1/31/99
It was a stalker's paradise on TV this weekend. Yesterday I semi-watched, "Mr. Wrong" while doing things around the house. I don't know, maybe I have a lame sense of humor, but it was really cracking me up. Then I was just watching "48 Hours" and it was a special on stalking. Very funny, also. I really liked the bit about a women who was being stalked by her abusive husband. Well, I didn't really like that he was breaking her arms and stuff, but I was amused at the fact that his name was Chris Garcia. I wonder if certain names predispose you to obsessive tendencies. I mean, I have my theory about guys with simple, plain names (that contain the letters R, O, and B in them) being hot so maybe it's true.
1/30/99
4:11 AM. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I am so stupid. I am so busted. I don't want to be a stalker anymore. I seriously don't. It's humiliating and embarassing and I feel like vomiting at the moment. How did I ever get it in my head that blabbing all the things that go on in my mind would be a good idea?! Allow me to use a Smith's lyric for a second, "I'm the most inept that ever stepped." It's true. I was going to write about how I think I should be a truth therapist. I've been noticing how people can't really seem to run their lives very well, and especially in New York, they're willing to pay someone to set them straight. For $100 a pop I think I could tell people what's wrong with their lives. Like, "Oh, so and so's not calling you back? Maybe it's because they only thought you were good for a fuck." I basically just want to call people names and make them feel bad about themselves and get paid for it. But a very piss-poor truth therapist I'd make because I'm the one living in la-la land. I think I may have gotten a subtle dose of reality tonight. This guy that I like and that I've been stupid enough to think would never stumble upon this started a most interesting line of questioning this evening. I can't remember exact words because I'm so scarred at the moment, but it went something like, "If you typed the name of your zine in a search engine, what would come up?" Um, this really caught me off guard and it seems really obvious now that I'm typing it, but I'd had a few drinks at the time and it seemed more hazy and innocent and I was like, "you'd probably get some reviews and my webpage" which is the truth because I'm no liar and I have the mentality of a 5 yr. old and I can't lie and don't you see why I should be getting paid big bucks to be a truth therapist? Duh, I am so caught. And I'm so sorry and this was supposed to be a forum for day to day minutiae and not a place for me to be telling the world about how sweet I am on near strangers. I need my tongue cut out so I'll shut up and maybe my hands need to be hacked off so I won't be tempted to type this stuff and even then I'd probably find a way to use my feet for ill purposes. So, James Robb, if you're actually reading this nonsense like I think you might be, please don't hate me and whatever you do pleae don't read any further. I'm serious. But since I'm such a firm believer in the truth I won't chicken out and delete any past entries. I've resigned myself to facing the music like a mature adult. Now I'm just going to go to bed and when I wake up I hope to be a functional, refreshed person who will from here on out think twice before they act.
1:16 PM I am not refreshed I am nauseous. I make myself sick, literally. My stomach is in knots and I don't want to set foot out of this apt. for a very, very long time. I'm going to hell in a handbasket, except people like me don't even deserve handbaskets. I'm just going to hell plain and simple. All that stuff I was saying last month about going out in a blaze of glory was a lie. What's that dumb line about it being better to burn out than to fade away? I'm not sure, I always get my cliches mixed up, but I think fading away sounds nice right now. It's not even feb. and I'm already writing off 1999 as a big mistake. Now all I can do is look forward to a brighter 2000.
6:43 PM I think I'm having a nervous breakdown.
1/28/99
I just found something out that makes me very, very happy. I make a point of not really discussing my crush with people who know him because I don't want them thinking I'm crazy and obsessed even though I obviously am. But today I e-mailed a friend and asked her if this guy has ever hugged her (I know he had a crush on her about four years ago) and she said no. I decided to ask his good friend the same question and she had the same response. She said she's known this guy nine years and even when she's been crying he hasn't hugged her. I think she was a little surprised to hear that he's been doing this. I don't know what to think. I mean the first night I met him I got the best feeling and when he walked me to the subway and gave me a hug I just figured he was a friendly demonstrative type (and it was even weirder because normally I can't stand people who hug. I can't even bear to use that word, but look at me peppering this paragraph with that dirty word). But the more I'm around this person the more clear it's become that he's like the coldest fish on the face of the earth so I'm a little baffled as to his behavior. He's only done it three times (of course I've kept track) but as of today it's turned into something more substantial in my mind. This can't be bad.
1/27/99
How do you get through to the painfully unresponsive? I've been trying so hard to cool it with my crush talk, but I'm being driven mad. I'm going through all sorts of lengths to subtly permeate this retard's consciousness and he's not even close to "getting it." I don't want to have to spell it out. I really don't. But I am going to snap. I just figured out that I first met him on a fri. the 13th (nov. '98), which may or may not be a good thing. Weird things always happen to me on fri. the 13ths. So that means that he's only been exposed to me for a little over two months and it's not like that's the longest amount of time in the world, but it seems like an eternity. Three months will put me one day before Valentine's Day, and I don't want to be all traditional or superstitious, but that would make a nice tidy goal. Like if nothing gives by then I'm going to have to just do the grand confession. And this little obsession is a bit different from my past ones because I (and practically everyone who knows the two of us) believes that the sentiment wouldn't necessarily be unreturned. It has probably just never crossed his mind--that's how lame he is. I mean, it would be perfectly fair to say that I'm most likely one of the only women who's even remotely interested in him. He doesn't expect girls to be into him so he doesn't pick up signals very well. I guess there's no hurry and no fear that he'll be snatched up. But how can he not see how good we'd be together? I'm very into Monica Lewinsky. Guys HATE her. They think she's stupid or fat or a bitch or whatever and it really bothers me. So, I asked this guy what he thought of her and he said, "I love Monica" and then started going on about how much she would like him if she only met him and how they could go record shopping together. And that's such stalker talk it made me crazy and in love with him even more. I know that I'm not rich or Jewish and that I didn't suck the president's dick, but if he likes Monica then he should like me too. It makes sense in my mind. Though he never asked for them, I sent this guy some zines and I was all nervous and torn because he never told me his address and I thought for sure that I was being all obvious by doing that and of course he didn't even think twice about it. Somehow he got the idea that I was sending them to him so he could put them up on the web for me (I never said I wanted him to make a website for me--duh, I obviously already have one). It's freaking me out because he brought it up again last night--how I should give him my stuff on disk and how he's already told me twice and how he'd better not have to tell me again. What can I say without letting him know that I already have a website? I'm afraid that if he asks again I'll have had a few drinks and I'll just tell him, and this stuff right here isn't something he needs to be reading. Really it isn't. But the crap I go through just to be around him is just plain pathetic and not getting me anywhere. I don't like going out on weeknights because I live so far out, but people were getting together last night and I had to make an appearance. We were going to some trendy (I hate that word, but it's really fitting for a bar with a name like Idlewild that's built to look like the interior of some 60's airplane) overpriced place so I had a few drinks before I left the house (just trying to let you know I'm not a drunk--it's a money issue. Oh, but my crush did pay for one of my drinks, which was just him being gentlemanly, I'm sure, but I like to believe otherwise since he didn't buy anyone else drinks.) and I was walking to the subway all fast and thinking to myself how I wasn't even remotely tipsy and then my foot went out from underneath me and I totally twisted my ankle. Bad. It went all hot and made my eyes water. I knew it was a bad sign and considered just turning around, but I couldn't. That's how I bad I wanted to see this retard. So, I'm out til about 1:30 or so and it was time to pack it in and I was dreading my 40 min. ride home and I was like five blocks from the J train, which would take me straight home, but I'm so disgusting that I played all dumb like I wasn't sure which train to take so I could walk with this guy to the L train (which is a block from his apt.). He does not have any idea the trouble I go through. My ankle was totally killing me and I was going like 20 min. out of my way, and I knew there was construction on the L and that I'd have to take two subways plus a shuttle bus in the middle of the night and that I'd only get about four hours of sleep, but I was doing it just to be near him. God, I need to be slapped. But it's all part of my plan to seep into his being. Slow and steady, you know? A long drawn-out befriending process, where he'll wake up one day and think, "My God, I really like that Krista Garcia." So, I got to spend an extra 20 minutes in his presence and got home at 3 a.m. and woke up this morning so in pain that I couldn't even walk because my ankle was so messed up and had to call in sick to work and I'm not getting paid since I'm not a real employee, and it's all his fault. What an oblivious bastard. Sigh.
1/24/99
Is there a way to fight genetics? I see a frightening future. My great-grandmother lived in a mobile home as long as I knew her (seven years), my grandma has always lived off and on in mobile homes (she currently resides in one), and yesterday my mom called to tell me that she'd bought one. What the hell? Even my younger sister has mentioned buying a "caravan" and moving to Amsterdam. What is this rootlessness about? Should I give in at some point? If things keep going as they have been, I'll probably end up living in a car by summer.
1/20/99
Help me, I'm a social retard and can't go about things in a normal fashion. My crush's best friend is trying to get me to ask him to a movie on Sunday afternoon. I don't operate that way. I've never asked a guy to a movie in my life. That's like a date or something. I'm getting all sweaty palmed. Everyone else seems to think that's a perfectly acceptable thing to do, and it's just not. I don't know if all this meddling from others is helping or hindering me. I just want to sneak around and daydream (and knock guys into next week). Watching "The Thin Red Line" (what this guy wants to see, as I've been told) is totally out of my league. It sort of cracks me up though. Maybe I'll go through with it for a lark. I mean what's the worst that could happen? He says no? Eeek. This is scary.
1/19/99
I've started walking home from the subway after work instead of transferring and taking two subways and I think the fresh air is doing me good. I found this botanica and bought two candles. A St. Jude the saint for the helpless and the hopeless (me) and a love one with a man on it being drawn to a woman through "magnetic power" (I don't have to explain why I need that one). I feel better already.
1/18/99
When do you know that you've "hit rock bottom?" I've always wondered. Same thing with "having a nervous breakdown." I don't think I'm quite there, but I'm dangerously close. This weekend was not pretty at all and I have no one to blame but myself. I made this joke New Year's resolution that I would not hit anyone. Then I changed it to I will not hit anyone hard. I don't know where it stems from, but every now and then I get crazy and hit people. Not maliciously or to hurt them (not usually at least--I was beating on Henry Thomas's stand-in and calling him a motherfucker--and I wonder why Henry didn't want to hang out with me again), but usually because I like someone. You know, like a juvenille love-pat gone wrong. It's demented. Like I just can't stand not being able to touch someone so I end up slugging them instead. Like when an animal is so cute that you just want to squeeze them (oh my god, I'm Lenny from Of Mice and Men). It scares me because my mom and sister both beat their husbands for real and I always thought of myself as being the rational female in the family. But fri. night I smacked the shit out of my stalkee and now I know he'll never like me. Not just once, but at least 5 or 6 times, and they were total bitch-slaps across the face. It was horrible and he told me I was acting like his mother (she's Hispanic and used to beat him). No girl wants to be equated with an abusive mother in the mind of the guy they're crazy about. I felt really bad about it and then I sunk even lower by going to a Best Western with some English stranger that me and a friend had dubbed, "Babyclothes." I don't want my theme song to be that stupid, "Love the One You're With." Oh, and that horrible Bertold guy showed up again at the bar and I was mean and rude and my secret crush had to stand in between us to make him go away and no guy is going to like you if he's having to defend you from bad one-night-stands. And then Sat. got even worse. Well, not really as far as the crush thing goes. All I can do now is be super sweet and lay as low as possible, which is like not going to happen, of course. It's doomed for real now. His friend brought me up to him in some context that I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing was along the lines of "what do you think of Krista?'" and all he said was, "She hits me." That makes me so sad I could start bawling. I took off for home sometime around 3 am, not unlike any other sat. night, and I guess I must've fallen asleep on the subway, not unlike any other sat., but this time I totally conked-out. I woke up at some point and had no idea where I was, the L line is underground and I was hurtling who-knows-where on an above ground line. I freaked out and realized that I obviously missed my stop and that the train must go outside at some point. It was pitch black out and creepy and there looked to be "projects" everywhere, if that's what they still call those buildings. I saw some stop called, "New Lots Ave", checked the map and realized I was 2 stops from the end of the line. I panicked, got off, and waited for the train on the opposite track to take me back the right way. It came and I immediately dropped-off again (I swear I felt as if I'd been poisoned or something). Next thing I know, I'm in some railway yard place, it's the end of the line, and there's a cleaning crew on the subway. I could not figure out how both sides of the tracks could be going away from where I wanted to go. Today a friend theorized, probably correctly, that I'd already gone to the end of the line once and was on the right direction when I woke up and got off. So I finally get going the right way and no one's on the car except some guy sitting directly across from me and my eyes are closed and I keep drifting in and out, but whenever I open them he's playing with himself through his pants and I was so retarded that I didn't think to move, but I was thinking to myself, "oh, so I guess this is how people get raped on subways." It was really unpleasant and then I transfered and I swear to god that that creep was still on the L. I get on the M and he's sitting right across from me again! I started getting nervous, but ignored him. It was like I was hallucinating, but I know he was really there and when I finally got off for good he started saying crazy stuff with a heavy Jamaican accent and it's probably for the best that I couldn't understand what the hell he was saying. I felt glad to be done with that ordeal and just wanted to be home. So, I get to my door and discover that I have no keys. I must've lost them sometime in the evening. That was the final straw. Well, it wasn't the tragedy it could've been since I had a houseguest to let me in, but still. Now I don't have a mail key. Now I don't have much of anything, particularly the high hopes I had only a few short weeks ago. It's amazing to me how wrong things can go in only 48 hours.
1/14/99
I hate it when this kind of thing happens because it makes me feel unnecessarily crazy. I've had these bills that I've needed to mail for like a week now and I just get mental blocks sometimes and can't make myself buy stamps and send them. I was going to mail them Monday and then I found out about the price increase for stamps and I didn't have enough money to buy them anyway (it's sad when you don't even have 66 cents on you). Then yesterday I forced myself to get stamps, but still forgot to stick them on and mail the letters. So today I had to do it or else I would get in big trouble (they're threatening to turn my phone off). I sort of forgot again, but figured it'd be o.k. to drop them off after work in the mailbox I always pass on the way to and from the subway. Now here's the crazy part, the mailbox wasn't there! I know for a fact that it was there yesterday, and every other day since I've walked this way (2 months). How does a mailbox just up and disappear?! I think someone's got a personal vendetta against me. I really do. But I found this stocking cap that says "QUEENS" on it in baby blue writing so I'm happy. I don't even wear hats, and stocking caps in particular because they make me feel like a grunger, but it brightened my day, nonetheless. Now I hope I can remember to find a new mailbox tomorrow--I need my phone.
1/11/99
I don't know what's going on with birds these days, but this morning I saw this pigeon wading around in what looked to be a pile of vomit. I could've been mistaken since it was in front of an Italian place and it might've been sauce or something. But still, can't birds have a little more dignity than that? Speaking of animals gone awry, I had this disturbing dream last night. It's either the third or fourth time I've had a dream along the same lines and I'm trying to figure out what it's supposed to mean. In the one last night me and a bunch of people, including my mom, all went outside and there was this small public park space that was covered in snow and there were chipmunks everywhere, but they were tinier than normal chipmunks. Everyone was all, "look at them, aren't they cute?" and then it changed and there were cats everywhere and I mean everywhere like on that "Guinness World's Records" show where all those mice took over that farm in Australia. And they were a million different sizes, like some were as small as mice and some were mini like the size of ants and the feeling accompanying this whole dream is one of horror, disgust, and guilt. Like half the cats are either dead or dying as if they were born too soon and you have to be careful not to step on them or even touch them or you'll kill them and you feel like you should get a vet or something, but it's too overwhelming and unreal. I've had this dream in various settings, like before I moved, I had one where all the sickly, miniscule cats were in my closet. Is this really obvious symbolism and I'm just missing it? Last night the dream went on and changed into a story where this woman who was the owner of one of the normal sized cats called in some Professional (vet? law officer?) to size up the situation and was told that in order to rectify things she would have to pay $9,000. It was her fault for not spaying one of her cats and I felt bad for the woman and didn't think she should have to pay so much money, but I couldn't speak up or else I might have to take responsibility for the situation. That's pretty much it. Later I dreamt of this thrift store out in the country that had a cowboy clown in the parking lot and rows and rows of girl and boy scout uniforms from all eras, in adult sizes, and thought that was very cool. I'd take a Brownie jumper over a sickly cat the size of a hummingbird, anyday.
1/10/99
God, first I saw those rats devouring a dead mouse and today I saw something that creeped me out in the same way. There was this tiny, sparrow-like bird dragging a piece of fried chicken down the sidewalk. Is that o.k. or am I just being sensitive? Really it was just like the breast bone with some bits and pieces of meat and skin hanging off, but it seemed really wrong to me. I guess birds eat worms, but it doesn't seem right for them to be eating chicken. Hmm...I'm back to feeling o.k. again because it became painfully clear to me last night that my crush has absolutely no idea about my fixation with him. I was really worried that I'd blown my cover the night before by being too fawning and that he was completely onto me, yet playing it cool and I wanted to have a fit, but now I'm back in my loving from afar mode and that's where I'm most comfortable. And he was making me all crazy as usual, chewing gum all hard and getting all riled up and spastic, and sounding like a pubescent teenager (the fact that he has a voice like a teen was pointed out to me last night). Friday night me and Jessica brought up how we can't find maple bars in New York and he was like, "what are maple bars?" He'd never heard of them and thought they sounded atrocious, but Sat. evening he told us how he went to the grocery store that morning and asked for maple bars and the baker had no idea what they were and tried pawning off cannoli on him instead. That is so New York, to ask for something and have them try to give you something else. This guy going and asking for some doughnut he didn't even want just because we were all excited about them, is hot stuff (Now if he'd go seek out where you can get canadian bacon and pineapple pizza in New York I'd be even happier). But, he was being all self-deprecating and poor self-image-ish and saying things like, "a nice girl would never come over to my apt" and making me insane. RETARD, there's a girl sitting two feet from you who would chop off all her limbs if it meant being invited over to your apt. O.k., so maybe I'm not nice, but what's he thinking? Do I have to spell it out for him? (I know you don't know me, but I do this annoying thing where I'll talk in Smiths' lyrics [the crush's good friend does it with me--I'm not talking to myself] and I know it bugs people, but I can't help myself because there's always an appropriate quote for every sad moment. Last night's was, "Nature is a language. CAN'T YOU READ?...'cause if it's not love then it's the bomb that will bring us together.") I think I might have to and it's freaking me out. It really is the only way. Just the day before, my friend Jessica was all, "You need to play it cool. Quit flirting with him. Next time you see him act fickle and aloof." Then after seeing him in his sadly oblivious state last night she was like, "o.k., you just need to tell him you like him." I'm scared of what I might do now. End of evening words from my mouth, "Why can't he just be normal?" Reply: "Because then you wouldn't like him." Oh, it's so true.
1/9/99
I'm afraid that I'm starting to hate the world again. Absolutely nothing is going my way and I shouldn't be surprised because it's never been any other way. Let's see, my originally nice British e-mail guy has started dropping lewd innuendos. I guess it's my own fault for joking around with him about shitting and peeing on guys, but I just get a kick out of bathroom humor, I don't mean anything by it. And my crush is never going to go anywhere and I guess it's my own fault again for targeting the mentally disturbed. It's really horrible and so unfair. I mean he must know that I like him. All of our mutual friends know and he'd have to be a complete retard to not see it. Either he does know and is not into it so he's acting like nothing is going on (the approach I'd take) or he honestly has no idea and needs to be kicked in the gnads. Either way, I'm displeased. It's so horrible because everyone thinks that our getting together would be a good idea (even that Patch Adams guy that liked me and that I didn't like back, thinks it's a good idea) and how can he be so blind to it. And it's so rotten because it's not even like something I can take too personally (though I am). He's just completely messed up and not really interested in women. His friend was telling me, "James would really like you if he was normal." Why? Why does it have to be like this? So, I'm out with friends at our usual place and the crush isn't there because I guess he wasn't formally invited and I'm not liking this one bit, but can't act like I really want him to be there because that's just my way. His friend says I should call him (he lives like 5 blocks away), but I couldn't and made her do it. She comes back and says, "I told him that you wanted him to come down and he said 'tell that cum sucking bitch I'll be there.'" Oh my fucking god, filthy words have never been so endearing. But it's truly doomed and I knew that from the get go. There just doesn't appear to be any way to get through to him. I didn't use to understand why everyone called him a girl, but it's becoming more and more apparent. There's not even a single ounce of testosterone in this guy and it's making me crazy. Well, at least when he was doing his out of town holiday stuff he stopped in Atomic Books in Baltimore and asked for The Scaredy-cat Stalker, but they were all out (see, I crossed his mind at least. What excitement. But I don't want certain things crossing his mind too much. I mean all he would have to do is type in scaredy-cat stalker into any search engine and he'd end up right here and I'd be terribly ashamed of myself). Oh, but the night took an ugly turn. Mere seconds after my crush took off (to go home and watch The X Files on tape--like that's more fun than hanging out with me) that rotten Bertold (snuggler extraordinnaire) made an unwanted appearance. Yuck, and he had some friend wearing a Members Only jacket in tow. I felt like crying for real. He was all, "You seem melancholy." Well, duh, Bertold, I'm being forced to talk to you. How come the bad guys want to pay attention to me and the good ones are happy sitting home watching TV? He asked for my number, and even though I can often be a (cum sucking) bitch, I just didn't have the heart to be mean. What's wrong with me? I'm aggressive and assertive in all the wrong ways. I don't want him calling. I never want to see him again. And today I wouldn't answer my phone (well, I never do anyway) and so far there have been about 3 or 4 hang-ups when my answering machine kicks in. It's Bertold, I know it. That retard crush of mine asked for my number and has he ever called? NO. Yes, I hate the world.
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