late nights in the middle of june

David Hockney, Red Celia, 1984

M and I talk about how we no longer wish to be dominated by relationships, knowing that we both like to be consumed. What I’ve learned is that you should choose your consumption carefully. During my last relationship I kept trying to negotiate the working conditions—can we just do this, so it can be a little better? I felt that what I fundamentally needed was transparency. Those conversations never went anywhere, and after a while I refused to have them.

When I was feeling particularly frustrated, I would think about how if the apocalypse happened and we all had to go into nuclear bunkers, the object of my affections would probably put me in the bunker two doors down. And then he would apologize, in that helpless, hapless way—what else is there to do?

J says I am eminently lovable. I had the thought that last week that a problem I have with my therapist is that she loves me too much. This stresses me out because it reminds me of my mom, who loves me with her whole heart and wants me to get everything I want. Because I am so Type A, I interpret this love as the obligation to achieve the good life and make it look easy. Though I am a Buddhist, I don’t even believe in achievement. (Though if you know me even a bit, you know that’s obviously not true.)

This week I was thinking that my worst and best quality is that no matter what happens to me, I will stretch out, roll over and pop up with a Cheshire Cat grin. I can make abasement look sexy. Or indifference, kindness, cruelty. It doesn’t matter. (Though it matters!) Style is fate, as they say.