What a weird weekend.

The party, well. Heh.

So apparently I made out harcore with Conrad, which is. Well. Not very surprising. (I can always tell the ones who are thinking things about me. I mean, Myles blindsided me, but I think it surprised him as well. Conrad, however, I am not too surprised about.) And then Danielle and I danced, and uh... She ended up in my bed. So, uh. Okay then.

(I really, really hope nothing else happened that I don't remember. I don't like not remembering things.)

And Mother's Day, a little hungover, my mother's upset again. We go to Alki Beach and walk forever and get coffee and some Thai food, and I speak softly about work and Redhead as I stare at the Sound and all of the sailboats. (Are we dating now? No, no we're not, mom.) She gets a phone call as we're walking back to the car. My brother left our father's house for good, a month before he graduates.

Pretty much, from what I gather, my brother wasn't allowed to come see our mother for Mother's Day. He balked, so Tanya asked him whether she was really his mother. (What the fuck.) He exploded, and then Tanya shoved him, literally shoved him and told him she didn't want to see him anymore. That did it for him.

He finally got how sick and deluded that house is, pulled his eyes wide open, and he blew the fuck out of there. We picked him up from his friend's place where he'll be staying, and had some celebratory teppanyaki. We were all so hapy. (It's been a while.) I knew he had it in him, it just needed a little spark to come out.

So we're helping him out, and he's ready to grow up and get on his own feet. I'm so proud of him.

Now I'm looking down at the doilie at the bottom of my lemon tart, trying to ignore the bug bite on my foot. Wondering how tomorrow's going to unfold.

Shrug.

Put some music on.

Laundry goes in the washer.

Open my book.

Ahh.

Perfect.

This girl I know needs some shelter
She don't believe anyone can help her
She's doing so much harm, doing so much damage
But you don't want to get involved
You tell her she can manage

This is ridiculous.

I'm sitting here crying, in front of my computer, such a familiar position when I was in high school that I'd nearly forgotten what it was like to do this. To be crying over something he's said, something we've talked about, to just be upset and so raw over text on a screen.

So easy to trivialize in adulthood the things that were important to you as an
adolescent.

And you can't change the way she feels
But you could put your arms around her

I guess the biggest hurdle I've had to make it over is realizing that I am still myself. It almost felt like a let-down at first, like I was stuck with something. (I mean, I am in a way stuck with myself, but... not like I thought.) My "change" as it were was not the one specific moment I frequently characterize it as, but was really a series of weeks in which my thought cycle went like this:

10 PRINT Josiah
20 PRINT Feelings toward Josiah?
30 PRINT ...
40 GOTO 10

I literally couldn't think of a single thing that I felt toward him. I knew that I had cared about him, and maybe loved him (still don't know what that is), but I seriously could not feel a God damn thing after that incident with Nancy/Keith/Josiah that one weekend.

I don't know what happened. Josiah kept waiting around, getting increasingly sad and increasingly desperate to get something, anything out of me. I got so unnerved, not having anything to say, I fed him lines. I told him anything when I should have told him I didn't know. My mistakes, all. I'm aware of this.

(I seriously don't think I've ever started this many concurrent sentences with the word "I" since... ever. My writing habits have changed a little to match what I've learned, I guess.)

And so the damn bursts tonight. I cry and then clean myself up a bit and talk with Josiah a little more.

And then fuck him.

Now even the regret is gone and replaced with nothing again. A huge expanse of nothing marked with streaks of confusion.

You're a boy and I'm a girl