Listening to: An old mix tape. (The Cars. Loretta Lynn. Patsy Cline. And some AC/DC.)
cd key of coll of dutyI woke up feeling like a big bag of hell, but now I'm fine. Spent all afternoon at Shane's new apartment, cleaning and moving furniture from one place to another, eating, talking, you know. When I first went over, I was trying to clear from my skull the dark smear left by yesterday's migraine, but it didn't last long. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I began to feel better:
We were in Shane's bedroom. There were boxes of clothes in the closet, waiting to be hung. His computer was on floor in the corner, facing the wall. We were cramped by the clutter, and it was hot-- his air conditioner hasn't been installed yet, and the temperatures lately have been close to thirty-C and dry. I'd pulled off my vest (the one with the pouches, navy blue, that I'd bought second-hand for a dollar) and was stripping the sheets off his bed, smiling at his Toxic-Avenger pillowcases and bizarre hand-made Ninja Turtle ashtray. Shane was at the open bedroom window, lean as hell, arranging his stereo on top of some boxes, with a smoke in his mouth, a weird neo-mohawk-wave-peak thing happening with his hair, a rip in the knee of his jeans, and his big-ass belt buckle. He was singing Pasty Cline under his breath. He looked over, winked, and started singing it to me. I couldn't stop smiling. I'm glad I met him; he's glad he met me. We're friends. We're doing laundry and smoking and listening to music together, in the dry heat of his new bedroom. What else could I ask to be doing?
Shane's at peace now. He's had a week-long bender, and I've tucked him into bed, and we've gone out for coffee and to see the crew, and we've moved him to his new apartment. And now the boy is fine.
Brass, on the other hand, I don't know. She dragged me to the bar on Monday night, got really, really bombed, and then became randomly violent. We've always had this understanding between us that Brass could get as out-of-control as she wanted, and she could do her drunken diva thing, and start lashing out in all directions like a loose cannon-- she could do it and do it well, but as soon as she lashed out at me, things would be different. Things would get serious.
She's always told me that she knows about being poor, and she knows when a scrap is necessary, and how you do it, and basically those things you learn when you're young and you have to take care of yourself and your friends in a city that's got it's share of tough spots. Maybe she is really solid, though I've never seen evidence of the fact. Her personal stories sound more like anecdotes, or bits of other peoples' lives pillaged from rumours, stories, late-night conversations in cars with smokes, tales shouted over the baseline of a song in a club's dark booth. But there's no evidence of experience, no continuity on congruence in her stories, and no sense of allegiance to her most basic support systems (i.e., me). If she knew what being tight was, she wouldn't have started pushing me, telling me not to try and help her (although we'd been doing nothing but dancing up to that point), to leave her alone, that she was solid. She wouldn't have blamed me for "knocking her over" when she randomly stumbled and dropped her beer. She wouldn't have started in on how "you do not drop Brass' beer-- oh no! Not Brass' beer. If you had done that on the reserve--"
But I put up with it. Then she randomly hit me in the face, twice, and started pushing me for no reason in the middle of the dance floor. I told her I'd leave, then she pushed me again, and so I left. Outside, when I offered her a ride, she told me in various ways that she was fine, she was golden, she was a diva, and that she didn't need my help (although she'd followed me out, realizing she had no other way home). She punched me once more, for no apparent reason other than to increase the drama in front of some onlookers. I was gone after that. I haven't heard from her since she had to walk home in the rain on Monday night, but I imagine there will be some story about how I abandoned her and told her off.
Brass always said that she'd never seen me really mad. But she saw me screaming at her that night. She also always said she was a solid scrapper, but after being decked in the face by her at least six times now, I know she hasn't got much game. She needs to work on that punch. Or the alcoholism. Whichever.
If she never calls me again, fine. No one treats me like that. I let her do it once, and that's all. I let her get away with it, too, even though the staggering level of disrespect still leaves me gobsmacked when I think about it. That's not my inner-diva coming out... I just won't let someone treat me that way.
I think I should start posting writing on this blog, from works-in-progress. Or else internal discussions on stuff that's actually interesting. Currently, I only use it for venting and ranting. Here's the problem with that: I only use the blog when I desperately need to rant, so all the material is roundly negative or vitreous (i.e., the Brass incident), very base, and lacking depth. I've been using notebooks for journal-writings that pertain to stories, thoughts, philosophies, etc... Maybe I shouldn't be purposefully separating my blog from my written journals?
Blah, either way I'm glad I wrote about Brass. It's been irritating me, and I didn't want to rant about it to Shane, or Chris, or the crew, mostly because they have never met Brass and would find the situation difficult to understand. Oh, but Shannon understands. She understands so well.
We saw Dogville the other day, Shannon and I. Go see it. It's long and occasionally numbing, but the cerebral and (in the last scenes) visceral impact is worth the three hours and the charge of admission. And Nicole Kidman is really good in it.
In sum: I love Shane. Brass is a jackass. Me should get smart. Yay Nicole Kidman.