I’m bored, which means I should force myself to go out.  Because if you’re bored, chances are you’re boring.  Sometimes I embrace the bored and call it “listening.”  I’m tired of doing that.  It’s time to shower and hit a gay bar or something.  I can’t decide which sex.  Brandy’s Piano bar is always an option.  I’m always my happiest there.  Have dinner at Parma, then hit Brandy’s.  It’s a full night.  But really, Parma is for Sunday night dinners when there’s snowfall.  Tonight, it’s warm.  I need to put on some boots and a skirt without underwear, just ’cause.  ‘Cause I’ll know, and then somehow I won’t feel as bored.  I’ll go sit at a bar and listen to some music, have some wine, bring a notebook and be a bored nerd. 

I’m also going to spend much more of my time at Country, a spectacular bar near where I live now (photo taken from their site).  I’ve eaten there twice.  Once in the bar area (where The Suitor proposed on bended knee before the restaurant was open), once in the restaurant upstairs (last night for Valentine’s Day).  Insanely good food, the kind you want to bring home and eat cold from the fridge the next morning (if you can even wait that long).  What looks like a fancy yellow hat is really warm pull-apart rolls.  Salt and pepper cellars.  Warm Gruyere cheese puffs.  It’s expensive but lacquered pork ribs should be expensive; they’re lacquered.  Only artists and drag queens lacquer things. I love that my local watering hole is all about fine wine and zoo-like cheeses.  It’s hard to get bored when I remind myself of the cheese board. Of the leather Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs.  Of the orange light.  Of the warmth.

After I hit up Country again tonight, I’m heading over to Mercury Lounge to watch some bands I’ve never heard.  I’m going at it alone because that’s what the bored do.  9:30 Black Wire, 10:30 Overnight.  It sounds like a secret mission.  Maybe it will be.  Less bored now.  I’ll post again when I get home, drunk… to be continued… because this is what you can do in this city, just pick up and show up without any obligations.

… So now I’m home.  I didn’t make it past Country.  I made it home to cry.  To feel sorry for myself and question what I’m doing with my life, to gulp down drama and wonder why I feel so much.  I’m tired of putting it all out there just for people to tell me how fucked up I am.  Tired of baring it all and being beaten down for it.  But what the fuck.  Who cares?  It’s not like I don’t know and admit it.  I don’t need it in my face, in comments, to know.  I live it and breathe it, and quite frankly don’t give a shit what remarks are lobbed my way.  At least I’m honest enough to say it.  I’m not sleeping with a married man, not cheating, not saying mean things behind the backs of friends.  I’m vulnerable and trying to grow up, and it takes work.  Takes sucking in the hurt and sharing it with the world, with anyone who’ll listen and stick to it and offer some type of balm, anyone but the person.  The one it’s all about.  Because when I share it with him, then it’s drama, it’s “you’re trying to control me.”  When it’s just me and a notepad or slew of emails, it’s safe.  But when I bring it up, in crafted neat words, it’s a discussion, a “let’s talk.”  I feel lonesome and alone, even though I had every opportunity to play tonight.  I wore the boots, put on the makeup, the skirt, curled my hair and eyelashes.  But I didn’t feel like fun and flirting.  I felt sorry for myself.  And when I say it to him, he feels guilted, which isn’t how I want him to feel, so I tell everyone but him, making me feel the most distant, with him feeling fine and none the wiser.  That’s the way relationships seem to work near me.  I tell everyone but the person.

I know the quick answer is you should share intimate details with the person; be direct.  I know that’s the textbook reply, but it’s not true with me.  With me, it’s “let time heal it, bite your tongue, call a friend instead.”  And I listen and do as I’m told, but I feel distance grow. Because, before, when I was writing this from my own apartment, in my space, I’d go to him and tell him how I felt about anything, and that’s what made us, US.  Because he was the best friend I could say it all to, but then, somehow that stops, and it becomes wanting to be respectful, wanting for him and his best needs.  It feels like giving by taking away the words and talks.  By just letting it go. 

When I share now, it is misconstrued into “manipulation” and “trying to control me,” so I bite down hard and say “have fun” with a smile.  Inside I feel alone.  I’d feel this in any relationship.  It’s not him.  Why do I need so much? What am I not giving myself?  I cannot think of a thing.  I will live this, sometimes more than others, for the rest of my life.  And I’m scared to admit any of this; it’s exactly why I will.