It's in the Cards

NDN told me that my last post was so saccharine that it made him want to puke. Yeah... I guess I can see that. I just needed somewhere to put all that. I'm feeling a little more sane today... balanced... in perspective about Narc and everything else.

I had a pretty wonderful weekend. On Saturday I went to see Die Walküre with B. Lorin Maazel was conducting, and as he's never at the Met, I've never heard him before. (I think they said it's been 45 years since he's done something at the Met!) B and I disagreed on his performance-- I loved it, whereas B was less than impressed. I thought the texture was amazingly clear and it was dramatic without being opaque and bombastic. B thought he disturbed the "flow," but I think that's what kept me so engaged. I was anticipating more difficulty concentrating through five hours of Wagner, but for some reason, I wasn't bored for a moment of it! Of course, Deborah Voigt and James Morris were awesome, but I was surprised that I also really like the tenor who sang Siegmund-- Clifton Forbis. He sounded a little like a baritone, but was a true heldentenor and the part where he sings out "Walse! Walse!" had chills running down my arms. It was so cheesy, but so wonderful and so 19th century. It was almost unbearable. I was exhilarated.

Narc texted me during the opera; so did my friend BahBoy, the opera singer who's back in town for the next few weeks.

Afterwards, B and I walked to the train together at Columbus Circle. I had to head out to Queens to BigSis' place. I had invited my mom and BigSis and BigSis' friend English to watch La Vie en Rose. B and I parted ways at Times Square, but because of track work, I had to go all the way down to West 4th Street to get the E or the F train headed towards Queens. It was about a 30 minute detour total, and I was very annoyed.

In any case, they all loved the movie, so I was happy. Bro-in-Law stuck around long enough to eat Chinese food with us, but didn't watch. My mom brought bags of jeans I had saved from a few years ago, and I was thrilled to find that they all fit me again. Yay! They are all my "skinny jeans," so if I shrink below the size I am now, I officially get a new wardrobe. Kind of exciting...

Narc had texted me a few times, asking what I was up to, so we made a plan to meet when I got back to the city. I didn't get home until around midnight. He was out with his friend Mike (one of the crew he's planning on moving to LA with) and so I didn't end up getting to him until about 1:00 AM. He told me to "surprise us" with a new Ben & Jerry's flavor. :)

We had a nice night. When I got there, he was eating Domino's cheesy bread and had ordered wings. I had a few of those.

"Your present has arrived," he said.

"Oh?"

"I got you a mermaid tarot!"

It was soooo sweet. I was really happy. We watched some TV. I fell asleep on his lap while Deep Impact was on. He fell asleep too. So, we recorded the end of the movie and crawled into bed.

I ended up spending the entire next day with him too. James left several urgent messages that morning telling Narc to "get out of bed and join him for lunch," but Narc ignored them all. Strange... James' ex was out partying in the Hamptons this weekend (people do that in February?) so James was "stuck" with the kids. Apparently he managed to find a sitter for a few hours and that was why he was so desperate for "brunch and vino" as he put it. It made me feel sad for those kids-- that both their parents are sniffing coke and running around to clubs all the time. The world is a strange place. It's weird watching their little lives get formed from where I am-- on the sidelines of the sidelines. Even though Narc is James' best friend and even though his kids live ten minutes away, Narc has only met them once. I don't understand all of that...

Anyway, he wanted to watch The King of Kong with me, so we walked over to the video store and bought a copy. It felt like Spring outside. I was happy to walk with him.

I have to say-- the movie was hysterically funny. "Billy Mitchell" is a tour de force. Seriously-- you have to watch it to see what I mean. It was a great movie. (And incidentally, Billy Mitchell looks sort of like SeattleGuy if you subtract the ridiculous hair. It was weird...) We ordered in sandwiches and watched all of the extras on the DVD too-- several hours of laying around on the couch.

After that, we watched more TV. And more TV. And more TV. We watched the end of Deep Impact. We watched Dirty Dancing. And we watched five episodes of Season 1 of Lost. We are probably the only people who sat around watching TV for the entire day on Superbowl Sunday and didn't once turn on the game. Especially here in NY!!

Anyway, it wasn't all a waste, as I managed to read through an article and start to put together my presentation while all of this TV was humming in the background.

By midnight, though, I was ready to shoot myself if any more TV seeped into my saturated and atrophying brain.

"Narc, I can't take it anymore!!!"

"So... what do you want to do?"

"Something else. Tell me a story."

He laughed. He didn't tell me a story. We just sat and chatted for a little while. I felt dulled.

"Well, show me how to do a reading, then," I said.

I took out the picture of the Celtic cross layout.

"How does this work?"

Narc helped me and we got a strangely insightful reading with my mermaid cards.

"You didn't really ask a question, though," he said, "so it's hard to direct the cards. Let me show you something else."

He said he was going to do an "Angel reading" for me with his Rider-Waite deck. He pulled the four "angel" cards from the deck-- "The Lovers," "Temperance," "Judgment" and "The Devil," and he told me to order the cards. I put them in the order I just listed them.

"Judgment is your obstacle," he said. "That's the one that's going to preside over the reading."

Then he took out a piece of paper and divided it into three columns.

"You have to ask a question," he said.

I had only one question in my mind-- would I survive him leaving? How could I ask that without asking that?

"Will I have peace of mind, be at peace with my life, this Summer?"

"Ok."

He wrote down three questions-- one on the top of each column. Where am I now? What obstacles brought me here? What do I have to do to overcome these obstacles?

Then he shuffled the rest of the deck and lay out four piles of three cards.

"We're going to flip over the angel cards and assign one to each pile and when your angel, Judgment, comes up, those are your cards."

The Judgment angel showed up on the first pile.

"Dying to get at it, huh?" he laughed.

Then he flipped over each card. Here was my reading.

1.) WHERE AM I NOW? : The Page of Cups

2.) WHAT OBSTACLES BROUGHT ME HERE? : The two of swords

3.) WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO OVERCOME THESE OBSTACLES? : The ten of swords



So, basically, without going into all of the details, here's the general analysis that Narc gave me...

The page of cups is about the beginning of bringing something into full manifestation. It's related to "emotional beginnings." The page is rooted in the emotional and spiritual and people represented by this card are supposedly "true romantics at heart."

"So-- you're at the start of a journey," he said. "And it's an optimistic beginning."

The next card-- my obstacles, was even more accurate. He said that the card represents a stalemate-- a conflict between two equally matched forces. Neither has the advantage. This is a long period of confusion and stagnation. (Hmm... sounds familiar.) He told me that the figure in the card is choosing to cross her arms in front of her heart to protect it from perceived danger. If this barrier is pried away, it will be painful but freeing. (I remembered when IrishBird told me I had "tunnel vision.") We looked up the card to get a more in depth reading.

"The Two of Swords shows those times when you deliberately avoid seeing the truth. Maybe one of your ideas has been proven incorrect and, though you see that you were wrong, you do not want to admit it. It can be painful to remove a blindfold and see the truth, because even the softest light will blind those who have lived in darkness. But being blinded by the light is far preferable to being blinded by darkness."

"I don't know about that," I said. "Sometimes it's preferable to be blinded by the darkness."

He didn't say anything.

"But maybe I'm just saying that because I'm still in that stalemate."

"No you're not," he said. "You're the page of cups. The stalemate has blocked you in the past, but you're about to begin your journey. You're already in the light."

It was weird to hear those words in his voice.

"Now for the last card," he said.

The ten of swords: "Even though only one sword would be needed to kill this man, ten were used: he has not simply been killed, but annihilated."

Is that the annihilation of my love? I wondered. My personal myth? My ego? My vision? My Narc?

Narc pointed out that the ten of swords is the last of the numbered swords-- the end of the ordeal. "No more pain will come to you from that source."

Online it said that the sun in the background of the card represents a new beginning arising from an ending. "The Ten of Swords is a sign that what you have gone through was not without purpose. The great positive power within you can be used to learn from your pain and draw wisdom from defeat."

My heart was filled with wondering about all of it-- is this really the end for me and Narc? Am I really living a denouement?

We went to bed not long after that. I found it hard to breathe.

The next morning we slept in a little too late, and then prolonged our time in bed a little too long. I had to get up and out to go to therapy. I don't know why, but when he was in the shower, I looked at his phone... maybe I did it because I know that he looked at mine last week. I don't know why I did it. I kind of hate that I did. It was a compulsion. I think I was looking for pain.

Guess what? I found it... sort of. I mean, I found something that should have caused me pain, but for some reason it didn't.

He had texted the Exhibitionist early last week and told her that he slept with three women that week-- me, ModelChick (his ex) and his friend Robyn.

"It was great to be with ModelChick again," he wrote. "To sleep with someone I actually have a connection with."

That stung. I have to say, it stung. But, the thing is, I know it's a lie. The night he said he was with Robyn, he was sick and I was at his house the whole time. The night he said he was with ModelChick, he had already told me about and had said that she left early because James showed up at the bar drunk. I don't know why he was lying to the Exhibitionist. I don't know why he wrote those things. But I made a choice to not care. It's not the real him. And besides, I know that he comes with a little pain and baggage... haven't I already decided to accept that until it's over?

He came out of the shower and I hugged him goodbye.

"We've both got to be productive this week," he said.

"Yeah, but I'm going to Florida over the weekend," I reminded him. "Thursday to Sunday."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll see you before then," he said.

(He's probably right. After all, I've spent six of the last ten nights at his place.)

And I left.

I was glad to be going to therapy. It was good to process all of that fast and to let it go.

For the rest of the afternoon yesterday, I finished preparing my class presentation and then went to class. It felt good to be starting the research seminar and to be around other historian-grad students. I think my presentation went well.

I was up late last night, though. I spent forever trying to download Season One of Lost using utorrent (saddened that xtorrent won't work on my laptop), texting Narc for help periodically, only to find that my laptop didn't have enough space for it. Then, after a few hours of frustration, I found that I can watch the episodes in streaming HD on abc.com. At least that worked out...

This morning I went off to vote and then came here to school to teach. Tonight is StarGazer's one year anniversary celebration. I'm going to be out at the diner until midnight.

Well... that's it for now. The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Non, rien de rien

Non, je ne regrette rien

Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal

Tout ça m'est bien égal

Non, rien de rien

Non, je ne regrette rien

C'est payé, balayé, oublié

Je me fous du passé

Avec mes souvenirs

J'ai allumé le feu

Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs

Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux

Balayés mes amours

Avec leurs trémolos

Balayés pour toujours

Je repars à zéro

Non, rien de rien

Non, je ne regrette rien

Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal

Tout ça m'est bien égal

Non, rien de rien

Non, je ne regrette rien

Car ma vie

Car mes joies

Aujourd'hui

Ça commence avec toi...

Isn't that the truth?

love,

h