where do my weekends go?

i remember having plans on friday night, the kind that called for me to race home after work and start with the transformation from ghoulish friday work mode to fancy friday night shindig mode, the kind that you have to use curling irons and foundation to make complete.

i still really don't like wearing it, but sometimes it's just necessary.

i don't remember whose idea it was (probably steve's), but after the show it was agreed that the next best thing would be to go to the rhino room and play shuffleboard, with which i had non-beginner's luck. but we still lost.

this is where it started to get fuzzy.

before the shuffleboard game, i was offered half a vicodin and a shot of tequilla. i looked at both, bit my lower lip in indecisiveness as my romance with pills stopped years ago, and shoved the pill in my mouth. shoot. swallow. relax.

i know from there we went to swim club up in the highlands, and i talked to steve's roommate steve about his ironman competition training. he must've talked for forty minutes; i tried to keep composure, and wished that he'd reciprocate some questions to keep me entertained, but i sat and listened instead. i'd met him a hundred times and this was the first time i hadn't been too nervous around steve's friends to conversate.

i know from there, i met page at "the first annual zengo formal," where she promised everyone was going to be in proper homecoming attire. no one was. it was a shady apartment building on 17th and champa, i think, and page's gay friend paul that i secretly have a crush on was there.

i fear it's not secret anymore, but i'm sure that holds little consequence.

i woke up the next morning at 7:30. shit. i'm going to be late. i brushed my teeth, walked the dog, dragged a comb acrossed my head and grabbed my keys. that's when i saw the wristband from the night before. it's saturday, asshole. back to bed.

i woke up to my phone ringing at noon. i'd say i haven't slept that late in a long time, but i say that all the time now. it was page. we go to lunch every saturday without fail, usually to sway whatever hangover we're both fending off.

we always go to the holes in the wall; partly because it's funny, and partly because it's not. this time it was the denver detour, a gay bar on colfax that has cheap bloody marys and decent food. i actually felt great, and considered the benefits of what i'd done the night before.

i looked at all the pictures on my camera, not recognizing half of them, and then reconsidered those benefits.

page came over after lunch, mostly to see my dog. when she was a puppy and we all lived together, page had reared her better than i ever could. she's really good with stuff like that.

i heard my ubergay neighbor walking above me and we went to go say hi. he'd gloated that this was the first weekend he'd had off in months.

"i don't know what to do with all this free time." he said.

"let's get drunk." i replied, and we started clapping simulatneously.

we went to the cherry cricket with my other neighbor (who, it was officially reported, is not gay, and had found my blog), and then came up with the cockamamey idea to go to evolution, the old muddy's on 22nd and champa. not far from home.

the bartender was a beautiful concoction of asian and cuban, and, since we were the only ones there, was telling us that his boyfriend lived blocks away, that it was the first boy he'd ever been with, and that he'd never been happier. he's still very good friends with his ex-girlfriend.

it was seven p.m. at this point. on a saturday.

page and i went back to my place and watched t.v.; i woke up five hours later at just after midnight; page had gone home. i called her. she laughed at me. "i left hours ago, tard." oh. okay.

not in any sort of going out mood, i put on a movie. there was someone i was supposed to call, but i couldn't remember. then i felt really guilty for having been so hard on someone who forgot to call me last saturday, too. i called to apologize. no answer.

alone at home, my thoughts turned to my family. what thanksgiving is going to be like. if my newly-widowed aunt would be okay. if my brothers will be okay. if my dad would be okay.

i cried a little bit. my family has spent the last decade planting roots, making things normal again, starting over. we'll just have to start over again, i suppose.

my dad still has his wedding ring on. the divorce papers have been signed.

sunday. 9:15 a.m.; can't sleep anymore. called jessica to bury whatever hatchet has kept us from talking for almost a week. still can't sleep.

shoved my computer into my bag and headed for paris because parking is free on sunday and coffee just sounded too good.

27 new emails cluttered my inbox since friday evening, all sent earlier in the week; something was wrong with hotmail last week. that explains a lot.

i listen to emblems for the 427th time, and realize the same song had been stuck in my head all weekend.

i have to meet my dad in an hour. i'm taking him to a movie. i have laundry to do. i can't afford my comcast bills. i need a new job. badly. i still haven't seen evil dead. i can't pay my medical bills. please don't let them shut off my phone before i get paid. i need to start running again. i still haven't officially graduated from college. yesterday was my stepgramma's birthday. she passed away in january. i didn't call my stepmom. i don't even have a savings account. i need my brother to grow up. right now, i'd kind of like to kick my cousin in the nuts.

i feel like i'm drowning a little; maybe a lot. seeing old colleagues at a wedding weeks ago, and all anyone could ask was who i was dating these days. jesus. people wonder why i'm self-conscious about it.

they wouldn't ask if i was a boy.

i'm not stupid. i know i have things to be thankful for. everyone has family problems. everyone has money problems. everyone has relationship issues. everyone gets lonely. i think, anyway. but it's hard for me to be vocal about it. it makes me feel like a failure.

my spirits are so high right now. my dad says, he'll always be okay. that i don't need to worry about him. but i'd feel better if i did.

i used to be positive that moving home from maryland was the best decision i ever made. but now i'm pretty sure i just chickened out.

i worry about marriage these days. i talked to page about it, she thinks i'm nuts. she says i'm too young to make a decision like that.

i know my bank account will recover, and that my family will be fine, and the friends i have will stick around. i know i can count on things getting better.

for weeks now, now that i know my parents read this, and my siblings, and my friends and acquaintances, and my high school teachers, and ex-coworkers, and employers, i'd been nervous to avert to writing the inside stuff.

that oughta do it. i need at least a week to stop feeling guilty about something.

shaking when you spoke
and the voice near perfect too
the darkness killed all doubt.