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11 October 2006 : porto allegre drive
everything about those six months remains obscured by a stretch of 48 hours on the canal downtown.
he had dark hair almost to his waist. he smoked clove cigarettes and told me i had the "biggest, poutiest eyes imaginable." he was tall, so from above me i'm sure it looked that way.
after dinner and coffee we went back to my apartment and watched a movie.
i took him to bed. before i closed the door behind us, i knew i didn't want him there. it was going to hurt. i was scared. i thought i was in love (with someone else). but we crawled under the covers and i touched him. i let him touch me. after dinner and coffee and all our suggestive conversation, i felt obligated. like i owed him at least this much.
the orgasm left me sobbing. i finally found the words. i said no.
we slept.
after he left the next day, i ate every scrap of junk i could find in the house - wanting to make myself believe that it hurt this badly for some tangible, physical reason. my fever kicked into high gear as my blood sugar rose.
after i puked, i drank. when i started bumping into furniture, i called the man who was the reason for all of it. i told him everything that had happened and he laughed at me. i said, "i've still got you in my head."
i was incapable after all of wanting anyone else. i would feel guilty for weeks about how i treated this other man. i would feel guilty for weeks about how i treated myself.
how much more concretely can i demonstrate the difference between 20 and 23? i ball up in anger over the knowledge that i allowed myself to fall that far. how little self respect i had.
my heart is still broken for that barely existant shadow of a destroyed little girl.
the apartment on porto allegre drive, it wouldn't bear the weight of anything else.
posted by lindsay at 23:27 :: 0 comments
: poncetta drive
daly city, it's sort of a giant trash bin for san francisco. every day you'd descend stairs from the beautiful city, fresh air and blue sky above you. you'd hop on the train and travel eight miles south, and every day it was grey and rainy and windy.
the apartment had a balcony. if you stood on tiptoe and craned your neck and it wasn't too dark outside, you could see the faintest darkening of sky at the horizon which indicated that the ocean was near.
this was the apartment of little girls. seven roommates in eight months. we didn't eat, we smoked cigarettes in the most pervasive wind imaginable, read books by the light of the 76 station in the parking lot.
elouisa was a street-hard latino dyke from san jose. she and her girlfriend got lube on my favorite pj harvey album and didn't clean it up. or tell me.
jamie was a giggling fashion designer from wisconsin. she yelled at me every day for wearing red together with purple, bought a hamster named "sandwich" and she was my favorite.
chrystal was half sioux, half mexican and her black hair was glorious. she couldn't claim five feet in platforms and her hair was almost as tall as she was. she went through a zen phase and insisted on calling me "little grasshopper."
amy was crazy, and canadian. she brought home stale pastries from her job every night and my body turned on me in its quest for protein, my hair clogging the shower drain and covering the floors, my knees weak at the drafting board.
chantelle wasn't even eighteen when she moved in; she teased her blonde hair sky high and wore two belts every day. all the boys loved her, but she loved the gangly, good natured one that no girl would look at twice. i spent weeks wishing to be just like her.
lindsay was the oldest. she made the world's best macaroni and cheese and smoked more weed than maybe anyone i've ever known. i hated that. she hated that i hated that.
lauren was the beautiful one, who at age eighteen left her 26 year old boyfriend in ohio and said to me one night, "i just don't think i'll ever love anyone again." i couldn't look her in the eye for days.
on good weeks, i spent no more than two nights in that apartment. instead i dragged myself to san francisco for school and then made the trek through the mountains in any weather to sleep at scott's house, even if i had to get up at 5am just to make it to the city in time for class.
he said, "you spend so much time here because it's a home. you don't have that there."
no, all i had were stiff brown carpets and little girls. i cried for hours after i said goodbye to him, but that apartment held nothing. absolutely nothing. driving away was the easiest thing i ever did.
posted by lindsay at 23:09 :: 1 comments
10 October 2006 : timberhead lane
the thing about our apartment in foster city was that at the beginning, it wasn't quite large enough to hold all our hopes.
the walls were white. the carpet was white. the tiles and the counters in the bathroom and kitchen were white. the upholstery on the furniture was white. the wooden tables were white. the dishes were white.
it was fresh and square and perfectly clean: the only possible place to start a new life, midwestern girls hurtling toward the coast blindfolded and without a map.
this is where we kept the book of t.s. eliot in the bathroom. this is where we turned the recycling bins upside down and sat on the porch for hours, just waiting - for what, i never learned. this is where, for the first and only time, something i made up in my head played out in real life exactly as i'd imagined (he kissed me as i sat on the corner of the balcony railing, nothing but 30 feet of bare space behind me, and his mustache made me giggle).
this is where i did most of the loving i've done in my short life. the girl with the long dark hair, the girl with the sun on her shoulder, the cat who would cry until his voice failed him, the man whose blue eyes at the time seemed kind.
this is where i assume most of that loving remains.
this is where i threw everything in my hands on the sidewalk to hear it break and didn't bother to pick up the pieces because nothing mattered.
this is where i drank secretly and quietly by myself so no one would know, hoping something would come along and make me laugh, just once. this is where i showered in boiling water until i turned red and raw just to clean him off my skin. this is where i showered in boiling water until i turned red and raw just hoping that a little bit more of his scent would rise up off my skin.
this is where i thought i was an adult. this is where i thought i was living real life. this is where i let it start to break me.
the balcony was painted grey. from the porch we could see the water of the lagoon, which was never quite green and never quite blue. it was hard and cold and painful under my bare feet. the dirt of our lives lay in the corners and i threw my clothes contemptuously in the washing machine, hoping just once to not smell like the waffle cones i baked for eight hours a day.
it was pale and muted, transparent and unreal: the perfect place to find the first wrinkles around my eyes.
the thing about our apartment in foster city was that at the end, it wasn't even halfway large enough to hold my disappointments and the rubble that remained from the destruction of my defenses.
posted by lindsay at 20:54 :: 0 comments
16 August 2006 : life on bolton avenue, part 1
roommate hysterics reached briefly tonight a fever pitch the likes of which have not been seen for quite some time. that sort of hilarity has for one reason or another not been with us recently; perhaps the heat of the summer has slowed us down, or perhaps we've all been too busy to just be ridiculous together. maybe we're slowly mourning the loss of our fourth. whatever the cause, it was nice to feel like that again even for a few minutes.
after finishing our cigarettes, we sighed and swang and sat and talked about how the weather was such that we were actually cold. a few moments silence, and i stared out at the starry patch of sky i could see amid all the tree branches.
"dear the weather," i say, "please don't ever change. love, lindsay."
after a brief pause luke looks at me strangely and says, "did you just sign the weather's yearbook?"
posted by lindsay at 00:23 :: 1 comments
everything about those six months remains obscured by a stretch of 48 hours on the canal downtown.
he had dark hair almost to his waist. he smoked clove cigarettes and told me i had the "biggest, poutiest eyes imaginable." he was tall, so from above me i'm sure it looked that way.
after dinner and coffee we went back to my apartment and watched a movie.
i took him to bed. before i closed the door behind us, i knew i didn't want him there. it was going to hurt. i was scared. i thought i was in love (with someone else). but we crawled under the covers and i touched him. i let him touch me. after dinner and coffee and all our suggestive conversation, i felt obligated. like i owed him at least this much.
the orgasm left me sobbing. i finally found the words. i said no.
we slept.
after he left the next day, i ate every scrap of junk i could find in the house - wanting to make myself believe that it hurt this badly for some tangible, physical reason. my fever kicked into high gear as my blood sugar rose.
after i puked, i drank. when i started bumping into furniture, i called the man who was the reason for all of it. i told him everything that had happened and he laughed at me. i said, "i've still got you in my head."
i was incapable after all of wanting anyone else. i would feel guilty for weeks about how i treated this other man. i would feel guilty for weeks about how i treated myself.
how much more concretely can i demonstrate the difference between 20 and 23? i ball up in anger over the knowledge that i allowed myself to fall that far. how little self respect i had.
my heart is still broken for that barely existant shadow of a destroyed little girl.
the apartment on porto allegre drive, it wouldn't bear the weight of anything else.
Labels: The walls too thin
posted by lindsay at 23:27 :: 0 comments
: poncetta drive
daly city, it's sort of a giant trash bin for san francisco. every day you'd descend stairs from the beautiful city, fresh air and blue sky above you. you'd hop on the train and travel eight miles south, and every day it was grey and rainy and windy.
the apartment had a balcony. if you stood on tiptoe and craned your neck and it wasn't too dark outside, you could see the faintest darkening of sky at the horizon which indicated that the ocean was near.
this was the apartment of little girls. seven roommates in eight months. we didn't eat, we smoked cigarettes in the most pervasive wind imaginable, read books by the light of the 76 station in the parking lot.
elouisa was a street-hard latino dyke from san jose. she and her girlfriend got lube on my favorite pj harvey album and didn't clean it up. or tell me.
jamie was a giggling fashion designer from wisconsin. she yelled at me every day for wearing red together with purple, bought a hamster named "sandwich" and she was my favorite.
chrystal was half sioux, half mexican and her black hair was glorious. she couldn't claim five feet in platforms and her hair was almost as tall as she was. she went through a zen phase and insisted on calling me "little grasshopper."
amy was crazy, and canadian. she brought home stale pastries from her job every night and my body turned on me in its quest for protein, my hair clogging the shower drain and covering the floors, my knees weak at the drafting board.
chantelle wasn't even eighteen when she moved in; she teased her blonde hair sky high and wore two belts every day. all the boys loved her, but she loved the gangly, good natured one that no girl would look at twice. i spent weeks wishing to be just like her.
lindsay was the oldest. she made the world's best macaroni and cheese and smoked more weed than maybe anyone i've ever known. i hated that. she hated that i hated that.
lauren was the beautiful one, who at age eighteen left her 26 year old boyfriend in ohio and said to me one night, "i just don't think i'll ever love anyone again." i couldn't look her in the eye for days.
on good weeks, i spent no more than two nights in that apartment. instead i dragged myself to san francisco for school and then made the trek through the mountains in any weather to sleep at scott's house, even if i had to get up at 5am just to make it to the city in time for class.
he said, "you spend so much time here because it's a home. you don't have that there."
no, all i had were stiff brown carpets and little girls. i cried for hours after i said goodbye to him, but that apartment held nothing. absolutely nothing. driving away was the easiest thing i ever did.
Labels: The walls too thin
posted by lindsay at 23:09 :: 1 comments
10 October 2006 : timberhead lane
the thing about our apartment in foster city was that at the beginning, it wasn't quite large enough to hold all our hopes.
the walls were white. the carpet was white. the tiles and the counters in the bathroom and kitchen were white. the upholstery on the furniture was white. the wooden tables were white. the dishes were white.
it was fresh and square and perfectly clean: the only possible place to start a new life, midwestern girls hurtling toward the coast blindfolded and without a map.
this is where we kept the book of t.s. eliot in the bathroom. this is where we turned the recycling bins upside down and sat on the porch for hours, just waiting - for what, i never learned. this is where, for the first and only time, something i made up in my head played out in real life exactly as i'd imagined (he kissed me as i sat on the corner of the balcony railing, nothing but 30 feet of bare space behind me, and his mustache made me giggle).
this is where i did most of the loving i've done in my short life. the girl with the long dark hair, the girl with the sun on her shoulder, the cat who would cry until his voice failed him, the man whose blue eyes at the time seemed kind.
this is where i assume most of that loving remains.
this is where i threw everything in my hands on the sidewalk to hear it break and didn't bother to pick up the pieces because nothing mattered.
this is where i drank secretly and quietly by myself so no one would know, hoping something would come along and make me laugh, just once. this is where i showered in boiling water until i turned red and raw just to clean him off my skin. this is where i showered in boiling water until i turned red and raw just hoping that a little bit more of his scent would rise up off my skin.
this is where i thought i was an adult. this is where i thought i was living real life. this is where i let it start to break me.
the balcony was painted grey. from the porch we could see the water of the lagoon, which was never quite green and never quite blue. it was hard and cold and painful under my bare feet. the dirt of our lives lay in the corners and i threw my clothes contemptuously in the washing machine, hoping just once to not smell like the waffle cones i baked for eight hours a day.
it was pale and muted, transparent and unreal: the perfect place to find the first wrinkles around my eyes.
the thing about our apartment in foster city was that at the end, it wasn't even halfway large enough to hold my disappointments and the rubble that remained from the destruction of my defenses.
Labels: The walls too thin
posted by lindsay at 20:54 :: 0 comments
16 August 2006 : life on bolton avenue, part 1
roommate hysterics reached briefly tonight a fever pitch the likes of which have not been seen for quite some time. that sort of hilarity has for one reason or another not been with us recently; perhaps the heat of the summer has slowed us down, or perhaps we've all been too busy to just be ridiculous together. maybe we're slowly mourning the loss of our fourth. whatever the cause, it was nice to feel like that again even for a few minutes.
after finishing our cigarettes, we sighed and swang and sat and talked about how the weather was such that we were actually cold. a few moments silence, and i stared out at the starry patch of sky i could see amid all the tree branches.
"dear the weather," i say, "please don't ever change. love, lindsay."
after a brief pause luke looks at me strangely and says, "did you just sign the weather's yearbook?"
Labels: The walls too thin
posted by lindsay at 00:23 :: 1 comments