shopping therapy + lessons learned

apologies to friends reading that i have been a little m.i.a. i began tutoring the college student 15 hours a week in addition to the 45 hours at the company. working this much is not in my blood. today i'm devoting the afternoon to relaxation and shopping therapy. new beautiful clothes never hurt.

i must say that the dating world is harsh. a.x. and i had a talk finally. she ended it so to speak because she said she does not feel the same way. somewhat cruel words to the ear. but i appreciate having a dose of honesty after being confused and hurt about the whole situation. too often people cushion the truth with flowery language.

the best advice i heard from a friend is: "take it for what it was and move on."

life changes and shifts so quickly. like a kaleidoscope. sometimes two people are simply not meant to stay together for long.

reporting from the lesbian underground

we decided not to have all sixty people over for the housewarming soiree. you can see that our house is tiny and we would have been packed in like sardines with the 101 degree heat. my roommate hosted housewarming part I. i hosted housewarming part II last weekend. a.x. came for housewarming part I with her gay boyfriend. she was out of town when i threw mine. if you are a regular reader of this blog, you might remember when my gay boyfriend and i used to go to ladies' night together months ago. there was one night we were at the club this past winter and he clutched my arm and said, "oh my god, look at her. you two would be a perfect couple." a.x. was beautiful. i wanted to talk to her. "you should go talk to her," he whispered. "what should i say??" i asked him. my stomach shrank into a knot. what does one woman say to another woman in a gay bar? what if she was straight? conversation turned to determining whether or not the man she was with was her boyfriend or her gay boyfriend. "i think they're like us," i concluded, watching her body language. but i never found it in me to initiate contact. i did not see a.x. again until a drag show this spring and then at the pride festival. as fate would have it, my roommate works for the same company as her and we began talking. from then on we've been friendly. she was at the sin party with her friend, the one i danced with for most of the night, and i will admit that her friend eclipsed my interested in her at the time. but when the two of us were at ladies' night together several weeks ago, at the same club where my gay boyfriend had first given her the stamp of approval, i took her by the hand, led her down a deserted hallway that leads out to the alley, and out of the public eye we attacked each other against the brick wall. it was total passion. we made out hardcore for twenty minutes, coming up for air only when we were interrupted by a security man standing next to us. "ladies," he called out, hands on hips. "i'm going to need to ask you to vacate the hallway." he was looking at us like we were prostitutes performing tricks. a.x. and i did not tell anyone for awhile about our secret meetings. when she came to the housewarming party, we slipped behind the house, disappeared into the dark shadows near the creek and woods, and made out with carnal abandon. then we re-entered the house. the night she came over to spend the night, i was alone in the house. from here it becomes confusing and hazy. i remember her being in my bedroom. i remember her taking off my clothes. i remember her being totally into me. i remember being aware of how much i like her. i remember thinking afterwards that it could mean that we're going to be girlfriends. but after that night, she fell off the face of the earth. i never saw it coming. i don't know what happened in her mind that night. i don't know why she stopped calling. i'm left feeling used, disappointed, sad, confused. a.x. is a mystery.

photos = me and our house

late june.

in the 15+ years of living in austin, texas, june has never been this hot. stepping outside is literally like sticking yourself into your kitchen oven. i have no idea what to expect this summer.

the weather forecast reads:
saturday- 104
sunday-103
monday-104

i sit in our living room with the air-conditioning unit cranked up high and drink ice water. still i'm hot. i love warm weather, but not when it's like this.

i had loaded my car with some copies of the book to deliver to the bookstore. not thinking, i discovered that the heat made the book covers stick together, and when i pulled them apart, the covers were damaged. tragic. now i must wait for the new order to come in, and i'm going to have to figure out what i want to do with these 'punk' poetry books. half price books or randomly leaving them at coffee houses.

s.i.n.

after watching a horrible phantom of the opera entertainment piece in the midst of the s.i.n. party, i did meet someone last night who is a) a lesbian b) beautiful c) available. she tagged along with my group of friends and this is how we met. i spent time talking and dancing with her. yes. i actually danced in public. she grabbed my hand and led me out onto the floor and pulled me close to her hips. it was so awesome. she has these beautiful blue eyes, which i'm always a sucker for. we must have danced for about an hour to some crazy techno music. but... this one woman butted in when we were dancing and "stole" her away for the rest of the night, asking her to go outside alone with her away from the party. i had to chase her down and exchange phone numbers before going home at 2 a.m. as a feminist, i'm not going to fight other women for another woman. if eden* (pseudonym) is interested, then she has my digits. i will most likely send her a message soon. this other woman, whose name will go unmentioned, has never been very nice to me. i had a bad feeling about the night when she showed up at the party and hovered around my friends. i knew she probably wanted eden. it was no surprise to me that she would pull a move like that on me, knowing full well that this is the woman i was interested in and that we were in the middle of dancing on the floor. i like to live in a world where "nice girls finish first." the first woman i slept with wore underwear with that written across it. i haven't forgotten it. this other woman may have captured eden's attention at the end of the night, but it does not mean that they are going to date or be in a relationship. you never know. i was just feeling really bummed upon driving home that the night had taken a downward turn. the dating world feels so difficult and competitive and cut-throat, but at least i'm getting out and meeting new people and one of these days, i will have a great girlfriend.

i was doing so well with moving on from breaking up with my ex-girlfriend and then i had to see her right as i walked into this coffee place. the old emotions came flooding back to me. the memory of physical embraces and everything. i think i'm never going to be 100 percent over her, not until i'm happily involved with someone else and years have gone by. that is what it will probably take. what is surreal is seeing the fine line between someone being your lover and being your worst enemy.

she has cut her hair, almost shaved it, and is no longer bleaching it blond. when i looked at her, she looked down at her computer like she thought that somehow not looking me in the eye would hide her body from my line of vision. i walked past the table, up the stairs, and into the coffee place, the door swinging behind.

this sort of immaturity and childishness is exactly what i don't need or want. i need someone who matches me and can handle being on polite terms regardless if we're staying together or not. interactions with her in the last year have been upsetting. but i'm not going to allow the negativity from her to steal my happiness.

tonight i'm going out with two friends to a club downtown where there is a huge lesbian party. the s.i.n. party. i went to urban outfitters to find a shirt to wear and the deal breaker was when a woman, who is a lesbian, saw me with it on in the dressing room and said, "wow. i love that shirt." i was at a different store with it on and several women stopped to ask, "where did you get your shirt?" women like this shirt.

on another note, my friend is designing some parts of my writing portfolio this weekend. i've been getting one together to show to my manager to hopefully get the promotion that i desire. i needed her to visually spice up the text to give articles a magazine layout and design. i'll have the pieces printed on high-grade paper for a small book. i can't believe i've gone this long without a real portfolio. i think having a portfolio and a website, no matter how basic, is essential for writers. included in the portfolio is a "writer's statement" plus the front cover image of the poetry book. i'm torn over whether or not i want to have some of my poetry and fiction writing in the portfolio. i would have to select excerpts that are not provocative in nature. hard for me to do!

summertime.

this is the summer of creating a home.
this is the summer of living from the inside out.
this is the summer of fearlessly going places alone.
this is the summer of being whole again.
this is the summer of being 29.