Batshit Crazy

So, Saturday night was a little weird.
It started super awesome. Hung out at Edith's while she made sushi, then ate the sushi. Spicy tuna handrolls, and then little rolls of rice topped with fish eggs and a quail yolk. 3 friends came over to share in the loot, which took 3 hours to produce.
S was there. I had been unhappy with how things were going for a little while now. So, that was kind of hard. When he left, he said that he didn't have his phone on him but I could come find him in the pool hall later. That just reinforced worries that I had about our power dynamic. It seems so innocent now, but it tasted like "here kitty kitty" then. Not sure how I would have rather been invited though.
When everyone had left, it was getting late. We watched videos of incredible circus acts with the farm house crowd, who I am coming to like more and more. Edith wanted to do honesty couch, and we were the only two people up.
It turned into a pretty serious discussion. Hardcore honesty.She feels that I don't include her enough in different projects. I don't take her seriously. She doesn't believe that the "leadership" style of do it all myself is the best way to do things.
All of this is reasonable, especially the last one. The first two I feel I have good excuses for. I suppose I can try to change it, but whether or not I take her seriously is built on over a year of data on our interactions, and I can't just decide to interpret her more seriously. I take her seriously when I think she's serious. I'm coming to realize that she masks her seriousness sometimes, but I think it's also up to her to be more honest with how she feels.  In terms of including her, I use basically the same criteria I use for everyone: if they are invested enough in participating, their participation will follow naturally. But I guess that is not how most people find themselves involved in things, so I should maybe follow up more. I generally find that the effort to get people involved doesn't pay off, so I might as well spend that effort doing it myself and at least not have lost anything. Edith says that shouldn't apply to her, and that's reasonable.
Though all of this was valuable talking, it made me agitated and defensive. At 1:22 am I explained that I really though I should go find S in the pool hall and make an attempt to convey my feelings. I wasn't looking forward to it.
I trekked up to the pool hall, shoulders pulled up to my ears and back rounded into a hunched mess of anxiety. I walked into the pool hall and saw him and some mutual friends. Two of them immediately accosted me in a fit of drunken affection. "Kiss me" "Julia, you're so pretty" "you look like a queen."
Needless to say, I was unprepared for such positive interactions. I made out with them for a while, relishing how easy it was to feel good again. Most of the time I am uncomfortable with being told I'm gorgeous and fascinating. It's a partially a holdover from high school, when I decided that if I didn't think of myself as beautiful I would be a better person. Weird logic, but I don't think it was entirely wrong. The compliments were also especially welcome since I wasn't wearing any makeup and did not feel particularly lovely that day. Well, friends are the answer.
I talked to S of course. I told him our interactions were becoming more and more negative for me. I felt like we hung out just to have sex too often. In retrospect, this is fairly inaccurate. Anyways, I worried that I liked him more than he liked me... etc.
He just said sorry sorry sorry you feel that way etc.
I didn't know what to do. I said "maybe this isn't a good idea."
He didn't argue. Just said he was sorry.
He said we should talk again when he wasn't drunk. I said we should hang out more when he wasn't drunk.
He went back to the pool hall. I punched a locker and swore. I put my face in my hands.
He came back out. He was going to sleep in the infoshop. I should have offered him my bed.
He held me for a moment and we talked a little more. He went to sleep. I felt a little less like I had lost something.
I went back to the pool hall. It was a hot mess of people actually shooting pool, people drinking franzia, people spilling franzia, yelling and laughing. Kissing. Singing along to the punk-rock jukebox that demanded quarters every few songs. People hitting on me.
I kept worrying about either Edith or S. I found it pretty easy to compartmentalize and enjoy myself when stimulated, but if my brain found a quiet moment the butterflies would swirl in tornado formation and I would feel like I had made a thousand stupid mistakes.
A couple highlights of the time between 2 am and 6 am.
Hickey contest on Corrine's neck. I won, in the moment. However, someone had understated talent. The bruise left by a physics senior with piano hands surfaced the next day with equally intense brownish amorphism. A rematch is clearly required.
Ray was Wasted. So Wasted. He kept coming over to talk to me and saying half a sentence and then looking really intensely at me. Or, he would speak with serious conviction for two words and then mumble and stare off into the distance and wiggle his head. "I really think that we mummghrum" "Do you remember... mmmmm...." "No, because... but the..." The highlight of his drunken foolery was when he tried to play pool using a huge push-broom. No one else saw because I was the only one facing that direction. I tried to explain the awesomeness of what was going on behind them but no one would listen.
I finished the bag of franzia because people kept giving Ray more booze and that was not okay. So, I got drunk at 4 am.
I made out with a beautiful person for a while. Outwardly beautiful at least, I don't know if I actually like him as a person. But, then I got sad because I just wanted it to be S. And I thought I'd just screwed that up. He noticed that I was sad, so we stopped. He also said "sometimes you just have to do what your lips tell you" and that was way too cheezy so...
I talked to a friend of S's from high school. He seems like a cool person. He said that he came to Reed partially because of S. He said he'd had trouble being friends with S since he got a phone call from him, tripping on acid, crying about how they were boring people. It was weird. Mostly weird that he found the idea of them being boring people so unusual. Who hasn't thought that all of they and all their friends lead boring meaningless lives?
Everyone split at 6. I went to the infoshop, thinking I could sleep there and wake up with S in the morning/afternoon and maybe talk again. But I was still drunk and couldn't sleep.
I walked home, but (in)conveniently forgot my swipe and scarf in the infoshop. I had to wake Em up to let me in, but she has no memory of the incident so I think I'm forgiven.
In the morning he gave me back my scarf and swipe. We joked a bit, and I apologized. He said that it was his fault if I felt that way.
We'll see how it goes.