October 19, 1997.
October is one of those words, like "stroke," that holds excessive meanings for me; some really good, and conversely, some utterly awful. The arrival of October signifies events like the coming of Hallowe'en, which I love as the uberholiday, beyond all others, and also a time of year unique in its climate, scent, and mood. October has bright and smelly leaves on the ground, Hallowe'en decorations for sale and proudly displayed, inherent spookiness, and for me an air of -- shall we say -- romance.
But it also holds something else for me -- memory. I perceive time in odd ways. Not that I can see the future as clearly as the past, but instead (and unfortunately), I compare the past with the present. Every day, and every event of any significance (and some would consider the things significant to me to be pretty darn petty) becomes part of my recollection, and be it a week later, or a year later, or (as was the case of the anniversary of the night I met Lucretia) three years later, I'm always looking back and comparing where I was then, to where I am now. This is unhealthy for so many reasons. Largely it's obsessive; partly it's depressing.
Today is Lilith's 18th birthday.
You might have to read somewhat back into the Classic Snivel to get an understanding of who Lilith is in terms of my life, but let it be said here merely that she is, and was, a very dear friend, who last year I was, and this year I still am, very much in love with. Our relationship attempt fell apart for stupidly accidental reasons last year (we basically didn't, and couldn't, talk about our honest feelings, and this lead to endless misunderstandings about how we felt about one another, and how we viewed each other as people... basically, she was in love with me but felt that I was holding back and got tired of waiting for me to decide how I felt, and I was in love with her, and thought her straining and scarring past loves made it selfish of me to want a serious relationship), and our friendship has yet to really recover. I mean, we talk, and we pretend like everything is cool, but we're both busy, so we don't talk as much as we should, and it was the coming of her birthday that reminded me that I haven't actually seen her in six months now.
Obviously I'm going to call her today, and wish her the happiest day. But as it happens with my brain, all I can think about is last year, when I gave her a beautiful little shiny necklace that suited her perfectly; that she wore now and then, with one of the earings I gave her last Christmas that she wore every day. And then I wonder if she still wears either of them.
And then I wonder if we're ever going to see each other again, or be nearly the close friends we once were. I mean, in spite of the fact that we always make plans to. In spite of the fact that things are happy between us.
And tonight's Snivel is brought to you by the answer "Go away, Rob."
Which brings us to part two -- I can type this Snivel. For you see, suddenly and without cause, my computer was absolutely unresponsive and dead. It just beeped when you turned it on, and nothing else. We couldn't figure it out. See, I stopped back in here when I was through at the passport office to give Broken some money so she could eat (I thought I would have to pay the notary a fee of $20, as agreed, but when I showed up, no one was there, and someone eventually came out to the desk and asked if they could help me... I whimpered that I needed something notarized, and he told me to follow him. Essentially what he did after that was scrutinize a form to make sure I'd filled it in properly, asked me if I swore I was telling the truth, signed the bottom, embossed it with a seal, and handed it back to me. Then he walked me to the elevator. And the whole time I was thinking, "If he asks, I'll gladly give him the money. It's worth it. But I'm so going to avoid mentioning it..."), and then I had to head back to work. But I thanked her for being here, and said "I'm really sorry you can't check your e-mail," and she looked sheepish and said "Well, actually, I can't even turn the computer on." And I thought that meant maybe the power was out again on that wall, so I tried the computer, expecting to be able to deal with whatever happened.
The problem being that actually very little did happen. Just a blank screen and beeping. But, I was in a rush, and couldn't do anything about it, and headed back to work, distracted by my extreme irritation at this sudden turn for the worse. I mean, one of the things I did on the way back to the passport office was stare with ire at some Christians, who were protesting the Morgentaler abortion clinic on Sparks Street (right across from the building I was heading to), and it really made me angry to see them. I was so tempted to go up to them and start ranting, like just start with "How dare you!" and head on from there. Vent every last little bit of bitterness I have for the smug hateful religion that so many people practice like it makes them superior human beings who are actually full of love. But I took some great photos of them. I'm so happy that I've started carrying my camera around again -- my big regret is that I never got any action shots of the street preachers in the Market. Some of them are really intense... they'll get up on top of things and scream about God and Damnation, and it's really something to watch.
But anyway, I had one moment of doubt where I just thought, "Great. God is punishing me for mocking His followers. Just what I need.."
So work went slowly today. I was all alone in my prodigal boss' office, touching up drawings of insects, enjoying myself, but nodding off with exhaustion. I was so very sleepy. There were times when I'd start dreaming even though I was conscious, and more times where I'd just c-l-o-s-e my eyes, put my head in my hands, and start having these really psychotic dreams that were so strange that they woke me up seconds after they began. It wasn't until I put my walkman on that I had any hope of staying conscious for the last two hours.
And I got home, to find that now my phone worked, but my computer most certainly still did not. Bah. It was really frustrating, and fortunately Broken had ordered dinner, which was just due to arrive itself when I stepped in. The only thing I had to look forward to was popping in Return of the Jedi, which I haven't seen in months, all thanks to Broken's VCR, which is here so she can watch tapes of her lectures. I called my friend Kincaid, who used to repair computers for a living, and he said he was heading downtown anyway so he'd drop in when he could. Unfortunately, he said, he'd heard that beeping before, and it wasn't an especially good sign.
I was mostly undressed when Kincaid showed up (full and sleepy and sated with Star Warsy goodness), so Broken stalled him at the door while I jumped into shorts, and our work began. I fetched my trusty screwdriver, we tore old betsy apart, and Kincaid began to pull out power cables. He had a lot of things in mind to check, but he was pretty sure the problem was a short to the motherboard, and quite often disconnecting, cleaning, and reconnecting the power cables will solve the electrical disturbance. Apparently that's how his employers at the computer store made their fortune. Taking in malfunctioning PCs, pretending to do a whole lot of work, and charging more for reconnecting the mother board than it would cost to buy me a new one.
Magically, it ultimately worked. At first it wouldn't even power up, but that's because the cables were reconnected in reverse, and we were lucky that it didn't start shooting sparks at us, or erasing my hard drives. But the second time, I held my breath like an expectant father, and watched with twinkling eyes as the RAM check counted up, and DOS booted, exactly the way it always did. Oh, it was moving. I basically offered him any of my orifices that might meet his fancy, but he just thanked me to kindly keep "column A" and "column B" (as I put them) to myself, and headed home. He wanted to hang out, but he was hungry and busy, and just wanted the feeling of my eternal gratitude. I mean, I'm technically capable of doing everything he did; I just didn't know to do it. I've installed a hard drive, a modem, a sound card, and new RAM into this Frankenstein's jalopy, but the power supply and motherboard are still territory I'm very wary of. But anyway, it works. It works and I'm so relieved. I have to write an essay for Thursday, and now I can.
I have yet to e-mail the Teaching Assistant back, who left a message with her e-mail address yesterday morning, but I shall do so tonight, just as soon as I'm positive that I can get the passport in time, and therefore justify even attempting to leave.
But I'm worried about my friend Clorinda (whom I am taking all these many pains for the pleasure of visiting). She's not at all well, and they don't know what it could be that is wrong with her. She has an appointment with a specialist for Wednesday, but as we talked on the phone last night I just kept begging her to go to Urgent Care right away, for her own good. Then she pointedly remarked, "Er, well, our health care isn't free," which sort of shut me up, though left me no less fretful. Danged barbarian country anyway. I wish they'd hurry up and develop universal health coverage and join their cultural superiors to the north in creating a happier, healthier world for all.
Meanwhile, I'm off to my capitalistic pursuits, to exchange my many brain powers for a denomination of mere money. Try not to shatter my collectivist idealism with any ironic remarks, now.
Anyway, at some point, people started falling asleep, and walking or being dragged to homes, and friends' homes. I was sleeping at my friend's house in a spare bedroom, and Lucretia was to crash on a couch or something. But as people wandered off, she declared her energy and asked me if I wanted to go swing in the park just beside the backyard. And I did, so on went my boots and my cape, and we played for some time. And during all this, we chatted about ourselves, and got to know each other to some degree, and discovered a mutual fascination. Occasionally she would get closer to me, and my overextended personal bubble forced me to back off, which she noticed, and we talked about. We wandered through the late night streets for another hour, at least, going around and around the same route again and again, and got lost at one point when we tried to escape a crazy/drunk lady who was looking for her stuffed dog, and thought Lucretia was pregant.
And since it was mid-October, it was quite chilly out, and Lucretia began to freeze, so she asked if we could head back to the house. I was a little sorry to see the night end, but then she suggested grabbing her sleeping bag, and joining me in my room so that we could further converse.
In my own defense, let me again say that I'd never done anything, with anyone, ever before.
We talked in my room for quite a long while, her in my bed, and me politely not. It just didn't seem like a nice thing to do; presumptuously climb into bed with a stranger, even in a friendly fashion. When she declared it was bedtime, I almost slept on the floor, but I think I smartened up a little bit, and lay down (distantly) beside her. The lights were off, and we said our goodnights.
We lay in silence for a minute or two, and Lucretia asked me where my head was. I told her, and she agreed that it was indeed my head. And carefully, she took my hand into hers, and held it. And we said goodnight again. Someone, probably her, placed their head on someone else's chest (probably mine) sweetly, and then came that oh-so awkward kiss.
My first kiss, as a matter of fact. Ever.
I barely knew what to do. We held each other, kissed each other, partially undressed each other, and fondled each other, and while I make light of its awkward uncertainy now, it was actually very wonderful. I'd never been physically close to anyone before, and it was a nice experience to feel desired. I think the only real problem was that we both understood we might not ever see one another again. We talked about this and many other things during our romantic endeavour, which was something I've never experienced since with anyone else. Constant conversation during loveplay, even while kissing. I liked it.
At any rate, we fell asleep holding one another, and while I personally didn't sleep much at all, I watched her through the entire night, her face just inches from mine, and tried to keep her close and warm and safe. She had this way of spontaneously shivering, even if she wasn't cold, which scared and concerned me, and made me hold her all the more tighter, trying to warm her, or something.
(At this precise point in time, it is 2:51 AM October 16, EST. My best guess says that three years ago, we were still walking around outside, but destined to momentarily come in out of the cold, after being lost in the urban maze of Kingston for longer than maybe would have been ideal. It makes me wonder what she's doing now; if she's thinking of this night as well.)
The next day, we exchanged phone numbers and addresses, with every intention of hopefully seeing one another in two weeks or so, at the Hallowe'en screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local weirdo crazy alternative repetoire theatre we both frequented in Ottawa (I lived in the city, but Lucretia lived about 40 minutes away in a small town). She nuzzled me gently on the way out, and I missed her intensely for the next two weeks or so.
It was at Rocky Horror that our budding relationship became more clear. We ended up getting quite into the theatrics (Lucretia is an old hat at seeing it in the theatre... although I'd seen it many times on video, I'd never seen it in a theatre before, which is in a lot of ways the same as being a "virgin" (they'll mark you with a big lipstick "V" if they haven't seen you there before). She's memorized almost all of Ottawa's particular dialect for the fan-screen banter, which is something that would only make sense if you've ever experienced Rocky Horror in a theatre.. the audience shouts things back at the screen, especially during songs, but also at many many cues that I find impossible to remember.), but ultimately she put her hand on my leg quite warmly, and as we parted had a very awkward kiss over a row of seats.
I skipped home. I probably still have the 2 cans of Jolt I bought for the trip back. One was covered in electrical tape (I'd taped my hands up, Crow style, since that was my costume that year), and both went into my fledgling tower, known hereafter as Mount Jolt (now numbering near 200 cans, which I've long since stopped adding to, on account of its inherent precariousness).
But, stuff happened.
A couple of days before the theatre experience, I got together with my friend Kitten for coffee. I'd only met her once before in the summer, but we ended up striking up an e-mail conversation over a poem I'd written and posted on a newsgroup, and for a month and a half had been writing one another daily, to whine about our lives, and loves, and lack of love, etc. It was utterly platonic, and still is, I should clarify (never have either of us even considered any other reality, I expect), but she came back from school at Peterborough for a concert which she saw with her then-best friend Phil. When we met she ended up introducing me to this girl, whom I'd seen on occasion downtown, since Phil was a Carleton student, and had accompanied Kitten the first time I met her, at a poetry reading that summer. Phil had vibrant pink hair. The exact shade was, I believe, rubine. Beautiful. She was, and her hair was, stunning. She was six feet tall, sporting a glowing pixie cut, and the face-changing, astonishing sort of big pinball smile (have you ever read "Red Dwarf" It was a Kristine Kochanski smile) that most people don't have.
I was in a goofy but spunky mood that night. I was in my cape, which I wore a lot back then (my trenchcoat gets more of my attention now, to the cape's immense disapproval), and feeling good about the world, and myself, and the fact that I was in the company of three girls, one of whom had green hair, and one of whom had pink, put me into the sort of exuberant flirtiness that occasionally I'll exhibit with the right audience. But anyway, it was cool, and highly entertaining. I may actually have been witty.
A couple of days later, I got my first e-mail from Phil. She and Kitten had both recently moved from Toronto (Kitten lived near Ottawa, but was away at school, whereas Phil was simply in residence at Carleton), and was still feeling a little bored and lonesome, in spite of having made some friends in res, and had been informed that I was keen on e-mail. Phil and I had both heard much about each other from Kitten, and this combined with our recent night out had inspired many conversations to come.
We discovered things like that our mutually favourite food was broccoli. I adore broccoli, you see, and so did she (my signature file at the time said something about it... you can find it in one of my past Weekly Misanthropic Philosophies if you dig), and I was exceedingly impressed. We wrote each other more than daily, and I was constantly impressed by the things this freaky chick would say. She seemed so intelligent, and so clever, and she actually wanted to talk to me.
Eventually, a week or two after Hallowe'en, we decided we'd better meet again for coffee. It wasn't exactly a date, but it had date-like aspects. It definitely had occurred to me that there was something not quite kosher about the situation, but it wasn't until after our coffee encounter that I felt like I was doing something wrong. So, I had to come clean. I told Lucretia about Phil, and Phil about Lucretia. Phil was cool with the situation. She admitted that she'd be very happy if more came of our association than friendship, but she was willing to play things cool and casual, until I knew more.
It was different with Lucretia. She was understanding, but hurt.
She told me, when we met, that she'd never been in love with anybody
before. That night, she told me that she thought she was wrong. She was
in love, with me.
I cried, and she cried. I think that was the first time I'd ever
cried openly. Since then, it's been similar. Sometimes it happens over
the phone (as it did that night), but I need to be with somebody before I
can cry. Lucretia told me that whatever happened, she cared about me, and
she'd be there for me. She just wanted me in her life. She promised to
come in and see me the next weekend, so we could explore things more deeply.
We talked about it that weekend. Naturally, Lucretia was upset. She couldn't tell why I'd felt what I'd did, but didn't like what she gathered were my reasons. Nor should she have. We exchanged some angry words on the floor, and in bed (we'd been intimate before talking about our feelings), and I have the most terrible memory of her lying beside me in bed, covering her breasts with her arms, and just staring upwards at the ceiling, tears rolling silently down her face.
I asked her if she hated me.
She said only that there was a very thin line between love and hate.
And that's when I started to cry. I couldn't control myself. I was so afraid of losing even her friendship, so ashamed of what I'd done to her, and filled with hatred for myself. I think, in a way, she saw this too, and it allowed her to partially forgive me. She could see that I cared, even if I'd hurt her. I don't think either of us realized that I was in love with her at the time. I was, but I only know this now. Phil had dazzled me with some very shiny and wonderful qualities, but I had mistaken that for stronger feelings.
Lucretia held me, and forgave me, and we had an extremely intimate afternoon and evening, as a way of saying goodbye to one another (repeated, with irony and painful bittersweetness, almost a year later, when she said goodbye to me). Later on, she showed me a letter she had written me. I still have it, in fact, kept safely in a giant photo album where all of my personal memories and letters are stored. In it, she told me she loved me, but that she needed to let me go, to be happy with someone else. She was making a sacrifice to make me happier, because she knew, when I told her about Phil, how difficult it would be for me to choose between them. It's one of the saddest and most beautiful things I'd ever read. It still makes me want to cry... I don't look at it very often. She never mailed it, because she didn't have the strength. Of course, I suppose she was also hoping it wouldn't be necessary.
I regret what happened between myself and Lucretia more than anything in my life. I've hurt her many times, and she's hurt me as deeply. We tried going out again after Phil broke my heart a few months later, and this was happy for some time, but ultimately itself failed. I think we even tried again after that -- not necessarily dating, but definitely intimate, but this was doomed by my terrible insecurity and her habitual (emotional) distance. Lucretia's always been terrible at expressing her feelings to people. She's been through a lot, and largely at my hands, but she's not innocent... she's done some thoughtless things to me... but I still, naively, think, that if I had a time machine, one of the first things I'd do would be to teach my past selves how to really love her. I'd still take her into my arms given any chance, but I doubt that's realistic now. We don't fascinate each other the way we used to. Maybe it's still possible. I'm not sure. I think we'd need to spend more time together, and resolve more issues, assuming we could both agree this was something we wanted (I just naturally crave for the love of all people).
We're getting together this weekend for coffee. She called me and asked me if I would care to join her, which I found especially touching. That she still remembers and appreciates this night, and everything it meant to us. She's one of the few friends whose exact dates of meeting I am actually acutely (and constantly) aware of. Certainly, in spite of everything, and even the distance now between us, we've probably had a larger effect on each other's lives than any other.
As I retire tonight, though, my thoughts are with her. Everything that happened between us, good and bad, is long in the past. We're friends now... not great friends, and certainly not best friends, but in spite of this, she still exists as one of the most important people in my life. I've never stopped caring for her, even if it's not often that we speak. There will always be time and space in my life for her, whenever she wants it, and whenever she needs it, and whenever she has time and space to return. We shared a magical experience that night. Kitten pointed out to me (her insipid nickname is self-imposed, from a zine she once did) as I discussed that night with her when I got home following that weekend (afraid that I might not ever see Lucretia again), that even if we never spoke again after that, it was a wonderful, beautiful, special night, that we would both have as cherished memories involving a special and unique person capable of touching the other so deeply. We would always have that.
And that's why I spend tonight remembering it.
It all sort of began sometime between 3:30 and 4:00, early this morning. So early, in fact, that it couldn't even be said to be "bright and early," because the sun was, for all intents and purposes, somewhere else. I woke up feeling the queerest sensations in my lower abdomen...which, as consciousness graced me, turned out to in fact be searing abdominal cramps. I got out of bed and raced to the bathroom, assuming the worst and that my stomach or appendix or something was about to go haywire, but to no avail. I came back in and woke up Broken, who was here to prepare for her poetry reading this night, and while initially groggy, she sprang out of bed when she realized that there was something seriously wrong. We thought (hoped) it was just 'gas' or some such thing, but it got worse and worse, and Broken called her mother (a doctor), who insisted that I get to a hospital because from what she could gather, it sounded like my appendix was about to go. Broken gave me a sort of antacid fizzy beverage, but it actually made me worse, and that was that. I was doubled over, audibly moaning and groaning in extreme pain, and it just wouldn't stop. So, Broken hailed a cab, we leapt in, and raced to the Ottawa Civic Hospital. <
Triage didn't take very long. They took a look at me, cold, sweaty, extremely pale and shaky, barely able to stand even, and they got the information down as soon as they could, got me into a gown and a wheelchair, and away I went, just as soon as they could collect various samples from my person. I was actually impressed with the efficiency of everything. I guess the advantage to being treated like a number is that at least they get things done really fast. They told me there was a lot of blood in my urine, and at present the doctor suspected I was suffering from a kidney stone. Well.
They tapped an IV on the top of my hand, removed some blood and eventually, to my extreme relief, injected a painkiller of some decent capacity and quantity into my blood, which didn't take the pain away, but lessened it to a mild cramp, and allowed me to relax, so that I wasn't thrasing around and tensing. Broken was permitted to join me in my little curtain-fashioned cubicle, as I lay still in bed and dreaded the return of my pains. Unfortunately my constitution is such that it didn't take long for the drug to wear off, and as they wheeled me to the x-ray room, I was already begging for another injection. First things first, though, I was given a shot of some mysterious but non-radioactive dye that would allow them to X-ray my urinary tract, and see if in fact their suspicions were correct. They told me to be prepared for a mild reaction, which was me puking quite shamefully (many apologies came forth after that) and copiously. I just felt this lump in the back of my throat, and politely kept swallowing away at it, waiting for the return of the nice X-Ray technician so that I could mention that my nausea was imminent. She gave me a standard teeny little plastic hospital-issue basin, which was a happy gesture, but ironic, because the last thing that little tray was capable of was doing its intended job -- holding human vomit.
The floor proved more adept, but then, they always do.
Over the course of something like an hour I was X-rayed again and again as they traced the dye, and at some point I was blissfully given a dose of real morphine. Enough to rid most of the problem normally, but unfortunately again all it made me feel was really sleepy and horribly in pain. After all, the excrutiating ordeal of a kidney stone raking a bloody path through your tubular innards apparently ranks just behind childbirth in terms of agony. I'm not sure if I started falling asleep or passing out, or whether or not the morphine helped in this at all, but certainly I did this intermittently for the next hour. I think by eight or nine the pain had stopped, for which I was immensely grateful, and had attributed it to the final success of the controlled substance in my bloodstream. They brought me back to my little cozy area where Broken awaited, and I convalesced and awaited an explanation of my situation.
Well, as it turned out, yes, it was a kidney stone. They said it was probably caused by dehydration over the past week or two, and maybe a few metabolic weirdnesses. At first it completely blocked part of my ureter, but gradually loosened, and they're hoping it's gone forever now. They told me to expect a possible recurrence, though, if it actually was just loosened and not dissolved, and prescribed me with Tylenol-3 for the possibility, and a recommended dose of two litres of water (at least) each day to keep things happy in kidney land.
Anyway, eight hours later, I was released into Broken's hands, and we were both famished, so we had lots and lots of water with breakfast at the cafeteria, and I ran across the street to explain to one of my co-workers why I hadn't shown up that day (because I'm taking Hallowe'en off from ECORC, I'm making up for the eight hours I get paid for otherwise throughout the month little bits at a time). Stupidly, I actually went class tonight, because I did have a mid-term, and aside from some tenderness, I mostly felt alright, even though anyone with three brain cells would have got the old neurons a-sparkin', and asked the doctor for a note so they could skip that night and go to bed.
At least my power is back on. I must again refer to mysterious forces for the explanation as to how and why my power bar is feeding like a hungry mammal from the nipple-esque wall outlet it was paired with by my executive decision when I moved in. But apparently a friend of the person who originally blew out my circuit the other night showed up the very next day, smelled the ozone, and exlaimed "Whoah! What in th' heck happened?" and when everything was explained to him, nice and neat, he just sort of went "Oh," and did some MacGyverizing of the circuit, and took the light out of the loop. At precisely that moment my entire room went black, and as quickly returned to normal, returning the lost power with it. All except that one wall, which still faithfully pops out inexplicably like the bathroom light in Clerks, only to return to full power the very next day. Creepy.
Today, the fifteenth, has some extremely painful significance for me. It's the third anniversary of the night I met my friend and erstwhile lover Lucretia; the night of my very first kiss, and my very first love. I shall write you the story, but first I must sink into my bed, clutch at my raw and violated urinary tract, and feel extremely sad.
And they killed off Ivonova! The first new Babylon 5 I see in weeks, and this is how they pay me back for my endless and woefully creepy loyalty. May spikey cat penises sodomize them all. Grumble.
Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.
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