A Hooker’s work is never done

I had to sign a form today, for repayment of an emergency loan I had to take out (ah, humility), and the date of repayment said 2007. I had to stop for a second when I wrote that down, like I knew it was correct and made perfect sense, but my brain kind of rejected it, instinctly, as it’s the first time I had actually written it down with a pen, with an intent to participate in anything Actually Happening in ‘07. Time moves so quickly. So f’ing quickly.

School is winding to a close for the term. Winding might be a poor choice of words, actually. Rapidly spiraling, in a very haphazard, hard-angled kinda fashion to this elusive Due Date for everything we’ve done all term long…that would be more accurate. Even though it’s crazy, now that I’ve been through two years, it’s starting to just feel Normal. I’m still stressed but it’s not the same crazy feeling I normally get, round about this time. There is a general internal acknowledgement that I have a Shit Load of work to do in the next ten days, but I’m not really sweating it. Maybe it’s all the sex I’m having that’s keeping me so calm. Who knows? Whatever it is, it’s nice to not feel like a lunatic right now. Maybe it’s denial. That would be very bad. But I feel on top of things, so I guess the Zen I’ve been looking for, for so many years (as the child of hippie parents) has finally started to seep in to daily living. Maybe it’s because the college accreditation board told NCSA that the scenic department could no longer graduate with 68 more credit hours than everyone else in the UNC system. I guess they didn’t cotton to undergrads graduating with enough credit hours to have earned a masters, too, with some credit hours in change left over. Point being, I have more time this year than last year. Could be that’s what being an upperclassmen here is all about; more free time to focus on the skill of your craft and less time spent doing volumes of slightly-busy work, just to learn the fundamentals. Any way I spin it, it’s good for me. Things feel more balanced.

Things are going so well with OBE that I’m starting to have that Bottom Drops Out feeling. That’s so pessimistic of me, I know. But it just keeps getting better everyday. I guess when I’m used to emotionally unavailable mostly-straight crazies, anything else makes me feel like it’s my birthday, every day. She’s just so great…so f’ing talented (talent is HOT), this undercover genius that is so humble it’s almost frustrating, and man! does she make me laugh. We spend alot of time together (too much, Maybe) and it just never gets boring or claustrophobic. We’ve been working together on her show for the past week and a half, and we’re such a Great Team, it amazes me. So fast and efficient and precise…I hesitate to commit this to words on the internet, but she’s the F’ing Girl Of My Dreams. An ubertalented designer/painter that ultimately wants to end up sailing the high seas, from job to job, on a boat she lives on…what? That’s MY dream. I just keep thinking to myself, I’ve never thought a relationship could Work before; even when I was in madly in love with Bonny, and later, Dark Roast, I always knew it would never work out in the end, I always knew. I knew from the onset that we didn’t have what it took to sustain for any real amount of time, there wasn’t enough common ground to keep us interested and happy. This feels different. This feels right. This feels (mostly) easy and comfortable and exciting and fun. This feels like the most solid start to any relationship I’ve ever had.

Speaking of Dark Roast, she called me FIFTEEN times today. Didn’t leave a message, not the once. OK, so I don’t exactly know for sure that it was her. I do know that someone called me fifteen times during crew from an unknown number (that’s one of her old tricks to get me to pick up the phone when I didn’t want to talk to her) and then one call from her, half hour later. I was getting a call every three to five minutes for about an hour. I didn’t hear any of them, luckily, or I would have bugged out. I was too busy WORKING, psycho! It’s funny…she totally closed off to me, shut down, drove me away, and once I was good and gone, over and done with it all, she starts calling again. I don’t have anything to say to her, that’s the reality of the situation. She made me feel guilty for loving her, like I was doing us both a disservice, and the second I started seeing someone else, she told me she loved me, too. I was foolish enough to fall for it once. Never again. I don’t know what she wants from me, and frankly, I don’t want to, but it feels unnecessarily cruel to me to verbalize that. I prefer to avoid the conversation completely. I don’t understand why she isn’t catching on to that very fact. You’d think that never returning a phone call once in eight months might clue somebody in…

Is it true? Is the only thing I find worthwhile to write about, women? Some days, I want to rush right out and get that old timey sailor tattoo, Man’s Ruin (except I’d change it to Woman’s Ruin, or My Ruin, or maybe just Ruination). You know the one…there’s a woman in a martini glass, and cigarettes, dice and money are somehow artfully framing the picture. If I added a jar of analine dye into the equation, I’d probably have a fairly accurate portrayal of The Things That Will Drive Me Into An Early Grave. I don’t guess the dust of floral foam would read well in a tattoo. Pity, because that’s what took a year off my life, today.

I went to Raleigh this weekend. It was nice to visit with my family, properly, not like last time when I was in a serious funk over quitting smoking. Ole Blue Eyes came to town on Saturday night, and hung out with me and The Fam. It was pretty great. It’s fair to say they adore her. It’s fair to say I do, too. I couldn’t find the words to properly express my appreciation at the fact that she was willing to go into a home that’s being changed and stressed by a cancer that is getting worse. Dad is getting sick. Sicker, I guess I should say. He wasn’t out of bed for more than two hours the whole weekend. It’s hard. It was better having her there with me. She laid in my brother’s bed with me, in the dark, after they’d all gone to sleep, and wrapped her arms and legs around me, and I could breathe again. She doesn’t know what that meant to me. I tried to tell her and the words wouldn’t come out right. I asked Eli if he was scared that Dad was so sick, and he laughed, that nervous laugh an eight year old laughs when they don’t want to tell the truth, and he said No. After a pause, he asked me if I was, and I said Sometimes. I couldn’t explain to him that it’s okay to be scared, this is a scary thing, because he doesn’t like to talk about emotions, but I hope my sharing might pave the way for a conversation sometime soon. I don’t think they want him to be scared. I dont’ want him to be clueless and naive. They win, for now. They won’t be able to pretend it’s not happening for much longer…Dad is starting to look sick, and his throat is turning a weird brown-red on the outside, from the radiation. I’m scared. I’m shaken up. I can’t sleep.

Life has been going 100 miles an hour recently, or at least that’s how it feels. And I like that. I like that I’ve been so busy doing Stuff that I haven’t been able to spend time writing here. But I do miss it, the masturbatory outpouring of Me and My Life. So here’s the shiz…

My show closed, and it was received quite well; my crew and I have been getting compliments constantly for the work we’ve done, and that feels great. It was no easy feat to perfectly blend a wardrobe into a sky scene, but we did it, and bloody hell, it looked H.O.T.

We’ve passed midterms now, and only have three short weeks until Thanksgimme break. That sentence makes me want to vomit a little bit, there is so much to do between now and then. In scene design class, we are working on a pretty Mediocre play, Bus Stop, but there’s lots of work ahead of us to complete a groundplan, section, elevations, and model box. I’m a little intimidated, as I always am when I begin work on something I don’t already know how to do, but I’m getting excited about the class, for the first time. It felt good to draft again, and remember that I am Indeed good at it. In scene painting, we are doing these cool symmetrical carvings in floral foam; mine is this leaf pattern that has a bit of a spiral to it. It should make for a good Xmas present for someone if it turns out…. My sculpture class is also pretty cool—today, we melted some copper and poured casts we made out of cuttlefish (who knew that a squids relative could be used to cast metal?)…I made a giant gold tooth. I’d like to string it on a chain and rock it like Flava Flav, but that remains to be seen.

This past weekend was pretty much a blast. I got to fulfill a life dream, and dress as a pirate, with a hot pirate wench at my side all night long, to get me drunk and make out with me. Thank god I’m still in college, or I might have been embarrassed by my actions at this party Saturday night. It was like walking into a movie version of Real Life; a giant house, packed to max. cap., with a full wet bar, a stripper pole, awesome sound and lighting, and good music that everyone was kind of swaying to, in full costume, packed in like sardines. Ole Blue Eyes and I looked smokin’ hot, if I do say so myself…she’s the pirate wench of my wildest dreams, and we behaved suitably Pirate-y all night long. That is, getting really, inappropriately drunk, making out all over the place in front of nearly everyone we know at this school, and then stumbling home, for real Stumbling, making noise and singing and being rowdy in general. It was awesome! So much fun, and most everyone that I wanted to be there, was, and it was refreshing in that I haven’t had One Of Those Nights in a long time…waking up the next morning, wondering if there was anyone I needed to apologize to. Turns out, I don’t really give a fuck if I made anyone uncomfortable…it was all a character choice. Motorboat McKnickers made her first NC appearance, what can I say?

OBE and I got up the next morning, and promptly stumbled out to my parents waiting car, which shuttled us away to a delightful brunch, Meet The Parents style. It went shockingly well; so easy, and fun, and comfortable. I wasn’t nervous in the slightest, and we had some good laughs, and my parents adored her, as I knew they would. Eli was a little chatterbox with her, which is rare and new, and a good sign, so far as I can tell. It felt so Right, it freaked me out a little bit. I’m not used to feeling perfectly at ease with my parents meeting a girl I’m seeing, but I was; it felt natural and like it was Supposed To Be.

It has certainly raised a lot of questions in my poor achin’ brain, this ease and natural-feeling quality my relationship with OBE has taken on. The two of us have the same goals and dreams in life, EXACTLY. I’ve never been in a relaitonship where we legitimately wanted the same things from life, right down to the boat instead of the house. It’s hard to keep my brain from straying into the scary territory of The Future, and how This Just Might Work. All I’m sayin’ is, I’ve never dated anyone where I’ve honestly thought that we’re similar enough to make things easy but different enough to keep things interesting. Right now, it feels closer to a Winning Combination than anything I’ve ever had the luck and good graces to find myself involved in.

I fall in love too easily. I’ll say that much. But it’s so nice, all the same. It’s a real treat to be able to share everything in life with someone; the work AND the play. We make a killer team on the paint deck, fast and accurate and fun, and we manage to keep it professional, even though it’s hard to do Just That when she looks so hot in her paint clothes. I dunno, y’all…someone I can paint with, and then go home with, to cook meals and sit in front of the fire and sleep next to…it’s a pretty rosy picture right now.

So that’s the update.

My challenge comes in the form of a long-distance boyfriend that’s in town for the weekend. It is safe to say that I am tripping a little bit. Nauseous, clammy hands, the whole nine… I suppose it’s a testament to how much I like this girl. Or perhaps it’s a testament to how much I Don’t savor the notion of sloppy seconds, especially since I’ve been getting lovey and delicious Firsts for six weeks, every day, all attention on me. I have grown quite used to this smart, sassy, HOT woman sleeping sweet on my shoulder, and now I don’t get to see her for several days because some guy from Chicago is gonna have his junk all up in her business.

Now, I have tried to be zen about this situation from the get-go. She’s never lied (that I know of…but I trust her), I knew about him before we ever got involved, and I see little point in getting super attached or hyperinvolved with someone that is going to be vacating Winston Salem in seven short months, when I am destined to spend the next nineteen months here at school. That is the logical side of my brain talking. Jump to the emotional, which is Where It’s All Happening… I really really Really like this girl. Alot. As in, It’s Suprising How Much I Like Her. We have an incredible time together, and we have nearly everything in common, which makes going out to dinner or picking movies really easy, and we’re extremely sexually compatible and everything feels so easy and right…except that I’m officially The Other Woman. Other Person, I guess I should say. I had thought that I could be okay with that, that it freed me up to see who I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. That’s all gravy in theory. However, we have this incredible connection that’s really doing it for me, and I find I don’t really want to see other people. And I’m finding that I’m not really comfortable with the fact that she does. I hate an ultimatum, and I’m not going to go there, it wouldn’t be fair or right since I knew beforehand there was a man involved, but I’m at an impasse with my thoughts. She hasn’t been particularly receptive to talking about it, even when I’ve tried to gently initiate a conversation about such things, and I suppose I’m afriad that if I voice my notion on being exclusive, she’ll walk.

The thing is, I don’t want her to walk. I don’t want a thing in the world to change about her. I mean, aside from the fact that she has a boyfriend. The question I struggle with now is, how do I work around the fact that I knowingly entered into this situation, and now want it to change for my own comfort and happiness? It seems selfish to me. I Knew. I Proceeded. I made an informed decision to spend a whole lot of time with a woman that’s not single. It doesn’t seem fair to me to ask her to make that change because now I’ve decided that I want to be with her, just us, even though that’s what seems natural to me, given the shape our relationship is taking.

Our relationship is the healthiest of any of my relationships so far, and that makes this whole situation that much more complicated. She’s a peach, batting a perfect 1000, except for this One Tiny Thing. What’s a girl to do?

What This Girl is going to do is clear out of town for the weekend, head to Asheville, and hopefully engage in some drunken bebauchery with my old friends. Nothing like staggering around drunk to help clear the head.

My show is finally finished. I have maybe one hour of touch ups left, but all in all, I am done painting/charging my first show. I am drinking a glass of cheap champagne Right Now to celebrate. It went well (mostly)…I had an awesome crew (aka my ubertalented friends) and we really rocked some scenic painting this past week. As the soft goods came in two weeks late, we had a paltry seven days to paint the show in it’s entirity, which sounded impossible to me at first, until we got the drops down and starting painting. The drops came out beautifully….one sky scene, 20′x30′, and one roll drop/show curtain, 20′x28′, with the show’s name stenciled in large letters across a black background. It looks hot. Additionally, we had to paint a smaller section of the sky drop on a 9′x10′ piece of muslin, and then wallpaper it onto a wardrobe, so that it effectively blends into the drop behind. It looks great, if I do say so myself. I’m very proud of the work that myself and my crew got accomplished in such a short time, and there was only one small foul-up, for which I was fully responsible (which is better in the Grand Scheme, otherwise I’d have been pissed!), that set us back for a hot second, and for which I freaked out for a good solid day, but it turned out just fine and all is well. HoJo, my advisor, as well as the show advisor, looked at the drops and wardrobe in the space today, and told me it all looked lovely…thank goodness. I was really sweating it, even though I could see with my own two eyes we had created a thing of beauty with the sky drop….impressing HoJo is important in life here at School. Anyway, it’s a huge relief that I successfully completed the first show of the season, my first show charging, and my crew seems to still like me, and the designer and director and advisor are all happy, and I’m proud and completely satisfied with the work we did this week. Just the One Week…that’s the most impressive part. Way to go, us.

Now I have to quit pretending that I have amnesty from working really hard in my classes due to The Show. I mean, really it was just the excuse I was feeding myself to feel better about the excessive amount of time I’ve been spending with Ole Blue Eyes. It’s been a daily thing for more than a month now, and even though we are Not calling a spade a spade, we’re Together; everyone knows it, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, it’s the truth that everyone around us sees. I like her alot, but I wasn’t really meaning to get So Involved with anyone, especially ‘anyone’ that already has a boyfriend, and happens to be graduating in seven short months. Of course, my life has to stay interesting somehow (and when I say interesting, I suppose I mean vaguely torturous and painful), but man! she’s good times. We are good times together. It’s hard to have so much fun with someone, have so much in common, enjoy each other So Very Much, and manage not to fall shamelessly in love. Cuz I don’t wanna be in love with someone that is already in love. I don’t buy the Enough Love To Go Around theory, unfortunately for myself.

It’s driving me nuts…on one hand, I’m so stoked that I’m still not smoking, six weeks later (!!!), but on the other, it’s really driving me crazy that I can’t really find it in me to write, still. It’s frustrating, this nicotine-free writers block. My lungs sure do feel good these days, and that’s all good and well. My sense of smell is Like Woah, and I enjoy that my hair doesn’t stink like cigarettes anymore, but it’s still really hard. Every day, it’s really hard. Every day, I want a cigarette worse and worse. I feel like I’m gonna cave any day now, and pretty much the only thing that’s keeping me On The Wagon is knowing that I’ve already done it for six weeks. Why not do it for one more? That’s what I keep telling myself. I’m trying to psych myself out…how crunk is that? I know that what I mean is I’m Telling Myself I can smoke in a week, when I don’t mean to smoke in a week at all, and Next Week I’ll say the very same thing all over. Does it make it less pathetic if it keeps working? I feel like such a crackhead junkie. Stupid cigarettes.

On a much happier note, the sky drop for my show is finished, and it looks absolutely fan-fucking-tastic! It’s gotten rave reviews all day long, from all the people that actually Need to like it, and compliments from all the people that I’m pleased I’ve impressed. I had an awesome crew, no doubt. It was Painting With Pals all weekend long, and even though it Was indeed a long weekend, it was fun. Now we just have to paint one more drop and a floor, and then we’re done with this show!

I’ve been having a grand ole time with OBE lately. The only problem is, We aren’t getting much sleep. I mean, not that I’m complaining. I’m just kinda always tired,except when it’s dark outside and we’re both done with work for the evening…then I get magical energy boosts and next thing I know, it’s 5 in the morning. On a school night. When we both have morning class. Tsk tsk tsk. Totally worth it.

…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.