100% Cotton

The only thing in my head is wispy threads of pulled apart cotton balls. I'm still ill and spent 4 of the 8 hours in bed coughing until vomiting almost occurred. That croupy, swollen-throat cough of merriment. I'm sure the neighbor was wondering if I was harboring a seal, which I always thought was a cute animal. The lying on their backs, soaking up the sun. So cute. Until I read this story yesterday about a woman who tried to rescue a seal and get it back into the ocean. It bit off her nose. Grateful little shit. He probably was thing WTF? I'm soaking up sun, lady, leave me the fuck alone.

Speaking of the neighbor, I've been going to post on this before but lost the train of thought or chickened out or something. There is a lot to be said about him and writing is always my way of working something out, so prepare yourself, buckle your seatbelt and watch me unwind. Please realize that I am sick and on medication... This could be ugly and it could borderline on absolutely ridiculous. What I'm doing is trying to talk myself out of sleeping with him because I am lonely and sexually starved. 3 months is by no means the longest I've gone without, but everyone around me is finding someone to dance with and I'm sitting on the sidelines. Not the first time, like I said, but the first time I've had somewhere to bitch about it, well besides to my ever loving sister who I'm sure is ready to tell me shut the fuck up and be a big girl.

The neighbor, whom I'll label "D" is someone that has put me through hell and back and forth and back to hell in the last couple of years. He was my brother's best friend, back when my brother worked here. He moved here, just coming out of a bad marriage and I respected that and kept my distance. When I moved, him and my brother moved the majority of my furniture for me and that night, we had a little house warming party. Most of my male friends showed up and he was jealous, so he started to stake his claim. I should have run the fucking other way. I should have. What followed boggles me, because I am by no means a shrinking violet and when I feel like someone is pulling more shit than they are worth, I will definitely put a quick stop to it. With D, however, something in him compelled me to keep holding on. I think maybe it is because he is not only one of my brother's best friends, and now my sister's boss, but he just fits. Sometimes. Most of the time. My son A D O R E S him. And that's hard. But he's a drunk. And he is afraid. And he has been hurt. And he likes being single and being able to run around. We've all been hurt and we're all afraid. Do I want to be with him? IF he would not get drunk so much. IF he would be the same person when he is drunk as he is when he is sober. The sober D, I'd take him in a heartbeat. It's the drunk one that fucks me over. It's the drunk one that convinces himself that he doesn't really care and so he treats me like shit. Of course, it's the drunk one that I used to have the most interaction with. I see him more now when he is sober than I used to. And he's such a good guy. He really is. But if I sleep with him, the feelings will come back and I am afraid that I will be his doormat again, until the next time that he hurts me SO badly that I cannot forgive him. Which will happen, I know that it will. I just can't enter into this again on these same terms. I can't and I won't. I will be a lonely and sad spinster until some innocent making out makes me feel like a sexy bitch again and I'll take it from there. But I WILL NOT SUBJECT MYSELF TO THE D SPELL AGAIN!! I won't. I'll be his friend. His bar buddy. The other half of the left out 4 of us so that little sister can get laid, again. And at the end of the night, I will cheerfully go on my way, without him. The only comfort in my cold bed being that he is now kicking himself for fucking it all up so badly that I won't even let him in my bedroom door.

Or I'll trip and fall and end up in bed with him, hating myself for my weak flesh. And that small spot of hope that my heart harbors for him will bloom again. Only this time, I will quickly extinguish it with the tip of my cigarette because god knows, the situation that it takes to make that hope go away hurts so much worse than a mere, self-induced flesh wound.

Either way, he will not get to me again. Maybe for a moment. But not for much longer than that.