You should never get a haircut the day before a job interview, but I’ve been putting it off and putting it off and now I feel shaggy. I’ve been wearing it in a crew cut with it a little longer on top because I have a bald spot on my right side from an EKG contact when I was a baby, so I have to have my layers a little longer…. or perhaps I will go the asymetric route, which Auna calls “sex.” So many comments, so little time. I mean, Jesus. I love Auna. She just says whatever is on her mind and most of the time it makes me fall over with laughter. But if she thinks I look hot, I do. I just can’t decide what I want, although my hair is long enough now that I could do the David Tennent or the Matt Smith, depending on how I feel when I get there. Right now, when I put it into a crew cut, I look like “Syndrome” from The Incredibles.
I met a soldier a couple years ago that I just dug the fuck out of, and we kind of have the same facial structure, so I tried a crew cut and I liked it. Technically, I took a picture of her to my stylist and said, “can you do that, except all punked out and bedhead like she’s been doing heroin for three days?” Mission accomplished. That same soldier appeared in a picture with Dana in one of my Facebook albums, and when Samantha was flipping through it, she said, “oh, is that your ex-wife?” I blushed to the tip of my hair and said, “no, the other one.” Samantha said, “hmmm… I just thought your wife would look more like you.” I still haven’t stopped blushing to the ends of my hair over that one, and as you know, I’m blushing more right now because my hair is longer.
I said something to the effect of, “well, I think her husband would get mad.” She just gave me a dumb look and said, “that girl is straight?” I said something to the effect of, “yes, and she probably has a string of disappointed women everywhere.” Samantha laughed. But I told her what I told Argo in a letter after I met her, that “it made me root for her even more because the world has to know there’s more than one kind of straight girl. I call her the hottest dyke that never was.” Samantha laughed even harder at that one, and then we moved on to other topics, such as how we were going to get me married off to someone rich so that I could just be a writer. I love Samantha. She requires references and a W-2.
It isn’t her, exactly. For YEARS I have loved soldiers. Every single one. It wouldn’t hurt if my next girlfriend was a soldier, because every time she put on her Class A’s I wouldn’t be able to breathe without wanting to rip them back off. 😛
I don’t think it would work out, ultimately. When I am with military people, I am just lost in a world of acronyms that I have no idea what they mean. When her soldier friends came over to the house, I think I would just hug them all and excuse myself to go write. I love it when soldiers tell old stories, but not so fond of how quickly I can’t understand them. Because they had to go the PCA to get to the SOB to get to the PX to get to the LOW to get to the CTP to make AOB…. I just made those up. I’m just sayin.’ I probably just ordered a strike on Montana. Get ready.
I also think a haircut would make me feel better. I have been in a funk lately and I think it’s due to all of my isolation crap. I haven’t left the house since Sunday morning for church. I am nervous about this interview because I want and need the job so much, and when I get nervous, I isolate to prepare. But that comes with a bit of keeping my head down that doesn’t allow for fun. Perhaps I will walk to the grocery store so that at least my endorphins are up. Or, I might Uber just to have conversation along the way. I love Uber for that. I never go anywhere far, so it’s a nice relationship. I see them once, I learn their stories, and then the relationship is over.
I also got a match on Tinder, a sweet Finnish or Swedish or Danish girl. I can’t tell. I just know that one of the languages on her profile looks suspiciously like Scandinavian voodoo shit. Of course, I didn’t look at her profile before I swiped right, so I didn’t know that she was Scandinavian when she matched me. From her profile, I’m not even sure she speaks English. But that’s probably prejudiced because I think all Scandinavians speak English to some degree, and she lives here, so there’s that. I definitely want to meet her, if only to see what she’s like on the ground instead of in the cloud. But I think tea or coffee would be fine. I’m not ready to date anyone. I’m really not. When I swipe on Tinder, I am hoping for friends, not hot and heavy. If it comes later, then maybe. But right now I am content with my books and my tea. I want to know if there’s a spark of friendship before anything else, because I know for sure that romance doesn’t last long. It comes in waves. Winters and summers for the rest of a couple’s life. If there’s no friendship spark, I’m not interested.
Plus, no one likes that girl who still talks about her exes, and I’m not finished processing what happened with Dana. Her words make me furious and I love her beyond all measure. It just isn’t fair, the way this relationship ended, and that includes owning my part. We had such great love and mutual respect until we started hiding things from each other. For instance, Dana read everything going in and coming out of my e-mail in terms of Argo, but she was loathe to tell me what she thought unless we were in a rip-roaring fight because it was an easy win. I’d just fold. She claimed that it wasn’t really Argo, that Argo could be any woman.
No. It couldn’t. Argo was special and unique and we needed our space, but not because we were in love. Friendship deserves space. It also deserves a little bit of secrecy because friends are sounding boards for each other. There were things I could tell Argo about Dana that she could look at and say, “you’re being a jackass,” and it would change my mind on how I interacted with Dana for the better. But that didn’t mean that I wanted Dana to see those jackass moments, and she did, because I couldn’t let her think that I was having an affair. I wasn’t. I was just struggling with old patterns that needed to be addressed because every single time it came up, it was unwelcome and scary for Argo in a way that I didn’t want to scare her until I, in my infinite wisdom, thought “if I drove her away, then Dana won’t have to worry anymore.” It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The worst. I pushed away someone I loved to the fucking ends of the earth. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for her, and I am still in pain over my own behavior in all of this. That’s why I don’t want a relationship that consists of more than talking and tea. I just can’t handle the thought of being with someone else until I can truly say I have forgiven myself for what I have done and what I have left undone.
I got a notice that Argo’s present will be delivered on Friday. I expect nothing in return, but I do expect to feel better about myself… that I thought about her and found something that she wouldn’t buy for herself, necessarily, but is very cool indeed. It would make me feel better to think about my own generosity and selflessness when I have been such a right bastard to her in the past. I want to continue to be selfless and generous, because I see how I have been so wrapped up in myself that I lost the ability to see anyone else. I lashed out in fear and anger when it wasn’t necessary. She is part of my heart, and in my grief, I cannot help but want to atone for my sins. But it doesn’t matter if she responds. It matters that I am a better person to her than I used to be, not because it matters to her, but because it matters to me.
I finished The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, and if you know the story, you’ll know why I am moving on to On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin next. It is amazing that in science, I have found God yet again.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Maybe one day I’ll get your haircut, too.
Stories That Are All True 