pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LANDLOCKED (Sunday) Taking a break from this 1,200-page manuscript. Finally got smart and started pulling hundred-page chunks out and working in a different room so that I am not staring at a seven-inch-tall stack of pages, overwhelmed. The manuscript is an interesting read and is well written, but there is just so damn much of it! I want to finish the project though because I'll get paid a few thousand for it and that would be a nice cushion to have in the bank. My plan is to stay up till two or three every night this week and work on it till it's done (operating on the three-hours-is-sufficient-sleep theory that got me through my college years with a full-time job). I just want the damn thing done. • So my friend Ed died today. He was in his early fifties and built sets at the theater—a great guy, and so positive. He survived a pancreatic cancer diagnosis ten years ago, survived several recurrences, and got part of a lung removed late last year. His new recurrence was inoperable though. Sad. I don't know when his funeral is yet, but know that the service will be at the theater. I also know that, when I think of Ed, I will either think about how many fun, creative things we did together or about how much we laughed when we played on the lake. For example: Today, I was thinking about how he tried to make Roger and me wipe out after we rocked the innertubes he was pulling us on on the boat's wakes until we became airborne and then we somehow managed to slap hands in the air as Ed was speeding up and slowing down and trying to make us crash land. • I haven't had much down time lately to help get me through my stress. Well, that's not entirely true. I did go to the chorus concert, but felt distant from everyone there(well, except from my dear friend Musicgrrl). Isolated. So what did I do last week besides my sixty-hour job and my freelance work? Well, I took the kitchen faucet apart and repaired a leak, did two loads of laundry, mowed and edged the yard, paid my bills, checked some proofs from work while hanging out on the deck, dropped my resume onto a disk so I can add my current job description and new awards and coursework to it, and threw some writing samples together. I also grabbed stuff to add to my portfolio (but should probably make an electronic portfolio while I'm at it.) Wish I could ask an editor to proofread my changes, but don't want them to know that I am looking for a new job. (Breaking it down into manageable chunks here, folks.) Not having to drive down the street and see the Ginger and Dickboy or walk across campus and see the Ginger and Dickboy or round a corner and get hit by an unexpected Ginger memory feels so good. Liberating. An so does the thought of moving out of this house. I have acquired so goddamn much stuff and just want to simplify, plop myself down in a place with water, and start anew. Why didn't this occur to me before? Told Shakespeare how down I have been last night and she said "Come to Louisville." But she's missing the point;I realized that I don't have to wait till I retire to live by the ocean. And Kentucky is LANDLOCKED. Meanwhile, Tree and I had a good walk and talk Friday night, during which she said five times "That is exactly what my shrink said!" Then we joked that I should hang out a shingle and accept patients. (I basically just pointed out that she's not responsible for Kay's happiness—a reality that I learned after many years of therapy.) My other basic advice was: You know you can get hurt and you are afraid. Everyone is afraid. What you have control over is whether or not you choose to let your fear control you and keep you from getting what you want. Seems to me you have two choices here: Either you choose love or you choose fear. Put that way, she said the answer seems so obvious. I think she needs to be alone for a bit before moving into any new relationship, though, so that she can figure out what she wants without pressure or expectations from anyone. I told her that too. Also had a good talk with Musicgrrl, who has been isolating herself since her break up too. I wanted to make sure she is okay, and she said she is. She say yes, I have been isolating myself, but not from you.
I told her that she will be happy again, and she teared up.
I had my arm around her at the concert, so I'm sure that chorus members are now saying that I'm playing the field, and am sleeping with two women. Ha!
I told Musicgrrl this too: She will be in her house alone, and it will feel really empty at first. And it is okay to call me and say Come Over and sleep on my sofa or Come Over and spoon me because I need to be held or Come Over and dig in my yard with me because I can't bear to be alone today or Come Over and watch one of those cop shows I'm addicted to with me because I don't want to be alone.
Meanwhile, she will discover that she can do something that she had stopped doing without even thinking about it after Coolio moved in. Stretch out sideways across the bed and take up all the space. And before long she will discover that she is not so much lonely as enjoying her own time spent in her own way, that she is getting back to herself and healing. And she will heal a little more every day. And it won't always hurt this much.
Dear, sweet Musicgrrl. •
Ugh. Now it is 1:15 a.m. and Filmgrrl and I just had a long talk. I told her about all the shit at work and that my boss says I can't go to the Adirondacks unless the people who are out indefinitely are all back on their jobs again.
Filmgrrl said, "You know, I made it through six months here by telling myself 'You are going fishing with Bird' and looking forward to our visit, but the point is to see you, not to fish."
(I was so looking forward to being outdoors with our fishing gear and our hiking boots and our guitars around the fire too, but she's right—the point is to see each other.)
She arrives in New York on the 22nd, will hang with Lourdes a couple of days, enjoy some galleries, then head up to Albany and hang out with her family. Then they'll head up to camp on the 5th.
If things go as planned, then Filmgrrl will fly out of Newark on the 10th and we'll have four days together down here . . . and I will do everything in my power to make sure that none of that time is spent on campus.
And I want to buy her plane ticket—which is aAnother reason to finish this seven-damn-inches-tall manuscript. j
Okay, gotta get back to this manuscript or cave and go to sleep, but must say first that I started tearing up from happiness as I talked with Filmgrrl tonight.
New York and a series of bad jobs and then it taking so dang long for her to find a new job just worn her down. She was so afraid of so many things last year—the first time I've seen her afraid, in fact.
I had to convince her that we could drive the twenty-four-foot truck into the city, that we could make the cross-country trip in it, that she could drive that behemoth.
In the midst of listening to her talk tonight about picking up the U-Haul, loading it and driving it to their new (to-them) house and about her ripping the bathroom floor out yesterday and her putting cementboard up today in preparation for her tiling it tomorrow, I realized that she sounded like the old Filmgrrl again—like someone who is capable and knows it and is tackling things with a spark in her voice and a skip in her step as moves through the world with her wonderful vibrancy again.
Filmgrrl. My dearest friend who has so much passion for life and art and the wonders of this world—and the bad things in this world are not allowed to take those frm her, goddamn it.
It was good to hear her sounding like this again.
The best part about thinking about moving to Seattle—other than knowing that I will be in the Pacific NW and beside water and away from all these bad memories—is that Filmgrrl and I will be the same distance away from each other as we were when she lived in New York again. This means we can still manage to see each other on a fairly regular basis after all.
My life is feeling better already. 10:24 a.m. - 2005-06-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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