The following should not be read by anyone in the Philosophy Department.

If you thought my last blog was disturbing, please dont read this.

It is not meant for you. H will certainly be mad that this has been posted. to the INTERNET.
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eripsa to H > hey… so whats up with T?

H to me > well, he was upset and “wanted to know what’s going on.” i was so
groggyheaded from sleeping all day and full of delicious sloppy joes
that i didn’t really have much to say. ummm, yeah, last thursday,
when i asked him what the fuck was wrong with him, he retroactively
claimed that we are dating and have been, which i said was news to
me. big news considering that on multiple occasions we had
specifically said we weren’t dating. so i don’t know what’s
going on with him, or i guess i do but don’t know how to deal with
it. i certainly don’t know what’s going on with me, other than i
went from just hanging out and having a good time to having a whole
heap of shit piled on my head. now, instead of feeling like i’m
frolicking along in some nice meadow with little cartoon animals
with big eyes who are friendly, i’m wandering aimlessly through a
fucking dank stone maze where if i pick one door, others slam in my
face, and the only animals are rabid rats with yellow teeth and
three headed dogs. perhaps that’s a little melodramatic, but i feel
icky and don’t want to deal with any of this shit. of course, it’s
becoming apparent that it’s not the type of thing i can just ignore
indefinitely. i just keep getting this liz phair line stuck in my
head, “I won’t crack the door too far for anyone who’s pushing too
hard on me.”

ok, so i answered your question. i’m still waiting for you to answer
mine.

eripsa to H > Listen, I dont know if you should talk to T or if I should.
Obviously he is mad at me, and honestly I didn’t put 2 and 2 together
to realize that the reason he hit me was because of you until just
recently.

It seems rather obvious to me that he doesn’t really like you very
much, and is generally frustrated by the fact that you two actually
have some sort of relationship, and the fact that he has been fucking
you has some sort of male dominance type effect on him, and but anyway
he sort of doesn’t like having any sort of relationship with you, and
he doesn’t know what to do with it, and he is tranfering some of this
frustration on me, which sucks for me because I have no real invested
interest in this whatsoever.

And moreso I dont think you want to have any real relationship with
T beyond the fact that you want to check him off your list like
mayo or toilet paper, but even still you can be just sweet enough to
cause an already rather disturbed philosophy graduate student to hit
other philosophy graduate students in the back of the head really hard
because of some rather under-developed and immature feelings of
jealousy, which are entirely misplaced; and it is obvious the sheer
mindfuck you have done to the department, which was your implicit goal
anyway, so congratulations and *kazoo sound*

And but so anyway I take this whole situation to be confirming
evidence in my rather weak willed position of not wanting to have sex
with you, or in any other way treat you like a ‘girl’ to my
complimentary ‘boy’; and the fact that we have compatible genitalia
does not affect my rather weak-willed position aside from those brief
moments early in the morning where my reason capacity (being what it
is) is unable to stop the sheer biological fact that I NEED SEX. But
as of right now I am exceedingly happy that I haven’t fucked you by
any approximation, and consultation with my various visiers have
expressed similar support in this direction, and I plan on maintaining
this rather weak-willed position for as long as I can.

With regards to your question, then, of ‘relationships’ and of ‘what I
want’ and so on, I maintain my response of ‘ummm… ‘ followed by
strained silence. Because as of right now, I am your friend, and more
importantly, I think you need a friend, especially of the sort that I
am offering, which includes but is not limited to food and weed and a
bed to sleep in where you will not be judged or ridiculed and you bear
no burden of expectations or assumptions about what you are supposed
to be doing for me. Because our ‘relationship’ should be understood in
strict mathematical terms, where you are understood as ‘related’ to me
only with respect to space and time, but not with respect to any of
the non-scientific states of mind by which other girl-boy sets claim
to be so related. Our relationship, then, is only as complex as you
allow it to be, for you are getting no such complexity out of my
meager contribution. Thus, raising such questions with regard to our
‘relationship’ can have no satisfactory answer, because there is
hardly a subject matter there on which to base an answer. You come
over, sometimes more drunk than others, sometime I am more high than
others, and we watch some tv and then fall asleep, and sometimes there
is some gestures toward affection, but often these sputter out as the
fumbling looses its object and we just generally stop caring, and
honestly I like it much better when there are no such ingenuine
attempts at affection but just the natural sort of laying-there
quality that has no purpose or goal beyond the just-laying-there; and
that when you deliberately brush up against me in the right way and I
deliberately make no attempt to stop you, and the ambiguity of my
deliberate non-gesuture hangs there in the air while I wait to see
what you are going to do, that this whole action-sequence, the pattern
of which we seemed to have fallen directly into, is one of the things
that I hate most, and that honestly, H, honestly, I am usually
laying there wishing, hoping that you ignore what I am saying and you
ignore my deliberate lack-of-gesture that you just take what you want
from me by force, because if you do that it absolves me of any wrong
doing in such a case, but I know its not really what I want; and
honestly, H, if I wanted to fuck you, or rather, if I was
completely comfortable with the idea then I would have long ago, and
really right now the only thing that is stopping me is sheer momentum
towards not doing so, and this momentum increases as cases like T
arise.

And so if T doesn’t want you coming over and sleeping at my place,
and if you want to respect T’s desires in this respect, then you
shouldn’t come over any more. If you dont care what T thinks, then
tell him as much, and tell him to stop caring about the whole mess.
None of this should have anything to do with me, and I am sort of mad
that of all people you could get between what had for the most part
been a rather decent relationship between T and I, and really if
you are trying to tear down this department you short of hit upon the
load-bearing beams, because fucking **** or ****, hell, EVERYONE fucks
them, but T and I are a different breed, and apparently T takes
these things much more personally, apparently AND sadly, let me
clarify, and I have so little invested in any of this that I dont even
care enough to try and rectify the whole mess.

(names removed on request)

That consitutes something of an answer. If I was telling you this in
person, it would involve a lot more stuttering and long gaps of
staring off into the distance.

H to me > well, that was something like what i expected. i don’t understand
how you can be so right and so wrong. or maybe i do. you think that
i have some fucked up agenda that i just don’t have. actually, most
of my misery over the past few weeks has involved my feeling that my
actions and/or lack of actions are causing problems in the
department and between my friends. i don’t like it at all. it makes
me want to just go away and disappear.

i was pretty fucked up for awhile there. the **** thing caused me
enormous psychological disturbance, and i regret some of the things
i did in reaction. it’s true he gave me a list, and i was pissed,
but then tempted. and it’s also true that i too have a biological
need for sex, something i’d been doing without for quite some time.
the **** thing was just stupid. but he and i are fine and i don’t see
how that could really affect anyone else. fuck, you and T are the
only people who even know about that. then the T thing happened,
having nothing to do with mayo or toilet paper, and that was fine
and one thing, but then it started turning into something else, that
i was fine with until he made it all nasty recently, then i got
really upset. i actually care for T. but i’m scared of the recent
intensity he’s brought to bear on everything.

it’s true that i propositioned you that first time we went to
diggers, and on frequent subsequent occasions. and maybe it was
something of a game to me for awhile. it seemed like harmless banter
since you had no interest. well, then, we started hanging out more,
and i started to really like you. then your biological needs or
whatever started kicking in, and i knew i could fuck you, but i
didn’t. and you asked me why not at one point, and i said, “Because
i have feelings and you don’t.” so how you think i have some fucked
up agenda to just go fuck everyone i know is beyond me. i care for
you a lot. my “gestures towards affection” aren’t false at all.
after that diggers episode with T bugging you and shawn, i felt
like i might be approaching some terrible moment where T would
try to force me into a choice between whatever it is i have with him
and my friendship with you. the harder i looked at that, the more i
realized all the different things i like about you, and the more
fucked up i became.

i used the word “relationship” because i couldn’t think of a better
word, and i meant it loosely, almost mathematically, just as the
relation between two people, i mean you can have relationships with
friends, family, profs, enemies, whoever. i never knew what exactly
it was you thought about me, and until T started pushing things,
i was content for things between you and i to just function how they
were. i’m seriously attracted to you, and my sex drive always kicks
in, but i haven’t done anything because i didn’t want things to get
all messy. lately i’ve just wanted to cry because i feel like i’m
going to lose all my friends in the face of this nightmare. i didn’t
know if you liked me or not. i guess not. that’s fine. it’s
certainly less messy.

it does hurt my feelings that you have such a low opinion of me, but
whatever, you have your assumptions about me and my agenda. as do
T and kyle and shawn, and it doesn’t make me feel sick or dirty
at all to you have all sitting around discussing me and the ways in
which i am or am not trying to fuck/fuck over everyone.

so you’re right about me needing friends and whatnot. you’re
incredibly important to me. i’m not to you. if i’m guilty of
anything, it’s really of trying to be considerate of everyone while
not knowing what the hell is going on.

i might be a fucked up person, and i might do dumb shit and get
myself into bad situations, and i’m sorry if you got dragged into
this for no reason, but i am not malicious and callous like you seem
to think.

i tried to avoid all of this. i wanted to avoid all of this. but no,
now i’m “that girl” on so many different levels to everyone, and i
have no idea how i can ever shake that. so i guess in typical
H fashion i’ll just fade into the background and forget that i
ever had a bunch of people i liked hanging out with in this town
because you guys obviously don’t like me anymore because i am some
fucked up psycho woman who is out to ruin your lives.

well, good, at least i have abuot 15 minutes to cry in in the
bathroom before i have to sit through a fiction meeting and pretend
to give a fuck.

eripsa to H > Do I have a low opinion of you? I do not think this question has so easy an answer.

First, I dont think this ‘list’ business is actually your explicit
goal, and I really dont think it is what drives you to do the various
things that you in fact do. I dont think you have that kind of
cognitive control over your desires, or really that you understand the
content of your desires, so I think it is exactly wrong to say you
have some agenda or any kind of deliberative plan regarding your zany
misadventures in the midwest.

But on this point I judge you as no worse off than any of our fellow
sad, misguided brethren in the losing and ultimately unentertaining
game of life. To say you have a list is not to say that this is your
motivation for acting as you do, or to in any other way -explain- why
things turn out as they do, but objectively and from my limited 3rd
person perspective to describe what I think is actually going on. In
the same way I might describe the chicken in my front lawn as
searching for food among the leaves, even when the chicken has no
concept of ’searching’ or ‘food’ or ‘leaves’. The chicken just
behaves. You just behave. And I think you see the philosophers as a
pool of willing but pathetic and undersexed men, and that reeks of
opportunity for a similarly pathetic and equally undersexed woman,
who, if you’ll pardon my loose speaking here, finds it much easier to
take advantage of our rather pathetic position than to actually seek
out meaningful relationships with real human beings. And I can’t hold
this against you, even though I dont know how well you have come to
grips with the fact that you are in a rather emotionally unstable
position, having broken up with Ben, who no matter what bad things you
say about him was at least something of a constant in your life for a
long time, and constants like that do not just disappear without
disrupting the whole system. And the truth of the matter is, no matter
how over Ben you are, you are on what is popularly referred to as the
‘rebound’, and you actions have to be judged relative to this fact;
and with this in mind, then you are acting just as I would expect any
person to act. I dont think you are a bad person.

That said, I think people in general are quite foolish in addition to
being rather nasty, brutish, and short, and I personally would rather
not be involved with people to any extent. The sad truth, though, is
that I am also a person, and more often than not I have to interact
with them, and as a person myself, I find it quite comforting to be
around people, and especially to have people to care about, to talk
to, to share things with. To that extent, I am quite happy being your
friend, and further more, if you promise not to let this go to your
head, that you probably have the most potential of anyone in this
state of being one of my best friends. I can joke around with Brendan
and Brandon, I can actually talk to shawn and T and kyle, and i can
pander to joe, but there is a definite sort of one dimensionality to
all these relationships that make them rather unfulfilling in general,
and the sad, slow trod of my mingling during happy hour a depressing
affair; alcohol, cigarettes, and the sheer number of people there make
it just above bearable. With you, however, I dont feel any real
pressure to act in any particular way (minus the aforementioned cases
of awkward sexual fumbling), and, to be quite frank, there is
something so very comforting when I am sitting at my computer knowing
that you are on the bed right behind me, and that my being on the
computer isn’t making you jealous or in any other way interferring
with our relationship, and that long stretches of silence can exist
quite comfortably between us. And this is really all I want from a
relationship, this kind of lazy casualness, but it is something I
really dont expect to find in stupid fucking academia, which is why I
want a cat so badly. I almost had this with nathalie, but she wants a
boyfriend that will ‘take her places’ and ‘do things’ which I am
entirely uninterested in doing. Lazy casualness is all I want from a
girlfriend. The best I can get it from is weed, which I am currently
out of.

Given this long apologetic, I will quite unhastily add that I am not
terribly attracted to you, though I think that is more a function of
circumstance; given other surrounding conditions I could easily see
myself taken with you (and I will admit that the first time I met you
at the party at my house at the beginning of the year, I was already
looking for ways to tear you and ben apart). But I dont want to
mislead you either- at this time I an utterly uninterested in our
current relationship evolving in any way whatsoever. What I am
interested in is that our current relationship play absolutely no role
in determining the status of your many other relationships, and mine
as well.

I am going to be mean now, because I think we have enough mutual
respect here to allow for cruelty to actually mean something, instead
of the nihilistic cruelty that strangers quite happily inflict on each
other. I wanted to know if you and T were ok, and why T is
pissed off at me, and you turned it into a ‘poor H’ story where
people seem to be deliberately mistreating you. You seem to do this a
lot. I think it is the central narrative in your life, and oh, I know
this will bug you, but it is a victimization rhetoric that is really
sort of wrong in a deep way. No one hates you, no one wants you to go
away. What they want is the same stability that you want, and they see
you as more a destablizer than anything. Even you admit that you are
something of the cause of the current instability in the Happiness
area, and I think this comes from a fundamental instability in your
own psyche, which I think you need to work on yourself before you try
to pawn it off on the philosophy students, who obviously can barely
hold their own head above water without your frantic splashing. You
are a wild card, and we like to play straight texas holdem.

H to me > 1. i’ve been emotionally unstable for as long as i can remember–my
two earliest memories are from when i was approximately 5 years old-
they are both fucked-up and i feel foreshadowing for the rest of my
life
2. my “poor H” rhetoric is the narrative of my life. i feel
very sorry for myself for being such a sorry person. also, i feel
rather defensive right now. ben’s been accusing me of playing people
off of each other and trying to destroy the department, even though
he is basically ignorant of everything that is going on. i basically
disregarded his opinion, despite it irritating me, so then for you
to second that opinion, well…
3a. i don’t understand this belief of yours that somehow the
philosophers are not “real human beings.” you guys are no more or
less sorry than anyone else.
3b. you have an assumption that i am not trying to
foster “meaningful relationships” with people, but that is not true.
i just don’t know how. i think i have a pretty damn good
relationship with joe, as much of one as anyone can have with joe.
and i have a decent relationship with you, despite my mucking it up
due to my inability to interact with others.

ok, i’m done numbering now. your criticisms of me are fairly
accurate and bring a lot of shit to mind. when i said i always felt
that i’m not cut out to be one of the living, i was serious. i never
know what the hell is going on. to be honest, i hate myself more
often than not. i’m aware of most of my faults, and yet, i can’t
seem to change anything.

before, i always had ONE friend. ONE. that’s all i can really
handle. i could have additional friends if they lived in other
states. any time i had more than one friend, my life became too
complex and things started falling apart. i’m not exactly sure why
this is. i think i worry too much and take shit way too seriously,
and that’s part of it. i’m also kinda a flimsy person around other
people.

i believe that coming out with you guys since octoberish marks my
longest, largest social venture EVER. i’m not surprised that i am
currently finding myself less and less able to handle it. so maybe
if i pretend that other people are sick of me, i can ignore the fact
that really i am sick of myself and start staying home away from
people and pretend it’s for other reasons than the simple fact that
i am unable to maintain even superficial relationships for any
extended period of time.

as far as T goes, that is a mess. i did take advantage of his
position. that’s the only true case for your accusations. he was
here, i was bored and lonely. but he actually started to grow on me,
and i like him a lot. the problem is that he started telling people,
which made me paranoid, because i am paranoid by nature and forever
fearing the judgments of others, then he assaulted you, which
started a whole new set of problems, and now i just look at what he
wants from me, and i don’t know that i have it. some of the things
you said about him rang somewhat true. i don’t know the extent to
which he actually likes me and how much of it is just him latching
on. either way, he is now completely convinced he likes me, he’s
told me many reasons why, so whether or not his belief is true, he
thinks it’s true. well, i’m so shady that i’m afraid what’s going to
happen. i don’t want to tear his world apart, fuck, i already have.
so there is care and concern there, but also fear, lots and lots of
fear. i don’t want to sound so egotistical as to think that if i
stopped seeing T, it’d be the end of his world. but i know how
freaked out he is already to be 30 years old, etc etc, and i feel
sorta like he’s one of those starving kids on tv and i start sending
my money, but i don’t know how long i’ll keep it up, then what? do
they go back to starving? i dunno. maybe it’s a dumb thing to worry
about.

i do like your solidarity with your department. philosophy students
this, philosophy department that. it could make for a series of
movie titles: H Does the Philosophy Department or H vs.
the Philosophy Department or How the MFA Stole the Philosophy
Students’ Christmas. whatever :)

oh, i’m so tired of talking about these things. no one is
deliberately trying to fuck me over except possibly myself.

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Like sand in an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.