Posts Tagged ‘Aster’
Viva
So: Las Vegas.
First thing: hot as all hell, and I mean so, so hot. Not humid, which was a huge mercy, but frying-in-the-blazing-sun hot. Triple-digit hot. So hot that it hurt to be outside and was uncomfortable even at night. I didn’t envy at all the men standing on the sidewalk handing out short stacks of hooker cards. Sorry—escort cards.
Sinking Ships
Last weekend JT texted to tell me he had broken up with Jack Dawson, his boyfriend of just over a year. I was walking home with Leone at the time, so I didn’t look at the message until about an hour later, but when I saw what he had written I immediately called him, and I stayed on the phone with him for an hour. The breakup surprised me a little bit, not because it hadn’t been a long time coming, and certainly not because I thought he should’ve stayed with Jack. It surprised me because JT hadn’t mentioned wanting to do it, although that itself shouldn’t have been unexpected, because the fact that he couldn’t tell me is a huge part of the reason he ended it.
Watching it Crumble
I’m falling out of touch with JT. There are three parts of this, as far as my thoughts are concerned:
(By falling out of touch I mean that while before it wouldn’t have been strange to have a text-versation (lasting all day sometimes) with him every day, we are now going through a dry spell. The last time I heard from him was Wednesday (it’s Monday now), and that because I texted him first. This may not seem like a big deal, but usually it’s almost always he who initiates. And this after more than a week of silence.)
Summer School Tediums
I haven’t been writing much. It’s a far cry from a few weeks into the summer, where one or even two posts a day would be my fortress into which I fled from inevitable boredom. It’s nice to be busy again…although ask me at a time I’m in the actual throes of said business rather than coming off my first week of it and I’ll share a different sentiment. Ask me two weeks from now—at any time of day—and I’ll smack you, then go back in time via sheer force of will and smack my past self for ever feeling pleasantly busy.
I had to keep reminding myself that despite the papers, the foot’s worth of reading (in thickness of texts, I mean), and the midterms, it’s still summer. I’d thought I’d be here among older people, grad students, and summer exchange students, and not many potential friends. Instead, I’m already making one and remaking another. This friend I’m remaking I knew from FPF, back in the first semester of my first year here. I used to refer to him as Crew Guy to Aster, back when we giggled and whispered and I-know-more-guys-than-you’d at each other over aim every night (sometimes I wish we still did that. I now rarely speak to her). Crew Guy used to like me.
Now, I never had any confirmation that he did, and if I’m right, still, it was probably no more than a casual interest developed and ended all within two months. But I recognized the signs—the flirtation, the glances, the boyish awkward nudging as we sat side by side in a scene rehersal waiting for our lines to come up. It was there, but it never amounted to anything.
He came up to me during a 10 minute break in class today, although I would’ve gone to him if he hadn’t come over anyway. We talked a little, and then he invited me to his friend’s birthday party. Tonight. A casual invite: this is where I live, this is the time, come if you want. For a moment I was tempted…but I don’t know his friend. I hardly know him. It’s bound to be awkward…yet I’d come out of it with new friends, and hadn’t I been the one moping about wanting to meet new people? It was an opportunity.
I’m not going. Besides that I’ve already forgotten where he lives, I’ve only seen Crew Guy twice since not seeing him for over a year. Whatever friendship is there to re-establish, whichever new friends are there to meet, they can wait. It’s not a very hard decision. I can wait. I just hope I’m not waiting for something that’ll never come.
Never the Same
Today Prince and I went out as planned. Actually, no, it went down more like “Dont make me get up dont make me get up it’s only 12:30, that’s still early. I might as well go jogging now wth phone is beeping—fuck, 30-45 minutes? THAT’S NOT ENOUGH GODDAMN TIME I’M A GIRL I NEED MORE TIME THAN THAT TO SHOWER AND GET READY DAMN YOU PRINCE!”
Of course I didn’t have any panties because I’d thrown them all in the wash and he had to be the punctual early bird bastard he is. He rang the doorbell and my brother went to let him in and he came upstairs. Meanwhile I was scrambling around trying to put my clothes and eyeliner on and look halfway presentable, and I ended up greeting him with my hair wet and a skirt on with nothing under it. That’s right. But he didn’t have to know that, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell him. Wonderful first impression of me after a months long separation.
After I managed to get ready (cursing him in my head the whole time) we went and sat outside Starbucks and caught up. I told him about my plans for a tattoo and discovered that he’s been thinking of getting one to. I told him the embarrassing stories about how I’ve become a slut since the last time I saw him and, well, let’s just say my sexual exploits were nothing compared to his. So I felt a bit inadequate, a bit like my thunder was stolen, a bit inexperienced.
But it was easy. My god, but it was easy, like we hadn’t not seen each other since January. And I remembered why we’d been such good friends and I mourned the loss of that friendship in recent months. I’d forgotten how goofily sarcastic he can be sometimes (something that I’d come to expect from only JT and sometimes Rosemary) and how cool he was when he wasn’t leeching at JT like a parasite.
And then he tells me about his friends in Saratoga and his new best friend (who he’s also a little in love with) and I cry a little inside because that used to be JT’s, Aster’s, and my spot in his life. Then like so many times before I think about how much has changed and how much will never be the same. And that’s when I want to cry a lot inside.
Frisbee in the Park
Today after dark JT, Jack Dawson, and I drove to a park that had a decent view of the city lights. We leaned against the gate/fence huddled in the cold and peered down and out over San Jose.
We had spent the day like kids, the three of us, playing Frisbee on the grass after we’d climbed all over the playground and swung in the swings, running like fools to catch the ice cream man and dropping our Popsicle sticks in the trash only to spy him coming around the corner again, and then we cheering and scurrying over to shell out more cash for dollar ice cream bars. We threw poppers and made a mess on the sidewalk and giggled like buffoons when a little boy popped one scootering over it. We went to Chuck-E-Cheese’s and made funny faces in the photo booth for a quarter a pop. We went to the Togos that had been one of our oldest haunts back when we were in high school; we had spent hours in that plaza eating burgers and sandwiches, slurping down cold coffee and smoothies, playing Apples To Apples in the back of an SUV.
Picking up the Pieces of Someone Else’s Heart
This afternoon I had lunch with JT and Jack Dawson. We sat munching five dollar pizza at the Jamba Juice (of course I opted for Starbucks instead) and they told me about what had happened the past three days, the first two of which I had spent up north.
Jack Dawson’s girl friend found out about them because JT let it slip on accident. JT broke up with The Barista on the phone. The Barista cried. He texted Jack D. repeatedly because they’re friends and was ignored, repeatedly. He drove to his house to talk to him, and stood at the door, crying. Meanwhile, JT and Jack D. trapsied around town hand in hand giggling behind The Barista’s back and making eyes at each other.
How I Got My Ovaries. Or: Whoever Believed me When I Said that I’m not Pathetic Loses 5 Bucks
(Note: When I say ‘I got my ovaries’, I mean I got that part of me that makes me a stereotypical girl (and a part of me knew that was going to happen, no matter my protests). This is referring to how I said I refused to be that girl waiting by the phone for a guy to call. I know its neither a tactful or biologically correct way to put…but I was never known for my tact.)
This is a blogging style borrowed from Vix, the OEN (who is ten times more brilliant than me, although you’ll never hear me admit it…Oh, wait), who borrowed it from Bridget Jones’ Diary, apparently, which I’ve never seen
FRIDAY NIGHT, MAY 1
4:38 AM; Stumble into room, sit down by computer, type up post. Still a little numb.
But They Didn’t Have Okapis
I’m exhausted today. Utterly spent, drained, and downright sore. But it was the happiest getting there I’ve been in a while.
Rosemary and I had been planning a weekday “weekend” trip to Monterrey (a location chosen solely because the sleepy, beachy little town just seemed right for a comfortable relaxing weekend trip–it couldn’t stack up, of course, Carmel-By-The-Sea, but we didn’t feel like goin’ broke and their shops are too high end for us, besides. So for the entire week leading up to spring break we kept talking about it but didn’t really get much done in the way of planning past talking to people about it and sighing wistfully every hour over our Livy, because firstly, we were not sure of everyone’s schedules, and secondly, because it’s damn hard to plan something so big when we all live miles apart.
By Monday we decided we were overshooting and decided to just make a daytrip out of it. We chose San Francisco because of its accessibility and this morning at 8 we all met at JT’s house–Aster, Toad, Rosemary, and I—piled into JT’s little silver Prius, and we were off. (By the way, I do have slight qualms about disclosing the make and model of JT’s car, but I figure, anyone who knows us would have known who I am already from the rest of this post, the rest of my blog, they dont need me to ID JT’s car to put the puzzle together).
The End, for Reals This Time
So it’s really ending. It’s really ending. Everything. School, friends, summer, my childhood, this entire chapter of my life. Shut down, closed, locked and barred in a room that has windows for you to see into, but no door. There’s no way of going back.
And it’s funny, but I never really felt it until now. July 6, I skipped aboard an airplane to Japan, and after the “no ticket” scare, I was hustled and bustled back here on the 18th, slept home for two nights, and left for Cal the Sunday after (I got back friday). And admit everything that’s happened–Welcome week, packing and unpacking, then packing again, Berkeley, LA, Japan, I’ve never really had the time to stop and think “It’s all ending, soon”. But tomorrow are my first classes, and Prince’s leaving next next week, and he wont be home next week except maybe friday and labor day, and I might not be home next week, and I really, really wish it would all stop for a day.
I kept thinking, that if I had my laptop opened while the plane was taking off from Tokyo, I’d have written a really sappy, sad post about how I miss Japan and want to both go back and come home, and how I’m not just flying toward SJ, I’m flying toward my new life, and how I’m eighteen now, and how lonely I felt…but I kept putting it off, then putting it off. And then I didn’t have internet, and then I was too tired, and then I was out with my friends.
But I’m writing now, and I dont feel much better than I did that night I left Japan for good. I dont know why it’s all coming back to me now for goodness’ sake; I was with my friends yesterday too, and probably will never see Toad or Goody Two Shoes again…but it might have been riding in Prince’s car again, listening to his music blasting through the windows again, driving home past the school I spent 4 wonderful years at again, and taking the same route home I’ve taken every school day for the past year, and every time I was coming home from the right direction.
I know it’s natural for an eighteen year old entering college for the first time to be sad, and I know I probably dont even have it that bad. Heck, I realise that I’m lucky to live an hour from campus, close enough to come home every freakin’ day if I wanted to, and that Best Friend’s only an hour away. And at least Prince and Goody Two Shoes and Toad and everyone else are still in California. But it’s not just that. It’s that things will never, ever be the same again. We’re eighteen, you cant tell me four eighteen year olds will live a year in a completely different place, completely different lifestyle (except JT, if you want to get technical), and not change at all. It’s just plain impossible. But I dont know. Sometimes I start writing and I dont know where I’m headed, or what I wanted to say. My thoughts are just so jumbled right now.
I love it at Cal, or I do so far, and I love Telegraph, and Crossroads, and Sproul Plaza, and I’m so excited to meet new people and friends and start my classes, but at the same time I’m just so damn sad. But that’s natural, as I’ve stated. I’ll live. I cant stay here forever, and although I wish the four of uscould all be together, that would just tie me down. I have my phone, and I have my AIM, and Facebook, and planes and trains and cars and for the most part, I’m content.
And I’ll be back next weekend, and the next. And everything will work out. Eventually.
