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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

"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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.