4:20 p.m. - 2003-09-07
the jury of my peers has found me guiltless
Another fucked-up, beautiful weekend arrives at its merciful close. Went something to the tune of this:
...I went to a variety of art openings on Friday, walking downtown Missoula in the most charming company of my friends Erin and Brendan - two clever, saucy, great-to-be-seen-walking-with sort of friends. Not that it's about PR - just a lovely coincidence when you realize how many of one's friends are matched in mind as well as appearance. Ended up at the newskeg on Friday, which lead to a number of curiously intoxicating conversations...I love the newspaper kids, working there is what's going to make me crazy as well as keep me from it. Strange, I know, but true.
We gravitated to some freshmen-ed and women-ed keg, which was broken up by the police within ten to fifteen minutes of our arrival. I decided to head off the wife at the pass, whom I had previously scheduled a rendez-vous with at the Union Club. Was greeted by a soon-to-be ex-friend who had been looking icily at me since school started. In the interest of cutting through bullshit, I asked her straight up what her problem was with me.
She tells me that I am, at the most fundamental level, a self-invovled, unscrupulous, selfish person. I understand that occasionally, my blogging crosses the borders of self-indulgence frequently and generously. However, let one thing be known - my friends are everything to me. They are the thing I care about most in my life, and to have someone draw such an absolutely wrong conclusion. I know there are people in my life who believe this is true, that this is fact. If you are reading my description of the charges against me, and feel that you know me well enough to agree with them, then I can only say two words to you: fuck off.
I have gone through too much bullshit with too many people I always thought would stand by me. Since this spring, since my return from Missoula, I can feel the once all-important allies of my world dropping like flies and it's really fucking difficult not to lose hope completely, to toss up my hands, to crave some kind of powdered solution. And that's the fucking truth. I get so hurt by the fact that people are turning away from me, rather than looking directly at me to ask whatever must be asked....it makes my want to throw down some fucking rails and deal with reality in a few days.
But I'm not going to fucking do it. Because as much as I crave escape in any of her many forms, I want something real. And that's why my friends are so fucking important to me - because that's the most real thing I have in life. Having people with whom there is an eventual, silent understanding, and when words fails us (as they do) there is something left to stand on.
So I called the wife, after I walked away from my accusor ("I'm going through too much bullshit with too many people right now," I said, my feet trying to move faster than my lips). I called her from my car, listening to the engine hum as I start telling her what happened and start sobbing hysterically. It could have been many things - stress, lack of sleep, desperation, delirium - but I think it may be called a breaking point in this case. The only other time I have even shed tears in my adult life was with my friend Mary, but there were not sobs like this. I did not truly think I was capable of such a physical, emotional release.
It may be harbinger - in the last year or so, I have often wondered what it is like to truly be restrained in your dealings with other people. I have felt for the longest time that I care so much about people, I can't not tell them I want to see them, I want them to tell me the odd secrets and the quirky childhood annecdotes.
But I cannot help but feel this is the slipping, sliding end of that purer form of my exuberance.
Spent Saturday with my brother, who helped me break down day one of my ex-neighbor Janet's garage sale. Little bro and I have been chummy enough in the last year that he can settle me down while still being a kick to hang out with.
Saturday night found me revisiting the Union Club with Madeline and V-Star/The Wife, the roomies of last year. We took refuge from the too-loud band at the Union and found ourselves ensconced in Jay's Downstairs - the coolest bar on the way out of Missoula, bar none (tee hee). The only pretension comes from the clientele, and is usually, mercifully left at the door. The crowd is a mix of aging drunks, demi-hipsters and sprinkled with various other miscellany.
A wizened blues singer wailed Roy Orbison and Lou Reed and songs too sad to even be named as the ex-roomies and I gathered close to one another, barstooled and whispering. We ended the night around 2:30 at the Ox.
Madeline and I drifted into one another's company once more, to get lunch for our former neighbor (Janet) on third street. I grabbed another seven books from her sale and sat on her porch smoking, drinking Dr. Peppers, and listening to Madeline read Janet's poetry. Janet and I smoked some dope and listened to Ella sing through her second story window, pondering London and the Rivera murals in Detroit side-by-side. It was a perfect encapsulation of my relationship with this woman - one of the most extraordinary women I will meet in my life - whom I will miss, but can only hope to periodically cross paths with as our lives both branch away from Missoula.
Which brings us to the present. This is an entry of epic proportions, for which I felt a slightly self-indulgent shame. But what else could you expect from a bastard as selfish as I?
