19 June 2000

I'll be seeing Dave later on *today*--seeing as it's officially Monday. How fun is that...DMB starting their whole summer tour right off from Columbus, OH. And I'll be there to experience it all. I should listen to Dave all day long to get ready for it. :)

So I go into work, and I'm helping a girl clean up from our brunch in the morning. As I turn the corner to go back up the steps to the lobby from the kitchen, I think I recognize the person who is steps behind me coming up as well. Oh god--is it?... I thought.

I won't look. Once I get up, I'll sneak a look.

It was.

It was Bryan.

"hello, hello!" we exclaimed. "You're working here during the summer?" he asks almost in a quizzing, accusing way. Yes I reply. (Obviously. I'm here, aren't I?) We express our how-are-you's, and I ask him if he graduated. Yes he did. Congratulations.

I'm so glad I didn't call him a desperate manner, back when I was reading Henry & June. I feel so raped in his presence. So vulnerable. I want to take his hand and drag him into a corner and just talk to him for hours. At the same time, I know it can't be to start something like. He started "us" and he ended it. If he wants my friendship, I think I've pathetically thrown myself at him enough. It's up to him, to really come up to me and ask me how I've been....for real.

His hair is short, and cute. Thank goodness. Sort of. It'd be a lot easier if it was still shag, cuz then he'd be a lot creepier still ;)

I feel like I've given a part of myself to him, and he took it like a joke. It's so hard to have this sweep of giddy emotions as I try act naturally and comfortable with him. I don't even know if he consciously snubbed me, or his life just got so busy and overwhelming, taking me out, was the only course of actions that was natural in his day-to-day motions.

In a lot of the same ways Chris did it to me, Bryan made me feel...as if I was incredibly important to him. I mean, I knew, towards the end, that I wasn't to Bryan, but it was really too late by then. They covered me in flattery no doubt, and made their attraction to me clear, but both expressed a vision into the way I tick, and any claim to understanding me, beyond the superficialities really grabbed at me.

And Bryan was different. I'll try to stop the similarities between Chris and Bryan, because they are two completely different people. Bryan could be....something wonderful in my life, but he came at all the wrong time. The end of my first quarter in college? Too many things were happening to me, and to have this incredibly intelligent, super-intense deeply philosophical, driven, older guy....it was....too much. I fed off him though. He was my poetry, and no matter if it was real or created in my mind, he was still incredibly inspirational, and led an interesting stage and in my life.

I just tried and wanted to be something in his mind, to what he was to me. I think I was....could have been something good, but, it was really the wrong time for both of us. I know it doesn't make sense, and we were never even all that sexual, but, if I can say I was ever close to loving someone, I think Bryan would be it. I just....want him? Not even like *that* grin I just want to...be with him. Not like *that* I tell you, I just want to go on a long walk and talk about life with him. The fact that he makes me so high strung and passionate, is a turn-on and I *do* want to kiss him, but I would really love to find ourselves as friends.

Sort of like a real-life version of James. I would love to be that incredibly close to him. To start giving everything to him again. Which is probably why I feel so exposed just seeing him today. Because I did share so much of myself with him.

I can't tell you how silly and excited, I was to see him though. I want to ask him about April and if he ever worked anything out with her--or finally found some closure. If he's still writing his novel, if he still plans on going to school in New York (I thought he was leaving this summer to go though....?) I want to ask him about how this quarter went, cuz I knew it would be so hard on him. I want to tell him about this Rand book I read, about Henry and June, about how I always read his books but he never did read mine. ;) I want to ask him about his roommate, and if he ever kicked him out, or he ended shaping up. Do you still like me? I want to ask him what the hell happened with us, what he really thinks of me. I feel like I've reverted back to teeny-bobber, and he's the wise "older guy" and I was just something to pass the time, and now I'm throwing around a soap opera version of our relationship exclaiming "but baby, I thought you loved me!"

Haha. Okay, I never thought he loved me, but even still, there's this email I wrote him....haha, I should have kept a copy around or something, it was the most...self-exposing, utmost vulnerable thing I've ever written, revealed, and *sent* to someone, and goodness, I never got a reply, so uh, maybe he doesn't check email? Yeah right. I think for me, I won't be able to let Bryan go, until I receive some closure on that.

Because if I "fondly" thought of him as that...psycho boy from the restaurant, he can only think the same of me after that letter. Not that I was crazy, but I basically, everything short of crying "i love you! i love you! I love you!" in that letter...I said. I continue to try to repeat to myself, and not feel silly or stupid for saying/writing and sending it, because whatever it was, I know I felt it with complete sincerity. If there was ever a person I wanted to be honest with, you know, i would want to share with Bryan. So, okay, I never got any feed back, but at least my explanation was out there.

I would really love it if, he would just come up to me and start talking. We always could, baby, you know we still can.

Ha. A friend and I laughed how no one ever seems to actually say "baby" to their sigfig other, but you hear it in the songs all the time, and it never sounds cheesy or out of place then.

So how long do you think i'll actually be able to stand around and not say anything to Bryan? Haha, we'll see.