My Face for the World to See (Part II):
The Diary of Sherilyn Connelly
a fiction


January 21 - 31, 2002

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Thursday, 31 January 2002 (21 things)
5:30pm


I sat down and did my a rough estimate of my taxes this morning. I'm lacking the statement from my bank (still haven't gotten the new checks I ordered back in November, either), but unless I grossly miscalculated something, I should be getting a relatively decent refund. That was the whole point of having so much withheld from my paychecks, though I suppose it would be a little sweeter if it was supplemental income like I'd originally planned. Alas. Anyway, it should be enough to, if nothing else, justify a few minor computer upgrades, like that motherboard...

Between the variations on my old name made possible by the middle initial and variations on my new name due to a determined unwillingness by various agencies to doublecheck their typing, every one of my tax documents has a different spelling. I would be worried about that, except that A) they all seemed to get the SSN right, and B) on the W-2 from my old job "Blue Shield" is misspelled. It leads me to one conclusion: nobody gives a shit. Nobody at the IRS or state tax board is going to notice, because they don't care. And, really, why should they? Why should anybody, about anything?

For example, I'm getting voter information under my new name as well as my old name. That, of course, should not be. Y'know what? I followed the prescribed, necessary steps to change that information, and if there's sloppiness on the other end, it really isn't my problem. I'm getting very tired of having to supervise other people's jobs.

I then took the bus out to Japantown for lunch at the sushi buffet. I went by myself, as Maddy's back at work today and doesn't much care for the place to begin with. Ate too much, of course. I've been doing a lot of that lately, in spite of the fact that it never makes me feel better like I originally hope. Funny how that lesson never quite sinks in, particularly since I won't be back at the gym for at least another week.

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Wednesday, 30 January 2002 (horizontal hold)
8:09am


We'll be without the car until next Wednesday or Thursday. This is gonna suck.

Granted, it could be worse. Although there's a severe limitation on how much can be carried—especially in Maddy's case, since so much as picking up Oscar goes beyond her prescribed weight limit—at least anything we might really need is accessible via Muni, or even a relatively short walk. So we'll manage, and the cats have enough sand and food to last til then. This should also help discourage midday munching, since a trip to Trader Joe's is kinda out of the question. (Although I'm wishing I'd stocked up more when we went there yesterday; I apparently erred on the wrong side, as I so often will.) But, still, it's gonna suck.

5:15pm

On the train last night before the programming meeting, we went over the schedule, trying to decide what slot we'd like to shoot for. We'd also envisioned it as being a late-night show, not because of adult content (shouldn't be any at all unless play we Sutcliffe Jugend—which we're not going to, with the possible exception of the beautiful quasi-ambient instrumenal tracks on The Victim As Beauty—or if you consider cats grooming one another to be obscene) but because it seems like that's when the cool stuff is on. The punky, D.I.Y. programs shot mostly in people's apartments, the sort of thing that inspired us to do a show of our own. To that end, we decided we'd shoot for the first Monday night of the month at 12:30am, right after Queen Bee TV and S*P*L*E*E*N. It looked perfect—people who liked those shows would probably like ours, and those who didn't would either be watching talk shows or have gone to bed already.

The turnout to the meeting was more than expected, particularly for new producers. We seemed to be the most well-prepared of the newbies, though, having already taken the orientation class (which we had thought was a requirement) and even having our first episode ready to go. The first hour of the supposed-to-be-an-hour meeting was taken up by people filling out forms, asking questions which had been covered in the orientation, and so on. I didn't mind so much, but some other people were getting impatient and made their displeasure known, in turn making Maddy and I rather uncomfortable. It felt too much like being back in high school. Do you ever get the feeling you'll never entirely shake the feelings of that hellish place?

The selection process was a democratic lottery. Which is to say, numbers were drawn at random, and your number determined when your order in line to get a timeslot. Our number was towards the middle, so there was a bit of anxiety that someone might take the time we wanted.

We needn't have worried; the feeding frenzy was for prime-time, not late on a schoolnight. And most of those available slots were currently filled by shows which were up for, as it were, "renewal;" their six- or twelve-month runs were ending, and while they were more than welcome to stay on the air, there was no guarantee that they'd get to keep the same time. A couple people had their long-established slots taken away from them because people who got lower lottery numbers wanted them. I felt very sorry for them.

Not surprisingly, though, those were the people with message shows, primarily religious. I counted at least two Jeezus shows and one which appeared to be Orthodox Jewish. The latter bumped an existing Muslim show from it's slot; I'm sure he ultimately did it because he considered it to be a timeslot with wide exposure, but I couldn't help wondering if just a little part of him considered it to be a victory over the infidels. (Nah, that couldn't be it. As an atheist, for me to suggest such a thing would be a bigot, right?)

S*P*L*E*E*N was also up for renewal, and the show's producer was at the meeting but had to leave before the actual selection process. I hope nobody took her slot; it didn't happen while we were there, and we left after we got our slot and went for a celebratory (suh-LEB-ruh-to-ry? SEL-uh-bruh-to-ry?) snack at Sparky's. I even had a quesadilla. I'd earned it, damnit.

For as annoyed as I get with people not being able to spell my name right, I suppose I'll have to offer a bit of slack with the show's self-consciously arty title: kittypr0n. Yes, that's all lowercase, the numeral zero instead of the letter O and the last syllable is in fact pronounced like "prawn." Still, I'll be thrilled if their "Coming Up Next" graphic get is right.

Anyway, if you live in San Francisco and have cable—actual cable, not satellite or DirecTV or any of that—we'll be on this next Monday night at 12:30am. Since normal people aren't up those hours (though we tend to be lately) I'd recommend programming your VCR to start recording at 11:30pm and let it run until 1am to get the full effect.

Oh, and there's just the slightest chance that there won't be any sound. Y'see, their VHS playback equipment can only handle mono tracks, and being the snob that I am our VCRs are hi-fi stereo, and indeed there isn't an option for recording only in mono. My limited understanding of the way VHS tapes work suggests that the audio should have been recorded on the mono tracks as well as the stereo, but the only way to test it would be to run it through a mono VCR, and we don't have one, so there's no telling until it's actually broadcast. So, if it's silent—or, even worse, the original audio recorded at the time is audible—I apologize. Ah, the excitement of showbiz.

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Tuesday, 29 January 2002 (under rug swept)
8:30am


Maddy hasn't been to work since the accident two weeks ago, and I don't remember when she'd last been before that. She'll be out through tomorrow, and then only going in for half days on Thursday and Friday. Chiropractor's orders.

Tomorrow morning I take the car in to get repaired. It's the garage recommended to me by my insurance agency, the one that gave me the repair estimate on the day of the accident. The claims adjuster guy has pretty much said that the repairs will be covered, no deductible or anything like that. What really makes me nervous is how long I might be without the car. Which makes it all the more ironic that Maddy's car started acting up on us a while back, and it's practically undriveable. (Lilith showed great interest in acquiring it from us, and we're more than happy to give it to her, but she's kinda gone quiet on the subject.) Oh well. Raining and pouring and all.

The San Francsico Public Library now carries DVDs. I do love this city.

9:59am

I suppose it shouldn't, but it bugs me when people in my old line of work complain. If they hate their jobs so much, they should quit and let me take over. But, somehow, I doubt that's going to happen.

On a quasi-related note: if you preface a forwarded email or a quiz result with "I normally don't do this sort of thing," congratulations. You've officially become the kind of person who does that sort of thing, regardless of how much you claim to hate them. Suggest otherwise, and you're a hypocrite.

Just a thought.

11:06pm

Half past midnight on the first Monday (Tuesday morning, technically) of the month, following Queen Bee TV and S*P*L*E*E*N. Cool.

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Monday, 28 January 2002 (backwards overload)
3:12pm


We finished up the first episode of our show yesterday, at home using just two VCRs and a CD player. We won't know until tomorrow night when the actual deadline is, and it may not be for a few weeks. We also have time reserved in the editing suite this weekend, so in theory we may even have a chance to polish it. But it'll probably be aired as is, rough edits and all. Certainly the remaining episodes—we're committed to six—will look a little smoother, but I think there'll always be a special place in our hearts for this because it isn't particularly smooth.

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Sunday, 27 January 2002 (morning bell)
9:27am


When I called Fallon on her cellphone at a quarter past five, I got her voicemail. I really should have called sooner than that, particularly since I was supposed to meeting her at her hotel at six, but there you have it. I left a message with my number, asking her to call me with her room number. A few minutes later I tried a numeric page as well. By half past I hadn't heard from her and was prepared to just write the whole thing off—this quest to upgrade my computer has been mostly dead ends, and I've gotten used to them by now—but at twenty to six decided to call her hotel, the Holiday Inn on Van Ness, directly. I seemed to recall from movies that the front desk isn't allowed to tell you who's registered, but as Maddy pointed out, I'd done the very same thing in Vegas to get in touch with my father. I was in fact able to get through to her. Turns out I'd spoken too quickly on the voicemail, and she didn't understand my number. (Presumably, the numeric page didn't come though.) Considering how quickly I can talk (well, gibber) when I'm nervous, it makes sense.

So I got her room number, offered a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god ETA, and headed out. Getting there wasn't a problem; the traffic was about what one would expect for north of Market at 6pm on a Saturday evening. Sucky, but not as bad as, say, south of Market at 6pm on a weeknight. I got out there with a few minutes to spare.

I parked in their garage, noting the rate—$2.75 for twenty minute increments. If I played it right, I could be in an out in that time. Fallon would be on her way out, and though I've never gotten a proper chance to talk to her since we met back in August, now really wasn't the time. So, feeling terribly clever, I headed straight for the elevator and hit her floor number, 25.

The button's light didn't come on, and the car didn't bulge. A couple came into the elevator, hit "L," and were taken to the lobby. Swell, but I wasn't trying to go to the lobby, was I? 25, 25, 25. Nothing doing. I noticed they had keycard-swipey things above the buttons. Uh-oh.

Somehow I managed to make it up to the fourteenth floor, and had the brilliant idea of finding the stairs. I opened the door to stairs, expecting to see a locked antechamber. Nope, just the stairs. I stepped through and carefully closed the door behind me, making sure the knob was fully turning. Yep, and I was able to reopen the door. Ergo, I wasn't locked in the stairwell. Very important detail.

I made my way up the stairs, taking a few steps at a time (I've got long legs, might as well use 'em), feeling my lungs starting to complain. My kvetching about my weight aside, I'm not entirely out of shape, but this was an odd time to get back into cardio.

Around the twentieth floor, just for kicks, I tried the door. Locked. I went up another flight, just in case it was a fluke. Nope. I felt a momentary bite of panic—this was suddenly feeling way too much like one of my recurring nightmares—then remembered that the fourteenth floor was accessible. It had to be. It couldn't not be. And, thankfully, it was.

So I took the elevator back down to the lobby (seems those people had the right idea) and stood in line to talk to the clerk so I could call up to her room. Then I recalled from my cinematic education the existence of an object called a "house phone." I found a row of them in a connecting hallway, lifted the handset of one to speak to operator as the sign instructed, and waited. And waited. It just kept ringing. After about twenty rings I got the point. I walked back out into the main lobby, considered getting back in line, figured they'd probably just point me back to the phones, and returned and tried a different phone. Amazingly, I actually got an operator, who put me through to Fallon's room. Well, her room's voicemail, anyway. Next best thing. I explained what happened (gibbering even more) and said I'd wait for her in the lobby. She got the message and emerged a few minutes later. I got the card, finally met her wife, and we parted company.

(Dana and Costanza got married on Halloween '00 at Sutter Mansion, a few blocks away. I went to the ceremony with the other bridesmaids and Dana in someone else's car, but needed my car to be out there already so Maddy and I could drive home afterwards, and there wouldn't be time for her to go home after work and drive back out there. So I went in search of parking early that same afternoon, with the intention of taking the bus out to Dana's after I'd found a space. I first tried the closest garage to Sutter Mansion; unfortunately, whoever was on duty at the time failed to tell me that an employee was supposed to take the keys and actually park it. As a result, I soon found myself trapped in the bowels of the garage. I'm still not sure how I got out, but it involved some very careful reverse driving and at least one three-point turn which ended up being more like eighty. It became an image in at least one nightmare, reminiscent of those images in apocalyptic movies of dead cars stretched out for miles, but with a bit of premature burial thrown in for good measure.

I eventually escaped and found my way to the Holiday Inn garage, which wasn't quite as tomblike. Mission accomplished.

After the ceremony, we decided to go to a club with Newman and Jayne. It was impractical for all of us to walk to the garage, especially since we had wedding presents for Dana and Costanza which we'd agreed to take drop off at their place the next day, so I went by myself to get the car, maybe a five minute walk. Ten tops. It's the kind of garage where you pay when you exit, and I was prepared to do just that...except that when I got to the exit, the booth was empty. A sign said to "pre-pay in lobby when attendant is not present." Thankfully, there were no cars behind me, making my display of stunt-driving a little stressful than it might have otherwise been. I parked again and went into the lobby, where the clerk informed me that the attendant should be back and I could just pay down there. This was said with a slight air of annoyance, as though I should have known better. I returned to my car and drove back down to the exit, where, yes, the attendant had in fact returned. Unfortunately, enough time had passed by the time I returned to Sutter that Newman and Jayne had gotten tired of waiting for me and left on their own. We loaded up the car—I'll admit, I wasn't thrilled that Maddy was left out there by herself with potential valuables, but no harm done, I guess—and went home.)

Apparently the entire ordeal took less than twenty minutes, since I only paid $2.75.

11:56pm

This afternoon we watched Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal on DVD, and this evening we watched Hal Needham's Cannonball Run II on cable. Somewhere between them lies the truth.

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Saturday, 26 January 2002 (the butcher's block)
7:59pm


The Holiday Inn at Van Ness and Pine is metaphoric for something in my life, but I'm not sure what just yet.

sometime after midnight

Lance Henriksen and Harry Dean Stanton should make a gay porno together.

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Friday, 25 January 2002 (bella neurox)
1:58pm


I've signed my first Non-Disclosure Agreement. I feel like such a grown-up now. Of course, it's how more than a few failed dot-coms got their start. Needless to say, I'm not getting my hopes up too much—if nothing else, these things have a tendency to fall apart before they begin—although the numbers Brian was coming up with sounded inviting. Really, don't they always?

Brian commented that I've lost weight. Goes to show how long it's been since he's seen me.

Eternal Recurrence, Part III (Crucifixion)

you better watch out
what you wish for
it better be worth it
so much to die for

      -- courtney love, celebrity skin

The Short Goodbye...Hail to the King...The First Night...Real Time...It Never Rains Under My Umbrella...Enter Sandman...12:15PM (The Moment of Clarity, Part I)...Retail Therapy...Stigmata...2:30PM (The Moment of Clarity, Part II)...The Medication is Wearing Off...My Descent Into Madness...Nightswimming

2/23/99

Dear Dar,

   The Ex offered, and I accepted, to bring my duffelbag by the office on Friday afternoon (1/22/99) so I wouldn't have to take it with me to work on the bus in the predicted torrential rains--indeed, it was supposed to rain the whole weekend. No question, this was above and beyond the call on her part.

   I was to be spending the weekend with Summer. Not the whole thing; Friday evening, normally Lilith, was called off because she had a prior commitment to meet a friend in Bolinas. (More on Bolinas later.) Or they were coming in from Bolinas, or something like that. In any event, they'd be back in Bolinas and she'd be in Berkeley on Saturday morning. Anyway, I'd be spending Friday night with my brother barefoot in Oakland, then meeting Summer in Berkeley on Saturday at a Neil Gaiman book signing. Gaiman wrote a graphic novel series called The Sandman, amongst other things, and he'd be reading from his new novel. Sounded pretty cool, and the simple fact was I'd follow her anywhere. Afterwards we'd go to her place in San Rafael and hang out, watch movies,etc. She'd never seen Crash or Se7en, both movies which I suspected she'd appreciate.

   Difficult though this may be to believe, I had no aims for anything beyond that. Just to be with a friendly face--a face I with which I was madly in love, to be sure, but I have simple needs. In spite of the fact that many of my friends and family believed I was having an affair with Summer, I'd done nothing more up to this point in a physical sense than peck her on the cheek a few times. Not even too many goodbye hugs in the past week. And I had no expectations of doing any more than that. ("Want" is irrelevant. This world is not about what I want.)

   So The Ex came by at about 3:45pm. It was, to use quite possibly the most mild word possible, awkward. We were about to be apart from one another for at least two days yet did not hug or exchange I-love-yous or any real kind of sentiment. This was completely foreign to our relationship, since normally she gets teary in these situations. Indeed, she was fighting them back, but not the same kind.

   She confirmed something important, though: her friend Trisha was in fact coming up from Fresno. See, in spite of Summer and I having made vague plans earlier in the week to get together over the weekend, the primary impetus for my travels was Trisha's visit. Being for the purpose of consolation, it was very clear to me that I should make myself scarce. And Summer had offered to let me hide at her place, so it worked out nicely. Problem: it was looking very much like Trisha might not be coming up after all. Having a three year-old son (whom she was not bringing) and no vehicle to call her own, the logistics were difficult at best.

   Even if Trisha didn't show up, I'd still be gone for the weekend. Leaving The Ex by herself in many ways is the height of cruelty, and I'm really not a cruel person. But me not going would somehow be missing the point of breaking up...perhaps it's not so much that I'm not a cruel person as I am a basically good person who occasionally feels they hav to do cruel, selfish things. This theory eased my conscience just enough. That it required easing at all was also very telling.

   Summer was kind enough to keep the bag in her car so I wouldn't have to take it with me on the BART the next morning. I left at 5:30pm to hook up with Rox, barefoot's wife, who just happened to work a few blocks away. I put on my fuzzy black beret (you know the one I'm talking about, Dar) and hit the road.

   Not so much because she was asking (though she admitted curiousity) but because I was feeling the need to tell, I brought her up to speed on the situation and my own doubts and fears on the BART ride to Oakland. I vocalized what I'd been thinking for quite some time: that I was ruining my life and bound to fall flat on my face at any time. And I emphasized that in all likelihood absolutely nothing would occur between Summer and myself over the weekend, if ever.

   Now, this might seem like heavy stuff to lay on one's sister-in-law, but in fact Rox and I go back a long way; she worked in the same video stores as barefoot and The Ex and myself back in Fresno, and for a while we'd close the store together on Friday nights and open it on Sunday mornings. This was long before anyone even suspected her and barefoot might end up married--at the time they were just each others' designated fuck. (A concept which I've heard of before, but continues to be as alien to me as casual sex in general.) In addition to always being completely supportive, Rox more than anyone else believes that I need to get it over with and just come out to my mother.

   barefoot met us at the station in Oakland and we went in search of food, ending up at our old standby, a wonderful Chinese restaurant called King Yen. I had an ethical objection seeing as how The Ex loves the place and going there without her seemed wrong, like the ultimate insult after everything else I'd put her through recently. (Earlier in the week she'd cried because neither barefoot nor Rox, with whom she'd always been very close, hadn't written her to send their condolences for the breakup. My mother was the only person in my family to do so, though it had been a cc in the context of how disappointed she was in me and how self-destructive I was being. Nobody in her family has contacted me, of course.) But, when you're living the Bay Area, there's one all-important detail: where the fuck are we going to park? There was no parking around the other places we tried, so King Yen won.

   Afterwards, we went back to their place and just sat and talked (not much about my situation, actually) and listened to music and hung. barefoot's recently upgraded his CDR hardware and software, so he can now record them without the heretofore unavoidable 2-second gaps between tracks. As a result he's re-recording most all of the ones he'd done up to this point and giving me his older versions. Except for the 2-second gap there ain't a damn thing wrong with any of them, and my CD collection grew by about thirty that night.

   Something else happened that evening: I laughed. Hard. Practically to the point of tears. I honestly don't recall what it was about, and in a way it doesn't really matter. In spite of having eleven years, two other brothers and ultimately very different life experiences between us (and I'm completely out to him), it never ceases to amaze me how well barefoot and I click and how goddamn similar we are in terms of intellect and sense of humor. *Particularly* sense of humor. (On the other hand, we're very different in regards to temperament; he's easy to piss off, and if the phrase "road rage" didn't exist it would be necessary to invent it to describe his driving style.) Like I said, I don't recall what it was about, but we were both busting a gut over something--and significantly the television wasn't on, so whatever it had been had developed from our conversation. For a while, I was comfortable.

   They crashed at about 11, and I was up a bit longer, lying on their couch listening to CDs (not the ones barefoot had just given me, but from his otherwise ample collection) and trying to clear my head. I slept for maybe six or seven hours.

   It was raining when I awoke on Saturday 1/23/99, of course. The rain was supposed to last all weekend, and there was no doubt in my mind it would do just that.

   The Gaiman thing in Berkeley was at 11:30, so I figured if I was at the BART station by 10:00 that would get me there in more than ample time. And right around 8:30 I got an e'er-so-brilliant idea: I'd whip myself up a tape from barefoot's collection, an impromptu soundtrack for the weekend ahead of me. I've been making compilation tapes for years, ostensibly for The Ex, but usually a lot of preparation goes into them and I'm working from my own stuff. This would be on the fly from barefoot's stuff.

   Here's what it ended up being. Side One: Going Going Gone, Tough Mama, Dirge, Nobody 'Cept You (all Dylan); Blackhole (Beck); Fitter Happier (Radiohead); Rid of Me (PJ Harvey); How Soon is Now? (The Smiths); Bottoming Out (Lou Reed). Side Two: I Will Buy You a New Life (Everclear); Asking for It (Hole, live); 16 Days (Whiskeytown); Give Me Back the Key to My Heart, Anodyne (both Uncle Tupelo); Celebrity Skin (Hole, live); Something in the Way (Nirvana, demo); Ball and Chain (Social Distortion); I Hope You Want Me Too (The Mavericks); The Sweetest Thing (U2). There were actually two more songs which I somehow goofed on and resulted in large gaps on the tape, but it was fitting. The tape was situational, of that particular moment in real time didn't leave my walkman for the entire weekend.

   I arrived in Berkeley at 11:00. It was raining, but I didn't use my umbrella. Indeed, I felt absolutely no desire to protect myself from the rain beyond my jacket and beret. Otherwise, if it was going to rain it was going to rain.

   The bookstore was just a few minutes away from the BART station. No great shock, a line was already forming, about ten people deep. Summer was not in it. Indeed, she didn't arrive until noon, after Gaiman had arrived and was preparing to read. And she was two people short of being alone.

   One I recognized, one I did not. The one I recognized was Lee, whom I'd met at Lilith. Of course, he was the friend from Bolinas, and last I'd heard he'd gotten involved with a girl named Demi. He was small and thin with pale makeup, though his eyeliner and shadow work was very intricate. The other fellow, whose name I never caught (so I'll arbitrarily call him Bob) was more of Terminal and myself's body type: just plain big, though much fatter. No makeup, but a few piercings and the de rigueur black leather jacket. (Unless specified otherwise, everyone I mention is wearing a black leather jacket.) Something about him didn't quite sit well with me. I suppose a pattern was emerging, though I didn't quite recognize it at the time.

   The layout of the store and some poor strategy on my part resulted in me being separated from them by a large bookshelf for most. At about a quarter past noon I made my way back over to where they were. Lee's hand was on Summer's shoulder.

   Two thoughts struggled for dominance: that they were just good friends (and unlike myself Lee isn't self-conscious to the point of catatonia which was extremely fucking obvious to say the least), and that they had come together. Either one was fine with me, of course. I knew all along that her and I probably woudn't end up together, and this was to be expected. Sure. No problem.

   After the reading and a brief Q&A session, the signing began. It was based on ticket stubs given out while in line; as a result I was among the first 20 people, while Summer and entourage were much further back. I had Gaiman sign a Sandman book which I'd bought for barefoot, a fan of the series. Seemed only right after his hospitality.

   There would still be a solid half hour if not longer before Summer made it all the way in and back, I realized. I could try to stand with them and take up space and generally be in the way (a skill of mine, to be certain) or do something with myself for the time. I chose the latter.

   I retrieved my extremely heavy backpack from behind the counter (Tactical Error #1) and told Summer I'd be doing a bit of running around and would be back in half and hour or so. She was vaguely surprised but didn't object. Duh.

   My plan was simple: to Amoeba Records on telegraph and back. My emotions were beginning to swirl dangerously and, for better or worse, quite often buying music is the only way to help them. That's what's left when you don't smoke or drink or use any other kind of chemical means to dull pain. For the record, I haven't smoked grass since the first of the year. I may have quit for good, I don't know.

   Of course, Amoeba was a healthy trek away, but nothing I couldn't handle, and my body was crying out for the exercise. There and back in half an hour would be tricky but doable.

   Fortunately, I found exactly what I was looking for: Sheryl Crow's new album, The Globe Sessions. "My Favorite Mistake" was beginning to have great resonance for me, and I suspected the rest of the album would too.

   It was at the half-hour mark that I began heading back, so after stopping at the university to use the restroom I picked up the pace, going down Addison towards Shattuck faster than I should have. Well, I didn't want to be too late. Besides, I normally run at 5mph for an hour every day, so a light run would be simple, if in full battle gear and carrying a loaded backpack.

   Unfortunately, I didn't look closely enough at the fencing set up along the side of the street. I realized it meant I'd have to be more careful about the traffic, because being hit by a car would simply ruin my whole day, more than it--

   --and suddenly I was airborne.

   No cars were nearby, but I'd failed to notice the feet (for want of a better word) of the fence sticking out perpendicular to the fence itself. Unforunately, one of *my* feet came in contact.

   *WHOOMP!* By god, I'd done it. I'd been saying all along I was going to fall flat on my face, and it had finally happened. Except I didn't land on my face but rather my hands and knees, which proved equally fitting. I got right back up and kept walking, trying to assess the damage while still making decent time.

   My glasses were fine; clothes were scuffed, though this sort of thing tends to add character to leather jackets; and the the face of my watch was badly scratched. My hands, however, were fucked. Two nasty gashes on either side of my left hand underneath the pink, and a big ugly one on my right wrist. (Lest you think I required stitches, none of them were larger than an average band-aid.) And although it would be several hours before I actually got a close look, my knees were hurting, too. Fortunately, nothing seemed broken.

   The coincidental significance of the placement of the wounds didn't escape me. It was like someone had tried to crucify me in an extemely sloppy matter, which was exactly what I'd felt like I was doing to myself. My own personal stigmata, a physical accompaniment to the growing emotional pain. If I was gonna hurt, I was gonna hurt in every way.

   I got back to the store, and naturally didn't mention anything about my little golgotha. Bob commented that it looked like I hurt my hand, and I mumbled something about tripping on the way back. True enough, and he was satisfied. Neither Lee nor Summer heard us.

   I somehow found room for my sweater in my backpack to give my wounds a little breathing room, though I continued wearing my jacket and my beret. No way those were coming off. I tried going without the beret for a few minutes, but that simply wasn't right. I felt minimally more secure with it on.

   Next was a trip (ironically enough) to Telegraph to do some thrift shopping. First, though, Lee, Summer and I stopped at a McDonald's to use the restroom, giving me a chance to actually wash off my arms and maybe maybe maybe stave off infection. As luck would have it I had a few band-aids in my backpack, old and crumpled though they were, they would have to do. By then, Summer and Lee noticed.

(i am so dumb
just beam me up
i've had it all forever
i've had enough

remember, you promised me
i'm dying, i'm dying please
i want to, i need to be
under your skin
      -- courtney love, dying)

   We ended up at a vintage store on Telegraph called Mars. It was there, watching Summer thoroughly enjoying herself trying on clothes, that I realized my heart was breaking. Indeed, it felt more like it was expanding and about to burst out of my chest. It sunk in, as it should have from practically the moment we met, that she would never be mine. That I really had thrown away everything I had, led astray by a pretty (nay, gorgeous) face which in fact had made no promises. I was acting under my own free will and had to accept any and all responsibility by myself. If this was self-destruction, it wasn't the coward's way out via drugs or alcohol. This was taking the blade and plunging it in without blinking.

   Whatever wonderful vibe existed between us at first was now quite clearly gone, probably forever. For her, the honeymoon was over. After Mars we went into Hot Topic, of all places (you'd think a group of goths would avoid *that* store like the fucking plague) and I wandered off on my own. I became entranced in a particular dress which I won't bother attempting to describe--if you've been in there before you know the kind of stuff they carry. I found Summer, asked her to join me when she had a chance so I could get her opinion on something, and went back to the dress in question. Eventually she came over and I showed it to her.

   She replied, more than a little curtly, that it was pretty but it would never work on me because of insufficient breasts, though I could probably use water balloons--and she sounded *serious*, almost as much as she'd sounded sincere when she'd told me I was beautiful. Hearing her make a comment like that was as painful as hearing her say the other things had been wonderful. She knew that I'd been reluctant to buy a corset because in an odd way it would seem like cheating, and now she was suggesting water balloons? The night we went to see Elizabeth we stopped by Ross, and she had been incredibly enthusiastic about the possibility of finding a certain dress she'd seen at another Ross because she thought it would be perfect for me. (Or as she put it, "When I saw it I thought of you.") We'd found the same basic design, but much too small for me--an 8 petite when I still stretch a 12. She'd seemed disappointed when I decided not to try it on at the store for that very reason. Perhaps that was the fatal mistake; right then and there she realized she couldn't really be involved with someone so cowardly.

   Fortunately, we parted company with Bob after that, and the three of us started the drive to Summer's in San Rafael. A trip to Bolinas to drop off Lee, if it were to happen at all, wasn't happening that night. Saturday evening bridge traffic being what it is it took about an hour to get there.

   As we neared the San Rafael side of the bridge, I decided to get it out of my system: I really, really needed help in terms of makeup. I was just so tired of waiting. I protested a bit too much, stating up front that I knew it was something that required a lifetime of practice and couldn't be taught overnight, but just a little push in the right direction, some momentum, and I could take it from there...and, of course, I'd be more than willing to buy all of my own stuff for hygiene purposes.

   Summer, who had recently seemed so intrigued by the idea of making me up, couldn't have possibly seemed more noncommittal. She mumbled "Yeah, sure," and that was that. Almost immediately (my usual turnaround time) I regretted bringing it up at all. This was the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong everything. This was Louise all over again, just much more compact. Over the course of a few weeks rather than several months.

   Lee, on the other hand, perked up his ears. We talked a little about the various kinds (spooky vs. natural), the expense, everyday vs. special occasion, that sort of thing. He sounded genuinely interested, but I didn't buy it. I've had people sound interested before. This was another dead end, another brick wall to crash my head into.

   Stepping into Summer's apartment added another level of surreality to a situation which my mind was already trying to disassociate itself from. I was in a place which I on at least one level I desperately wanted to be, but I was not there for that reason. Indeed, it was more like being reminded of what I'd never have. The worst possible place for me to be, even though there were no viable alternatives.

   Her apartment was very simple--kitchen, living room with futon (my eventual destination), bathroom and bedroom. Small TV and stereo in the living room, certainly enough for my purposes. She also had two cats, a large black one named Ed (short for Edward Scissorhands), and a more anonymous calico named Lestat.

   I decided to try the time-honored trick of making a superficial cosmetic change to improve my mood; I took of the beret, brushed my hair, and put it up in ponytails. It didn't really help, and after a trip to the store and back to buy beer (well, they bought beer and I bought a new bottle of water), I took my hair back down and put the beret back on. It felt much more right, somehow. It wasn't coming off until absolutely necessary. Or maybe when I slept, but I wasn't convinced I'd be sleeping.

   I spent a fair amount time sitting on her floor, usually crouched against the wall writing in my notebook. "Writing furiously" is probably a more apt description. My mind was racing, and I was trying to keep up with it. What was coming out what was pain and rage and desperation and anger and self-loathing and futility and a fully realized sense that I was solely responsible for what I was going through, that I was in a hell of my own creation, that I'd willingly gone astray because of a pretty (nay, gorgeous and mind-numbingly beautiful) face which had stroked my ego but made no promises whatsoever and was in fact now involved with someone else and I was left hanging without her and without The Ex and without much of anything except an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt and my own goddamn stupidity.

   Perhaps the one brief saving grace was that as far as they knew, I was grieving over breaking up The Ex. That was an element, yes, but mostly it was Summer. Though I'd made it clear that I was fond of her and would be more than happy to go out with her if she ever asked, I don't think they truly suspected there was more happening than that. In a nutshell, she was protected from that particular mindfuck, and that was very important to me. Ruining our friendship would have been even more intolerable.

   ...and there I remained when the movie started. Lee and Summer were having none of it, though. I was joining them on the couch/futon, and that was all there was to it. So I found myself on the couch, Lee and Summer laying together in a state of extreme (but fully clothed) familiarity with one another, and me occupying the remainder of the space. It was a remarkably unique form of hell.

   I forced myself to put the notebook down and watch the movie, Se7en. Considering the similar habits of the killer in the film, I figured it was just as well.

   After a while, Summer strectched out more and put her (socked) feet in my lap. I didn't object. I casually put my hands on her feet, savoring even such a minimal contact--not just with a woman for whom I was aching so bad, but just human contact at all. I rubbed them in what I hoped seemed like a casual almost absent-minded motion.

   She didn't object.

   Suddenly things didn't seem quite as bleak. Yes, later on they'd move into the bedroom and I'd still be out there, but now, just for this moment, all was just the tiniest fraction closer to being well. Not well by a long fucking shot, but closer. Sometimes that's the absolute most you can ask for.

   At one point the movie was stopped for a little break. Lee went outside for a smoke, and for the first time all day, Summer and I were actually alone. We talked for the few minutes we had, and it almost began to seem like I'd wished the night would be: just her and I. She leant me a book to read, something Egyptian-themed which dealt with finding and losing one's soul mate and things like that. Although I said that were many other things bothering me than just The Ex, I didn't go into specifics. She simply did not realize how strongly I felt for her, and it had to stay that way.

   As much as I resented his *presence*, I did not resent Lee at all, and wasn't jealous of him. Nor did he seem to be bothered by me being there, as many would have been.

   But that's just how he was, and perhaps how the game was played. A world where she could tell me that we hadn't gotten together because we were both going through breakups, and while still in the midst of said breakup she hooks up with someone else entirely who had in fact just gotten involved with a third person, and it's all cool. This was the world I was entering, and I'd damn well better get used to it.

   After Se7en, we watched the first half-hour or so of Trainspotting, then it was decided to call it a night. This was roughly 1am. Despite my protests to the contrary, for I was perfectly willing to sleep (ha!) on the couch as is, she unfolded the futon into bed form and brought out sheets. They went into the bedroom.

   I kept the light on, ostensibly so I could write, but also because if I was going to be awake I might as well be able to see. I realize that doesn't quite work logically--maybe, just maybe, if it was dark I could fucking sleep? Nope. Being alone in the dark would have been much worse, another physical manifestation of where I was inside.

   So the lights stayed on, and I hid my watch and covered the clock. I didn't want to know the time. Time was no longer relevant; this moment, this eternity, would last as long as it would last, and no order could be imposed upon it.

   I laid on the bed on my stomach mostly, writing and listening to the tape in my walkman. Over and over. Based on the number of times I flipped the tape at least three hours must have passed in that fashion. I wrote as much as I could, most of it just this side of coherent, somewhere between Naked Lunch and the chapter in The Sound and the Fury where the kid's about to kill himself.

   Ed joined me, which was another of those little perks. I haven't had a cat on my bed since Mary died last March, and he was in many was as affectionate as she was.

   Eventually I slept. I only know this because I dreamed. Based on my sleeping habits (five or six hours a night at most) I don't dream much, yet this was the same one as the last time I dreamed, the night The Ex and I broke up. It had been paradoxically my first truly pleasant dream in a very long time, but it was cut short. Why? The Ex woke me up to turn me over because I was snoring. That's gotta be metaphoric of something.

   Being a dream it's naturally hard to describe, but the most overwhelimg sense was that of *belonging*. Of finally having found a home, a group of people with whom I could be comfortable. On one level they were very definitely trannies, but that seemed a minor detail at best--more that whatever it was I was seeking, it could possibly exist. That no matter how desperate the situation around me, I simply had to hang on as best as I could.

   How long I slept, I of course don't know, but I'd guess probably for no more than two hours. Once I awoke--as always--I was awake and that was that. When I finally looked at the time, it was barely 6am. Jesus. Another six hours of this, at least. For however long they may have been up, Lee and Summer would surely have crashed by now.

   I paced. I tried to read the book Summer loaned me. I listened to my walkman, and to CDs through Summer's stereo with my headphones. I wrote--a bit more coherently, it's true. I looked at myself in the mirror a lot. Too much, perhaps. Of course the beret was back on, and it wasn't coming off anytime too soon. Hell, I'd probably start wearing it at work. (Why not? My reputation as a freak was well-established already.) My wounds never stopped hurting, and Summer had no bandages so I was stuck with the already soiled ones. And, for some reason, I didn't cry once. I wanted to, I needed to, but I didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Should have, but it was not to be.

   Summer and Lee emerged around 1pm or so.

   I'd survived the night.

Next: Clogged Arteries, Southern Style...The Shirt Off Her Rack... Bolinas or Bust: The Planning Stages...Calling Home...A Moment of Ecstasy...Can We Do Her In Buffalo '66 Next?... It's Always Midnight Somewhere...The Reverse Snipe Hunt...Initiation...The Men and the Rest of Us...Bolinas or Bust: The Drive...Diving for Pearl... LeeLand...A Little More Bonding...11:30PM (The Moment of Clarity, Part III)...There Are Certain Times When You Simply Don't Want To Be In a Truck Careening Down a Dark Rainy Winding Mountain Road Taking Sharp Turns In The Wrong Lane With A Lovesick And Potentially Suicidal Goth Behind The Wheel Who Probably Considers You To Be The Enemy, And This Was One of Them...Landing On Water, Redux

In spite of having already worked out a rough outline in terms of the "titles," I never did finish Part IV, which would have told of getting made up by Lee (an incredibly wonderful experience) as well as the trip to Bolinas. I got a few paragraphs in and ran out of steam, in spite of how necessary it seemed after the bummer anti-climax of Part III. Part V was to be about Friday, 2/5/99, when I finally summoned up the courage to ask Summer out and was shot down. Later that same evening I discovered that Tiff seemed interested in me (pointed out by The Ex, of all people). And all of this would have led up to my first entry. But I guess some backstory doesn't get properly told.

I'm a little surprised I didn't mention the blood oranges, though. We got them during the shopping trip, and they were all I had to eat that night. (It apparently didn't occur to me to buy any food for myself; I wasn't even of a mind to buy fresh bandages in spite of the pain in my hands. I was just numbly along for the ride.) I didn't even know they existed, but Lee was excited about them. Now I look forward to them in January.

5:47pm

Nope, not going tonight. My excuse is that trying to find parking in that area of SOMA on a Friday night sounds like more trouble than it's worth. Besides, it's so cold out there...

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Thursday, 24 January 2002 (zyclon b zombie)
5:16pm


I don't see what the problem is. Really, I don't. Whenever I change my name with an agency, I give it to them in writing. Two forms of writing, in fact, my SSN card and my driver license. And, yet, nobody can get it right the first time. I just received my tax information from one of my three student loans (one of the ones which didn't demand a court order, natch), and they spelled my first name as "Sharilyn." Y'know, if this just happened every once in a while I could chalk it up to the law of averages, but well over half the companies I've been dealing with have screwed it up, in spite of having the aforementioned documentation right in from of them. I'm sure they're probably intelligent people in and of themselves—I know otherwise intelligent people who habitually spell "ridiculous" with an e, or confuse "lose" and "loose," and a cursory examination of this page shows I'm not beyond typos and the like—but this kind of widespread sloppiness is disturbing. Is nobody checking their work anymore. These people still have jobs, but I wasn't worth keeping and can't get a door open long enough for it to be slammed in my face? Am I reading more into it than I should be?

TGSF's Cotillion is Saturday. Not only am I not participating, we're not even attending. Financial situation and all. I'll be meeting up with Fallon beforehand, though, to get the graphics card, and there's a pre-show thing on Friday night at Asia SF. I'll probably at least show up for that, assuming the old fear about going out into the world doesn't return.

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Wednesday, 23 January 2002 (not ready yet)
8:01am


Funny how it's hard to do even the simple things which are good for you—I haven't been able to make it to the gym this week. Just can't pull myself out of bed to do it. Or, more accurately, out of the house. I'm very much awake right now, but going there feels very difficult. I don't know, maybe part of it is not wanting to be away from Maddy right now. Even though she was originally supposed to go back to work today, after her appointment yesterday her chiropractor has decided to keep her away for one more day. It's not that she can't be left by herself, and indeed she'd probably be asleep the entire time I'm gone. And yet, here I remain. As good an excuse as any.

I don't dare step on the scale. I'm probably pushing 180 by now.

10:06pm

So I spoke to my insurance guy this morning, who asked me to fax him the letter from the other company denying coverage. Fair enough. I go to Kinko's and do so, returning home to find a new letter from said company saying they are in fact investigaring the claim and would I pleases fill out their form? I guess they changed their mind. My guy told me that the company is going to waive my deductible and pay for the repair costs (yay!), though I'm not sure if that's because I have collision coverage or because the other driver was uninsured. If it now turns out that he actually is insured...egads, I hate this all.

Meanwhile, Maddy's going to be out of work for the remainder of the week. It's actually been really nice having this time together, but it can't last, and I'm not sure if it's right of us to be enjoying it while we have it.

It's been fascinating watching her turn into a PlayStation junkie, though. Considering that she didn't play video games while growing up and then developed negative associations with them via her ex-husband loudly playing Quake and Duke Nukem into the night, I never would have seen it coming. The very notion of me playing video games caused no small amount of strife between us early on in our relationship, as she was afraid the cycle would repeat itself and I'd neglect her for the games. Now she's the one playing Alien Trilogy into the night. (With my blessing, of course.)

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Tuesday, 22 January 2002 (high water everywhere)
3:19pm


Brian would like to meet with me and a couple other people on Friday morning to discuss a business proposition, complete with NDAs. I'm not getting my hopes up, but I'm going to be there. Networking and all.

Meanwhile, I received two (2) letters from insurance companies, mine and the other driver's. From mine was another version of the one I'd already received confirming my claim; near as I can tell the only reason I received this one was to show that they's changed my name. Except that they misspelled my last name. ("Connelly" has two L's, people! Two!) Besides, that was just in the "Mailed to" column. Under "Insured," they still have my old name. Because, as we all know, that will forever be my REAL name. Just like how, as we all know, I'll always REALLY be a boy.

The letter from the other company is denying my claim—seems the guy's policy expired 4/21/00. I suppose if I'd looked closer at his card as I was writing down the information I would have noticed that, but, like, y'know. So I may be screwed. And it's probably too late to take him up on his offer of just paying for the damages if they're "reasonable."

Oh, and they also misspelled my name. Twice, as "Sherylyn Conneley" and "Sherlyn Conneley." At least they were consistent with my last name, and it's a vaguely original misspelling. My niece Amber mentioned to me that she's thought about changing her last name to "Core," to represent her "hardcore" lifestyle. There's certainly something appealing about the simplicity. Anyway, I can only imagine how many different variations there would be if I had a middle name.

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Monday, 21 January 2002 (when your way gets dark)
8:33am


If we'd thought to check the mail when we got home on Saturday, we would have found that both unemployment check and new credit card had arrived, and both had my name spelled properly and/or in the correct order. No "Connely R. Sherilyn" or anything like that. Of course, I still have to activate the card and hope they don't automatically cancel it for another impromptu "upgrade." (I do love my scare quotes, don't I?)

On Friday night I dreamed that I kissed Willow from Buffy, which is about as close to sex as I've ever gotten in a dream. (It's certainly not as far as Maddy's gone with Spike in her dreams.) Last night, however, I was working at Burger King. I knew it couldn't last.

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