I Was Always Too Worried About the Greasemark.

There are a few websites I keep bookmarked for when I need a laugh. My favorite one is List of the Day. The guys posts the best Engrish, the best Mugshots, the best of humanity at its goofiest/worst, basically. You all have to look at the list he posted of animals with their faces stuck against glass:

I think especially Anne will appreciate this one, for some reason:

http://listoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/12/animals-squashed-against-glass-of-day.html

In It To Win It

I wasn't going to go, originally. There is bric-a-brac piling up in my life that needs to be addressed, like cleaning the leaves out of the gutters of my existence. My room is a mess, the floor covered with clothing that I haven't put away for weeks. I have pictures that I need to edit. Haven't worked out in awhile. Lately I have been instant rice in a pressure cooker and the resultant stress has caused me to break out, which I am very self-conscious about. I was going to work the game, and go home to start ticking off items on my to do list, just be by myself. That is, until Bradley called.

Brad is, I'm pretty sure, my brother separated at birth. He is one of the funniest people I know. He is a genuine person and he would go balls to the wall for any of the people he cares about. I think that we are not too unlike each other. The invitation from Rob to go get a few drinks after the game was easy for me to mentally shoot down, but when Brad was part of the equation it gave me pause. Sometimes being near Brad is like breathing a nice, deep, breath of fresh air. So substandard pulchritude aside, I told them I'd be there.

We stood in a group at the bar, the four of us. I was still in my school colors from the game and the first comment from Rob was that it was nice of me to dress up. Brad and I slammed a couple of christmas trees and the vitriol started. It's too easy to make fun of Rob, and I felt bad, but I tempered the feeling by reminding myself that he started it. And already, it has begun! We cannot have reached the level of comfort with each other that allows us to be grumpy toward each other in public and for some god forsaken reason, tender in private. Or rather I should say, he has reached this level of comfort. I think that for most relationships this type of behavior signals the beginning of the end. But then, I have always gravitated toward extremes. You're either with me or against me. The pot-shots are for fifth graders.

So, the evening ended with Brad leaving to see his boy at the Inn. And I left shortly thereafter but not before we stood alone at the bar and Rob asked me in his boyfriend voice what was wrong. I swear I must just have no patience for people. I looked away and didn't answer, finished the last swig of gin and headed down the stairs. And this morning he asked me to accompany him to dinner tonight. I know! I'm excited too!! I need an alternate plan, quick.

Luke 12:25

You're so good, you're so good! Screaming out in my head. Fuck. Beat yourself up some more, you care about the wrong things too much. And you care about the right things too late. And above all human beings are made to be happy, said the Elder Zosima.

I stood in Angela's office alone for the first five minutes, I had to fumble up the dark and narrow stairway and once upstairs I scanned the wall with my hand for a light switch. No one was home, so I busied myself by nervously studying the map of Ireland that someone had hung on the wall. When she finally arrived I felt even more self conscious because of the peculiar way she looks at you, almost as if from behind her eyes, as though there is a detached entity looking through the openings in her head and rendering some secret judgment.

The awkwardness was amplified by the shot of some dark Hungarian liquor that she poured for both of us. A dark shot, like an ounce of molasses, and a half cup of some dark and what appeared to be entirely flat, beer. She made a toast to change and I raised the ounce of bile to my lips, and swallowed it in a gulp. In the furious half-second that the liquid mingled with my tongue I sensed anise and chimney soot and gasoline. She was looking at me, the now nearly full glass still at her lips. "You drank the whole thing!" The warmth of the alcohol was rising in my chest and combined with the embarrassment of not being privy to Hungarian drinking etiquette; I felt the internal flames began to lick my cheeks and ears, they were turning red. And there she sat, mouth agape, looking at me, and I felt very deeply within myself that, at that moment, I was a buffoon. "You will never be better than you currently are." Shame is what gives birth to sin.

Suffice to say that as far as filling the position of solicitor is concerned, there is still currently a vacancy. I left the meeting defeated, but only after she asked me if I was ok to drive home. I went promptly to buy a pack of cigarettes despite my vow to Anne that I was quitting, that we would quit together. Vice helps ease the sting of self deprecation. And so failure continues to give birth to failure.

Lupi.

He's leaving, he says, and too late for me to do anything about it. I am getting to a point that I feel as though attempting to make any plans in my life is utter folly. Like I am trying to manage a top as it spins wildly out of control. He is leaving, running away, and there is nothing left for me to do but pray that he really shows up for the court appointment that will give me back my name. Six little letters and it's all I want in life, and it feels so utterly impossible. I told him 30-90 days after I file and it was too long for him to wait. "There is too much at stake," he said. And all I can hear in my head as a reply is you have absolutely got to be fucking kidding me.

Christ Jesus,
help me to find Your purpose in this.