so here's how I know that long-distance relationships are not for me: once I had one.

seriously, every time I would see her after a long time away from each other, she would lean in for the kiss after the immense flight towards me, and I would think: um, who are you? I wouldn't mean to, but I'd lean away, with the feeling that some stranger in a bar (my car) was reaching towards me with their stranger lips, trying to make a go of it with someone they hardly had an inkling of (me).

and every so often, I'm into that stranger kiss, I'm in the mood, I want someone safe and unknown, someone whose kiss might be like a black ferari with streaks on the side from some random action and reason for action. but on the daily basis, I like to know where my mouth is landing, and I need to know it's not just anyone I'm sinking my body into.

of course, in that long-distance relationship, the lean-away doesn't go over well, and when you perform it after someone has flown X amount of miles to see you, well, you don't look so good. you look like a mean yellow coward without underbelly or truth, for that matter.

all a part of why i avoid long-distance relationships. because the lean-away from strangers-trying-to-kiss-me is a fundamental part of who I am. yep.

and why the moment, right now, as I type, is so agonizing and foreign. because my love, the one I spend the most time with, the one I know as far as is knowable for me, the instrument of my bodily ablutions, has been away, and tonight is the first night I have spent with her in nearly a month.

and Polyhymnia is a little pissed that I find her a bit of a stranger.

someone whose mousepad is a little sticky-feeling. someone whose new keys (including the "n" key) seem stiff. someone upon whom I feel less comfortable marking up new Photoshopic terrains. someone upon whom I keep hitting the Mac apple key on, before realizing that all I'm doing is hitting Alt over and over to no avail. someone who is totally unaware of the 300 digital photos I have taken and discarded over the past month. or the thoughts I have typed, the revisions I have made, the blogs I have stalked and added to the bookmarks I couldn't keep... all with the rented and bonny apple hussy I have been keeping company with during her stay away.

and she is pissed. for so much has passed.

but I swear I'll know her all over again, because her bones are my brain, her electricity my aura, her bookmarks my memory, her toolbar my priorities, her RAM my boundaries, and her skin, my ethics.

how odd it all is, getting her back from the computer store, where they mauled her all over, tried to overcharge me (I stood my ground), lost her power chord and tried to convince me I had taken it with me (what bullshit; I knew when I dropped her off that she'd need to eat, even in the hospital), and ultimately fixed her as best they were able and while nothing is good enough for her, my budget is extremely limited.

Sigh.

I am not the best provider, but I will get over the distance that has grown between our experiences. I will type her all over.

*

on an Entirely Different Topic:

I got a text message this weekend from the so-called Ms. Whoosh, saying that she was wondering how she could return the books I had lent her. and I myself couldn't help wondering: why should I have to go through the disaster of The Break-Up with someone I didn't even get the pleasure of deflowering? so... I told her exactly how she might "return" the books I lent her, but then felt guilty for said sarcastic commentary, and apologized, only to realize that I was writing yet another text message (only 2) to someone who I'd never get an iota of effort from.

that's the thing about it all: dating (or its many versions). I've come to realize, or maybe I just think, that dating is just another word for the project of people unwilling to risk something from a language of a particular reality: Respecting, Straining, Trusting, Caring, Trying, Loving, Digging, Reaching, Striving, Becoming, Balancing, Understanding, Creating, and above all (for me), Risking.

Of course, my opinion on all of that is why I will do just about anything for someone who tries, even if it's not what I want from them.

but why ask, after a month, how to return books, when she knows damn fuck well where I live, and how one might go about returning books if she had it in her craw to do so? I mean, keep and fucking read them. If not, drop them on my doorstep. Don't fucking ask how to return them, especially if what she means is: "Hey you, are we cool?"

If that's what she means, then why not simply fucking ask it? because it pisses me off all over to be asked a stupid question after a month and starting to not-care and getting over it and get into my work. That's what E used to do, contact me when I was just starting to mellow, and fuck it up all over again by reminding me of the particular emotions I seriously needed to forget and move away from. It makes me so angry, all of it, truly all of it.

("fuck" count = 5)

I mean. Okay, I shouldn't get started because it could become a stupid rant. But really. People make decisions all the time that are in the interests they decide have priority in their lives; this is somewhat fair, because we were not designed to be altruistic scapegoats of chaos. We choose things. We decide what we want. And sometimes what we want conflicts with the desires and needs of someone else. Yes. And still, not always, but in the important things, we must choose what means the most to us, what fulfills us the most, regardless of whether it conflicts with society, or community, or family, or friendship, or even the ethics we thought we believed in.

but.

But, a simple acknowledgement of how our choices may not coincide with the hopes, desires, ethics, fairness, connection, or meaning of someone else's life... well, it would really go a long way in making things better. Or is that just me?

See, I ranted. I got pissed off, perhaps because both my sister and jw told me that Whoosh was maybe "just testing the waters" to see how annoyed I was with her, so maybe we could be friends. and because I'd like Whoosh to either leave me alone, or admit honestly and with risk that she fucked up in how she treated/told me about her choices if she was truly interested in making me a friend. if I could ask her to understand this, which I really can't, because one can't talk to a stupid text-message pad, right?

anyhow.

*

over the past few weeks, I've been making some books. I will very soon be posting pics... but not right now because I'm going to bed. Yep. Yawn. but first...

*

my birthday was lovely. very mellow, with so many people who checked in. i feel lucky. lucky lucky. very smitten with my friends and family, with thanks.

and:

*

my sis turned in her apps for vet school yesterday. her forms all looked rock on and she should be enabled to be medi-mommy to as many animals as she wants, if you ask me.

anyhow... as the acceptance rates of vet schools are lower even than med schools', I think we should all turn our karmic, religious, voodoo, or Schrodinger crossed-fingers her way. Because she will be a great veterinarian and all of us who crossed our fingers during this great moment might get extra coo's over our pets in the future.

Not to be selfish about it or anything. But. Extra coo's make the kitties happier. And happier kitties poo on slippers less frequently. Ipso facto, kitties should be happier, and my sister should be accepted into the vet school of her choice to help make it thus.