2001-02-13 - 10:13:31

Anyway, After I finished writing Larissa and posting to my diary from Times Square (!!) I went on to have the most fabulous time in New York! I finished exploring Times Square and bought myself a black scarf with fringe, and then I went to the New York Public Library (yes, with the Lions, yes!) and then I went to the Empire States building and went to the top -- and the view was so beautiful up there at night with all the glittering lights of the city on the ground below - Also, I would like to note that it was a full moon, which always means great things. . . Then I went back to my hotel and went to the bar and ordered myself a shot of jaegermiester and a whisky and coke. I wasn�t there 5 minutes when a group of young stockbrokers in town from LA and working at the World Trade Center asked me if i would like to join them for drinks at another bar . . . so I went!! I ended up going with them to 2 other posh little bars and felt like such a STAH, darling! I definitely felt like I had the New York experience!

The next morning I went straight to the Montel show . . . I sat backstage for several hours with the other girls who were to be reunited with past loves. We all told our life stories and shared ournervousness and commented on each other�s hair and make-up -- I felt like we created a real sisterhood back there. Then I went on stage and chatted with Montel and you know I just spouted whatever came out of my mouth - i was trying not to embarass Jeff by saying too much so I played things down, I just talked about him as my puppy love.

And then I saw him.

Of course the instant I saw him all reason and grounding flew out the window and I was simply thrilled and excited to see him, the audience, the cameras, the Montel - I was blind to everything except the sight of him. He wore a leather jacket and beige linen pants with a cowboy belt and buckle and his fathers old cowboy boots - He looked just like the boy I knew only older and a bit less geeky - And I looked into his blue blue blue eyes. And he held my hand. The way he does. He held it fast and tight and rubbed the inside of my palm strong and I rembered.

I remembered. I can�t believe I forgot for so long. I can�t believe that I forgot - what made me forget? Pigboy? Jim? insecurity? What the hell made me forget for seven years?

Until just that moment I had forgotten how much I was in love with Jeff in highschool.

I can remember being in highschool, and Jeff came to my house for a party. Of course I was always the party girl and trying to be such a diva, the hostess of the party. There was no alcohol, but we were drunk with youth and everyone was staying up late and going off in corners to make out and Jeff was there. With Allegro. With Allegro, his first sex - the tall think dark haired beauty that was his first sex. She was a perfectly nice girl but oooh was I jealous. I thought to myself that I should have been his first. But she was. And then she went home and Jeff stayed late. And he borrowed my green skirt to be more comfortable (Jeff was the first to push the envelope of Abilene - He was the first straight boy to cross-dress in our highschool and I thought it was daring and fabulous) And I remember the way he looked in my skirt sitting on my floor looking up at me - I�ve never seen a man in a skirt look more handsome ( with the one possible exception being Pat Briggs of Glitterdome fame)

I remember another time he was at my house, it was after Allegro left for Austin and before I graduated, I had invited Deborah Young and Jeff over to my house and we were hanging out in my room with walls covered in magazine clippings - We were drawing and Jeff took Deborah home and came back to my place and sat on my waterbed and drew a picture of me . . .He drew me. He saw me and he drew me and then he showed me the picture and told me that he was attracted to me and I freaked and changed the music and Jeff went home and I was so dissappionted because I wanted nothing more than to be with him, but I was too chicken to act on my feelings and we never spoke of that moment again.

I remember before I left for college that fall, Jeff was the last person I saw before I left. He came over to my house and we sat in my living room and he told me that he loved me and I told him that I loved him. I said it and took it to be friendship love. The deep way that I now say I love Paul and Ryan and Jim and Leslie. . . but I remember in my heart of hearts that what I felt was LOVE. That noone had ever cared more about Jeff in the whole world but me. That I was priveledged to knowing him closer at heart than anyone. And I wasn�t thinking about sex, I was thinking - I will never lose touch with Jeff because he loves me and I love him. And I remembered for a while that I loved him but I didn't value fully what he said to me then.

God, How could I have forgotten? But I did. I forgot. I went off to college and came back once and saw him and loved him then too but you know we had been jaded, we thought we were growing up and Joy was there so I couldn�t go off with him alone and I thought I was in love with Pigboy and I was such a little fool . . . And I never saw Jeff again . . .

Until that moment onstage in New York. My heart contracted and my mouth started blubbering and I know i must have been such a goober because I lost all mental and motor control at that moment - That moment he took my hand and he said:

�Hillary, I have not been in love with anyone since I was in love with you�

And I kissed him!!

And backstage I asked him �Did you mean what you said?� and he said yes he loved me once . . . How could I possibly ask him that question?? Of course he meant it. He wouldn�t have said it if he didn�t mean it! What I was really asking underneath, what I was really asking was �Could you love me again?� and the truth is I don�t know the answer to that one, and maybe neither does he. Things between us were good but left me feeling unresolved, as always, for several reasons:

1. I never believe people when they tell me they love me or have loved me or when they pay me a compliment. I ask people three times if they mean what they said and if they�re sure and will they tell me again what they said. Something is fucked up about me that way.

2. We live in different states.

3. I kissed him and I didn�t sense a kiss back. I made a feeble attempt to kiss him once many years ago, on that last day before I left for college and he refused my kiss then. On tv he didn�t kiss back when I kissed him. After the show, as we were leaving, i kissed him again and didn�t get a kissback. Is he not attracted? Or am I expecting too much too soon?

So, all in all, things between me and Jeff feel exactly the same as they did 7 years ago. I sense a great attraction and at the same time a great hesitation from Jeff. I can�t tell from how he acts or what he says whether he is willing to go there with me again or whether he only thinks of me nostalgically. We have a history of crossed wires and missed connections.

I know what you�re all thinking. You�re thinking I over-analyze everything, that I�m thinking about this too much, that I�m always getting involved with men and having sex too soon and expecting too much and thinking they�re the one and looking for validation of my own self-worth from men and Jeff is just another boy who has some good qualities but isn�t worthy of all this rambling . . . but let me finish the story and then you�ll understand . . .

After the show we went to Planet Hollywood lunch paid for by the studio and we chatted and he told me he was celibate (he got tired of meaningless dating and sex and decided to focus on self-cultivation instead of wasting his time and energy) and of course I tried to impress him by telling him how sexy and popular and fabulous I was and how I could crush beer cans with my breasts and get any man to buy me a cocktail and outdrink almost anyone and i talked a mile a minute and I asked him if he knew it was me that called him to New York and he said of course and I asked how? and he said �because you�re the only girl crazy enough to do it!� and I asked him if he thought I was crazy and he said I�d always been crazy (good-crazy, not psycho-crazy) and I said something else and he just looked at me and said

�I know you.�

and the thought crashed in on me at that moment - that all that talk had been wasted because I was acting like I�d just met the guy and was trying to fill him in on my whole life and who I was and it was so ridiculous of me to go on like that because you know what? He does know me. In a way more intimate than anyone else ever could. He knows me. He met me when I was 14 for chrissakes. And he loved me then.

He loved me.

He loved me when I had a crazy haircut that was short on one side and long on the other. He loved me when I had braces on my teeth. He loved me when I wore black all the time and mooned over Robert Smith. He loved me when I had huge breasts. He loved me when I went on speech tournaments and lost every time. He loved me before I ever had a drink, or smoked pot, or had sex, or lost weight, or went to college. He loved me before everything. He loved me when I lived in Abilene Texas. And he knows what it means to come from Abilene.

And we laughed and laughed, we laughed so easily with each other. From the instant I saw him he cracked my shit up! And I can�t believe I had forgotten but I had forgotten his laugh - the way he laughs before anyone has gotten the joke, quick as lightning he throws his head back and squits his eyes and opens his mouth wide and makes no sound and his whole body shakes and then just as quickly he zones back in with a gleam in his eye and a smirk on his face. The only other person on the planet with whom I laugh so easily is my homegirl Larissa. But Jeff got my sense of humour - not just polite laughter or laughing sometimes but he gets it - he gets my sense of humour and thinks I�m hilarious - and I just couldn�t stop laughing with him! The very first inside joke we had together was right after they cut to commercial after we had taped our part of the show - we were onstage and I whispered in his ear �Isn�t this absurd?� (and I meant that on many many philisophical levels) and he gave me his silent open mouth squinted eye laugh and i could tell - He got it. On every level.

So before we went to lunch the people from the show had told me they would try to reschedule my flight for the next day so Jeff and I could have more time together -- and at lunch he told me that his friends in New York offered their couch to us and we were operating on the assumption that this was just lunch and we�d have the whole night to get re-acquainted -- And then we get back to the studio and they�re like -- Your car is waiting to take you to the airport -- and it turned out that nothing was rescheduled and our cars were both waiting to take us in different directions and we had 30 seconds to say goodbye -- After 7 years apart we had only 1 hour together . . .

So we said goodbye and I hugged him and kissed his neck with swift little hillary kisses and I told him what a pleasure it was so see him and that I wanted to see him again and I didn�t want to wait another 7 years and he nodded in affirmation and said goodbye . . .

They had sent a Limo for me and I got in the Limo and I just felt miserable. I got to the airport and I sat outside huddled on the curb staring at the New York skyline and smoking cigarettes for a couple of hours, tears dried onto my cheeks just staring out and feeling miserable. I have only felt like that a couple of times before in my life - the day I left Abilene and saw Jeff for the last time before I went to College, and the day that Jim left Canada to go home to Alabama -- I just felt miserable --- and that kind of misery can only mean ONE thing.