TAPEWORM
I have plunged headlong back into the haze of heartache. I don’t fully understand why I am here and I probably never will. All that is left to do is wait it out and get to a place where I can move on.
Simon and I grew insanely close over the past couple of months. It was lovely and perfect in a very real sense; we functioned as a process and not as some picture-perfect, static destination. However, he’s officially been blowing me off for two weeks now and I figure, it’s time to put my feelings to bed. I have my suspicions as to why but ultimately I don’t actually know.
And what upsets me the most is not the loss of Simon (which sucks, believe me) but the growing cynicism inside me. I’m just growing tired of the Russian Doll effect of my dating life. I would like to be DEVASTATED, DESTROYED, RAZED by the thought of never having him in my life again but I’m not. At the core of it all, I’m just highly irritated. “Oh right, this. Again.” The death of my passion is unsettling. That he feeds into the death of my passion should enrage me but it doesn’t. “Of course he feeds into it. He’s just like all the rest you’ve ever chosen.” Granted, I don’t long for the days of gut-wrenching sobbing and stones lost because I can’t eat but I do wish I wasn’t stronger than the sum of us.
I would like to finally be building towards something and not just in a relationship that will only amount to “lessons learned.” Frankly, I resent being as invested as I am in my relationships only to have the other bow out either with cowardice or without explanation. I hate being the girl that gets fucked over. And I know there are all these games and rules you’re supposed to follow about getting “your man” but the fact of the matter is I am who I am. The games and drama don’t really work for me. If I’m angry, I act angry. If I’m happy, I act happy. I’m brutally honest about how I feel because, well, life’s complicated enough without having to sort out what the real emotions are.
But, that would appear to be counterproductive.
So, here I am. Yet again. Irritated with the Russian Doll version of my love life.
Ultimately, what unnerves me the most is I’m less and less fazed by such disappointment because I’m starting to believe I don’t actually deserve the happiness that precedes the collapse. It makes sense to me that things would fall apart because I’m not supposed to find companionship. I hate that idea but it’s starting to seep into my foundation. It’s nothing I’ve consciously taken on but over the years, it has silently curled into my gut and like the unshakable tapeworm, it doesn’t look like it’s about to leave any time soon.
Friday, June 06, 2008
DEPENDENCY
I am fully addicted to my iPod. There is no way around that fact. It is the simple truth of the matter. Granted, like the paranoid freak who really does have people out to kill him, I have very good reasons for my addiction. Well, one very good reason; I live in China.
For reasons beyond my control, I have spent the last two weeks without my iPod and I will be remedying that situation as soon as humanly possible. However, at current I am sans iPod.
Fuck, it’s brutal.
The constant invasion of China into my personal space is making me batty. Actually, it’s driven me into shut-in mode. I refuse to leave my apartment unless I have to now. What my iPod has been doing for me until now has been to provide a bubble of ignorance. The men I know who stare at me and talk about me are no longer drowned out by music of my choice that I control. I am now fully aware of their dialogue and it is the most irritating, base, chauvinist commentary about my physical self and how all foreign women fall within the stereotype applicable to me.
There are men who clearly think that I am little more than a blow up doll to be their dumpster. There are men who cut me down to impress their girlfriends. There are men who crack a multitude of jokes at my expense to impress the masses. Then there are the men who realize I speak Chinese halfway through their truly base conversation and then call me the equivalent of a “frigid bitch” because I won’t then engage in a dialogue with them. There are the women who giggle and compare themselves with my height to marvel and how big I am. There are the grandmothers who insist their grandchildren interact with the circus freak. There are the punk teenagers who try to work up the nerve to talk to me but then settle for being forced to merely rub (their genitals) by me as they pass through the tighter of the two squeezes of space on the bus or in the shop.
It is fully grating. It is fully irritating and offensive. It is everything New York purports to be but isn’t. I’ve never had to have such a thick skin in all my life. And, the truth is, I’ve never been a bigger bitch.
With my iPod, I missed the set up. I missed the dialogue explaining what was going on. Before, I was merely being jostled or pointed at. Now, I am forced to listen in painstaking detail, to why. I am forced to listen to the small minds and the prejudice and, worst of all, the lack of education. I am forced to hear grown men discuss in great detail how the “little girl” body is far more appealing than my fully developed woman’s body. What grown, heterosexual man finds breasts the sign of a ruined female body? Growing breasts is jumping the shark? Huh?
However, what I find heartening is the groups of silent people who awkwardly watch the spectacle I used to be able to blast into oblivion. Granted, those people are of no practical help and would never defend me but at least there is some semblance of what I recognize as a conscience somewhere. Two years ago, the complicit would have been what infuriated me the most but now it is the instigators who infuriate me. For some reason I have grown a soft spot for the hogtied, the silent resistance. In my old age, I have found compassion for those of us forced to live on our knees because we lack the psychotic streak that frees us and condemns us from the shackles of society. I would choose no other path but I do understand (and am jealous of their ability to conform) and can no longer fault them for their sheep-like behavior.
Fuck, I need to get my iPod situation fixed.
I am fully addicted to my iPod. There is no way around that fact. It is the simple truth of the matter. Granted, like the paranoid freak who really does have people out to kill him, I have very good reasons for my addiction. Well, one very good reason; I live in China.
For reasons beyond my control, I have spent the last two weeks without my iPod and I will be remedying that situation as soon as humanly possible. However, at current I am sans iPod.
Fuck, it’s brutal.
The constant invasion of China into my personal space is making me batty. Actually, it’s driven me into shut-in mode. I refuse to leave my apartment unless I have to now. What my iPod has been doing for me until now has been to provide a bubble of ignorance. The men I know who stare at me and talk about me are no longer drowned out by music of my choice that I control. I am now fully aware of their dialogue and it is the most irritating, base, chauvinist commentary about my physical self and how all foreign women fall within the stereotype applicable to me.
There are men who clearly think that I am little more than a blow up doll to be their dumpster. There are men who cut me down to impress their girlfriends. There are men who crack a multitude of jokes at my expense to impress the masses. Then there are the men who realize I speak Chinese halfway through their truly base conversation and then call me the equivalent of a “frigid bitch” because I won’t then engage in a dialogue with them. There are the women who giggle and compare themselves with my height to marvel and how big I am. There are the grandmothers who insist their grandchildren interact with the circus freak. There are the punk teenagers who try to work up the nerve to talk to me but then settle for being forced to merely rub (their genitals) by me as they pass through the tighter of the two squeezes of space on the bus or in the shop.
It is fully grating. It is fully irritating and offensive. It is everything New York purports to be but isn’t. I’ve never had to have such a thick skin in all my life. And, the truth is, I’ve never been a bigger bitch.
With my iPod, I missed the set up. I missed the dialogue explaining what was going on. Before, I was merely being jostled or pointed at. Now, I am forced to listen in painstaking detail, to why. I am forced to listen to the small minds and the prejudice and, worst of all, the lack of education. I am forced to hear grown men discuss in great detail how the “little girl” body is far more appealing than my fully developed woman’s body. What grown, heterosexual man finds breasts the sign of a ruined female body? Growing breasts is jumping the shark? Huh?
However, what I find heartening is the groups of silent people who awkwardly watch the spectacle I used to be able to blast into oblivion. Granted, those people are of no practical help and would never defend me but at least there is some semblance of what I recognize as a conscience somewhere. Two years ago, the complicit would have been what infuriated me the most but now it is the instigators who infuriate me. For some reason I have grown a soft spot for the hogtied, the silent resistance. In my old age, I have found compassion for those of us forced to live on our knees because we lack the psychotic streak that frees us and condemns us from the shackles of society. I would choose no other path but I do understand (and am jealous of their ability to conform) and can no longer fault them for their sheep-like behavior.
Fuck, I need to get my iPod situation fixed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
