I didn't give blood yesterday

Forgive Me, I Seem To Be the Only One Wallowing In This*

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I was signed up to, but a fear they would put the needle in my arm and the world would go black and I would never come back overcame me and I had to back out. The guy I talked to was very nice (though of course I didn't tell him any of that, I just told him that ten weeks ago my girlfriend had died). The fact that my eyes kept leaking probably had something to do with it. I doubt they really want you giving blood if you're crying.

First I'm afraid if I go to NY by myself, I'll disappear into the streets of Brooklyn. Now I'm afraid if I give blood, I'll close my eyes and go into the dark and never come back. I don't mean die (I am afraid of death but mostly because I'm not finished). I mean—I don't even know what I mean. Disappear. The earth will close up where I was and I will not, will not have, will never exist.

Also, I kept seeing all the other times I've given blood, and gone home feeling so fragile and Pat taking care of me. Not doing anything, just being there.

And now they're doing commercials on Bravo for the Inside the Actor's Studio Bette Midler was on and every time I see one, I start crying. I should have just stayed home and watched it with Pat instead of going to the hospital to visit Darby. I'd wanted to see it—had been looking forward to it. I should have stayed home with her and maybe we wouldn't've had that fight. She wasn't even mad at me, I was mad at me and I couldn't stop screaming because I was so hurt by such a small, stupid thing. I wasn't trying to hurt her, I was trying to get the pain out of me, trying to let her know without sounding as childish as I thought I would have if I'd just said it flat-out. Apparently sounding unreasonable and psychotic is better than sounding childish.

I wander around with this mantra: "I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead," going through my head. I force myself to go for walks (though I don't have to today; it's hot out, I don't have to walk when it's hot). I force myself to cook and to talk to people, to smile and be cheery. I don't go around people when I'm crying because why should they be unhappy? The nature of the universe as we have known is different, but nothing has changed, nothing has changed.

I should have closed up the house before I left for work. It will take a long time to cool down. If I felt better, I would go out to eat while the house cooled off, but why? I'll go home and have the last of the chili, watch L&O, tell myself to go to bed at eight and stay up 'til ten. I wear a nightgown to bed now; one of Pat's because I don't seem to have any summer nightgowns. I turn on the TV when I get up in the morning and watch parts of a tape, whatever happens to be in the VCR. Sometimes I just sit there and watch, not moving at all. I don't care if I'm late for work. I only keep going in because someday it might matter if I have this job.

My heart is doing its fluttery thing again. Summer is nearly over and now I have to go through autumn alone, Halloween, which we always celebrated, sometimes with scary movies. We used to have parties, a million years ago when I didn't have to clean the house by myself and it was possible to get it in good enough shape to have people in. Halloween was a special holiday for us.

And after that comes Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and I'm going to be sending out Christmas cards alone—Pat always wanted to send out our cards the day after Thanksgiving. If I send out cards at all, I won't send them the day after Thanksgiving, because it was always my fault when we weren't ready yet, and now, even if I do it, even if I'm ready, I won't send them out that day because it just seems mean to do it when she doesn't care about it anymore.

Mean the way getting the cable guy to finally come out and fix the pixilation problem, because Pat wanted that taken care of and I couldn't get the house cleaned up, and now I had it taken care of because I didn't fucking care how the house looks, I was tired of paying all this money for a lousy picture.

Why couldn't I have started not caring about it sooner? Because the only reason I don't care is because Pat is dead and I don't care about anything anymore. I just need the TV to keep me from going crazy. But it feels so mean to fix this after she's gone, and it's why (well, one reason why) I haven't done anything to fix up the house the way everybody keeps saying I could/should. (The other reasons are, I'm too tired, and I don't care.)

It feel so awfully, awfully mean, as mean as yelling at her about the damn spaghetti—I should have just gone and cooked spaghetti for her and pretended to eat (she would have been upset if I'd only cooked it for her. Did I convince her she wasn't worth it? Where did she get the idea I was so important that doing things just for me was all right, but doing things just for her wasn't? My awful, horrible selfishness?)

I feel like this should be teaching me to be a better person, only I'm not going to learn, because what the fuck is the point of becoming a better person now that Pat is gone??

I have to quit crying now so I can go home and watch TV.

I am not the person I used to be.


*Hank, The Men From the Boys

Pat used to sing to Pooh-Bear [Sundance]. She changed the words for him because of his tail (which he held curved so the tip of it was against his back). We called him the handle-tail, and Pat would sing, "I'm a little Pooh-Bear, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my snout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout, 'Meow! Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow!'"