Saturday evening just watching Hugh Laurie I wont go to work and I know I'll be sorry Cuz watching the good doctor popping pills Is not gonna feed me or pay the bills
I haven't been in there in twenty-two daze A lot going on now and I need to glaze Let my toes uncurl and my jaw go slack As the credits roll open to Massive Attack....
Okay I'm waterworks. Granted I have PMS right now and a general mood disorder. I just wanna talk to Elena. I FINALLY, I don't know what happened, I dialed her number up and it called. Long distance. It's never worked before. I've been e-mailing her for months to call me. Well like a month and a half. She promised she wouldn't just disappear again. And she's the only person I want to talk to, and need to talk to, right now. And it worked. She's going to call me back. She said in an hour. I need to talk to her NOW. Oh well if she doesn't call me back I can CALL HER. How's that?! If it works again, that is. I'm so upset. I don't know why. Maybe this is bad. I imagined Julian telling me he couldn't see me anymore yesterday and I broke down. He was nice today, he was funny, gentle, kind of vague, but, I realize everything he says can be seen any way I like, anything. I can SEE it. Honestly, I can FEEL it, how he feels. But I just can't trust it, and the way he answers everything, his almost lawyer-rate ambiguity, it just makes me doubt it... and I don't know what it matters, what I can do, but- oh my god- he even mentioned today "there isn't even really a hard-and-fast rule about dual relationships... seeing your therapist outside the office setting..." But yeah, I guess today I just felt like he's going to stop liking me, if he likes me, if I don't say something. So today we stared at each other and he said, what are you thinking? It looks like you're editing. I said Of course I'm editing. He laughed. He said, what are you editing? I said, you KNOW what I'm editing, we don't need to dwell on it. He laughed, hah, We don't need to dwell on what you're editing because I know what you're editing? He said, Why, why can't you express it? And I exasperatedly said, Julian I just can't. And he laughed at that too, and then he said, well, maybe your trouble expressing this is something to look at it, maybe we could work on being more assertive...
And that's when I wanted to slap him. I said, okay. You want me to be assertive. I'll be star-patient, ok, he laughed... I asked him if he was in therapy. He said no, not now, he'd done it before though, once with an old man who had really wanted to become a sailor so he became a sailor and then became a therapist and then master of his own universe, and I laughed, and then once with woman, because he wanted to challenge himself and it was less comfortable, and she was close to his age, and I thought he was going to say the challenge was, you know, being attracted to her, but he quickly said, Because I'm really contemptuous of other psychologists, so I wanted to get over that, I laughed at that, wait you're really contemptuous of--? My colleagues.. I mean I was.. Ohhh, I thought you were going to say... I'm contemptuous of women?? No! Of course not! I just didn't get what you mean the challenge was... but, close to your age, I get it, like-- It was a challenge for me-- To like leave the competition out of it, I see, I said. Yes, he said ... and then he asked why I wanted to know and I said, Because I was curious about how you see-- oh, I don't know. Laugh.
So then I said Okay. Well. Another question was, how long have you known how I've felt... About what? ABOUT YOU. About me, oh, I kind of felt it for a few months... and intensifying... but I wasn't sure... The first time I really suspected it was when you got so mad when I interrupted you, and then your e-mail, all the comparisons, like the girlie pictures, the bars, were about men or kind of romantically-oriented... so... and, you used the word 'heartbroke.'
And HE used the word heartbroke! Heartbroke is not a word-- it's one of my words. He didn't automatically rephrase as heartbroken... He remembers it, and my e-mails... though like a detective, kind of, I guess how he would have to analyze...
And I tried to bring it up, he said, but you didn't go there, so I thought maybe I was wrong...
And did you have a plan, of what to do about it?
Yes.
And that was...?
To wait and see if that was the issue, to be prepared, if you were going to go there...
Well, that makes me feel stupid...
Stupid? Why?
Like, you were watching my behavior, for this, strategizing, until I got to this point and then use my feelings to address the next issue to be sorted through...
That's not what I said... I just meant I was trying to be present and aware...
OK. So. This thing I noticed, I'll be sitting here, and you're holding the Minnesota Multiple Personalities Inventory- I know that's not what it's called- and you're sitting here, and I like lean toward you, and you move away like this-- and I jumped over on the couch, like he did.
I wasn't aware of that- it's just- well in therapy, I had this one woman who got really uncomfortable and I've heard of a lot of doctors that sexually harass women and, well I might not have even been aware of it, I wasn't even, at the time, confident that you felt...
It wasn't when I took the test, it was afterwards, reviewing it, it wasn't that long ago... Do you shake clients' hands?
Yes- usually when I meet them-- I do...
You didn't shake mine.
I know, okay, that might be another thing with young pretty women...
Okay...
There's no hard and fast rule about...
Contact?
No, like with children, you have to hug them and hold their hands and-
Of course...
I think you're thinking of the rule about-- well there's no hard and fast rule about that either, these days-- about dual relationships. You know what I mean... seeing your therapist outside the office setting...(Julianpause) I mean there are exceptions in like small towns, or in the transgendered community... If you're a transgendered therapist you'd never have any friends because they'd all be seeing you as a therapist...
And I laughed.
Well, our time is winding down. And next week I accidentally, put someone in the 5 o clock slot-
I have your check-
Oh- so, I'll have to call you about the time, Tuesday is fine, but I have to wait for a cancellation, there will be...
Seeing Julian today; I just sucked. He was being lovely... Though he had an answer for everything, rationalized down to nothing, making a lot of sense, but not saying anything. And I am just straight-up crabby, he told me I had all these questions and maybe I should work on being more assertive and asking them... He's just doing his therapist thing all the time, maybe I misinterpreted everything. I asked if he's in therapy, he's not, he asked why I asked... I asked about the jumping back away from me when he sat next to me, he said it was a therapy thing, young pretty women who've had negative experiences with doctors hitting on them might feel uncomfortable... He's just doing his thing, it's therapy, and I need to get over it.
She wrote me an e-mail this morning asking what I had done for her... after my response yesterday saying I was surprised she'd want to blow off a friendship based on the one "decision"...
I haven't responded yet but I'm probably going to say, I don't know, I didn't look at it that way, I've just tried to be there, etc...
But how about THIS: Aside from the hours listening to inflated unrealistic career plans, and actually teach her a routine, and working on her song with her, and teaching techniques, and giving advice about performing, well, what about her coming MARRIAGE??? I've been friends with Manny for years and been getting his side of the Jess story from the beginning... Even before I knew her, I thought she sounded like good news, and always stuck up for her, trying explain her side of the story to him, her perspective, telling him all her good qualities, there were even a couple blowout fights there in the beginning when she was pushing him away and he was like totally done with it, her lashing out and disappearing, and I was like, she just wants attention and assurance that you care, she has a wall up, and he'd be like she's saying it's over, and I'd be like she's freaking out, just give it a couple days, and then call her again, like it didn't happen... And she told me a while ago, that she always pushed people away, but for some reason Manny was always just there-- she was like, I'd do my thing, and freak out and storm off, and then a couple days later, he was always there like, 'hi...' So that made me feel good. And when she was trying to be a model and taking pictures with sketchy guys and he thought she was cheating on him I knew she wasn't and was like no way, she just wants to feel desired... And when she gets on his case to quit his job and become a professional photographer (" ") like all these hacks she knows who are certainly NOT, I'd be like she just wants best for you, and then I'd explain to her that he's an artist, and has no ego, and doesn't care, and that you can't really make money with art unless you take somewhere commercial, and always mediating their arguments and telling them both each others' great qualities.
Well, being their only mutual close friend, I think it all really helped... And if course she doesn't and will never know about it. How's that for being a friend? More important than giving presents. But of course I didn't even think about that. Because I don't keep count. And I'm never gonna tell her, because some things he told me in confidence, because some would make her feel bad, because I don't want to answer. Because that's not the point. Well, she'll realize it soon I think.
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.
I can't fight gravity today... I'm debating on whether to go to my make-up ballet class or not... I'm just so tired, and it would be the advanced class... and it's been five years... I don't remember that stuff... It would just be makeup the class...
I did nothing but dream about Julian yesterday.. well I cleaned a little and did homework, and went to my Psych class, which was funny this time, and played piano... but I thought about him a lot. I wonder if I've been misreading him all along... if all he meant by what he said was that he knows it's been hard for me, but that that makes me who I am now? "In some ways I wish you hadn't... But then we wouldn't be here today, so..." It could mean anything. Along with everything else he said, and how he was acting, and how he's been with me, all along, it seems pretty clear what he was referring to. And when I'm with him, ah, the connection (and sexual tension. Ohlord.) is so strong I have no doubts about it and I leave his office feeling so alive... But now, I just wonder if I'm projecting my own feelings on him, seeing what I want to see, people have certainly done that with me.
He told me yesterday, With regards to the e-mails... if there's something you want to ask me, or to bring up, you have to bring it up in here... I understand that... and now it also DAWNED on me that he CAN'T respond in e-mails. For a million reasons, one of which is so obvious, for professional reasons, he can't reveal anything any kind of reaction or opinion or anything but purely impersonal psych-speak which is so unlike him in person.
I just have so much to say to him. And it doesn't come out. I need to just buck up. I don't know what this shy business is... I'm a stripper for godssake. And I've never felt so exposed in my life, as I do sitting across from him in that office.
Ok, fine he did say something. He said, I feel when I talk to you, we connect very well... intellectually... and I feel your brilliance and your passion, and I think you have a hungry mind, and you have talents and abilities that I don't have, and you've had to go through things I haven't and to go through things I don't, and in a way I wish you hadn't, but then if you hadn't we wouldn't be here in the first place... And that's where he stopped...
And I just nodded and eventually said just yes, that's true, and I understand and I understood. I mean what could I say after everything I wrote him? And he said, before that, that he doesn't really believe in the concept of transference any more than every relationship is transference- what I said- and he wasn't going to try to dismiss my feelings, and he was imagining himself in my position, but he prefaced this all with "Well I do think that this kind of respect and connection is something you need, and recognize, and you'll be able to find it," so that was kind of what I reacted to, and I told him I was just nervous and more so than I thought I would be and then I relaxed a little and we talked about some other stuff and he was being really funny and that's it and then he told me when we had 5 minutes left like he does now instead of Ok we have to stop, and then he stood up and copied my insurance card and then I asked him about his paintings and then he held open the door and said see you Friday and I said see you Friday and I was holding his glass so I had to turn around and knock and that was kind of really intense and...
And of course he would never say any more than that. But he did say that. It was really, exactly what I hoped to hear... no more, no less.
Like, okay. I really am in love with him. It's actually not a fantasy, or anything like that, or some craving drama or something to exaggerate and write about because honestly it's getting hard to write about, I feel like it's private and it's personal and it's just not... I don't know it's not crazy or funny anymore, it's gotten to a point where I'm like, seriously emotionally invested in him, and it's not about the excitement, because I want as little of that as possible, if, IF I ever see him in any other way than as a therapist, if he would ever consider that or consider it okay, I would want to do it right, by the book, by the APA code, in two years, or six months, or six months and two years, or whatever that means and he is IMPORTANT to me to be in my life however. So. I don't know. About writing about him anymore. I really don't.
