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I gave up.

I found my sister's electric blanket, the one she had been mentioning to me for weeks, and have plugged in and curled up under it. It's 30something degrees and raining outside and 2 pairs of socks can only take you so far.

I packed this morning since it seemed like the right thing to do. Bits and pieces of the past 2 weeks were strewn all over the room like I lived here. I had piles. Piles of clothes separated by tops and bottoms. Piles of books and magazines, separated by read and not read. Paper bags filled with random purchases. The cheap honey, yogurt raisins, cardamon & cayenne pepper from the Amish store. The old books from the Salvation Army. Art blocks, chocolate, gadgets, doodads, receipts, ticket stubs, expired CTA passes, buttons and the like. My journal, scribbled in once during this trip, just to dump out the badness of my arrival here out of my brain. That seems like years ago. Time does that weird thing it does. It wasn't too long ago J. was spitting hate and anger at me at lightening speed, but it feels like that was another lifetime.

Which is just as well as I don't want to really remember it. I've deleted most of it and have keep the texts and emails that sound threatening, you know...just in case the worse happens. You can never tell.

I remember finding an empty gate in MSP when I landed and calling Hallmark because everything inside of me was frantically pinging inside of me like a pinball machine gone haywire. All I could think was there must be something wrong with me. I must have done something wrong because if I was doing everything right, my ex would not be calling me a dumb bitch every 10 minutes.

I hate how my first initial instinct is to doubt myself and that I need someone else to remind me, "Silly, Trix are for kids. What did he expect you to do? Remember, HE dumped YOU."


My voice cracked and I had to repeat myself several times, louder and louder to Josh.

"What is wrong with me?"

"Nothing," he answered. "It's not about you."

And it isn't.

Which is good to know.



I settled into life in Beloit quite nicely. Walked the small downtown area with Matthew, had quiet meals in, hung out on campus, saw a student production, assisted in a big campus event. There were excursions to Madison (Film Fest, woot!) and Milwaukee (Art Museum, yay!) and Chicago.

I read lots, wrote very little and slept. A lot. It's like my body can't get enough of the stuff. I'm refueling after a grueling couple of months. I'm making up for my 2007 Sleep Disorder.

Recovery. I took myself out of the game for 2 weeks to re-learn how to be good to me, because damnit, I like me and all too often I am cruel to myself because that's familiar territory. I like the fact that all I could manage to write in 2 weeks is meaningless babble on this blog. Nothing, really. Nothing new. A pretty picture of Andrew Bird. A memory shared of a dream of Rothko's gigantor piece in the SFMOMA. And then this post, which is ridiculous.

I miss home though. I miss my friends. I miss the dr. Life through everyone's FB pictures, has looked so gloriously sunny, beautiful and fun at home. It was good to be away, but I look forward to being back.