Hard To Explain

I made a bank mistake and it’s putting me in a circle of disarray. I hate mornings that start off this way. I hope that somehow it all works itself out. That being said, today would be a good day to win the lottery. By the time this all unravels I will be lucky if I can pay my phone bill and buy some ramen.

Closing in on the first week at the new job and I am positively.. bored.  Does it make sense that the job I had before was so much more work for so much less pay? Well, this is giving me time to plan for upcoming performances, do some editing and find more Funko Pop Figures, ( Amy Winehouse and Biggie are now available and no this isn’t what put me in potential financial ruin this morning)

As for my health, I feel absolutely great this morning, my jeans are less snug and I finally got enough sleep. Bounded out of bed and onto my feet, boiled some eggs, fixed my hair, walked out of the door with my glasses and my bus money ready. Spent the morning listening to The Strokes and wondered if it was time to send a letter to my  old old old best friend that I haven’t spoken to in almost 10 years, because that’s what you do when you get caught up listening to The Strokes. I never got a chance to see them live but I saw Julian Casablancas and that was hot.  My friend, however, did and I never heard the end of it. I was supposed to be there that night.

The thing is, I used to have a real problem with boundaries. Maybe it stemmed from being an only child  which I wasn’t I just didn’t have access to my sister for most of my life. We were 11 years apart and by the time I was growing up she was on her own and doing her own fabulous thing. Briefly when I was just hitting teenage years she spent some time with me. She had a gallery at the time in the B.A.D. back when nothing was there but Tillman’s, Oline’s and the pop shop. She employed me to work at her gallery which mostly consisted of staring at people and meeting artists and sometimes going with her to other shows. One time I got hit on by an adult and that was crazy. Anyway, I guess as a kid I was always looking for companionship and approval.  I tend to smother people when I get really into them, and I really get into people. I still do, but I maintain my respectful distance now. Don’t get me wrong, I do slip, write love letters to the people I admire and scare them off sometimes.  But I’m trying.

So when I was friends with this person so long ago, I just kind went off the edge. I admired her so much. She was younger than I and just really seemed to have her life in some kind of creative order. But I was wrong, really. She was a hot mess and me being around her just brought out the worst in both of us. There was a lot of binge drinking going on. There were fights and nights and nights away from my family floating in and around bars and strange people’s houses. The thing is, she is most decidedly gay. A lesbian. Her entire existence at that moment in time was her denial of this. She behaved in the most insane ways, got really depressed and finally dropped out. She would get drunk and make out with women and I would be ok with it, of course, but the next day it would be all denial and shit on her part and I knew it was killing her.  I guess the end came when we were doing whippits  in the car downtown in front of the DMA and she stepped out and fell directly on her face on the pavement. Like, no hands out or anything. I thought she had died. Then she began to attack me and ask me why I never took care of her or told her not to do things that got her in so much trouble. I told her I wasn’t her mom, that’s why. She had a huge scar across her face for a month from scraping the sidewalk, and we saw each other one more time. She was with this guy, who was constantly using her for money or her car or whatever he needed at the time. He was really handsome, but totally a closeted guy.  I just shrugged my shoulders and said, oh well, that’s the way she wants it, and I moved on. The thing is I think about her almost every day. She was hilarious; she had this great hearty laugh that reminded me of my mother’s laugh. She had style and could make an outfit out of anything she had. She wore jeans rolled up and a wallet on a chain like a real butch, then sometimes she would wear the flounciest dress and curl her hair and eyelashes like a baby doll. She was too much. I had been younger, and single I would have made her mine, but she probably never would have had me. Maybe not for more than a drunken night.

So, I don’t have to write her a letter now. I just wrote enough to let her go for now. But I still think of her when I listen to The Strokes, go to the thrift store, curl my hair and eyelashes and pass that spot by the DMA where she ate dust.

I don’t know where or who she is anymore. I remember one day she told me it would be like this. That one day she would be a faded memory to me.  I guess sometimes we are just like that in people’s lives. I wonder who has me as a faded memory. I wonder if she even remembers me?