7:50 p.m. - 2006-09-19
I don't know what i was planning to do with it.
I lost my watch the day I met you. I lost it, meaning I never found it. If I had found it again, I would have merely misplaced it, but no. the day I met you, I lost my watch. I should have taken that as an omen, but I never did. You would always keep my losing track of time. It's easier to look back and pinpoint where you went wrong then it is in the moment. Most moments seem perfect until they're over. Perhaps because we all get too caught up in the moment to analyze it. Anyways, the day i met you, I lost my watch. Call it fate if you absolutely must, but never expect that from me. I can't stand being without my watch and I can't stand thinking fate has power over my life. Fate and I fell out of love three summers ago, but that's a different story.
I was sipping tea in a local coffee shop. Not just any coffee shop, but the worst coffee shop in town. The very worst one. I am very picky about the places i go. The worst coffee shops usually have the best tea and because I am more of a "make it myself" kind of gal, someone must make wonderful tea for me to stop. Either that or I am in a terrible rush and running out of time. The latter was the case that day. I lost my watch. I was all out of time. i was looking over a paper years old. I needed some old news. The new news was always bringing me down, but old news is always something to get attached to and to think about. The new news is always changing, the old news never does. It's always old. It rarely matters how old. You walked in, a stony smile that looked sincere for once. You didn't notice me at first. In fact, you didn't notice me until the waitress called me "hun." Cheesy. being called hun by a waitress who works at the worst coffee shop in town is classically cheesy. Cheesy kills me. Cheesy kills you too and that's why we met. No, I'm moving too fast. That is why we started to care, but that's not why we met. We met because you made me curious as eye contact always does.Our ever-dying race has been brain washed to think eye contact is insulting or perhaps a disease categorized fatal. That didn't scare you. It doesn't scare me either. Like I said, I found you interesting. I was in a hurry though and my newspaper was almost done. I was almost back to present times and knowing that a snake doesn't bite unless provoked, I asked you the time. Snake bites blur vision. I left in a daze after you answered. I'll never forget that time, for the simple reason that I rarely forget anything - a blessing and a curse. My car was parked half a mile away. Broken down dreams in a broken down car. Yet, I really was in a hurry. I walked back to that lonely patch of highway and when you drove up behind me, I, well, now that i think back, i don't remember my reaction. I suppose i was too caught up in the moment. That was years ago though and that is not why we are friends. In fact, that's not why you are getting this letter, even. No one besides myself considers that moment noteworthy, but that doesn't really bother me.
I'm not entirely sure that we can be categorized as friends. actually, I think there are few that would do so, but I know your mother in law's name and you know how many freckles are on my right arm. You spent the time we waited for the tow truck connecting them. You think it's funny that I don't have a cell phone. You think I'm living in the wrong century. Sometimes i think you're right, but I didn't that day. That day i watched you make pictures out of ordinary marks that color my otherwise pale complection. Imagination made you glow. I told the stories to go along with the illustrations and when the tow truck came, it occured to you to ask what i would have done had no one with a cell phone called. "Dance," was my response. I was always dancing for lack of a better action. Or perhaps dancing was the best answer all along.
Transmission. That's what was wrong. How I abhor paying for car repairs. My checkbook is large and the color of sea glass buried far too long in the mud. My signature is long, sloppy and loopy. It defines my personality- too bored and stressed to care, or sometimes called a perfectionist. You wrote your cell phone number in the dust on one of the windows of my car. I wrote it down because it seemed polite and washed the windows, because I wanted it to be our secret.
Three months later. "do you remember me?" That's what i said when you answered the phone. You asked me what my favorite color was. i said purple. It always has been. you asked me if my eyes ever changed color and i said yes, in fact they do. You produced my name like magic. You were always so darn impressive. When you asked how i was, i confessed that i had fallen in love with the second person point of view. You told me something too philisophical to remember. For some reason, my memory is rebelling. I called from a pay phone outside of a bus stop. A bus stop across from a funeral home. A funeral home that i was supposed to be inside. I should have been. I should have been inside crying with all of the others, but I wasn't ready to say my goodbyes. The death was the one of a close friend. Life stolen by a toy store truck. Goddamn, irony was kicking my ass. I told you that too. I think I used you as a lifeline. You told me you were sure of it, "but it's okay, because we're using each other and what more can you expect from a friendship?" That's what you said. i remember that perfectly. Do you remember that? If you don't, I won't blame you. I don't expect much from anyone. Anyways, you told me that I was the cause of all my own problems and life goes on and other such things. that's a summary, not a quote. "Life goes by far too quickly and that sucks, but you have to face it, now stop complaining to me and go in there and remember today because you owe that person that. Call me when you're not feeling sorry for yourself." You always knew how to shut me up. I hung up on you, not to be mean, but because I had nothing whatsoever suitable to say. I proceeded into the funeral hall and said my goodbyes. I read my speech and I sang my farewell song as i had always promised. I made it worth it. I poured every last emotion I had into my tribute to that friend. I was supposed to die first. She pinky swore. she pinky swore! It's so hard to be angry at these times. The world is always darker and it feels like everything should have stopped. Why are you still living? Why are you going on with your day? Don't you know? "Don't you know?!," I scream. How can they keep going when such a big part of life is gone? I cry.
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I don't know if it's been posted or not or if it had a point or if it was just stream of consciousness.
I wonder if I were to just give up on growing up, if we'd all become closer again.
I'm seriously doubting it.
Cheers. Here's to the carnivals, helplessness, and applying oneself. Touche life, touche.
