whoever yells love the loudest

Friday, September 6, 1996
8:15am, home

8:15 and I’m tired. Got up at 5:15 in a cold sweat. Heaved and puked a little. Got high on a roach, then fretted anxiously, then got back to sleep 6:15-ish.

Judith said yesterday, regarding Frank, you really shot yourself in the foot with that one. And it’s true. I need to sleep alone at least for a few months. Can’t always fling myself at whoever yells love the loudest. I can tell he’s anxious. He asked last night, as I was leaving, what was up with me and Judgecal. Almost called him last night but said no, better not engage in this on a full-time basis. Okay. I hung up on his machine a few times.

Ted and I rode around the park after work, but I said I’m bored of riding around the park; it’s just another routine. I asked him where he thought we should go from here. He’s having such a tough time coming to grips with the whole thing. Another thing Judith says is, yes you should have a conscience about it. You don’t just walk away from a lover feeling fine, even if it’s the only thing to do.

What is my dream? Peace and clarity. There’s a guy leaning all over his girlfriend on the two-seater perpendicular to the window. It’s driving me nuts just watching him. He’s got one arm around her and just smushed right up on her and she’s crammed against the wall with her eyes closed. And with his other hand, he’s touching her chin and he’s talking to her. Now he’s eased up. That awful suffocated feeling in the in the solar plexus.

Tonight I’m supposed to meet Frank after his band plays but it will be 11 and I don’t know how we’ll both be by then. I really wish this guy would lay off this woman.

I’m really sick of taking care of you, is what I tried to nicely say to Ted. You need a whole bunch of time and attention I just don’t have to give. I get impatient and claustrophobic and it’s enough.

Judith is right, though. It would all be a lot easier to deal with without the whole Frank angle, which adds a lot of stress and guilt. But sex isn’t the worst thing to want, isn’t a terrible reason to do things and genuine attraction after so long. Okay. Let’s do it.

Later, roof

I’m up here on the roof, calming down after blowing up. We were having a departmental meeting and I said I was insulted to be left off the clips tape, and I thought that a rush job was a terrible, stupid idea for high res animation.

Then Joey John accused me of acting out of ego, then I got furious and left the room. Then, I went back and said how pissed I was and how wrong he was and how he and I need to have a talk. Then, he started smirking and I stormed away again. Then, he said, why are you overreacting?

Then I wanted to claw at his face with my nails. The manipulation, the humiliation. I sucked my thumb until I was 25 years old. People I mistrust, people who have abused and hurt me, know this. I’m so angry but I’m calming down.

The nice thing is it’s okay for me to be up here, to duck out for however long I need to. I do a great job. I put so much time and effort into the network. I did not concern myself with advancing my own agendas. Boy, this has been building for awhile. I’m so disgusted and turned off by Joey John. It’s personal as well as business. I don’t like him at all.

Boy, I wish I had more pot with me and maybe a sweater; it’s a little chilly. I wish somebody would come up and talk to me. I’m glad I came up here and didn’t engage further. I don’t want to deal with anyone, I don’t want to look at them or be anywhere around them. And at New York Press, I was chained to my desk. But here, I can fucking take off the way those other fucks do.

I’m distressed by my relationship with Judith. I feel so dependent and sometimes she’s harsh. I feel so much like a kid right now. I guess I can afford to for a while, before I pull myself together. I am pulled together. Kid and adult, all integrated into one, the me.

Occasionally it rains just a little, and I’m definitely chilly, but whatever. I shouldn’t confront this now. I should talk to Galinsky first and tell him he’s not doing his fucking job. It’s not up to me to manage Joey John, nor is it up to me to see that this company’s interests are best represented. I’m sick of ignoring it. I don’t care that Joey John doesn’t want to be uncool and that’s why he does heroin.

I’m getting ready to go back downstairs. I might just go all the way downstairs and go straight to Tower Books and then home. I’m picturing speaking calmly and I think I can see it. I can do it. I can rise above the bullshit games because I’m smarter and more aware than anybody even knows yet.