The Curious Incident of the Brit...

I got a treat in the mail today. My friend in England had sent me a packet. I didn't know he had sent me something. He sent me a CD with socialist songs from all over the world on it. Then he wrote me a long letter describing the background of each song. He had also clipped out an article from a newspaper about a socialist poster artist from last century.

This is what he said in the letter's last paragraph: "I'm happy to know you and it's always a great pleasure to hear from you. I send you hugs, affection, and my warmest wishes." Gawd, was he trying to make me cry? He's one of the kindest human beings I've ever met. His kindness is entirely heartfelt. I don't think he has a fake bone in his body. Maybe that's part of having Asperger's. I've read more about Asperger's. Apparently, people with Asperger's are known to be called "walking encyclopedias". My friend is. He writes me long e-mails pouring out his knowledge on different topics, mostly politics and language. Like, I could print out his e-mails and bind them into books and use them as references, no fucking joke.

Sometimes, I wonder if my father has some slight form of high-functioning autism. My dad's brain is an encyclopedia, he has a photographic memory that astounds me at times, and he has social problems. I don't think he has any form of autism, really, but it seems like he's close to it. I feel like my brain works differently than most people's, too, but I don't have an encyclopedic mind. I'm not very logical; I'm much more emotional. I've always felt different from other people. I've always seemed to experience the world differently than the majority. I wonder if my friend Melissa, too, has something different about her brain. She is so genuinely kind and earnest, she has no typical social fakeness in her at all, and she finds it really hard to deal with social situations. But she's not encyclopedic, either. She's artistic and and expressive like I am. Maybe my dad, Melissa and myself are just very sensitive people. I think that non-autistic highly sensitive people are the most like autistic folks.

Anyway, it truly touched my heart that my friend put so much time and effort into making me a CD. He told me he was going to make me one, but I'm used to people saying they'll do something that they don't do (and I am often guilty of doing that myself). But, when he says he'll do something, he does it. If you ask him to tell you about something, he'll tell you allllllll about it. I figured out how to record my voice on my cell phone and send the recording to my e-mail address as an MMS. I recorded several of my different voices and sent them to him. He thought they were funny. I have to say that they cracked me up a great deal and I kept playing them over to myself. I needed comic relief yesterday. His favorite voice of mine was the one I did of Gromit the dog. The voice I made for Gromit sounded like a sweet, very young English child. :) My friend told me once that he didn't like dogs. I asked why. He said he didn't like the ones who were jumping and biting or scratching him, but that he liked the calm, well-behaved ones. So in my little Gromit voice, I told him I would never bite or scratch him. :)

Talking to my friend is refreshing. He's so devoid of bullshit and unnecessary drama and games. He's just himself. What you see is what you get. He's truly an incredible and wonderful person. The only thing is that I don't want him to fancy me too much. I want him to meet a really awesome girl right there in his town, maybe someone involved with the socialists. I hope so. I want him to find a wonderful woman and marry her and live happily ever after. I want to find someone and live happily ever after, too. I don't want to wait until after I'm done with grad school. That would kill me. I want to meet someone NOW.

Jag saknar dig, men ännu har jag inte träffat dig.

The English boy is very special, but he's not "The One". Thank God, because I really couldn't handle trans-Atlantic romance. Once in my life was enough. I've been depressed and upset wanting so much for him to be The One because he's so great, and not wanting him to be The One because he's across the ocean. Well he's not The One. He just isn't. I wish I had found The One, but I didn't. I know it in my gut and heart and spirit. I finally let myself feel the reality of having an amazing connection to someone and thinking he's beautiful, yet knowing he's not The One. My heart is tender for the boy, but he's not The One.

Please God, let The One live right here in New York City, preferably in Queens. Alex once said, after he died, that I would share my life with a man in the future. He said I had many, many men around me and one of them would be my partner in the future. So, I guess that man is here in NYC. Alex, you'd better be right! Can't you pull some strings up there and help this guy come along faster? Alex says, "I'm not a genie!" :p :)

I'm reminded of the song by Björk that goes, "I miss you, but I haven't met you yet."

This is what I want for my life: have a career in the social work field. Have a life partner with whom I live and hopefully care for a doggy with. Live with partner in a place that is not past the end of the subway line. Someday, have children with the life partner (but I can't see myself having kids in this crazy city). That's all I ask for, God. I see other people who have these things, and I ask, "Why not me?" Why can't I have those things? A job I like and a partner with whom to share my life. That's all I ask for. That's it. Why can't I have those simple things? Why is everything such a fucking struggle for me? Can I have it easy for once? Please? I have so much love in my heart. May I please have another human being in my life with whom to share that love? Don't you want me to love and cherish another one of your children, God? Because I will love and cherish him and appreciate every day with him to the fullest. You know that. Please give me the gift of him and him the gift of me.

P.S. You'll be glad to know that I haven't been slagging around lately, although I wanted to hook up with the firefighter again...

Allt om Pojken i Storbritannien

I'm going to talk about my friend in England. I'll tell you all about him. He was supposed to be born in May of 1978, but he was born eight weeks prematurely, in March. He says his birth was traumatic. He has very mild cerebral palsy because of his birth experience. I don't know how it affects him, though. Whatever effects are very slight, I think. He spent his whole childhood in a cute town with a funny name in Leicestershire. He was accepted to Cambridge University to study linguistics, but it was too much for him. He dropped out midway due to mental stress. A psychiatrist who was helping him with his mental stress told him he has Asperger's, which is like a mild form of autism.

My friend moved to his current town after living in Cambridge. He is a software developer. He takes correspondence language courses from a university based in Milton Keynes, I think. He speaks Swedish and loves Sweden. He has a friend there. He's been to Norway and Denmark as well. He and I are planning to meet each other in Iceland this summer. He already knows a tad of Icelandic. He's a language genius. He's incredibly knowledgable about political and historical things as well. He's very much a Socialist. He's politically active and knows a tremendous amount about Socialism.

My friend is beautiful, I think. I thought he was cute from the start. I met him on a site where people write journals, answer questions, take tests and meet each other for dating, friendships and penpals. He and I have a high percentage match on the site, based on questions we've answered and results from tests we've taken. He started commenting on my journal on the site. Then I messaged him, and it went from messaging on the site to e-mail. I haven't talked to him on the phone yet, but he sent me a sound file of his voice. He has a very soft voice and beautiful accent.

My friend, according to his stats on the site, is an inch shorter than I am. He's slender. He's sent me lots of pictures of himself. I think he's beautiful. He is built delicately. He looks slightly androgynous. No one could mistake him for a female, but if he dressed in drag, he could pass for a woman. He has fine bone structure, high cheekbones, full red lips and big blue-green eyes. His eyebrows are thick and their shape makes him look kind and gentle. He has a cute nose. His hair is a wavy chestnut brown. He wears glasses. He has two little brothers. They're both cute, too, but my friend is the cutest. :) His face is so lovely and sweet, and looking at it calms me. His eyes are wide open, loving and earnest. There's nothing at all harsh in them or in his face whatsoever.

For some reason, my friend thinks I'm the most beautiful girl in the world. Yes, he knows how big I am. He has recent photos of me. For some reason, he loves my body that way. I don't understand why. I just know that European boys are often not put off by big women the way most white American boys are. Anyway, once I'm hanging out with him, I might have that damn nursery rhyme going in my head: "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean..." Funny thing is, of course, that he eats a lot of meat and I am basically vegan. I know, I wish he weren't a big meat-eater. Well, he's a very compassionate person. Maybe he just needs to know more about where his meals come from. Anyway, thin boys make me feel bigger. Alex made me feel smaller because he was really big and tall. My friend in England is a tad shorter than me and much thinner. I feel like a fucking oaf in comparison to him. I told him that. He said, "What are you talking about? You're a fucking goddess!" He doesn't swear often.

Anyway, my friend is very honest and straightforward and down-to-earth. He has this silly side, though, that he doesn't show much to the world. He's shown it to me, though. It's like tickling a little boy. All silliness and giggles. He is very sensitive and caring. He's very true to himself. What you see is what you get. He tells me he's quite shy, and that he zones out sometimes, due to having Asperger's. People with Asperger's have a different social experience than people without it. Alex's little brother also has it, but more acutely than my friend does. It's funny, cuz Alex's little brother's first name is the same as my friend's first name. Alex and his older brother named his little brother. I wonder if Alex is smiling down at me and my friend, the English boy with the same name and syndrome as his little brother. I wonder what Alex feels about my friend. I feel sunny and yellow when I imagine what Alex is feeling about my friend.

I look forward to meeting my friend this summer. I just did my taxes online, and I am getting a nice refund. Not huge, but almost $1,500. $1,500 means A LOT to me right now. It means an incredible amount to me right now. You have no idea. I can get through this month and next month. Beautiful!!!

Boo Radley's Come Out Of His Lair

Hi. I'm Blueberry Bear. My other name is "Boo Radley". I hide in my lair every day. I sell things on eBay to barely make ends meet. I don't talk to many people right now. The person I talk to the most is my new penpal in England. Too many bad things happened in too short a time, and I kind-of broke down. I guess I am quite depressed. I don't know anymore. Life is a weird dream nowadays.

I managed to apply to two graduate schools. The third school's application is not due until June. I want to be a social worker. I quit my full-time permanent job with benefits last August because my boss was very abusive and I was miserable. I have eked out an existence ever since, somehow. I have to do my taxes ASAP because I'm sure to get a fat refund. I also need to do them ASAP to give updated, accurate info to the financial aid offices regarding 2006.

I'm truly trying to find a temp job or permanent job to cover my ass the next few months before school starts. I seem to have no luck in getting anything, though. Well, I only have to get through the next 6 1/2 months or so. I have no medical insurance anymore, so I am trying to draw out my anti-depressants by not taking them every day. This is not working, though. My brain is not happy with not having the pills every day. I need so much to see a therapist, but I can't afford it. I'm a fucking mess, actually.

I talk to a boy in England. He's six months younger than I am. He is incredibly kind and intelligent. Talking to him is my link to sanity. I also talk to my friend here in Queens. She treats me like I'm normal, like I'm not the fucked up freak that I feel like inside. The boy in England treats me like the most wonderful person in the world. I wish I could get on an airplane and go visit him. I am going to meet him in Iceland this summer while I'm on my way to Sweden. Yes, I am going to Sweden this summer, come hell or high water. If I have to get another credit card to do it, I will.

I wish the English boy lived here. I've been talking to him for over a month. I told him things I've never told anyone else in this world, and vice-versa. Why can't I meet someone like that here? Why do the interesting people I meet online live across the ocean? I met him because I posted something on a site about the sci-fi subject of body swapping. He said he'd swap bodies with me so that each of us would know what it felt like to be in the other sex's body. It was totally innocent and childlike, the way we were talking about it. It was awesome! Then it went from there. Don't worry, I'm not going to pull another Alex.

I met a man named Alex on a Swedish website a few years ago and became his penpal and went to visit him the next year and ended up staying with him and ended up immigrating there because I had grown to love him very much...and he died soon after I moved there. I think that's when I lost most of the marbles I had left over from my life's experiences. I lost even more with other things that have happened since. I spilled most of the few remaining marbles working at jobs here in NYC where I was verbally and emotionally abused. I think my friend losing her mother and baby in less than one year really spilled out more. My other friend moving to Chicago made me lose whatever was left in there. I might have one or two marbles left. I dunno.

So, if you think I am crazy by talking to a boy who lives over 3,000 miles away and letting myself become emotionally attached to him, then you are right. I am crazy. I have one or two marbles left, and they are slipping out. And I want to be a social worker? How can I be a social worker when I myself am crazy? I will gain marbles by doing something meaningful with my life. That's why. I will help people going through grief and trauma and pain, and the act of helping them will lead me to the marbles I lost. I know this. Doing good for this world and its inhabitants is the only thing that keeps me alive. That's the only thing I want to do with my life: do good.

Will I stop talking to the boy in England once I regain my marbles? No. I have a feeling he'll be a lifelong friend. Our connection is that powerful already. I just won't feel so goddamn susceptible and sensitive to whatever fucking happens to me. I feel as thin as a robin's eggshell. The slightest tap might break me. English Boy handles me gently, as he would a robin's egg. He knows how to do that. That's just the way he is. He is immensely gentle and sensitive. He's delicate. English Boy doesn't hurt me. It just hurts that he's English Boy and not New York Boy. In other words, I wish I could feel such a connection to someone right here. God has other plans for me, though. God gives me the hard path, not the easy one, like usual. Thanks for sending me someone who I can't be with, God!!! Do you want me to be a nun or something?!?!? Yeah, I definitely have to start taking my meds. If it becomes too painful to talk to English Boy due to increasing emotional connection and geographical distance, I might have to take a break from him. I'm a robin's egg. The boy doesn't hurt me, but the situation does.

That's my so-called life, folks. Oh, yeah. Buddhist Boy is out of my life now. He decided to E-MAIL ME that he just wanted to be friends. I had spent the night at his house in his bed, and he went to work the next morning and E-MAILED this to me while I was still in his bed (I have e-mail on my phone). What the fuck? So I told him how fucked up that was and he said he didn't mean to hurt me, and I replied that I hoped he never handled a situation like that again, and I haven't heard from him since. That was Buddhist Boy. Bye-bye.