2:00 a.m. x 2011-10-10

currently listening to: "antichrist superstar" by marilyn manson

seth's brother got married this weekend. i pride myself on being generally unflappable, but i need to stay firmly and completely away from weddings. i didn't address it - it was pretty upsetting at the time - but i was not in amanda's wedding. amanda's been one of my very very closest friends since i graduated high school and i spent several days on a significant crying jag when she asked me to be her maid of honor. i was blindsided. across my spectrum of friends, all the close ones are either in college or in their first jobs post-college. most of them have been in the same relationship for over two years or are still significantly involved with a person they've been with or known that long. i have a few friends engaged with no date set in order to not compound the concerns that come with school and work. marriages happen in environments like this, it was just the first one around me. i was elected to my position while i was working a minimum wage job, while my loans were in repayment, before i met seth. while reconciling the wonderment of my job with the unreasonable amount of money i was making, i met seth and was inspired to put much more effort into finding a better paying job that would free up my weekends and allow me to devote more energy to a relationship that continues to be more than worth the investment, that has continued to make me profoundly happy at every turn. my job did not. it was temporary, the temp agency was a nightmare, i had to continue looking for a job, my energy was nil, and i was really staunchly miserable. the job itself was no problem, but i was worried about keeping my CV gapless of editorial things, writing, finding a job that wouldn't end and wouldn't involve an outside agency, not letting my friends believe i'd forgotten them (i give up), watching my health decline sharply - and i was designing materials for amanda's wedding, buying everything she told me to buy. which began last summer thusly: as long as she approved it and it adhered to the color scheme, it was a go. then we went shopping over some break, just to see the dresses other people wore. then it was a specific dress. i hung on for all this - standard business, i'm merely laying it out. i had thought of other things to do - accessories and shoes to wear, dresses i might buy the day i saw an adequate amount of money. i made circa $7 an hour and paid private school loans. when i couldn't buy the dress on sight she was furious with me. this was the beginning. that was unreasonable but i reasserted - it's my wedding-job to get the dress, i'll get it. if you waited until i was an adult with an apartment and a living wage whose schedule wasn't constantly a-shift with interviews, weeks-after-loan-payments and depressive episodes indulged by days-at-a-time-off (i needed those, retail - thank you), i could have bought the dress right there. things proceeded in that manner for the duration of the wedding-planning. i would realize all the sudden that my ability to accumulate my wedding-gear and adhere to wedding-decorum was a major concern of amanda's and i was really hurt about that. this was before the issue with the shoes. i was going to buy flats to go with the dress. the store had flats i could dye that color. i was going to be moving around everywhere. i didn't want to overwhelm the bride and we are the same height, so i was not considering high heels. ballet flats are unassuming and appropriate. she had in mind, i learned after i'd all ready pursued them, that we would all wear flip flops, and sent this notice at a time when i could spend the money. this was one problem, also a problem: i don't wear flip flops. if there is anything one isn't willing to do, one is not a good candidate for a member of a wedding party. i get stupidly touchy on this subject. like my aversion to musical theatre - if someone finds my aversion affecting or offending them, that person and i can't be friends. i'm okay with that because i'm okay with my phobias. i live a very fulfilling life despite these awful things that i don't want in it. i am more averse to musical theatre than i am to flip flops, but unlike the musical theatre thing, i don't tell anyone about the flip flop thing. it tends not to come up at all unless i bring it up, and i don't. but here is the deal: i have had two major relationships (seth is not among them, and for that i am constantly overjoyed) with men who count among their sexual preoccupations - ugh, i can't even address it. not because i find it morally reprehensible but because i am SO NOT INTO IT. and the fact that it was two guys! in a row! that i liked very much! i didn't know either time until we were all ready committed. it never caused anything really weird. they were generally respectful of me not wanting to integrate that fascination into our sex life. it was just another page we weren't on together, and i really could not empathize with it. the first one didn't read and the second couldn't feel joy, so there was plenty i had going on that didn't jive with them either. anyway: i like to wear socks, stockings, and boots. i like to reserve exposure to the areas of my body that i find fetching. in general, i prefer clothing that plays up parts and crucially obscures others in order to provoke curiosity. i like the way i dress. i like to look nice. it is a vital part of the way i handle issues with my appearance, which are rooted in health concerns/worries about what other people are doing with the sight of my body. i like to control what of me others see with what i wear. messing with that triggers a lot of problems for me. so i handled this with predictable tactlessness. wasted in her hot tub, having just met seth and still a little nervous to address the issue of my ex-boyfriend's predilections with him, i just told her i was not going to do that and that the shoes i had would be fine. at the time i truly believed this wasn't an issue: i had no money, i couldn't believe i wasn't able to explain this body-problem to my best friend for the real fear that she wouldn't be sensitive to it (because i was scared to bring it up to seth), and there were much, MUCH bigger things to be worried about. she had no venue for the wedding. nothing was planned. nothing was arranged. she had no money! i remember that night well. i felt like i was going to die. i drank myself into a black hole in the hot tub then leaped out into the freezing winter night. i got a week-long hangover compacted into fifteen unlivable minutes that i spent dripping and paralyzed in the house of someone i had just pissed the fuck off. that was the most awkward thing that has ever happened to me (i do not accept hyperbole where the word awkward is concerned - this is so sincere)! i proceeded with the next several months well enough. i was a gigantic mess. looking for a job with a full time job had me wickedly depressed. i had to maintain my commitment to my writing schedule. no questions. had to. or else i would be untold amounts unhappier. i had to be with seth, i had to spend time with him. our relationship is exactly what i want, it is important to me, he makes me ecstatically happy, we are best friends with astronomically identical interests, and i need that. i need him. he brought to me that indefinable quality only a significant other can bring. so i was especially, extremely rigid about my free time. he and i spend the weekends together. i go with him to see his brother. he comes with me to see my friends. we go back to his house and go to sleep afterwards. this coming weekend will be one of four out of the past year we've spend together where we won't see each other. so another rift occurred when one weekend, seth and i met amanda and her fiance for dinner, and we talked over dinner and then parted. we accomplished establishing what still needed to be done, what one needed from the other, with the wedding not far off at all. then we left, and she was angry that was all we saw of each other. this was discouraging but nothing to me. she was getting married. my commitment would have to seem uninteresting to her. any day now. then came her bachelorette party - a trip to a beach house. that was right after my birthday, during which time a lot of problems with my job were exploding all at once, and the morbid reality of prioritizing a job hunt over my writing in my free time, restricting writing to corporate mischief committed while at work, was blackening my sky. i was no fun. i did not feel good. i was really scared and really upset. i didn't have a lot of money. i was terrified of missing a payment on my loans. my job had an expiration date. i don't go out when i'm not fun. i was not fun. i had to go out. all i wanted was to be with seth because i was in no shape to be a contributing, vital element to a party. i was a fucking wreck. i have only lately gotten over much of the devastation incurred that time and this weekend confirmed the ways i still need to go yet. i really made amanda mad. she thought my staying in my room, crying for hours, was a bid for everyone's attention. i have never wanted to be forgotten by the world more than that weekend. i was just so fucked. i was so scared of my job situation (i was almost fired the day we left). i apologized later but i could feel it not do anything. i was all ready messing things up by being there. a weekend or two later, a hurricane hit while i was leaving for work. i was caught in it. this experience i won't speak of again because i nearly died in a car with my mother who was not making anything better. the next day was a friday. the hurricane warnings were giving me anxiety like i hadn't felt in years. when i got to seth's, my glasses broke and i cried. i can't see anything without my glasses. i really broke down. he took care of it and glued them back together. we slept. in the morning we went out for breakfast and bought the fran lebowitz documentary "public speaking" - one of my favorite things in the universe. we got back. i put the dvd in. seth went to use the bathroom. near-death experience, shattering of instrument i require to see, healing - i had been busy. this was the moment that i checked my phone. i had an AVALANCHE of missed communications with amanda. i flipped through them trying to establish the chronology of what was up. she was still angry about the shoes, my total not-all-right-ness at the beach house, etc, and since that was it, and i was not equipped to address it in a productive way, i put the phone down. i would answer her when i could talk. that's what i would have done if she had not found where seth lived. i met her at the door and told her we'd talk about it when i went home. she was way too mad at me for this. she had a whole other exchange in mind. it was war. she wanted to put me in my place, whereas i had spent the past half a year trying to crab-walk into the shadows, into my place that is way, way off stage, away from everyone, where i can get myself professionally and financially in gear, so i can enjoy my relationships again, so i can be fun and enjoy being part of a group. she said a bunch of rude, miserable things about seth and the manner in which i prioritize my relationship with him. she made an ass out of herself. this happened twice. at one point she left and i sat down, then saw her coming up again. it was like the abdomen-stab, then the drag of the blade sideways. then she txt'd me, apologizing, then she txt'd me, ending our friendship. then i went to this wedding of seth's brother's. it is crucial to note that somewhere between them, i went to another wedding of a friend of seth's where my glasses broke in the reception. i was so fucked up and miserable that i started crying uncontrollably. i was instantly consoled by the fact that seth was happy to leave. no such luck in this case. i like seth's brother and his fiancee. the venue was breathtaking. i was just uneasy. i don't like weddings. now i understand the extent to which i don't like them. i feel like i'm witnessing something way, way too intimate, something that is none of my business. i don't like how it makes relationships into something that is suddenly, unwittingly on the table for discussion. and fuck my life - i arrived very early since seth was the best man and was helping to set up and at one point some characters launched into this cliche-ridden exchange about how one just knows when one has found their dress. ohhhh the dress thing. i grimaced. i was a giant bitch. to myself. in a seat in the corner. then people started coming in. then i really felt it: i wasn't going to be sitting next to seth. i was supposed to be somewhere else, with his family. they seated me beside his cousin's girlfriend, who i'd hung out with at another party. everyone noticed that i'd spent a significant amount of time at the party talking to her, but no one seemed to catch the two-thirds of the party that i spent in seth's room, asleep, hating parties, still no fun. this girl came over and said hi when she arrived. since we had talked before and i liked her, i felt perfectly comfortable with saying - oh, i'm not really thrilled that i'm not with seth - and she just hammered out: that's the rule, he's in the wedding party, don't make a scene, just sit where they tell you to. very stern, very condescending. that made my decision for me. i stayed in that seat until it got too weird, then i moved into an antechamber between the banquet hall and the door. i had five cups of coffee, three tiny hors-d'ouerves, and otherwise worked on writing/editing that i needed to catch up on. i didn't want to infect anybody with my complete incompatibility with the occasion. i just wanted to be with seth and clap for the bride and groom. any participating in communal feelings, any togetherness or family-ness, makes me horribly sick and uncomfortable. i am not a member of anybody's family. i am in a relationship. seth and i have more or less flatly stated in that we never want to be in another wedding that we don't want to get married. i only want to be with him. i don't want my parents ever to have the idea that his business is theirs. i hate the intersection of parents and my relationships. i can't even deal with that. oh my god. nothing makes me more insane than anything that reasserts the parameters of what-is-a-family. so i just wanted to go. i didn't want to ruin it for anybody. i don't think i did. i think they got it. afterwards seth, who was perfectly amazing, took me to get dinner and coffee and we laid in bed and watched movies. no more weddings. i don't think i can even attend a friend's. too much at stake, too many bad feelings.

if anybody should ask i'm going to a seminar
pieces of the moon
JOBJOBJOB
interviewinterviewinterview
sensitive heart, you're doomed from the start
(& etc)