My favorite album of all times has been Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails for as long as I can remember. Today I looked up the release date and – well there is no and but it was released October 20, 1989. I have heard all of the songs way too many times and feel quite connected to most of them. The Fragile is also on my list. There’s so much that I could say about life and fear but I just don’t know how to put it into words right now.
Five years ago, today, I saw Nine Inch Nails with Sound Garden – both for the first time. I don’t really remember what was going on at that time but I knew that she was going to be there with C and I was terrified of seeing them. Maybe I was still worried about my heart breaking into millions of pieces. I know it was before I decided that as long as she is in my life, I am happy with the rest. I am not the most open minded lesbian in the world, but I give it my best. Texas has made its way into my inner core at times. In the weeks leading up to the show, I convinced myself that it would be near impossible to accidentally run into one person in the mix of all of those people. In the end, I was only really worried about one of them. I made it through the whole show, made it outside of the venue and much to my dismay, some woman that came with my friend decides that we need a shuttle back to our car. If I know me, I am sure that I threw some sort of fit about having to stand in line to wait to right a bus or something back to our car that was in the closest lot possible. The trolley finally stopped and I made it clear that there was no way in hell that I was getting on that small thing with a bunch of sweaty people and told them I was going to walk – wouldn’t you know that it was at that very moment that I would turn around to be face to face with the one person I was not going to see at the show. Thankfully, he had no idea that he hated me yet and that wouldn’t be the first time that I would see the woman that I fell in love with so many years ago in public with her boyfriend and have to turn and walk away like I didn’t. It’s not a pain that I can describe to many. No one should mix shame with guilt after a shot of excitement. I used to think that I would have reacted differently in such a situation. Society taught me that I should be angry and want to fight, but somewhere along my journey, I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was cause her pain and if I were to react in any other way – I am sure that it would, so I just do my best not to react – but now I look like an insensitive asshole.
The day before I somehow ended up hanging out with and then suddenly in a relationship with Madd – I got drunk and sent her a text. My drunk ass asked if she remembered when I had said something, just a line from this song, clearly struggling with my emotions and showing the world that I am a light weight when it comes to drinking. She simply replied with no and that was enough to leave me mortified. It wasn’t much later that she explained that she just didn’t remember – I don’t know how I can embarrass myself so much in front of one woman that I feel so connected to. I am sure that it’s some defense mechanism, I am the worst with those. I am scared of the world and trust fully with my heart and trust no one with my brain. It leads to complex days for all parties involved.
I am not sure how the next day is probably the day that I ended up in the sandwich shop over-tipping and showing that none of us were tough enough to eat jalapeno poppers. What if they were poisoned? It’s all coming together now. This is what I mean, I am so sick of my competitive, jealous nature. It runs everything in my life and I think that just by recognizing that its present, I can fight it, but it still seems to be a struggle. Sometimes I just need to be able to turn my imagination off and stop thinking for once. Today, I decided I might need a harder job. I have found the down side to doing a cushy job that pays moderately well – too much time to think. I never had time to think about anything but work at my last job.
