It has been a strange weekend. Good in many ways, but I'm depressed nonetheless.
On Thursday night, after AA, and after picking up some yogurt and a banana at the deli, I was on my way home and happened to walk right by KHill. I haven't seen him in forever. It was the strangest thing-- that crush that I used to have on him came flooding back and I was suddenly so hyper. Our eyes met, but we didn't pause or say hello. Then he and his friends headed into Cheers and I, with my head spinning, came home. I was off the wall about it, although I'm not sure why. It triggered something old in me... something that wanted to go out and get into trouble. I wanted to get all dressed up and go over to the bar, as much as I knew it was a bad idea. It's the first time I've ever felt one of those "people/places/things" triggers that strongly. In any case, I called my sponsor, talked to Brick and went next door to my neighbor's place where NDN was hanging out and the two of them were cooking dinner. It took me a long time to come out of that strange, hyper "Hyde" feeling-- to come back to being "Jekyll." So strange.
On Friday I got to spend some time with Hammer in the early afternoon. I went over to her apartment with some bubble tea and we just hung out there for a while. Later that evening, I met Contessa at the opera. It was a strange night at Lincoln Center.
First of all, we had agreed to meet at the fountain, but that was impossible, as the entire plaza was walled off due to construction. Then, in the lobby, I bumped into my department chair (who I really don't like!) and we had to say awkward "hello's."
We were there for Tristan & Isolde with Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt, but the general manager came out to explain that Heppner was out with a "very bad virus," although "the rest of the cast was in excellent health!" He presented our new "Tristan" who was singing the role for the first time. (And it is a notoriously difficult role). The audience was very supportive.
Then, in Act II, right in the middle of the act, Deborah Voigt just walked off stage. The tenor kept right on singing as the curtain fell on him, the house lights went out, the orchestra stopped and the orchestra pit went dark. Just at that point, the line on the subtitle screen was something like "in the darkness, unknown and unimagined, dimly perceived." For a moment, I thought it was some kind of strange interpretation to go with the ultramodern minimalist sets. Then someone cried out "the power is out!" The audience began to murmur. A moment later, Peter Gelb, the general manager, appeared to explain.
"Ms. Voigt has had a sudden illness and can not continue. She will be replaced by Janice Baird. Please bear with us."
Again-- strange...
When Baird first started to sing, I didn't think her voice could match the power of Deborah Voigt, but by the third act, she had won me over. I fully experienced the opera that night, in the supreme sense of it. I think I was entirely transfigured by the liebestod. Then again, it's not to hard to sell me on those ideas.
As I explained in an email to GoldenFinch, I entirely identified with and understood the day/night imagery perhaps for the first time. Their love (represented by the orchestral music) is so detached from reality. It is entirely self-contained so that it is its own only truth. Tristan and Isolde become the universe to each other (as in "I AM Heathcliff!") because their love exists in a world outside all other worldly phenomena. In its own realm, it's not in sync with reality. It's the same bubble I slip into with Narc. Brangaene warns Isolde not to distinguish her torch (don't go down to Tribeca!) but she ignores the warning. Then, while they're singing the love duet (O sink down upon us, night of love. Make me forget I live: take me into your bosom, free me from the world!) Brangaene's protests are offstage, far away, vain-- a faint echo of reality.
"There is a 'real world' and this relationship is not reality!" she says. "Beware. Come back. King Marke and quotidian responsibilities are coming!"
Even the fact that they fell in love by drinking a potion-- it's strong enough to die for even though it isn't natural or the truest of "true" love. It's where I am-- the love might be imagined or invented, but it is still overwhelming me. And I'm lost in the swimming sickness of that "noumenal" world and have to keep yanking myself back into the "phenomenal." How can I stay present and write papers when there is the ever flowing tide of nauseating love-death music in my soul???
Anyway... so that was the opera of Friday night. I think that the libestod made me half orgasm and half cry. (Probably what it was intended to do, right?)
The whole time we were there, Narc was texting me. He wanted to see me and was probably bored waiting, as it was a six hour opera. I finally got out at almost 1:00 AM.
Coming down? he wrote.
I stopped at the deli to get him some Gatorade and to get me some dinner and jumped into a cab. We sat up talking for a long time-- mostly about his "breakup" with James and ModelChick.
"They're both no loss," he said. "They weren't the kind of people I want in my life anymore. I mean, ModelChick was a useful person to have for parties, but..."
"Useful?" I inquired.
"Well, yeah, because she's so beautiful-- she makes the party look good. You know-- she's a pretty ornament."
"I'm sure there are plenty of pretty ornaments out there who won't fuck you over emotionally," I said.
"Yeah. I guess it's just my thing for ditsy blonds. Blame it on my mother being one of them. But they usually fuck you over."
The conversation turned to some other things. Then he brought up something strange.
"You know-- it's been three years since that prophecy and I guess it's not going to come true."
"The angel who visited you?"
"Yeah."
(For those of you who weren't reading my blog three years ago, back in July '05, Narc said that he was visited by an angel who told him three things-- that he would make a movie, but probably only one; that he should become a vegetarian; and that he would marry someone he already knew within three years and that it would be the "first happiness he has ever known.")
"It might still come true," I said. "You never know!"
"No. It won't. The three years are up in June!"
"Maybe it's not three years exactly. And you almost got married to PopStar, right?"
"'Almost' doesn't count," he said. "She was so positive about it-- so authoritative. I was sure it would happen, but it's not going to now. Think about it Hyde," he laughed, "There are no more women in my life! I've cut them all out! PopStar is gone, Laurie's gone, the Exhibitionist is gone, ModelChick is gone, Danielle is gone. I have not a single female around. Of course it's not going to come true!"
"Yeah, I guess," I said.
But seriously-- what am I supposed to think, feel or say when he says things like that? Do I not exist? Or do I just not count? Did he say it on purpose? It's not like I want to marry Narc. Even in my most fucked up imaginings of the future, there's no way that we can have any kind of real life together. But still... it was either immensely dense, or else intentionally hurtful.
In any case, we went to bed around 3:00 AM, had sex during which I ignored my spiritual discomfort, and that was that.
On Saturday he said that he had to meet his friend the Shark for lunch, so I headed back up to my apartment and resumed my most recent apartment project-- an overhauling of my closets. I have been in the rare mood to throw things away and I'm ditching about 80% of my wardrobe. Narc later wrote to me that the Shark cancelled on him. Whatever...
At around 3:00 PM, StarGazer called me to ask if I had heard the news-- a huge crane had wiped out an entire townhouse and part of another building not far from where I live. In fact, "Fubar" was decimated. (I used to go there on weeknights after Cheers had closed, and then if Manchester also closed or stopped serving me b/c I was too drunk. Fubar was always open until 4:00 AM and sometimes a little later. And poor NDN-- that's his favorite bar!)
Later that evening, I had plans to meet B on the Upper West Side. We met for Chinese food, poked around Barnes & Noble and then headed over to a church on 66th Street to hear the Astoria Symphony. It was a great program-- a piece by Puccini, Barber's Adagio for Strings, an original work by a composer who was there in there in the audience, and then after the intermission-- Beethoven's 5th. I'm not a number one fan of symphonic music, but the Barber holds a special place in my heart, and as for the Beethoven-- I experienced it like never before. The orchestra was youthful and energetic and the space was acoustically brilliant and we were so close. I felt like an organic part of the music and not just a passive member of the audience. Also, my brain seems to be able to pull apart musical lines much easier and sustain attention much better these days. I swear-- it's the clearing of the alcoholic fog. I hear music the way I used to.
B's wife has been out of town all weekend. It was nice to spend such a long evening with him again. I miss the way we used to hang out as best friends. After the concert we walked to Pinkberry and then I got in a cab to head home.
I was anxious. Anxious upon anxious. Why? Because when I had left Narc that morning, he told me that he was going to a wine tasting that evening. And I know that he invited LA-Girl to go with him. I can't say or prove that he's "dating" her, but he is certainly still flirting with her in a way that makes me feel sick if I let myself think of it-- sending her suggestive texts and what not. I did my best to shove my feelings down into the pit of my stomach, since I didn't know what else to do with them, and I just came home.
Then I watched TV for hours. And guess what? I finally finished all of Lost!!!! So, I'm all caught up and the pressure of those marathons of Lost has dissipated. I don't have to watch another episode until we get a new one on Thursday. Phew! I think I went to bed at around 3:00 AM. I felt like my gut was chewing itself apart and tearing at all the walls of my insides.
Today I had brunch with StarGazer and another friend from AA (I can't remember if I've given her a blog name). It was raining out and I walked past the wreckage from that crane. On the way home, I smoked cigarettes and didn't care if my hair got wet. It felt a little liberating. But really, I just felt like crying. Nobody understands why I'm still in this thing. I don't understand it either. There is nowhere to go for comfort, for understanding. There is no one who can shut this off except me, and I just- can't- do- it. I just can't. I just can't. But I hate this so fucking much.
I hate it.
Anyway, for the rest of the afternoon today, I've been working on my apartment-- cleaning, organizing and trying not to vomit my soul out into the toilet. Even if I did, there would be nothing to do next except clean the toilet. I know he has dinner plans tonight on the Upper East Side for his friend M's birthday. I'm kind of obsessing about it and then telling myself to shut up.
Oh, and I'm dreading St. Patrick's Day. I hated it even when I was drinking. I never had fun on that day and my neighborhood gets colonized by drunks. Now it's 10 times worse.
But... that's it for now. I'm listening to a million different versions of the song "Hallelujah." And I just ordered Indian food off "seamless web." Oh, and Hammer just IM'd me. So, I think I'm gonna spell check and then get off blogger. I need to stop obsessing about myself anyway.
love,
h
* Oh, this light, how long before it was extinguished!
1 comment:
*sigh* I wish you a good day.
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