Entries from June 2009 ↓

Bad Annie had a bad dream. The kind where you do bad things.

My friend and I were going hiking on an overnight trip. We stopped at this low-rent hotel where we’d apparently been before (some of our stuff was in the drawers). My friend reminds me that we have to leave right away to make sure we hit the scramble while it’s still light, but of course I then have to pee first.

This part of the dream gets boring and I hesitate to note to the gentle reader that I often have this kind of dream, searching for a toilet but it’s dirty or busy or whatever. Whatever. Let’s skip the psychoanalysis for now.

I finally succeed and return to the room — and it’s almost dark outside, my friend is mad and lying on the bed. I apologize but I know I’ve fucked up, essentially ruined the whole trip. I sit down on the bed and note that if it’s already this dark we weren’t going to make it anyway. He says yeah, he knows, but he’s just pissed. I acknowledge it silently, close my eyes, and realize he’s kissing the top of my head. What? This has never happened before, he’s married, we’re not that kind of friends. I open my eyes and he’s looking at me, and then he’s kissing me for real, a little gentle and exploratory but unmistakably a real kiss. WTF. I kiss back mostly out of reflex but there’s a weird emotionality to it and my first thought is, well, we can’t take this back.

I start to freak out every year as the anniversary of your death approaches — and then I miss the actual day. Usually I remember a few weeks later, just before your birthday, but this year I missed that, too. I’d suggest that after 23 years the blow has softened, but really, I know that’s not true. I miss you now and always.

I could have done more.
I didn’t know.
Don was right.

Why does Bad Annie even care? Four sequential conversations tonight, not one of whom LISTENED FOR A FUCKING A WORD I HAD TO SAY.

And I get it. Person X had a very emotional day with a semi-girlfriend who he thought he knocked up but whose embryo wasn’t viable; Person Y is always selfish and pretty much always has one-sided conversations, and Person Z is deaf and kudos to him for even holding a phone conversation. New Person Y is barely social and trying hard to figure it out.

And yet… I needed more out of that culmination of conversations. I really should develop thicker skin or get new friends.