Zdrastvotye, menya zovut Scarlet y ya...

Hello, my name is Scarlet and I am a Chronic Homewrecker...

So.

Okay. Over the past couple months of creating musical magic with him, I have begun to develop an enormous artcrush on C. Clearly. We spend a lot of time together. Late nights. Inside jokes. Booze. Booze, because I get self-conscious and stiff when I'm playing for expensive recording equipment, and being tense or stiff or nervous makes you suck, and a couple hefty chugs of vodka really help the situation. He lays down on the floor when I play and closes his eyes and listens. I lay down on the floor and watch him point microphones at speakers and play an electric guitar and six pedals at the same time and then close my eyes and listen to what comes out. He looks like one of the characters in a videogame my brother used to play when we were little. I call him that, as a nickname. He's married. Right now.

On Saturday night a couple weeks ago I went to the studio and there were a couple people there and we were drinking and one of them ended up staying pretty late. He was really funny, the guy, a producer for this really famous hip hop group, but they were talking about all these people they know in common from LA from like the early nineties for hours. Obviously I couldn't add anything to the conversation. The guy also wouldn't really believe I was over nineteen years old, which was kind of annoying. So around midnight I started getting really antsy and pretty bored and realized I actually just wanted to be hanging out with C all night and started pacing a little bit and he noticed, and I went to check my phone a bunch of times and even said I should probably get going and he said why don't you play for us, you should hear her play, it's ridiculous, and I said nah, no, and I went and sat down at it and put my foot on the mute pedal and pressed down on the keys silently like a little brat, and after a few minutes C got up and started pacing a little too and then he sat down next to me on the bench and started playing and I started drawing him on this napkin and when I looked up at him he started kissing me and we sat there kissing like that and not moving, and he was still playing these slow beautiful haunting notes, until he played one really quiet, put his arm around my waist and let the chord linger like that, and I let the pen and napkin fall out of hand and put it on his knee and then he started running his fingers through my hair and I was holding my breath and then he stopped and his friend was still there (apparently TWEETING) and he just goes, "All right, man...."

And so, his friend, amused, made up some excuse about having to go wait for someone somewhere and C went upstairs to let him out and he came back down and looked at me and knelt down and laughed and said,

"Well, I knew that would work!"

And I laughed and then he took my hand and I stood up and he picked me up off the ground and making out with me up against the wall and and and et cetera.........

But not all the way et cetera.... he was totally consumed by guilt at some point.... which surprised me. Considering how he is. And where we met. How I've seen him, around women, and stuff, we'd discussed it before, more sorta jokingly, how I kind of assumed he was a male-slut but, quite the opposite... he's another one, married for six years, totally faithful, in a relationship of more like twenty years on and off...

So we've kind of been prancing around town together, at clubs, the studio, around his music buddies and to restaurants and I've made dinner for him and Madeline loves him and the whole nine, and it's been amazing and I'm thrilled that I'm not, again, in this situation, of sitting across somebody mutually wanting to @*&# and not. (Though, I kind of am...)

But, furthermore... C is not the type to just go around with a girlfriend. I feel like I'm just so used to that, like it's just the standard for me, and I just expect it.

But he's actually now in serious, heavy, no-joke divorce mode, and he says he doesn't want to talk about it and no, it's not about me, it's been a long time coming, and it's gotten so close so many times, and it won't affect anything and don't worry about it, and "trust me-- you are not responsible, okay?"

And I'm like, no, I'm NOT. I'm not. I'm not responsible! I'm not asking anymore questions, and I'm trying not to worry about it, and to believe, that these grownups all around me know what they're doing, that I'm not responsible for anyone (or ANYTWO...) married and working with me whose never been unfaithful, or touched a client-- that these no-ring-wearing, 40-year-old, very-successful MEN will not do anything stupid and blame it on me. And then drop out of my life. After I've trusted them and only them with it.

But... I do worry about it, just a little bit. Just a little. Yeah.

Well I guess this was kind of inevitable.

Like months ago, when we were thinking about this trip, I had a dream that I got there, to a little city outside the Moscow airport, or about to leave from her apartment or something, with Elena, and we were staying at this weird foreign hostel on opposite ends of the hall, and she was packing and I was telling her not to pack so much, and we were fighting....

I just canceled my trip yesterday. I ate like $500 in penalties, and fees, and perhaps increased my risk of death by coronary a little. But I got most of it back. There's no such a thing as a non-refundable flight, just one where you eat it in shit-tons of penalties. But I got most of it back... and I don't have to worry about killing myself in the next three weeks, and then, possibly, probably, not even being able to go...

Yesterday, after buying my ticket across the country, where I'd fly out of, and then sending out for my VISA, taking care of those final details, I got home to another email from Elena with all these insane costs. I wrote her back like, You can't just keep piling this on, after telling me one price, and then another, and finally when everything seems surmountable it's just a new thing every day... And I called her, and she was like, What did you expect, are you a CHILD? Why didn't YOU think of these things? I'm finding this out as we go along, that's how you plan a trip... and I was like, because you told me to leave it to you, and these figures, and I believed you, and I know you're finding it out as you go along, and I'm not blaming you, but I CAN'T AFFORD this.

And she got all nasty...

And the thing is. She's calling me a CHILD? She's 15 years older than me. She and Valeria can swipe a credit card, when these costs come up. End of story. I have to go fucking whore myself in the gutter every night.

And she asks me why her mother tells her she's selfish.

She is. She has been. For the last year, she hasn't been there for me at all, and in the last few weeks has said some really discouraging things when I just simply ask her not to, and she won't let it go, and... going with her would've been really stressful, and, MAN did I want to go, but.

I feel better now.

I feel so much better.

I can fucking breathe.

I took the situation into my own hands, lesson learned, again, again, but... I made the right decision. And I feel better about it. I can relax during my summer. I can work on my music. And I can go swimming. And I can get myself a desk. And I can write. And I can read. And I can breathe.

Just straight whining here.

the sun in this town is one of the gnarlier things i've ever experienced. i just went running and it was like, my shadow was like 6" long everywhere, no relief, beating down on me like an abusive husband. but i did it. short one though. 3 miles and a mile cooldown. it was miserable.

elena called me. last night i did it and went to the beach, and i couldnt even relax because she called me when i was walking around the water and started moaning about some irrelevant shit the entire time and i soothed her and explained it all and broke it down and then she decided to say the thing that i have a million times asked her NOT to say because i DONT need to hear it and its just discouraging and not helping me in any way to just keep repeating and she just kept turning it around on me and i was so agitated by the time i left....

and she just called me now and is still on it, and i'm like, Dude.

i don't even tell her anything anymore and... well i know it comes in waves...

Also. like. she is constantly saying like, our situations arent the same, but theyre equivalent, like, the emotional stuff she has to deal with when she asks her mom for money is just as bad...?! as worrying one will have nae a roof over their heads? and being totally alone? um, no. besides. she wouldnt have to deal with any emotional shit from her mom if she didnt act like a total brat with her i mean the things she tells me!!! like, my mom said this and this and this to me, is it true, why did she say that, and im like, because elena. you acted like a total brat. you are 35 years old. and in your mothers house and stop causing drama and show some respect and... but i said it all funny and soft and made her laugh and then she says just straight brutal things to me sometimes and THEN she starts crying ohhh you always make me feel so much better and its like i can never say anything to make you feel better and dadadada..

ok. ok. ok. whining over.

And furthermore,

The girls at the club- allllll collectively decided to dislike me. I don't give a goddamn, because as soon as I walk in, I plop myself down next to some duder who's gonna shell out all night, who doesn't like lapdances and thinks he's the first person to suggest, Can I just give you the $$ to sit here and talk to you? I don't wanna go in there... and I'm like, yeah, I totally know, it's kinda weird, I'd totally rather talk to you here too, that would be cool... And THEN I don't have to give the percentage of it to the house. So at the end of the night there's the little list with our names and X's next to them for how many dances we did, which determines how much of our hardearned greenbacks we give up, I've got like, one, or three, or no X's... but anyhow... yeah, I just don't talk to them, at all, I come in dressed already under my hoodie and plop the F down.

So this inglorious ho' whose dancer name is so marvelously retarded and gross I will certainly leave it to y'all's imaginations, well the duder she was sitting with pointed at me, as I walked by, like Can you get that girl over here? And S--F-----, who was eating, a fucking hot dog, in the club, no F.N. joke, made an obscene gesture, and I was loaded up, so I walked over there and leaned on the table and smiled at her. And she goes
What
And I go, Hey!
And she goes, Can I help you
And I go, Sure!
And she goes, What?
And I go, I just saw, you makin a little gesture over here, is there a problem?
I wasn't making a GESTURE! Someone OVER THERE... made... like a gesture at ME, so I made a gesture back, I'm just sitting here eating a hot dog!
Okay! Have fun!

So then later while I was talking to a duder she came up to me again, with her spiked insane hair, which she just bleached, which is doing nary a damn thing for her, and like insane makeup, and little latex top and pudgy little boy body-- (I have to give it to her, she puts on quite a show, she can like climb up the ceiling like spiderman, and wears a blindfold and shit, but its not sexy, just.. nuts...) and says, Why did you come over to my table while I was talking?
Same reason you're here at my table now.
What, why, I wasn't even doing anything, I was just sitting there eating a hot dog-
Got it
I pretend like you're not here, you don't even exist to me-
Awesome
I was just sitting there eating a hot dog
O-KAY NOW

This little lady has been dancing here for YEARS and thinks herself quite the queen bee, and is always bitching and complaining. I'm over it. But she and the sexy girl are friends now, that's what they all do at the club, they become little best buddies like, what's that damn game called, where you circle 'round the chairs? Oh, Musical Chairs. yes. like musical chairs. and then talk smack about each other. it's some kind of stunted development high school bizarre objectifying stripper thing. I abstain.

Everything in its right place....

I did everything right today. Class and errands, bought my psych book, printed out my contract with the studio, sent a bunch of letters, saw a couple people I needed to say, played piano for ages and came up with stuff I love and practiced and I've still got yoga and a run to do but I'll do it...

My boss from the club called me Tuesday night, he's always cool as shit, asked what was going on so I said I'll go Saturday so I will.

Jess doesn't want me to be her bridesmaid anymore. I told her I'd help her make an audition tape for some show, help her with the singing and the dance routine. I told her ages ago and she never tried to get together to work on it and when the day rolled around, it was like two and a half weeks ago, she called me a few nights before and was like are you ready and then told me it would take all day, that it was three hours away (she couldn't find a studio in town??) and her friend would be doing makeup and all this SHIT that was never part of the deal... She expected me to drive to her house, almost and hour away at like five in the morning so we could leave to be there at eight, and that we'd "wrap" by 5 pm and I'd get home at EIGHT to be dropped off at work, on my one day off, the morning after a concert, the week I started school. I was like, Oh god babe this is really freaking me out, it's going to be REALLY hard, can you find someone else? If not, I'm there, ok?

And she says, "I'm not gonna get butt-sore [sic] or anything, I can find someone else, it's fine, if not I'll let you know..."

So I said, "Ok, COOL!" OBVIOUSLY. And hoped she'd find someone.

Well, I didn't hear anything back from her, so I asked Manny and he said the audition was cool, though they messed up the tape, yadiyadi, he wasn't there, but he didn't know of any kind of problem she had with me... So I wrote her, and she wrote back, HIGH AND F'IN MIGHTY, how she had decided to ask someone else, because of what I showed with my decision.

Okay, fuck me, I didn't even MAKE a decision, I more like begged to be excused. We've been friends for a while now, and now that I think about it, she's spent a good portion of our time together talking about her "career" which is not a career at all, while I sat there and bit my tongue, having been a professional PERFORMER since I was sixteen, in the ballet COMPANY, and a band, for a living, and she has absolutely no respect for what I've accomplished despite supposedly being on the same "path..." She doesn't ask me about it, anything I've done, important things according to people who are in it, she sits there and tells me how to get an agent, and that oh, she's not gonna study dance, or bother with an instrument, she's going to do commercials to make some money first... She's NOT an actress, she's not a dancer, she's not a singer, it's a lark for her, and she called me self-absorbed??? I don't talk about a goddamn thing with her, she doesn't know about my music, she doesn't know what my JOB is, she doesn't know about Julian of course, but I mean, I don't talk about my work with people-- it's tacky-- it's not interesting, or relatable. I talk about music with other musicians, dance with dancers, writing with writers, exploring it together, the difficulties and the beauty and the path... She sits there and regurgitates this stuff these phony ignorant teachers tell her in these one-day seminar classes, and reads self-help books, and doesn't listen to anything I say the few times I say it, and it's just painful and insulting and inconsiderate, and I don't even know if we were ever close at all now... Then she talks about the things she's done for me and that I needed to give back??? She's given me a trash bag of old clothes that are 4 sizes too big for me-- as if I'm homeless-- and decals for my wall (an object I couldn't even identify, or as Manny says, SWADW (shit we all don't want)), and made me business cards for Christmas which I would never use, but she's been generous, but I didn't know she was keeping COUNT... And I don't have anything to give, I don't live with a fiance who takes care of my shit, I didn't grow up anywhere near here, I don't have family here, I'm pursuing 10 million things all alone and if she ever thought about my life she'd realize a lot of these sacrifices are for the "path," are for music, were for dance, and a lot of them are NOT by choice, and I don't have SHIT, and my headlights are falling off my car, so no, I don't send out Christmas cards. This just really upset me. But whatever.