Just had a really good talk with Sarah Bonilla. We went to 7-11 after work and split a forty in a parking lot and talked about what it means to be human. She is somebody who I feel very innately close to and comfortable with in a very rare way. She is very spiritual and contemplative and she really tries to live well and I admire that. For reasons that I can't articulate, I am afraid of disappointing her somehow.

We talked a lot about energy and language and how we shape our own worlds. I've been more contemplative lately because of the changes I've made in my life and I feel like I'm at a turning point and it's very important for me to be mindful of how I am living, of how I care for and know myself, but that's not the most important thing. Our culture's emphasis on individuality puts a lot of pressure on the self, a false importance of the self, know yourself, be true to yourself, express yourself, love yourself, but that's not the whole story. It's about other people. It's easy to feel like you know yourself in a vacuum but you fucking can't live in one. It's easy to reduce humanity to an abstract, human nature, and it is easy to make generalizations about how one should live. There are so many distractions in our world and it seems like most people don't think about what's really important. It's finding a pulse in white noise. Trying to decide which star out of the millions in the sky you should follow.

I talked to her about Ray, about how he could read me. He would say things to me sometimes about just sensing me or feeling my energy and at first I thought it was kind of crazy but as time went by and coincidences added up I realized there was truth to what he said even if it went beyond my understanding. He would ask me if I could feel him reaching out for me and I never could. When he is in my dreams there are always two of him and in my memory I feel like I have known at least two versions of him and I could never read either of them the way he read me. It was really comforting on a really deep level to feel that somebody who knew me in such an intuitive way as well as he really did (at one point at least) actually loved me, actually wanted me around. But I always doubted too, because I never really knew what he was feeling, I couldn't sense him the way he sensed me. And it was a bad situation on the surface. I know a lot of my friends never really understood. I tried to ignore it, but it turns out surfaces can be pretty fucking important when it comes to letting someone shit on your heart.

I want to make sure that I heal right. I've thought about going into therapy because it would be nice to talk to someone about how to cope with things, how to move on, how to make sure I won't keep cycling through the same self destructive patterns, but shit's expensive and I think I'm smart enough and strong enough to pull my crazy ass together. I think the best (and worst) thing I did was when I found myself in love I threw myself in completely, total surrender. I would like to be able to do that again someday, just maybe in a situation that won't fuck up my life. I don't want to be afraid.

Yesterday Ray called me again. Left a message. Hopes I'm happy. Hopes I find what I'm looking for. Sounded angry and gruff.

There's a kind of satisfaction that I'm not proud of that I get from hearing him say he hopes I find what I'm looking for. Because I know it's already too late for him but there's still hope for me. I feel bad for him. Part of me still misses him a little. But mostly I don't. I need to stand on my own.

Went out last night. I wasn't wearing my glasses so dudes were on me like wild on rice. All the tall, leggy blondes must have been busy. God, I am still so shy I don't know what the fuck to do when that happens. Good thing there's booze.

Tonight at work silverballs asked me to explain to him again what it means to superman a ho. I know he remembered. He just likes it when I talk dirty because I have no problem with it.

I'm hungry as fuck. Think I'll make some soup and crackers.

Ray called me today. I was texting so my phone accidentally picked up for about five seconds. I panicked and hung up on him. He called me right back, left a message. I want to get the hell out of here, live in a forest somewhere he'll never find me, throw all my electronic devices in a volcano. I don't know how else to deal with this right now. Last night I drank too much and ran into this guy who stood me up a couple times in April. He tried to act like we were friends and I walked away without a word, felt fucking terrible. I had another drink and I missed Ray but I knew it was a bad idea. It took him a couple years somehow, but he finally hurt me past the point I can forgive. What a guy.

Here's an email he sent me last week. What is his damn problem?

I hope when you saw the sunset it was warm on your heart and your smile
got to feel the suns last kiss before night. Your spirit is a gift  to
this planet and I am so glad to have spent minutes with you dear
Megan....xoxo...me

Thursday, Aug 21st, 2008 -- Your key planet Mercury joins lovely Venus today, putting a kinder and gentler spin on your day. But beneath your veneer of charm, passions may be out of control -- even if no one else knows but you. Although you can keep your vulnerability a secret for now, the truth will leak out in the next few days.

Last night at 2:35 AM, Ray sent me this message:
" I hope the day was good to you...your videos are hilarious."

Fuck.

At least he used the right "your".

The night before last I got to thinking about him at work and I went home and cried. Not because I missed him, but because I couldn't believe he'd said all the things he said to me. The nice things. The things that before our split it became increasingly obvious that he didn't mean anymore. I do believe he meant them when he said them. But I remember he had a habit of not really replying to my emails or if he did he would reply two weeks later. I sent him a message once that was like hey, when you don't answer me I feel like you're telling me you don't care about me. No answer. So I was like, cool, he just agreed, like yeah, don't care. After that I was done.

So I am just not going to answer him. I've got serious ponygirl business to take care of and by "ponygirl business" I mean flirting with guys in bands on the internet. Suck it.

Spilled champagne in the trunk of my car last week. Ponygirl venture. It smelled really bad for a day, champagne rotting in the heat, but it went away on its own. Good thing too. The last thing I want to do right now is clean out my trunk.

For all my pissing and moaning I'm so much happier this year than I was last year. What's the difference? I could say it's Ray. I still think about how much he hurt me but at least he's not still doing it. I don't have to wonder why he won't just call me back like a human or let it ruin my birthday if he forgets. But it's more than that. I could say it's making music again, finding my voice in that sense, but that's still (always) such an uncertain thing. Maybe because I'm finally going to real college in September. It's everything. Things aren't perfect but they're so much better than when I came home last year. I was kind of a mess. I wanted to go back in time, I think, and spending a year walking in my own old shoes was more than enough to convince me not to do that again. So many bad decisions. Must move forward, not back.

Went to the saloon last night. Wasn't drunk enough to enjoy the new "ambiance". So many tight pants. Unfortunate mullet. Spectacular stache. Hard to believe how many people came out to party on a monday. In north county. Lots of dirty guys. I like that. Lately I just want to flirt with dudes and then disappear from their lives forever, to be remembered in a wistful, hungover haze. "That girl who said she reads the thesaurus on the crapper, was she real or just a dream?"

I was thinking about Ray on the drive home from work. Whatever, it's fucking past midnight, I can think about whatever. I used to really hold on to his affection. Any little thing he did I would keep that thing, that hug, kiss, word, smile, whatever, I would keep it in my mind and just turn it over and over. I used to sustain myself with that while he hurt me in a seemingly endless variety of ways that he ultimately never understood and it mostly seemed to me like it was cool, normal, whatever. I can't do it anymore. Sometimes I wish that he would at least miss me but I understand why he wouldn't. His whole life is something I can never be a part of and if I was I probably wouldn't want to anymore. It was never his to give, I get it now. I just had to do things the hard way.

Silverballs put his arm around my shoulder and in the back of my mind was the thought, you are about the same size. I could nestle into your shoulder and stay there and everything would be good. But I won't do that either. I need to be better to myself. I need to get something to eat. I haven't had a meal since 1. I ate a spoonful of peanut butter dipped in chocolate chips around 9. I'm too tired to cook. I might just go to sleep. I'm too hungry to sleep. Work was shitty tonight. I just kept telling myself, "if you die in the nightmare you die for real." It really kept me going.

Irrational fears: I have some.

I'm dancing in a piece next month in Balboa Park and I have to fall up. I kind of dive into the group with a little arabesque and they lift me up and I ride around in the air and then they put me down. The first time it was cool because I just closed my eyes and I tried not to cry or pee myself but the second time I totally fucked up. I opened my eyes. I'm gonna have to work on that. I don't want to look super miserable on stage. When Gina does it she looks completely blissful and I want to feel that way but it makes me really anxious. The theme of the piece is allegedly "longing" so I guess the lifts are supposed reaching out for whatever it is that I'm longing for and I should probably not look like I'm having an anxiety attack.

A couple months ago I got vertigo cleaning the back shelves at work and Silverballs had to help me down. I think I just need to trust more that they've got me and it'll feel better. I need to get used to it. Ray used to pick me up and I liked it because I knew or "knew" or whatever that he loved me or anyway that being dropped by him wasn't within the realm of possibility. When he had me, it didn't bother me at all. I was nothing and it was easy to lift me up. I want it to feel like that. It scares me and I want to do it again. It feels almost as good as making bad decisions and I love me some of that.

Speaking of bad decisions, I saw Wolf Parade at Canes on Sunday. Not that that was a bad decision, just that those are a few of my favorite things: Wolf Parade and bad decisions. I was so close to the Krug I couldn't believe it. He definitely sweated on me. His music has been really important to me. The last few years have been kind of shitty/lonely and his music has made me feel less lonely in a way that I don't think a real person that I actually know could do. Wow, that sounded really gay. We're dropping a ponygirl video on it soon because if we had to battle to write about the show that shit would get gnarly brutal. We don't want to do that to our pretty little faces. But I guess it's cool if I let some really homosexual things out here, in the interest of not being a total ass in the video.

I don't know if maybe I'm just projecting or what, but I feel like the emotional landscape of those songs is like looking in a god damn mirror. Bad decisions, impossibilities, infidelities, snippets of conversation and the shape of your hands. Thwarted desires. Maybe it's just being human. Even "I'll Believe in Anything", a song that seems so optimistic and romantic has the underlying tension of impossibility. It's all in his delivery. Listen to "Three Colors" and ask yourself if you think the person he's talking to gives a fuck about the wind in his window. That show made me want to write music again. The energy was incredible. Been doodling with my guitar. See what happens.