Sunday, September 5, 2010

Conor, part one

I don’t mind waiting if it takes a long, long time.
And I don’t mind wasting the best years of our lives.
And I don’t mind racing through our goodbyes.
-Rilo Kiley

This is a long one, so settle is and adjust your screen to decrease the glare.

I don't know if I believe in soul mates, but if, in fact, they exist, mine would be Conor. We're so much alike. And because we're so much alike, we often hate each other. I mean, I know I despise the flaws in him that I see in myself. But, on the other hand, we also love each other most of the time because we're both reluctant narcissists (we will swear up and down we're not). It's odd how much of our lives have traveled parallel to the others for the past seven years, and, in fact, even before that. We grew up similarly, in upper middle class towns with loving parents who had already raised a relatively well-adjusted child with no major problems. We were both the second child, both precocious and moody, and our parents had no idea what to do. That's how the two of us ended up at Yale at an academic summer program in an attempt to get us to recognize our potential and, I suspect, also to get two difficult teenagers out of the house. The problem with being a precocious kid is (as is outlined wonderfully in Franny and Zooey), you go from adorably wise beyond your years to a general wise-ass know-it-all during the course of puberty (Please note that I not only made a Salinger reference but ALSO compared it to my life) (yes, sometimes I don't even like me). And before you know it, you begin to think you're some sort of undiscovered, tragic genius who no one understands and start to hold onto your fucked-up-ness as a badge of honor. But I'm getting ahead of myself a little.


A message to you: Conor,(and I know you're reading this because you asked me to write it, and have been waiting for me to write it) this is not going to be nice. I don't know why you want to read all of this. When I talked to you today, you told me it was ok if I was mean, if I hurt your feelings, because, you said, you've hurt mine. And then you said that I've never hurt yours in return. I told you that was the main problem in our friendship. You have a sick need to read about how much you've meant to me over the years. I know writing this will make me look like an idiot, because how could I have put up with you for so long? That's always been the question. Writing this is feeding into your ego, but, like always, I can't help it. Please don't think of this as a love letter of any kind.


I met Conor the first day of camp. He was in the same dorm group as this kid I had known the year before, Taris. Taris was the worst. But he was a boy, and my roommate Lauren and I just wanted to meet some guys to hang out with, so he was better than nothing. Conor was playing frisbee in a group, and he had taken his shoes off and was running around in the dirt wearing only socks. When he came over to introduce himself, I told him I thought he was dirty. Apparently I was not past the phase of teasing as mating dance. I was immediately attracted to him, which was weird because he was so different from the other boys I had liked. He was short-ish, with a slouch and (although apparently I'm the only one who hears it) a kind of weird speech impediment lisp-like thing. I think he was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, which even then I found ridiculous (middle class communists piss me off. Shut the fuck up and shop at the mall already), but also oddly appealing. And because the friends you make the first day of camp are you friends for the remainder of the time (in this case three weeks), we spent a lot of time together. I was really, really infatuated. But he never really seemed to reciprocate. I was confused, because at that point I thought I was pretty hot shit. I had hit my stride, so to speak. I looked wholesome, fresh, with barely a trace of makeup. I had gotten the attention of boys in my hometown and beyond, and I didn't get what the fuck his deal was. So I obsessed over it, over him, over my hair, over my outfits, everything. I had never lost mt shit like that before.
They took us on weekend trips to keep us busy, and in lieu of any actually interesting trips, me, Conor and Lauren signed up for a Mets game. Okay, at this point in my life I enjoy basketball games (I really just love muscular black men),like soccer games okay (the Spanish soccer players are hot, but no one ever scores, so it's kind of just a cock tease), tolerate football games (barely tolerate, that is, because all the black men are covered up), but still fucking hate HATEHATE baseball. It's not even athletic. It's all hand eye coordination and jogging. I'm not saying I could do it, but you don't even need an healthy BMI to be a pro player. All you need a beer gut and synthetic testosterone. It really fucking figures that the great American pastime is slow, lazy, and involves boiled, emulsified meat.
ANYWAYS.
I don't remember the actual game, or who they were even playing, because all we did was stand in the concession area and throw pieces of pretzel off the balcony onto people below and then climb to the top of the balcony seats a bunch of times. But what I DO remember is the two hour bus ride there and back. Conor and I sat next to each other, him by the window (Or was I by the window, Conor?). I know that each of us talked a lot about ourselves, tried to explain what we were like OUTSIDE the confines of nerd camp. I told him about my friends, my family and he showed off how much he knew about “alternative” music (a.k.a he liked Thrice. Brutal.) That night, or maybe a night shortly thereafter, they screened “The Score” on a screen in the quad. I sat on the dry, yellow grass next to Conor, and I felt like I was about to jump out of my skin. You see, I had already become acclimated to drunk hookups, which, looking back, is kind of sad, but inevitable. Laying next to Conor on a blanket, achingly aware of each millimeter between my arm and his, I was yanked back to the days before my body had stretched itself out of awkwardness.
The funniest part about all of this was all my dorm-mates were totally confused by the whole thing. They were busy lusting over boys from Long Island or California. A lisp-y kid from Maine was not on their radar. But there was something about him that appealed to me. He was confident even though he was a little different. I had begun to feel, even then, that sacrificing my true self for the greater good of popularity was not worth it. Don't get me wrong, I was still going to do it. I was scared of what would happen if I didn't. I'd go back to anonymity at the best, of go back to junior high level harassment at the worst. So Conor fascinated me.
Let me take a quick minute to say that I envy the way boys who are different are considered some sort of mysterious hottie, and girls who are different are fucking weirdos who get ignored. The more complicated a boy is, the more girls want his attention. Complicated girls end up Francis Farmer'd with cultural lobotomies or like Natalie Wood in Splendor In The Grass. It's the lesser known double standard. But I only started resenting that later on. But I just was aware of it's existence then, the way I knew I was already walking a fine line between prude and slut.
We finally kissed at “Club Night” which was when they trekked all of us over to some college bar to “have a good time”. There was grinding and hook ups everywhere on the dance floor and, I don't know if you know this Conor, I made out with this one kid named Christian while we were dancing.He was vaguely Latino and from some part of the Tri-State area. He hgas spikey hair and was a beta-guido. He was still hot. My roommate Lauren liked him, and I got in a lot of trouble for that kiss. But then I saw you, wearing dickies and a short sleeve button up. And everyone inhibitions were down. And we kissed. I don't remember our first kiss. I just know we had one.
Of course, after that, Conor played me hot and cold the rest of camp. I was a woman (girl) posessed. We kissed a few more times, and each one was a validation to me. I was more than a drunk hook-up. I knew it meant something.
We left camp all too soon. I was getting shipped straight to cheerleading camp, and my three weeks of listening to the violent femmes unashamed and making jewelery from bottle camps I found in the road was over. I was yanked back to my own personal reality. But the first night of my second camp of the summer, in a dorm room at BU, I called Conor. And we talked. We talked for an hour. And thus, everything started.

Right now, I'm half-way through my second Hendricks and tonic, and I can't do this anymore. I know I have a lot to finish in order to complete the dots from beginning to end. I'll write when I'm sober, and less emotional. I'm trying to be honest, not bitter. I hate knowing that you are going to feel important when you read this. On the plus side, I just found out that I can find lifetime original movies on Torrent. So I guess I'm breaking even tonight. Ugh, the more I write, the better you're going to feel about yourself.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Keith, 14-16

we've got a license to live, it's our only one
if it expires we float up to the dust haze
i've got a picture of you
-Pavement

Keith is my favorite boyfriend I never dated. We had the best platonic relationship imaginable. We had fun, got along almost perfectly, and were completely comfortable with each other (well, I was completely comfortable with him, at least). We knew each other in junior high through friends of friends, but our real friendship started freshman year. We had a free period together, which in High School meant a lot. We had 47 minutes of barely supervised time to get into mischief. And to eat lunch.
The best thing about Keith was that I could be myself with him. I tried to play it cool in social settings for the most part, but my real self (which is pretty ridiculous) was hidden to all but a chosen few. The sillier I got, the most I amused him.
Keith was a talented musician on the bass, although his lesser know instrument was he harmonica. He could play it with his nose. Well. We spent a lot of time playing with his harmonica in the hallways, even going as far to sit outside the boys room and put a hat down for tips. That's how it was with Keith: every fifth period was an adventure. We would walk around in circles, entertaining ourselves easily. Once we found a tire-like rubber thing with a hole in the middle. Keith put it on his head an walked around the cafeteria. My favorite memory is the time he spotted a nearly full Gatoraide in the trash and plucked it out. Before he even had a chance to drink it, the lunch lady rushed over.
“You poor thing! Let me get you a free lunch!” She exclaimed, pulling the drink out of his hands.
She totally thought he was homeless or something. Anyways, we enjoyed that free bagel immensely.
As with all young boy-girl friendships, everyone thought we were dating. Or at least really, really liked each other. I confess I thought about it from time to time, what it would be like to date him, but I could never wrap my head around it. There was nothing sexual about it at all. Jake (my melodramatic friend from the intro) was Keith's best friend and, because Jake was kind of a dick, he composed a catchy tune with accompanying guitar that went like this:
“Keith loves Modane
Keith love Modane
KEITH LOVES MODANEEEEE!”
He's very talented, you know. The more people teased us, the more we protested. We grew apart by sophomore year because I was so into being popular. But when junior year came around and I was ceremoniously cast out from the in crowd one fateful weekend, we started hanging out again like nothing had happened. It was a tough time for me, for sure. But Keith was there, sitting with me at lunch when no one else did, and writing me a love sonnet on Valentines Day because I was sad. I remember when, over Christmas break, my family went on a cruise and I got a tan (which for me is a slightly darker shade of pale). When he saw me the first day back, he uttered words which were, for a long time, the nicest thing a boy ever said to me.
“You look really good. When I saw you, I thought the pretty people were going to take you away from me.” That's one of those memories that is so clear I can remember what I was wearing and where I was standing and all that.
We grew apart by the end of the year, for some reason. I think we got in a fight, maybe. And it was as awkward as a breakup. I avoided eye contact and had that weird, icky feeling of seeing someone who you used to be so close with and now don't even talk to, almost every day.
Last summer, because his friend group and my friend group collided because of a shared interest in parties and beer, I hung out with him a few times. I tried to act like we used to, to make him laugh again like the time I told him peeing was my favorite emotion. But I don't think it worked. I felt awkward because I was drunk, and we'd never been around each other drunk before. We were way more innocent than that. And, after all, I'm not at all the same girl I was, and he's definitely more grown up and more confident. I still, however, have an urge to be that girl, and reclaim that level of comfort we had. But we did hold hands while running around a golf course. And I still have the sonnet. I was going to post it here, but I don't want to share it.