Oliver, part two.
We woke up early the next day and ate leftover broccoli pizza before she went off on her bike for band practice. I didn't know what to do, so I just stayed behind and lazily remained in her bed, still a little overwhelmed by the concept of being in Portland with some pretty girl who slept with me the night before. I couldn't tell if the chaos and lack of a plan was beautiful or just stressful. When she came home, we went out to "the bins" at Goodwill. I'd never seen something like this before in my area, but some Goodwill warehouses allow people to come in and rummage through tons of bins of miscellaneous stuff barely organized. As I found out, Oliver was obsessed with clothes. I didn't want to believe she was as vain as her constant self-shots on Tumblr projected, but I was forced to wander around while she painstakingly went through almost every bin there. I tried to find some shoes, but no luck. She found some children's clothes she could fit in and an umbrella with kitten faces all over it, which was as cool as it was unnecessary to buy. She had just gotten some money from somewhere and she couldn't stop talking about it, so she felt very compelled to spend it. I had no interest in clothes, of course. My torn shorts were doing just fine and the only things I felt I really needed were a new pair of sneakers, since mine were falling apart completely. We waited for a half hour for the bus back outside, watching packs of suburbanites from a nearby cul-de-sac unearth themselves for an evening stroll. They had sweaters tied around their necks and clothes of white and dull pastels, smiling with even brighter teeth. It was scary. Within minutes of finally getting on the bus, I realized my phone was gone. I felt like a jerk making us have to get off and walk all the way back, about two miles, just to find my phone sitting on the bench at the stop. We walked our way back, holding hands, and I kept apologizing for being an inconvenience. We went to some area where several food carts sat and ate food. The night air was nice, but I was running out of things to talk about. We got tofu pot pies from a stand called Whiffies Pie and some curly fries from another cart called Potato Champion. We watched dogs come in and out with their humans. We slept really early and really well that night, though her cat did spill a glass of almond milk on me and the bed in the middle of it. The next morning, we went out to eat at Sweet Pea, which was exciting and delicious, but it was around that day, only day three of my visit there, that I started to get bored.
We made a couple of plans here and there for the near future, but the days we spent together themselves became more and more empty. As someone who doesn't live in Portland, I didn't know what to do. And I had no ambition to do anything by myself. Honestly, it was still very weird to be somewhere far away without Kara, especially since Kara and I have the same interests. Oliver seemed completely disinterested in the city she was lucky enough to live for free in. She'd suggest going out to eat, which I never rejected, but other than that all she did was sit online. Every day, she'd ask me, "So what do you wanna do today?" and I'd say, "Anything," or, "Whatever you wanna do." But she never had a suggestion or any idea. As it turned out, she didn't want to do anything except eat, sit online, and accessorize outfits so she could take pictures of herself. Aside from watching several episodes at a time of Dawson's Creek, she obsessively checked her Facebook and Tumblr. She'd have each open in a tab on her laptop and repeatedly shift between them, refreshing the pages to see if she'd gotten any new status comments, picture likes, messages, or notes on her text and picture posts. It was really disturbing. Even after an entire day and night of that routine, it was always another half hour of her doing the same exact things on her iPhone after she'd turned around to "go to sleep". I spent a considerable amount of time online, of course, because I had nothing else to do and we'd run out of things to talk about already. I quickly discovered that she wasn't a very intelligent person. She was vaguely following a lifestyle that I do, but it didn't seem entirely clear why she was. It wasn't until I got there that I found out she hadn't been vegan or straightedge for even a year. She was young, too, which only lead me to believe that this lifestyle was only going to last as long as the outfits she was wearing. It also turned out that she didn't even know me as well as I allowed her to be, which made me question how much she actually even liked me. She had no idea I kept a personal blog and had the nerve one night to say, "Real vegans don't even like PETA. I don't know a single vegan who does." I looked at her and immediately said, "Um... I support PETA. Didn't you ever see the giant thing I wrote about them on Tumblr?" She acted surprised and stuttered something about them being sexist and "killing animals", as expected, and added, "I don't read every single thing you write!" There was also another time I was complaining about censorship in America that she said to me, "Try living in [I forget which worse-off country she said]! It could be much worse." I'd never had a self-proclaimed anarchist use that rhetoric in response to my grievances against this country before, so it really caught me off guard.
Gradually, the terrible, vapid things that came from her mouth piled up on me. She'd already told me outright that she talked to boys she didn't like because she liked the attention, which was a clear warning sign I should have given more attention to. She also suggested that I "take tons of pictures of her" for fun because she "loved having her picture taken", which I thought was weird. It was strange enough waking up every day to her going in and out of the bathroom, preparing herself externally for a walk to the grocery store or for a home photo shoot by herself of herself using her iPhone or entire laptop. I took two pictures of her while I was there. The second one (above), she asked me to take because she thought she looked really cute. She immediately posted it to Tumblr and repeatedly refreshed the page, boasting about how many notes it was gaining. She was obsessed with her online presence, especially Tumblr. One time, she even confessed to me that she sometimes asked herself anonymous questions on Tumblr. I was pretty upset over my Tumblr being deleted, but I was not nearly as consumed by my Internet life as she was. And she wasn't even contributing anything to the world through hers besides mindless reblogs, slogans, and pictures of herself. Even though I was there with her, she constantly made text posts about being all alone and never good enough for anyone. She also counted down the days to flying to Wisconsin to visit her grandparents, who she looked forward to having spoil her with money and shopping sprees, while talking about needing to find a job so she could afford rent for her future apartment without ever actually pursuing it. Then there was the incessant talk of piercings and clothes. She talked about clothes non-stop; it was like hanging out with a valley girl who wore all-black. Sometimes, we'd get into legitimate conversations, but they were few and far between and felt almost accidental. It was never long before she returned to saying things that made my head hurt.
In addition, I had to find out that a lot of things she'd told me about herself were lies. A while back, before she had moved into this apartment, she told me she was homeless because her mother kicked her out. The truth was actually that her mother half-heartedly kicked her out, which was something she did semi-often because Oliver was a spoiled brat, and she just stubbornly refused to come back, instead opting to stay with a friend and her family. She had originally told me she had a drug problem when she was younger, but when I asked her to elaborate, it turned out she'd gotten drunk once and tried pills a few times. She told me she had an eating disorder, but ate more than I did throughout the day. When I asked her if she binged and purged, she told me she didn't, and when I asked her if she was bulimic, she said no. She also claimed to have borderline personality disorder, something I found out while there she had self-diagnosed herself with. She even lied about stupid things like not drinking caffeine, which I found out while there that she did. It was outrageous and I was beginning to realize that she was just hopping on the bandwagon that much of Tumblr was on. For one reason or another, privileged kids find misery and suffering glamorous, perhaps due to guilt over not having significant problems in a world of serious suffering, and like many of them she wanted to be just as sexually abused, dysfunctional, mentally ill, poor, oppressed, and lonely as real people with real problems were. It was clearly the only way she could have any depth: by lying about or over-exaggerating her own life and troubles, fabricating experiences, and adopting extreme lifestyle choices. The worst lie she told was about the hypothetical apartment with other straightedge vegan kids she claimed she'd be moving into that August. She had invited me to live with her there, which was one of the main motives behind coming all the way there in the first place. One day, on our way back from the grocery store, I started asking about it, and she dropped the bomb: there wasn't even an apartment picked out yet. Not only that, but there was only one other kid definitely moving in, and they were moving from California with only his parents to pay for everything for him. Meanwhile, Oliver had no job or income whatsoever. In that moment, it became clear that it was more a youthful daydream than an actual ambition. I knew then that I would definitely not be living in Portland come the next month. And even if she had found somewhere by then, there was no way I could trust her as a roommate. My indefinite stay was becoming less and less indefinite.
One night, I got a much-needed break from her. Some other friends from online were on tour with their surf-pop band KIDS. from San Diego and the show they were playing was 21+, giving Oliver an excuse to not join me. I got directions and took buses, taking advantage of the moment to call Kara and talk her ear off about how terribly the experience was going. I eventually found the Ella Street Social Club, a tiny little dive bar with one of the tiniest stages I'd ever seen that smelled like an attic and had stencil art decorating the walls. My online acquaintances, Matt Bearrones and his girlfriend Nature (yes, that's her real name, I found out) were outside with the rest of the band and crew, just hanging out. We immediately started chatting and I instantly fell in love with all of them. They were such a breath of fresh air after several days with Oliver. They were friendly and hilarious and just overall nice people. All of them were under twenty-one, with the exception of Alex who had a fake I.D., and the bar actually told them that they couldn't come in until they were playing their set, after which they had to go back outside. One woman even came out and told us we couldn't have any open containers while on their grass, so we had to move our waters. I watched Alex skateboard and talked to Matt and Nature about traveling, San Diego, mutual friends, music, and their tour. They had borrowed a van from another band and two morose hipsters were their roadies for the trip. They were silent and in obvious bad moods the brief moments I spent around them. The local openers were pretty awful and left as soon as they finished playing. No one came out to the show, so KIDS. wound up playing to me, Alex, and an old man at the bar who watched enthusiastically and danced while hobbling to and from the bathroom. KIDS. put on a really incredible and energetic set despite playing to an empty room. Their music is kind of like Best Coast, except more technical, and makes me feel like I'm having fun on a beach. After the show, the old man introduced himself. His name was Diedrek and raved about them. He even bought a tape. He also told us the venue used to be a funeral home. I wanted to keep hanging out, and wanted to delay going back to the house as much as I could, so I offered to buy pizza for everyone at Sizzle Pie. So we hopped into the van and hung out there for a bit, eating vegan pizza by the slice, undeterred by some bros in their thirties who tried to make fun of them. They were nice enough to drive me home and I found myself surprisingly able to recite some basic directions back to the house. It was a good night and I'm glad I met those guys. Hopefully, I get to see them again sooner or later. Thankfully, when I got back in, Oliver was already asleep.
After her band broke up the first week I was there, she didn't really have anything else to do. With the exception of sewing pants to make them skinnier against her legs or putting a patch on the back of a shirt, all she did was sit online and eat. I eventually got to meet the man of the house, Andrew, once he came back from a short trip of womanizing. He was around my age, maybe older, and was supposedly a teacher and a musician. He had two vehicles, a car and a van, though he usually biked. When he came into the bedroom the day he returned with some tatted punx girl under his arm, he introduced himself, shook my hand, and said something corny about, "If you hurt her, I'll kill ya." He was incredibly loud and obnoxious and dressed like every other straightedge vegan kid I've ever seen on the Internet: the self-cut black skinny jeans that end just above the knees, the tight black band shirt, the septum piercing, the slew of meaningless tattoos that had to have cost a collective fortune, the jet-black hair strategically pushed back in a semi-greaser style, bold-rimmed glasses, and sometimes wearing a sock hat. He was traditionally handsome and the thought of Oliver having previously been fucking him made me feel inadequate. He was in and out and almost always doing stuff. Sometimes, I had to sit in Oliver's bed and listen to him fuck his new girlfriend upstairs. You couldn't miss them coming or going because they screamed their conversations, laughed hysterically, and moved like boulders down a hill.
One day, he brought a bunch of us a bit of a drive out to a small suburban town called Tigard, where there was an entire shopping area that for some reason included a vegan restaurant called Native Foods. On the drive there in his stuffy van, him and his girlfriend sang loudly along to songs on his iPod that were ironic to like and some AFI, which drove me crazy. Oliver sat in the back with her friend who had visited earlier in the day, Nola. They bonded like two little girls and it wasn't until her friend was around that I remembered just how young Oliver was and just how often maturity and age do coincide with one another. Native Foods was delicious and pretty cheap, though him and Oliver seemed surprised when I said that, assuring me that it wasn't. In fact, Oliver constantly referred to food as expensive when I saw it as cheap. I found it interesting because, at the same time, these were people who obsessed over accessories like piercings and tattoos and clothes, all of which is not only expensive but also frivolous, especially compared to the necessity of food. Michelle had come with us and gradually grew more and more quiet. She was a pretty cool girl, albeit not too different from Oliver when all was said and done. She was gorgeous and more introverted, which made her a lot more attractive. I couldn't help but wish that I had met her over the Internet instead. On the ride back, it was more sing-alongs and sweating. I didn't say much because I had very little to contribute to their inane conversations. We did, however, pull over on the side of heavy traffic just to help a guy who had broken down push his van to the shoulder. It was the high point of the day for me to help someone in need. When we got back to the house, they all wanted to go to the mall. Not a single part of me wanted to do that, so I stayed behind. When they came back, Oliver bragged about clothes she stole and the new lingerie she bought with Michelle. All I could do was give her thumbs up and remain silent while she boasted about it. I was not used to being around girls who gave a shit about clothes. Her and Michelle got all dressed up so they could take a ton of pictures of themselves together in their lingerie and post it on Tumblr, which then followed each of them yelling back and forth from each other's bedrooms about the steadily increasing notes they were getting. My head felt like it was going to explode. That night, she asked me if she could sleep with Michelle. I didn't blame her for not wanting to be in the same bed as me; I didn't want to be in it with her, either. She still gave me a kiss goodnight, though, which was very confusing. I could not figure out what she was thinking or feeling, if she was in fact thinking or feeling anything at all.
The next day, Andrew made breakfast for all of us. It was yummy. We sat on the kitchen floor and everyone talked except for me. I felt so weird being there with them. I was nothing like them. At the same time, they made me feel so inferior, despite how harshly I was criticizing them in my head. We drove out to a juice cart outside of the a co-op called Sip and got shakes. I continued to sit there in silence while Oliver and Michelle talked about Andrew like two teenage girls gossiping. They were both, to me, very obviously in love with him. He didn't deserve it. He was just another xvx manwhore, from what I could tell and from what Oliver had told me. Later that day, I decided I needed to make a decision. I talked to Kara on the phone and decided that I would come home. Tia's birthday was on the 26th, so I had a few hours over five days to get there in time. I devised a plan with Kara to surprise her, since Kara and I have never been around during the summer to spend Tia's birthday with her. Basically, I would nail it into Tia's head that I wasn't going to come home until October and Kara would reinforce this every chance she got. Meanwhile, I'd be on a Greyhound bus back to Albany to meet them and surprise her while they are eating dinner at Ichiban. I left the house on my own and went downtown to spend $200 on a bus ticket back home for that upcoming Sunday morning. It would get me there in just over three days, meaning I would get into Albany the afternoon of Tia's birthday. I wound up using the remainder of the money I'd saved up from selling zines, but it was worth it. I needed to escape and I missed Tia and Kara. I spent the rest of that day by myself at Sizzple Pie, eating a medium pizza very slowly while reading. I wasn't sure how to tell her I was leaving. I wasn't sure how she'd react or how it would affect my remaining days there. I couldn't imagine things being any more awkward than they already were. But I texted her outright and told her I would be getting on the bus back home that Sunday. She spoke to me like a guest on a talk show and told me she just wanted me to do what was best for me. She tried to say she was, "better off alone," and a bunch of other melodramatic stuff that I refused to feed into. When I got back to the house, it was hard to sleep because of the overwhelming stench of the kitty litter boxes that they never cleaned. One day, a cat peed on some of Oliver's clothes and her and Michelle seemed baffled by it. I tried to interject and tell them the cat probably did it because their litter spaces were a mess and they looked at me like they had never even fathomed the possibility. Oliver stayed upstairs most of the night, watching some shitty vampire show with Michelle.
The next day, I woke up to Oliver getting all done up to leave the house. We all had plans to go out and eat at some place I'd never heard of and, obviously, both the ladies had to look good to be in public. It was a two-hour process and lots of time was spent in front of the mirror in the bathroom. Oliver decided she was going to start wearing a black wig. It was one of the first times I'd ever felt embarrassed to be around someone else because of the way they looked. She went on and on about that wig that day, celebrating it online and throughout the house. It was really sad to watch. We walked over an hour through some really nice, wealthy neighborhoods to a cool little part of town. I remained silent and devastated on the walk there with them as they had soul-crushing conversations with one another. I found myself wanting to look at everything around me, but the only thing they noticed on the walk were yard sale signs. They talked about looking pretty, about clothes, and about Andrew not giving them enough attention. I felt invisible and my head hurt from the relentlessly shallow and unrelatable conversations they were having. I very rarely find myself in a situation where I am unable to contribute or relate to a conversation, because I know a lot about a lot. But these girls were talking at length about nothing. They also went on and on about being miserable, giggling about it while they talked about depression like it was glamorous. "I can't wait for such and such to come over so we can all sit around and be miserable together, hehehehe!" It was awful. When we got to Back to Eden and ate, they talked about not having any money... while spending it. It was all so ridiculous. They walked back, but I decided to take the bus. I couldn't take another second with them. When I got back to the house, I left again with my headphones on. I didn't know what else to do, so I just ate and ate. I got doughnuts from Voodoo Doughnuts and then a giant meal at Hungry Tiger Too. I just wanted to be alone and fast-forward to leaving. On my way back to the house, I had to sit on the side of the road. I felt like I was going to puke, probably because of how much I ate or how sick of everything I was.
My last two days there, we didn't speak at all. When we slept with each other at night, we didn't touch. Our backs were to each other. We had sex a second time around the third or so night there. That night, I discovered that I may be completely incapable of shallow sex. Halfway through fucking, my dick just went limp. She was on top and it felt like I was being tasseled by a dead body. I was just so genuinely repulsed by her that I could not even maintain an erection long enough to fuck her and cum. I pulled out and tried to bide time, but by the time she went to grab me and put me back inside of her, I was totally flaccid. I learned something new about myself that night, I guess. My last night there, I noticed she was already in the midst of flirting it up with a new straightedge vegan boy from Tumblr. I wasn't surprised. I had already concluded she was some sort of xvx Tumblr groupie. I suppose I was flattered to be one of the temporary men in her life. She went to "the club" that night. As usual, she got all done up and excitedly told me she had a fake I.D. and would be going to a bar. It was the last straw for me. One of our previous phone conversations while I was still in Memphis, she had told me about a local house show she ditched because she didn't want to be around drinking or alcohol, claiming it was "triggering" for her (in what way, I never found out, because she was never an alcoholic and neither were her parents). So I guess she couldn't bear alcohol enough to support a local punk show, but she could do it to dance in an actual bar. It was the cherry on top of a disastrous two weeks. She was still young, I tried to remind myself. I figure she won't be straightedge or vegan a year from now. I felt really stupid and ashamed for making the desperately shallow decision to come all the way to the other side of the country for a pretty girl. It will go down in my history as one of the most embarrassing things I've ever done. And, unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last time I had to face it.
The morning I left, I woke up alone. I didn't want to see her to say goodbye. I wanted our relationship to just fade and die gracefully without a bunch of drama erupting or hurt feelings. So I left a note on her bed saying, "Thanks for letting me into your home and tolerating me. Sorry if I was a total bummer." Then I crept through the door and headed to the Greyhound station.
This was one of their cute little cats.
This was the giant milk carton that rotated atop the factory by their apartment.
I just thought this giant, shabby dog was cute. I was on the phone with Kara and wished she could have been there to see them, so I took a picture.
The cool artwork at Hungry Tiger Too.
Oliver's bedroom.