Delicious Evil

Today’s a day off from the temp gig, but not a “day off” for me. I slept later than I have this week, which is nice though. I have to meet some folks throughout the day, and I have a teaching resume to write, and some jobs to apply to, and some other writing that I need to have ready for Monday. Also… my workshop is tomorrow in SF, so I should likely prepare for that!

So, “day off”, but full. It’s alright, I likely need full right now. There’s a lot of chaos in my brain. Luckily, it’s found something else besides imminent poverty to latch on to, but what it’s latching on to is sending me to the bottom of something else. And for that, I’m going to go meet up with some new folks today and see how they deal with some of this type of mental obsession and compulsion.

Turn over a rock, and there’s another rock.

Basically, my discomfort at my financial situation, as well as some recovery around it, is revealing a set of behavior I thought either long dormant, dead, or just not my problem. I was wrong. Resurrection is an ugly beast.

I find myself engaging in behavior that, well, makes me feel uncomfortable. And intrigue and thrill … however lovely they are to experience, they’re waving hot pink lures down a path of self-destruction.

I think it makes sense, honestly. I’m coming to a place where I’m beginning to take ownership of myself and my life, beginning to want to do so, starting to try to be the woman I want to be – one with a job, and hobbies, and some self-respect. And, “suddenly,” I find myself being derailed and side-tracked by a whole new set of “issues,” things which chop all that good work off at the knees.

Oh, silly Molly, it’s not right to feel good or proud or accomplishy – let’s give your brain this poisonous chew-toy instead, and see what happens. Let’s maintain the small, hamstrung, going-nowhere-fast Molly. That’s the familiar and easy one.

I’m a little surprised at the voracity of the new behavior. It’s a twist on some old ‘going for unavailable men’ behavior. And again, I thought that I’d sort of let all that go, somehow. But, apparently not. And, like a snake at rest who strikes suddenly, I’m bitten, poisoned, and fucked.

Luckily, in this case, not literally.

It ain’t fun. It ain’t fun to talk about, admit, or lay claim or words to the behavior that’s causing me discomfort. Unavailable men have meant many a thing in my past, though usually over the last several years, that has meant emotionally unavailable. I’m taking it to a new level this time, and I’m hitting a bottom around it.

Because I don’t want to stop. I do. I vehemently and vigorously do, want to stop. Engaging, intriguing, contacting, … flirting. But, oh that part of me that doesn’t. That part of me that makes that slurping delicious… ha. I just remembered. “Delicious Evil.” That’s the phrase, the face, the action, the feeling of this behavior. Delicious Evil, you can taste it on your tongue like chocolate velvet. With an afterburn of horror.

When I moved to San Francisco 6 years ago, I was ushering for a small theater company downtown, then, as now, trying to keep my toe in the acting world, or the periphery of performance. I was a few weeks sober. There was a cast party that night that I’d been invited to. And as I went to the restroom to weigh that option, I was putting on lipstick, and caught my eye in the mirror. I gave myself that hypnotic, lightly cruel, lip curling sneer of a smile, the look that says, we’re gonna do bad things tonight, and it’s going to feel great.

I stopped.

I know that look. I know the results of that look. I knew that if I went out that night, I’d drink, I’d flirt, I might sleep with someone I barely know, and I’d feel like shit afterward.

I knew whatever happened at that party, Delicious Evil was on the menu.

And I didn’t go. I felt like an asshole, like a loser, like a party-pooper, and not a little bit strange/aloof/confounding to the actors – but I didn’t go. I’d been to that party before. I know how it ends.

For all of this/that knowledge, “playing the tape,” knowing the results, having been down roads like this before, I find myself unable to stop the careening wheels of this mining cart. Plumbing further into the darkness, away from all that I’m working for and toward.

This is a hot stove. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot.

It is.

And so, today, I’m going to try to do something different, and seek out folks who maybe know the way to slow, and even stop this cart.

Because I have been walking toward the light, toward respect, responsibility, toward adulthood, toward love of myself, and I’ll be goddamn fucked if I allow myself to be buried all over again.