yes! it's yet another self-absorbed pity party!

the cafe is playing billy joel's 'angry young man' song, which i had not heard in a while (despite owning and loving the lp)- billy joel used to be fucking great (until the blasphemy of 'we didn't start the fire'), and i am not ashamed to admit it.
i have been in a melancholy state today. last night i talked with s about the foul ending of saturday. on one hour of sleep, we spent the day together, both bleary and useless, and i got unexpectedly, quickly, nastily drunk on wine. black-outy and belligerent, as i have a tendency to do, but which i hadn;t allowed myself to become in a very long while. i vaguely remember arguing with, or rather at, him, and walking home alone from capitol hill, and finding freshly purchased groceries in my cupboards the next morning- a morning in which i was not hung over, but eerily suspicious that i had behaved hideously.
what i said, according to him, was: i was offended that he repeatedly referred to his ex-wife as 'psychotic', that he was negating his own half of the responsibility, that it was disrespectful and rude to talk about someone he once loved that way, especially without her around to defend herself, that it was arrogant and demeaning to make her get on meds. i smiled as he related this. "i am regretful of my delivery, but i agree with everything i said" i told him. "you were very aggressive and combative" he said. "i have been told that before" i replied. "i gravitate towards conflict. it makes me feel that my own actions are justified." he was looking at me with a bewildered, pitying, disgusted expression, which i don't fault him for: obviously this all speaks volumes about my sadistic, masochistic inability to be in a relationship, to be properly respectful, to act like a fucking adult instead of continually reliving the fucked-up patterns that have heretofore defined my interactions with every guy i've been at all close to.
...but, and i am fucking ashamed to admit this: i am attracted to the emotion. i like the passion, even when, possibly even especially when, it is contemptuous and cruel and unstable. this is seriously fucking sick. i don't know how to maintain a level of respect towards them, or have them maintain a level of respect towards me, and thus i have a slag-heap of fucked opportunities and scorn in my wake.
i can remind myself that i was not very attracted to him, which i wasn't, or that i wasn't ready to share any extra scrap of my life with anyone, which i'm not, or that there were all sorts of insignificant pseudo-'flaws' that i could amplify and make into deal-breakers, but it all comes down to: i am too fucked up to be with anyone but my own stupid arse.
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why the fuck do i write this shit on a public forum? penance for my acidity?
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so, today- melancholy, lonely, regretful, but not wanting to be around anybody, i drove to bellingham in an odd amalgam of bright sunlight and persistant haze- as if fog had never quite burned off, leaving everything coldly blanched. sweet green made it flawlessly. downtown bellingham was deserted, apart from the swarthy crowd of pierced teens smoking outside the horseshoe cafe- it was only six pm, but most of the shops were closed. the drugstore where i bought a soda filled with empty shelves. the unsmiling checker berated a child for grabbing things off a display; the mother mumbled something ineffectual. i bought incense from a head shop and an octopus sticker from an 'import' store; i took a photograph of the antique bank clock with the completely dischordant time displays; i wandered numbly through the music store; i felt like a fucking ghost. the architecture in bellingham is very frilly and victorian, the streets of the nicer areas lined with weeping willows and children on bikes; i was, as usual, an observer, even though i was singing along to elton john's 'grey seal' and trying to force self-merriment.
what am i expecting to 'find' in seattle? what have i been, for all intents and purposes, WAITING FOR? i have a cool lair that i pay out the ass for, a good job that is 35 miles away, a family that i never see, and no friends apart from the trolls i meet on fucking craigslist. tonight, as i wandered through the dark, i thought about how the longer i remain in this bizarre self-imposed isolation morass, the harder it is to be 'that person'- the one i hoped my divorce and move back would automatically manifest: with a gaggle of witty, ascerbic friends, skillful yet not overly clingy lovers, a stack of brilliant drawings, a philanthropic flair. at least my plants are doing well. and the cats are great, thanks.
...also on the walk here: i passed two guys talking on the sidewalk. the only part of their conversation i heard was "and then he goes, 'fuck you, fag!'" immediately i recalled the punchline to a forgotten joke: "fuck you, clown!" it was something i heard a very long time ago- i remember it making me laugh, but i cannot remember the setup. so for several blocks i had that phrase stuck in my head: fuck you, clown! fuck YOU, clown!
and that made me feel better.
i'm not going to proofread this.