A Hooker’s work is never done

…comes mostly in the form of a big pair of neptunian blue eyes, but is also an unfortunate side effect (symptom?) of my quitting smoking. It’s been more than a month now, and although it’s something I feel good about every day, if I tried to pretend it hasn’t somehow intrinsically changed me, I’d be lying. I am still mourning the loss of my favorite vice, and there is still an empty hole in my routine of manymany years, and I haven’t quite, one hundred percent, acclimated to Life Without Cigarettes. What a fantastic prop, and procrastination tool, and built-in break, and conversation starter, or social barrier. These are all things I valued in a cigarette. These are all things gum Just Can’t Do.

The point of this whole story is that when I write, I smoke. Or I used to. It’s a pattern of behavior I picked up from my mother, and boy! did it help those words flow out of me, that constant mental stimulation that nicotine so beautifully delivered. It’s hard to write these days for that reason, aside from the fact that I am trying to have a Real Life, and not just write about my desire to have said life. I can’t give up my habit of Writing For Release, but it’s really tricky, this Non Smoking Thang…my hands twitch a little at the keyboard because there’s nothing to reach for when I get stuck.

I went on a shopping spree today. I have severe Buyers Remorse. I bought myself an iPod with a color video screen. In addition to the new kicks (there’s velcro on my shoes again! hooray!). And the three new shirts. And some socks. And some other stuff. I go crazy for a week when loan checks are disbursed, then it’s back to LBC aka Low Budget Crew, a not-so-subtle shout out to the status of students everywhere. Now if I could just quit eating out and buying drinks in bars, I’d maybe be on the path to fiscal responsibility. Psh.

Well, friends and neighbors, it’s official; a saucy blonde in a mini skirt and high heels (and an intriguing mind and great sense of humor, of course) is The Hottest Thing I’ve Ever Seen. Old Blue Eyes makes me dizzy with desire, and I absolutely adore that we can have good conversation and good laughs, when we’re not Not Talking. She’s passed the Friend Test with flying colors; that’s strangely unusual in my world. This all feels good and right and easy and hot. As the school is tiny and people love their gossip, we’ve been discovered already, and, as she and I hypothesized this weekend, it became the juiciest, fastest moving piece of gossip since the school year began. At first, I thought I’d hate that, but now I realize I don’t really give a shit. I like this woman. So what if people know that?

And to tell you the honest truth, I don’t Hate It that people are talking about me (us). It’s like Grandma said, “It doesn’t matter what they say about you, sugar…just so long as they’re talking about you”. In a business like this one, that’s an important truth. My life is different from my business, but the two overlap on occasion. Or, every day, if you’re in the habit of Shitting Where You Eat.

I prefer not to look at it all as Shitting, though, and more as Enjoying What Life Throws At Me. Sometimes curve balls can be sweet.

So, like the good lesbian that I am, I’ve spent the last two weeks, every day, with Ole Blue Eyes, and it is fair to say that I am Totally Into Her. We have some classes together, and that is perhaps problematic, in that I can’t concentrate to save my f’ing life when she’s within five feet of me…Some might say the real problem lies in the fact that I am officially Shitting Where I Eat, but I like her, I like her alot, and oh well, she happens to be a coworker… She is also alot of other things that are much more important and attractive. We have a really great time together, so I’m just gonna ride the tide and see where it takes me, and if something happens and life on the paint deck gets awkward, then so be it, because I’d rather have a go and see what happens between us, than be left wondering due to inaction.

In other news, K-Pizz is having a Fry Party this weekend. I can hear my arteries hardening in preparation. After stuffing ourselves with fried food, we are going to go out dancing at The Gay Club. I’m so excited…I can hardly wait. We have to go to Greensboro to go to a Real Club, so it doesn’t happen very often that we go out dancing, proper. It’s just what the doctor ordered, I think.

I mean, aside from the fact that OBE has promised she’ll be in four inch heels and a tube top…God help me, the femmes will be the death of me!!

Finally, rain has quenched the long, dry season of this summer and early fall, and I, at long last, feel like I can think clear-headed again. I knew that it wouldn’t be long once Ole Blue Eyes and I were in the same city again that something would transpire.

I don’t want to jinx myself, or let the cat out of the bag (it’s fun having a private life stay private…who knew? in this little fishbowl community), but I will say this: she’s not straight, we have so much in common I don’t even know where to start, and we have a LOT of fun together. Oh, and in addition to being eerily intelligent and very talented, she’s also h.o.t. Like, for reals. Like, for real? The trick now is not getting carried away…

I’m on 20 days No Smoking now, and I feel great! about it…I’m proud and pleasantly surprised to have gone this long, Cold Turkey, and I feel totally in control of the cravings and as much as I want a cigarette eighty six times a day, I think I’d be entirely too disappointed in myself to enjoy it if I did light one up.

I had a great day today…I woke up at 8 a.m., Ready To Go, so of course, I laid in bed until that feeling passed and slept in late, which was awesome. Finally, I got up, went and picked up OBE, scooped GoodGuy and headed to a truly delightful garden party. After watching several rounds of bocce, and gliding on an old metal glider under a beautiful tree, we departed, went and got some greasy old Cook Out and reconvened with Main Gay and Bam Bam for a couple of hours of tomfoolery in the parlor…which just so happened to involve a rousing game of Twister between Main Gay and OBE. The pictures are glorious. Then off to Wal Mart for some supplies (my hands didn’t swell like they always do! that’s good!) for this scene design homework assignment (performance art, tomorrow, 10 a.m. sharp!). After shopping and laughing at the Wal Mart Scene for a minute, we went and picked up K-Pizz, and headed off to see Little Miss Sunshine. That movie is so f’ing good, I’ll have to dedicate another post entirely to discussion of This Brilliant Film. It’s just…so perfect somehow. Me, OBE, K-Pizz and GoodGuy all enjoyed it (enjoyed it again, for half of us). Then it was midnight, and oops I’d spent all day hanging out with my friends, having a great time, instead of stressing out about this Performance Art piece I have to do tomorrow morning. It was actually quite awesome. The time frame got blown way out of proportion (I was Not intending on spending more than an hour or two socializing) but that feels okay right now…It was just too much fun.

I have really great friends. I just wanted to put that out there for The Record, once again. I have Really. Great. Friends. All of them, all over the place, they’re Truly Quality. And decidedly more attractive than average, too.

It’s quite good, this Lebanese breakfast I’m eating. Hommus is like a protein punch to the gut. And it gives me such good breath for talking in class…

I just had the strangest dream: I was in some house, then on a bus, then in a car, then back in the house, then on a subway car, trying to get away from this crazy woman, and she and I essentially took turns breaking wine bottles on each others heads, trying to knock each other out. Then, she delivered me to class, picked me up when it was over, and we started over with the wine glasses.

I can’t understand what this could possibly mean. My subconscious is weird!

First day of classes went well…Ole Blue Eyes is in my lab class on Thursdays…it’s gonna be distracting. It sure was yesterday…I’m gonna need to get someone else’s notes from the lecture to fill in the gaps, which occured when she’d lean so I could see straight down her shirt. I’m such a lecherous old man. he he he

Beyonce’s new song “Freakum Dress” is a HOT track. Check that shit out, yo.

School starts today! I’m so stoked… I have Scene Painting 2 this afternoon, which f’ing rocks…2 and 3 are paired up into one class, which means I will finally get to have a painting class with all the seniors that I adore…hallejulah! I can’t wait to get to work on this first project. Here we go Again…

Yesterday, we had the All School Meeting, which is one of two times each year that all of D&P will be together in one room. There have been alot of changes since the accreditation institute people came in, and told us that we aren’t allowed to work as hard as we do (never mind the skill set the reputation demands…) and as such, none of the upperclassmen have very many classes anymore…it blows. So we had to talk about that, and the fact that Martha Ruskai, Wig and Makeup Dept head, is taking a sabbatical…there was a big cheer for that annoucement…and then myself and the four other board members of the USITT student chapter had to get up on stage and talk about what we’re doing for the year. I was nervous…I haven’t been on stage in a long, looooong time, but it was fine, of course. I forget that I like to perform, too. Or, maybe I should say, I forget that I like it when people applaud for me. Ridiculous, I know, but it’s true. I liked the fact that I got the loudest round of applause of all the people on stage…it was a nice ego boost, I won’t lie.

I hung out with Ole Blue Eyes yesterday. Katy was kind enough to accompany me on the evening excursions…I need a buffer right now, til we settle into the comfort zone again. There’s that post-hook up, three months later awkwardness. It’s disappearing rapidly, as I knew it would… She’s just as hot as she was last time I saw her….hopefully, hot enough to rid me of this awful crush I have on Labneh. Labneh and I are still talking often, which is wonderful and terrible all at once. I miss her like it’s my job. She often calls me to ask why we don’t live in the same city, and it breaks my f’ing heart that I’ve done this to myself again, and that I wish the same thing…only to have her in my daily life again, except this time with sexy pillow fights and makeout parties. I fear the worst with this one…this foolish infatuation could continue indefinetly. Unless, of course, Ole Blue Eyes shows up at my house at 4 am in a tube top and makes me forget. Delish.

Wellll, I have to go to my first class as a junior now…Damn, time moves quickly. Junior? What? How did this happen?

It arrived just in time for my Britney Spears Dance Party (that’s right…laugh all you want…it’s true) that me and Stevie T. have been planning for a solid month now. It’s like I’m psychic or something….woah, dude.

Dance Party was a success in my book; there was a good turn out…critical mass was probably twenty or twenty five people, which is my favorite size party. And everyone seemed to enjoy themselves…we got down in my dining room dance floor. It was good to see everyone again; we’ve all got this Here We Go Again feeling, but it’s exciting.

Shit. That champagne went straight ot my head. I can’t remember the point of this post. I feel like I should live in a trailer, what with all the $5 champagne I’ve enjoyed of late. I’ll tell ya one thing, though: that Andre is really pretty decent for the price and man! does it pack a punch.

In the small bit of paper I read tonight at my folks house, waiting for them to get home, I saw the announcement that Bush is going to make a speech on Sept. 11th about the five year anniversary and how Life After has been such a valiant struggle to rebuild and move on and all that jazz.  All the TV news and print journalists are going on and on about how we’ve all been affected, and how we are still dealing with the ramifications of that day, in all of our daily lives.  This, I agree with, but I don’t hear them telling it like I feel it.  So here it is, then. 

In the five years since September 11th, 2001, I have lost hope in my own government.  My love for this great country has never wavered, nay, it has grown stronger with the continued abuse and misuse that this administration and Political Machine perpetuates every single day.  However, I can’t watch the news because I believe it is all lies, and I don’t want to participate in the Govern By Fear-mongering Propaganda that was swept this nation by storm.  I am uninformed not because I am irresponsible and ignorant, but because it is the only way I can live happily.  Selfish, perhaps, but it’s true; I would lose my mind if I read the paper every day, and knew the details of the death, deceit, treachery, trickery, and blatant disregard for the health of our planet and our race that this imperialistic oligarchy, with GW Bush as Figurehead, have wrought on us all.  I am terrified by the religion creeping, not so subtly, into the laws, and I’m terrified by the constant survelliance, and I’m horrified with what a small step it would be straight into an Orwellian Hell.  I don’t trust authority, I don’t believe anyone in Washington has my best interest in mind, I have become only more paranoid, more apt to believe wholly in the crack-pot conspiracy theories I catch on AM radio sometimes.  I believe the government of this country cares not if any of us live or die, there is only Oil and Money and Power and God, and I’m scared to admit here on Friendster (but I’m gonna) that sometimes I have thoughts that border on sympathetic so far as the terrorists are concerned.  I think Israel is simply a client state doing USA’s bidding in the Middle East, and I think it’s a travesty and a great stain of shame what’s happened to Lebanon recently.  I have no love for Israel anymore (don’t get me wrong…I sympathize with the plight of the Jews, but the IDF are cogs in a bigger wheel that turns with an American crank and I can’t abide by That) and I don’t understand why they get this country’s support, carte blanche. 

I’m scared, and that’s exactly what They want, five years later.  Mission accomplished.  I have no faith, no hope, no trust, no sense of security, no sense of involvement, no patriotism, and goddammit, they’ve beaten the Idealist out of me.  I do believe I classify as an embittered realist, knowing for the first time, recently, that there is no Climbing This Slope, it’s all downhill from here, ladies and gentleman, fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride!

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery. 

Ignorance is Strength. 

George Orwell’s futuristic vision has come home to roost, I’m afraid. 

There are only six short days before classes begin again. Time moves so quickly. I cannot believe that I’m a junior already. Over the hump. I hesitate to say it’s a downhill slide from here, but really it Kind Of is.

I should be in Raleigh right now. I told my dad I would be, and I’m not. I feel vaguely guilty about this, but truthfully, I didn’t feel like getting up early to drive to Raleigh to go harvest bamboo with him and twenty of his students. He has enough hands for this job. The last time I touched one of those saws, I opened my finger up Real Good, and I don’t want to do that again, right before school starts. Essentially, I am being a selfish daughter, and that’s how it is. I am struggling with how my dad wants all this support, and wants me to be there because he has Cancer, when in fact, I feel little obligation to Be There For Him, as he has successfully evaded Being There For Me, for much of my life. His work has Always come first, and that is what it is, but I am feeling a bit of anger at his expecting me to drop what I’m doing to come spend time with him because he needs the support right now. Spiteful and bitter much? That’s what I find myself wondering every day in regards to this situation, and the answer is, apparently, Yes. That makes me feel bad, knowing that, but there it is.

I am nine days Smoke Free, and I don’t feel crazy anymore. My sense of smell has definetly come back with a vengence; I never Truly believed what I always heard about killing the sense of smell/taste with cigarettes, but they weren’t lyin’. If I can only stop eating most everything that I see, that’d be swell. Actually, the power-eating has slowed considerably; I gave myself one week to eat whatever my nicotine-deprived brain told me I ought to eat in order to feel better, and then that was it. Yesterday was the first day that wasn’t a Feeding Frenzy, and it was a bit of a relief to have restraints for the voices in my head, yelling at me to put something in my mouth. I am loving gum, lemme tell ya. I am almost loving the fact that I don’t have to spend money every day, and that, for the first time in a long long loooonnng time, I feel like I have will power. Will power is something that has always been in short supply in my life, so this exercising of said will power is liberating somehow.

But man, do I want a cigarette.

I wonder if the old adage about, Once a smoker Always a smoker, is true. I have a sinking feeling that I might always want a cigarette, and that the question is not whether I have quit, but whether I have stopped for the time being.

I should be driving to Raleigh Right. This. Second. I am beginning to feel guilty that I am not in my car, travelling towards my parents home, towards my sullen little brother that prefers computers to people (already!), towards all kinds of questions about this summer, my mood, the upcoming school year, towards the inevitable conversations about dad’s Cancer and his treatments and the role I’m bound to play…when really, I’d rather stay here in this room, and sleep as much as I can, because I know sleep will be in short supply very soon, and it has been quite nice to shut the door and just Be With My Bed this last week. I’ve done lots of reading, lots of playing on the computer, lots of staring at the ceiling and thinking, and I don’t really want to give up my last three days of that to go Deal With Things in Raleigh. Sometimes, I really think I’m a bad daughter; so selfish and ungrateful. They only want to spend time with me, and all I can think of is how bad I want to spend time by myself. They are trying to be understanding of the fact that I had not a drop of Alone Time this entire summer, but they are still pushing for my involvement in things that do not interest me. See how selfish?

Some days, I feel like I have spent a lifetime worrying about what other people want or need from me, and fuck that! not anymore. I am coming to see that some level of selfishness is an absolute necessity for taking good care of one’s self. What am I even talking about? I’m stalling on driving, plain and simple. I’m gonna suck it up and do it.

I’m pissed that I didn’t get to Asheville this week, is another thing. Stupid money problems. Stupid 50 dollars in tolls down the Eastern Seaboard. Stupid $300 in gas, one way. Stupid simple car repairs, and library fines, and parking tickets, and new ID cards. They all take my money away. Asheville will have to wait until I get my loan check, approximately two weekends after school has begun. I can’t wait.

We have internet back at our house! Seriously, this past week and a half has finally, fully brought it home to me how I am Unable to Live Properly without being wired. It’s kinda scary, kinda inevitable.

So, in the past week and a half, I have:

Visited my grandmother in Whiteville. She seems to be doing fantastically, eating some solid foods, her sense of taste is returning slowly and she was in good spirits. It made my heart feel better to see her looking so good.

Hung out for a brief time with my Dad, stepmother and little brother. However, due to the fact that I Finally Quit Smoking, I was a basketcase and had to leave Raleigh prematurely, before we’d really had time to properly visit. I go back tomorrow to help my dad with his outdoor installation at the art museum.

The aforementioned Quitting Smoking is really what’s occupied my time recently. I am finally past the stage where every waking thought has to be Not To Smoke. While I’ve never been on heroin, I have to say that I can imagine now that those stats about cigarettes and heroin being equally hard to kick, are True. It’s rare that I’ve felt so utterly insane, completely uncomfortable, and seriously unhappy. I suppose that a pack a day habit for 13 years will do that to a person. I am coming out of the haze, however, and I have been smoke-free for eight days (that doesnt’ sound like much…but 13 years!) and my mood is finally lightening. I think all of my friends here in Winston will be glad to hear that…I left the confines of my family to come and be miserable around my friends, kind and understanding as they are.

I’m so glad that Wack-A-Doo Vincent finally got the axe from Project Runway…his busted, janked up designs have been glued together and thrown on for the entire season; I’m glad we’re to the point in the game where it’s about talent instead of good TV. Laura needs to untie her shirt and stop showing off her barely-pregnant belly…that is Not Okay. Also, she needs to break outta her Fashion Rut and design just one thing that doesn’t already live in her wardrobe. Kayne made a beautiful couture dress, thankfully…it totally saved his ass. He’ll be going in an episode or two, I’m thinkin’…he’s got the construction skillz, no doubt, but he really does “have that Vegas persuasion” that kinda overpowers everything else. Too much glitz and gems Can be a bad thing. Who knew? I’ve got my money on Michael, Uli, and Jeffrey for the Final Three; Michael for the win. That Michael (shakes head), his work is damn near flawless. I heart him. Uli needs to stop making hippie dresses and she’ll be fine. Jeffrey is a cock sucker and I don’t like his work (yellow cotton plaid couture? I don’t think he deserved to win this weeks challenge) but he’ll go to Fashion Week for the neck tattoo, alone.

In other news, I am still pining away for old Labneh. My Summer of Idiocy has transcended seasons now, and I can’t help myself from wanting this straight girl in Texas that keeps calling ‘just to hear my voice’. I miss her so badly, it’s just outlandish. Why is it that I can find everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I’ve ever found attractive in a singular straight woman, and there’s hardly a lesbian in my daily life these days? I’m beginning to think maybe I enjoy lusting after Unattainable Women.

Fuck that.