Posts Tagged ‘Prince’
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.)
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.
Courting Prince
(This post also about The Barista and JT. It’s pretty messy)
Today I did something that I’d been meaning to do for the longest time now: I reached out to Prince.
It’s long overdue. I’ve been moaning forever about how I missed him and missed hanging out with him and about how I’m sorry it had to “end” the way it did. So coming back from my daily Starbucks run this afternoon I pulled out my cell and snapped a blurry picture of the top half of a car and sent it to him along with the words, “What car is this? I’m off of classes, hang out with me please?”
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.
Godspeed the Summer
No matter how you look at it, Summer is coming. If you want to be scientific about it, June 20 or 21. If you want to use my primitive method, June 1 (Fall starts when September does, Winter at November, Spring at March…which means poor Fall gets only two months to itself. I knew my method was flawed). Either way, the days are growing longer, the pollen is in the air (They’re not dangerous, immune system, damnit), and it’s (almost) not too cold anymore to leave the house in just a T-shirt. Sure, there’s still that goddamned rainy season that stretches through April and never f–ing ends, and there’s still papers to write and readings to do and finals to take, but by god it feels like Summer already.
Except that none of us have spoken to Prince in months, and for all we know he’s become first flute in an orchestra or quarterback for the Denver Broncos. No matter how I might want to slap him with all the high-school-bitch I know is in me, it can no longer be summer without him. And damnit, part of me still hates to admit that I miss him, I miss him, and I’m sorry for whatever my evil twin did to him to drive him away. It’s fine to shake myself off and say “good riddance” and be glad to no longer have to deal with that tomfoolery he put us through, but it’s another thing all together when you turn around, five months later, and you realise you haven’t spoken to someone you once thought of as one of your best friends. And no matter how much I may hate him, I miss him. Especially when all the signs are pointing to Summer, the past two of which he was such a big part of.
So I guess this year we make our own summer. And by god, I hope we make it right, make memories, and dont make any more hatred. But really, really…part of me still just wants to go back to the way it was. Those were some of the best days in the world, and now they’re no more. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the best is yet to come.
Morning Sadness
Somehow this entry got lost. I woke up, I sat here and wrote it as an email draft like I do, and I never posted it. So here it is. I think this was written A week ago: Jan 21-09.
In the dregs of the early morning I wake up, sad. I lay there, wishing that I didn’t have to get up, wishing that I didn’t have to continue getting up this early every day for a semester, wishing that somehow life could be different, wishing that someday, things will be the same.
But I dont Want to be the Bigger Person
Not to get all poetic here, because god knows sometimes I can’t stand poetry, but life pitches balls at you. Sometimes they’re slow and easy to figure out, sometimes they’re hard and fast, sometimes they’re low, sometimes they’re high, and sometimes it’s a curveball. You can choose to hit them or to not hit them, and then you can choose how hard you want to hit them, and where you want to hit them, and sometimes it’s not an easy choice.
Abandoning the metaphor here, because I think I’ve drawn it out longer than made sense. The point is, there are choices, and sometimes it’s clear which is the right decision.
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.
