2005-02-22 || 11:58 a.m.

|| for lack of a good title ||

it's strange discovering you've become a grown up, feeling yourself stretching to fill out all those grown-up spaces you didn't know you had, adult fingertips and expressions and that last half inch at the very top of your head that makes you a bit taller than you remember being. there have been a few times when i've had to be an adult about things and felt smug in the actions that demonstrated my flexing of adult muscles and reason: filling out insurance forms and sending away for tax returns and comforting the frazzled instigator of a minor car accident. but this weekend, at first at least, i realized i had to grow up and couldn't expect anyone to congratulate me about it. i wanted my parents around to take over the grown-up duties: to tell us what to do and to fix us dinner and to organize group activity with the intention of smoothing over the shock of what's happened. to monitor behavior and know what exactly to say and how to carry out the little details and coordination.
i haven't sorted it all out yet. i don't know how to write about this here. i know people will read it and i don't want to upset anybody and there are so many parts to write about. this entry is a mess.
i want to write about joe but feel like i can't do him justice at the moment. joe from college and joe the wicked dancer and joe my workmate. the silliest boy ever. who made me laugh uncontrollably like no one else. who has such a serious fan club. who most recently made appearances as my most beloved brian's boyfriend. every time i ever hung out with him it felt special. we went to see glitter in the theater when it first came out and the print broke before it started. i think we decided to wander around and watch a movie at his house but it was so enchanting, being let in to his life. cutting his hair in his old kitchen. i feel so lucky to have gotten to know him as well as i did, and i remember always being struck by his understanding of me. making fun of how i cry about everything.
the grown-up in me would like to say all those dumb uncomforting things you say when someone dies. i don't really want to say them right now. i know so many people who are heartbroken over this, and it's not fair, and it doesn't make sense, and there are these feelings i personally have never felt before that i don't want to try to describe here.
for me the most pressing aspect of all this has been brian. i don't know if i will ever say any of this to him directly, but he is going to read this and i hope he doesn't mind my writing it here. i love brian with all my heart. i have lost a friend, but i can only speculate at what he's feeling right now. since we live together i have been with him this weekend, but i like to think that my being around is not just a circumstance of our living in the same house. it is so very important to me that i have the honor of being there for him. which sounds so retarded. and unfortunately for him, he has the fiercest moony mother hen of a roommate/serious admirer who has made it her mission to help him in any way she can. whether he likes it or not. and i have no idea how to go about it. i want to do everything right and that's when that secret wanting for a grown-up kicks in. what should i do now? what do i say? can i please hug him right now? do you think garrison kiellor would come by if i asked him nicely? i feel like a lumbering idiot half the time, like a big slobbery auntie who's trying to hug on all the kids who are running for their lives and hiding under beds for fear of all that gushiness. it's just that i love him so much and would do anything to make him feel even a fraction better and hope i don't drive him crazy.
i am at work and this is the first time i've been alone since thursday morning. i can tell i haven't figured things out yet by all this simultaneous nervous energy/exhaustion. it makes me want to clean the house and organize important documents and go through bills and obsess about my car, which has suffered three attempted break-ins in the past month; the last occurring on saturday, the one before it happening a week before and costing one-thousand of my insurance's dollars to fix. i haven't had a proper sleep since thursday because of it, constantly waking up to peek out the window, staking out the forty feet of street from the living room vantage point. my mind has been turning in circles around it, and i have bought an alarm and consulted everyone around me for advice regarding doors locked or unlocked whether i am just being fucked with. i worry constantly about insurance premiums and the broken lock and the impending rust damage the door will suffer from the latest attack that has not yet been reported. i wake up at night and grab my glasses and listen for violent sounds above the rain drops and regular neighborhood clatter. i wake up and listen and have that panicky powerless feeling and realize it's not my car at all that's causing it.
this week we're going to have all of joe's friends and family in one place, which is the strangest thing to think about. how it is something to look forward to, seeing everyone, many of whom i love severely, in the name of joe, but not having him there in the physical sense to giggle with and to get the dance party started.

ps. please let me know if you want information for his funeral. i know a lot of you know him.

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