12 kinds of nothing

Monday, October 28, 1996
10:40am, train

Thinking about my job and the great amount of enjoyment I got out of the party this weekend. Well, good. It’s all good. . It wasn’t so bad having Ted at the party, except I kind of avoided him. No, I didn’t avoid him. But I avoided having an intense, emotional connection with him. And he’s really a good, kind person and I’m proud that we were together.

I’m pretty calm. Probably should be. Having said goodbye to Ted and yet leaving the door open, so open. And he called while I was in the bath last night and I called back. He just wanted to say there was a nature special on channel 13 and I said I would watch and thank you and I’m glad. And yet, the tears are welling in my eyes right now, okay? I’m still very much with him in spirit. He found a folder of notes from me that he’d saved and cried and cried, he said

I fell asleep at 9:30 last night, right after calling him back. As a couple, you’re always looking for something to do, so you’re always eating.  As a single person, I am so overwhelmed by ways to fritter my time. Doing 12 kinds of nothing, I often skip meals or fall asleep without eating.

No Frank tonight, he’s working late, which is getting boring, I must say. I’m tired of fighting with work for his attention. I love my work too, but I occasionally want to go outside or to a museum or something. He couldn’t even get breakfast Saturday morning, and I felt like a stupid trick, like a one-night stand. He’s rushing me out the door because I got upset and cried in the middle of the night.

I try so hard to hide the miasma of my mental state. I know he doesn’t want to hear about it, the intense unhappiness, the unresolvable freaked-outedness, and I don’t want him to know how heavy I am a lot of the time. Telling him a few stories from my childhood recently and I could see it was freaking him out. I guess he’s only ever met people from happy families who never got screamed at or hit.

I’m tired of telling those stories anyway. I should try to act happy and vibrant and strong all the time, because that’s the person he fell for. I should not call him later, and when he calls I should act like I don’t care one way or the other. But I don’t want to play games. I just want to lie down.

Wednesday, October 30, 1996
10am, train

So, what now? Feel shaken up at work with the new offices. What else? Just have no idea what I’m doing right now. Logistically, on a day to day basis, e.g., there’s stuff that needs to get done. Is it getting done? Who knows? I get high and try to hide it. My throat is killing me and my lungs are stiff.

I’m making myself anxious, so I don’t have to feel sad or guilty. Well, I probably don’t have to feel anything, sad or guilty or anxious. Maybe now I can go back and reread these books again. Or in a few weeks. I’m sad and guilty. And I was mad at the studio last night. Because that guy Curtis was not taking care of his guests, pissing me off. Bought pot from Harriet’s friends on 5th Street, hung out with her till almost 11:00. Just smoked and slept.

Gosh, I don’t feel like continuing. Not very optimistic, today. Not pessimistic, either. Not blah, just am. The bridge. Maybe I should just go home tonight instead of going out with Frank. Why do anything? I’m practically touching another person right now. And we’re both hardly conscious of it. I can see the faint fuzz on the woman’s upper lip and jaw.

It makes me feel good to think about the other people on the train, however abstract it all becomes. I couldn’t take the non-abstract full-on version. So many spirits, so much soul. Frank is a hyper puppy. Good, it’s distracting and focused around me. Good, I can admit it. I’ll see me.

Friday, November 1, 1996
9:45am, train

Spent last night at Frank’s, we had sex, then massive raging afterglow, holding each other so incredibly close, loving and cuddling, pressing as much flesh as we could manage. I felt good, nearly painfully good, and beneficent, and I wished everyone in the world could feel as good as I was feeling.

He felt it too, He said I was drinkable like a wine, that it’s so easy to hang out with me and be around me, and sometimes he wants to get crazy overboard drunk on me and make all kinds of promises and plans…

I started to cry, but not because I was sad. I felt so loving, so loved, and so scared of that feeling going away. Frank was nonplussed at first but then he was holding me and calling me baby, telling me he wanted to take care of me, and it was everything I always wanted. I didn’t want to scare him off by crying, but it felt so good to cry against him.

Oh well, I guess any boyfriend of mine is going to see me cry a bunch.

I feel like I’m in love with him. I have no idea whether our love is real or imagined. But even if it’s imagined, isn’t it real if you feel it? Are feelings real?

Is this the most sincere or the most cynical thing I’m doing, thinking I’m in love with someone? It’s a little soon after loving someone else I wasn’t really in love with. There was a moment last night when Frank and I were making love and I felt overwhelmed, my face pressed into his shoulder, thinking how many times I’ve been the face in the shoulder of other men.

We’re pretty much out at work now. It’s not formal, we don’t hold hands or kiss publicly, we haven’t acknowledged it, but the other day Shannon said to me, you two are so cute, everyone knows you’re totally going out, why don’t you admit it already?

Um, because I don’t want to? Because I’m trying to keep my love life separate from the office? Because if it ends I can just act like it never began?

Galinsky won’t leave it alone, waggling his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. He keeps saying, I was there at the very beginning! You guys should thank me! There’s a lot of shoulder punching going on, too, every time Frank comes up to the studio it’s like he just had a baby, people congratulating him and putting cigars in his mouth, Yay, you had sex with this woman!

Oh, stop it. Don’t make things worse for myself. Must stay calm, don’t smoke during lunch tomorrow, don’t go down to Hil’s. She’s been very cool, distant even. Turned me down for lunch yesterday before I could turn her down. I bet she and J. have been talking again. I wish everyone in the world would get therapy.