I told my dad about my boyfriend tonight. I’ve been dating someone for almost a month, and my dad didn’t know. So I told him… after having come out to him as some unspecified variety of queer only a few months ago. And then, I broke down.

I don’t know exactly why it happened. Earlier today I had been looking at photos of Marie. I haven’t done that in a while. Being in a relationship has helped her start to fade from my mind. I forget how I found the photos, but I looked through many of them and they reminded me of how adorable she is. And in the car on the way home, later, I was having a bad time, and I looked on my cell phone for a message from Marie to cheer me up. A few weeks ago, she left me a voicemail, and she ended it by saying she loved me. In a friend way, of course, but I saved it. I listened to it many times since then. And then this afternoon, in the car, I dialed the number for my mailbox to find her message, and it wasn’t there. It’s gone now. And that made me very sad.

Tonight I told my dad about my boyfriend. I said, attempting nonchalance but sensing somehow that it was going to be intense, “In case Mom hasn’t told you, or in case you haven’t already guessed, I feel like I ought to tell you, T and I are going out. And… um… it’s hard to tell you, for some reason. But we are. You ought to know. And… but…” And at this point, I felt tears coming on, and I didn’t know why until I said “but that doesn’t mean I was kidding about Marie.” And then I turned away and busied myself with the dishes, so he couldn’t see my face.

This was supposed to be a happy thing. T does make me happy, much happier than unrequited pining over Marie did. But after I told my dad about him, I felt like suddenly things were breaking to pieces. I went to my room and turned off the light and just cried. Hard. I cried for thirty, maybe forty minutes – do you realize how long that much time feels to a crying person? I haven’t cried in months, until tonight. I was scared that I could cry that much, and I kept trying to stop, but I couldn’t.

And now I don’t know what to do. Everything felt all right yesterday. I didn’t know who I was – gay, straight or bi – but I didn’t care. And now I do care. A lot. I care so much. All of the sudden. It’s like all the healing from over the last few years was thrown away in an instant and all the uncertainty and disgust came crashing back down on me. Oh, it was frightening. And now I’m crying again. Damn it.

I know I’ll be all right. I know I’ll feel better in the morning. But right now, I’m not okay.

"It's spring fever ... And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

- Mark Twain

Please, someone, help me figure out what this means. It's got me stumped.

I have a pretty huge crush on this girl who I’ve been calling Marie. This weekend, I went on a school overnight trip, and she was there, too. Over the course of the weekend she a) fell asleep with her head in my lap; b) sat in my lap for a while because there were no other chairs; and c) fell asleep watching a movie while cuddled up against me. Before you get any ideas, I need to tell you that she is very, very straight, and didn’t mean anything by this. My question is: during all of that, I felt pretty in love. It was wonderful. I wanted to cuddle her and hug her and kiss her. This didn’t surprise me – I’ve felt that before. But later on, back in our hotel, she was getting ready to take a shower, and she took off everything but her underwear right in front of me before skipping off to the bathroom. And after she got out, she ran around in a towel for a few minutes before drying off and putting on pajamas, and I saw the back of her, completely naked, and everything from her waist up, completely naked. I swear I didn’t actually mean to see this, but I did. And I felt… nothing.

Actually, to be more precise, I did feel things… but nothing, absolutely nothing sexual. Nada. I did feel embarrassed. I felt like I shouldn’t have seen her like that, and I was hoping she wouldn’t notice that I’d been looking. That may be because I’m pretty self-conscious myself… I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see me naked like she was. But besides being embarrassed, and mildly interested in what another female body looks like (because I’ve never really seen one other than my own), I didn’t really feel anything.

So what does that mean?? I have a major crush on this girl – I have no doubt about that. I have fantasies about her dumping her boyfriend and suddenly becoming gay, and in those fantasies she falls in love with me and we are a couple, and we kiss and cuddle all the time, and it’s great (in my fantasies, we even cuddle naked without me thinking twice, and it’s cute and sweet.) I can almost imagine having sex with her… maybe… It’s a bit of a stretch, considering I’ve barely even kissed anyone before (and he was a guy)… but sometimes I can imagine it, and I imagine it being pleasant. But my question is this: why in the name of lesbians everywhere didn’t I feel at least a tiny bit turned on by being alone with her in a hotel room while she’s toweling off naked in the corner?

The Ironing is Delicious

Before you start questioning my eating habits… the title’s not supposed to make literal sense. “The ironing is delicious” is something a friend of mine says whenever we’ve just experienced something very ironic, which actually happens quite frequently when we’re together. Anyway. I thought the phrase an appropriate way to introduce this journal, which I will start without further ado.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, introducing…

PROJECT MARIE AND THE MOHAWK MONKEY WRENCH

Brought to you by the Wild, the Blue, and the Way-Out-Yonder… and, of course, by viewers like you.

So I’m currently sitting in the back of my calculus classroom, at a lone desk in the corner, because I came in late and couldn’t bear walk in front of everyone to my usual seat in the second row. I’ve completely tuned out my professor, because listening to him “lecture” – if you can call it that – never helps anyway… in fact, I think it makes things worse. I had been trying to follow along in our textbook in desperate hopes that somehow the average values of double integrals would make more sense that way, but I gave it up after about twenty minutes, as further enlightenment seemed incredibly unlikely.

This probably makes me sound like a bad student. I’m not, I promise you. I make As and Bs and spend long hours in libraries making up for my pathetic lack of comprehension in actual class… but at that moment, as I finally decided to just give up and put the book away, a particular phrase started drifting through my head, and a connection was made (though it had nothing to do with math, unfortunately) and this journal entry was born.

The phrase was: “You know, the one thing we need is a left-hand monkey wrench.”

It’s from a Grateful Dead song that I happen to like very much, called “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” “Abraham and Isaac, sitting on a bench – they’d get right to work if they had any sense. You know, the one thing we need is a left hand monkey wrench.”

And that’s all my poor besotted little mind needed to zoom back to 11:03 this morning, as I was sitting in a crowded lecture hall with my coat over the seat next to me to save it for Marie.

I’ve gotten much better about looking over my shoulder at the entrance to the lecture hall. Earlier in the semester, it was all I could do not to stare constantly, so I’d know the instant she came in the door. That tended to get me funny looks, so I trained myself to remain focused on my notes until I noticed someone standing next to me, at which point I’d recognize her shoes, and know to look up. Such was the case this morning. I saw her converse-wannabes first, then moved my feet so she could slide by me into the seat I was saving her. Then I looked up.

I almost had a little heart attack.

I’ve probably said this before: this girl is pure cuteness. Not in a frilly girly pink kind of way, but unmistakably, universally adorable. But this morning… she’d undergone this transformation into… there’s no other term for it: pure hotness.

Usually, her hair is short, dark, and flat, like a boy’s. This morning, she had a miniature mohawk. She was also wearing eyeliner. Silver pirate earrings and all that. She looked vaguely punk, in a soft, feminine kind of way.

Sigh. I know I’m not able to do her justice here – I guess you just have to believe me.

Anyway, on other people, these things don’t usually get to me. But oh, my God… Project Marie was set back months. (Project Marie, by the way, is my fancy name for scolding and wheedling and pleading with myself to get over her, which must happen soon if I wish to preserve what little sanity I have left.) Irony. I’m getting shivers when I think about her. And you know, this is all so unlike me. Usually I giggle over her cuteness. This morning, I literally lost my breath. I don't know what's wrong with me. All I know is I'm in trouble.

So this is why I’m sitting in the back of my calculus classroom, at the forsaken, beat-up desk with things like “ trucker hats, trucker hats” and “econ is GAY” carved into it (the ones at the back of the room always have the most interesting graffiti), writing this journal and completely ignoring example number five: because I can’t stop thinking about how I lost my breath when I saw the way her hair was fluffy in the back, and because I just know the only thing that’s going to save me is a left hand monkey wrench.

Anybody know where I can get one???

I need a girlfriend. I’ve tried so hard to be happy being single, but damn it, I want to be loved by someone I love. I hate these one-sided messes I always get myself into. I have all this love and it’s got nowhere to go! It just turns on itself and goes sour and gets wasted, and turned into bitter feelings that I don’t want but can’t seem to escape. I’m angry right now. Love shouldn’t be wasted. I wish there were an on-off switch I could use, to control who I loved, and when, and how much, like manipulating machinery. It would be so much more efficient.

Marie’s boyfriend showed up at practice today. He lives far away, so today was only the third time I’ve seen him. I can see they’re perfect together, and I hate it. I really and truly do. I feel crushed.

This is going to drive me crazy someday.

I giggled as she broke my heart,
Deep in the pillows that we shared,
For hiding love’s a clever art,
And in her eyes, I’d never cared.
I kept a smile on my lips
For every time she looked at me,
As tears welled up from ragged rips
That I could feel, but none could see.
And so I laughed through all that day;
Her ignorance remained my prize,
Though once I knew they’d gone away,
I broke and gave up my disguise.
I’d giggled as she broke my heart,
But should have cried right from the start.

I don’t write many sonnets, but I gave this one my best shot. The rhyming makes it feel kind of sing-songy and light, which I’m not sure I like (because it’s on a pretty bittersweet subject). I don’t know. Any feedback would be appreciated.

I wrote it about an incident that happened on an overnight trip. Through an ironic series of circumstances, I ended up sharing a hotel bed with The Girl I like so much, Marie. We woke up before six that morning, and as I lay there all groggy and sleepy and warm, I heard her roll over next to me, and she reached over and pulled my hair, gently, to wake me up. I felt like my heart was going to melt – I imagined what it would be like to wake up that way every morning – and then reality rushed back into my head and I remembered her boyfriend and her straightness and everything else… and the poem says the rest.

Yeah. Would appreciate feedback, if anyone feels like giving it.

I’m blaming all my issues on the full moon.

Last night I dreamed some crazy things. I remember them all unusually well, too – usually I won’t remember my dreams, or I’ll remember them in a kind of fuzzy way and then forget about them as the day goes on. Not this time. At one point I dreamed the girl I like kissed me, on the lips. We were on a muddy riverbank together, and other people were milling around, but I lay down next to her and closed my eyes, and after a minute I felt her lean over me and then she kissed me. It was quick, gentle – nothing elaborate – I didn’t move, or even open my eyes, but afterwards I smiled. I remember trying to control my smile, in case she was looking, so I wouldn’t give away how much that kiss meant to me, but in a way I really wanted her to know.

After that, the scene changed and I went off doing something else, but the kiss was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. I’m usually pretty skeptical about things that can’t be explained by pure science, but I’m seriously starting to think the moon cycle screws up my dream patterns. Last time the moon was full, I had equally bizarre dreams. I wonder…

And as a by-the-way, it didn’t help that I spent most of this morning with the person I dreamed about – we had a class together, then went to lunch. She was adorable, as always. This was not exactly helpful regarding the must-get-over-her-ASAP project.

Oh geez... I just stumbled upon a hilarious video that I think some of you Oasis girls might enjoy. It completely cracks me up every time I watch it. Granted, I can have a slightly bizarre sense of humor sometimes, but maybe you do, too.

If this is any clue, it's called "Haunted Lesbian Sorority."

I find it particularly amusing because at my school, it's Rush Week.

Hee hee.

Here you go.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/179

Please let me know if it's actually funny or if I'm just weird. Or both.

I know it’s not good to dwell on things, but sometimes I can’t help it.

I liked this girl for four years. There was no one else – not that way, anyway.

We were best friends, in our own strange, socially retarded ways.

I knew we were close – but it was always hard to tell how close.

I loved her.

I wondered if she might have loved me.

She called me “dear,” and pet names in German. She teased me, stuck up for me. She was there for me. She cared. She treated me like I was special. It was exciting, confusing, depressing, exhausting. Sometimes she said the sweetest things… and I swooned over them afterwards, but reminded myself she couldn’t like me that way.

Except she did.

I find out now.

After four years.

Now that she has another girlfriend.

All that time, she liked me.

If only.

If only one thing had changed.

If only one thing had been different.

I was so close.

It’s 11:30 at night, and I still have enough energy to do laps around the house (which is unfortunately out of the question due to freezing rain and sleeping children). So what do I do with all this extra energy? I clean, and then I journal.

Which means this will be a random journal about nothing particularly important. Potential readers, you’ve been warned.

Today was great fun – it started out with intense cleaning, though, because my little sister had a friend coming over, and my mom has this thing about company and clean houses. So I vacuumed, folded laundry, and windexed for a while. I also made this yummy kind of frosting (“vanilla buttercream” is what the recipe calls it) for the cake I baked yesterday, and iced it. Once I’d finished with that, I finally started painting. I’ve been meaning to paint all week, and I’d even gotten my paints/canvas/brushes/towels/gesso/palettes etc. set up days ago. I just hadn’t started yet. I love painting. I’m not particularly good, but I’m not too bad either, and I just like playing around with colors and landscapes and skyscapes. I used acrylics today because I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to deal with oils… but I did miss the smoothness and versatility of oil paints.

This afternoon, my mom and I made veggie lasagna and bread together. I like working in the kitchen with her. It was a kind of mother-daughter bonding time, you know? Then, since my little sister’s friend was still here, I called my a good friend from high school to see if he was around, and he was, so he ended up coming over for dinner, too. We had good food and then the six of us played Apples to Apples… does anyone else know the game I’m talking about? It’s great fun when you play it with the right people. Anyhoo. We played Canasta, too. I laughed so much I’m still a little sore, and breathing too deeply hurts. What a crazy bunch of people we were.

So yeah… that was my day. Tomorrow I’m taking my dad out for lunch at a Chinese restaurant, because that was my Christmas present to him – a certificate to go out to eat. I’m looking forward to that, and I’m pretty sure he is, too. So that should be fun. Other than that, I’ve got no real plans for the last day of 2007, which now that I think of it is kind of sad… maybe. Maybe I don’t mind so much. I don’t know…

Oh well, that used up some energy. I could go on, but I don’t have much more to say without opening up a dangerous can of worms, so… ta da! The end.

: )

I feel sort of at peace again.

I just realized when I sat down to write this: it’s true I’ve been doing better lately, I’ve been happy, I’ve felt more real – but I haven’t felt much peace. It kind of slips through the cracks, and I forget to miss it. I’ve been holding on and having fun, enjoying myself, keeping things together, etc., which is all good, but just now I feel like I’ve completely accepted myself, and it feels so good I’m having trouble believing it.

I went out with my friend this afternoon – the one I used to be in love with. It feels so strange writing it like that. But I’m sure it’s true: I was in love with her. I still love her, but it’s different now. I’m completely okay with it. It’s not a sad, jealous love anymore, even though we’re not together. I had a really hard time for a while, recently, because I finally told her about my feelings, and she told me she used to like me, too… and I realized if things had gone just the slightest bit differently we would’ve wound up together, way back then. It was so incredibly painful to know I’d come so close to having the thing I’d wanted most for years, but missed. For weeks, all I felt like doing was sitting down and banging my head against the wall.

Slowly, though, I started to… I don’t know how to put it… move on? No, that’s not right, because I didn’t leave it behind. I just took the bitterness out of it somehow. It still makes me sad if I think about it too much. But it’s not eating away at me. I’ve let the worst of it go.

This afternoon, she and I talked. Things had (as you’d probably imagine) been awkward since we’d fessed up our feelings about a month ago. Not anymore. I think we both feel better, and we were both completely honest about things. Everything’s out in the open now, and we both understand – there aren’t any more uncertainties, no more maybes – everything’s real. When she dropped me off back at my dorm she asked me if everything was cool, and I felt like I could really truly say yes, it is.

I told her about my new love interest, too. I’m sure that’s helping me, having someone else to focus my romantic attention on, even though she’s probably going to be another heartbreaker. It just can’t be healthy to dwell on one person for so long like that. It makes me feel like, look, she’s not my only hope – there will be others. As strange as that feels, I know there will be others.

I don’t know how long this happy, peaceful feeling will last, but I sure am enjoying it now.

And I don’t know if anyone else will be able to understand/relate to/care about what I wrote, but I figure I’ll post it just in case. If nothing else, it did me good to write it.

You’re sitting there, at your uncomfortable desk in your tiny room, trying to think of some other pointless thing to do to avoid productivity. It’s Tuesday, and you’ve never really gotten the hang of Tuesdays. You sip the orange juice that you had intended to have for breakfast earlier that morning, but forgot about, while debating between studying for your economics midterm (bad) and an RC application (even worse) as what you’ll inevitably wind up spending most of your afternoon on.

Then, suddenly, the phone rings. You wonder why it startled you so much. Where is it… buried under those papers, no doubt… you wonder who it is that’s calling as you rustle through your mess. Probably your mom, getting back to you about that question you had… or maybe your friend calling back about dinner on Thursday. Aha, there it is. You reach for the cell and, out of habit, glance down at caller ID… and freeze.

Why is SHE calling you?

What… what…

She’s never done this before!

Not ready! Not prepared!

… Should you answer it?

You hyperventilate for a few moments before calling yourself an absolute wimp (the best insult you could come up with on such short notice) and picking up your phone. The “hello” barely squeaks out of your mouth, but it’s enough. You hear her voice answer back. What could she possibly want…

. . . . .

And twenty minutes later, you’re sitting next to her at a table in the library, hardly believing your luck. She’s reaching across your notes on monopolies for some of the chocolate raisins you brought, offering carrots in return. You don’t actually end up eating much of anything (even though you missed lunch) because of nerves – but, ridiculously, the carrot juice stains you’ll find in your notebook the next day will make you smile so much that you can’t get rid of those pages, despite the content itself being irrelevant. You struggle through the textbook together and eavesdrop on the group of people at the table next to you. She says she just wanted someone to study with, but you can’t help feeling like she named you Queen of Economics.

Why is it that these kinds of people like you? You were completely prepared to let this be a Crush-From-A-Distance. It would have been all right. She has a boyfriend, after all. But then something like this happens… and later that night you glance over at a graph of marginal revenues of price-takers, and you see her scribbles all over, and you think… damn. It’s happened again.

Oh, my god. Laughter really is the best medicine.

My guy friend from high school and I went to an environmental conference on campus today, and afterwards he stayed here in the dorm with me, waiting for his mom to pick him up. We were hanging out in my room with the door open, just generally being silly, and every time someone walked by outside, he would shout at them (in a slightly crazed way), "Hi!! I'm normal!!!" Their reactions were absolutely hilarious. They'd stop, look, back away slowly, or pretend not to notice... those were the best. (How could you not notice that??) Once he missed someone - looked up and they'd already walked past my door - so he ran after them and yelled "HI!!!" at the top of his lungs at the poor guy's back as he walked around the corner down the stairs.

Maybe I'm a horrible person, but I was laughing hysterically the entire time. After that last incident I discribed I was laughing so hard it hurt and I could hardly breathe... I haven't done that in a long time.

Oh god that was hilarious.

So I came out to my friend this morning, and she took it really well! And more.

I can’t believe this. I was pretty worried about how she was going to react, and I could tell from the way the conversation went beforehand that she was really, really not expecting me to say what I did. But the weirdest, strangest thing happened… as soon as I told her, and she'd had had a minute to think about it, she let out this sigh like one of relief and immediately started talking to me, and spilled out a confession that just stunned me. She’s had a girl crush before! She’s not even 100% sure that she’s straight!

Now that I think about this, it definitely matches up with some things she’s told me before, and it makes perfect sense. But woah! Woah! Up until this morning she was the straightest friend I had. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I told her, but I definitely, definitely wasn’t expecting that.

Gah!

So we talked for the rest of the morning, and now I feel so much better. She’s the first person I told without feeling like I absolutely had to do it – it was more for my peace of mind than anything else. I feel lighter, somehow. I don’t understand the relationship between coming out and gravity, but apparently there is one. I feel great.

And one more thing. It wasn’t funny at the time (right then, I was too nervous to find anything particularly funny), but the look on her face when I told her was priceless. Now that I think about it, it was absolutely hilarious. She looked kind of like I imagine she would if a squirrel ran up to her and slapped her in the face with a sock. I’m picturing it now, and I can’t stop laughing. :)

Ta-da! Bring the grand total up to four!

I think I'm coming out to someone tomorrow...

A friend of mine from high school came over to my dorm to talk this afternoon, and I listened while she talked about a guy friend of hers who she kind of likes, but thinks he might be gay. I tried to give decent advice, and to just be a good listener, but the whole time she was talking I was thinking it would be a good opportunity to fess up. I was nervous, though, because I'm not sure yet whether I'm bisexual or a pure lesbian, and my friend is the kind of person who doesn't usually buy the "I just don't know" excuse, nor does she have a very good opinion of bisexuals ("I try to be open minded, and gay people are fine with me, but I don't understand bisexuals... they should just pick one gender and get it over with"). Her reaction could go a number of different ways.

Obviously I never got around to telling her today - we ran out of time and I started to try, but then realized this isn't the kind of thing to rush, and I just let it go. A few hours later, though, in a burst of bravery, I called her at home, and asked if she could talk, but she was eating dinner and by the time she called me back I'd lost my nerve. She knows I want to talk about something, though (has no idea what, I'm sure), and told me she'd rather talk in person. So we're meeting tomorrow morning and I think I can't weasel out of it. I think I'm going to tell her.

I just hope she reacts well. I can't see her blowing up at me or anything, but it's sure going to change the way she deals with me. She judges quickly. I hope she can override any prejudices she has in favor of being friends with me. I don't think she's really personally known any LGBTQ people (at least, not well), so no one's really broken through her preconcieved stereotypes. And I'm not really the spitting image of a traditional, stereotypical lesbian. Or bisexual... I don't think... what's a stereotypical bisexual look like? Hmm. I just realized I don't know.

Anyway, my point is: I don't know how she's going to react, I hope it will be well, I think the potential is there for an excellent reaction, but it's also a possibility that it won't go so well. If it doesn't, it'll be subtle, but very real. And not cool. But I guess it's just a risk I'm going to take. Unless I chicken out. Please, self, don't chicken out. I think she needs to know. Deserves to, too. She's confided all sorts of stuff to me. I owe her - don't I?

Enough rambling. I'm trying to explain things to myself as much as (or more than) anyone else. And if anyone actually reads this whole thing, then, wow - you must be very bored...