::Shebytches::

A Breakup Tale in So Many Parts
By Adrianne Frost
Part 13: 16 Days, 11 Hours, 45 Minutes Since You Left...
My birthday is Monday.

I asked you if we were doing anything. Because I'm an idiot.

You emailed: "I have been thinking about the fact that your birthday has been coming back and how I would like to commemorate it in some way but things are so strange right now that I was not sure how it would be received. I have to think more about doing something with you on that day though. I don't trust you to not shift emotionally and I don't trust myself to be particularly pleasant. Please don't push me on this point just now."
I wrote back (in a note I passed to your best friend in gym class to give to you in 2nd period English): "I won't shift emotionally. Dinner and a movie? Or Bowling? I know how you love bowling."
You hate bowling. It "hurts" your wrist. Baby.
You wrote back (in a letter you slipped into my locker before the last bell rang so I didn't have a chance to w/b before the weekend): "As for your birthday, you deserve to do something special and I think you should do with it friends. I cannot spend it with you. I am not ready for it. I am sorry."
I don't care anyway.
I'm going out of town anyway to shoot that commercial where I dance in the cranberry bog. I got the call yesterday. So there, you sonofabitch.
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The Angry Break-Up Playlist That Empowers Me:

Special--- Garbage

Evil--- Interpol

Love Will Tear Us Apart--- Joy Division

Bigmouth Strikes Again--- The Smiths

Unhappy Birthday--- The Smiths

(Believed) You Were Lucky--- 'Til Tuesday

You Oughtta Know--- Alanis Morisette

Alive--- Pearl Jam

Jeremy--- Pearl Jam

Lithium--- Nirvana

Pictures Of Matchstick Men--- Camper Van Beethoven

True Faith--- New Order

Don't Lets Start--- They Might Be Giants

Low--- Cracker

Still In Hollywood--- Concrete Blonde

Anything, Anything--- Dramarama

Cuts You Up--- Peter Murphy

Let Me Go--- Heaven 17

Synchronicity II--- The Police

No Chump Love Sucker--- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Paint It Black--- The Rolling Stones

Precious Things--- Tori Amos

Add It Up--- Violent Femmes

Blue Orchid--- The White Stripes

The Inspiring Break Up Playlist:

Learn To Fly--- Foo Fighters

Mr. Blue Sky--- ELO

You Say You Don't Love Me--- Buzzcocks

Thunder Road--- Bruce Springsteen

Over The Hills And Far Away--- Led Zeppelin

Tangerine Speedo--- Caviar

Queen Bitch--- David Bowie

Keep Yourself Alive--- Queen

Soul Meets Body--- Death Cab For Cutie

Wig In A Box--- Hedwig and The Angry Inch

But Not Tonight--- Depeche Mode

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots--- Flaming Lips

Let Go--- Frou Frou

My Way--- Nina Hagen

Born To Run--- Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Goodbye, Goodbye--- Oingo Boingo

The Passenger--- Siouxsie And The Banshees

I'm Free--- The Who

Didn't I Bring Your Love Down--- Yaz

Little Bird--- Annie Lennox

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When I gave advice to you, I was the smartest, most Cosmopolitan woman in the world.
When I gave advice to myself, it involved secret cutting and eating a pint of Chubby Hubby while under a lap duvet.
By the way, Ben and Jerry need to eat my sweet ass. It was their ice cream I used for the binges I performed in place of sex with you. I got soooooooooo lonely in the last year that I ate, ate, ate, ate, ate soooooooooooo much B&J sitting alone with the Tivo remote. Strange that there I was with the letters "B" and "J", holding a gianormous phallic symbol and all I could think to do was eat. But they are the two guys I had a three way with on those lonely nights… even when you were sitting next to me.
I am not suprised that I have not started drinking again since you left. People are so patronizing.
"Oh, good for you! Oh, congrats! You are so strong, aren't you?"
Puh-scuse me, I have ten years sobriety, I'm not starting over again. It's not that I don't want to drink, I'm just too lazy to go through the beginning one more time around. AA meetings? Finding another sponsor? Screw you! It's hard enough for me to go to the gym.
I can't go through rehab a fourth time. Although it's been 17 years, so maybe they've upgraded the programs. But I'd be debunking the "third time's a charm" myth. No, because I screwed up my sobriety five years after I left Cypress Hospital that third time; it’s already been debunked.
Cypress Hospital... we strap you down, so you don't have to.
Also, I was really bad at crafts in occupational therapy. It just made me want to drink and use more, because I felt seriously useless. I mean, here they are, showing you something else to do instead of drinking and drugging, but I sucked ass at it, so I felt worse.
“Um, excuse me, Teacher Lady? Yeah, my ceramic bunny looks like it’s roadkill , and my bench isn't staying glued, so can I just have some Vicodin and some shooters and call it a day?"
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You never wanted children.
And, lucky for me, I can't have 'em!
But how many selfish, non-sharing guys are there out there? How many guys are out there that want dysfuctional, barren, recovering, bla bla bla, sardonic, cynical chicks who wake up with hysterical blindness on occasion?
Two?
Oh, good.
The other one's in prison.
Huh.
This is why I see my therapist TWO, count 'em TWO, times a week.
Weekends are the worst, because I have more times to be alone.
I started moving furniture around, making the house "my own". I was being a big, strong, independent, Gloria Steinam Mario Van Peebles Badasssssssssssss now, sliding the bed here, lifting this table there. Such a big place and it just hit me that it was all just mine. Most of the books were yours, now I feel stupid, I have so few. Mostly plays and Tom Robbins novels. Most of the CD's are mine. Except for that hideous dresser, the furniture is mine. Will this ever really be my own place?
I'm listening to "A Hard Day's Night". At least you didn't ruin The Beatles. You could never ruin the things I loved before I met you. And that was one of them. Most of the music I loved, you didn't shit on, except some of the 80's stuff, because we both dug it so and quizzed each other and danced to it...
Our last Christmas card was us dressed like we were in the 80's.
People will miss our Christmas card and our party.
So will I.
Maybe most of all, Scarecrow.