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2001-06-06 / 7:58 p.m. ~The love of my life?~
It happened again. It's the result of direct input text, it's the hazard. All my text just disappeared. Anyone within reading distance know why it must disappear? Why can't I hit the back button and have it all still be here? All that outpouring, all that news, all that feeling, why did it have to disappear? Know why? 'Cause of fucking Yahoo. Fucking Yahoo Messenger again. Someone just sent me email, the Messenger is on, I keep typing, Yahoo thinks I've clicked, "Okay, let's read that shit now!", but I haven't, and it takes me there anyway, like it or not, and it's happening fast and it's too late to realize what's going on, and it's gone, all of it, all I just wrote is gone. It's just vanished. Why is that? And I want to cry, I want to sink into a deep depression and tell myself this is par for the course, I'm trying to do something here, my fingers are not dyslexic for once, I can type, my fingers are flying, and it's gone........ I won't cry, I won't sink, I'll remember it. I'll write it. And for what? Me? Someone who keeps a diary too, who likes to read others for fun? No one has me on a list, no one reads me regularly, what's the fucking point? Okay, it went like this: I had a boyfriend when I was 18 (reminds me of "Out of Africa": I had a coffee plantation in Africa......hear Meryl Streep doing Isaak Dineson accent here). Oh, fuck, I wrote so much!!! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK. Right, I had a boyfriend when I was 18. I still remember the first time I saw him, my friend telling me he was unattainable. Oh, you could never get HIM, or something like that. So, naturally, I wanted him. The shock came when I discovered he wanted me too. I was terrified. It was an important time in my life, my mother had died only months before, my father moved into the house with me, but I was free, for the first time, free. Pop had a girlfriend and he spent many nights with her, not exactly telling me, and I followed his example, spending nights with Steve at the apartment he shared with his roommate. He was older, in his twenties. My father didn't know how to be a father, he was more like my roommate, but he made an effort to be cool, to be liked by me, even buying bags of dope and getting me to roll it up for him, helping myself along the way. So Steve and I were together, and he taught me about Keith Jarrett and Cat Stevens, and we saw "Harold and Maude" together, and were free, together. It didn't last long though. I remember him getting a severe haircut and no longer finding him attractive, being a real bitch when he came to see me, wondering why he was going to the trouble. Maybe I didn't want him to pursue me. But he did, and I recoiled. Life went on, I moved in with Arthur, went to school, Steve moved, we lost touch. Then he reinserted himself, wanted to marry me, but Arthur and I were still living together, it made no sense. He'd moved to Silicon Valley, and this was in the beginning, early '80s, and he wanted me there, in this new world, it was beautiful and we could marry.....I finally got my own place, living with Arthur didn't work out. Steve called me again, wanted me to see "An Officer and a Gentleman", wanted to duplicate the ending where Gere sweeps Winger off her feet, carries her away. I didn't understand, where was this coming from? Then he wrote, and I wrote back, he was in some love triangle, all tangled up, then we lost touch. I've always thought of him, the memories not faded, but more colorful now, more purples and fuschias, a fresh coat of paint hiding anything tarnished or unpleasant. It's all wonderful, what I remember, and he's the love of my life in my memories. I think of all the men I've known, all the men I've slept with, who did I love(?), who loved me(?), and it's always him. He's the one, always, then, now. I've looked for him, online, searched under his name in White Pages here and there, but found several with the same name, didn't know how to proceed. Then, a month ago I tried it again, found some messages posted to a message board, his name a link to an email address, and I wrote to him, asked Are you the Steve who blah blah blah? And I waited, and I heard nothing, and I thought it's useless, what is the point of this, what do I hope to accomplish? But today, today, almost a month later, I got email from him, a note saying, "Yes, I am", yes he is the Steve I knew, the one I remember as the love of my life, he's the one, it was him, we can write, we will. I wrote back, told him, you're the love of my life, that's how I think of you, and he wrote back again, all in one day, saying I should run from him, he's a disaster in any relationship, but I don't remember that, he wasn't a disaster, I was the disaster....... I scanned old photos of us, from my high school graduation, photos of us together, close, posing for the camera, and I sent them to him, and I told him exactly what I remember, in detail, most of it, the important things, the life changing things, the things that could never be forgotten, ever, and gave him the link to more photos, of me now, online. Now I wait, again. I know what I wrote earlier was better, it was more poetic, it was poignant and beautiful, and I keep thinking of Dave Eggers and the way he writes, and how much alike we are and I want to meet him, to be with him, to fall in love with him.......I read him today, more, at work. But, after I got Steve's email I brought old photos to work, to show the gals there, to stare at him, the Steve from 1979, so I could remember loving him, being loved by him, lose myself in the fantasy of it. Steve, and Dave Eggers, and Hugh Jackman. Can I have a composite, please? So, aside from that, I'm a Caucasian. This is painfully obvious to me daily at work, okay, not daily, but routinely. Yes, routinely. I commented on A.'s hair, her "real", i.e. "normal" hair, showing through under those ridiculous blonde braids she knows need to come out. She says it daily, "I know I need to take these out, and I keep starting to, but then I get lazy, and I know they need to come out", and her hair underneath is long, is like an afro, like a natural black woman's hair, it's natural, normal, not tied to some fake shit, some fake wannabe a Caucasian with long blond hair shit. So, I said, hey, I can see your normal hair, your real hair, your natural hair, and maybe it was because I tossed some of I.'s birthday decoration confetti on her moments earlier, but she was pissed, asked me if that was a racist comment, "Is that a racist comment, Joleen?" and I said, no, of course not, and she says, "Normal? What is Normal hair, Joleen?", and suddenly she thinks I'm racist, but I'm just observing how, well, normal, she is under that crap that's partly been removed from her head. The phone rings and I answer it, and I turn back, and I'm shaking, because this has happened before, and I say, "If I were black you wouldn't have said that, would you?" and she says, "No, of course not" and I say, "It's hard being the only white person here" and L. snickers, and she is evil, L. is still evil and she still hates me because I'm white, and for the first time I allude to what happened, right in front of L., well, I can't see her, but she's behind me, in her cubicle, and she hears, and I say, "I'm sensitive because this sort of thing has happened here before, and I've been accused of being racist before" and I'm getting emotional, and I tell A. that she is A. to me, she is not black, and I'm Joleen, just Joleen, and she says she cannot lie, she sees that I am white, but yes, I am Joeen too. Suddenly I hate her, I think she's a racist just like L., and why is it okay for a black person to say, hey A., I see your normal hair under all that blonde shit and it looks good, you look so different? Why can I not say things because I'm European American? I told D. about it, and she was sorry, for me, she said, "I'm sorry", but there's nothing she can do. She is black as the color, very dark skinned and her mother is white, her stepmother, and she grew up in Sweden. Imagine what she's endured. And she married a Korean/American with a Korean mother. Their child is mixed race. She knows prejudice, but I am new to it. I see myself as one of the women, not the white woman. But I am reminded, I shouldn't forget, I can try, it doesn't matter, don't forget, Joleen, you are the WHITE one, you are the "man", you are the "honky", your people owned the slaves, you must pay, you will suffer, we won't let you in, we'll let you know when you get too close, we'll let you know you're not going any farther, you're WHITE, you're not one of us. You can't sing "Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud" along with James Brown, you can't say "My sister" like P. does, you are not us, you cannot tell us whether our hair looks normal or not, whether you like our clothes, you are not one of us, you are WHITE. Okay!!!!!! I know what you mean, I didn't do it.....Jesus fucking Christ, leave me alone. I have to get another job, there has to be a way out, there has to be a way out, there has to be a.......... I tell D., D. who knows, I hate that I am limited, and that is what prejudice is, what racism is, it's limits. No, Toto, life is not fair. Life, in the South especially, is not fair. Reverse racism is alive and well, and there is nothing I can do. For now, childish as it may sound, I cannot communicate with A. I got too close, I assumed too much, I thought I could say anything, and I've told her all about my recent personal ad adventures, about the sportscaster, about everything, I tell her all of it, most of it, some of it, and now I cannot tell her anything. I'm the white one to her, I'm just white. She apologized, she did, "...if I offended you....". Cost of the War in Iraq
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