Silence on the line.

There is silence from TLTL. And from MTIA, too, until today, when he sends me a quick message to tell me not to take his silence “personally.”

“I’m not ignoring you,” he wrote. “We both have issues that we have the honesty to admit but lack the tenacity to tackle.” Oh, really? Thanks for the vote of confidence, you dick, but whatever. I rolled my eyes and read the rest of the brief communique. “Don’t take it personally…fighting my own demons in silence… blah blah blah.” Trust me, it’s not worth even the effort to paraphrase.

I think of all the things I want to write in response:
“Good luck with that, bro.”
“Actually, I have been really quite well.”
“I lack the tenacity to face my own bullshit?! Judge me much?”
“Why can’t you just fucking trust me?”
“Have you hooked up with TLTL yet, because that’d be a real cake topper for this trainwreck we’ve got going.”

Instead, I write nothing.

How do you respond to someone who writes to tell you, “I have nothing to say to you,” really?

Then… oh, just wait for it… TLTL asks me to be his date for a friend’s wedding.

“Long shot, I know, but do you want to go to so-and-so’s wedding with me?”
“Are you effing kidding me???”
Long story short, I tell him to take someone he actually gives a damn about, to which he responds, “You’re right. We can never be together.”
Really? That’s your response to me when I tell you to go suck it?

This book makes my life better.

Naturally, my response has been shopping and piercings. I bought myself an Invicta watch, some ridiculous books including F.U. Penguin, and various gardening needs. And then, after another day of sobbing, decided to go ahead and get my septum pierced. These things have cheered me considerably, along with the purchase of a favorite scent of oil I’ve been wearing since high school that always seems to have a strange (good) effect on people (guys) around me. It’s my secret, though, so I’m not sharing.

“Good lord, you smell delicious,” a guy behind me said at the greenhouse. It certainly wasn’t the response I was expecting from an average looking 50-something in a gardening centre. I told him what I was wearing, and he asked, “Did you get it at Isis and Osiris?” Perhaps the pentacle I wear around my neck was a dead give away that I’d know exactly the magick store to which he was referring. We talked for a bit, then I marched on my way to continue my shopping spree borne of self-pity, where a pretty checkout girl at the bookstore fell in love with my watch.

Today when I wandered in to get my septum pierced, there was a bar crawl on in the neighborhood, and a couple of drunk bronies were in front of me asking stupid questions about piercings. The poor piercer was trying to explain to the one dude about why the piercing the guy wanted was a horrific idea. I tried to help explain. He wouldn’t listen. Eventually, the group stumbled out (unpierced, which was certainly for the best since I encountered them later when I nearly walked into a bar crawl brawl); I held my hand to my head like a gun, looked at the piercer, and said, simply, “Pow.” He smiled at me, and my heart melted a little bit.

So I ask the goregeous guy behind the counter if I can get my septum pierced (my septum is exceptionally crooked from several broken noses over the years), saying, “Um, you know, I’m not straight. Er. My nose. It’s not straight. It’s crooked. Er…”

Another guy in the place chuckled and piped in. “Yeah, none of us is really straight here.” OMFG.

The gorgeous piercer (who, I believe, pierced my lip several years back) decided to give it a go, and it’s while I’m sitting on a table waiting for him to gather his instruments of torture that I realize my zipper is down. And of course, I blurt out, “Oh Jesus, my zipper has totally been down all this time. Classy.” He giggled a little.

I am generally the first person to admit that I close my eyes when being pierced, but this time, I waited until the absolute last second, keeping my eyes focused on his. Then boom, it’s done. I get up to stare at the large needle sticking through my nose and fight the urge to take a selfie. He swaps out the needle with the jewelry and then realizes, “Shit. It’s crooked. I swear to you I pierced it straight.”

I tried to reassure him. “I know you did. I knew this was a risk.”

“But I can’t let you walk out of here like that, not in good conscience,” he frowned. He studied me for a bit, then said, “We can retry this, I have a plan.”

“This plan involves another needle in my face, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I’ll do it differently, pierce it crooked to compensate. I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but I’m pretty sure it will work.”

“Go for it.”

He had me lay down flat this time, presumably because he knew that the second he took the jewelry out I was going to start bleeding profusely. Yup. Do you have any clue how awkward it is to be flat on your back with a gorgeous guy stuffing tissues up your nose and squeezing to staunch the bleeding? He had other customers waiting out front. A herd of them. And I was just there, bleeding all over his piercing station. But sure enough, he pierced it crooked and it worked.

He grinned at me. “That was the weirdest septum piercing I have ever done in my life.”

“I’m, um, glad I could be of some entertainment value.” I grinned back.

On the way back out to the lobby, he told me, “I’m here every day but Sundays. If you need anything, see me.” He paused. “What’s your name again?”

“Oh hell, I don’t think I ever introduced myself. I’m Twig.”

“Nice to meet you. And thanks for being such a good sport. Seriously, if you need anything, I’m here.”

Oh, honey, the things I need you for… 

I apologized to the gaggle of tween girls and their mums, who all stared at my face in what I hope was awe and not horror before saying, “No, no worries!!”

And then I tried to push my way out of the door despite being eye level with the sign that said pull. “Crap. I’m a genius.” The women laughed, Gorgeous Piercer smiled, and I made my real exit.

I’m telling you, this guy was exquisite, with ear gauges and piercings I don’t even know the names of. It made my day.

That’s saying a lot since I’ve been doing a good deal of sobbing over every last little thing on the daily for the past several weeks over work, chronic pain, nightmares, my brother’s emotional pain, my own patheticness and inability to just suck it the hell up. I sobbed my way through a massage the other day. I sobbed my way through gardening. I sobbed my way at my parents’ through carrying a box of my sister’s old shoes to the car so that my brother wouldn’t see them being given away.

I’m a mess. But I look bad ass, and I’ve got my awesome scented oil. Tonight, I will close my eyes with the faintest hope that someone will love me exactly because I garden while listening to EBM stuff like VNV Nation and Wumpscut and not in spite of these things. Maybe I will become, once and for all, whoever it is I’ve been hiding on the inside. Do I expect a date with Gorgeous Piercer? Hell no. But it does feel damn good to finally have a little hope again. And if that’s the case, I had better get my hair cut and re-dyed before I go to see VNV nation soon. Maybe, maybe, maybe…maybe I will finally have the courage to tell Ronan Harris how much VNV Nation’s music matters to me on a daily basis: Victory. Not Vengeance.

Victory Not Vengeance. EVER.