1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 9
Posted by: lucie
Day 6
It's the beginning of another long and exhausting Rehab day. I just want to scream at the staff and run away.
Speaking of screaming, one of the first things I heard this morning was one of the new women howling about Xanax. She was hooked on Valium and Xanax and for some reason they have let her out of detox when she is obviously not detoxed. She was out on the porch with the morning smokers literally wailing 'Whyyyyyy? Whyyyyyyyy? Why would they give me those pills, whyyyyy?' because she is going through serious withdrawal, I guess. I felt bad for her but hearing her go 'whyyyyyyy' like that made me feel like I was going to go crazy. I am cracking.
My one little reprieve for the day is that the lecture at 9:00 is going to be on health and nutrition - not addictive disease again - but I still don't want to sit through it. It's hard to listen to anything anymore.
This guy Dale was here for an assessment and he's leaving today - but not because they're letting him. Teri is leaving too - also without permission. Darin and Tom are gone, Wanda and Diane get to go this week, and I'm stuck here. I can't stay. I am thinking about leaving today.
I got a new roommate because the old one left on my first day. The new woman just had a baby and is addicted to cocaine. She was doing coke while she was pregnant. They did a blood test on the baby and it came up positive for coke addiction or something. She feels pretty guilty. Well, she should. What are you supposed to say to someone like that? I can't stay here in this room with her, in this place. I just can't.
--
I've just been to talk to my 'case worker' and I think I understand the whole story now. During the assessment period, all the psychologists and pyschiatrists and social workers and nurse practitioners assess you and come to their own conclusions about you. Then they have a big meeting where they all come to some kind of decision about how to handle your 'case.' My meeting happened yesterday. My case worker has been avoiding me but I trapped her in her office today and demanded answers.
They decided to send me back and let me go to outpatient rehab, but my parents said no. Well, I freaked out. I gave her this crazy passionate speech about how yesterday they had my best interests in mind but only until they talked to my parents, and then they started thinking about what would make my parents happy, and what it all comes down to is that they're paying so they have power. Money = power. They wave their checkbooks and the Rehab staff falls to its knees. It's not right and they have to know it's not right. My parents might feel better sending me away somewhere, but that doesn't make it the best thing for me.
So they have decided to advise my parents that I can be shipped off to this month-long program in fucking Minnesota. I can't do it. I can't. I can't handle it. I don't need to go and I'm not going to go.
I freaked out at Diana and started yelling that if they really wanted to help me they should have been firm with my parents and said that I should be in an outpatient program. I said I'd warned them that I wouldn't go for an inpatient thing and I meant it. I said we could have worked something out, I would have taken drug tests, I would have done some kind of counselling thing and gone to NA meetings - but no month-long inpatient lockup. So I'm leaving. I said I was leaving and I am.
Then she got all tough love on me, or maybe I just pissed her off, because she started yelling at me that I am bulemic and I'm a drug addict and if I leave now I'm going to die of an overdose. She said I would stay clean for a couple of months just to prove myself right and then I would turn into a druggie and eventually kill myself with drugs. Well, at least I won't go insane at 18. I'll take my goddamn chances.
I just called a friend to come and pick me up. I'm in my room and I'm about to pack my bags and I don't know why, but I feel really calm. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get out of here but I have to get out or I'll lose my mind. I'm sick of being pushed around by the staff, and by my parents. I'm standing up for myself. I don't need to go to some place in Minnesota for a month and I'm not going to go. I'll get a job and an apartment and live on my own.
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 8
Posted by: lucie
Day five
Okay, they're not going to let me out of here. They just aren't. I'm not getting out after the assessment. I have started to drop hints that if they don't let me out after the assessment and negotiate some kind of outpatient program, I will take off. I don't think they are taking me seriously.
Dr S apparently thinks I have just barely 'crossed the line into loss of control.' I get the impression, talking to different people, that the staff is sort of unsure what they need to do with me. They're not sure if I'm really an addict or not, so they're learning toward keeping me here. I really hope they don't.
They'd just end up sending me home. "We're not into compliance here," Doug told me this morning. "If we think you're not believing what you're saying or you're just trying to make us happy, we'll ask you to leave." Well, that's after they've got my parents' money, I guess, but oh well. They certainly aren't going to listen to anyone besides the staff here. Certainly not me.
We've just 'gonged out' Darin and Tom. There's a whole cheesey goodbye ceremony where people sign the leaving person's 'big book' (the AA/NA book) and then everyone gathers on the porch - where the smokers normally chain smoke, because apparently tobacco addiction is acceptable - and bangs this big gong as they walk away. I don't know what I am supposed to write in their books. I wrote something in Darin's about how he made me smile by bouncing around and being energetic. I may as well have written 'you're cute. I had a crush on you.' Maybe it'll be an ego booster for him.
Anyway, speaking of leaving, I've been interrogating all the staff because obviously it's day 5 of my 4-6 day assessment and I know they must be figuring out what to do with me. It seems like they've decided I would be okay to go back to my new home and be in some kind of outpatient program, take drug tests and stuff. But I don't get to go. Why? Because my parents say no way. So now they are talking about sending me to some treatment center in Montana or something, with people my age. What kind of shit is that?
I'm so frustrated. I'm so tired of AA meetings and lectures and groups that don't apply to me. I can't decide whether I want to kick the walls or pull the covers over my head and cry. This place is driving me crazy.
I got a card today from my mom. Part of it said, "As painful as this might be for you, I'm hoping that you are beginning to understand why I was afraid not to read part of your journal. You are too important to our family to lose you."
I don't know whether this pisses me off or just plain exhausts me. I'm going to bed because I've had just about enough of this place for the day and don't want to deal with my own brain anymore. I'm really falling apart. I can't handle being here. Tomorrow I'm getting answers. If they're not sending me to some outpatient program, if they want me to stay a month here or anywhere else, I am leaving.
I don't care if I have to work my way up through McDonald's. I don't care if I don't get to go back to college, and hell, it doesn't look like I am anyway. I just don't care.
Angela Carter
Posted by: lucie
"So we did not quite fit in, thank goodness; alienated is the only way to be, after all."
- Angela Carter
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 7
Posted by: lucie
Day four, pt 2
Kristine, the only woman on the staff I really can't handle (power trip), has busted me for hanging out in the weight room listening to the radio. She said I wasn't allowed to just listen to music - I had to be exercising. It's so annoying to deal with some of the rules here. I can exercise and listen to music, but I can't write and listen to music. Where's the distinction?
If I have to exercise to listen to the radio, fine. I'll ride the stupid bike. But if the point was to try to get me to concentrate less on the music and more on the exercise, they've got to be kidding.
Here's another piece of paranoia: People are warning Pat and me that we're spending too much time together, like we're going to get in trouble for it. Well what do you expect? We're 18 and 19 and the next youngest person is 27! Of COURSE we're going to talk a lot! But now we have to worry about being seen talking too much, even if we're on separate sides of the couch or porch or whatever. What a stupid thing to have to worry about, especially when I'm not even remotely attracted to Pat. I like talking to him because he's my age. I also talk to Keith a lot, but no one cares about that, eh?
Speaking of Keith, he gets to leave probably by Friday. They told him he was going to be in the extended program and made him agree to stay here another 60 days, fill out all the paperwork and pay and everything, just to see if he'd agree. I think that's way fucked up. Because they obviously just want to see if he'll comply, but if he's ready to leave, why do they test him by saying he has to stay another 2 months? Wonder if he agrees with them that he's ready to leave? He's wrong? Then they make him stay? It's messed up. It's worse than messed up - it's actually really insane. You can't win. It's scary.
I don't like how they lie here. I don't like how, when I asked Kristine RATCHED what the MMPI was for she said oh, it's just to make sure you don't belong in a mental hospital, and I had to get another patient to explain to me what it really was. It's obvious she doesn't care enough to tell me the truth, or she doesn't want to take the time. She doesn't take me seriously.
When she told me to leave the weight room she just said the point of the weight room wasn't to hang out and listen to music, and she mentioned some half-ass excuse about 'triggers.' Why is it automatically a negative thing to let me listen to music? Just because I really want to? I grew up with 10 years of piano lessons, always being in choir, always having the radio or tape player or cd player or turntable going, spending all my money on CDs. Why, all the sudden, is it so good for me to have that taken away? I'm a music addict now?
Fuck this place. Every time I start to think I can endure it, it pisses me off to no end. There's no way I'm going to be able to stay a month and go along with the whole act and cry at the right times and whatever else you have to do to get out of here.
One of the shrinks was taunting me today, saying if I hated it so much I should just leave. I said I had no job, no home, no money, and I am pretty much under my parents' control. He said so, why don't you just go get a job and live on your own if you hate it so much?
He was only saying it to break me - like he was expecting me to give up and cry. But I'm actually thinking about it now. If they don't release me after the assessment I'm going to pack my bags, call a friend to pick me up and walk out.
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 6
Posted by: lucie
Day 4, pt 1
Something weird is going on. I got a huge wave of nausea during morning meditation. Like really badly for no reason. I almost got up and left but I didn't want anyone to know I was sick - I was afraid they'd call it withdrawal or something, even though I haven't touched any drugs in weeks. And I've now thrown up bile three times in the last half hour. I feel like I have to pretend I'm okay or I'll get into trouble for being sick.
It is 'family week' and Darin has his 'family confrontation' today in the group session, but I don't think I get to go. I have to go to 'beginner group' again. There's also another lecture today about how addiction is a disease - same old thing, except this time there will be family members present. Not mine, just the ones here for family week.
Four new people checked in, rumor has it - they're still in detox. I wonder if any of them will be young. Here's hoping.
I'm getting more and more frustrated with this place with every passing hour, but I made an important discovery today: there's a radio in the weight room. I think it might help keep me sane. Music, thank god. I haven't had music for three days - I'd listen to just about anything, and I'm here listening to top 40 crap as I write.
Darin just baseball batted my open door and said '5 minutes' without even really looking at me. This is how they let us know that we have meetings to go to: one of the 'senior' residents comes around with a plastic baseball bat and hits your door. Isn't that just a little bit dumb?
--
8:30pm: I spent the whole day getting sick today. I must have thrown up 12 times. Lay in bed, get sick, lay in bed, go get sick, over and over, sweating. I laid on the bathroom floor for a while because I was too tired to get back to my bed.
I feel like if I ever had any chance of leaving it's been totally ruined because I puked all day and I look toxic.
I had another assessment today - Dr B this time - and I was too tired to give good answers. He asked if I thought I'd continue using ecstasy when I got out and I said to be honest, yeah, I probably will once in a while. Then I excused myself to go puke. Twice. He asked me if I was bulemic. Yeah, I'm bulemic but really stupid so I'm excusing myself from sessions with a shrink to puke, and then I'm coming back to tell him I just puked. God.
Then I puked all day. I missed every session and lecture I was supposed to go to because I was laying in bed sweating, and no one ever came to check on me. I think they think I was rebelling and they were just ignoring it. Good thing I'm not dying over here or anything.
I had a weird dream last night that I was in a parking lot outside of a rave and I was talking to Pineapple (I can't believe I never knew her real name), laughing and telling her that my parents put me in rehab. And she told me to stay and quit partying and be happy I had the chance because she was too far into it to ever stop and she thought it sucked. Whatever. If I told her I was here she'd say "Duuuuude, that sucks, dude, I'm sorry. Whooooaaaaah."
I'm getting freaked out. Like, I'm starting to second guess myself - what if I am a drug addict? I don't think I am, and I should know, right? But all day everyone tries to tell me that I am, and I don't know how much longer I can deal with it, because I feel like I'm going to go crazy. And why did I puke all day? This place is fucking my head up. I need to get out soon. I really do, or I'm going to lose it.
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 5
Posted by: lucie
day 3, pt 2
All the "residents" keep trying to pretend they understand how I feel and it's driving me crazy. They all think I'm in denial and they've been there. "Don't worry, it gets much easier. It's really hard for a while, but this is a nice place," blah blah blah.
I feel like I'm stuck here forever. Every once in a while I start to get used to the idea, but then I have a meeting or group or lecture or something and I just cannot relate. Today in group they gave us a sheet to fill out. We were supposed to write down examples of losing control- like what your intentions were and what actually happened and what the negative consequences were to you and other people. I don't want to try and come up with examples. I just want to get the hell out of here.
I tried to call Jeremy today but ended up talking to his roommate instead - he laughed his ass off when I told him I was here and then apologized. It was kind of refreshing to speak to someone who doesn't think I'm a drug addict.
Also talked to B. My dad called her parents. They told her she could go ahead and do drugs if she wanted, but that she had to do them at home and they wouldn't pay for her education. She's pissed. I don't blame her; I'd be pissed as hell if this happened to me because of one of my friends.
I've made 5 phone calls now when I'm only allowed one for the entire week - I just sneak down to the phones when no one is around. If they catch you doing that they give you another 7 days of 'blackout.' There are a million other people I want to call, but I don't have their numbers. A lot of them must be wondering where I disappeared to.
I miss people's faces. I miss watching Matt dance. I miss so many things more than I could ever miss pills or acid or any drug shit. And that's completely honest.
Tonight at dinner Darin said he was just like me when he was 18 - experimenting with drugs, and no one could have convinced him he needed to be here either... but he said it in a sympathetic way. Instead of the usual "No - you belong here, no, you belong here" or "I wish someone would have brought me here when I was 18."
Everyone here knows they're an addict, and I'm supposed to break down and admit that I'm one too, and that's what everyone is trying to get me to do. But he took a second to actually understand where I was coming from instead of being so sure that he knew what I should be thinking and saying it aloud when I'd heard it over and over already. I really appreciated that, even though he probably thinks I belong here just as much as everyone else seems to.
The people here are really nice; they're friendly and supportive. I think they're kind of trying to understand how I might feel, but they're trying harder to change my feelings than understand the ones I have right now. And I'd really like it if more people would be like Darin and say "hmmm" more often and actually hear anything I said.
I can't believe it's only Tuesday. I feel like I've been here forever.
I'm slowing down on the journal writing a bit because I'm so busy with group sessions, meditation sessions, assessment sessions, lectures, and individual assignments. They just keep throwing it at me and I just keep taking it as calmly as possible, reading all the chapters, doing all the papers and asking for more. Keep it coming. I can do homework as fast as they can give it to me. It doesn't change anything.
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 4
Posted by: lucie
day two, pt 4
It's almost midnight and I have to be up at 7am. I met the guy my age, by the way. His name is Pat and he is a major tweaker. I think he's not quite back down to earth yet, but he's actually pretty nice. And the hottie's name is Darin. He's not very social, or at least not with me, but we'll see. Oh, and there was a cute guy at the AA meeting - we kept looking at each other across the room but I left so fast after that I didn't get a chance to talk to him. Pity.
I guess I'll stop writing for tonight and read as much of my assignment in the AA Big Book as it takes to put me to sleep.
day 3, pt 1
Good morning and welcome to another day at the Hotel Rehab, where they tell me that because I'm 18 I can technically check out any time I like. I just have no money and nowhere to go.
Morning meditation is eerie. They read these cheesey meditations out of books and then everyone starts offering "prayers."
"Prayer for Joe."
"Prayer for Mary."
"Prayer for staff."
"Prayer for love."
This goes on for like 15 minutes, then we get to hear the "just for today" bit and then we all have to say the serenity prayer. When it's over everyone says a cheery cheery "Good morning!" and pats each other on the back.
At least I got to be next to Darin for the serenity prayer, when everyone puts their arms around each other.
This will be his 26th day and I get the distinct impression that he doesn't really believe in this place. When I asked him how long he'd been here he said, "Far too long. But... um... it's not too bad." He's really quiet and distant. Just doesn't talk too much. Maybe he's just boring. I know he's here for alcohol and marijuana "addiction."
Keith told me at breakfast that he's been here for 36 days and has never seen anyone leave after the 4-6 day assessment. I'm starting to lose hope in a huge way. Darin said one girl did, but someone corrected him - it turned out she'd been sent to a juvenile facility in Arizona.
From a business standpoint, why would they ever let anyone leave? They charge your family big bucks just for the assessment, and after that they call you an addict and you can't argue or you're in denial. The staff told me that 30-50% of the people here for assessment get to leave afterwards. I now know that's complete bullshit.
If I want to have any chance of leaving I have to be careful in the group sessions not to talk like an addict. I'm not saying I'm going to lie, but I think it's easy to get sucked into the "me too!" mentality in groups of addicts; especially when everyone is trying so hard to break you down.
I just want to get back to life, and they're not bound to let me. They're not letting me out of here. It's like the "assessment" isn't to assess you at all - it's just their time to convince you that you are an addict.
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 3
Posted by: lucie
day two, pt 3
I've done two more things today: taken a test of 567 true/false questions which gets analyzed by someone and then apparently tells people here something about me, and I've spoken to a psychiatrist. Psychiatric evaluation.
Actually, it wasn't so bad. The shrink was kind of cute for a middle-aged guy. He looked a bit like Christopher Reeve, except with darker hair and a more oval sort of face. We talked about my parents' divorce, music and even Jeremy. He seems to really think I should ditch Jeremy. I don't quite understand why everyone thinks I should be "saved" and everyone should be supportive of me but he deserves nothing and no one, and I need to have some "closure" in that area of my life. If people were going for "closure" in the Lucie area of their lives right now I'd be screwed. He's the one who really belongs here, by the way.
But anyway, the psychiatric evaluation wasn't bad. The guy was really nice and I almost like talking to him. I could tell he liked me - he kept smiling little muffled authentic smiles that he seemed to be trying to hide because he's supposed to be all serious. He actually seemed like he enjoyed listening to me and thought I was an interesting person. So ha ha on my parents.
Every time I go to a meal or just walk down the hall someone is like, "Lucie, right?" Okay! So it's obvious I'm the teenager! Stop already!
There's apparently some guy here who's nineteen, but he seems like sort of... I don't know. Just not my type too much. Slimy or something. I feel so isolated here. Isolation would be fine if it was with that one hot guy, alone in my room.
I really want to speak to B and G, speaking of isolated. I only get one 10 minute phone call for my whole first week, if I turn out to be here for that long, which I'd better not. I have a good feeling about the situation, though. Everyone I talk to I'm totally pushing the "my home situation is so stressful and sad" thing. The "My parents are involved in a nasty divorce and I shouldn't have to live with it day after painful day" thing. I think they're getting the point.
I went to meditation today. It was pretty cheezy. "Picture yourself on a beautiful beach," etc etc. Then I went to an AA meeting (I'm just supposed to pretend I'm at an NA meeting, just like when I get assignments in the AA Big Book even though I have the NA book). I got to say "My name is Lucie and I'm an addict" even though I don't believe it. The longer I'm here, the less I believe it.
I've been talking to some of the people here and it turns out most of them are druggies after all. They're saying stuff about tweaking for nine or ten days, or shooting up a whole eighball at a time. That is so far from my comprehension, even. Help. I'm not anywhere near where they are.
The absolute worst thing about being here, though, is how the patients laugh when I tell them I'm here for the four-day assessment. And then they tell me things like "No, we're laughing with you - you're just not laughing!" It makes me mad.
Just because I'm here they assume I'm one of them. And if I try to say otherwise they just think I'm naive or in denial and "Oh, she'll figure it out, she's just like me and all the rest of us." Well excuse me, but I've never shot $150 worth of crank into my arm, and you have, okay? I've never stayed up tweaking ten days in a row without eating, drinking or sleeping, did you?
And I didn't call the nurses into my room when I got here because I thought there were bugs crawling all over my room, and I don't think there was someone in my closet last night which would explain the clothes moving, ha ha, and when I got here and spent the night in detox I didn't keep looking into my bathroom because I saw someone repeatedly going in and out of it, did anyone here do those things?
The more I think about it the more it pisses me off. I can't even say I've experimented with things because some junkie is always there to tap my shoulder and say "Well, when I was your age I was 'experimenting' with drugs, and look where I am 24 years later."
Point taken. It sure sucks to be you, huh? What about the other 99 out of 100 who "experimented" with drugs at the same time as you and AREN'T here?
These are the people I'm supposed to form tight bonds with, and they're laughing at me because they think I'm like them. I really doubt my group would take kindly to hearing "Well I'm not like all of you, no offense. You're all way more fucked up than me."
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 2
Posted by: lucie
day two, pt 2
Barbara The Day Nurse just told me I get to move into a normal room (11B!) because I'm showing no signs of withdrawal and I get to live with some woman named Patty who's leaving very soon, so, says Barbara, I'll hardly get to know her and then she'll be gone. Okay.
So Patty's at the end of her treatment program. She's probably this way brainwashed woman who will tell me how I'm powerless over drugs and the people here are so wonderful once you admit you have a disease, an addiction, a problem you can't control.
I started reading the Narcotics Anonymous (adapted, 12 steps and all, from Alcoholics Anonymous) book, and from what I've read so far I just don't fit into the addict category. And even if I was an addict, I don't think I could handle dealing with this NA program. Step One is saying you're powerless over drugs and helplessly addicted and you're a wimp and can't do anything about it. Hence, step 2 is saying God can "restore you to sanity."
Right now the only powerlessness I feel is the kind where you're stuck where you don't want to be and isolated from your friends and being told that you're going to be forced to live 1000 miles away from where you had planned to spend the summer. And you know your parents are contacting your friends' parents saying they are little teenage druggies when it's not true, and that it's going to ruin their lives (or at least their summers) and make them hate you.
So anyway, some doctor just came and assessed me, and he wouldn't tell me what he thought because he said he wasn't sure yet. But wouldn't it be my luck that he did the same thing in college but went on to get completely out of control when he became a doctor and was able to get tons of drugs? Truth.
I'm starting to notice little weird things about this place. Like in the detox phase, when they want you to drink a lot, all they give you to eat is salty crackers or Fritos or potato chips. It just bugs me because it's like they're trying to trick us. Can't they just say 'drink lots of fluids'?
It's 11:30 and lunch is supposed to be at 11:45 but I honestly don't want to go. It's just weird because I don't know anyone and hardly any conversation took place at breakfast this morning - at least not at my table.
Of course I'll go, because to get out of here I have to be on my best behavior and cooperate fully. "Turn myself over to the program," according to Dr. S. I'm not sure I am capable of turning myself over to anything, but I'll try to pretend. Hopefully then they'll feel okay with letting me out. I feel so alone here among all these old people.
Right now everyone else is out being social and stuff, and I'm in my room writing in my journal and watching 4 guys (including the hottie) play volleyball, which appears to be a big thing here, I don't know why... but it's keeping this cute guy outside my window so I can watch him.
So I've decided a couple things about this place. 1) Almost everyone is here because of alcoholism, not drugs, and 2) a lot of people seem not to like it very much.
I got a phone message from my mom today saying that she called Chris, the guy I was renting my summer apartment from, and told him I had mono so I wouldn't be coming back. Not good.
1995 Rehab Miniseries, vol 1
Posted by: lucie
day 1
I am in rehab, for Chrissake. I can't fucking believe it. Or actually, no - I'm in a 'four to seven day assessment program.' My mom read my journal and found out about all the drug this and that and here I am. After I had already made up my mind to chill out and everything. I mean, help.
So far, for my assessment, there was some questionnaire that I answered (honestly) three yeses to, which puts me under the line of being an addict (you're supposed to have at least four).
day 2, pt 1
Just went to breakfast. There's no one here my age or even near my age. Everyone is old. And there are a lot of people who are old old. Like senior citizen old. There's no way I'm going to be able to relate to these people. They've probably been admitted after years of drug and alcohol abuse, and I've been basically experimenting for the last three months. And I doubt anyone here is under 30. Well, maybe a couple of these guys I saw, but just barely. (There's one hot one, but he's probably 30ish. Not that it matters, because "any kind of romantic involvement is forbidden." Help.)
Anyway, it's sort of weird here. This one woman at my table at breakfast was saying that her husband was in a treatment center in Tucson. Another woman at the table asked why they were in different places, and she said "They made the decision for us. I was kidnapped," with this sort of half-smile on her face. And this other woman, Judy, just answered, "And how do you feel about that? Are you okay with that?"
Another guy was talking about how they lie to you here - scare tactics. Apparently there was a doctor who they were telling he had to be transferred to some really hardcore rehab place - it was right before he was supposed to leave - but they were totally lying. He left a week later. They just wanted to scare him. Why, nobody knows.
During this conversation the man to my right spoke (for the first time since he said "Sure, Lucie," when I asked if I could join them for breakfast): "The sessions here sometimes get a little like Scientology," he said. Well what the hell does that mean? Help.
"Well, today is the first day of family week," says the older, kidnapped woman. The middle aged man, who has been, for the most part, quiet, says: "I'm starting not to believe any of the stuff they tell me. I was on the phone with my wife and she was asking about family week, so I told her what they told me about it, and she said when they talked to her about it she got a completely different impression; they painted a completely different picture, she said."
This place is just really eerie. A man named Mike introduced himself last night - this morning after breakfast he asked how I was doing and then what I was here for. I said I was experimenting with drugs (maybe a little too much) and my parents read my journal. "You shouldn't write stuff like that down," he tells me. Thanks. I hadn't figured that out yet. Especially not in the past couple of days, buddy.
Then he says, "But maybe it's a good thing that you did." I said we'll see, maybe. I think if the words "I'm not an addict" come out of your mouth here you're basically screwed. So that'll be a secret between me and my journal, which no one had better fucking read.
You'd think that you'd at least be able to keep your thoughts private, but no such luck. So I guess I shouldn't be writing mine down. But I like to be able to know what they were once they've long since passed.
It's 5 minutes to 9, and at 9am every day there is a lecture. Today it appears to be "The Cost of Addiction." Then there's a 15 minute break before group therapy - just like in the movies. Help. Please let me get put in a group with the one hot guy that exists here..?
I guess I have to go now. When I get out of here I'll write a book about it, I swear. It's so ultra weird.
Lost and found
Posted by: lucie
One of my favorite journals is the fourth, wherein our heroine discovers the joys of raving, ecstasy, acid and a long blonde-haired druggy boy called Jeremy with whom she becomes pathetically obsessed.
Journal number four was a turning point, boy. My mom read it when I was home from college for a visit. She phoned my father to demand that he return from an international business trip at once. Two days later I responded to a call of 'Lucie, can you come downstairs a minute?' and there was my dad, sitting on her couch. I was paralyzed with the 'I am so dead' fear of an eight-year-old child. My parents were in the middle of a brutal divorce. For them to join forces, for my dad to be in my mom's house, implied an unspeakably dreadful seriousness, and rightly so: I was busted.
Journal number four wasn't allowed to come with me to rehab - no reading material was permitted within those walls except the AA book, the NA book, books on addiction, books on recovery. In four days I filled 17 pages of a fresh notebook with observations of the people, the manipulation, the strange daily affirmation sessions, silly references to the Hotel California and comparisons to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and my burgeoning plans to break out. I escaped. It was the beginning of the rest of my life and as such is a story for another time.
Because what this is, this entry, is a reflection on writing about one's life, and why one does it, and how one does it, and the transition from doing it on paper for oneself to doing it in public for a bunch of strangers, basically. Because that's where this blog is going. I don't write in my paper journal anymore; it's all coming out here.
Nineteen paper journals stand, in a dark cupboard in my flat, as a testament to my illustrious career of obsessive, self-absorbed journalling. The ever-expanding stack has made its way across America and Europe because there's nowhere I'd feel safe leaving all that incriminating ink, and on several occasions I've even contemplated burning the notebooks so as to prevent anyone from discovering their embarrassing contents.
Once, the paranoia about this eventuality grew so fearsome that I selected a trustee to oversee their destruction in the event of my early demise. A little note is pasted inside the cover of each of my journals informing their discoverer of my wishes and her contact details. Of course the person most likely to go through my things if I die young is my mom, whose track record inspires little confidence, so obviously this is a puzzle I've yet to adequately solve.
Anyway, about six months ago, before I tiptoed into the forum that is Urbanhonking, I took my paper journal of the moment on a long weekend trip to Barcelona. Long story very short, when I got home I wasn't in the mood to write for a couple of weeks, and when the spirit did finally hit me I couldn't find the damn thing. Anywhere. I became convinced that I'd left it in Barcelona; that I'd lost the only documentation of this chapter of my life, a particularly intense chapter immediately following the end of the most character-defining romantic relationship I'd ever had, and it was going to fall into someone else's hands.
The journal turned out to be stuffed into a strange pocket of my bag, but I didn't discover this until two days later. In the interim, I thought about the person who would find it. Would they feel guilty reading it? Would they try to find a way to return it? There was no label pasted into this one yet, and one doesn't really write one's name or contact details in narratives of one's life and times, so they couldn't have tracked me down. Someone would have been left with this half-full notebook riddled with intimate details of a random stranger's life. And I was kind of jealous of that person. I'd LOVE to find something like that; it seemed so magical.
The thought of this stranger reading my most intimate thoughts seemed horrific until it dawned on me that they would have no reason to judge. It's the people who know me that I want privacy from; I wish to dole out my thoughts to the people in my life as and when I'm comfortable. But there's actually something appealing, liberating, mysterious, about revealing pieces of yourself to absolute strangers.
I guess what I'm saying is that I've realized what this blog is becoming. It's some girl's diary that you found in a short-term rental flat in Barcelona, its corner peeking out from underneath a cheap fold-out couch.
And I guess that makes you the stranger who can read it if you want to.
Some girl's diary
Posted by: lucie
Finding himself in bed with me the first time, making outlandish claims of never having seen it coming (which I do not believe - he is a guy, and all guys imagine themselves in bed with all girls, don't they? Isn't that their job?), Tom asked at what point I'd realized we were headed for this. (I know I declared a moratorium on the Tom topic, but that was because he seemed to be disappearing from my world, and he has emailed now, so I hereby retract it.)
I'm a woman, I thought; I don't realize. I decide. I had this eventuality mapped out before my boots hit the tiles outside the door of my flat, ten full months after I'd last laid eyes on him and ten full hours before we found ourselves in bed together. I let him know my intentions exactly when I pleased.
Because girls, we can have any man we want when we ooze that sexual confidence. Any of us. Take Jude Law's nanny who, by the way, people should stop making fun of. Sure, Jude Law has a chiseled, gorgeous, godlike face and a pout to charm the pants off a nun and yes, the nanny is a common, slightly chubby girl, but that's exactly why you should respect her. Whatever potion she's brewing even Jude bloody Law couldn't resist.
Counterpoint: Jessica Simpson's 'These Boots Are Made For Walkin' video. How can one such perfectly formed 36-24-36, tan, blonde, all-American playmate-of-the-month be so terminally sterile and unsexy? The stiffness with which she shakes her faultless hips; the uptight way she rubs her shapely buttocks against cowboys' crotches... The studied manner in which she throws herself onto the hood of a sportscar wearing a bikini, flinging soap suds asunder, offering the camera her best manufactured plastic sexy look that somehow - despite the perfection of her proportions, the even golden tone of her skin, the flawlessness of her features - fails to smolder.
The image is hot. The moves, the poses, the body, the clothes are hot; but look at the eyes. She ain't got it. She doesn't even know what 'it' is. Jessica Simpson sucks in bed.
But back to the point, which is, of course, me. At 29 I have finally grasped some basic facts about human nature: 1) I am a woman. 2) As such, (straight) men want to sleep with me. 3) When men want to sleep with me I'm in control.
This may be where it went wrong with Tom. I may have haphazardly wielded my recently reawakened womanly powers and shot them in the direction of a friend; he may have followed me home like an eager puppy simply because they worked, and I just wanted to snuggle and make out. Lesson: don't do this. It only lulls you into a false sense of security. When later you grasp that once hearts are involved, you've got nothing - not a shred of dominance - the fall from the dizzying heights of sexual control to the common powerlessness of affairs of the heart is long, fast and most unsettling.
A moment I've considered on a few occasions - and generally when I do, I find my hand is inexplicably drawn to my face in a gesture of disbelief - is the one in which we decided not to sleep together. It went like this: Me: "This is kind of tripping me out a little." Tom: "It's tripping me out too." Me: "I'm going to take a little 'this is tripping me out' intermission." That was that. Vibe: gone. I've never experienced anything quite like it. Suddenly it was like oh my God, what are we doing here, naked, with each other, in broad (dammit dammit) daylight? Sober? We need to get up, now.
Because... let me set the scene: Tom was doing things to me that should have overridden my brain, but I was laying there nearly shaking, incapable of enjoyment, grappling with the question of whether it would be weirder to sleep with him or not to sleep with him at this point, given how far things had gone.
I ended up murmuring the bit about being tripped out because it was all more than my mind could handle. It was Tom. I love Tom. Suddenly our relationship was turning sexual, this quickly? What were we to be on the other side of it - boyfriend and girlfriend? Or was it a fling? It felt more like what happens during a fling, the pace of it, and I didn't want to have a fling with Tom. It was a tremendous relief when he agreed that it didn't feel right; I'd like to think it was because he felt the same way.
Anyway, he finally emailed yesterday. His message, which began "baby, i'm just a bad correspondent, not a bad person," and included the lines 'you moving back is good news to me,' 'you have a room in my flat if you you'd like,' 'all my favorite people are virgos, it seems' and 'i'll write properly tomorrow' (bets?), was disarming, perfectly worded and a tremendous relief. It doesn't excuse his deafening silence for the last three weeks ('bad correspondent' does not begin to do this justice), but our friendship isn't trashed, and that's a heavy burden off my heart.
Beyond that, I'm more confused about my feelings for this boy than I have thus far cared to admit to myself. If this - whatever it is - is going anywhere, it's not something I feel prepared for.
Seldom what it seems
Posted by: lucie
Becks and me on Skype last night:
Me: ...and apparently I am good enough to be one of his best friends, and I'm good enough to try REALLY REALLY HARD - and girl, I haven't told you how hard he tried so don't get me started - to sleep with, and I'm good enough to cuddle up with for three nights, and make out with, and spend three whole days with, but for some reason the thought that I might actually want to be his girlfriend - which is not true! - is so horrific that he can't even talk to me anymore. That's, like, a little bit offensive. I'm trying not to take this personally.
(pause)
Becks: Yeeeaaaaahhh... I don't know. That's not the vibe I think I was getting from him. He definitely seemed nervous about something, but I don't think it was that.
Me: It was. I know this to be true.
(pause)
Becks (slowly): Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe he likes you, and for whatever reason he's hurt or weirded out?
Me (decisively): No.
(long pause)
Becks: I think... he seemed... I think he likes you.
Me: I've never known anyone who liked someone so much that they couldn't reply to their emails.
Becks: I've done it before. I've done exactly what he's doing.
(and then my brain broke)
Poised
Posted by: lucie
Making desperate attempts to control or fix situations you can't change is a bad idea, but some of us don't know when to quit.
I declared a moratorium on the topic of Tom and instructed my friends not to indulge me anymore, but it's been absolutely driving me mad. The inanity of it, the unnecessary waste of energy and feelings and friendship - why?
To recap: Tom and I were friends for four years. Then we made out for a few nights, nearly slept together, thought better of it, and seemed to handle the situation like adults. Seemed. It was exciting at the time and had an air of possibility to it; I was affectionate, he was perhaps a bit cooler but definitely mushy, we parted well, and I had a very open mind as to what may or may not go on when I got back, though it never felt entirely right and I was leaning away from the idea that we would ever really date.
Tom is depressed. Tom has been depressed for, well, basically the last two years, it seems. I don't know why; I could venture some guesses but let's just say he's not the strongest boy. He is, but he's not. He could be, but he doesn't try. He's got an only child mama's boy thing going on, which, incidentally, my ex-boyfriend/husband had going on, so this is bringing up some pissy memories.
I found myself thinking a lot about him after I came back from this trip, but mostly in a sad way, thinking about how he seemed like a lost puppy and I wished he would pull himself together, thinking about how I'd like to mother him and patch him up, and realizing very quickly that this meant we could not date lest I get into another relationship like my last one, which consisted basically of being someone's mom and life coach, and which sucked the life out of me. My brutha was throwing red flags up all over the place. He actually said 'I think I need to be mothered' at one point. He told me he thought he should get into a relationship to get out of this rut that he was in. When I said it didn't seem like a great point from which to enter a relationship he said 'I understand what you mean, but I disagree,' and I thought damn you, if you get into a relationship to get yourself out of this rut, it will be at someone else's expense.
Maybe I've just got a lot of leftover issues from my last relationship. But I'm also pretty sure I learned a lot of things that were true, and I saw a lot of potential deja vu looming with Tom. So the long and the short of it is that, being a more mature woman now, I realized that much as I love him as a friend, and amazing, incredible kisser though he may be, sexy though his voice is, and remarkable as his choice of words remains, smart and cultured as he is... we're probably just going to be friends.
He had nothing to do with my decision to move back there. Even when I was caught up in the moment, even when our arms and legs and hair were intertwined, even when the possibility of 'maybe Tom is The One Who Has Always Been There' was, however thin, wafting in the air, I knew it wasn't genuine. He wasn't it.
I emailed him that I was moving back, and he didn't email back for a week... for two weeks... for two weeks and a day. It started tearing me up. I developed a theory that he was freaking out because he thought I thought we were instantly going to be in a serious relationship when I got back... or something. I still believe it. I think he thinks I am all serious about him, and for whatever reason that freaks him out and he doesn't want to be involved with me, so he's blanking me. It's offensive and it hurts, especially given that he's the needy one whose life is a mess, but again, he's depressed, so I'm trying not to take it too seriously. I'm trying to be patient.
Being the type of girl who enjoys banging her head against walls, I emailed him again last night. I'd drafted a few emails throughout the week but they came out too sharp and were deleted with little consideration. I wanted to write something that said 'I don't think we're getting married' and 'My feelings are starting to be hurt over here - heads up' without being accusatory or, on the other hand, sacrificing my pride. And this is what finally came out:
Subj: 29 candles
Ah, to be one year wiser. I learned a lot of things when I was 28 - one of the last was that it's probably best not to make out with your friends, because next thing you know they might just not email you back when you say you're moving to their city, and you might feel weird and wish you had never laid lips on them.
Now, as a wise woman of 29, I'm wondering if it's possible to turn back the clock, _pretend_ nothing ever happened and get on with being friends. You've got a few years on me - if you have all the answers, clue me in.
I hope you're keeping well over there, Tomas... I am definitely coming to town - booked my plane ticket and arrive on the 23rd of December, all chilled out and zen and ready to resume my previous existence as a reporter. I'm staying at Becks' until I find a place.
xoxo
Lucie
(Note how I relieved him of the responsibility to come out and tell me I'm not invited to be his roommate anymore.)
In a stroke of brilliant timing, the aforementioned Becks saw him at a party last night - it couldn't have been more than a couple hours after I sent the email. She wrote this morning with a detailed report.
Tom walks up. "Hey, Tom!!! How are you!!!! (Note: I'm kinda drunk!) Lucie's coming back!!! (I jumped right into it, girl: a) because if I didn't know that you two hooked up, that is what I would say and b) because if he is being a twerp, I found it necessary to be excited in an in-his-face kind of way. And he, in an excited way, confirmed, "I know; I just got an e-mail from her today." Then it gets a bit fuzzy, and we somehow started talking about why you are coming ... I gave my normal speech (which I truly believe) that I don't think that you need to come back and that you are more talented than what you believe BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTT, selfishly, I am happy that you are coming back. And then he agreed but (if I remember correctly) questioned the choice of coming back here and I said the following: Look, everyone lives here to figure out what they are doing with their lives, so it would make sense that when she is ready to do the same, she returns. IN ADDITION, it will be a different city for her. When I moved here, I was instantly in a relationship and not until a year ago was I able to experience the city on my own. It's the same for Lucie. She wasn't ready to leave (and I do remember making him agree with me on this point ... something like: You remember, right? And then he said yes). So now it will be good for her ... it will be HER place. And then I probably repeated myself 1000 times and I was throwing in "I love Lucie" about 2000 times; I'm sure he found our conversation annoying. But he seemed to be carefully taking this in ... I'm hoping he'll snap out of whatever funk he might be in. I wanted to be like: "Tom, look, from high school into my 30's, I've been hooking up with my best guy friends for years; it ain't no big thang, dude. Relax ..."
So we know that:
a) he got the email last night
b) he questions my decision to move to back (to my mind this is because he thinks I am moving there at least in part because of him)
and of course
c) 24 hours later, he has still not replied.
Tonight I cried over this. He was one of my two best friends there, and now he seems not to want to be my friend because of - what? It's sad; it's a shame; it's such a waste, and I'm good old-fashioned pissed off at him. Every ten minutes my computer automatically checks for email and then makes that mocking TWANK! sound indicating that there is none; having consumed nearly an entire bottle of wine I am now given to respond with an aggro 'Fuck you, Tom!'
This, of course, embarrasses me. Tomorrow I pick myself up and move on. I've done all I can do to smooth things over. Tomorrow I will swallow my pride, stop waiting to see his name in my inbox and try to hold onto some sympathy for him. Because if his depressed brain can take something that was nice and chill, twist it around and make it this complicated and ugly, that is sad. I've been there, and it sucks.
Sumo is the only answer
Posted by: lucie
The thing about training for a half marathon is that you're actually supposed to do it - not just talk about it a lot. Anna and I discussed this last night as we made our way through two bottles of wine just five days before the run, when we should have been sticking to water, grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables or something.
Here is the truth as we now quite clearly see it: we're not going to finish this run in decent time (ie under two hours). Our athletic accomplishments, while not to be scoffed at, will not be memorable or impressive.
Such mediocrity calls for drastic measures. Our new objective is not to reach the finish line as quickly as possible; it is to have fun, get on TV and have a good story to tell.
We're going to run in costume. And when I say 'run' I really mean 'walk, except when there are tv cameras around, and use the costumes as an excuse.'
Halfway through the second bottle of wine we hit on the idea that we should be sumo wrestlers, cut our Make-a-Wish t-shirts up, make sashes out of them and write 'Miss Make-a-Wish UK' on Anna's and 'Miss Make-a-Wish US' on mine. We will giggle and bounce our inflatable bellies off each other for the entire 13 miles and speak only in haiku.
Horny Horns
Posted by: lucie
Back in my glory days I toured with a prominent funk band. One of the horn players took a liking to me. He was a very smooth man who oozed confidence and had a habit of making some thinly-veiled outlandish comments (example: he would tell me pointedly that he was really good at playing the french horn - an instrument that requires significant tongue agility - and I'd just say 'I got that' and turn red). He was married and also intimidating. He'd been in the kinds of bands that attract serious groupie love for a couple decades and was like 15 years older than me; I wouldn't like to even speculate as to how many women he had been with.
The horn player used to leave notes scribbled on paper towels in my dressing room at tour stops. They said things like 'If I knew where to get a dozen roses in this town they would be in your dressing room but please take this paper towel as a symbol of my love,' and he would sign them with a bass clef and a peace sign, no name. Then he'd come around and hint about it and I would pretend that I thought it was the one guy in the band actually somewhere near my age (read: only 5 years older, not 15). At the end of the tour, the horn player 'confessed' that it was actually him and I pretended to be surprised.
We kept in touch on email and AIM, and I've since seen him about five times in various cities, most recently in Europe a couple years ago. We've had some great chats about life and love and careers and music and how it would suck to be a dog because you can only go to the bathroom when someone else decides it's okay, and it felt like we were friends. He always continued to flirt and make outlandish comments, and hey, I always liked the attention because he was a very sexy man who made some very smooth comments, but nothing ever happened. Nothing was ever going to.
He and his wife, unsurprisingly, split up. Probably something to do with his touring habits. But last time I saw him he was engaged to be remarried and seemed completely loved up. I was happy for him.
We've lost touch over the last year, so yesterday I emailed him. Where are you? I haven't heard from you in ages but I know you're still out there on the fringes of my reality somewhere. Don't tell me you've completely slipped away! I miss you. I'm moving back to Eastern Europe. Are you guys playing there again any time soon? We have to hang out. How's the solo project? Love, Lucie.
He wrote back immediately. 'when i come back there, it'll definitely be as a married man! you can't say stuff like "miss you" and "love you" when my wife has access to my mail! big no-no! anyways, keep an eye on the web site for more details. euro tour coming up this fall!'
Ha ha, right? I mean, there was nothing untoward in my email, besides which nothing has ever happened between us. I can understand his wife's worries, but she's got nothing to worry about with me. So I wrote back 'Dear horn player's wife, I miss him and love him but NOT LIKE THAT. I'm really thrilled that he's happily married. Horn player, hit me up me on AIM sometime so we can catch up!'
And then, not five minutes after the first email exchange:
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<(deleted)@aol.com>
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to air-xg01.mail.aol.com.:
>>> RCPT To:<(deleted)@aol.com>
<<< 550 (deleted) IS NOT ACCEPTING MAIL FROM THIS SENDER
550 <(deleted)@aol.com>... User unknown
Brilliant.
Love codes
Posted by: lucie
I've been thinking about how things occasionally go neurotic and weird after people get together without really seeing it coming, and I've narrowed post-hookup reactions down to three broad categories.
A) Take it as it comes. Say hey, that was nice, who knows what will happen now - we will see. Remain open minded.
B) Get completely obsessed and infatuated with the person, come up with all kinds of evidence that they are, and always have been, The One and proceed to secretly plan the rest of your lives together.
C) Get completely obsessed with the idea that the other person is doing B, freak out and blank them.
Boys are the most frequent perpetrators of the C, thinking girls are pulling a B when in fact we are cool as the other side of the pillow in the A zone.
Why do this
Posted by: lucie
I haven't updated the ol' blog for a week or so because I've been neurotic over this strange Tom situation and have had nothing nice to say. I try not to use this as a forum to whinge about life because nothing turns me off of people's blogs faster than entries consisting of little more than complaints, gripes and 'don't you hate it when' rants.
I'm no hippie princess or anything; I have no such discretion in real life and tend to be an out-loud thinker and a venter, though I'm trying to grow out of this habit as I realize it's less satisfying to hear than it is to do. Certain friends find my venting entertaining (if I make an effort to inject some humor), so I limit it to them.
But on the blog it feels wrong. For one thing, I'm grateful to have been given this prime Urbanhonking real estate and feel as though it would be unappreciative to use it as griping grounds. But I think (warning: hokey phrase ahead) blogging may also give me a chance to improve and change myself. It gives me an opportunity to write from the perspective of my better side; to mull over experiences and present them in a way that looks on the lighter side, the more entertaining side, the deeper side, the intellectual side, the creative side, or my favorite: the plain old 'here's something human you might relate to' side. Any side but the self-pitying one.
Sometimes that means simply choosing topics more interesting than the drama that occasionally spins around in my rather obsessive brain, because I know you'd rather hear about a giant naked photo shoot than my own hangups about my body; you'd rather hear about hooking up with boys than the haunting realizations of how much life my last relationship sucked out of me... And when I say you, I have no idea what I mean, because I don't know who 'you' are. There are fewer than ten people ostensibly reading this thing who have actually met me in real life - and that's including people who know Urho and my real name but who, for all I know, find my rambling completely dull and never look at all. That's including, for example, John Afryl, which whom I exchanged maybe 3 drunken sentences when I visited Portland, and if we didn't have a friend in common we wouldn't even remember each other's names.
I guess when I say you'd rather read one thing than another, what I really mean is I'd rather read it.
Perhaps in every blogger's life there comes a point where he or she reflects on why they do it, and this is mine.
I do it because I need to string sentences together; not fancy words and metaphors that blow your mind in an Angela Carteresque 'oh my god it took me half an hour to read this page because every word had to be savored' kind of way - just because I feel the need to get things out, even if it's just into the void.
I do it online now instead of in a paper journal (though there have been 19 since Senior year of high school) because I believe it gives me the incentive to be marginally less self-indulgent and hey, who knows, maybe someone finds it interesting.
I do it under a pseudonym because I want to be honest; I want the option of expressing myself candidly in a place that belongs completely to me and anyone who cares enough to read whatever I have to say... a place my family can't stumble upon, my lovers can't know about, my friends can't find, where I can say what I like.
Don't kiss your friends
Posted by: lucie
Please don't do it. Ignore their luscious lips. Ignore their charms and their ways with words, their lovely manners and the way you just get each other. Ignore their sexy voices and cute fashion sense, their exquisite taste in music, the names they call you and their adorable smiles.
Please do not kiss them. This is for your own good.
I emailed Tom on Tuesday that I am moving to Eastern Europe. Six days later, no reply. He is making it weird. We were doing so well, being so sensible, and the worst part is that it's my job to overthink, overanalyze and trip out on things, and he is older and more experienced than me, and he's making it weird.
Well, unless the road to the end of a friendship is paved with snuggling and makeout sessions, he's going to have to write me back eventually. In the meantime, I won't give him any more fodder for weirdness. I sit back, I remain silent, I chill, I invite Matt up for the weekend (and appreciate him all the more for not being complicated), I get used to the idea of Tom not being my friend because he turned out to be that silly (well if he is, who needs him?). I do not,
I do not,
I do not email him.
I've texted my journalist sista Rebecca in Eastern Europe, with whom I'll be staying when I arrive - incidentally, she is writing a book about the massacre in Srebrebica, Bosnia and her star is totally on the rise, but I'm not sure just how much I should tell you about it as she's pitching her book and searching for an agent right now - to whine.
"Becks," I wrote, "Find Tom and tell him not to be weird because now it is taking up too much of my brain. Everything was fine and now it's weird. I hate boys. Will you marry me?"
"I do!" she wrote back. "Just tell him this: you dumb boy, I don't love your dumb ways. I am more man than you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever know. We are friends, dumbass, so snap out of it. PS. I'm engaged to Rebecca."
Please don't kiss your friends. Please don't kiss them.
Making Moves
Posted by: lucie
The journalism in Europe vs MBA in England concern turned out to have a straightforward solution: apply for the MBA programmes, go woo journalism, and if that doesn't feel right, come back here for an MBA programme in September 06. Sometimes things seem labyrinthine until you sleep on them for a week; then the answers are dead obvious.
What's obvious today is that I should be updating my CV, filling in applications and writing essays for at least two MBA programmes. The wretched strep is slowly but surely being driven out of my body by penicillin graciously bestowed on me by the NHS. I've yet to make it through a day without a nap, but altogether I have little excuse.
So what have I done today? Ironed everything in the house that could possibly need ironing, cleaned old numbers out of my mobile, scoured the kitchen (it hasn't been so clean in months), scrubbed the bathroom, played records for the first time in years, sifted through my clothes to determine which could be got rid of pre-moving, dropped off my dry cleaning, washed all my delicates, given myself quite an involved facial, read every New York Times opinion piece from the last week, cooked for the first time in weeks, and even had a go at practicing the African bootyshake. You know the one - where their booties practically vibrate? I think I understand how it's done now (you kind of stand on the balls of your feet and hit the ground with your heels, back and forth, fast as you can), and being as how I have a soul sista booty I think I'll practice more. Not that I'd ever bust that move in a club or anything, but it's still a good skill to cultivate.
My CV is half-updated, the essay is half-done and tomorrow is buckle-down time. Manifesting a passionate essay about why I want to do an MBA and what I can contribute to an MBA course when my heart is in journalism is about as much fun as taking on new projects at work when I know I'm leaving in two months. But if I'm half the journalist I like to think I could be, I should be able to pretend.
Tuesday I emailed Tom to let him in on my plan, like casually, not 'Baby, I'm moving back and we're going to live happily ever after!' He hasn't written back. What's up with that? Is he, my such loved friend of 4+ years, going to get weird because we spent a few nights together? It can't really be that easy to screw up a friendship... can it?
Guys are so confusing. You either can't begin to understand what the hell is going on in their heads, or you can see everything going on in there but it's completely wrong.
I'm not going to expound on that.
Limp
Posted by: lucie
Entrepreneurs, take note: there are certain services for which women would happily pay in our weaker moments.
No, not those kinds; we're women. We can have all that whenever we please. I'm talking about bringing us cups of tea in bed, offering to run out for chicken soup, stroking our hair and telling us everything is going to be okay and that we'll feel better tomorrow.
I'd cough up good cash for that stuff today. There's nothing like illness to make a passionately independent female yearn for simple domestic bliss.
A lifelong veteran of strep throat tests that come back negative, I've contracted it at last. I feel vindicated for finally making good on my fiftieth throat culture, but I also feel like I have golf balls for tonsils. My tongue is yellow, my throat and the roof of my mouth (!) are inflammed, food tastes like sand, my skin is crawling and even apple juice goes down like firewater.
It was much worse yesterday, though, before the NHS got involved. British people love to hate the national health service but, my American friends (and friends from similarly uncivilized countries that don't provide their people with socialized health care), you'd be awestruck if you were in my shoes. I called the doctor's office at 8:45 on Tuesday morning, had an appointment at 9:15, got a throat culture and blood test done, had the results the next day and paid just $10 for some penicillin. Brilliant.
Anyone like to guess what that would have cost me at home sans insurance? Somewhere in the hundreds, I'd expect: at least $50 for the appointment, more for the tests, and a hell of a lot more than a tenner for antibiotics.
Matt is a typical NHS moaner. "Remember it isn't free, your taxes pay for it all, and as someone earning good money you are not just paying for yourself but also for all those teenage girls pushing prams," he wrote.
That's cool, I told him - I'd pay for that at home too, but I'd still have to cough up extra for insurance or to go to the doctor because all my basic taxes fund disastrous 'humanitarian' wars in Iraq while people in New Orleans starve to death.
I love the NHS. I love the concept of healthcare being a basic human right. I love going to the doctor and being taken care of and sent home without filling out loads of insurance paperwork or paying for anything. That's the kind of stuff you want to pay taxes for.
