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371 - henry and june, j and k, e and hugo
09.18.05 @ 2:38 am

"Writing is not, for us, an art, but breathing. After our first encounter I breathed some notes, acents of recognition, human admissions. Henry was still stunned, and I was breathing off the unbearable, willing joy. But the second time, there were no words. My joy was impalpable and terrifying. It swelled within me as I walked the streets. It transpires, it blazes. I cannot conceal it. I am woman. A man has made me submit. Oh, the joy when a woman finds a man she can submit to, the joy of her femaleness expanding in strong arms."

I am shivering. The urge to write is unbearable. I am inspired once again by Anais Nin to write my life, my every waking moment, my every thought. So much of her feels like me, it's just uncanny.

"When I realized what she was revealing to me, I almost went mad with joy. She loved me, then? June! She sat beside me in the restaurant, small, timid, unworldly, panic-stricken. She would say something and then beg forgiveness for its stupidity. I could not bear it. I told her, "We have both lost ourselves, but sometimes we reveal the most when we are least like ourselves. I am not trying to think any more. I can't think when I am with you. You are like me, wishing for a perfect moment, but nothing too long imagined can be perfect in a worldly way. Neither one of us can say just the right thing. We are overwhelmed. Let us be overwhelmed. It is so lovely, so lovely. I love you, June."

I am sitting here, trying to justify writing what I am really thinking. How June is not K, but Anais' feelings for June are my feelings for K. How Henry is not J, but Anais' feelings for Henry are my feelings for J. And I am ashamed and humiliated that my husband does not figure. When suddenly it slammed into me. E is not Hugo, but Anais' feelings for Hugo are my feelings for E.

"So Sunday morning he began to think aloud about the same things I had written in my journal, the need of orgies, of fulfillment in other directions."

"We want to enjoy our new closeness for a while, live entirely in the present, postpone the other issues. We only ask each other for time to become reasonable again, to accept ourselves and the new conditions."

"Abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones. All this, Hugo and I knew. Last night when we talked he swore that he desired no one but me. I am in love with him, too, and so we let the issue lie in the background. Yet the menace of those wayward instincts is there, inside our very love."

"When it is finished, it is not finished. we lie still in each other's arms, lulled by our love, by tenderness--sensuality in which the whole being can participate."

"Again the questions: Do we want parties, orgies? Hugo says definitely no. He won't take chances. It would be forcing our temperament.... we won't go and seek the whore or the man. If she or he comes our way, inevitably, then we'll live out what we want. Meanwhile we live satisfied with our less intense life"

"Finer than any man I know, the nearly perfect man. Touchingly perfect."

"Hugo begins to understand. Reality exists only between him and me, in our love. All the rest, dreams. Our love is solved. I can be faithful. I was terrifyingly happy during the night. But I must kiss her, I must kiss her."

"The richness of Hugo. His power to love, to forgive, to give, to understand. God, but I am a blessed woman."

I finally watched the movie Henry and June two nights ago, and I cannot escape the images, the ideas, the eroticism. I realized I had the "Unexpurgated Diary" of Anais Nin that the film was based on, and I've been reading it for hours. The movie and the "book" are completely different, but still they affect me so similarly. There are so many words I could use to try to describe how her words are working on my brain, but the only one that comes close to truthful enough is "miraculous".

My thoughts are so scattered, I don't know how to tie this all together. I am so sore, and so, so very tired. A very real part of me wishes this place was still a secrect, so I could say all of the things that haunt me again. Things that my husband probably knows and/or suspects, but that I cannot say out of wishing to spare his feelings. Not actions. Never actions. I will never, ever, never-ever-ever cheat on my husband after the debacles of Rat Bastard and Scottish Bastard. But the fantasies, the emotions, the desires, the complaints, the whirlwind... At times it drives me mad and I want to collapse. Then my mind shuts down, because I have too much going on to be thinking so many destructive thoughts on top of it. Which is really the best thing.

But it's still a part of me. A part of me that I am shutting down on purpose. Self-censorship. I hate censorship.

My strongest response to the show Ally McBeal was the episode with the unicorn (I think that was it), where Ally finally gets some meds to help with her delusions, and she throws them in the toilet, because she is so fond of her delusions, a piece of herself. I was so ANGRY with her for doing that. But now I am angry at myself for not doing it. Is the reason I no longer write because of my anti-depressants? I actually had regular readers when I was so horrifyingly tormented by my relationship with the Scottish Bastard of Evil Mind-Fucks.

What is so horrible about me that it cannot even be revealed here? Not revealed to my husband, from whom I have no secrets? That I want to call K and just say, "hey, how's it going, is everything ok, I miss you like crazy and I think about your scent and your taste and the way you smile and the way your eyes crinkle and the way you laugh." Or that a thrill went through me today when I remembered I have J's email address, and what would happen if I just sent him an email telling him I wanted to start an affair? Would she read it, snooping in his mail? Would he ignore it? Tell her about it? Say yes? Would the email bounce because it was no longer a valid address? Would he laugh at my ridiculousness?

My insecurities of my body, this feeling that no man in his right mind could ever desire this blob of flesh that houses this being... The other night I apologized to E. that he had a fat wife, because I was thinking of coming onto him and I glimpsed all that fat in the mirror and all desire was squelched. He did his "M is so crazy" laugh, and said "You know I pretty much want to fuck you 24/7, right?" I said I didn't know how any man could ever want to touch me. He did the "you're a tard" chuckle again, and reminded me that we had debated this before and he had won - we'd put the Ad in the Stranger and I had plenty of hits from perverts and Norms and dick-pics and one sweet bi-girl honey that turned out to be my first girl-girl kiss, love, sex, disaster...

But there is this song, "Finding out the true love is blind..." I love that fucking song. I hated it when I first was listening to the words after getting hooked to the catchy beat. How fucking sexist and icky. The next time I heard it, I thought it was... glorious. Wonderful. A blessing. What on earth could be more appealing to someone like me than a man willing to fuck any woman that moves? And not in the way that E puts it either, as a not-gonna-happen scenario of a woman dangled on a plate as last resort or somesuch nonesense of hypothetical crap. No, the song is about a guy saying he will fuck anyone, anytime, anywhere, because he's just that horny and girls are just that irresistable. Everyone has beauty.

I have believed that for most of my life. Probably connected to me learning to love myself. Where did this love go? When did I get insecure all over again? I remember the moment. I was about 16, looking at myself in the mirror, and I realized that despire all my previous beliefs, I was actually pretty. The only thing I can figure is that back then, I thought I was fat. And now I am 40 pounds heavier and covet the 16-year-old body I once had as the height of any possibly perfection I could possibly achieve.

Back to E, he revealed the secret of men's sexual heirarchy of desire about a year or so ago. It was fascinating. Because there are 3 levels of women for men. "Hot damn, I wanna fuck her" is first. Then there's, "OK, if no one else is available and that one just happens to take off all her clothes and sit in my lap, I'm game." And finally, there's "Ick. Eww. That would be like humping gramma."

Why did this astonish me? Because as a very sexual being, I am constantly, unconsciously, rating every person I meet into fuckable and unfuckable. There is no in-between. If I see a man who I don't want to fuck, but who is not ugly, that's one thing. But once I try to imagine the possibility of fucking him, he instantly becomes revolting. There has to be desire right there from the get-go, or that's it.

Maybe it's why I am such a snob and lust only after beautiful people? I am *terribly* sexist when it comes to the women I covet. Only the extremely gorgeous catch my eye. When the not-extremely-gorgeous woman catches my eye, I am filled with consternation. And then I elevate them into extremely-gorgeous by falling in love with the beauty I do find upon examining. I did this with K. I never should have told her she was not of the type I normally covet, because it was unnecessary which made it cruel. Honesty always getting me into trouble like that. The point is, once I met her, I latched onto the things that were gorgeous about her, and after that, she radiated this glow about her of sublime beauty and fuckability, she could have walked around in a sack with mud all over her and smelled of skunk and she would have shined like some goddess lighthouse thingee. Unfortunately, I think she never recovered from that early admission, and never really believed a damned word out of my mouth about her beauty.

She is still the ideal woman for me, despite everything she did to hurt me.

And J. How the FUCK did he wiggle into my heart? I'll never know. That one scares me, and has since it began. That is the only thing that makes me relieved that it's over with K. Because as much as we talked about it, I don't think any one of us truly was ready to be a true foursome, equal partners, equally loving. K and J still wanted to have "their" marriage, and E most certainly wanted to have ours. As far as I know, I was the only one who ever really wanted us to be a marriage of 4. Which went right out the window once I realized the way J treated his kids.

It is terrifying to me that I can hate a man that much and still want to fuck his brains out. I thought that shit only happened on TV and movies and bullshit like that.

E is in Leavenworth with his Boy Gang of Gamers (TM) for a drunken weekend of non-stop gaming. I am so glad he has made some new friends more like the real him. It really blew my mind when he spent so much time getting drunk with his co-workers at the height of the dotcom era. Because he wasn't drinking with the coders. He was drinking with the salesmen and execs. Yes, my man is an exec himself now (eek!), but he is a game-geek pirate techie at heart, which is how my heart will always know and love him.

But I get lonely when he is away. He was away last weekend too (rat bastard, no capitalization = my husband when he goes away for too many days in too short a time, grr). I was thinking while he was away, how much better it is now. At the height of dotcom, he went on long trips sometimes, and that was my pre-meds days. I was a fucking mess.

Now, I am pretty much ok with it. Mind you, he was only gone for about 36 hours last week, which is what he's estimating this time as well. Still. I'm better. I have slept through the night both nights now, no problems with paranoid visions of rapist intruders. Mind you, I called him about 2 hours ago because I swear I heard what sounded like a person falling on our floor downstairs and I was instantly sure someone had somehow worked their way into the teeny-tiny bathroom window that doesn't latch and we don't worry about because it's humanly impossibly to get through. So, yah, it was the neighbors. Duh. Every time they close their front door, it sounds like a door in our house closing. Took us a few months to get used to, and some days we still swear it *is* in our house. Like when we're all alone and it's almost midnight...

But, yah, I get lonely. I no longer have any friends. Zip, zilch. H. is sooooooo far away in Oregon (not EVEN going to get into how on earth the amazingly close Portland is to Seattle and getting there has proven next-to-impossible). And what the fuck am I calling her? J? JP? Fine, JP it is. Now that she's had her baby, there is no reason to interact with her, so I no longer have desires to throw her off a bridge. Yay! Until E tells me about his most recent walk with her and the tyke around Greenlake, then I am seething with jealousy, unsure if I am jealous of her time with him, his time with her, the time seeing the baby, or the fact that so many bunnies were spotted without me being there. See how much easier my life would be if I could throw her off a bridge? No more conflicting emotions. No having to figure out if I like her or hate her or want to be her friend, enemy, lover, or betrayer. *sigh* When she's around, the absolute WORST comes out in me, which makes me hate myself, and I already do THAT way too much as it is.

One person I still have NO desire to see is S. Now there is a Betrayer. Can't believe I let her back into my life. I was so afraid she was going to pull the same crap that ended our friendship the first time, I somehow managed to push her into destroying our friendship a 2nd time. Yes, I acknowledge I was bad. But I acknowledge 2000% more that she was a MILLION times more evil and guilty than I was. And bad. Very, very bad. I thought I saw a friend from high school today, or rather someone who reminded me of her, and realized that once S stopped talking to me, so did this other gal that had only recently gotten back into our lives. Which made me wonder, did S tell her what happened? If so, then she is definitely a Betrayer, because she Betrayed by psycho-analyzing and bullshit theorizing about my sexlife, which she had no business in, and neither does this other gal, so damn her twice if she pulled her into it.

But I had to wonder if it was me, and my lack of responsiveness. I used to think I was the best friend in the world. So devoted. So loyal. Trustworthy and Honest. All to a fault. But something happened after high school. Tied to the men who hurt me and broke my trust. I no longer am capable of trusting anyone at all, men or otherwise. When S came back into my life, I just didn't know what to do with her. When H. came back into my life, it was the same, even though I wasn't wary because she had never hurt me anywhere near as badly as S, so thus I had already forgiven her before she ever came back to me. And K. Of course I had some hand in that destruction. I am pretty sure it's all over with S and K because of their decisions, not mine, but I know I played my part in their decisions.

So what the fuck happened? I have been betrayed so much, by men and women, that I can't trust anyone. And now I am a horrible friend too???

I am not quite sure why the fuck H. still talks to me. I think that out of everyone I know, she may be the most healthy person mentally. She said in her last email about how time passes, and she does not worry, that she knows we'll see each other again, so she doesn't fret that it's been so long, even if she's sad that it has. I have read about friendships like that. Never thought after all this time, I would ever be worthy of someone caring about me like that. Because the truth is, she was so bad at communicating, that when I stopped trying, and she never really did try, so as the faithful writer, my giving up ended the friendship after high school. And now, she is so wonderful, she's not letting it happen. Because I am being bad at communicating too. But she doesn't mind the way I did. It doesn't hurt her. Well, ok, maybe it does and I shouldn't believe 100% that she is truly this... what's the word? Argh. She is human, so she probably is hurt, despite her pretty words. But everything about the new H. has been such a wonderful surprise. She is like the new and improved, better-than-ever H. Is there any wonder that after all these years, I'm still crushing on her?

I cannot believe I have been writing non-stop for about 2 hours. When I could have been finally reading my emails and sending one off to H. in response to her email from TWO WEEKS AGO!!! See how evil I am? Last summer I got email-phobia, and I just never got over it. Emails sit in my box unread. Eventually I read the ones I know I should, but most of those go unanswered for weeks. If I answer at all. It is not evilness on my part. I beg of you not to judge. It is this creepy aversion. I hate to read my email. And once I read an email, I get so exhausted, I can't bring myself to write a response, so I tell myself I will later. And then a week or 2 goes by, and by that time I need to re-read the email to get everything straight, and then I'm back at the beginning - too tired to respond. Reading an email should not cause physical exhaustion. I'm telling you. It's a fucking phobia. I don't know how it happened, or how to get over it. It's just fucking weird. And annoying as all fuck.

I love words, and my favorite word is fuck, and I love Anais Nin and her beautiful words, but so far the girl just does not dig those dirty words I find so deliciously imperative. I once saw a movie where the main character was a writer, and she was crazy or something, it was a weird fucking movie. The only thing I remember was that it made no sense, and there was a scene where she had scrawled all over her walls of her room with black permanent ink all sorts of wonderfully lascivious words. I wondered why I had never thought of doing that, and instantly wanted to do the same thing. Fuck would have to be repeated many times. And Cunt. A few years ago, I even started jotting down these words in a note-book. I was out to catalog every word that could possibly be used in describing sex. But the longer I let this go on, the more lax in the rules I became. Conflicts arose. Should it be words that could only describe sex? Wouldn't that be too limiting? Well then, should we throw any old word in? Because then, wouldn't every word have to be in, because if you're speaking proper English, you need full sentences, and "the" and "such" and "of" and all sorts of boring shit would have to go in. So rather than listen to my internal dialogue duke the shit out, I gave it up. I still have the notebook somewhere, this little hand-held jobbie. I'm not sure what I was going to do with it. I think I was going to make notecards at first to put on my wall. My new "office" in the new house. I think that was what inspired me.

OK, I'm giving it up. I am just going on and on and on and on and I'm so very sorry for taking all your precious time. I wonder if anyone will read all of this? I wonder if anyone will read any of this?

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