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October 23, 2000
Meh.
When I grow up, I shall be a spinster librarian. I will have many cats -- at least a dozen or two, and they will follow me everywhere I go. We will live in a great old Gothic mansion, dark and gloomy and surrounded by oddly-shaped, eerie trees. My cats an I will rarely be seen; the local children will make up ghost stories about my house, and dare each other to venture onto my porch on Halloween night. On moonless nights, my cats and I will dress in our finest, and wander the streets singing strange little songs. Passersby will shudder, and cross the street to avoid us. I will be a mysterious old thing -- no one will know my name, or where I came from, or why I'm so damn weird.
Okay, so I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself today. Nobody loves me, I'm just going to go sit in this corner and eat some worms, okay?
Sunday morning was a bit of a one-two punch, emotionally. I was supposed to be calling Eric, to see what he made of that ill-advised letter I sent him (confessing true love, oh jeez...) As I sat down to call him, I realized I was nearly out of cigarettes, so, knowing this would be a conversation requiring much smoking, I headed out to buy a pack. My landlord was outside cleaning up some leaves, and I stopped to chat. He said "So you know Barry's moved away." I hadn't known that. I don't know why he would have thought I knew that. Apparently he moved "out West," whatever that means. Hopefully it means some other continent west of North America, and not, say, a town two miles west of Chelsea. It must have been a recent move, because my roommate saw him just last week -- she stopped in at his workplace for something, forgetting that he was there. (She made sure she gave him a dirty look or two for me.)
I shouldn't care, right? I knew he would leave the area -- I expected im to move back to England. I suspect that the only reason he stayed was because of the divorce hearing. I told the landlord that I was glad he'd left, because I won't have to worry about running into him on the street anymore. And that's true, and I'm relieved, but still... my brain keeps asking annoying questions. I wonder where he moved to? He had a friend in Sacramento, I wonder if he moved there... he doesn't have a car or a license, though, so how did he manage it? And did he move away with some other girl? Did he leave because he can't go anywhere without seeing something that reminds him of us, just like me?
So. Went to the store, got the cigarettes, and went home to call Eric -- whose reaction to my letter was "The hell? Where did THIS come from?" It was actually a very good conversation -- it started off serious, then turned silly, then got serious again, and finally degenerated into very goofy name-calling and teasing over who could kick whose ass -- "I could kick your ass with one hand tied behind my back!" "My mom could kick your ass!""Oh, yeah? Well, my cat could kick your ass, blindfolded and with one paw behind her back!!" Silliness. I was serious right up until the part where he said he didn't want me to pine for him -- pine? "PINE?!? I pine for no man!!"
So, yeah. An emotionally-weird weekend. I ended it with watching High Fidelity with Lee, which left me wishing I had a slacker John Cusack type waiting for me at home. (Didn't help that his wardrobe and haircut made him look an awful lot like one of my exes...) Good movie, though. Hey, you know, all this moping is starting to cheer me up...
Posted by Mary Ellen at October 23, 2000 05:07 PM