Yesterday - Today


Belli Denuntiatio

10:11, 27 July 2003

It is so difficult to sum up a person from one's past in a single, cohesive, comprehensive paragraph. It's times like these I wish this journal encompassed my college years as well, since the distillation of past relationships to peircingly accurate and concise description is difficult when one devotes so much time, energy and text to them during their spans. But I'll try.

I met John Steadman in a nightclub in London's Leicester Square, my third night of a three-month study abroad summer in that great city. He was tall, devastatingly attractive and so jaunty with confidence that my own step developed a bit of a swagger just keeping pace with his. We fell into each other quickly; he told me he loved me and I responded in kind, despite that I knew, in the back of my mind, that it was not love (at least not by my definition). I lost myself in him, an addict for his love. Poems and admiration and loyalty poured from me in ceaseless streams.

My time in London ended and I hopped the Baltic to my next study abroad program at Stockholm University in Sweden. John came to visit me there for two weeks, during what has been universally determined to have been my first big hypomanic episode. He and I painted the country green with kronor I didn't have.

And then, as suddenly as it started, it ended. It couldn't last; it was doomed from the start. He and I failed the telephone test miserably. We had nothing in common but a foolish notion that we were the most romantic lovers since Romeo and Juliet invented the category. I consciously and purposely lost my mind in him, in the doublethink of it all... but I let the currents catch me a bit too strongly, I let go a bit too much... and so it took me quite some time to get over him. His love was the most addicting substance I have ever come across, and my withdrawal symptoms lasted years. John and I broke up in December 1999; the next relationship to which I could accurately apply the term "boyfriend" was with Josh in fall 2002. Quite the detox, one could say.

I mention all this because I just got off the phone with John. I rang him--or rather, tracked him all across England--last night, after the weirdness, which I'll get to in a moment. John is in the British Army (Cavalry Mounted Regiment, Horse Guards, Two Troop, The Life Guards) and so I had to call the barracks in Windsor and Knightsbridge before I could weasel his mobile number out of one of those little cadets answering the phones.

I meant to call him last night, but I just got too tired and so I went off to bed. This morning I had a forty-minute chat with him, reminiscing about our good times togther. He had recently moved, and during the move had unearthed a box of photos from our relationship and had spent the better part of two hours flipping through old snaps and remembering us. It was strangely satisfying to know that someone was looking at pictures of me and smiling at the memories brought fourth, memories hung on hooks I'll never know.

Do you know what people remember about you? What reminds old loves of your touch, your smile, your laugh? It is always something random and inextricably personal--something so your own that no other girl will replace you on at least that one shelf in his memory. I think of John, for example, whenever I wear the running shorts I'm wearing right now. He adopted them for a few months when we were together, and they bear a cigarette burn on the right thigh as a testament to him. John told me this morning that he thinks of me every time he travels, as his duffel was once mine, lent to him ages ago when he left after visiting me in Sweden.

Speaking of visiting, apparently John is planning to come out to Los Angeles in September. Given his reliability and scheduling acumen, I'll believe that when I pick him up at LAX. But if he does come, stay tuned, because that is going to be some interesting stuff right there, I promise you that. Perhaps I'll have to celebrate the occasion by devoting a few more paragraphs to fleshing out the background of our relationship a little more fully. But, for now, I'll leave you salivating.

So last night I went to this party in the Hills with Rob. The party was a bit lame, full of undefined L.A. aspirings. I employ "aspiring" as a noun to describe all the people who flock to L.A. with a quiver full of pipe-dreams and attempt to parlay menial talent and meaningless connections into some type of entertainment career. I was high as hell on six diet pills and a bottle of wine, so I wasn't exactly complaining. I was inwardly enjoying a sardonic sense of superiority, smiling on the outside, smirking within the confines of my mind.

Rob dropped me off at home at 3:00, which was much too late for any sort of late-night food delivery. Circumstance may have thwarted my pizza-urge, but it provided a substitute. My neighbors were loudly and obviously awake next door, and so I gave a wine-emboldened knock and was invited in for a beer. I sat around with them awkwardly and soon began looking for an appropriate time and method of escape. When finally I stood to go, I had been there for at least half an hour.

As I shut the door to their apartment, I heard it. At that hour, in that state of exhaustion and drunkenness, the comment made me sad. Now, in the tonic morning sun, I am in my element, I am strong... and I am angry. You fucking bastards, I want to say to them, why do you invite me over if you think I'm so "weird"? Why do you offer me beer and weed and then ignore me, only to find me weird when I'm just sitting on your couch sipping my beer and talking to no one?

Part of me wants to leave a note on their door that says:
"Dude, that chick is so weird."
Be that as it may, you might want to wait until the chick is out the fucking door before you start ripping in to her, OK?

Another part of me wants to say something next time I run into them--something evil or snide or so dryly sarcastic that they are left parched and speechless in my wake. Another part of me wants to just ignore them aside from the odd icy glare in the hallway--but then, that sort of behaviour could be construed as "weird," and we wouldn't want that, now would we? Ha. Bastards.


Last Five Entries
Cheeryface - 30 July 2003
Belli Denuntiatio - 27 July 2003
Weird - 27 July 2003
Runty Jew - 26 July 2003
Small World - 26 July 2003

Choose an Entry at Random


Do you like me? Validate my existence by taking my survey.
If you really like me you can vote for me as one of the Top 100 diaries on Diaryland.

My review from Geek Reviews.
My review from Quite Nasty Reviews.
My review from Wickedly Good Reviews.
My review from Sweet Reviews.

Visitors:

new old email guestbook profile evilgnome designs diaryland