harry potter and the chamber of full-blood princesses, part un

my 14 year old sister is a) the light of my life b) reading shakespeare in her 9th grade english class.

as she was complaining to me over instant messenger, i was reminded of when my dad used to read the plays (macbeth, hamlet, much ado), assigned reading for my 9th grade class, aloud in the living room while i lay on the couch staring at the ceiling, struggling to pay attention on the words he was reciting, and not one or the other of the boys i was hopelessly crushing after.

but this only happened on tuesdays. tuesdays and every-other weekends were the joint parts of our custody arrangement.


that is a memory i don't want to forget. i'll keep it here, for now.

my sister is so lucky to have that man, full time. she probably won't realize it, so i will realize it for her.

...

so you may have noticed that there is a character that i made an embarrassingly big deal out of earlier in the life of this blog that has been absent of late. or more specifically, immediately following the really big deal was made.

(even going back to that post to link it made me cringe)

you know him as BFWII. i know him as Harry Potter - HP for short.

where did this new pseudonym come from, you ask? its simple really. so simple, in fact, that it will take me half this story to explain. but you will forgive, and follow along patiently, as always.

so, BFWI became a prominent subject of gchats between Hannah and I the past few months, but inconveniently, Hannah and BFWI share a cube, which means the likelihood him peering his beady eyes over her shoulder are high to incredibly likely. this made using his given name, well, not a good idea.

we tried on some other handles. he was Sweater for awhile. and Neighbor. and That Kid You Share A Cube With That Smells Like A Homeless Person. but none of them seemed to fit. until one did.

Voldemort. yes, as in Lord Voldemort, of the Harry Potter trillionogy*. the most fitting seeing as he is mastermind manipulative, has a scary rapist face, and could easily be referred to as 'the most powerful Dark wizard who has ever lived' (and i quote, thanks wikipedia-dot-org). long story short, we don't like him, much.


Volde for short.

so of course, since Volde and BFWII are s-mates and when you talk about one, you likely talk about the other. and since BFWII is just across the aisle there are also decent odds that he may walk by and see his name flashing on her screen. oh, and since i made out with him one night - you may or may not remember - he needed a codename as well.

since BFWII is gentler type of guy, a good wizard, i guess you could say, and has a scar that burns when evil is afoot, and a magic wand (or so i hear. ohh snap!), and is very agile in the quidditch pitch, Harry Potter seemed fitting. so for consistency's sake, and because these analogys are much more fitting/descriptive/etc. than "Boy From Work", i will use their new code names a la J.K. Rowling, if that is her real name.

since then more a few more characters have been added, who you will soon meet.

like, right now.

there is Ron Weasley, the nerdy, skiddish best friend and new roommate that HP just moved in with, and once tried to set me up with. he really doesn't have a place in this story since i've only met him in person twice, but HP tried to set me up with him once and i said i'd have to think about it because if memory served me right, he was too short. funny enough, he is taller than me. he's just one of those guys that will always be short in your memory.

and then there's Hermione. the forgettable, know-it-all, social climber lacking in witt and charm or any sort of desirable disposition that hangs on to Harry's coattails for dear life through all 7 books. yeah, sure, she is second-handedly instrumental in Harry's success at slaying dragons, etc., but the point is, as far as wizards go, she is by the book. (literally?).

in this story, since i can't speak for the books, remember i didn't read any of them (or see the movies), she also gets the guy...or does she....

so now that i've developed the characters. i'll tell you what really happened.

...in part deux.

later hater.

*note: i have never read more than the first 3 pages of a harry potter novel, nor have i seen more than a commercial break worth of any of the movies, so all my analogies are losely based on plot synopses from David Letterman interviews with the actors, and Inside the Actor's Studio with Daniel Radcliffe (who, by the way, totally wins, not because of his performance in that unfortunate 6-peat, but because his favorite curse word is 'bollocks'). forgive me. or admire me for all the time saved. either way.

i'm not sure where this came from, or where its going

it's been exactly 1 month since i went incommunicado with MM.

it scares me how much i still think about him. its a relief how fleeting these thoughts are.

and the tenor of my thoughts have changed. the weight. the substance. the content.

i thought i saw him driving in his car yesterday. passing me as i stepped out of mine and onto the street. i was hoping it was him. and at the same time hoping it was not. i was glad i had put on makeup. and done my hair. that i was wearing my fabulous blue winter coat. and had my shoulder bag confidently thrown over my shoulder. i looked...together. independent. like i was going somewhere and doing something, without him.













i never felt that way within any proximity of him. when we were 'together' i looked...frantic. reliant. like i was waiting for him to tell me where i was going and what i as doing there. and i was. restlessly checking my cellphone just in case, in a silent room, i had missed him ring. when we were in the same room together, monitoring my stance, my face, my disposition, my words, to leave myself available should he decide to take me on but also closed, should he decide not to.

i think more now of previous relationships. relationships that were reluctant to leave the cocoon of bed in the morning, preferring to spend half or full days entangled in sheets, fawning and adoring. relationships that were so open they were already a wound. but so beautiful, it didn't matter.

i don't remember it taking this long mend the break of those relationships lost. i don't remember it being this painful, or enduring.

when the end of those relationships came it was equal parts devastating and not. the pain was acute. but it was identifiable. there had been love. and it had been lost. it had been true. and honest. and you had both equally relied upon its existence to bring you breath in the morning and sleep at night.

when you know that there is love, and there was love, though it hurts - like hell - the not mourning alone part provides the dollops of solace you need to learn how to breath in the morning without it, and sleep at night.

i do want to find that again. that safe place to fall. where it is considered beautiful to be weak. where it is considered epic to be in the room. where considered it is important to just exist. at all.

i've recently considered re-opening one of those wounds. the one i cherish most. the one who has already forgiven me for the mistakes i will make, let alone the ones i have. crawling back inside the cocoon we built so long ago now (two years, and i can barely remember why. he can barely forget). reaching out and letting him take my hand, left, that i can feel him inching towards every time we're under the same air conditioner. spreading my arms and leaning back. knowing, like i know little else, what i will find when i land. and there is the comfort of going home in the knowing.

but i'm not ready, yet. not right now.

right now. i wake up easy. yes, sometimes my breath fails me. and sometimes tears find their way behind my eyes. but i roll over to the cool side, relishing the vacantness of that space. desiring not at all to fill that it with anything. least of all another human.

right now. i fall asleep with certainty.

corrections: 1 of 1

The Author, at this time, would like to note a correction. post entitled unshamless plug (or i love feathers) contained a gross miscalculation in lexeme. through the inappropriate usage of the prefix un-, meaning not or opposite of, a double negative thusly indicated that The Author held shame for giving 'props' to this blog. The Author would like to state that author carries no shame on the topic. in fact, The Author would likely shamelessly plug this blog with greater frequency, should more feathered prizes be offered.

...

and now back to regularly scheduled programing

unshamless plug (or, i love feathers?)

so i am back in 'inidadtay and obagotay' this week (still avoiding appearing on The Boss's google reader). with only a few minor to major mishaps including being a contributing factor to our party of seven missing the one and only direct flight down to this gorgeously challenging place until friday.

at least The Boss said he was proud of me yesterday. albeit it was for being wholly tactless in disagreeing with another co-worker, so i can't say i'm learning a lot about 'business edicate' in this job, but regardless the words 'i'm proud of you' did escape his fire-spitting mouth.

instead of turning more minute details into full paragraphs and catching you up on what the eff my new years resolutions are (read: buying time and/or avoiding making any), i am just simply going to unshamelessly plug one of my all time favorite blogs (and bloggers) and simultaneously enter to win an arrangement of fancy feathers to pin in my hair.

yeah, i gots no shame. what of it?

also, i like to win things. well, i would like to win things, if i ever did. but i can't remember the last thing that i won....maybe that bodes well for my chances here....

what i'm trying to say is, laurie is cool. so are contests. especially ones that don't require any particular talent.

okthanksloveyoubye

livers may come and go, but true friends never completely give up on you

for some reason, or other, i am having a really hard time having a sense of humor in the new year.

i am already failing new years resolution #24: no scowling

maybe it's because i totally missed the '5...4...3...2...1....happy new year!' part of the evening. how do you miss such a thing at a huge nye bash with 400 of your closest strangers? i have no idea. best guess: i was in the porta potty (would also explain why my shoes look the way they do...further description not required, all i can say is, even burning them is not a sanitary enough way to dispose of them).

missing the ball drop has really thrown me off. although it was fun sitting around the next day with 6 of my bffs pondering the options, it sorta delayed that whole 'i am going to be a completely different and better and different person when the clock strikes midnight' thing. by delayed i mean, permanently postponed.

new years resolution #2: keep a (any) resolution i make this year

but i have been seriously distracted since 01/01/09.

actually, i woke up day two in a severe depression. i pinpointed it to two reasons. 1) i woke up to the sweet sounds of my best friend packing her bags to drive back home and abandon me for th rest of the year. 2) i was supposed to go into work that day and get a jazillion things done so that i would be for-real organized for the shitstorm awaiting me. i was so depressed, in fact, that i could barely drag my hungover ass out of bed and drive myself to my therapist's office. in fact, the thought of going to the therapist made me cry. i just wanted to lay in bed and miss Laura, instead of facing the new year.

i was pulled out of my funk only after spending an hour at The Therapist's office doing the usual: making everyone else the bad guy, and having her agree with me/feel bad for me/not contribute anything valuable to my opinions on things except to tell me that i should go to the movies more often and find an extracurricular activity. not that i don't agree with her on the extracurricular activity thing, but that doesn't help the fact that my mom is missing the 'mother gene' and that our relationship works best when i mother her, rather than the other way around, hence why i give more than take in relationships.

new years resolution #9: join an extracurricular activity

i also spent 45 minutes at the office. sending one e-mail. deciding i could do all the other things i needed to do another day (that day being saturday, or sunday...yeah. right.)

the four remaining friends in town called to remind me, 'dude, you're a loser, lets go eat more, because we haven't done that enough in the past 4 days, and misery or not, you are definitely hungry.'

even if they didn't really say that, and they really just said 'biatch, meet us at the biscuit in 20,' it had the same effect.

rut = delayed, for the moment

belly = full

new years resolution #5: eat less food that makes me feel 'ugh' afterwards, and also contributes to the worldwide cellulite epidemic

the point is. i have really good friends.

with 6 of my besties in town for new years, 5 of whom had to travel either by car or plane for more than a single hour to find me, i could not have been happier. i could also not have been more hungover. or had more sore ab muscles, solely from laughing.

this is the first time in as long as i can remember that i didn't let a boy interfere with my enjoyment of the precious time i have with my friends. i wasn't going back and forth. or checking my phone incessantly for missed calls. or trying to teach a foreigner our native language, because seriously, my friends and i speak in a series of inside jokes, re-defined words, clicks and whistles. trying to acclimate any stranger into our atmosphere is a challenge, at best, only the strongest survive, i haven't found a strong man yet, i guess. let alone, straight up blowing my friends off for a boy (yes, i admit it, i tend to suck as a friend when i'm in a relationship).

i have never in my life had this many friends. that also happen to be girls.

new years resolution #1: be a good friend to the friends that are good to me

by the end of the weekend i had:

1. kissed 3 (or 4) of my closest guy friends, and then promptly failed to remember any of them
2. most likely spent midnight nye in a porta potty (i know i already mentioned this one, but its still funny, right)
3. drank enough alcohol to meet the dsm criteria for 'alcoholic'
   
4. found out that a kid we went to college with had a kid...in college (got that?, don't worry, i'll tell you that story, another day)
5. given a striptease to a complete stranger, completely (or almost completely) sober
6. a bruise the size of the top of my right foot, on the top of my right foot
7. a bruise the size, shape and color of a rotten grapefruit on my outer upper right thigh
   
8. a broken back
9. a liver functioning on 'low'
10. swore never to drink again (for the rest of the month...i mean week...till wednesday)
11. 6 best friends, that were more bester, than ever. (i know i keep harping on this in an uncharacteristically cheesy way...but not admitting that you need and want and love and cherish your best girl friends is so 2008)