downcycles
May 31, 2004 � 6:27 p.m.

First Entry Today

Today�s Weather: Broken

I realize now that I am not built to be a woman of leisure.

Yesterday, the only productive thing I did was go to the nail salon. No running around, no shopping, no going to see the Queen, no cooking a big dinner�nothing. I went and got my nails done, stopped by to see Relly, came home and put my laundry away, and did nothing the rest of the day.

Today, I slept till just past noon, make me something to eat, and laid on the couch and watched talk shows and soaps.

And I am now bored out of my fucking gourd.

I have nothing to do, but the things I could be doing, I don�t have the energy to do. I don�t feel like cleaning. I am sick of spending my days off cleaning up after my brother. I am supposed to make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, but the later it gets�the less I feel like it. I�m too bored to even do anything�not sketch, not listen to music, not write in my real journal, not call anyone�nothing. I am just lounging around like a lump and it is exhausting the hell out of me.

Oh, and every once in awhile, tears just burst from my eyes for no reason.

Well�maybe not for NO reason.

Yesterday was the BBQ. As you see, I didn�t go. I called Leenie and told her and then I called Jenny and told her I wasn�t going. She tried to talk me into it, but I wasn�t trying to hear it�ESPECIALLY after she said Jeannie was going. I�ve had my fill of the J�s (my name for them as a couple) for awhile. Plus, why the hell would I want to be in couplesville anyway? Especially since SOME of the couples happen to think I�m a thief? Jenny said I was overreacting, and if Leenie and I know the truth, then what�s the difference? Sometimes I forget that my friends are white, so they don�t really understand my life�until they say stupid shit like that.

I don�t care how much Suki and them might say they love me or adore me, I have been branded. Even if Leenie explains it all, I will still be branded. This has happened before, so I know what I�m talking about. Things will always be awkward. People will guard their money on the bar and their purses a little more closely. They will think back on all the times the lighters turned up missing or the smokes went to fast or the money on the bar seemed to be not as much as it was when they last counted it 3 drinks ago, and suddenly it will all point to me�the quiet, broke, black girl that never leaves the bar to go to the dance floor�and it will all make sense. I�m not even trying to make it a racial issue�it just ends up that way. People always forget that I�m black until something fucked up happens. Then, my color comes back to the forefront, and even if everything is resolved, nothing ever goes back to being the way it was�and I go back to being the token, distrusted outsider of the group.

Sad, ain�t it?

Jenny kind of said that me not going would make me look guilty, and that hurt my feelings a bit. She couldn�t understand why I didn�t want to put myself in that situation, sitting around people who are secretly stacking the odds up against me in their minds and feeling awkward and out of place all day. She doesn�t get it because it�s never happened to her before. It�s happened to me all my damn life, and I�m sick of it.

No one bothered to call me yesterday from the BBQ to tell me to come anyway, so what does that do but prove me right? No one called�not Jenny, not Leenie, and definitely not Suki�so I feel like I wasn�t wanted there in the first place. You would think if Leenie went there and explained how I felt, someone would have called me up and told me I was just being silly and to bring my ass on, but they didn�t. So fuck them.

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I feel a down cycle coming on. I feel Jenny slipping away from me and not because she�s pulling away, but because I�m pushing her�and there�s nothing I can do to stop myself. I feel too weird around her now because I�m never just around her�it�s always me and the J�s�and whenever I talk to Jenny or fuss over her like I used to, Jeannie looks at me like I�m intruding or does something that excludes me, like she�s trying to prove that I�m trespassing on her turf. So instead of opening my mouth and saying something or doing something stupid, I should just keep to myself until the newness of their relationship wears off, else I might lose Jenny for good. At least by distancing myself, we will still be okay�just not as tight. And with everything that has been going on, that might be a good thing anyway.

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May 28th marked one year of me writing in this journal. I looked back at some older entries and I see where I have grown some, but for the most part, I am still that same disillusioned girl that I was when I started. I am still making the same mistakes, and last year had way more downs than ups�and maybe Jenny is right. Maybe I should just go to a doctor and get medicated. Maybe I really am clinically depressed. Or bipolar. Or manic depressive. Or something.

Who knows.

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I talked to Adam�s mom the other day. She told me that he was locked up again�that he had gotten locked up not too long after he had talked to me last time. I guess that�s why I had never heard from him. I gave her my number, and told her to tell him and Blue to call me�that I missed them. All last night I thought about Adam and I really started to miss him as I recounted our doomed little relationship. I really did love him�and he loved me�and it wasn�t enough.

Love�is never enough.

I can�t wait to hear from him, though.

I wonder what stupid things we�ll do to each other this time around.

We were always so good�at that.