Fortuitous Fortune

I was up late last night, heady from both bar beers and good conversation on Gchat. Then the strangest thing had happened: Poet, my boyfriend from college who left me for the great city of Baltimore, pinged me on Facebook.

I hadn't heard from Poet in two years, since we had this awkward as hell coffee after I left S. I was in such a bad head space and Poet had transformed into someone I no longer knew. I didn't expect to ever hear from him again.

Hey you. Shouldn't you be in bed?

I eyed the screen suspiciously. No way. The same day I mention him, here he is? I was so disrupted by the contact that I didn't respond.

I e-mailed him back today. We had short exchange. I told him his contact was serendipitous because I had just thought of him.

Really? No way...Why?

I was writing a piece about when we graduated from school. I was with you then.

True, indeed. You drove a manual pick-up truck. With your husky. For what are you writing? Journal, blog, memoir?

Blog.

He knows about another incarnation of a blog, but he doesn't know about this one. But Poet is intimate with my writing and my writing style. We were in the same undergraduate writing program and we'd stay up late and read each other poetry and help each other get unstuck in our short stories. He'd audit my classes because he was interested in what I was learning that he wasn't. We'd meet our professors for drinks after class and debate theory in writing. Poet had moved on to great things: grad school at Johns Hopkins, a fellowship at Harvard. I see his name appear every now and then. I've even seen poems he'd written me published in books.

As for me, I'm writing about a dick in my mouth.

I'm a little afraid of what you might have written! he responded.

Actually, you were a periphery character, so nothing bad! It was very matter of fact.

Whew. That's a relief. I know I'll end up as "Jerk Face" on someone's blog before it's all over.

He asked about this book. It must have been the last time we'd spoken. He asked if I was proud of what I had written and whether I was content with the company of writers that appeared beside me.

I expressed to him my feelings on the contribution: I could have done better.

I've always liked your [previous] blog. You have a voice, which is a big part of the battle. Of course, what that really means is that you have character, which is pretty rare these days. I'm happy you're still doing some writing.

My heart swelled. Not because of this truck-driving, bourbon-swilling, tobacco-dipping man I used to love, but because there are people who still believe in me.

Silk Stockings

Hour 2 into Braveheart, which also coincided with hour 4 in the morning, I was ready for bed. Chrstopher paused the movie long enough to turn down his bed for me and I collided into the pillows. He turned the bedroom TV on for me even though I told him I was too tired to need it. He then kissed me goodnight, turned out the lights and closed the door.

Hour 6 in the morning, I awoke to a lit bedroom. Christopher was standing at the base of the bed. "Where's the TV remote? I can't find it."

"Just press the button on the TV. We'll find it tomorrow," I mumbled.

"No, help me find it now."

I sighed and pushed back the covers. And then I did what I always do when I lose a remote in bed. I laid on my stomach and dangled my head under the bed.

I didn't see the remote. What I did see, however, was a pair of women's stockings. I reached under and grabbed them. Silk. Nice. I've never owned a pair of silk stockings in my life.

"You forgot these," I said flatly as I flung them at Christopher.

He spread them out across the bed. "Ooohhh," he whispered.

I abandoned the remote search and flopped back under the covers annoyed. Heavily annoyed.

"These are old," he started.

"Mrmph." I know. I know they are old and I know he isn't cheating. I know all of this.

"I know who this belongs to. I haven't seen her since November of 2007."

"Hmph." I know all of this because this isn't the first time I've found another woman's calling card stuck somewhere in the bed area.

In college, it was in Poet's bed that I removed an entire green tank top that was stuck between the wall and the bed while I was making it. It belonged to a neighbor that he used to sleep with and was now close friends.

After college, it was black panties. Black panties always look skanky when they aren't yours.

I was cool the first two times. Understanding like a supergirlfriend. This time I was not. I inquired as to why he hasn't cleaned under his bed in two years, and then told him I didn't think he was being very empathetic. He told me he didn't do anything wrong. He slept with a girl two years before me; I couldn't possibly be upset. I ignored him while he apologetically spooned me.

For me, it was more than the silk stockings. It was the bubble bursting. Right or not, I held him to a higher standard. Christopher was now like all the other boyfriends who inexplicably don't clean around their beds. He's capable of hurting me. He's capable of leaving me.

And, god, with him I just didn't think it was going to be this way.

Poet's demise

Coffee with Poet turned out to be tragic, as I imagine any length of time spent with a Harvard-educated poet would be. He had changed since we'd gone through undergraduate school together. He lost his charisma, charm and his rolling belly laughs. The Poet I remembered drove a red Dodge Ram, dipped tobacco and drank bourbon from a 32-oz. plastic cup from McDonald's. This stranger drove an eco-friendly Honda Civic, abstains from everything form bourbon and tobacco to red meat and caffeine, and is now a self-described "cynical mystic" (which I had to look up on the Internet while drinking margaritas the next afternoon with Mel).

In short, Poet had lost his pizazz.

I don't know if it's the medication he has been on since being diagnosed, or the environment he's been living in since he left the great South (meaning hanging out with other poet-y people and doing poet-y things... up north), but Poet had lost all social skills. He spoke with his chin tucked to his chest, even stammering at times. He couldn't make eye contact and was fixated on a dirty penny he found, rotating it in his fingers and spinning it on the table. I felt as if I reached out and touched him, he'd crumble to the table.

A knock on the glass outside interrupted our stilted conversation. A man on the other side of the glass held up his Rilke book, the same one Poet had been reading when I joined him. "Oh look, Poet! He's got your book! How cool is that?" I cried.

"No, he has the same copy as my book; he does not have my book," he mechanically corrected, chin still tucked to chest.

I blew a raspberry at him. It was as if I was sitting next to Grammatically Inclined Rain Man. We both went through the same English program and are both writers: him a poet (shocker) and I am back to technical writing once again. I don't need to be instructed on the difference in syntax; I was simply off duty. Even though I'm not Harvard educated, I consider myself his equal.

"So what's new with you?" he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, "Nothing. I'm a loser."

"Everyone's a loser, Sarah," he corrected again. "We all die. We all lose in the game of life."

I rolled my eyes. Seriously, this is a bit much. "No, I'm specifically a loser. I specifically just broke up with my boyfriend of 2 years, who, if I was really honest with myself, I didn't even like the last 6 months we were together. I had to give up my apartment and my independence to get away from him and move home with my mother in suburbia because I was too much of a loser to have a job." I exhaled and took another breath, "And if we all lose in the game of life, I'm still a loser because, sometimes—and only sometimes—I wish my game were over sooner."

"So what's winning to you?"

"Winning is middle class, which I used to be a part of but feel I no longer belong since I'm living with my mother and had been on unemployment."

And then he launched into some long thing about boxes and belonging and his disapproval of the two concepts which frankly, I don't remember because I half stopped paying attention and started watching a guy push a baby stroller down the street. Middle class as defined by the IRS is making $32,500 a year; it wasn't a concept to me but something discernible and something I wanted again.

We hugged goodbye shortly afterward. Neither of us said anything about giving each other a call or seeing each other again while he is in town. We had just grown apart, living in two different worlds.

Mine just happened to be reality.

My mom calls them the Collectibles

Today I officially became a girl with her own private therapist. It was awesome. I paid her $100 and she gave me the name of a book to read and told me that I need to journal more. Shit, I could blog and buy It's Called a Breakup Cause It's Broken off Amazon for $11.99.

Her main point was that all the symptoms I'm struggling with is due to me holding things in and never asking for help and never releasing whatever I'm feeling. She even picked up an Incredible Hulk doll and pulled the string. "I'm about to get angry!" shouted Bruce while his plastic eyes blinked red.

"If only someone hugged him more and told him to write his feelings down," she cooed while cuddling with the awkward-looking doll.

So, whatever, I'm going to try it. I'm going to write it out.

In other news, I'm experiencing a Facebook phenomenon called All of my ex-boyfriends see that I'm single and have contacted me again for the first time in years. So far I've heard from commitment-phobic Conor, self-absorbed Jack, emotionally unavailable Christopher, and manic-depressive Poet.

The one that I'm excited about? Hot Christopher. But I'm not supposed to be thinking about boys. I'm supposed to be absorbed in some serious me time, reading my therapist-approved self-help book and acting all nun-ish. And not having dinner with Poet tomorrow.

Which I am.

Misty Watercolor Memories

I've been spending a lot of time alone lately. At first I was all Hello, sole power of the remote control and I just ate a bag of gummi bears for dinner and no one saw! But me spending so much time alone can also be very dangerous because I can get stuck in my own head.

I went to bed an hour early and decided to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls before sleep. I've been watching the series from start to finish on DVD over the last six months, and I was on the last disc of the last season. Rory Gilmore was graduating from college. In turn, I started thinking about my own college graduation.

The night before my boyfriend, who had severe undiagnosed mental problems, had this complete breakdown. I don't even remember over what: graduate school applications or just a bout of manic depression, but I stayed up the entire night with him while we worked through whatever had him so wound up. I talked to him in an effort to keep his grip on reality because he was so close to losing it. Then 6 a.m. came and with it the sunrise.

"It's morning," I whispered. "I need to leave in a little bit. I'm graduating in a couple of hours. I need to go home and shower. My parents are coming up."

"Well, I'm exhausted. I think I'm just going to go to sleep," he said.

My face fell and my heart sank. He wasn't coming. My boyfriend wasn't coming to see me graduate. It seemed like every time there was a moment for me, he broke down and everything became all about him, including my college graduation. If there was a moment that should have been about me, this was it.

I graduated in December—a semester behind my original graduation date, and a semester before my friends on the five-year plan. I walked in alone to the staging area in the basketball coliseum. Summer graduates get the football field. Cap and tassel in hand, I scanned the room and found no one.

Come on, Sarah. Search harder. You are at a large university. Surely there is someone here that you know. You won't have to graduate alone.

I looked again and saw him. The guy I dated very briefly earlier that year. There was a lapse in my apartments and for a week I would be homeless. He asked me to stay with him for the duration and I was elated. Moving day came and I packed my truck up. I phoned him to tell him I was on my way... and I never heard from him again. I squatted in my old apartment, sleeping on the floor for three days until I got kicked out, and then I sheepishly called a friend and crashed on her couch for the remainder of the week. And now I was going to have to graduate with that asshole.

"Hey."

"Hey," said the asshole in question, Chronic Bather. I called him that because he always bathed after sex, which is not unusual in and of itself, but he always made me bathe with him before sex, he'd bathe after, and then he'd get up in the middle of the night to do it again. I counted one night: four times within and eight hour span. And it wasn't in the shower either. Chronic Bather would draw himself a bubble bath.

"So, uh, where've you been?" I asked.

"Home. I sold it though. Packed up all my stuff in the back of my car. I'm moving to Atlanta after graduation. Just getting in my car and going."

"That's nice," I forced out. Hope he was going to stay with someone and she'd never pick up the damn phone.

I scanned the room again. I refused to graduate with Chronic Bather. I refuse to share this memory with him. Four feet to my left, I spied Danny. Danny and I were close friends in high school until he started dating a mutual acquaintance who viewed me as a threat. She wouldn't let him hang out with me anymore and told him I had a thing for him. Which I did, but it was innocent and harmless and moreover my self-esteem was so low that I genuinely thought any boy would pick any girl over me, so I never tried. But to my knowledge, Danny didn't go to the same college. I thought he went to the private Christian school.

"Danny! What are you doing here?"

"I transferred here to be with Laura."

"Oh? How's that going?"

"We broke up two years ago."

"Oh," I shuffled. Victory! I thought.

"I'm sorry we fell out of touch, but she hated you after we started dating," he admitted. Yeah, I know.

Danny had big plans to move back home after graduation. His mom was still running a day care out of the house. It's not like my plans were any better. I was staying in the college town, staying with my boyfriend, Poet, who was currently sleeping away my moment.

"Sarah!" I heard someone call.

I turned around to see the boyfriend of one of my drinking buddies. Despite all the time we've spent in each other's company, we were always hammered and weren't that close.

People started forming lines to walk into the coliseum. Our university was so big that we just sit within our school of degree. We'd stand up as a group and move our tassels—no name being announced, no walking across the stage, and our diplomas would be mailed to us six weeks later. I stood facing the three boys wondering who I was going to pick. Who I was going to share my moment with. I chose my friend's boyfriend.

I don't like thinking about my college graduation because it's a painful memory for me. My first thought always goes back to Poet, who chose to simply not show. Five years later and it still hurts.

So now it's a Thursday night in 2008. It's 11 o'clock at night and I'm alone in bed watching Gilmore Girls. Rory's walking across the stage and Lorelai stands up and gives Rory a standing ovation. The tears in Lorelai's eyes convey that she's giving a standing ovation not just to Rory's scholastic accomplishment, but to her life. I begin to cry because that's just so not how it was for me.

I hate thinking about my life because I hate my memories. The fond ones are few and far between and are always sullied with some disappointment later on down the road. Compartmentalizing, I don't think I'm very good at that. Not only do I hate the things that have happened to me, but I hate my thought processes. I loathe my inner voice. I'm not at peace with myself. When I'm left alone for too long, I become this incubator for self-hatred.

With perfect timing, Scott came home to see me crying in the dark over Gilmore Girls. In order to avoid looking like a wad of crazy, I told him very quickly about Poet's no show.

"Why didn't he go?" I sniffed.

"I don't know, honey. I would have gone if I was there."

"God, I just hate my memories!" I pounded.

"We'll just have to make new ones," he smiled.

I wish I could trust him. But in order to do that, I've have to trust myself first.

Prove Me Wrong

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Sarah
Date: Dec 16 2006 8:22 AM

You know how they say that Shakespeare wrote about every possible plot in history? That's there's nothing Shakespeare hasn't written about?

While I disagree on the premise because those who subscribe to the "WS came up with every possible plot" school play loose with "plot" anyway, tell me this:

Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol. Guy who realizes that family is more important that work. Is there anywhere in Shakespeare that this is mentioned?

The only thing I can think of is the apparition in Hamlet versus Jacob and Marley. Both use apparitions to convey warnings.


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Poet
Date: Dec 16 2006 6:27 PM

King Lear... also, Macbeth makes a pretty strong case against professional ambition... The Tempest: Prospero's books or Miranda's happiness... Henry IV: Henry's unpopular loyalty to Falstaff...

Billy never comes out and states his themes: he's more artful. But the balance between personal and private (of which work v. family is a part) is pretty constantly in his plays.


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Sarah
Date: Dec 16 2006 2:29 PM

But King Lear didn't go nutzo because he lost his family. He went nutzo because he lost his kingdom, ie job. He eventually makes the realization, but doesn't get the happy ending Scrooge gets. Then again, the entire title is "The Tragedy of King Lear," not The Comedy of where everything works out okay.

Also Scrooge doesn't get his agnorisis until he sees the future and consequently learns of his own mortality, which is pretty selfish in and of itself. Lear's knowledge of mortality is what made him give up the kingdom...

Are these the same lines of thinking you had?

And by Jacob AND Marley, I meant Jacob Marley. I was thinking of the Muppets version where there's two ghosts-- the peanut gallery old men...


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Poet
Date: Dec 16 2006 10:54 PM

Lear doesn't get a happy ending because there are no happy consequences for his actions. Personally, I think the honesty of Lear's conclusion...blind, stumbling the plains, etc...is what prevents the play from being sentimental in the way Dickens is. If sentimentality is understood to be the exhibition of an inappropriate amount or type of emotion (a la J.C. Ransom), then Scrooge's ending is overtly sentimental. Furthermore a deus ex machina is required to get to the happy ending, highlighting the inaccuracy of the story's direction. Of course, Dickens was going less for accuracy than for a Christian morality tale: and, whatever one thinks of Christianity, one has to concede that it is inaccurate to the reality of this world, which generally holds the dead don't rise again, etc.

I'm skeptical about the benefits of comparing works with different goals (apples and oranges, yada yada), but, if I were to compare the stories, I might start with peeking at the language...looking for what corresponds and what does not....how are Scrooge and Lear alike or unlike predicated upon their diction, tone, etc. When it comes down to it, Lear exists in a different world...possesses a different ontology, and a different vocabulary. For that reason, I don't know how fertile the comparison might be: usually a contemporary of the subject character might yield more accurate results, preventing the problem of temporal readings, idiom, etc from rearing its hydra-style heads.


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Sarah
Date: Dec 16 2006 7:52 PM

I think that was the most intelligent use of MySpace. Ever.