Is it "Normal" to trust?

Alex's big trip is that he keeps trying to define himself as "normal". I've long given up on knowing what that means or trying to define myself that way. Steve says everyone's crazy, just different kinds of crazy. I think I agree with that more than trying to make myself fit into a category that I don't feel exists really. Tonight Steve and I talked about bi-polar disorder. Apparently, his ex was also afflicted with it. I was trying to explain to him what it was like to have an episode, that it's the whole reason why Alex and I are a "tragic relationship". I had to explain what that paranoia about not being able to trust people feels like. And so I fell into another story about someone from my past, Shirley, AKA Valentine, though if I hadn't have been so hurt by Ezra (Eskae) once already, I would've been more disappointed by the loss of my friendship with Valentine. See, Ezra and I were inseparable for a long while in our early twenties. I even got him onto the crew, "Altered States" which he seems to have forgotten. Once, we had even done shrooms in Disneyland, piquing in ToonTown, and then went to Mickey Mouse's house and got Mickey Mouse himself to hit up our blackbooks. I remember thinking we were making some sort of trek to Mecca and it all was making more and more sense as we were herded like cattle in those zigzag endless "psych, you're not even close to the front" lines. At the front of the line, about five people were ushered into the next room with the big heavy doors, out of view, and then the heavy doors would close behind them. Meanwhile, in the background, there was a reel playing of Mickey Mouse giving an interview in an actor's chair on a large screen, so it was made to feel as if we were going backstage to meet him personally. The intensity was building and building until the doors finally opened and we were the ones to be ushered into the next room, The big heavy doors closed behind us and when we were finally in the room, I remember thinking why did Mickey need all those big old bodyguards? And why was he so small? And then I squeezed his glove in my hand so tight because I couldn't even feel his hand 'cuz the glove was so big and cushy...Anyways, Ezra had this epiphany while we were riding the "It's a Small World" ride and I couldn't help freaking out because all the mechanical puppets were clicking and their teeth were chattering and the song was creeping me out too. So Ezra and I spent countless hours talking about everything from politics to religion to scientific breakthroughs, he even visited me in New York and I told him a lot about my life and read him some of my writing until I realized he was using it in his art. Literally, he would draw MY ideas onto his canvasses. That wasn't the really awful part. The really awful part is how he changed, started to become so affected and aloof, playing the part of the guru so much after awhile just because he had some fame as an artist/DJ. And then that's when he started to talk all kinds of "space art bullsh*t and began talking to me as if I was a customer, as if he was some kind of walking talking advertisement promoting himself constantly. Then the other times I'd see him, he'd be so wasted he wouldn't remember anything. I didn't even know why we were friends anymore after awhile. And then I made the realization that he was just selfish and we weren't really friends at all. And that had broken my heart. Why did it break my heart? Because he didn't even care enough to find out how I was doing after I'd been depressed for a while in Cali. He'd talk to everyone else asking them why I was so upset with him but he never had the balls to come up to me personally or even call me to find out why, as if he was just trying to make himself look like a good person to them. Anyways, he was my main grievance with Altered States and now that is finally all over and done with. I have divorced him and AS, too. I spent many years upset by him though and he was my lesson not to trust people so much. And then there was Valentine. Valentine and I met when she had first moved to New York back in '96. She was sweet and innocent back then. She had even gone to my elementary school the year after I had graduated and had grown up amongst all the people that I had left behind when I went to a different school for middle school. We became fast friends. I took her to my New York, the one with graff artists and basement salsa DJ parties way up in the BX. Anyways, when I first met her she was dating this guy named Kenny. He was a heroin junkie and turned into a stalker towards the end of their relationship. This went on for four years. I tried to give her support, but had given up on telling her that I didn't think Kenny was the right guy for her because we love who we love and I didn't feel like it was my place to tell her what to do, plus she never listened. I was still willing to be her friend through all of it, though it was a bit draining at times. Anyways, I left New York and moved to Cali to put a portfolio for school. Shirley came out and she and I flew down to LA together and stayed at her friend's place in downtown LA right next to the Toy District and even went to Christina Ricci's New Year's Eve party. Then I moved to Boston for school. She came to visit once during my Senior year because her cousin lives in Boston and was getting married. This is when I was couching it at Greg's place waiting for the move-in date to arrive for me to move into my own apartment and he lived in a bachelor pad, a basement apartment (located at 666 Tremont Street in the South end) with two other guys. They didn't have windows or cable 'cuz they were broke. She had turned up her nose in disgust and complained the whole time. Josh, Greg's roommate, thought she was a bitch. I tried to cover for her and say that she wasn't really a bitch, but that's when I should've started to notice the change. Anyways, fastforward to me moving back to New York in 2004. I was living with Denise and Kate. I'm still in touch with Kate. She's a wonderful girl, but Denise was always aloof and kinda cold, yet she's the one who was renting the loft and who was offering these built-out rooms that Kate and I were renting. Anyways, I had started dating Rob, dating Rob...He wasn't my boyfriend. It wasn't really serious. Rob was this pot-smoking songwriting guitarist who was working a computer Systems dayjob and was really miserable. That's actually how we met. He put out a posting on Craigslist about how depressed he was and asked was there someone out there who could empathize, so I responded and after a couple weeks of talking on the phone, we actually decided to meet and then we started dating. At this time, my Mom and I started talking again after a heated fight about my half-brother a year before. That's also when she told me my half-sister SoYoung had dumped her kids in Seattle, WA and that they went to foster homes. I couldn't even think straight after that. I couldn't sleep or eat, I was consumed with finding them and making sure they were okay. I had just started a job at a television production company and was working 50-60 hours a week, too, doing pre-production. That's enough background of the stuff going on in my life at that time. Shirley had told me she needed some graphic design work done for her new clothing line and had complained that a friend of hers had told her that she was just using him to do her design work. That should've been a red flag, but I offered to do it for her. She was in a clutch, I wanted to help her out, and I thought I could get a good portfolio piece out of it, too. But she was demanding and wanted it done within a week. I had to shoot all the photos of the clothing. We used Rob's apartment to do the shoot. There was endless cropping. There was also a lot of problems with colorsyncing. And I met her every time she had to go over something at the drop of a hat. I wanted her to meet Rob, so we all went to a movie. Rob left his trash in his seat and I had picked it up and taken it to the trash. He had said, "They've got people whose job it is to do that." Shirley had thought that was tacky and had written him off and I think had written me off too because of that comment. I had to put up with Kenny for four years and she writes Rob off for being a dick once. Kate had observed my relationship with her and said that she thought she wasn't really my friend. This was probably illustrated in how she was selling some of her stuff at a store in the LES and I had gone to keep her company and I had shown interest in one of her dresses and she told me I owed her $80 for it even though I did all that design work for her for free trying to discourage me from taking it because I think she thought I didn't have the "right look" for the dress. I'm not skin and bones after all. Rob and I broke up after a while anyway. I was too much drama for him, plus he and I were all wrong for one another. I was so angst with all the stuff going on in my life with my family and just everything that I went out bombing. I painted a clown on a fence because that's how I felt. Anyways, I've said all this in a previous entry, but to put it in a nutshell, after getting caught for the clown, I did a stint at Riker's. The charges were dropped and I was sent to South Beach Hospital in Staten Island. I called Shirley and left her a message early on in my stay at South Beach. It was about a month later that I heard from her and she had said, "It took me a long time to call you back because it's just been such a burden on me," regarding my whole situation and yet, I was the one in the hospital with no place to go because Denise had decided not to let me back to the apartment. I found myself apologizing to her. Valentine didn't even visit all those months. She didn't even offer me a place to stay for awhile even though she had a two-bedroom apartment. I'd known her 9 years. I had considered her to be one of my better friends and I would've offered that to her. Anyways, I ended up taking Rob up on his offer to let me stay with him and got released from the hospital. When I got out, I called Shirley to ask her out for a cup of coffee. She called me back and said, "I started seeing someone and I just don't have time for you. I need a break." Wow, that was really cold. It had been about five months since I'd last seen her and she was saying she needed a break? I never asked her for anything. I didn't even hold it against her that she didn't offer a place to stay or that she didn't try to visit. I was just hoping for some friendship after getting out of the hospital which was like a jail sentence in itself. Anyways, she emailed me and told me that I was being immature when I called her out on how selfish she was. I packed up all her stuff and left it on her doostep. I want nothing to do with her ever again. Anyways, that's the kind of thing I had to deal with and thanks to being bi-polar I was able to figure out who my real friends are. So when I want to explain what's it's like to be bi-polar, I also have to explain what kind of relationships I had with people too because then it makes more sense why I don't trust a lot of people and why I feel like a lot of my relationships contributed to my inability to trust, too. I think Valentine got jaded. She's been in New York too long. She lost her innocence and also her good nature. All her friends are pretentious or drug abusers/alcys. I feel blessed that I left New York when I did for that one reason. I left before I could become one of those New Yorkers who thinks the world revolves around New York and that anyone from anywhere else just doesn't have a clue. It's important to me that I lived in Boston even though it was lonely and miserable at times, most of the time actually, just because I finally knew what it was like not to live in New York and I had to learn to live where I was. I wear it like a badge of honor now.

Text Updated 8/19/08...Shirley Leung, I live on Park and Grand. You don't...