Am I becoming a safe-box again? A place for people to put their secrets, where they know they won’t escape, so that they don’t have to put up with them kicking around their heads all day? I know that’s not right – nobody takes me for granted here, and I’m always more than happy to listen. I think I’m jealous of them, though. Jealous that they can tell me what’s going on. Jealous that they trust me. I can’t tell myself anything, and I’m about as ready to trust somebody else with the shit that goes through my head as I am to broadcast it on FM radio. I don’t write what I really need to say here – I can’t. My family reads this. But if I could bear to tell the internet how I really feel, maybe I wouldn’t have such a problem showing emotion among the people who raised me.
But what do people see in me that lets them talk? I don’t judge them, I tell them it’s not their fault. But that’s not it. Nor is it that I won’t tell – there are plenty of people who won’t and my guarantee is no better than theirs. But I don’t want people to feel beholden to me. I want them to like me and spend time with me and never feel that they owe me anything.
Yeah, it was probably the first time I realized I was gay. And I got sooo depressed because I thought being gay meant being an outcast....a bum. And I thought, "Gee... I'll never get to wear nice clothes!" I really do love A Chorus Line.
I want them to fall in love with me, not thank me. But at the same time it feels so good to keep my head in someone else’s crisis, to feel needed and clung to. But having everyone’s secrets, knowing more than everybody else and not being able to say a thing – that doesn’t feel like power. That feels like a trap. I don’t want to be that responsible. Except I do, because I can and people need me to. And if I can help them I’m obliged to. Christ, maybe I should be a nun or something. Hah! Imagine. Imagine me being that sincere for three seconds. imagine me being Christian. Imagine me being subservient. I can't.
Oh, darling, you're not old enough to wear a bra. You've got nothing to hold it up!
My mother's in England for a week or so, visiting my family and her friends and people like that. I'm going just after Christmas for a week or so, then coming back to the States for my Library of Congress internship. I'm very, very excited about that.
There's a girl at this school who's actually from the town we're in, and tonight I went to her house for dinner. It's just across the street, and six of us traipsed over in the snow (it's been falling all day and is the most beautiful, sparkly stuff I've ever hated) and were ushered in and fed the most wonderful meal I've had in weeks. Her mother is from New Orleans and has a delicious accent, and the food was just as good. There was rice with onion gravy, there was corn and cornbread, soup, chicken, sweet tea. There was a butter pecan cake. And afterward she put what was left into boxes for us... I can't wait for lunch tomorrow. But for now, I never want to think about eating again. I just want to sleep. The house was lovely to be in too. I forget about certain things here. Cars and living rooms. Mothers. Incandescent lighting. Etc. And there were confederate flags hung on the walls, and framed pictures of my friend when she was a baby, and carpet on the stairs and a warm kitchen and a fully stocked bar in the basement. It was a wonderful hour and a half. Now I'm facing my chemical demons in the school library, and looking forward to crawling into bed. How boring I've become, no longer groaning at the thought of closing my eyes long enough to miss any fun. I keep finding things in my bed - pens, clothes, a fedora that's not even mine. I should excavate properly this evening, but I probably won't.
Those tights I ordered a while ago turned out to be extremely unstretchy and short, so I've cut off the feet and made leggings. They're making me very happy.
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