to work. Though it was not raining, the river to my left was in angry, muddy spate, and though it had washed away much of the bank, the sidewalk was still intact, and I figured it would stay so. But a sudden rush of water, as if from a broken dike, poured across the path from my right and behind me. I looked ahead and upon seeing the way similarly blocked, attempted to return, but the rushing water swept my feet from the sidewalk, at which I clawed for new purchase. I did not panic but gave in to my certain death without fear or regret, and was swept into another dream.

I don't know where the guilt comes from or is about, and I'm not even convinced it's guilt. It feels like something I've always called "guilt," but what I think it is is a feeling that I'm not doing enough for myself to get where I think I belong. What am I doing toward getting that book written? What am I doing, even, toward getting this apartment clean? I walked out of work Thursday night intent only on getting down to Carytown and finishing Miss Marjoribanks during the next ten days. Why do I feel I should have set loftier goals? The word "occupation" as it applies to a job has taken on a new depth of meaning: It occupies my time, keeping me from loose ends. Ironic, that these "better things" I have to do besides work aren't enough to occupy me as well as the work does. There are plenty better things to do, but work is easier. I get paid for it, for a start. Is there no other motivation that is good enough to do the better things? What does it take to move from "easy" to "rewarding"? When I'm not working, easy is reading, doing some sudoku and writing some, maybe watching a DVD. Is this my life? Is this the road, with barbed-wire-topped walls, to the end of my days? What breaks the wall, severs the wire? Not guilt, but more than desire. Desire I have. What don't I have, what am I not using, that gets me to rewarding? More than curls and dreams.

I'd Have Said Narcissus, But That Would Have Been a Bit On-the-Nose (5/24/09 Sunday)

2009-05-25T00:00:00.004-04:00

Spoke three words today--"Hi" and "Thank you." As I have before, I felt a perverse sense of accomplishment, but this time it is tinged with shame. I failed to make contact, and I've fogotten how I'd been doing it at work recently. I've been feeling the skill fading all week; now a day alone has drained the last of it. I said "Hi" to a woman sitting on her stoop as I walked past, and I said "Thank you" to the cleerk at Fresh Market when he handed me my change and receipt. (His "Your welcome" seemed startled out of him.) I missed opportunities to connect because I didn't recognize them as such until they had passed. I've said nothing since then and will not again till morning. I'm in for the night. I'll call Matt in the morning to scooter.

Matt has invited me to a cookout he and Mary are invited to. My crashing won't be minded, but it won't hurt to bring an offering of beer. I don't know who else will be there, but I hope it's not too small a gathering--the more people to try to interact with the better. I have to make an effort, even if I don't remember how. Forget "people," really--I just want to talk to women. I'm feeling exceptionally attractive lately, and I'd like to parley that into some self-confidence. It's inexplicable to me: All the time I'd been trying to attract Julie's attention it never crossed my mind that her inattention had anything to do with my physical attractiveness. I mean, what is a guy with all but no self-esteem doing believing he's good-looking? I still believe it--but when did this happen? Long after I'd picked out the beer, I lingered in Fresh Market as a walking display of vanity, inviting the once-over and double-take. Several women (and a couple men) partook. Imagine--me, an exhibitionist! I've gotten a lot more attention since I swore off haircuts as a declaration of independence from trying to look as I perceived others wanted me to look--and since I discovered I have curls, I have been as vain as Samson. If I have one pipeline curl falling to my brow I'm having a good hair day. At Ukrop's I entered an aisle and steered around a tall woman with her back to me. Halfway down I picked up a couple things and continued. Before I reached the end of the aisle that same woman entered it behind a shopping cart. She looked neither to the left or right but me up and down before smiling, saying "Hi," and continuing past me. I returned the greeting then turned to watch her after she passed. She looked straight ahead, did not pause to consider an item on the shelf, and exited the other end. Though I could tell from the personal perusal that she had marked me off as a prospect, I nonetheless chose to be flattered. Flattery is about all I have left in the way of esteem. I'll take it, if it even artificially bolsters my confidence. I don't intend to be the exhibitionist at the cookout, but a dangling curl would start me off on the plus side of confidence.

What Passes (5/22/09 Friday)

2009-05-23T20:11:00.003-04:00

My week off began last night at closing. I still awoke at six this morning. I'm already struggling against feeling cut off, alienated. It's something of a new feeling--the opposite of escape? Exile? Are all feelings painful? Maybe just the new ones. I just reread the last paragraph of yesterday's entry and smiled through tears. What am I? What have I become? What am I becoming? I have to clench my jaw to keep from sobbing--I'm in public. I'm not feeling sad. I don't know what I'm feeling, but I can't help feeling it. I have felt nothing; now, am I feeling too much? I want to be surrounded, smothered, hugged by a crowd. I want everyone talking to me at once. I want to talk myself hoarse.

*****

And yet I've been all but silent. Even in Carytown a weekday afternoon is not thronged. I asked a lost-looking couple if I could help them find a particular place, but they said they were looking for their car. I've spent a hundred dollars on three Ugly Dolls, two CD's and a DVD. I sort of promised the girls big Ugly Dolls this year for their birthday, and when Claire's face lit up and her jaw dropped, the deal was signed. I bought myself Enter the Vaselines and the new one by The Audition. I bought The Flying Scotsman because it's a Scottish movie about a Scotsman.

So, I'm in Jean-Jacques in a crowd that's talking to itself, finished with the chocolate muffin and the first cup of coffee, and in no way ready to go home, but reluctant to spend any more money, wishfully expecting Jan to walk in. I finally called her several weeks ago, at Mike's urging, but got her voice mail. She eventually called me back (got my machine), apologizing and asking if she could be put up the following Tuesday night in order to get to court in the morning. Called her on my lunch break last Friday, left another message. No reply--I thought. I called Mom on Mother's Day, using the cell because I'd already bought the minutes, and saw I had two messages. They were both from Jan, but only one was meant for me. The first was a drunk-dial for "Joe": She was just leaving the second dull party she'd crashed and would let him know if she found a good one. The second told me she was in town getting some dental work done, and loosely suggested we get together, then asked if my kids would like to have her son's gerbil. "I have to get rid of it." The call had been made the Friday I'd called her, but apparently after I'd gotten home and hung up my jacket, phone and all, in the closet. I wonder if she's called since. I rarely turn on my cell.

*****

Jan won't find me here, at Byrd Park. No one will find me here, behind Maymont, at the edge of a pond, between two oak trees, my back against one, bike and feet against the other. As I cruised through the park, hands off the bars, a cyclist dolled up in skin-tight billbillboard togs passed me slowly. I said, "Hey." He didn't even look at me.

I probably haven't been any place so tranquil since I was last in Scotland by myself, nearly thirty years ago, and it almost seems disrespectful to write when I could as easily sink into quiessence. I can hear the train down at the canal, its rumbling smoothed to an ambient roar by the quarter-mile between it and my ears. The rustling leaves cover what little of the sporadic traffic passes on the road out of sight of me. When the wind is still I can make out conversation across the pond a couple hundred feet away. An insect settled on the opposite page five minutes ago, and has not been disturbed by my scribbling or the wind bristling its antennae. A turtle's head parts the water on its way to one of the platforms made for it and anchored in the water. That cyclist is passing for the fourth time. If I had a blanket and a lot more food than a banana and a nutrition bar, I'd be here all night, or until a cop rousted me. I have nowhere to be for anyone else, and won't until Tuesday when I see the kids again, The holiday weekend took them to Lake Gaston, as usual, so I don't even need to make my usual grocery trip for their meals. I might come close to starvation this week, lazy as I am about fixing meals, especially when I don't have to. I have a six of Yuengling Black & Tans. That's food isn't it?

The Pride of Frankenstein (5/21/09 Thursday)

2009-05-22T10:48:00.003-04:00

I wonder: Is it really up to me? It may be my pride asking that question, but I really want to know. Did I, solely, precipitate the disintegration of the old working relationship with Julie? Then I think of the picture on my fender (the first time), and I wonder how I could ask these questions. Yes, I guess it is just my pride, wanting off the hook. Whenever I think of "It's all up to you," my blood surges, and I'm angry to have so readily agreed with Julie. She makes me weak--weaker--as if there were still some hope of changing her feelings, and I just have to be nice and agreeable--a doormat--to effect the change. Now my pride is slapping me around for it, demanding redemption. What it really wants is help. I'm just not progressing with Julie, and, frankly, I'm not sure what constitutes progress relative to her. What am I moving toward? Certainly not what I want. What do I want that I don't already know is impossible to get? I'm getting along better with everyone at work, except Julie. We exchanged one greeting this week, maybe two last week. How is this better? Will I always want more? And "more" right now is just conversation, a gentle gibe, even. Not much has improved. Here it is, exactly a year since Julie inspired me to start writing again (it seems like ten), and where am I? Have I gone full circle? or have I just not gotten anywhere at all? What's the difference? I could have kept this all to myself, continued scribbling and avoided humiliation, and lived with the caustic regret of "what if"; or, this, the continuous humiliation I suffer now. Yeah, yeah--I know it's my pride. How do I put that aside? I haven't recovered from the train wreck in September, and after the last talk with Julie, I'm even further from it. I think of how she was more prepared for my declaration than I'd thought and realized that she'd scripted a few things for herself. It's no wonder they--e.g., believing you only get to know someone from work or cohabitation--rang so false. Julie wore that same t-shirt today that she had at the train wreck--I hadn't seen it since, and the pain flooded back, with the false sentiments--"great guy," "I had a really nice time"--and I want to scream. Yes, it's my pride that wants to scream. You think I could not have any pride? I won't apologize for my pride; like the way I feel about Julie, it can't be helped, and thinking won't dissipate it. I'm just a man.

A year. Is that all I know after a year?--"I'm just a man"? I know I'm a passionate man, and that I'd been pretending otherwise for countless years before that. I know that passion is an open wound a screaming gash, an insatiable termagant; and I know that without its incessant infliction I wouldn't know I was alive. A year. A year, and it's still up to me. What's up to me?

Mostly Snotty, with a Ninety-Percent Chance of Vitriol (5/20/09 Wednesday)

2009-05-21T09:46:00.003-04:00

Often, most often on days when my self-esteem is bottoming out, my first encounter with Julie is the bellwether of my workday. Today is one of those days, and I'm not having a good one. I was a deer in Julies headlights, only this time she didn't rescue me with a comical greeting, and I was left out to dry with my regret of inaction. So, I'm back to covering her up with music as I process holds, pretending she's not behind me at her desk or the drive-up window, but all the while feeling her there and my temperature rising. I seem to be sinking. I could have used "she knows," but it's too late; that's a shield I need to ride into battle with--it can't remove the slings and arrows and patch up the wounds. At least it's only a half-day with her, but it's her second half. I'd rather brood at home than at work. I don't want to be that guy at work, the one with the storm-clouded brow who might as soon rain on you as give you the time of day.

If the Horse Would Just Stay Dead, I Might Understand the Futility (5/19/09 Tuesday)

2009-05-20T09:00:00.006-04:00

Several days before I resumed writing, while Julie was on vacation, Judy sat me down, concerned about my mood. I spilled my guts about Julie, grateful to have someone show some concern. Turns out Judy has been a fan of the blog since shortly after I introduced it and has read it through twice. She was glad to have been on vacation the week the blog hit Julie's fan. Anyway, I told Judy about the cold-shoulder wars going on and how I intended to force a confab with Julie about it. (It was not my imagination, apparently, that created the tension in the workplace during the war; Judy felt it, as well, and there was no way we were the only ones, especially given the workplace readership of the blog--as if my demeanor weren't clue enough to the disharmony.) Judy asked me how I would go about it, and I told her virtually the same thing I said to Julie the next week, only when I said, "'It hurts'," I was close to tears. Judy wanted to know if I thought it would be better if Julie and I were no longer scheduled together on the desk, and I swiftly and emphatically answered, "No!"

Clumsy exordium aside, I just wanted to say Tammy may finally have gotten the message, because I had another hour with Julie yesterday. Our entire conversation was, Julie: "Is the hold date the twenty-second?" and, me: "Yes." It was easier to tolerate than Saturday's hour, but no more satisfying, though what I even wanted I have no idea. I worked a little on Straight Read, adding another retrospective comment or two, didn't care if she saw it.

Julie's still giving me these exaggerated wide berths. The first one was amusing, but I've regarded each subsequent avoidance with increasing annoyance, though I've not allowed it to manifest in expression. I don't know what she's about with that, but for my part, I'm not playing. When she is not aware of my approach, I pass her as closely as I can. I don't know what it means to her to know how I feel about her, but she doesn't seem to be living with it as well as I am. That's not to say I've adjusted all that well. I may always be envious of anyone with whom she chats, and I'm still quite conscious of her presence in any shared space, no matter the size. I still want to impress her. But I do not spend every moment there thinking about her. I'm relieved when there are others around to talk to, and I'm talking a lot more with everyone but Julie. I'm not avoiding conversation with her, but what is there to say that doesn't seem shallow compared to what I've said and would rather say? And what would she care to hear it? Perhaps no more than I'd care to say it.

As I was returning with an empty DVD cart, Scotia motioned me to the circ desk behind which she sat. "Is this Bright, Ironic Hell your blog?" "Yes." Far from concerned, I was defiantly amused. "Dude," she said, "you might want to clear the history all the way," and she swept a hand across the counter as if knocking over chess pieces. I said, "I don't care. It's not news. Everybody knows about it." "I didn't know about till now." I just shrugged. "I really don't care about." I left it at that, though I would like to have asked her how much she read and what she thought of it, but that would only have been a salve to my vanity.

I'm nagged by the feeling that I may be trying to provoke something again. I have to keep a check on the feigned insouciance; it could talk me into some stupid things if I let it have its way. I will always maintain that the blog is about me and I have a right to recount my interactions with others. How far can I take that right? How much is mine? Julie wanted our conversation to be "outside of work," but how much less so has it become since I posted it on the internet, knowing there are readers at work? I have no intention of embarrassing her--she knows that--but is this some form of "unwanted attention"? Julie sat at that desk today before Scotia. Did she look at the blog? But to think about that is to want her to have, and to want that is to want a reaciotn. Am I not over even that petty hope?

She Noes (5/17/09 Sunday)

2009-05-18T13:45:00.004-04:00

That desk hour with Julie a couple weeks ago was just a wishful misperception--I read the schedule wrong--but I did get one Saturday. I thought of joking about it with her--something like, "I thought we were being separated," but I doubt Julie would have been comfortable with it. It was awkward enough out there. It would have helped to have "she knows" written on my hand again, but I remembered occasionally that hour and felt better for it. Still, I was uncomfortable. Nothing could make me initiate conversation with her; essentially, I just wasn't interested. Anything I could think to say to her would have been in my own interest. I just can't pretend to care about the things she's willing to divulge, because she's willing to divulge them to anyone. I've been beyond halfway with her, and she never did cover the rest of the distance. I'm tired of the long walk back to square one. It was quiet hour but for "she knows," and that's not yet quite enough for me.

Will It Stay or Will It Go, Now? (5/15/09 Friday)

2009-05-15T22:23:00.005-04:00

Thursday morning, before work, I was experiencing some of my usual issues of easy frustration, and I began to worry that the new me was fading away before I had had a chance to fill the role properly. I rode in with Stacey that afternoon and told her about the semi-transformation, describing it as my editor being asleep, adding, "He can die for all I care." I was nervous when we got to work. I haven't had a full day with Julie since I noticed the change, and I was afraid that what I'd told Stacey on the way in had violated my no-jinx policy. Plus, as comparatively jovial as I've been, I still have been reticent around Julie.

I didn't see Julie the first half-hour, and when I did I avoided eye-contact, though she didn't look my way, anyway. The next hour I was on holds and got up from my desk to move to Mary Lou's behind mine (which doesn't have a barcode scanner). Julie was approaching from her desk as I stepped into the lane. Immediately she saw me she staggered, startled, and squeezed her back against a sorting cart. We were at least seven feet apart. I pulled my chin to my chest, shook my head, and squinted at her quizzically. Then I laughed at her and sat down in Mary Lou's chair. Julie may have laughed, but I didn't hear it, and she didn't say anything.

As I processed holds I came back into form, chiding Mary Lou about one thing or another. She's an easy target, but she takes a joke in the proper spirit. I was a bit of a smartass when she asked me if I liked what I was listening to (Franz Ferdinand), and I replied, "No, I hate it. That's why I'm listening to it." It got a rise out of Bethany and Angie, but I immediately apologized to Mary Lou, who accepted it as "no big deal."

At dinner break I sat at my usual spot--the far table, back to the wall--from which I can see out the window on my left and the entire breakroom in front of me and to my right. I was alone when Julie entered and approached the first table. I looked up as she entered and stared into her eyes as she closed in.

"Hello!" she said loudly.

My mouth was full of sandwich, and I nearly emptied it with my laughter. I somehow swallowed and returned her greeting, at a normal volume, but with a chuckle. We did not talk.

On the desk the last hour with Mike, I told him that my feelings for Julie were "fading." Saying it aloud saddened me. It was an admittance I didn't know I was reluctanct to make until I spoke it, and when I said it I wasn't even sure it was true. There was--and still is--some denial at work: I feel I should believe my feelings are fading, but are they? Am I snatching at them as they turn to cloud and float away? Julie's picture is on my fender. I turn it over when I get to work. I've considered taking it off, though I don't want to. No, I won't. I want to look at that radiant face as I climb out of the saddle on the hills. It always makes me smile. If the love deserts me, I hope I still have that.

Gunn to My Head (5/12/09 Tuesday)

2009-05-13T16:37:00.005-04:00

Neil Gunn suggested, in The Atom of Delight, that a by-product of analysis is the object's destruction, but I would offer up this journal as evidence to the contrary. My depression, neurosis, and self-loathing have all been impervious to my intellectual firepower. Perhaps it's a deficiency of my armory and/ordinance. Regardless, I'm inclined to believe Neil Gunn when I have an out-of-character experience, though my reason for doing so is predicated more on superstition than empirical reality; that is, I don't want to jinx it: It came out of nowhere, as for as I know, and it might as soon go back there if I don't let it be and settle in.

Monday morning I overslept the alarm by an hour. Not a big deal--I just opted out of packing lunch and making coffee. I could get a sandwich at the cafe, and I had a stash of mate in my desk at work. I settled all that within ten seconds of cussing at the clock.

At work I had back-to-back mugs of mate, but I was still grumpy, though it wasn't entirely because of by the lack of sleep--at least not directly. I was feeling bitter still from Sunday night's ruminations. My pride was taking a beating from the upper hand I had projected into Julie's possession.

Julie was backup the hour I was processing holds. I needed to cut some paper to wrap them with. The cutter is on the counter behind the discharge station, where Julie sat. I was especially forceful in bringing down the blade, though I only cut a few sheets at a time in order to prolong the activity and raise the annoyance factor. The sound of the blade slicing through the paper then banging to a stop is nearly as violent as the action itself, amplified as it is by the elevated soundboard of the hollow underbelly of the cutting surface. I knew I'd get a remark.

"Are you making sure the paper's cut?" said Julie.

"I'm pretending my neck is under there," I said.

There was no reply.

Finished, I sat down to the holds, at Angie's desk, in front of Julie's. Julie came back for a sip of her Earl Grey. On her return trip she asked, smiling, "Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

"I did that all weekend."

Again, no reply.

"And most of last week," I wanted to add, but that would have been a bit thick.

At lunch I twice attempted conversation with Julie and was each time met with little more than a grunt of discomfiture. That I did not feel rebuffed or embarrassed was an oddity that I did not till this very moment consider as such. It hadn't quite rolled off my back then, but little did I take it personally, either.

For trhe rest of the day I was civil and human as I may ever have been at work, especially in the past year. I offered conversation unbidden, quipped eloquently, and was even nice to Mary Lou, the co-worker with whom I have always had the least tolerance. And I gave it little to no thought.

Today was little different, maybe, even, more of the same. My only contact with Julie was when she entered the break room upon her arrival to put her lunch in the fridge. I said, "Hi, Julie." I didn't try to smile--or not to--so I probably didn't. She muttered, "Hey," with a vaguely questioning look, as if seeking motive. An hour in the workroom together barely raised my temperature, and though I had to apply conscious effort not to look at her at every chance, the effort was all but off-handed.

With as little effort, but unconsciously, I nearly came upon the reason for this recent change in behavior, but as I saw it rising to consciousness I popped it like a bubble. If the analysis is destructive I will destroy first the analysis. I'm not knocking on wood or throwing spilled salt over my shoulder. I'm leaving well enough alone.

Normal Is a White Frock with Six-Foot Sleeves (5/10/09 Sunday)

2009-05-11T13:28:00.007-04:00

"It's up to you." I heard little else in my head Saturday at work, and each sub-aural utterance of Julie's Monday words clawed deeper into my craw. Monday, it seemed a level-headed assessment of responsibility, but by Friday I saw it as her hand-washing, so that it wasn't so much "It's up to you" as "Whatever--just do what you have to do. I'm outta here." What I'd accepted as compassion on her past seemed merely indulgence: "Maybe he'll finally get it this time and leave me alone." I've been thrown enough bones. I made efforts during the week to strike up conversation, but they were met with monosyllabic indifference and no eye contact. It's up to me. That was her answer Monday to my wish for things to be normal. But things are already normal for her, so what can my effort yield? I have no normal, or at least have no idea anymore what it is. The normal I would like to have is no feelings for Julie. Love is not working for me, and the bitterness is again yanking my bit till I feel ridiculed for still caring for someone who's never cared for me. But I don't care for her.

I'm having difficulty saying what I have to say. I had a lot to say after work Saturday, but there was no time to write before the kids showed up, and after putting them to bed I had no brain. I thought the emotional exhaustion would translate to the physical, but though I found sleep easily enough, I lost it at three for two hours. Then I slept till nine, fodder for the page piled to my cranium's ceiling. With the kids, I could not write. Now it's tomorrow, and I fear sleep for the premature wake-up. I'll write a little longer. Maybe at least my editor will fall asleep first.

On my hand at work Saturday morning I wrote "she knows" on my palm, but by then it was difficult to recall what I'd meant by that, my mind being propped up on caffeine crutches after three hours of REM-less sleep. St. John' wort, chamomile tea--forget it; I was a wreck, till by five I was near self-pitying tears. I said aloud, "Keep it together, Dion" as I strode to the breakroom for nothing but a walk. Turning back, I encountered Julie on her way out. She smiled and said, "See you later." There wasn't a smile in me to return. I forced out, "Okay." I sat down heavily at the backup station, guzzled my last cup of tea. God, I thought, how do people do it? How do they get through the day, pretending they have it all? or that what they don't have is inconsequential, that a job is enough, that at work there's nothing but work? It this the normal it's up to me to restore? Forget it. I'm going to bed.

Out There In Here (5/09/09 Saturday)

2009-05-09T13:30:00.003-04:00

Love is supposed to be a good thing, yet I feel that it hung me out to dry yesterday, and here I am, at two a.m., yet to sleep, wondering how I can get to work in the later morning with a positive attitude--much less keep it. I want to believe in love, but I lie in bed motionless for an hour pleading with it to please help me. I can't believe in a god, but I'm tired of carrying this burden. How else can it be lifted from me? Intellect is cold and insipid in matters of my heart. My heart must be where my compassionate understanding is, but it requires too much from me that I don't know how to give. It asks me to love myself.

To say that the traffic outside is slow is to say that I hear a couple cars a minute slishing down the wet street about thirty feet from my window. It is probably no longer raining, but water drips in a slow rhythm from the leaky gutter onto my sill. I'm hungry. I won't get to sleep that way.

I forgot to take my St. John's wort yesterday. Wouldn't it be nice to find out that that is all I need to keep my mood up? It would have helped yesterday if Julie hadn't tried so hard to not look at me. I told her Monday night that I couldn't pretend things were okay or back to "normal" or that I had no romantic feelings for her. I didn't tell her to do the pretending for me. But there I go, getting bitter and resentful. Good moods are so transient, I wonder if they're even real. Real things should stay. I don't like where that line of thought takes me.

I ate a cheese stick. It didn't improve my mood, but it might help me sleep. But I don't want to turn out the light.

Did I Just Let the Joker Out of Arkham? (5/08/09 Friday)

2009-05-08T22:59:00.000-04:00

What happened between the lie of the last Friday-the-thirteenth--that I would best get over Julie by not writing about her--and the last day of April, when I finally had to admit otherwise? I thought I had reverted, that things had gotten worse that ever, but found, instead, that I had grown. I no longer feel the plaything of a bitter, spiteful god named Irony. I am no longer in Hell. But where am I? I declared myself in love on the penultimate Friday-the-thirteenth and thought it the cruelest jest yet pulled by Irony. But here I am, still in love, and grateful to be. It is not returned by Julie, but perhaps not entirely unappreciated. I'm not sure how much I appreciate it myself. Yesterday, I was only cruelly appreciative, glad simply to have gotten the upper hand on it so that I might extact revenge. Today I woke up appalled at such dictatorial arrogance, realizing I had caged an ally for lack of recognition.

What can this ally do for me? Today at work was difficult. I wanted Julie's attention, I wanted her to talk to me, I wanted to talk to her--I wanted all of the old things I always wanted from her--and where was my new friend with a soft, heavy hand on my shoulder to say, "She knows how you feel"? My only friend was Judy's fan, in front of which I had to stand for prolonged periods after even the briefest near-encounter with Julie, when my body temperature filled the thermometer and the heat issuing from the top of my head looked like the waves off a baking tarmac. Oh, what she does to me! Where was my cool-headed friend?

I'm sure we're just not on the same page, me and (love it may be, but such a word, so densely fraught, cannot possibly be simply a name)--my friend. After all, it can't know me any better than I know it, even after having had my reins for nearly a year. Hell, it overturned me in a ditch! Yet, though it cannot reign, it can be a valuable advisor. Talk to me!

"Do Not Feed Do Not Climb Over Fence" (5/07/09 Thursday)

2009-05-07T16:42:00.005-04:00

Two full work days have passed, and I'm still not quite sure how things stand. Yet when I consider the meeting with Julie that blustery evening, the regrets that spun me round in bed the night following have been all but marginalized into non-existence by what I can truthfully call the accomplishments of that evening; chiefly, establishing, frankly and unashamedly, how I feel about her and admitting the persistence of these feelings as a virtually immutable force that will color even my proximity to her. In realizing this, I have discovered a freedom.

On Tuesday, the first day after our talk, Julie and I exchanged pleasant greetings but nothing else. Wednesday, I ventured to chide her for staying late as "penance" for her "busman's holiday" at Glen Allen, a notoriously ill-attended branch at which she'd spent the first half of the day. She took it in the spirit meant.

Forty minutes on a bike in the dark is a fecund setting for the fruits of contemplation: I created more than a freedom Monday evening; I birthed a power. I can do as I please now, can't I? Not knowing quite what that means is a danger, but as I've absolutely assured her of my lack of romantic intent, I am free to ridicule it. When I was angry and ashamed to be futilely in love, though I knew it was important to find the humor in the futility, all I found was sarcasm. I was the bitter target of all my jokes, and Julie the bullseye of my resentment. Now that I have accepted that I am in love beyond my control, I have effectively isolated these feelings as a separate entity--quarantined them, caged them. They are now in my little zoo for me to visit for my amusement. I won't go so far, yet, to proclaim that that is all they are, that they have no longer any power over me, but I think I suffer no delusion, either, to believe that their power is substantially diminished, and because of that I am entitled to turn the tables on them. This power, newly established and arrogantly claimed, will stand its first test early today: I saw today's schedule last night: The first full hour at work will be on the desk with Julie. The old anxieties of such a prospect try to pile on, but, for now, I'm able to shrug them off with a smirk. I'll take that smirk with me to the desk. I don't plan on keeping it, but I hope its removal will be gradual and natural, sloughed off like old skin. As self-proclaimed "stupidest person in the world" in her proximity, how self-conscious can I be anymore? Even that is something to have fun with now.

But will Julie have fun wih me? How comfortable will she be with me? I imagine it will take her a little longer, but she told me it would be up to me to re-establish the old rapport I've missed so badly; that, apparently, it is my ensuing behavior that will win back her trust. I don't even want to think about that, don't want to start calculating and second-guessing my every action and word in her presence. That's an altogether different and more malignant danger, but with which I hope I am familiar enough to be conscious of and now better prepared to battle.

By the Time I Got Home I Had Rocketed Up to Fifth Stupidest (5/05/09 Tuesday)

2009-05-06T16:35:00.004-04:00

A talk with Julie always clogs my pen for a day or two. I came home last night, ate two pieces of leftover chicken, closed the blinds on the waning light, and climbed itno bed with a decaf headache. I had been concerned that morning about coffee breath for our meeting that evening, so I had a mug of green tea instead of coffee. I also didn't want to be overstimulated. No problem there.

It may have taken me an hour to fall asleep. I awoke again, just before two, as if a tv in front of me had been switched off. The traffic had ceased, and the birds were a few hours from singing. The headache was all I could hear.

"It's never good when we sit down together," was my opening line. There were only a few other things I had scripted. I got the laugh I was after.

She was drinking her "usual," Earl Grey. I had a spearmint green tea. We were sitting outside Starbuck's, though we agreed that if there was any other coffee shop near work, we'd have been there, instead. The sky was dark, but not so threatening, since it had been like that all day.

I'd hoped that she would start things off, if only to not feel so much as if the agenda were all mine, but I didn't expect it, and when she only said, "So...? i grinned: She has no idea how well I know her.

I stumbled, but when I finally looked at her instead of the reflective emblem on the back of the cycling shoe on the foot across my knee I told her, "These feelings I have for you are just not going away. They are going to be there till they're not. There's nothing I can do about it."

Julie said nothing then, and said little after that that I didn't solicit with a question. When I asked her, "How has my behavior made you feel?" she said, "It's about time someone asked me about my feelings."

That hurt, because I had ("You may not believe this," I said) very much had her feelings in mind and tried to explain my "stupid idea" that because she had no fellings for me, it couldn't possibly matter if I were "invisible."

"It's not true that--" she started, and I brightened at the prospect of being contradicted--that she really did have feelings for me--but she changed direction altogether, citing the tension of the workplace and difficulty of working together. She would not admit to her feelings being hurt.

To be truthful about my reporting skills, if less flattering to Julie's power to cloud this man's mind, I am not the best listener but to my own words, which I have the benefit of hearing first in my head before aloud. That, above their actual value or significance, is why Julie's words are poorly presented here. Even that said, though, I discerned little disclosure. With Julie, it is easy to tell when she is offering up a bit of herself: She breaks eye contact and looks down to her left. There was only one instance of that, and I'm not sure what, if anything, I said to prompt it--indeed, I can't even recall touching on this subject except with close friends or in this journal: She said she would never belittle me for having these feelings toward her. (I thought then of Mr. Gold, whose awkward advances upon her I had heard her mocking in undertones to Judy.) Its effect was to mollify and puzzle me, to small and large degrees, respectively.

I found a little peace, too, with the answer to a burning question: "At what point did you begin to think I had feelings for you?"

"It was when you became so insistent on setting a time for our...tete-a-tete."

"Wait," I said. "It was at your car, wasn't it? It was when I said, 'Oh, but it's taken me so long to get up the nerve to do this!'"

"Yes."

"I knew it. I saw it on your face." I shook my head and sighed at the immediate recollection of the suppressed horror that had frozen her smile as she crept around the edge of her car to put it between us.

"At that point I thought seriously about backing out, but I thought I should let you know that I didn't have the same feelings for you."

"Well, as painful as the experience was, I'm glad you went through with it." She chuckled, and I was bemused that she found humor in my statement.

We sat there for an hour. It was always me who filled the awkward silence, which were numerous, if only to head off the opportunity for her to announce her departure, and I offered much more of myself than I'm sure she cared to know. It did not elicit any like disclosure from her. But in regard to the reason we were sitting across from each other,I asked her to please just bear with me and don't feel that being nice to me was going to "inflame my passion--for want of a more pedestrian term"--because "the stupidest person in the world is me within sight of you."

On the way home I felt blank, but I was probably the precise opposite, a surfeit of thought and emotion overloading the system entirely, the best response to which was to shut down entirely. It seemed there was nothing to say, nothing to write--no more inspiration. Then I awoke at two a.m. to a deafening silence, and into the void rushed the petty regrets of things unsaid and missaid. The pandora's box opened, the pen is unclogged. And then there's the next day. And the next....

Third Time's the Harm? (5/03/09 Sunday)

2009-05-06T16:25:00.006-04:00

So I go into battle a third time--and let this be the last time I use a war metaphor for this meeting with Julie. This isn't something to win, a flag to capture. It's my last best chance to mend things. There is a lot I want, a lot I can't ask for, a lot to tend to. I'm taking my lessons from the first two chances: I can't be aggressive or accusatory, but neither can I be abject or excessively apologetic; frank, but not toward a selfish agenda (remember: she has no feelings for me, and I can't change that); tell her how I feel, and ask her how she feels; any time I want to start a sentence with "I don't want to..." consider and solicit Julie's feelings on the matter--don't assume how she feels in relation to my behavior; that's self-flattery and condescension. There is much I have to say, but it must relate to my behavior. My first instinct will be that of subservience and penitence. I will be tempted to let her whip me, but I can't apologize for my feeligns, only my immature actions. This is as deeply as it's safe to strategize without gagging on a replete agenda.

May Day (5/01/09)

2009-05-02T15:58:00.003-04:00

I'm drinking to myself, a wee dram of Highland Park. It's my third bottle this year, the previous two rarely partaken of in any but ironic celebration. And let's not really call this a celebration as much as a relief. What I had to do I did--not, of course, in quite the planned fashion, but with quite the planned effect.

Imagine my day: As Julie's hour at the window did not come till four, I dragged under a nervous burden for most of the day. Julie never accepted eye contact, but that made my proposed action all the more immperative as it made me all the more morose. Twice Julie replaced me at a station. The first time, at backup, she was coming off lunch and was sitting at her desk as time neared for the transfer. Twice I left my post to give her a chance to sneak in and claim it, but as the clock ticked into my lunch hour, I just left to eat. When she was to replace me at the window for the fateful hour, I left there a few minutes early to headstart the holds. Usual etiquette in the changing of the guard at the window is to find the incumbent and announce your arrival. Julie, instead, looked at the schedule, then marched to her station. I was glad; I didn't want her to have to speak to me, as that might somehow marginalize my agenda. Several times during the day I challenged her with steady glances, and each time I could see the tension of conscious effort to avoid looking my way, could tell it for what I'd been doing to her. I remember feeling very childish ignoring her, yet here she was, no more mature. Since, I have felt less the pathetic man-child but no less ashamed for having brought out this dubious quality from her.

More than half the hour passed. My heart was thudding, as when I neared the moment,now nearly eight months past, of asking her out. I uneasily bided my time, waiting for the perfect moment, not knowing what that was--procrastinating. The workroom contained Julie, me, Judy and Brian. Brian was backup, as far from the window as possible, and Judy was at her desk nearly as far away. Judy knew of my intention, and Brian wouldn't care, probalby hadn't a clue as to what has transpired between Julie and I. Two of the holds on the pick list were for the drive-up; they would be my pretense of approach to Julie. I took a deep breath, arranged my opening line with confidence, snatched up the books, and marched resolutely, if unsteadily to the window.

Julie was turned my way but had her eyes on a book on top of the holds shelf between us. On top of the shelf, to her left, was a small, white, plastic bin designated for the books to be trapped for window pickup. Looking at her, I placed the books in the bin. She raise her head. I locked onto her eyes and thrilled with power from her ephemeral stupefaction. After a pause, perhaps waiting for me to speak, she said, "Thank you," and broke away, gathering the books she'd be checking. But I was not going to let her go. I stopped her with, "Julie."

"Yes?"

I found her eyes again. "This cold-shoulder stuff is killing me." I'd stunned her again, as I'd hoped, and continued. "I know I started this, and I deserve it, but it hurts."

In a high whisper, glancing around the room, she said, "I would rather talk about this outside of work." It seemed something of an embarrassed rebuke.

"So would I," I said, not in a whisper, already thrilling to the possibility of sitting down alone with her again. "But how else do I get to talk to you?"

Julie hesitated, still looking at me. I thought she was going to suggest I could have emailed her. I didn't want to try to explain why I wouldn't do that. She didn't suggest it. Instead, she began to think aloud, going through her weekend schedule. We couldn't find common free time, and she said, "Do you just want to think about it and let me know?" She smiled, and I felt a tinge of condescension. I sensed this was what she wanted, but I was not going to set myself to have to approach her again.

"No," I said firmly. "I just want to do this"--I chopped my hand through the air.

"Okay."

"We could do it Monday after work."

She was too-long a moment considering before agreeing. Again I was reminded of a moment in our past, but this time with a sense of redemption: I had dropped the ball in naming the time of our "date" in September. If I do nothing else Monday reminiscent of that disaster, then--well, I wouldn't necessarily call it a success, but it would be damned sight more satisfying, and the kind of memorable that doesn't fill me with regret and tangle my bedsheets. Slainte!

No Good (4/30/09 Thursday)

2009-04-30T16:43:00.005-04:00

It is as necessary to begin this again as it was the first time, but there is none of the same giddiness over the possibilities before me. Indeed, it seems a death march in comparison. Things have gotten worse than I could have imagined. This month-and-a-half has seemed a year, a year adrift with a daily-renewed torment. It is not a question of love now--that seems irrelevant, or at least a lesser torment to consider much later. I am responsible or a damage I had every bit of a chance to prevent. Now....

I was never close to getting over Julie, and, to her credit, she tried, if clumsily, to restore the rapport. But my reaction was to turn from her, to scoff at her niceties, to let her stumble over my non-reactions to her little jests. Now I have worse than none of that, because I've hurt her.

I had tried to put my pride aside, because I had been missing her smile. I allowed myself to be nice to her, giving a smile and greeting. She responded in kind, and it was not long before that awkwardness at the other end of the scale weighed in. But I did not welcome it. I was scared to death of it, and then angry at it--it mocked me and all the hope I'd let Julie's attentions induce--and I was not going to go through the fawning and solicitousness again, knowing already its worth. So I withdrew. I became expert at avoiding Julie, and still more aloof of her attention. It became something of a game, or so I rationalized the behavior right up to the point where I met my match.

A month to the day after I (thought I'd) ended A Bright, Ironic Hell, a Monday, I was pulling outdated holds from the shelves out front before opening when, to my turned back, Julie said, "Good morning, Dion." It might have been unprecedented for her to address me from that aspect. I did not turn but mumbled flatly, "Good morning." I immediately felt a sense of victory and even whispered to myself, "I win!" Little did know that it was at that point that the game was well and truly lost.

I could not have known how well Julie could play this game until she showed me that week, the longest of my life. I did not, after my "victory", press what I thought was my advantage. I thought I'd proven something, or at least gone far enough, and attempted to scale back. I tried eye contact and a smile. What Julie returned--a controlled, hideous nothing--shot me through with the horror of what I'd been playing at. If that first time wasn't enough, I was shot again and again that week, so that by he end of it I was riddled with shame. I could not have left work, and Julie, with any more relief--or, strangely reluctance--than I did that Saturday evening, and after I'd put the kids to bed I sat in the kitchen in the dark pondering what I'd done and considering how to undo it. I did not sit there long; it was not difficult to decide on, and agree to, a course of action: I had to talk to her. Frankly. No emails, no notes, no invitations. I would have to all but accost her, physically and verbally--not browbeat her, but express myself nakedly, let her know how I felt. The element of surprise was important--I had to catch her unprepared--but time was of the essence, as well, as she could find any number of work-related "outs" to escape from what would surely be an uncomfortable situation for her. My point would have to be driven home quickly and sharply. This I decided as I sat in that hard, little wooden chair, motionless, for most of an hour, knowing that it would be another ten days before I would get my chance to go through with it. Julie had off the following week, and I had asked off the Monday and Tuesday after that. Julie's week off was nearly a pleasure at work. I hadn't realized the darkness the workroom had been plunged into until Julie's absence lifted it. People who had avoided me, apparently repulsed by my shield of morosity, enjoined me, unsolicited, in conversation, and I welcomed it. On my two days off I wondered if the attitude was the same becasue of my absence.

It was with this resolution and adjustment of attitude I entered the library Wednesday afternoon. Julie's attitude had not changed. Eye contact with her was entirely mine. My courage was faltering, but I was no less confident of my course of action. I simply wasn't sure when and where I could implement it. As I sat down after lunch to write, I saw Julie in front of the elevator, pencil in mouth with the pick list cart. I thought--too late--of dashing on there with her, prying the doors apart--and there she would be, trapped with her mouth full, only a small cart between us. I allowed a minute to pass as I lamented my missed opportunity, then headed upstairs. I intended to lie in wait at a computer till lunch was up, but I well knew that the end of my lunch was the end of her day on Wednesday, and that she'd less need than I to be elsewhere at the top of the hour and would continue to pick holds a little beyond her quitting time. I returned to work, at backup, without seeing her.

I was packing branch mail when I heard the elevator arrive and a cart jostle off of it. A moment later I heard the bell calling me to the desk. I ran out, hoping to get out there and back in time to see Julie out. Had Julie sent that patron to the desk, she could not have done a better job of kicking in my Lincoln logs. The lady had a fine of several dollars, and was extracting it a coin at a time from the bottom of her voluminous and cluttered purse. Time seemed to blow through my hair as this lady swam through Jell-O. I had done with her finally, and rushed back to my other work. I reached the back hall and heard keys jangle. I turned into it and was faced with Julie, though not her with me. I had missed an encounter by about three seconds. There she was before me, a slightly hunched little woman in a short, white, wide-knit cotton sweater. If this was my chance I didn't see it--or want to. Four feet between us, I reached my work as she reached the door. She never knew I was there. I knelt to my job and took my time.

I checked the next day's schedule for possible desk time with Julie (which I haven't been given for more than a month), but couldn't find her on the schedule. I went to Judy, a recent confidant (tell you later) and only other person in the workroom, if Julie was working the next day. No, she'll be at Glen Allen tomorrow." "Ugh," I groaned. "I need to talk to her. This killing me!"

But the day without her was much like the others--if not serene, at least relaxed; that is, until I thought of what I had to do Friday. Wehn I came in today Angie said I looked like I was "up to something." Little does she know. I checked the schedule for Friday: Julie and I get no desk time together, but there are two hours when we are both in the workroom. When I am at the window, Julie will likely have her headphones on, watching a DVD in her shop for repair, so that hour's out. But she's at the window while I'm doing holds. As a built-in opportunity, that seems a good one. I'm not highly concerned about the possible audience; though it would certainly hedge her response, it would give me a broader opportunity to speak. That might not be a good thing. I'd prefer she spoke to me honestly, and catching her off guard might force that spontaneity, at least momentarily. I'm not putting all my money on that hour, though; I'm trying to remain open to unscheduled opportunity. All I really should count on tomorrow is getting the job done. I can't go home not having attempted to put things right.

New Road (3/13/09 Friday)

2009-03-13T12:51:00.005-04:00

There has been no rational resolution to all this, but perhaps it's past rationale and has decided for itself that it's over. The inadequacy of that statement is an ironic summation of itself: It doesn't need saying. I am over Julie, just not the feelings for her. I still want her attention but make less effort every day to get it. I like to see her; I like to look at her, but I won't interrupt my work to do so or position my task to put her in my sights. It's mostly a conscious effort--not to avoid her, but to remember why I'm really at work--but it becomes easier, more natural. I suppose I'm faking it, but I guess I'm making it, too. I am still envious of the people she talks to, and I still wish she held enough interest in me to initiate conversation, but I am beginning to form useful, rational mantras to chant to myself when the feelings arise that help calm me and subdue rising resentment. I don't say them with bitter resignation, either, but with as little attitude as possible. I seem to have a regular slot on the desk with Julie Thursday nights. I hope it stays. Tonight I asked after her mom, who has moved to a rehab center. I hoped, out of habit, to have her ask after me, but stated to myself that there was no reason she should. There was no anger, no feeling that she would or should talk to me, bu a realistic resignation based (finally!) on what I knew of her. There was simply no reason to resent her being who she was.

I will say this is the end of this journal, and saying it makes it so, because there's little else more pathetic than hanging on too long. Perhaps resolution has been reached, imperfectly and at least in spirit, without irony, or the expectation of it. I'm convinced resolutions yet to come will now come more easily. On that new road I've taken I'm no longer walking backward, but before each step is a bend around which I can't see. I'll just try to enjoy the scenery.

Yeah, But Where's the Ball? (3/11/09 Wednesday)

2009-03-11T16:27:00.002-04:00

Tammy wasn't in Monday till late, so I asked her yesterday if she knew Done had been removed from the roll. She sighed and said, "Yes. I guess I have to talk to you about it." The committee had told both Ahmed and Tammy, and Tammy half-expected Ahmed to bring it up to me Monday. Anyway, the story goes: Somebody on the committee clicked through to Book Monkey Says but didn't stop there; they even read the comments by a reader who simply calls herself "Girl." That's as far as Tammy got in the story before I all but screamed "What?!" Tammy felt I was "ganged up on," and I am reluctant to speak the words lest I rally behind them and a wall of righteous indignation. I'd rather laugh at the irony, but the best I can do is tighten my jaw and shake my head. Tammy said I could get back on the roll if I hid BMS from Book Monkey's profile, but that would defeat the purpose of Done being on the roll, so I must content myself with what success I mustered while it was visible (112 profile views and counting).

I took another step as well: Julie's blog is not on the roll, but she left it up on the computer at the front desk. I made Book Monkey a follower. there's nothing personal on her blog, and not something I'll continue to read. She can make the connection easily enough, but I don't care (of course, or I wouldn't have done it). I'm just having fun. she won't read BMS once she knows who Book Monnkey is. She can think as she likes from there. Perhaps this is no way to put her behind me, but I consider it a compromise to cold turkey. I have removed her picture my bike, and at night when I awake with anxiety and her face before me, I push the face aside and get back to sleep. Spring is coming fast, and I want to experience it; and I'm looking forward to a summer of own this year. It's been nearly ten months since I first put pen to paper about this. As well as I fabricated the inspiration for all this ink expenditure, I should as easily find real reason to write. There is no good logic in that statement, I'm aware, but it sounds good. I've already accepted that I don't need a reason to continue writing, just, perhaps, a reason to finish the blog.

I suppose I am a blogger now. It's the only community I feel a part of, accepted fully within, wherein I can speak and be heard and respected, and where the rules are not so rigid that I have to feel every act of natural individualism is a rebellion against the culture. Normally, given that freedom, I would rebel even against that, for no reason probably than to rebel. But if rebellion is to have meaning it must have a goal beyond its own preservation, as must the blog. Have I reached the goal?

Instead of Them Cutting Me (3/09/09 Monday)

2009-03-09T21:07:00.005-04:00

Where am I? What has all this come to? It's so difficult to judge my progress that I don't feel far from just calling all this a failure. Certainly, it failed to gain Julie's affection. In that respect, it went on about sixty thousand words too long. I'm looking for positive, but I just can't find it. James, I guess--I gained James. But I didn't gain my self. I sublimated my personality to be someone I thought Julie would like. Where am I now? Where's the rest of me to hang on this skeleton? Was this all just an addiction? Is cold turkey the only way to put this behind me? It might be the only way my self-esteem will survive, but doesn't it denigrate, marginalize all this writing to just throw it aside? I expressed myself. Was I paying attention? It's the "investment" question again: Am I trying to make something back when I should be cutting my losses? If I'd answered that question honestly in regard to my pursuit of Julie, I wouldn't be asking it again in regard to anything else. But when have I ever cut my losses?

Where's My Irony Now? (3/08/09 Sunday)

2009-03-08T21:01:00.002-04:00

Julie's mother had a severe stroke the previous weekend. I hadn't known when I asked her Wednesday if she'd been snowed in. She answered, "No, but I wish that was why I was out." I was puzzled, but slow to respond, and she was gone with a cart before I'd gathered my wits. Julie appeared very tired the next day. Angie told me about the stroke. The last hour Thursday I spent on the desk with Julie. I asked quietly after her mom. She was not reluctant to talk, though she must have by then answered the same questions several times. She looked at me as she did; her eyes were red-rimmed and moist; her voice didn't waver, but she sniffed lightly a few times. That hour humbled me, threw into relief my arrogance and petty meanness in judging her character. Julie had always been an object, not a person. Finally I felt the compassion for her for which I'd sought. It began the re-evaluation of this whole project and the consideration that it was over.

The blog I created to replace Book Monkey Says as the representative of the Web 2.0 exercise made the blog roll this week and was removed this week. I had not been forewarned or brought onto the carpet to have explained to me why this would be done. It was just taken off the roll. It was called Done and contained two posts and a total text of three words. The first post, "Week 2," said, "Done." The second, "Week 3,"about RSS feeds, read, "Read. Fed." When I discovered the blog removed I added "Up." Book Monkey is the author of Done, though not in persona. A click on his profile reveals his other blog. In the few days Done was on the roll Book Monkey received eighty-three views (now, two days later, ninety-five), no doubt nearly entirely from library personnel, as I have not claimed it online. Of course, I don't know how many or who clicked through to Book Monkey Says, but someone did, and many more than just the moralistic brown-noser who flagged it. How indignant can I be? Henrico County is not the forum for my agenda, and since talking to Julie about her mother I have not been exactly zealous to forward it or to have Julie read Book Monkey Says. She does not appear to have, but I can't be sure, and at this point would be embarrassed, if not ashamed, to find that she had.

A Bright, Ironic Hell is winding down. Perhaps my feelings for Julie aren't as moribund as I've recently stated, but they have changed beyond the scope of the blog. I don't know what, if anything, has been resolved. I loathe loose ends, but this is not a novel but a living..."living" what? (Something else to resolve?) There will be loose ends because only time will allow me space enough to see the seasons for the year, the transitions and growth. I have reread the blog to the point of meeting Jan (that being the "manuscript"). I tried to read it as an outsider, and I achieved that about as well as could be expected, so I got a broad view of intense doubt despite a sometimes razor-sharp clarity: A firm, intuitive grasp was often reasoned away from all believability, often becasue I simply didn't want to believe it. How many times I said she couldn't be interested in me is virtually uncountable, but I wanted to believe I was wrong, that Julie was somehow "playing" me, "compartmentalizing," instead of being indifferent to me. I couldn't accept the indifference. I pressed for a reaction, hoping/expecting it to be positive. Getting exactly the opposite reaction pressed me into a prideful corner, out of which I tried to fight with indignation. Now, here I am, with nothing I wanted, but perhaps everything I deserve. What that is, I might determine with another reading.

So, What Will It No Longer Be--Bright, Ironic, or Hell? (3/07/09 Saturday)

2009-03-07T18:21:00.005-05:00

I doubt that I ever really wanted to live in a bright, ironic hell, but it was easy to believe in. It was easy to create and perpetuate, too, especially as its foundation was subconscious. Conscious effort--what I "knew better"--seemed destined to subversion by an ingrained negativity: What I knew to be true and right was undermined by a history of poor results--an almost automatic self-fulfillment of a prophecy of doom. Well, a lot of things are easy to believe, and without proof of any of them being the right or wrong thing to believe, why not believe what you choose to believe, and choose to believe positively? Because I'm a skeptic, I suppose. But I don't have to be a cynic. Can I choose to be happy? and if I do does that make me happy? It can't be that easy. But why not? Why even reason it out?

Begending (3/05/09 Thursday)

2009-03-05T16:36:00.003-05:00

I forgot to post yesterday's journal entry yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder how much writing is left to do on the blog. I wonder, too, if the blog itself is perpetuating my angst, if I'm reaching for agony to write about. What if I stopped? I can't stop writing, but what now am I writing about? I am a cynical person, but I don't want to be that way, and A Bright, Ironic Hell has been a long justification of my cynicism. That attitude won't change overnight, but it can't change if I continue to celebrate it. I am past the crossroads--I've already taken a turn--but I'm walking backwards, looking at it.

Travels In Nihilon (3/04/09 Wednesday)

2009-03-05T10:54:00.002-05:00

Woke with a familiar headache and a stiff neck. The hip I couldn't sleep on was one I had to walk on all day yesterday. The main streets were cleared of snow then, and I was determined to pedal in so I'd be able to top anyone else's whining travails and because I didn't want my mode of travel to come up wanting in comparison. But the neighborhoods had been left to nature's devices and, therefore, me to my own. I trudged through the park in the granny gear, bouncing and crunching through refrozen bootprints, wincing at what sounded like my tires shredding, but when I emerged from the park's backside I was faced with an icy downhill and the choice of falling now or falling at speed. If I could keep my balance to the bottom--a very tense prospect--I still would be unable to stop, because even touching the brake would mean falling. But I was already starting downhill, so I touched the brakes and fell over. So, I have a road rash on my left hip and a slight lateral whiplash. I keep looking for the bruise on my hip, but I just don't bruise. I suppose in another fifteen years we'd be talking hip replacement.

Julie wasn't at work. I think she got snowed in. I could have found out from Judy, but I want to ask her myself. In order to finish off these moribund feelings for her I have to suck it up and be the person I should be with everyone else, all those other people I never had a crush on. Five days without her makes that perspective easy. I can't pretend her presence won't alter it, but I think it's important that I try. It's not just a pretense, but a sacrifice of pride, and why should I cling to that?

What does that make of The Admittance? Can I really be in love with Julie and still break away from the feelings I once had for her? I have to doubt I'm in love. Was The Admittance true then but no longer? Can it work like that? But as it seemed unquestionable upon its appearance, it seems as much so now. Should I just let it be?

I dreamt of Jan last night. It seemed we were in a small city (Winchester?). We met by chance, but soon after a friend of hers chanced upon her as well, and they sat at a table and chatted. I stood at a far end of the coffee shop waiting impatiently for her to come to me or at least beckon me, but finally left to explore. I fell in with a group of tourists, about six Italian men, speaking their native tongue, not noticing me. We passed many strange, modern shops. I did not get back to Jan, and she didn't find me.

Not Citric (3/2/09 Monday)

2009-03-02T21:09:00.006-05:00

Snow replaced the rain yesterday afternoon, and now there are several inches of it this morning. I slept last night wihout setting the alarm, and no one's called me from work wondering where I am. I will have to trudge up to the store, but that should be the only venture I will have to undertake outdoors today. I'm grateful for another day off. My attitude toward Julie and the women of the workplace is nearly acid. If there's a question any longer of what Julie is a symbol of, the answer is the chip on my shoulder. She manifests what I've always resented about "dating"--the man's obligation to present himself for approval, the tacit implication there being that woman is the judge of man's worthiness, her standards being the only ones of value: Man is only worth what woman allows him. So my acceptance by a woman is contingent upon my conformance to her standards, my own standards being irrelevant. I refuse to play that game, and I refuse to stoop to tit-for-tat. I am an individual, not Men. Julie is Women, and that's not how I want to see her. I don't want to think at her, "If you never say yes, you deserve to be alone. What makes you think Prince Charming will come to you? How can you be sure you can recognize him? or that he exists? or that he could possibly find you?" but I do. Because I am bitter, and bitterness makes me feel like just another loser in a long line of them who brought her the wrong glass slipper. Should I pity her instead? Should I just not care? What double standard am I trotting out to judge her by?

J for J (3/01/09 Sunday)

2009-03-01T18:15:00.000-05:00

Unusually, for a Sunday, I showered when I got up. I probably wanted a few minutes to myself before facing the kids. I held off posting the last paragraph of yesterday's journal entry. I can't quite explain why (especially since the radio's on and the kids are talking to me). Simply (and beside the real reason), it wasn't a good paragraph, unfinished and digressive. But I couldn't finish it; the digression appropriated the promise of the paragraph, making it impossible to fulfill. It was the promise I made, though, to extact revenge or at least fight for my dignity at work that brought me up short of posting the paragraph. I suddenly felt that indignation again that I thought I'd reasoned away, and I was angry that I hadn't gotten past it yet--another failure of the mind to rationalize the emotions. And I knew, besides, that I couldn't make good on the threats without a serious and sudden improvement of my assertive communication abilities. Book Monkey, too, was on my mind when I woke up, as it was when I went to bed. That promise I will keep: Book Monkey will be known.

I have not heard from Jan, and the old fear creeps back: She's read BIH and thinks that she means little more to me than a distraction from Julie. Sometimes I wonder that myself, but there's much more to Jan that I like and appreciate than there ever was to Julie. I'm excited to know Jan, and eager to know her better. I do, indeed, want to replace Julie with her, but because she can be the friend Julie can't. Replacing a negative with a positive is a good thing, right? (It would be nice, too, to have someone to talk about, to gloat about at work.) If I take my worries out of paranoia mode I worry about her. She can't live long on her credit card without a job. I hope she's made inroads into alleviating that situation (and that it's happening in Richmond). What more can I do?

Touching Air (2/28/09 Saturday)

2009-02-28T18:28:00.004-05:00

I tried to call Jan last night. Julie on my mind was making me angry. I couldn't get through to Jan's cell (the only number I have) on my land line, and I couldn't pick up any service on my cell. It had been warm, in the sixties, during the day, and was still mild enough at eight to ride in shorts to pay my rent. It was an excuse to go to Target, itself an excuse to be around people. But there weren't many people there. I made no contact with anyone. My cell still had no service. I'd had coffee with dinner, anticipating--wanting--an active evening. I was home at ten-thirty, having done nothing but buy some t-shirts, socks, shorts, and underwear. No one had called. I emailed Jan, explaining the phone problems and saying I'd hoped to see her this weekend. Then I wrote James, depressed I'd had no one to do anything with and angry thinking of Julie. That's how I felt when I went to bed at two.

Love, Hate--Six of One... (2/27/09 Friday)

2009-02-28T14:40:00.004-05:00

The meeting with Ahmed brought back much of the recent resentment of Julie, the old indignation of persecution, and the older feelings for Julie. I don't want any of them. I've gotten two or three hours on the desk with Julie each of the past two weeks, and each one has been more of a struggle than the previous to maintain my self. What now does being in love with her mean? Anything? Is it even true? And now that I question it, I want more than ever for it to be true, because there was comfort in the faith I had in its trueness. I don't want Julie, and I don't want to want her. I don't want to be around her or hear her voice. Why that should hurt, I don't understand. I don't feel embarrassed that I wasted so much time on her. I'm no longer trying to make back some of my emotional investment. I make those statements sincerely, but I don't know if they are true. What can there be about her anymore that holds me in her thrall? She's beautiful, but so what? I can think of nothing else about her that I actually value.

And then I hear her talking about that man who tried to talk her up on the desk that time, and how he so doesn't have a chance with her. She was not oblivious that day; she was shunning him. I sneered about it then, but now it angers and hurts me. She admires Stacey for putting herself out there, yet there is no respect for the man who puts his dignity on the line when she won't do it for herself. Does he deserve your ridicule, Julie? I want to say some very cruel things right now, but I'm a better person than that--forget deference to anyone's feelings; I'm just not going to stoop to that level. I'll just sit here with my arms crossed and listen to my shoulders knot up.

House of the Rising Gorge (2/26/09 Thursday)

2009-02-26T10:33:00.005-05:00

Book Monkey will not make it to the blog roll. Tammy approached me as I was discarding an unrepairable paperback. "You and I need to talk with Ahmed in his office," she said. I looked at her. "Is this about the blog?" She said, "Yes." "Jeez-us Christ!" I exclaimed. "Don't kill the messenger, " she said. I tore off the back cover of the book, tossed it in the wastebasket, took a deep, huffing breath, and with undue deliberation did the same to the front cover and title page. Finally, I stood and followed Tammy to Ahmed's office, throwing the book with angry force into the discard box under the sink.

Anger still clouds my memory, so blow-by-blow account this will not be. To start with, let me just say that that paranoia that was beginning to tighten it's grip with each day my blog didn't appear on the roll was entirely justified. Ahmed told me my blog was "too personal." My iteration that it was fiction did not fly with him. "You have to admit," he said, "that it is a lot like what happened here not long ago." Oh, you mean that thing that was none of your business in the first place? How personal would this be if your nose had been kept clean of it? I looked at him. He said, "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" Seeing his discomfort at having to bring it up, I let him squirm a moment more. "Yes," I said. He went on to explain how, in light of the way some people have used this exercise to forward non-library agendas, the 2.0 committee has had to narrow its previously stated focus and re-evaluate the blogs. "There are many less relevant blogs than mine," I told Ahmed. He said, "And they are being talked to by their supervisors." Too many times, he said, "Don't take this personally," and I was pissed that I couldn't, really. He also said too often that there was "absolutely nothing offensive" about my blog--it was simply "too personal."

I left his office impatient to get to my break, of which this meeting had stolen ten minutes. I snatched up my food and water and marched into the woods at the back of the parking lot with hard, long strides, staring at the pavement. I didn't eat my lunch but pounded the path through a loop and came back with the same gait. I tossed my lunch aside, gathered my writing and made for Planet Teen's computers. I promptly published each of the posts queued up for Book Monkey Says, then went back to the empty breakroom and choked down my sandwich.

J vs. J (2/25/09 Wednesday)

2009-02-25T10:25:00.003-05:00

I would like to see Jan this weekend, when I have the Saturday off, but, as before, I haven't heard from her since the day after we were last together. It's not easy to believe everything is all right with her. I know she is disorganized and probably not hard-wired into the internet culture, but I also know that she takes an anti-depressant and that it's been six months since she had a drink. In Plan-9 she said, after lamenting that Jimmy Buffett was no longer worth listening to since she couldn't have a marguerita, "Sometimes I think that I could have just one drink...." I worry that she's had that drink, but try to trust her not to have.

Meanwhile, I await Book Monkey's debut and wonder how my being in love affects my feelings toward Jan. Am I pacing myself with Jan becasue I still hold out hope for Julie? Can I be in love with Julie and not want her?--and still want Jan? I have myself believing I can--or at least feeling I can. There seems to be no conflict. If I found myself loving Jan, could I then still be in love with Julie? But that's a cart far in front of the horse. The Admittance has engendered an acceptance of much that I'd otherwise have questioned, and my natural rebellion against this "irrational" acquiescence seems unable even to lift an angry fist even to shake, much less to strike with. For answers--indeed, for any further questions or speculation--I can only await Book Monkey's impact.

Oh, Monkey, Monkey Me! (2/23/09 Monday)

2009-02-24T12:40:00.006-05:00

A Julie-day such as I haven't had in months, if at all, and there was nothing special about it. I've simply regained her trust. I'm still a nervous wreck anywhere near her, but I don't avoid the proximity. Today, incident brought us near often, and though I was nowhere near natural, I managed to meet her eyes and match her jests. It was a relief to laugh with her. I'm not raising hopes--that soil is exhausted--but trying to find normal. Though I'm often acutely aware of her presence, I do a better job now of not being so aware of her presence as to make every action of my own about her and the hope of her noticing me. It's easier to do my job.

Then I remember that first Tuesday in December, when I was giddy to see her after what seemed an eternity, little knowing that everything I'd built would be torn down without a thought within a few hours. And I think of how the awesome hair-day is always followed by the most horrendous one. Perhaps this sounds fatalistic. Consider, then, that Book Monkey has not yet made the blog roll. This time the sabotage could be my own. I worry that she'll think I'm seeing signs again, especially since I've made such a turnaround in the past week with my attitude toward her. I don't want her afraid of me again and of her actions towards me.

When I didn't see Book Monkey Says on the blog roll, I was miffed. My first chance to look for it came when I replaced Julie on the desk at eleven. She'd even left that page up. I scrolled down the roll, though, and didn't find the blog. I emailed the Web 2.0 committee asking how long it took for that to happen. Later, reading the blogs in the roll, I came across someone writing, in passing, about the difficulty she was having modifying the roll. I commented on that post that I was eager to see my blog on the roll, but that I'd try to be patient. In order not to corrupt Book Monkey's persona, I signed in with my Bright, Ironic Hell username and password. Now, if she clicks on that, thinking she'll find the blog to which I was referring, she would get BIH. Great.

But I am eager to expose Book Monkey. It's important before I can continue posting to it, or even before I write much more of it. Though I don't want to simply translate the real action to fiction, I need to get the feeling from the consequences of the exposure. I want the fiction to "happen," to present itself to me. It's almost as if the reality is the role-playing for the fiction. Oh, boy, I like that. I'm seeing these characters as real, and I don't mean I'm seeing the person they're base upon, because that person was just the skeleton, and now they are flesh-and-blood. Book Monkey is not me; May is not Julie. And Gail--who is she? She's Gail! I don't know a Gail, real name or otherewise. Fiction (except for delusion) has not come from my pen for many years, and it's never come like this, so real. How much realer is it about to get?

Operation Devolution (2/22/09 Sunday)

2009-02-22T17:57:00.004-05:00

I would not have expected The Admittance to be a liberator, but for the first time I feel able to reconcile my understanding to my knowing. Understanding I could come to, and knowing I could understand, but I couldn't know what I understood. Muddy as that seems, it's exactly what I've been putting myself through over most of the past year. The Admittance all but marginalized those tribulations, saying, "Stop right there. Bottom line: You're in love with her. No more talking around it." But should this not have made my pursuit all the more necessary? What about The Admittance made it suddenly so easy to accept Julie feeling nothing for me? It's as if being in love with her was all I wanted all along; that I didn't need her to love me back. Strange to consider, but the less so the more I do so.

And what now? I may have little time to bask in this complacence once Book Monkey speaks. Of course it will be construed as a new pursuit of Julie, but how much more of an object could she be, now that I've created Book Monkey? She's practically an archetype. And all because I'm in love with her? This is no attempt to turn Julie my way--that will never happen--but I do want her to know I am in love with her. I know I said otherwise yesterday, but why deny the first reason for creating Book Monkey? But do I expect anything of Julie over this? Absolutely not. I thought she should know, and this was the silliest and subtlest way I could let her know. And why not let everyone else know, while I'm at it? I hate secrets. Julie would keep this a secret even from me if she could, but let's obviate the whispers. I won't be the only one amused. Let's laugh out loud, not stifle it under our breaths and behind backs. This joke is at no one's expense but mine. What offense can Julie take that doesn't flatter her to think she's Book Monkey's love interest? Hell, who's the butt here? I'm the monkey!

I've already written several posts for Book Monkey Says, but I won't post a second one before the blog has made it to the roll on the Web 2.0 sidebar. I want the first one to stand alone for a day to promote the effect of isolation. After that, I plan to release no more than one post daily, as I don't want the latest post to smother the previous before it's had a chance to be read. I'm excited and stimulated by this new project. I think it will resonate far beyond the joke it was born as.

Swimming Pool or Tea Cup? (2/21/09 Saturday)

2009-02-22T17:49:00.005-05:00

Well, I've gone and done it--and what have I done?! Book Monkey Says (Book Monkey was taken) has been created, the first posting posted, and Tammy and the 2.0 committee notified. I suppose it will be on the blog roll Monday. I've been laughing about this since I conceived it, but it's been quieted to a nervous chuckle by the thought of the consequences. Of course, as I've said, the fiction blunts the truth, but the assumption can make a sharp enough knife on its own. Maybe it isn't provable, but who will that matter to but me? At least the people out of the loop to begin with will likely remain so. That helps me with a couple deep breaths. I'm almost certain I don't want Julie to know I'm in love with her, but she will make the expected assumptions. Of course, she won't confront me, and about what, anyway? You know I had to stir something up. I'll just grin, pinch my nose and step off the high dive into it. And I can't even swim.

sNIPpet (2/20/09 Friday)

2009-02-20T15:49:00.003-05:00

My second (third?) chance came last night. It came sooner than I expected, and I was unprepared, but I knew the next chance might not come. I kicked my pride's ass, gagged the Wise Man and let myself out of the paper cage. The chance was another desk hour with Julie, and seven hours from its discovery seemed, at first, too little time to formulate a plan. So I didn't, and the longer I didn't and the closer the hour loomed the more I became aware of what I must do, or what I must not do, which was ignore Julie. Monday's hour was torture; I wasn't going through that again, however satisfying it was to my pride. The hour before we met on the desk we passed in the back hall. I offered a smile, small and shy, but sincere. Julie returned the same.

I took the near desk. No words passed between us for fifteen minutes. No tension, either. Then Julie laughed, and I said, "What's so funny over there?" For our Web 2.0 training we are all to start by creating a blog. She was reading the training page and directed me to a link of "amusing cat photos." I am not the person she is, but I did find the pictures amusing. We didn't talk, but it wasn't necessary; I'd accomplished my mission by not having one. It had crossed my mind hours before that I might apologize to Julie for my behavior in ignoring her, but it seemed an egotistical endeavor, and I've always preferred showng to telling, anyway.

Besides, I have a new venue for those feelings. The blog I'm creating for work will be called Book Monkey, and will be about and by a monkey that shelves books. This monkey is a loner, out of place among both monkeys and men--and in love with a coworker whom he knows can never love him back. To anyone who knows of and has read A Bright, Ironic Hell, Book Monkey will border on scandalous, but who could accuse me of anything untoward? Julie might not read more than the first post, but she will read that, and that would be enough for me. I won't hesitate, either, to use the phrase "in love with." After all, this is a monkey talking and who ever heard of that?

That's Because It's Love--Remember? (2/19/09 Thursday)

2009-02-19T10:35:00.007-05:00

If my conscience didn't bother me Monday, it's now shredding me like a nightmare beast. Yesterday, I made the same mistake of bad timing I had made Saturday. The results were different. I pushed the cart of mail books down the back hall, but I wasn't halfway when I heard a familiar laugh at the other end. I pushed harder, stepped longer, but Julie turned the corner from the breakroom, smiling. My sympathetic instinct was to smile, but in a blur of conflicting thought and emotion, a split-second entanglement of rationale over what would be right or wrong to do and what her reaction might be to any of my possible actions and what power I might gain or lose as a consequence, I hardened my face like baking clay and looked at her. Her smile vaporized. It was as if I had slapped her. She flattened against the wall as I approached and passed. I was, and am, thoroughly ashamed of myself.

I can't deny that I still desperately want her attention, but not as some scary, wild-eyed sad-sack pining for her. And what other attention can I ever expect from her? None. I can't say that I don't want my behavior to affect her, but I don't want her pity. I can't say what I want. Nothing's logical.

Toasters at Twenty Paces (2/17/09 Tuesday)

2009-02-17T13:43:00.005-05:00

Of course, I'm fighting this love thing to the death. I'll take it to the highest court. I'll get a restraining order, a gag order. This must be overturned. Will the ACLU take my case? It was, after all, a gross violation of my freedom of choice. It matters not whether I might actually want to be in love--it's the principle of the thing. And what am I if not principled?

James suggested that this...entity...that has made The Admittance for me is taking its "last, best shot" at keeping me after Julie, so I have to, reflexively, take mine at it. But it's as if I've been tranked; the will is there, but the power is not. I'm in some kind of evil Happy Land, where everything is provided before I can ask for it or even decide if I really want it.

An hour on the desk with Julie yesterday. Can you believe it? It had been at least six weeks. (No, I've not been counting.) It was not intentional, though: Tammy switched names instead of duties on the schedule, so I got Angie's usual slot. I knew I'd be going on the desk at ten, but I hadn't looked for my partner, because it just hasn't mattered in a long time; but when I saw Julie amble out there after checking the schedule I bolted from my desk and doubel-checked. I was glad, and nearly petrified. Tammy's separating us from mutual desk duty had probably been deliberate. I doubt that Julie had asked for it, but this happening dispelled--or quieted-my itchy paranoia. James and Mike were on the desk. James was busy at the near station, Mike was not, when I followed Julie out, but Julie stood at the counter beside James, waiting for his seat. Mike left his when I approached him. The door had barely closed behind James when Julie followed. I thought she might be going to get the leasebook cart, and I was miffed that I hadn't gotten it first, but she came back empty-handed. That's when I got the cart. I spent the next half-hour shelving, looking up occasionally to see if Julie needed help. Julie called me over once, and spoke to me once more while I shelved to let me know she was going to the workroom to find a book for a patron. After I'd put up all the leasebooks, I rolled the cart back to the workroom then sat silently at the desk a few feet from Julie, glasses off. It was a long, challenging half-hour. The only discomfort I can name was a hopefulness. If she were uncomfortable, I was glad. My conscience was not bothering me, though I can't say that of now. I wanted more than anything to stare at her, but that's not how I wanted to make her uncomfortable, and I couldn't afford to let her think I was mooning over her. That's why my conscience wasn't bothering me: I'm under a mandate to not show any feelings toward her, and there is nothing I can say to her or interest I can show in her that could point to anything but those feelings, because that would certainly be the motive behind them. My hands are tied. I don't recall which of us first ran from the desk upon relief, but I was all but staring at the clock on the wall behind us for the last twenty minutes.

Mike had an hour out there with Julie today, and I was jealous (or envious--I forget the distinction sometimes). I was shelving the DVD's and could hear them talking. Actually, it was her talking to him that really made my gut churn, but I calmed it somewhat when I realized she wouldn't be talking to him if he weren't "safe"--i.e., not a candidate for romance. It was still hard hearing her voice. Later, I had a holds hour while Julie sat at her desk with her headphones and a/v. I sat directly in front of her, at Angie's desk (mine has no barcode scanner). As I approached I was almost pointedly careful not to look at Julie. I'd brought no music, deliberately, in order to challenge my tolerance. But Julie never spoke except to Greta about a Harry Potter movie she was apparently watching. She's a big Harry Potter fan (not I!). When she put on the her very fake English accent to quote a line, I cringed and muttered, "Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet" from behind clenched teeth until she stopped. All this within the first two hours, and there were still two more to go. Tomorrow will likely be worse, though. I'd rather leave Julie there for the last four hours on a Tuesday than to spend the last four hours on Wednesday without her.

Whose Fool Am I? (2/16/09 Monday)

2009-02-16T13:38:00.004-05:00

There's really nothing I can do about this, is there? A finality with no closure. There seems no reasoning left to do. Is this the religion to which I predicted I'd succumb? In what am I putting my faith? To what have I given over this problem? I didn't resign to this, so how could this be what I wanted? How could it seem such a certainty? I'm fighting this blind faith with no weapons, weapons I allowed to be taken from me simply by saying I'm in love with Julie. I say "allowed," but that is boasting a control I just did not have. The only fight I have left is for that control back. Over what? Over what have I ever had control? Is that the real admittance?

NIP in Bloom (2/14/09 Saturday)

2009-02-15T10:19:00.004-05:00

As my interpretive powers have been stunned by the magnitude of The Admittance, the best I can do is recount my day.

I lingered in bed only a few minutes after the alarm and lingered on the toilet longer than usual and necessary, unblinking, muttering, "What am I going to do?" I showered but didn't shave. Shaving's become an occasional thing--only once this week. Ate my granola and drank some of my coffee in front of the penultimate episode of The Prisoner, then finished the coffee staring out the window. Got up suddenly in the middle of that revery to retrieve a ring, a spoon ring I bought as a teenager in the seventies. I'd last worn it the day I met Julie at Stir Crazy. I'd been wearing it a couple months to that point. I couldn't take it off quickly enough when I got home. I slipped in onto my left middle finger, the only one on which it would fit. I somehow managed to leave on time--7:45 to get to the library by 8:30. I actually did make it on time, though my legs felt heavy after sixty miles already this week. Traffic was very light, and the lights were efficient. I was off the handlebars for most of the last half mile. Julie would not be there till 9:30; still, I looked for her car.

I changed. Last night I changed my mind on what I'd wear today. Halfway through the day I realized I was wearing what I wore to the coffee shop--and red on Valentines's Day--and the ring. I managed to finger-comb my hair into decent shape.

Till ten I'd be backup. From the bookbin I pulled only four books--the 24/7 must have behaved overnight--and they turned out to have been due three years and three months before. Discarded two of them for being hoplessly obsolete. When I knew Julie had arrived I contrived to be out of the workroom when she reached her desk by taking the branch mail to the back to pack, but my timing was perfectly awful: The hall was blocked by Julie's approach. With a small dramatic flourish, she made way for me, but the hall might as well have been the eye of a needle. With my cart of books I banged nearly everything in sight--carts, walls, my own feet--trying to make more room for myself to get past her. A swift glance, a muttered thanks and my back was all I gave her as I passed. When I returned to the backup station she was gone from the workroom. I took my glasses off in case she returned.

The next hour I deleted holds while she was on the desk. Safe though it seemed, I still put in the earbuds and put on Singles Going Steady. I was only a few songs in when Julie came back, looking for a hold. She leaned over my desk to look at what I'd pulled from the holds shelf out front. She wore mascara and her hair was up off her neck. I had just deleted the hold she was looking for, and she took it. I came out to the desk next hour glad to see her busy with a patron. I relieved Bethany instead, pulled the chair from the desk, sat, and looked at the thick twist of hair high up Julie's neck. I watched her go when Megan relieved her.

It was a long hour, but not the longest of the three I spent out there. Most of that hour my glasses were off. I brooded on The Admittance and the apparently absolute impossibility of its resolution. Despite only the rare blink, a slow gathering of tears maintained the moisture in my eyes. I discreetly dabbed them once or twice. The second hour, I was nearly catatonic, but my last hour on the desk was a constant irritation of patrons. I left there to be Julie's backup for my last hour of the day. She was out there solo since Judy left early because of pain from a fall yesterday. Julie called me out, I dealt with a patron and left, walking behind Julie toward the door. "Thank you, Dion," she said after I'd passed. I turned my head but not my body to say, "You're welcome" to a profile and a cocked ear. I thought of the other day's "Hello, by the way."

At five o'clock I was changing for the bike before Julie was off the desk. I wanted to see her again but could think of no excuse to go back to the workroom. I pulled my jacket from the hanger, which tangled with the adjacent one. I couldn't shake them apart so I hurled them both against the wall. One of them broke into three pieces. I didn't feel a whole lot better, and I didn't want to go home to the responsibility of the kids, whom I couldn't even tell about my day. That's why I stayed up three hours past their bedtime to write this.

The Only Four-Letter Word That Is Truly a Curse (2/13/09 Friday)

2009-02-14T12:29:00.003-05:00

It's a struggle, and I'm letting go. I'm not letting go of Julie, but of the denial that I'm in love with her. I must be. Everything has been working ironically because everything I've convinced myself of is a lie. I don't know what love is, but the good feelings feel bad, and the bad feelings feel good, and soon I won't know which is which. Every thought seems a contradiction of itself; every feeling hurts. Can I be in love with Julie? God--bitter, spiteful god that you are--help me. How can this be true? How could it be anything else? What else could be so impervious to logic? If I am in love with Julie I am also in serious trouble, for it will never be requited. And if it was hard to be around her before, it will be impossible from now on. I say that love is impervious to logic, but when I say I'm in love with Julie, nearly everything I've thought or felt or denied thinking or feeling about Julie makes sense. But--oh, I don't want this! Damn it all!

I can't judge my day today at work as good, bad, neutral or anywhere in between. The more I tried to ignore Julie, the more I just wanted to stare at her, which I did at least twice to her face. Before I'd yet seen her today I knew she was to relieve me from the window. I didn't want to be there when she did, so I went to the 24/7 room to scour the bins for books, though I'd done it just the minute before. As I emerged I knew peripherally where she was, standing between her desk and the window station, facing me. From eight feet away I finally fully raised my head and gazed levelly at her, daring her to speak to me. I would not have been the first to speak. That was not a determination; I simply was content to stare at her face, and it was up to her to remove it. "Dion," she said, cautiously testing a smile, "I'm ready to take over for you at the window." "Okay," I said. It wasn't hard to suppress a smile--I didn't feel it--but the corners of my mouth twitched almost imperceptibly upward. "Thank you." "You're welcome," she said as we both turned from each other.

At three o'clock I relieved her from the desk. When I approached she was turned from me and the desk, talking to Jen. A patron approached the desk, and Julie partially turned toward them, but I stepped up and reached for their checkouts. Julie's turn to see whose arm had intervened and my step closer to intercept the patron brought us face to face, barely a foot apart. I stared down into her right eye (it was very dark) and said in a strong, clear voice, "I'm up." "You are?" she said. I didn't answer or move. She slid off the chair and left. It was then I knew I just wanted to stare at her. And it's about all I can do and not betray my affection. Love. God, not love!

But the Arrogance of the Individual Is Kryptonite (2/12/09 Thursday)

2009-02-13T12:29:00.004-05:00

I was in unusually high spirits at work yesterday. It was easy avoiding Julie, and I was careful not to wish for more of a challenge. But the same south wind that pushed me to work put a palm to my forehead as I swung wildly at it on the way home. It took me nearly an hour, rarely getting into third gear. By the time I finally turned into the complex I was thinking bitter thoughts of Julie's rejection, rueing these stupid roles pressed upon us. Wouldn't I like the chance to be "flattered" by a "nice girl." Dammit, I've been round and round this: If she didn't feel it, she didn't feel it. Why do I still want her to? Do I still want some payoff on my investment? or is there really something in Julie for me?

The wind has not abated this morning--over twenty miles an hour from the west--but I'm not on the bike today. Walked up to Ben Franklin, the gusts quickening my steps. I thought that if I left my feet at the moment a gust were to shove me I might be carried on it for a while, like the leaves that were racing past me, but I tried it and didn't get the slightest lift. Bad timing, I guess.

I took Julie's picture to Ben Franklin. I'm still working on how to attach it to the fender so that I can expose it when I ride and cover it at work. I thought I might find a small photo pocket. I didn't find one at the photo shop yesterday when I picked up the picture) or get it laminated. I'd then attach it at the corners to the fender with velcro tabs and simply flip it back and forth. I left Ben Franklin with only a small paper cutter. We have a laminator at work, but I don't know how to use it. Besides, my conscience isn't likely to let me use company equipment for my own pleasure, especially given that the pleasure is illicit in that the photo, if it were seen would, once again be a violation of Gay Lynn's trust. Of course, despite my efforts at discretion, someone could still flip the picture over and leave it exposed, and then even move my bike as they (Chris) did before under the tag scanner by the back door so everyone could get a gander. But that would be to assume that anyone at work still reads the blog. The more accurate assumption might be that they think they killed the blog. Ah, but the arrogance of the mob is no match for the righteousness of the individual.

As in "...it in the bud!" (2/10/09 Tuesday)

2009-02-11T09:46:00.004-05:00

Monday morning Mike asked about my weekend, so of course I had to tell him about my outing with Jan. We were at the discharge stations before opening. Julie was in and out of the workroom, and was in and very close by when I said, "...but she lives out of town, so we won't get to see each other but a couple times a month, maybe." At the time, I was sure that would sound like I was seeing someone, though now, when I think about it, it could as easily have meant Colin or Kevyn. the idea, of course, was to induce jealousy. At the same time, I was worried she'd decide with relief that I was over her. It could go either way.

I told Angie, too, that I had had a "coffee date." "How did that go?" "It went great," I said, "a million times better than the last one." I'd often wondered how much Angie actually knew, and her laughter and "Oh, lord, yes!" told me that. But from whom or what? From Julie or the blog? I would prefer she'd consulted the blog, but she's not a reader or a snoop.

Thomas brought the second mail early today, just after noon and my sitting down to lunch. He'd come right on the heels of the first mail, so Tammy told him to cool his jets while Mary Lou at backup finished unpacking. You don't have to tell Thomas twice to chill. He sat down at the next table and engaged me about Julie. I all but spilled my guts, or at least my brains. I told him about the "date" and how I'd told her I wanted to get to know her better (leaving out "fascinating") and how shocked she seemed to be at my request. He said, "Did you apologize?" "For what?" "For surprising her like that. For coming on so strong." How smart and perfect that would have been, too, if only I hadn't been hurting. Tammy gave Thomas the go-ahead and he went back to his truck. By then people were streaming in on the next shift, and there was no way I'd be finished lunch and out of there before Julie, usually a couple minutes late, arrived. I had just finished my sandwich when I heard her voice in greeting of Thomas at the back door. In the time it would have taken her to open the fridge door to put lunch in, she still hadn't shown. She'd have gone to her desk straightaway, but she'd be here for her ice and water in a few minutes. I usually sat with my back to the kitchen, so I could both see out the windows and avoid seeing anyone else. I finished my yogurt and stood to gather my containers, journal and manuscript when I heard the relase of the freezer door and the clinks in the glass. I slowed, fumbling with my pens and bookmark as the footsteps crossed to the sink and water floated the ice. I had a handle on my stuff as the footsteps reversed. "Hello, by the way," said Julie, still walking away, I noticed when I finally turned and said a flat "Hello." Now, as I am trying to maintain a strict non-interpretation policy (NIP) in regard to Julie's actions, I will not speculate on that greeting--but boy do I ever want to sink my teeth into it!

Not a Train In Sight (2/08/09 Sunday)

2009-02-09T12:46:00.008-05:00

Up and ready early, I warmed up the computer to post a couple entries. I checked my email first. Jan had written: She was going to be late; she had stayed up very late (the email had been sent at 3:34 a.m.) and needed some sleep. She'd call around noon. But I was ready and wanted to start my day. I replied as much and gave her my cell number.

It being winter, I dressed for it--t-shirt under shirt under light wool jersey under Gore-Tex rain jacket, and cycling shorts under rain pants. It must've been close to sixty when I stepped out with the bike at eleven. I didn't feel like peeling anything off, and didn't. I stopped on the next block to order two wallet prints of Julie at the photo shop. Four miles more up the road I stopped at Book People. They'd left a message I hadn't quite understood about Flemington. The paperback was out of print, they told me now, but they could get a first from Britain for about forty bucks total. I told them to go for it. Outside, I unzipped and untucked but did not peel. I locked up at the Belmont library and changed inside. Trying to manuever in that tiny stall reminded me of my city hall days when I had a similar space in which to do the same thing every morning. I sat on the toilet to remove my shoes, and stood on them to remove my pants and shorts. I replaced them with my "ass pants." I removed the jersey and Gore-tex, untucked and unbuttoned the shirt, left the t-shirt in. The shirt was green-khaki canvas, the t-shirt a chocolate brown. I replaced the bike shoes with brown Eco-Sneaks. I crammed the excess clothing in the saddle bag after removing the canvas satchel and slinging it across my shoulder, strapped the bike shoes on the rack where the Eco-Sneaks had been, and walked up to Cary Street. It was close to noon. I bought four CD's at Plan-9--Play by Magazine, because I wanted to hear "The Light Pours Out of Me"; The Plastic Ono Band, because Emma wanted to hear "Working Class Hero"; Taking Tiger Mountain by Eno for every bit of it; and Neu! because it was playing in the store and I couldn't stop my whole body from reacting to it. I went to Jean-Jacques from there.

I had nearly finished my second (because it was free) cup of coffee and was pinching together the crumbs off a banana nut muffin to drop in my mouth when Jan burst in. "So you got my messages," she said, breathing heavily.

"No," I said, though she didn't seem to hear me as she sat down beside me at the small, square table.

"So, what have you been doing with your morning?"

"Oh, just wandering around down here."

"I need some protein," she said. "And coffee." She hopped up and peered into the pastry cabinet.

I looked at at her. Except for the athletic shoes, she was dressed less for walking than for a casual meeting--jeans and a form-fitting purple-and-white-striped mid-sleeved t-shirt that just reached the top of her jeans. I admired both her form and her style as she bent to peer through the glass. I would guess she was at least five years my senior, but she dressed much younger, though not in that pathetic pretense of clinging to adolescence. She dressed as herself. What she wore she wore honestly, and that's what I was admiring.

Now, I don't have a photographic memory; I can't recount each word Jan and I exchanged. We were together five hours and shared a lot of words, sitting in Jean-Jacques and walking through the neighborhood. We made all sorts of connections with each other, and never was I uncomfortable. Near the end Jan asked if she'd "talked my ear off." We had to step off the curb to skirt the crowd around a street "magician."

I answered, "No. You talked a lot, but you had something to say. Some people who talk a lot seem to be talking to hear their own voice, but you have ideas." I tried to apologize for "being..."--and couldn't think of the word--

"Vulnerable," she supplied. I had just finished telling her about the blog fiasco and was feeling abashed and exposed at having over-divulged. Vulnerable was not the word I was after, but maybe it was the word I meant, so I didn't protest.

She did not accept my apology. "Men," she said, and I was suddenly alert for a generalization, "seem to want only one thing." We were weaving our way single-file, me in the lead, toward Plan-9. "I can tell you're not like that," she added. "I think it's important to develop a friendship first."

"Oh, I agree," I said, ducking under a low branch of a Bradford pear. "There's nothing before friendship."

In the store I showed Jan Suzanne Vega's first album, thinking she'd like it. She'd never heard it. She pulled it up on Pandora on her iPhone and listened to some of it. She decided to get it.

But I had to go. I had at least half an hour on the bike and sunset was only twenty-five minutes away. Besides, the girls would be there soon. Parting was awkward--they always are for me, being unsupplied with the conventional social graces--but this was maybe not so much about that as the deepening of our bond. On the bottom step of the Plan-9 basement she reached across and patted the side of my arm. But, not satisfied, she offered a hug. We parted with promises of keeping in touch. Never had those sounded more like a commitments than a niceties.

The library was closed. I crammed all the clothing I could in the saddlebag, wore the rest, rolled my jeans up to my knees, and, once again, rode off into the sunset.

Frankentale--Preface (2/07/09 Saturday)

2009-02-07T10:09:00.006-05:00

Though I've professed to myself, Kevyn, James, and Stacey that whatever happens with Jan happens and will not be adorned with hope, I am excited to be seeing her again. There is no spark of romance, just a feeling of newness, of stepping off in a new direction not simply without fear but with ready anticipation. Call that hope if you like, but that would be premature, and I want nothing about this to be premature. Everything in its time. But as I was showering I thought it would be nice to have a tale to tell Monday if anyone should care to ask about my weekend. And I would want Julie to hear it. (The audience sighs and shakes its head.) In the moment, at the bakery, I will make nothing of anything, and afterwards, on paper, I will subdue the event in reportage, but Monday, at work, I will breathe a life into it, deservingly or not. I'm a storyteller, after all.

Nover (2/06/09 Friday)

2009-02-07T09:48:00.003-05:00

Thursday night I had a desk hour with Jennifer. I thought I owed her an apology for thinking she had been the original snitch of the blog. Jennifer wouldn't have known this, because I never sent that email invitation, of course, Chris' conscience having stepped in at the nick of time to urge his confession (if only it had stepped in earlier to obviate the need for a confession), but Tammy warned her I was gunning for her. Ever since, I've felt the need to apologize for the distress this may have caused her. Well, I tried to apologize--in fact, I must be given credit for doing so, even it ws accepted as if I were trying to return a borrowed tissue. It wasn't grace or humility that didn't want my apology, but fear and embarrassment. She actually seemed to physically shrink when I mentioned the "blog...mess" and waved her hands across each other in front of her face. "It's over, she said sharply over my words. I said, "I know it may be water under the bridge, but I just thought I owed you an apology for blaming you for something you didn't do," the sentence was woven through with her "No, it's okay, it's over, it's good, it's all good." That was a first for me--browbeating someone with an apology. It seems only a guilty conscience would so vociferously refuse an apology. Makes me glad I opened the wound. "Over," she'd said. Just like that, huh? For whom?

Encountered Thomas at the back door on my lunch break as I was gathering the manuscript and journal book. "Where's the picture?" was the first thing he said to me. (I still park the bike by the back door.) "I was forced to remove it." "What?" he said, the expulsion of the word recoiling his head and shoulders. "Yeah," I said, "but I'm puttin' it back on there." Thomas howled. "Ah, you go, Dion!" With his handtruck piled with book bins he trailed me up the hall laughing. "Man, you are all right!"

I have plans tomorrow morning, and it's not scooter soccer with Matt. Jan emailed me today to say she'd be in town. I called her when I got home, and we set up a rendezvous for ten-thirty at Jean-Jacques.

Fungs (2/05/09 Thursday)

2009-02-05T16:35:00.003-05:00

The fun came at me yesterday. Scared out of my wits, I ran. Avoiding Julie had been too easy this half day of concurrent schedule, and I was chagrined at the lack of challenge. It was after three, and I was shelving in Children's knowing Julie was at her desk with her headphones on, listening for flaws in a CD or DVD. At the top of the next hour I'd be going to lunch, and afterwards to the desk as she left for home. I hate it when scheduling makes my mission so easy. How can my point be made when it's shadowed by routine?

Bemoaning this from my knees as I shelved the easies, a stack of books landed heavily beside me. I looked before she unbent, at the lyart hair fallen across her face and down the billowed v-neck of her sweater at the curve of her breasts. Both the recognition and the compromising view ordered my glance quickly away.

"Here, Dion. Shelve these," said Julie with mock officiousness then a laugh to hedge her tone to ensure I knew it was a joke. I laughed meekly, and she laughed again more appreciatively.

"What makes these books so special?" I said.

"Well, I read this section earlier, and these books that go there were staring at me from the sorting cart. I knew it wouldn't take long to shelve them."

She was there for ten minutes, the last nine of which my shirt was undone and sleeves pushed up above my elbows to vent my boiling blood. When, done, she walked away, I cursed her. Dammit, I thought to her back, you don't make it easy to ignore you. But, there, exactly, was my challenge and chance to have fun, and those were the words that should have been spoken. I got what I wanted, didn't I? But I wasn't careful how I asked for it: I wasn't aware I was asking.

When I returned with the cart five minutes later, all the while assessing the damage to my strategy caused by this new monkey wrench, I instinctively, against muffled warning, shot a glance down to the last desk. There Julie sat, headphones on, looking at me. She looked away, I looked away. I parked the cart, and at that moment knew I could not possibly stop ignoring her now for fear that she'd think I'd seen a sign of affection. She may have been trusting me again with her silliness, but all I can do about it is nothing, except learn to rejoin her.

Diaphanous Allusion? (2/04/09 Wednesday)

2009-02-05T16:28:00.003-05:00

Julie is invisible again, or almost; I haven't quite gotten back in the swing. If Monday's chill stare wasn't enough, my new attitude prodded me backward, suppressing the conscience that made me uneasy about it before. If I'm really to believe that all this hasn't been about her, as I've professed, then she must truly be made an object--or, maybe, rather, the vehicle on which this project rides. Or would she be the fuel propelling the vehicle? What is she? Not a metaphor, apparently.

The Ghost of Reality Future (2/03/09 Tuesday)

2009-02-03T12:46:00.005-05:00

James asked me last night, haltingly, carefully, if I really, honestly, "100 percent," wanted to be over Julie. The question mark wasn't off his lips before I answered, emphatically, "No!" So, there, I said it, I have a witness--there's no honest equivocation to rationalize it, to convince my mind to convince my heart. But--if I'm to keep this (whatever "this" is) going I have got to have fun with it. I've emailed Matt hopeful of him still having the Julie picture I emailed him. His would be the only extant copy, since I so diligently destroyed the prints, erased it off the CD, deleted Gay Lynn's email of it, and emptied the bin. I intend to replace it on my bike fender, but this time cover it with a flap that I can velcro closed. It's a taunt, to be sure, but one Julie would never see; if she didn't see it the first time before someone told her, she wouldn't so much as glance at it this time around, having reason already to believe that "danger" over. Having it there before made me feel good, and I got a chuckle rubbing the dirt from her face. It was not a shrine to a goddess. On the cover I'll put something like "Guess Who?" If anyone lifts it they can see underneath, of course, but they'd also be invading my privacy. Where I take the fun from there, I don't know, but I have to have some laughs about it if I'm to minimize the pain; and with the right perspective I can do that.

There was nothing funny yesterday when, after a week away, I walk into the workroom and come face to face with Julie at the bottleneck beside my desk where everyone stops to check the posted schedule. It was a standoff, the briefest yet most steadfast standoff, and I backed away. Our eyes met, and at that moment she struck me as old, at least several years older than I. She seemed to have wrinkles where a week ago there'd been none. She looked tired, if not haggard. I muttered, "Good morning," without a smile and backpedalled into my desk space to let her pass, which she did with neither smile nor word. I was chilled. I did not see her face again, though I was constantly looking for her and would be disappointed if she wasn't there. Still, if she was, I did not look beyond recognition, taking no chances on eye contact. But what had I seen that first time?

"Polish Me" (1/30/09 Friday)

2009-01-30T19:25:00.006-05:00

Here's the weekend, and I'm already seeing Monday. Once the kids show up Saturday, it's a routine slide into work, Julie and dread. My first thought of Julie this morning was of how beautiful she is, and it seemed a strange thought, detached from my feelings for her. She'd become an object. But hadn't she always been that? Hadn't she always been a representation of something other than herself, of something I wanted? Now she seemed even less, just something to enjoy looking at. Is that what I want? Though that detachment has lingered through the morning, its dominance has faded as the dread reminds me of my embarrassment over her power over me and the pride it has cost me.

Julie had never been a sexual being to me. Not only did it seem cart-before-horse, but it would have pulled her down from the pedestal. The plaque on the pedestal: What did it read? Is she still on it? I still do not think of her sexually, but I think less of her in other ways--ways for which I can't fault her but which I can finally move to the category of Irreconcilable Differences--essentially, in the departments of sophistication and depth of intellect. From the foot of the pedestal I would gaze upward past these "faults." Now they are flashing neon that makes her character look garish. Yet still so beautiful.

Square Zero (1/29/09 Thursday)

2009-01-29T21:35:00.006-05:00

Came a time when, bitter and frustrated, I wondered if I'd ever actually been fascinated with Julie, and I'd all but convinced myself I had not but had, instead, fabricated the infatuation from the whole cloth of hope. I am less convinced now--that is, I believe that much of the fascination was wishful thinking, but that it eventually took on a life of its own. If I was not initially fascinated, I was nonetheless curious. My curiosity asked questions, paid attention. Answers begged more questions. Now, I likely know Julie better than anyone else at the library save Stacey, a yet she's still an utter mystery. Many people there I don't know at all and am indifferent to knowing; others make sure you know more about them than you'd ever care to. But I can't know Julie enough, even now, when there is absolutely no hope of being anything more to her than a co-worker; when I can't stand to hear her voice; when her presence in the same room forces me to peel off a layer or roll up my sleeves to counter the super-heating manic blood flow. I still want to know--about the brother who died, the boyfriend who influenced her to take up horticulture at Tech, the "mess" that she ran from, how she got into music and why she left. And then there's me: Why did she agree (and so readily) to meet me at Stir Crazy and yet was shocked to hear I had feelings for her? What made her afraid of me after that? Why did she not come to me about the picture and the blog? What does she think now that I've told her how I felt about having to continue to work with her, was still writing the blog, and had been offended by her pre-rejection flattery? If I had these answers would I feel any better? She'd still not be attracted to me or care for my attention. Should I have let this go long ago? I don't let things go; that's ignore-ance. I want things resolved. Thank god I don't have an addiction, huh? I don't know how to stop hurting over Chris' betrayal and Julie's reaction. And it's over for them; they can let go. Well, I'm in between those ends they were holding up, and the load isn't any lighter sitting on my back. Ah, but there I go, bearing the cross, playing at martyrdom. Chin up, stiff upper lip, what what! Doesn't work, any more than does time away from Julie. Or ignoring her. Or thinking about her. Or writing about her. I hate being back at this square, still wondering, wishing, hoping, seething.

Ask King Status the First on His Crowded Throne (1/28/09 Wednesday)

2009-01-28T20:17:00.008-05:00

My boredom is only a lack of challenge. The challenge of reading is more than finishing the book, but the challenge it presents to my mind is not often the challenge I seek. If I could define what I seek I could refine my choices to match it. The challenges I can't define are the ones I don't make for myself. They present themselves, unbidden, and I accept them or don't. In setting no schedule, talking to no one, doing no chores, I am not challenging myself, and into the breach steps boredom, a new challenge. Boredom challenges me to fail at putting emotional distance between myself and Julie, which, with mention of her name I have just done. I'm kidding no one--myself, that is. If I took a year off and came back to work and saw Julie, all would be lost. I did not succeed in ignoring her for very long, and now I feel she's won. Won what? I have no regrets anymore over the email I sent her; it said things that had to be said and gotten off my chest. And though I knew damned well she would not respond in any concrete way, I, of course, still hoped. There was no communication at all about it, except for the first few days afterward, when her behavior toward me mirrored mine toward her, tacitly acknowledging my email. Those were my last satisfying days at work, bitterly ironic as that satisfaction was: Her acknowledgment of my deliberate cruelty (though it could only be cruel if she cared) was the rise I used to want to see as a blush. Then Saturday we exchanged smiles and shared a spontaneous laugh, and, suddenly, the status quo was back in power.

Is this a challenge I just can't give up? Am I destined for another humiliation? What's to gain in continuing? What's to lose in giving it up?

Character (1/27/09 Tuesday)

2009-01-27T14:13:00.007-05:00

Awoke to the sound of tapping, as of fingernails, on my window. Frozen rain. Then the ironic haunt of Sparks' "Equator" began. I was snug and reluctant to leave bed. I'd placed the alarm clock out of reach, but I could still hear the rhythmic clunk of the clumsy wall clock. I'd gotten to bed before ten the night before, so I knew I'd gotten plenty of sleep. My stomach had been upset then, too, from an overingulgence of coffee, probably, augmented by the rising gorge induced by Rob Catto of Bunker Man, the basest, most reprehensible protagonist I've ever come across. It was much better in the morning (my stomach, not the book), and I've been reading Ring of Bright Water, a swift and certain palliative. I'd finish it off if I didn't expect to need it after I finish Bunker Man, though how Rob Catto can posibly be redeemed as a human being (and that's all there is to read for now, redemption) is beyond my ken. Blackden did not in the least prepare me for Bunker Man.

I took a walk last night, for a little exercise, fresh air and verticality. Today I'll have to take one up to the store for milk and a couple other things for the girl's dinner. The rain, still falling, won't bother me--I'll be well protected--in fact, it will further insulate me from contact. But my dream of forty-eight hours without speaking to someone other than myself will fall a few hours short.

I have not heard from Jan since I last wrote her. I'm not concerned. We don't know each other to take offence. She said she'd contact me when she next came into town, a trip contingent upon a job interview here. Apparently, she hasn't gotten it. Another possibility, which amuses me in the only way it could--ironically--is that she googled me and found my blog and was scared off. The blog, then, will have assumed the role of albatross to prospective relationships, though I would rather consider it a litmus test. The blog and all I've expressed in it are a permanent part of me that must be accepted as such. When I told Stacey of this speculation, she said, "So, are you going to take down the blog?" "No," I said firmly, almost shrilly. "I have nothing to apologize for." Anyone who judges me by the blog as unfit for their company is right, though the reflection is on them.

By the late afternoon yesterday I found myself a bit bored, but not so much that I was willing to dissipate the time in watching tv or noodling on the computer. I hope never to get that bored, though I might end up at the mall to do some clothes shopping. Besides finishing a few books, I don't have any goals for the week, but when I'm not reading I'd like to be applying myself creatively. I have some serious grunt work to do on the manuscript: Every paragraph break was removed in copying it to Word, so I have to find them, put them back, and print out a fresh copy to supplant the one that cost me nearly nine dollars to print. Not exactly a creative endeavor, but closely linked to one. Distillation of necessity has seen to my having very few distractions left to play with. The computer may be the only one left. Free cell is one of my few remaining vices besides procrastination, but I won't turn the computer on for anything less than email.

Hunker Man (1/26/09 Monday)

2009-01-27T13:33:00.006-05:00

It's begun snowing, or maybe it has been and I've just noticed it since putting on my glasses. I'm not a particular fan of snow, but as long as I'm off work I wouldn't mind a good dump of it to make things cosier here, with my books, tea, and coffee. If I don't find I need something from the store, I can get away with not speaking to anyone till the girls come over tomorrow evening. By then it will have been forty-eight hours since I said goodbye to Matt after scootering . But the sky's too bright, and already it's harder to see the snowflakes. Still, I don't have to go anywhere. I'm plowing into a stack of books, semi-systemically alternating betyween them, the Richmond library books getting priority because they're due Friday. I could renew them, but I've set myself a challenge to finish at least those three books before getting back to work. So I'm halfway through Ring of Bright Water, Bunker Man, and These Demented Lands. Bunker Man takes up the venerable Scottish literary tradition of the doppelganger where Jekyll and Hyde left off. These Demented Lands is fascinating as long as I can just go with it--that is, not try to pick up the pieces before they're handed to me; and as long as I can suspend my disbelief that Morvern Callar actually has the inteligence to tell a story with a vocabulary that can fluctuate from four-year-old to poet within a sentence. Thankfully, she's not the only narrator, but her voice is never entirly out of the narrative. No complaints at all about Ring of Bright Water. It serves its place will after those other two: It pulls me from the darkness, if only into the cloudy daylight: Out of the mind of the individual and into the soul of man's place in nature. It has stopped snowing entirely. It left not even a wet dot on the sidewalk.

I like the idea of it being February when I get back to the library. Winter will be nearly half over, and I will have skipped the commute through it for five days. I won't miss the load of books coming back, a load that seems never to lighten since too many people shirk shelving. Of course, it will be the worse this week without me, and when I think of those shirkers I am maliciously glad to have thrown my load off on them, though, of course, it will be the real workers that will pick it up, and for them I feel the real compunction. Nobody minds the shirkers being off "sick" or whatever. But none of this was on my mind when I asked off. We all know who was and why, so the less said there the better, it's the only way to make distance.

Irony with a Capital G-O-D (1/23/09 Friday)

2009-01-23T12:39:00.003-05:00

It was good to sleep a little longer, without anticipation of the alarm. Surprising, too, given my elevated stress level this week. Twice yesterday I looked directly into Julie's face, and it was the second one that made me feel ridiculous over what I've been doing. There was nothing in the look or the return, no reading of expression that flashed an epiphany. A switch simply flicked, and I wanted to laugh. At myself. I say "ridiculous," but my vocabulary is short of the word that truly describes my attitude toward Julie lately. I was still laughing this morning as I walked up to Starbucks for breakfast. A month into winter, and the variety and volume of birdsong was more that of early spring. The robins have been out of the woods for two weeks, right on schedule. Today will reach nearly sixty. Highs were below freezing most of last week. But my laughter fades almost to derision when I consider how to pull myself out of this morass. "Derision" is perhaps too strong a word. The smirk is well-cemented, so the glee, if ironic, is undeniable. There seems a masochism in this glee, but it's really an acknowledgement, a nod to those implacable forces of irony that seem to rule my life. What do I do? Have I already done the first thing in facing Julie? Let's say so--now what? Will it even do me any good to plan? Has it ever? Yeah, somewhere, at some time, I'm sure, but that's not really the point of planning, is it? The point of planning is to give irony something on which to act--a host.

Who Are Always Right (1/22/09 Thursday)

2009-01-22T11:30:00.006-05:00

Thank god I get tomorrow off. I'm glad to be working Saturday, instead, if only for the free day in between. I haven't even been to work yet today, and I'm having to takedeep breaths as if in preparation for some extreme dread, as indeed this long day with Julie is. I'd rather be home here, on the sofa or in bed, surrounded by the six books I'm reading and pen and paper, wrapped in a throw, sipping tea. But that will be next week, which I've taken off, merely to get away from work. Oh, to get away from that forever, to run from my embarrassment and immaturity! One of the books I'm reading is Something to Blog About. It fell into my hands as a hold. The moment I saw it I knew it was my story, and a glance inside the jacket confirmed it--only, in this book, I am a teenage girl. I opened it up, about three-quarters of the way in, where I thought I might find the exposure of the blog, and read one line of dialogue that convinced me to place my own hold on a copy: "But you put it on the internet!"

So what has changed since high school? Has anyone grown up? The same emotions filtered through greater experience yields...nothing--no wisdom, no maturity. It's still gossip and backstabbing, but with slightly less overt intent. Cunning--that's what you have where wisdom should be--ever subtler ways of doing the same childish things in response to the same emotions. It's fair enough that the emotions would not have changed; their creation was wholly outside of our conscious power, given to us carelessly and accepted mindlessly by us impressionable vessels. But some always believe what they felt then and filter subsequent experience through these unquestioned emotions, instead of examining the emotions in the light of experience. They remain children because they never question their parents.

Sucfailcessure Guaranteed (1/21/09 Wednesday)

2009-01-22T11:17:00.003-05:00

Of course, there is an irony to be found in my avoid-dance: I have to be aware of where Julie is in order to not encounter her. That is how I have set myself up to fail: Since I refuse to monitor her whereabouts--not looking for her name on the schedule or her writing beside her name on the whiteboard--so as to ward off obsessive behavior while aiding the pretense of her non-existence, I hinder my ability to carry out the endeavor. And that's as it should be. I can't do this forever; I have to let reality prevail, eventually, if only surreptitiously. By not aiding the immature behavior to creep in over it. In theory. I have not, in a long while, mentioned any action of Julie's not relative to me. I've refrained, even, from mentioning the few interactions between us. They don't matter anymore, do they? Certainly not in the way I'd always tried to make them matter before. Realistically, I am over Julie: emotionally, I am not. I'm trying to make emotional distance with physical distance, but I fear I'll make much more distance than I want. To state to Julie what I'm doing is to force her involvement, to bring her down to my level. And she's already reached it. One of my old habits broke through for a moment just before she left. We crossed paths, I looked at her, she didn't look at me. I'm fairly certain this is not what I wanted. What did I want? How could such behavior have any noble intent? Closure is what I want, but I don't know how to get it or even what I want closure to. Am I still trying to force Julie to talk to me? That's just not going to happen--yet another of those things I know but can't seem to get. What stops me from getting it? What is this force, this barrier that prevents assimilation of this knowledge? It's like half an epoxy or a vitamin that needs another vitamin to work. What is missing?

Parture (1/20/09 Tuesday)

2009-01-22T11:05:00.004-05:00

I already regret sending the email. I failed to keep out the bitterness, self-pity and martyr attitude. That was difficult, and though for the most part I was successful, the parts at which I failed may have the strength to overpower the entire message. A lot is up to Julie's receptivity, which, because I can't realistically place much stock in it, is unlikely to be favorable; so the negative aspects could receive the greater nurture in her mind. I can't help that. It's lunch time now. I hurried my food down and split the breakroom for the upstairs. I'm hoping that either she or I will be on the desk at the top of the hour, so that I can have at least another hour out of her presence. I'm not entirely regretful for sending the email. At least now I've somewhat explained my behavior, all but justifying its continuance and tempering my feelings of guilt.

Sent (1/19/09 Monday)

2009-01-19T23:14:00.003-05:00

"I've been ignoring you. It's immature, I am not proud of it, and I get no joy or satisfaction from it. The requested 'trade' to Tuckahoe fell through, so I'm stuck here. Whatever embarrassment I felt about the blog has long since faded and not stopped me from writing it, but the disappointment has not abated. I am disappointed in myself for trying to take from you more than you could give me; in Chris, for betraying my trust (I told him about the blog four months ago) and not coming to me with his concerns; in you, for going to management instead of coming to me; and in the high-school level of maturity shown by many of our co-workers last month. I am disappointed in both you and Chris for reading only 'enough' of my blog to slap a derogatory label on me or to think that I could be harmful to you. The biggest of those disappointments is in myself for ignoring the advice of my intuition. Neither did I miss any of the hints hurled at me during that torture session at Stir Crazy; I just chose not to catch them. (For the record, the pre-rejection flattery--'nice guy,' 'great guy,' whatever--is something maybe most guys will let themselves believe for the sake of their pride, but to me it is simply a condescension, an assumption of inability to handle the truth.)

"As usual, I write all this with no expectations whatsoever. It is the forum I would never otherwise get; no one here exactly specializes in assertive communication. Besides, whatever issues are left are mine, not on anyone else's agenda now that the fun's over for everyone else. There's no recompense for which to ask, nothing that can be fixed, no principal characters willing to talk about it. To think that all I ever wanted was for you to talk to me is to induce in me a grin and a slow shake of the head over what came of my stubbornness to admit failure. So I ignore you now as my childish way of finally acquiescing to the unreality of that hope and learning to live with it. Things would be nice the way they were, when you at least trusted me with your silliness, but as I betrayed that trust with hopes of more, I'll understand not being so trusted again. These days, you are happier than I've ever seen you, practically outside yourself. I will content myself empathetically with that."

The Last Denial (1/19/09 Monday)

2009-01-19T22:01:00.005-05:00

More reading than writing this long weekend, and more thinking than reading. The thinking and the writing have been about how I treated Julie Thursday. I wrote a letter--an email, to be more accurate. I haven't sent it yet. I'm afraid to. It isn't harsh, but does state my disappointment in both her and Chris not coming to me before seeking a more public audience. I don't let myself off the hook, either, citing my own actions Thursday as childish and immature. But I don't play the victim, and I ask for nothing. I wrote it simply to say my piece. I hope I did that much. I will send it. I have to. It's probably my pride that needs this more than anything. This isn't an apology to Julie, just an explanation--I hesitate to say defense, because I'm always loathe to defend myself. But this missive feels like just that, so that's likely the origin of my reluctance to send it.

I'll likely give Julie the same treatment tomorrow as Thursday. I'll send the email; that and the short concurrent day will temper my behavior somewhat. When or how that will change I can't predict.

It's nearly ten p.m., and I haven't spoken a word since four-thirty yesterday. It's not something I mind in the least. I went back to bed after breakfast, possibly an unprecendented act for me, and slept a few more hours. I'll be late getting to bed, but at least I won't have to talk to anyone while I'm up.

The First Betrayal (1/16/09 Friday)

2009-01-16T22:11:00.004-05:00

With a full day yesterday in which to ignore Julie, I succeeded beyond my worst nightmares. By the end of the evening she was turning her back on me. I looked past her and through her several times--times where I would normally have given her at least a weak grin. But I can't force that grin anymore, and to look her in the eye without it would frighten her with its candor. I'm not pleased with what I'm doing. I don't feel any kind of power or glee, even of the malicious kind. I've killed something.

I have memories, once fond but now painful to recall, of a time before I'd put a name to my feelings by writing them, when Julie did engage me, if only in tiny, playful, friendly ways. Trusting ways. I betrayed a trust by wanting these things to be more meaningful. It's her trust I killed. She gave what she wanted to give, and it wasn't enough for me. There's no getting back that trust. I feel sick at what I've done. I now know why I was never comfortable with my hope.

Whatever Happened To? (1/15/09 Thursday)

2009-01-15T16:34:00.004-05:00

There will be no farewells. There were no takers at Tuckahoe. I have to figure out how to adjust. My first thought was to seek work elsewhere, but that's not realistic in this economic climate. My second thought was to win the lottery, a slightly less likely opportunity. After those, what is there?

I'm casting around for friends at work, but the best I can do is allies. That's not enough. Am I just looking for someone to undburden myself to? Probably. I wouldn't be much of a friend in that case, for how much would I care to hear their problems? If I've become demanding of friends it's because I know how far short I myself fall from my ideals. I am who I am and can be a good friend, but not to everyone. I'm weary of reaching out. Look where it's gotten me: more alone than ever. As with love, friendship has to come unbidden through a wide-open door. Perhaps that's a strange thing for me to say, having as I do such stringent membership requirements, but I'm not prepared right now to think that one out. It's just another irony, and all ironies make sense.

My adjustment will be difficult to achieve without that attitude. Otherwise, I can only stare agog at the utter unreality of the situation, for nothing makes the kind of sense it should. The more sense I try to make of it, the more I wonder how I could be the only one to see it, the more disappointed I become in the vapidity of my coworkers, the more alienated I feel. This mass delusion-- Is this the social contract we must all sign to assure a facade of happiness? Happiness is elusive. Must we settle for the pretense of it? or is it worth the uncertain pursuit? You know my answer.

I ignored Julie entirely yesterday. I brought the music back in and drowned her out with Buzzcocks. Today I work the same shift, and I ride in with Stacey. Julie and Stacey always park near each other. If they arrive at the same time I'll walk ahead, not waiting for Stacey to gather her stuff. I'll warn her before we get there.

We didn't get there--or, at least, Stacey didn't. I walked over to her place a few minutes later than usual, and her car wasn't there. I didn't think even she would forget me. When I got back I checked the answering machine in case she'd called while I was in the shower. Nothing. I changed into the bike clothes, transferred my stuff to the bike, called to announce my lateness and left, fuming. Finally, the physical manifestation of her ethical desertion of me.

At Least It's Not Old-Growth (1/14/09 Wednesday)

2009-01-14T16:36:00.003-05:00

I printed out the blog up through the fourth. My intention is to read it through once without marking it, keeping editorial ideas to myself. There's no way I can read it as a reader, though, and that's what I most need to do if I'm ever to understand what I've been through. If I can make this writer another person, perhaps I can identify with him, empathize with him. Another irony: being someone else in order to find myself. This would also help me become the narrator of the book, a viewpoint that will augment, elaborate and even contradict that of the journal-writer.

But I hesitate to read it. I'm afraid of what I might find, though I know it would be valuable for my growth. I don't want to face the naiveties and immaturities that surely await me. I don't want to find validation for the label "obsessed"--not after I've worked so hard to deny it. There's bound to be a stack of denials to throw one-by-one on the fire, but most will still be green with reluctance and will simply emit an obscuring smoke. I might have to read it many times to dry it into a hardened objectivity.

One Word--"Toaster" (1/13/09 Tuesday)

2009-01-13T22:27:00.002-05:00

Do I demand too much of a friend? To work from ideals is to demand a lot, but I don't expect perfection. I do expect an adherence to natural ethics, or at least an earnest effort to do so. Self-interest is a feeble distraction and feebler excuse. How much do my ideals mean to me? Enough to drop a friend? If they don't fit in the shoes I give them, do I send them away farefoot? I have high ideals that I feel are worth upholding and achieving, demanding but realistic. Has any human endeavor been achieved without ideals? I endeavor to make friends-for-life. I have ideals for them to uphold. Simple.

I have not heard from Christine. I hope that means theres' actually a prospect; otherwise, it seems, it would be a much simpler process--no takers, no deal, tell Dion, end of story. Or Burnnie hasn't done anything. My jaw is set and my lips are tightly sealed. If I don't have to speak, all the better. I'm annoyed at having to rejoin small talk. I'll have something to say when there's someone to hear it; otherwise, leave me to my job. But my attitude is not the most conducive to getting my job done. I hear a voice saying, "Ah, what does it matter?" I like my job, and I like doing it well, but I find it increasingly difficult to do it here. The job is never foremost in my mind. I'd always rather be writing. It's all I have anymore, and it's small solace.

Don't know and don't care why Julie didn't show till two, but it made it easier to ignore her. I never looked at her, but that last hour, with her and her voice in the same room, nearly boiled my blood. That power I had last week is gone. I'm wallpaper. That's still hard to accept, but I can't go soliciting attention. My attention to her is, after all, unwanted. I resent Chris all the more when I think that I'm not even allowed to give her the simplest attention for fear of her taking it the wrong way--the same thing she said to me at Starbucks. She may trust me when I say I'm "harmless," but how little provocation would it take to spoil that? Who knows? That's why I can do nothing. But get the hell out of there.

I can no longer pretend that Julie has nothing to answer for. After all, she's the one who aired this out to management, which had no business in it. She told Angie she regretted doing it, but she didn't apologize to me; she just expected Angie to pass on the word. Well, that's not good enough. Fuck "playing the victim"--where's my apology? Where's my justice? I'm nearly shaking with rage, blood crackling in my ears. If Chris thought I was dangerous to Julie....

Can't sleep, can't continue writing. What else is there?

Think Up Your Own Clever Fucking Title (1/12/09 Monday)

2009-01-13T21:58:00.003-05:00

Woke up to the alarm wondering how I'd approach the day, but once at work I seemed to give myself no choice but to reinstate my previous policy--as little contact of any sort as possible with Julie. It wasn't difficult, of course, being cowardice.

I turn again to friendship and Stacey. I am free to give her "neutrality" any spin I like, but it is unequivocally a lack of support. She'd heard the rumors, knew what Chris did. How could she think what Chris did was right? If she used the same bogus argument--If someone had a blog about you, blah blah blah"--that everyone else uses to lionize Chris, then why didn't she rat me out herself? Is she as "guilty" as I am? How can she even implicitly condone what he did? I am still reeling at the mentality that has put me on the outside of right. God, I don't want to play the victim, but what has been done right by me? WHAT THE FUCK HAS BEEN DONE RIGHT?!

Pay It Downward (1/10/09 Saturday)

2009-01-10T12:38:00.004-05:00

The game has been joined, if not in the same spirit. Julie hasn't as much as greeted me in two days. I find myself a bit amused, if in a malicious way: Funny how people feel when something they've taken for granted has been removed. How much do the vapid niceties mean to people who share little else? Experimentally (and probably because I'm not taking quite as well as I've been giving), I looked at Julie as we approached one another, and she passed glancing away. My feelings are conflicted, of course. My conscience, my pride and my cowardice don't know which, if any of the others they're fighting.

*****

Then, with a simple, spontaneous, thoughtless act of kindness I bring it crashing round my ears. I'd been managing fine, ignoring Julie, thinking I just might pull off a full day of it, having just avoided eye contact as I dodged that cart of Easies she pushed. That was three o'clock. Then Angie asked who was relieving her at backup, and, checking the schedule, I saw that it was Julie, who must have read it wrong, her shelving not scheduled till four. Judy was present at my discovery and told me to get Julie. I didn't want to, but I did want to--I was already faltering. I found Julie and told her, but she was certain she'd read the schedule correctly and left the cart behind to check. Just as sure of what I'd told her, I brought the cart in. I was already trudging up the hall to the workroom when Julie, having recognized her mistake, started toward the door and her cart. She saw me with it and said, "You didn't have to do that." I said, without a smile, "I was there," and right then something fell away, both a burden and a power. My bad mood was spoiled. Just as I was feeling some power over Julie and some distance from her, I go and do something like that! The moment she thanked me I realized how much I owned that petty strategy and how much it owned me. Now, that bond is broken, and I want it back. I got an energy, a purpose, of sorts, from it, a callous inspiration. Now where am I? Can I possibly go back to ignoring her? Can I possibly be that nice guy but with no designs on her affections? What--who--can I be?

It's not that I"m concerned with a resurgence of the old feelings, but I"m not ready to let go of the ones I've cultivated lately. Why? Is this a maturity being forced upon me? or just a vestige of the old affections forcing their way through the affectation? I still want Julie to talk to me, but I want it on my terms--no more trying to draw her out. That won't happen. My petty little strategy lately has been to spoon out a little of her own medicine--hardly proportional, considering that, on her part, it's just indifference. I'm trying to punish her to compensate for my embarrassment. I don't want to be what she wants me to be, what I've always been to her, an innocuous wallpaper. But that's what I am, and if ignoring her helps me be that while still allowing me some degree of dignity, however artificial, I'll take it--if I can get it back.

Now That the Scales Have Fallen From My Eyes, I Don't Have to Hide Them Behind These Rose-Colored Glasses Anymore (1/09/09 Friday)

2009-01-09T15:04:00.011-05:00

Conscience delayed my sleep last night and shortened it this morning. I don't even know what colors Julie wore yesterday, never spoke to her, even when she spoke to me (but I had a spoon in my mouth). Stood within a foot of her facing me to shelve a hold and didn't look at her. She relieved on the desk again and I turned my back to her again. I am already trapped in this inane challenge. Why is my conscience bothering me? How do I get out of this trap? It's like a bad habit easily fallen into, almost an addiction. I can't see a possible gain from getting out of it, but a nagging is pulling me out of its complacence. Where is it pulling me to? Or is it just trying to pull me out? "What is the danger of remaining?" might be a better question than "What do I have to gain?" What am I sinking into? Though I'm not convinced Julie's untouched by my behavior, I'm becoming more aware that I'm doing damage to myself. My attitude and actions are unhealthy and immature. I thought I'd grown over the past year, but it takes less time to cut a tree down than to grow one. Careful consideration is no match for rash thoughtessness. Shouldn't I have learned that lesson from Chris?

Lunch with Chris happened, but not the discussion. I chose Chen's because it was close, so we wouldn't waste much time in transit. The place was empty, it being well past lunch and still a couple hours before dinner. The waiters were asleep, one curled on a booth bench, the other his head lying on his right arm stretched across a table. Great environment for a delicate conversation--until Judy and her husband came in and were seated across the aisle. "I gues we'll have to put off our talk," Chris said. I grinned. "Looks that way," I said, then laughed and added, "It's me, Chris. This is just how things work in my life." We had a good conversation, nonetheless; minus a lot of masking humor, which Chris acknowledged both as a tendency of his and inappropriate to the occasion. When he, unprompted, admitted some jealousy over Stacey's boyfriend Eric, I told him of my theory about his motivation for exposing the blog being rooted in that jealousy. "Have you thought about that?" I asked him. "You know, there's probably something to that. You're a pretty insightful person." The second line smelled like flattery, and the first one didn't answer the question. I didn't press him; he was probably uncomfortable with Judy so near. To his credit, Chris was the first to suggest that things were hardly patched up between us. They might never be, but at least I can like him again.

Sunday night I sent Jan a simple email:

Jan,

Just checking to make sure you found your way yesterday. Dark fell pretty quickly last night after we parted, but I doubt you had any trouble finding your way back. I enjoyed our chat. I'd like to have that cup of coffee some time.

Dion

She replied Monday that she was heading back to Winchester and planned to be back by the end of the week, then wrote again Tuesday, saying she didn't find the apartments Saturday and that she'd be back if she got called for an interview. I had hoped to hear from her today and have coffee with her, but neither happened. I suppose she didn't get the interview.

Stacey wants to make something of my meeting Jan, but I'm staying level about it. I'm making no more of it than a potential friendship. I'm not particularly attracted to Jan, except as a very interesting person. That, of course is how the most lasting relationships, of any kind, last, and that makes our meeting all the more important in potential. We met each other at our most casual, dressed for living, not work or show. Stacey said, "Are you going to get a haircut?" "Hell, no." I'm doing nothing for show. I'm having no pretensions. I want this to go where it will go. You think I'm eager to get my hopes up for romance? Anyway, romance isn't in the equation. What happens happens, and I'm not going to persuade it to happen or hasten its happening. I'm heartened to have met someone more real than Julie ever dared to be around me, but that's not reason upon which to build hopes of romance. I do have hopes of friendship, but they are realistic, given our first-meeting rapport, but if it comes to naught I'll have no difficulty accepting it. After all, what would have been the investment? and, anyway, I'd at least have a good time to remember. There couldn't possibly be any rancor or embarrassment involved in our not becoming friends. It would be just one of those things. I have to admit, though, that I really wanted to get together with Jan today to at least have something to talk about tomorrow when Bethany asks me how I spent my day. I won't lie and say I wouldn't have cared if Julie was around when I said I was with a woman most of the day, though how Julie could possibly care only my pride knows for sure.

I won't bring music to work tomorrow. It's the easiest thing I can do to reconnect with the workplace. I will hope, though, that Julie's not back there when I'm doing holds. It doesn't just bother me to hear her voice; it annoys me. Even her opinions grate. I mean, "I absolutely love
Shrek!" kicks my opinion of her right off the mountain. Honestly, I've ignored a lot of things like that from her over the past year, and the holding cell for my contrary opinions has reached capacity. Perhaps, now that the veil of my delusion has lifted, I'm lashing out at the embarrassment of having pretended not to mind the things about her that would have made me shudder had anyone else voiced them--things that would have made her less interesting, less of what I wanted her to be. I won't castigate myself over that; it's probably a natural reaction and eventually settles down into indifference. That eventuality, I fear, though, is not in the very near future, at least not nearer than a transfer to Tuckahoe.

I Can Clearly See Now and Then (1/08/09 Thursday)

2009-01-09T14:35:00.004-05:00

I didn't realize how much I'd missed the sun until I saw it drawing the shade from the building across the way. The week has been wet but not cold. It's been no bother riding in it, just preparing for it. But it hasn't helped my mood, and now the bike squeaks. It's eight now. I've been awake a few hours, mostly writing farewells in my head. How could I ever really speak my mind, though? I don't care about burning bridges; I'd never willingly go back there. But neither will I pick sour grapes. Many people were not involved, and I don't need to leave them scratching their heads. I know all of this is getting ahead of things, that it might all be precluded by a simple lack of accommodation from Tuckahoe, but it feels therapeutic; it helps me sort out my feelings. The sun has faded.

You Mean Fairly? Or Ironically? (1/07/09 Wednesday)

2009-01-08T09:55:00.005-05:00

It was much easier today to avoid Julie, and not at all satisfying. I'm not simply avoiding her. I've made her all but invisible to me. That is certainly beyond the pale of what I intended. It's childish and petty, and I have no idea why I care. I was on the desk at one with Mike, but he brought out the leasebook cart to shelve. I sat staring and sighing and watching the minutes click past on the task bar. Someone passed behind me. Julie said, "Are you alone out here?" Reluctant to speak and resentful that I had to, I responded, "Mm. Mike's over there," and I threw a thumb to the opposite corner. I had only glanced toward her voice, reluctant, too, to look at her. She came back out at the top of the hour, and when she slid into Mike's empty slot I turned away from her and marched to the door. So much for civility.

But why do I care? Is it simply conscience, knowing I'm not being mature? Do I really care about Julie's feelings? Should I assume that this even affects her? Am I just flattering myself to do so? Do I really think this could matter to anyone but me? I care very little about appearing sullen or aloof. Only the introverts have noticed that. They are giving me a wider berth than usual. I am not going to fit in, so I might as well not fit in on my own terms. Is it more mature to live a lie in order to get along than it is to not hide how I feel? How much am I obligated to play the game? What reward is there? Homogeneity? Of course I want to know what's in it for me! I'd be paying a pretty steep price for it, after all. The prize is not desirable. It's the same one I got for trusting Chris.

Christine has already talked to Burnnie at Tuckahoe, who will talk to her staff. I don't know how long it will take to hear anything about that, but I'm pleased that Christine jumped right on it. I'm worrried that Craig might want to come over. He's the only guy there I can talk to, and everyone at Twin Hickory would love him. James was well-loved, too, and he's barely a ghost at Twin Hickory now. Imagine how quickly I'd be forgotten if I were replace with Craig.

I finally nailed Chris to a time to meet. We'll do it at lunch tomorrow. I don't know what my agenda will be. Part of me wants to blow it off, but that's the cowardly part. But the other part is feeling almost vindictive. I'm not ready to forgive Chris, and I don't want to part from him tomorrow with him thinking everything's fine between us. I have to remember the damage he's done and not be magnaminimous about letting bygones be bygones. Is that immature? So what? There is nothing of which I can conceive that he could do to make amends. I'm still looking for what I deserve. What is that?