hayleylovesyou2

[hayleylovesyou2]

[hayleylovesyou2]

An intimate relationship is not necessarily a physical relationship. Rather, it is a trusting, close friendship with another person in which one can be honest without fear of rejection.

Erik Erikson (via quotemadness)

[hayleylovesyou2]

I’m afraid of a lot of things, but mostly, most sincerely, I am afraid of being completely unraveled by you, and you finding nothing you want in here.

L.M. Dorsey, She Is Made of Chalk (via wordsnquotes)

[hayleylovesyou2]

My way of flirting is looking at the person I’m attracted to and hoping they’re braver than I am.

[hayleylovesyou2]

Back when I was, idk, "cute" and young and  lil' ... very passive agressive, very cautious, very shy, never ever asked for what I wanted or thought I'd have a right to try. Whatever I said, I meant the opposite. I wanted people to psychically "get" what I really "meant" without the embarassment of having to "tell them." Ain't nobody got time for that. Now, in a turn no one expected, I'm direct as all living fuck. And I've intuitied this "confidence" is often seen as unearned, considering I stopped taking care of myself. For better or worse. I tend to try not to assume. And If I find myself assuming, I ask. If I like someone, I tell them. If I like them so much I want to go on a date, I ask them. If I'm asked, I answer honestly, yes or no. And I don't assume anyone has any interest in me until they ask. It's easier that way. I'm legally unfuckable in the state of Georgia. Like, judge ruled. Certified. I've survived things people don't survive. And if all this sounds uncomfortable to share, I actually do keep things secret. IMAGINE THE SECRETS, LOL. If that gives a sense of scale. And I never share for pity. I think I share to telegraph ... warnings, maybe, triggers. But overall ... strength. Respect the scrappy survivors, y'all. And also, I don't know ... just to share. Loops back into storytelling. I've seen some SHIT. I'm the opposite of fragile. So everything else ... is petty. Minor embarrassments, by comparison, feel so small. Sure, I'm fucked up, WHO WOULDN'T BE.   But I consider that a gift. To let me see who people really are, and what they value. I like to think my superpower is seeing through bullshit. And after the last few years I've had, I really appreciate anyone who seems like they might like to talk with me? Like, "like my brain." I'm a brain kind of gal. And because I'm also fucking weird and awkward and a bundle of knots that feel like they'll never be untied. So am super, super grateful to people who can see past the blubber and ill-fitting clothes to still think I have some kind of value. And I take what I can get. And if they can't give what I need, I try to make an honest decision if that's ok or not, and go from there. And when people are honest with me back, we can always work out what's best for everyone. I can feel myself changing so much. I try to remain hopeful. To be less hard on myself. And that maybe there is someone out there for me, a partnership. Someone who sees me for what I really am, and "wants to again." But that gonna happen until I get some things in order. Keep fixing myself, my life, and meeting new people. "Better people" doesn't mean "perfect people." Just like ... more on the same page. Maybe fucked up in similar ways, lol. Self-aware, know who they are, and at least figuring out what they want. "The same kind of sad." 

[hayleylovesyou2]

Use shade as a writing prompt.

“You have WAY too many stories about exes.” And all the stories then must be lies, because in fact none of the “exes” live in Texas. And none of the “exes” are mine. Because I’ve never been facebook official, “in a relationship” with anyone in plain sight. When I stand next to my lovers, sales clerks ask me to step aside, they’re helping this gentleman first. When we dine out in public, waiters don’t ask if it’ll be one check or two, they assume we’re going dutch, siblings, friends, he’s doing someone a kindness by accompanying me to dinner. To have an ex, they have to have claimed you. Introduced you. Not flirted with the cashier, forgetting you’re here. Suggesting you stay in, come over late, they’ll be in your bed by 1am, smelling sweet, covered in glitter, just leaving their unsuspecting girlfriend. To have an ex, you have to have had someone. You have to both love and have been loved to blot them out, strike from the record. “Ex” is a disingenuous shorthand for former mistress of, toxic entanglement, fetishized object, emotional pen-pal, platonic sleep-over buddy, brains w/o beauty, would be perfect if, I’m just not attracted to your body.  When I say my “ex” I mean ex-potential, ex-obsession, ex-distraction, ex-excitement, ex-hope-giver, ex-energy-taker, ex-monopolizer of my time. Ex I’ll bake you cakes and do your laundry and give give give and never forget my place or think to take take take and oh, who’s she? I saw her on your insta feed ... oh, ok. No, of course. You can have any friends you need. I just couldn’t help but ... of course I’m not spying. I know you’re really busy this Fri ... I don’t know what this is, either, I just thought ... We’re not really dating, are we.  My exes aren’t ex-boyfriends. They’re people who occupied a space before abandoning it. Ex-partners. Ex-magnet. Ex-too-much-of-one-thing-ex-not-enough-of-the-rest. Ex-not-ready-to-settle-down. Ex-not-ready-to-settle-for-someone-who-looks-like-me. Ex-confidant. Ex-consultant. Ex-intimate-friend. I have WAY too many exes who fit this bill. Too many exes who underestimated me and what I could give. Too many exes who didn’t see my softness, physically and spiritually, as a bonus, an upsell, a reward.  There were not enough lovers who loved me, cherished me, were confident to be seen with me. Who didn’t choose me to cheat because look at me, who would believe me? Who worshiped my body but were afraid of what their peers would think. Too many exes. Not enough yes’s.  That’s the story of a single dating life stretched well past its sell-by date.

[hayleylovesyou2]

I never got to deal with most things that happened to me from 2000-2010, I didn't ever feel “allowed” to process it. I’ve been asked to keep it in, where it grew into an intangible, overwhelming cancer. Knots upon knots that felt impossible to untie. I had to keep each one in. Everything about me a secret, every feeling invalid, every pain overblown. and it didn't get better that way. I got too full. I broke.  And it all started pouring out. But there was too much. I didn't know where to start. And it took a long long time to be ok enough, clean enough, to even get here.  And “here” feels like just the start.

[hayleylovesyou2]

Bobby Died.

This morning work was cancelled after what felt like a too-long-holiday with too-much-time alone … I found the article “When An Ex Dies” (http://www.nextavenue.org/no-place-grief-ex-dies/) in my FB feed, detailing the unexpected death of an ex-husband - father of her children, remarried with a teenage son - and finding her place in the grieving process. They were no longer friends, didn’t talk much, but their lives were intimately intertwined for longer than not.

Then a google search uncovered a Hello Giggles piece on the death of an ex-boyfriend, hospitalized for 28 days before dying of heart failure, and the strange space that occupies.  Once inseparable, but never married. Close with family, but that was 2 years ago. Would he have wanted her there? Was she allowed to be with his family? She had a month as he was hospitalized to wrestle these questions.

It made me think about what happens when we’re socially denied the right to our feelings. our experiences. What happens when we’re alone with our pain and not allowed to grieve.

Because more than what happens when an ex dies, I wonder.

What happens if an ex dies, and no one knows you existed. And he died quickly. 

And horribly.

I used to joke “boyfriend” was a strong word, though that’s what I call him today. It’s easier. Feels true. But in the moment before Facebook, there was no “it’s complicated” to point to. Did we date? We did go “out” once or twice. Whispering in halls after class, a subtle graze on the shoulder, little secret pinch at our mutual work. After visits at 2am, or nights he didn’t go home. We knew what the other looked like without any clothes. Mostly, we wrote. Corresponded like old-fashioned pen-pals in an emerging digital age. Livejournal, Xanga, Myspace, Deviant Art, OkCupid, AIM. He was a beautiful writer, photographer, creator. He could turn a phrase in the way that sparked my heart and ignited my brain, activating my desire to create that had waned in a dead, ill-matched-to-me place. He inspired me to write as much and as well as he did. I’d churn out content in hopes for a comment, like, response. Experiment. To impress. We’d chat for hours in our separate rooms on our separate giant desktop computers about how isolating being somewhere we didn’t feel like we belonged felt, and why we stayed, our plans to get out. His brain worked the same way my brain did. Neither of us had a southern accent. We liked the same films, music, politics. In any other city or timeline - in a healthy world - this would sound eye-rollingly mundane. But in my accidental religious college I felt trapped in, landlocked in a rural corner of a rural state that was so far from what I wanted and where I wanted to be … it felt like magic to have found him. And to have found him by accident. At the last possible second. It was a psychic, emotional, intellectual connection. Bobby meant the world to me. But we didn’t date. I wasn’t his girlfriend. His friends didn’t get it, and were kept out of the loop. No one knew what I thought I knew. That my love for Bobby was true.

But I was not the love of his life.

He had a crush on a gentle British soccer player named Jenny, who he told me about … later. His blog posts, vague odes to love … we’re not about me, as I had thought. Hoped. Wondered. But his love was also unrequited, and that didn’t stop the sleepovers. Pinches. Hours crafting kinetic poetic essays on AIM.

We met on a media-arts trip to Dallas. I had seen him, but we’d never spoken. He was classically attractive - over 6ft tall, awkward and hunchy. A recently nerdy chubby boy who had no idea what effect he could have on a girl. In Georgia … at that school … I naturally assumed the worst, about a blonde boy with big steel-blue eyes. Everyone was conservative, Baptist, liked hunting, sports, and the other things that didn’t impress my bitterly equally stereotypical 90s-gothy-art heart. But we’d moved into the aughts, and the Iraq War was underway, and I’d given up on finding anyone who made me feel anything other than invisible, impossibly lonely, terrifyingly hated. So that day in Dallas, i wagered I was ½ way to L.A. And I started driving west, away. But I got a call that some of the “yearbook kids” wanted to go with me to see Margaret Cho, a show nearby I’d found, that the “newspaper” crew had all turned down. And yeah, traffic was bad. And sure, I’d left all my clothes at the hotel. So I figured we’d go see the show, THEN I’d run away. Just in time, I picked them up. And that’s when I first met Bobby, and fell.

My CD case was filled with bizarre mixes from the expiring gasp of Napster’s bastard child, and film soundtracks. And usually Cats, just to piss people off. One previous attempt at college friendship led to a girl I was driving up the mountain to mock a really dumb song by an awful band about pinball (and the wizards who sure could play it) while I tried not to beat myself to death on the steering wheel. So I fired up a “weirder” CD* - Kill Bill soundtrack I think - to defiantly be me in front of these strangers I was sure were about to offend me. (*Obviously this is hardly a weird soundtrack, but this is Georgia, 2003.)

But Bobby knew what it was, basic though now it seems. Excited. We talked about the movie enthusiastically, the first person I got to discuss it with, the whole drive there. The rest of the car was offended by Cho - half the audience walked out when she tackled Iraq - but Bobby and I easily agreed. It didn’t matter it wasn’t funny. Nothing had been funny in over 2 years. And we both found we weren’t easy to offend, at least not with rebel trappings of sex, drugs, and political whims. We parted that night with lingering eye contact, a shy smile. A plan to see a movie the next night while everyone else watched football.

I stayed. I didn’t run away to LA.

The next night, during the final Matrix film, our pinkies teased, curious and unsure, creeping back and forth around excuses to pass popcorn and fake scares, until we finally held hands. After, in the hotel, I wanted to show him something in another room. I’d never felt that kind of clean attraction, never felt it so confidently, boldly. We talked close. Then forehead to forehead. Then lips to lips. Talking, still. Giggling. We kissed. 

Until a yearbook kid, jealous? perhaps? barged in and told Bobby they had all decided to leave for home, immediately, so pack up. I could come, too, but they wouldn’t wait. I had driven 4 other members of newspaper, so I ran to their rooms and desperately tried to convince them to leave. Or Bobby would stay, if one of them would trade. But of course not, disappointment reigned. I offered to leave my car. They called me selfish. Bobby left. I stayed.

Our time was short. 3 months, tops. We saw each other, touched each other, he took me to the homecoming dance as my first, proper date. We danced. He was an early adopter of the White Stripes, such a relief from a sea of Creed, and we’d talk, listen, dream. But for the crush I had on him, he didn’t have the same on me, despite our mental connection, and as I slowly (very slowly) let that settle in … I didn’t take it very well. I took it very not well. So not well I can’t really remember the next phase. Before you judge too harshly, a sad girl who blacked out when another flawed human didn’t turn into a prince, a savior, turning this story into a fairy tale. Please understand how dire it had been right before he appeared. Sometimes I think the universe sent him to me to keep me safe, from running away, to finish out a final semester in one piece. A little kindness, a booster seat. Bobby was always meant to be short lived.

The last night before winter break he said he was going to come over, then said he was coming with friends. I bribed older kids to buy me $50 worth of beer. Also picked up a party platter, so they’d like me, I was scared of his friends. It was a redemption, a chance to reconcile. But he didn’t come. I texted, he stopped replying. Called more times than socially acceptable. But at 2:30am the doorbell rang. Bobby had come! He cared! And I bounded to greet him … only it wasn’t him. It was a strung out stranger, raging, who started hitting me, tried to push his way in. I fought him off and locked the door, called 911 who told me it wasn’t real. Called Bobby, who finally answered and told me I was lying for attention, insane. My parents got me the next day. And I never returned to Georgia.

I started a new school in January. I knew it was necessary, but I was still in love with Bobby. We kept talking, blogging, calling. I was lonely and would photograph my new surroundings and send the pictures to him, for critiques.  We’d set concert dates that fell apart hours beforehand. I shipped him t-shirts as surprises he never admitted receiving. I visited near spring break with a box of gifts, $100 of books and tschotskes that I individually wrapped and carefully decorated with quotes from his favorite books, songs, Jack White, films. I dropped it off at his dorm, but he said he never got it. He said it was stolen, and i was an idiot for leaving it. He had told me he’d be there, so I sat outside awhile and called, waited, asked his hallmates where he was. Said I made him look like an asshole, a bad guy, and he was done dealing with me. I still believe he had the gift, maybe threw it away without opening it in a fit, but something always felt off about his recounting of events. Later I learned he had fallen in love with a girl he followed to Honduras, and was at a concert with her that day. It was all over a then secret blog, one I found after he was gone. I was at a new school and met new people. Hurt, changing, our connection faded out. In person, I never saw him again, though sometimes I’d quietly and secretly check in.

My birthday 2006, he messaged me. First time in forever. He apologized, said he often thought of me, and hoped i was well. I cautiously wished the same. He had decided to stay in town a year after graduation to stay with his friends, I was a super-senior due to the transfer and in no rush because I had essentially started all over again. He got his first job as an AD on a small feature shooting in town and was writing again. I ran my school film committee, and was wrapping up a degree with a minor in cinema. I saw a future unfold in front of me, how Bobby would return to me, where we’d reunite, as collaborators at least, in film, in Los Angeles, CA. We chatted on FB and joked about films, pop culture, cylons. Do you remember the early days of social media? When Facebook would email you when you got a wall post or comment, but it just would just say “Bobby posted on your wall!” to send you to go and check.

And in late January 2007, I received a series of these emails saying Bobby had commented on a photo, posted on my wall. But he must have deleted them, I never saw what he said. I was newly embroiled in a tumultuous, confusing relationship and didn’t reach out to ask, though it struck me more than it should. He also seemed to be in a new relationship he was pretty into, posting vague poetry and odes to love. He posted on Valentines Weekend 2007 that he was fixing something that was long overdue. To do it right, finally. It sounded confident, optimistic, resolute.

The same Valentines Weekend of 2007, I was to go to a protest in Washington D.C., but I pulled out at the last minute. I had a feeling in my chest, a dread, an inner scream too loud to ignore, but too deep to let out. So I lied and said I had a funeral to attend on Tuesday, throwing my favorite aunt under the bus. I felt weird, dark, scared. I was convinced something bad was going to happen – it was icy, maybe there was going to be a wreck? I was low on money, I said. They were mad I flaked, and left me alone, behind.

Now you could say I saw it immediately, but it took me a full 3 days to “see.”

His post had a lot of comments, maybe everyone knew what he was talking about, or it was a quote I had missed, I speculated. I talked to my co-worker (who I ALSO had had a huge crush on) about him, told him about Bobby, how I had loved him. That they were both talented. Maybe we’d all work together some day. This was Friday.

There were an unusual number of pictures on FB about Bobby. I smiled. I loved Bobby. These were great pictures. I should ask him what he wrote on my wall.

There were an unusual amount of comments about Bobby. About Bobby being a good guy. I smiled. Bobby was a great guy. Not even weird, everyone knew it. We’d had our pain, and troubles, but I loved Bobby dearly. This was Saturday.

Then in the early AM … all my friends in Washington DC … I it. I saw the “was.”  Bobby ‘was’ such a great guy.

Even then, I was like “what did Bobby do? Did he get in trouble? Is he not a good guy?”

“Bobby was a great guy, I’m shocked by the news, I don’t believe it.”

WHAT NEWS.

“Bobby was so kind, he didn’t deserve this.” Comment after comment, picture after picture, reality came into view.

Bobby had died over Valentines Weekend, 2007.

Bobby didn’t just die. He died badly.

And Bobby didn’t die in an accident, though that is what they told his aging dad.

Bobby was murdered. Brutally. 

Murdered running for his life after his girlfriend, who he was naked in bed with the morning after Valentines day, was killed at close range.

Murdered by her ex, a sad man who seemed confused he couldn’t own someone, a weak man sent by the devil to take two bright, shinning lives, when he found them in her home when he showed up unannounced. So went to his car, grabbed his good-ole-boy gun, and shot them both more times than is needed to kill someone. She was in the bedroom. Bobby made it to the front lawn. I couldn’t breathe. He was gone. His Facebook status was updated in the wee am to “Bobby is dead.” 

A memorial group was set up, in it’s haste called “Bobby: You Won’t Never Be Forgotten” and a girl from the car that night in Dallas kindly added me. No one knew what to do. So jokes were made.

And there was a funeral. It was Tuesday.

—-

He was my highest match on a dating site in the whole southeast for years. When we met, we were 84%. And the thing about the dating site was … they didn’t delete his profile. It stayed up almost 10 years. This year, 2016, was the year it finally disappeared. And this year … we matched at 99%. I know that is who I am with who he was, but still. 99%.

I live in LA now … and I think I live here for him. He would’ve been so much more successful than me, so much more easily. But I think I fight for him. I need to make something for him, because he couldn’t. I need to be something, someone. Because he never will.

And I think of Bobby everytime I hear Jack White. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes it hurts too much. I had a White Stripes song in my head just last night. I guess that’s part of what triggered this today. It’s so easy to get laughed at, getting emotional at songs from a band who are currently pretty basic and passé. Wanting to tell, but think no one cares?

What do you do when you loved someone who died, and you’re not allowed to love them?

I don’t know if Bobby wants my love, or appreciates it, or it matters to him in death. If he’d want me to keep talking about him, or pretending like I have a right to a piece of him. But based on the last time we really talked, I hope he would understand. And appreciate. And that this love … though not a reciprocated romantic love … was still valuable.

Because I will always deeply love Bobby. And in 6 weeks, he’ll have been gone 10 years.

I don’t want to be trapped by the past. Caught up in pain. This year I want to honor Bobby in a positive way … by making something for him. To honor him.

I hope I can.

[hayleylovesyou2]

Your face is tanking

And now for today’s lesson in institutionalised misogyny.

Today’s news: Ghostbusters ‘tanks’, ‘stumbles’ with 53% drop in its second week.

Presumably that’s a bad performance compared to other action movies in their second week then?

Let’s check…

Captain America: Civil War: -59.5%

Dark Knight: -52%

Amazing Spider Man: -61%

Oh, and for an example of an actual ‘tanking’:

Batman vs Superman: -69%

Now, let’s examine all the reporting last week that Ghostbusters was going to struggle because of its first week multiplier against its budget…

Ghostbusters first weekend US figures: $46m It had a $144m budget, so in its first week it made 32% of that. Descriptions: ‘Lacklustre’, ‘problematic’, ‘will haunt Sony’

Star Trek Beyond first weekend US figures: $59.6m It had a $189m budget, so in its first week it made 30% of its budget. Reporting: ‘Dominates’, ‘wins big’

To be clear: there are articles describing both movies’ openings as ‘solid’. But there’s basically no one calling Beyond worrying or Ghostbusters a big win.

So. ‘Nuff said? **********EDIT**********

A few people have requested sauce for the data above. Honestly, this post was an off-the-cuff thing this morning done off the first page of Google. I’ve resisted actually providing said data because the % drop and $ profit figures are verifiable basically anywhere you like and the quotes are all over the place. I have not done a thorough corpus analysis of everything written on Ghostbusters and Beyond, nor do I plan to. However, because I’m so damn nice, here are the particular articles I happened to read for the Googley-challenged…

www.hollywoodreporter.com

deadline.com

fortune.com

www.theguardian.com

www.breitbart.com (yes, I know who/what Breitbart is, but it came up on the first page of Google so that makes it a mainstream source on this occasion)

www.forbes.com

And, to be fair, on looking for my original sources just now, I also found this, so there is at least one article that’s circumspect about Beyond’s success. I can’t find the article where I got the second week drops info, but I imagine the numbers came straight from here and here.

There were more articles all showing this basic trend, but honestly, no matter how many I list, if you don’t believe me you’re gonna have to go search for yourself anyway, and if you do believe me, well, you already believe me, so why bother?

[hayleylovesyou2]

Gene Kelly

[hayleylovesyou2]

Gene Kelly and Judy Garland for For Me and My Gal | 1942

[hayleylovesyou2]

Five reasons I love classic movies: Gershwin, Gene Kelly, and a rose in An American in Paris (1951).

[hayleylovesyou2]

Gene Kelly meets Cyd Charisse in Singin’ in the Rain

[hayleylovesyou2]

Loneliness is like starvation: you don’t realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.

Joyce Carol Oates, Faithless (via wordsnquotes)

[hayleylovesyou2]

I never change, I simply become more myself.

Joyce Carol Oates. (via mysharona1987)

[hayleylovesyou2]

Sorry

For all the porn.