Thoughts on a Sunday afternoon of a lonely weekend

There is a problem that occurs in the head when you go too long alone. When you go too long without using your voice. Not the way you talk to your dog, but the way you talk to another person in what is called relating.

This weekend I have spoken a hello to my old neighbor at the grocery store on Friday night. I spoke to the cashier at Food Lion and the cashier at the liquor store when I was picking up some vodka. Yesterday, I spoke to my neighbor as he called to me over the fence "Hello, any news on the jobs?" and to another neighbor when he got home from work and asked me if I knew of any jobs for his wife. Or was that Saturday? Also yesterday I spoke to the mailman when he whistled at me in jest when he saw me laying in my bikini top reading Hemingway in the backyard.  I also spoke on the phone to my mom yesterday for about 30 minutes.

So my relating over the course of a whole weekend can be boiled down to this: a total of three minutes, perhaps, communications with acquaintances, and 30 minutes to my mother. So thirty three minutes of this weekend in conversation. Not much.

So it is no wonder my head feels very full and very stuffed and a bit dense with fog. None of my thoughts are being expressed and they're all piling up on one another in a very jumbled up way. The real thoughts and the small idle thoughts all piling up together so I don't know what are real thoughts and what are idle. It's a strange feeling when your head gets so disorganized from lack of thought-expression.

I felt lonely when I was dating Jay but in a different way. With Jay it was lonely because I had conversation but no depth of expression. Conversation was about dinner and what movie to watch and some complaining about work and general discontent with life. But nothing with any more depth so it was lonely in that false shallow way you feel when you're close to somoene and you have an expectation of emotional closeness but it doesn't happen.

I remember in college always being suspicious of the psychology majors. Psychology is fascinating but it doesn't require getting a degree in it to learn about it. When I have had psychological problems I have gone to the library or the Amazon store and gotten books and read until I worked out the problem. But some people go to the extreme of devoting their college studies to it and these people must have a much larger psychological problem than I have ever dealt with that they feel the need to study four years of it.

I think in the same way Jay must have chosen English as a major in order to work out his problems of expression. You'd think someone who had studied language, human character in books, and spent years writing would be a good expressor. But Jay didn't like to talk about anything deeper than work problems or complain about his parents. He gave me about 30% of himself. He did not relate to me. I asked and aked him to open up to me and to relate to me but he never did. He was all inside himself and didn't express anything.

I love perfume and Jay knew that. I would wear a new perfume with him and tell him about it and he never had a word to say. He never asked me a question about my hobby or about the perfume I was wearing even though I implored him to show interest. And he never did. I wore Chanel No. 19 when we went to see Neko Case together but I think by that point I was too tired of trying to get him interested in it to tell him what I was wearing or why I had picked that one to wear. I wore Bois des Iles when we were in Frankfort walking around at the capitol building and the cemetery but by that point I had surely stopped trying to get him to be interested in that stuff. Wearing Bois des Iles still smells like walking around Frankfort with Jay and I will proably always, or at least for a long time, remember that. But he never asked me.

A few times, I told him that he never asked me any questions and that made me feel like he didn't care about me. He didn't understand. He said why should he ask questions about me - none of that mattered because he loved me. This made me feel very lonely. I wonder if that was his way of training me like a Pavlov dog not to ask him any questions. If he could make me think he didn't care about learning about me, maybe I wouldn't want to learn about him. But that is not how I'm wired and as much as I tried to learn about him and get him to open up he never would.

Except for one time, really. We were driving back from Kentucky and I was driving and I asked him to tell me about his growing up. He told me all sorts of things. About being awkward in early high school and then becoming a runner and then making friends and starting to be popular. About some very painful experiences that I believe still haunt him. After he opened up on all of that it was like he was embarrassed and drew inside himself again and wanted me to act like it never happened.

That was in November and we broke up on January 1st and I still miss him every day. I am not sure what I miss, though. He was broken inside and although he studied English for four years he never solved his problem of expression.

It is very lonely for me in Wilson. There isn't really much here for single people, or academics, or any type of counterculture. You can go to the library but nobody in the fiction stacks you'd want to strike up a conversation with and upstairs in the nonfiction there is the computer lounge where the poor blacks to go get on the internet or sit at tables and stare at space. I am not kidding about this last part. Last time I was there a man was sitting at a table with his backpack on the table just staring at space. He sat like that the entire time I was in the nonfiction stacks.  And the time before that I was at the library in the nonfiction stacks a big black man followed me around and then approached me and commented on my looks and gave me his phone number. The library is really not a friendly place for a single girl who is looking for either books or friends.

There is a Starbucks here but that is less friendly than the library. The baristas are ill-tempered or even worse, they make no conversation at all. It is a very cold Starbucks and service is very bad. The last time I tried to sit outside there was a rich white man who kept trying to talk to me and would not leave me alone to read. I never sat outside at Starbucks again because he gave me a very creepy vibe like his intentions were less than wholesome. Then another time I went to Starbucks I was wearing Infusion d'Iris and he was sitting at an outside table smoking when I walked in. When I came out, he asked what perfume I was wearing. I think I told him "Prada" and walked away and got in my car as quickly as I could. So Starbucks is not a friendly place, either.

There are a couple bars you can go to, but these are filled with young rich people who are trying to seem important and rich. They all wear the same types of clothes. The men are dressed in khakis with shirts tucked in and have Ken (of Barbie and Ken) hair and they always have on some sot of loafer or boat shoe. The women are always dressed in resort attire and always have a full face of makeup and have professionally colored hair and always have their nails conspicuously done. You cannot go to one of the bars and try to socialize with these people because when you are like me and don't wear resort or have a professional set of nails they don't want to talk to you. You are like a plague on their little Stepford style social life.

There is one other bar but it is filled with the bottom feeders. These are lifestyle alcoholics, middle aged men who come every night to buy young girls shots. The women at these bars look like they have been rode hard and put up wet, to use one of the local phrases. One time I was outside at this bar and was hit on very strongly by a lesbian. Not a cool lesbian like I am friends with at home, the ones with dreadlocks who ride bikes everywhere and are cool and are friends with everyone. This lesbian was sort of dirty looking and not one I would have wanted to be friends with.

And that is about it. There is a farmers market on the library lawn but it is on Wednesday mornings and I am at work on Wednesday mornings.

There are interesting things to do if you drive into Raleigh or Carrboro or Durham. I met a guy at a contra dance a year ago and we went on a couple of dates and then he moved to California. And then came Jay and the time that was lonely but for another reason.

So now I am trying to get through this loneliness and this time spent with my thoughts jumbling up on each other because I have no one to express them to. I need to start writing again and observing people and places like I used to. My imagination cannot be all gone. It has just been sleeping a while and I am hoping that by writing again it will begin to wake up. Robert Jordan in For Whom The Bell Tolls talks about being gloomy and then realizing it has been a long time since he has made a joke with himself, so he makes a joke with himself and then feels better.

So it is my job to look for the jokes. I can combat loneliness with humor and writing and with my dog and cats and books. I am lonely now but it won't last and that is what I will keep telling myself until I am not lonely anymore.

dog named argos

While he spoke
an old hound, lying near, pricked up his ears
and lifted up his muzzle. This was Argos,
trained as a puppy by Odysseus,
but never taken on a hunt before
his master sailed for Troy. The young men, afterward,
hunted wild goats with him, and hare, and deer,
but he had grown old in his master's absence.
Treated as rubbish now, he lay at last
upon a mass of dung before the gates—
manure of mules and cows, piled there until
fieldhands could spread it on the king's estate.
Abandoned there, and half destroyed with flies,
old Argos lay. But when he knew he heard,
Odysseus' voice nearby, he did his best
to wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears,
having no strength to move nearer his master.
And the man looked away,
wiping a salt tear from his cheek; but he
hid this from Eumaios. Then he said:

"I marvel that they leave this hound to lie here on the dung pile;
he would have been a fine dog, from the look of him,
though I can't say as to his power and speed
when he was young. You find the same good build
in house dogs, table dogs landowners keep
all for style."

And you replied, Eumaios:
"A hunter owned him—but the man is dead
in some far place. If this old hound could show
the form he had when Lord Odysseus left him,
going to Troy, you'd see him swift and strong.
He never shrank from any savage thing
he'd brought to bay in the deep woods; on the scent
no other dog kept up with him. Now misery
has him in leash. His owner died abroad,
and here the women slaves will take no care of him.
You know how servants are: without a master
they have no will to labor, or excel.
For Zeus who views the wide world takes away
half the manhood of a man, that day
he goes into captivity and slavery."

Eumaios crossed the court and went straightforward
into the megaron among the suitors;
but death and darkness in that instant closed
the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master,
Odysseus, after twenty years.

- Homer, The Odyssey (trans. R. Fitzgerald)

the dog days are over

"These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after." - from the Prologue of Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt




Three days ago marked a year from my separation from Bryan.


I will always remember waking up at Surfside Beach that morning, greeting Rocky, brushing my teeth, pouring my coffee, checking my phone for messages from the night before ( I always go to bed early when on vacation), and seeing a barrage of Facebook message from a guy in Kentucky who I'd never met before, telling me that he had evidence that my husband was cheating on me with his girlfriend. I immediately messaged him back, gave him my phone number, and he proceeded to text me photographs of the Facebook messages between my husband and his girlfriend.


I texted Bryan and told him to be out of the house when I got home.


He thought I had gone mad. " What the hell? Are you crazy??? Why???"


"I'm not discussing it. Just don't be there when I get home. I do not ever want to see you or hear your voice again. This is not negotiable."


He was flabbergasted. "Erin, you are being totally irrational. What is going on? I can't get out of the house in 3 days. You get out."


"Fine, I will. I will be there to get my stuff on Monday. Don't be there."


And that was pretty much that.


If brain waves usually navigate problems in late model sedans on freshly paved roads, with the AC blowing and Terri Gross's soothing alto lending pleasant diversion from the drive, my brain cells that day were doing their business more like the frogs from the highly pixellated game I played on my parents' IBM, trying to jump across one lane at a time without getting splatted.


I knew where I was - Surfside Beach. I knew who I was with - my mom, dad, and brother - and I knew where they were - on the beach. But I don't think I knew who I was at that moment.


So I headed to the beach with my summer reading: Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story. I found my mom on the beach, sat down next to her, and tried to focus on Lenny and Eunice Park and then Bryan has been cheating on me. What do I tell my mom? Do I tell her now? Do I keep it to myself for a while and try to make sense of it and then tell her?


I read for an hour or so and then broke it to my mom. Told her about the messages, the photos, and that I had told him to be gone, and he wouldn't go, so I was leaving. Immediately.


The next few days of vacation were spent planning my escape. Dad, Rocky, and I returned to Wilson in my car and checked into a Microtel. We ate at the Cracker Barrel across the street from the hotel that night. I texted Bryan that Dad and I would be coming to pick up some stuff I needed for the work week and that he should be gone when I got there. He had the sense to listen. I don't know what my Dad would have done if Bryan would have been there, but it probably would have involved a phone call to the sheriff's department.


I took a half day on Monday so Dad and I could go see an attorney. At work, Candice volunteered her husband's truck and muscle to help me move. My therapist Deborah rented her elderly mother's vacant house to me for a month, and that Wednesday we left the Microtel for a three bedroom ranch on Poe Street.
Dad and I had some good times in that house. I'd come home from work, he'd have supper ready - grilled cheese sandwiches or pasta - and we'd watch Bryan Jennings and then a movie. I was probably losing my mind the whole time, but having Dad there made me feel like everything was going to be OK.


We tried to find an apartment for me and and my animals, but soon realized that the places that would lease to a woman with a 60 pound lab and two cats would be unaffordable after the couple hundred dollar monthly pet fees were added to already steep rent. So Dad decided to start looking at real estate. We found a thousand square foot cottage in a lovely neighborhood in Wilson, and moved me in the weekend Hurricane Irene was coming through town.


Certain songs will always take me back to those days. I had heard the song "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + The Machine on Pandora at work, and it instantly became the anthem of my separation summer. Happiness hit her like a train on a track.


My brother and Dad had seen U2 in Nashville earlier that summer, and Florence had opened for U2. When they told me she had opened, I was so excited, and wanted to know all about Florence + The Machine's show, and could have cared less about U2.


The day we moved in was hot and muggy from all the rain the hurricane brought in. Dad and I were both in shorts and he had on his BIG DOGS t-shirt that always cracked me up: IF YOU CAN'T TEACH WITH THE BIG DOGS, STAY OUT OF THE CLASSROOM. As we unloaded my clothes from the van, we saw a guy walking toward the moving van.


Dad and I both had our arms full, but that didn't stop this guy from approaching and striking up a conversation with my dad about his Kentucky license plate, and he told us he was from Louisville. Is this guy for real? My arms are about to break from the weight of these clothes and he wants to chat? Is he blind? Come on Dad, give him the cold shoulder, let him know we're busy,since evidently he can't see that two people with their arms full of stuff are busy, and maybe he'll get the hint and wander back to wherever he came from. Where DID he come from? In those expensive looking jeans, spotless white loafers (!!!), white t-shirt, and - get this - U2 track jacket. A track jacket in the middle of summer? Who wears that? This guy can't be for real.


But then Dad commented on his U2 jacket, told him he'd seen U2 in Nashville earlier that summer, and the guy started talking about how many times he'd seen U2 and met Bono and whatever else crazy U2 people talk about when it's 90 degrees at 9 am and people are moving in and a girl's arms are about to fall off under the weight of 30 pounds of clothes on hangers.


He proceeded to walk onto the van with his can of beer - did I mention it was 9 am, and he was drinking beer? - to chat some more. He asked why we were moving in. I stifled the massive sigh that had built up in my chest, blinked hard so as not to roll my eyes too obviously, and told him I was separating from my husband. He said he was nearly divorced himself. I saw that Dad wasn't going to get this guy out of here, and he wasn't going anywhere, so I decided if he wasn't to leave he could at least be useful. I told him, maybe a bit forcefully, "You are welcome to help if you want." 

He said, "Sure!" And asked what he could get. I told him he could grab the kitchen chairs. Not only did he carry the chairs in, but then he helped Dad carry the kitchen table inside and then - to my great relief - my mattress and boxsprings.

After we had brought the big stuff inside, I came in and began unloading the kitchen boxes. To my immense irritation, this guy - by then we'd learned his name was Brian - wandered inside and asked me if he could sit down. I couldn't say no. So I told him he could. He plopped his beer can down on the kitchen table and began asking me about my separation. As we talked, we learned that each other's ex-spouses were bipolar and began relating to each other over the nutcasery we'd experienced in our marriages. Maybe he wasn't such a bad nut himself, after all. Maybe a bit crazy, with his white shoes and his fancy jeans and his layers, but not such a bad nut. Being married to someone with untreated bipolar disorder can turn anyone into a nut.

I listened to Florence + The Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" many times over the next few months. Oftentimes daily. Oftentimes on repeat. It became my mantra, my religion,  my armor.


Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back
Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that
The dog days are over
The dog days are done


I wonder how many other people wore this song like a shield that summer.