attempt

29/01/06

"Split Personality"!...

Two months. Two extraordinary, unique, disturbing, and so damn tiring months: the worst and yet the best of my life. And the only cure for returning to normality I've managed (with indescribable difficulty) to come up with is "split personality"?! Ha, or maybe split personality! That would be even better!

No, I'm not cut out to be a bigamist. It's just the right game for Karol; he doesn't mind it, in fact, he even likes it. A girl in every port. I mean, in every apartment building. That's not for me. I'd be too scared...

And what's the best thing I'm doing anyway? Playing Bridget Jones? Maybe there really is something wrong with me... Because how many boys my age write diaries? Not counting gay men, of course. They might even like it. After all, it was Adrian, the only gay man I know, who talked me into it. That's how you make friends – you go to one, open up, pour out everything that's bothering you, and while waiting for a single word that's supposed to straighten your life out, you hear: "Write a diary." "

Are you crazy?!," I thought to myself. And then I said it. It didn't put him off (stubbornness is probably an innate gay trait), but I just kept saying it: it helps a lot, calms you down, allows you to take a step back and see everything from a new perspective, blah blah...

Just yesterday I was laughing about it, and today... Anyway, damn it, why am I writing about this? I'm not supposed to see Adrian from a different perspective! Well, right from the start, my diary-writing shortcomings are apparent. Maybe if I'd been born Alice, as my mother wanted, things would have been different, but now... And I wouldn't have had to shave every morning (at least not on my face), lose my hair from the age of twenty with the prospect of complete baldness long before forty, and I certainly wouldn't have the problems I have now.

Exactly. Problems. So, back to the topic. The obvious reason: women. Nothing groundbreaking or original. It's been like this my entire life – from childhood: either depression that no one likes me, or anger that when one does, it's the ugliest one on the block. And if I finally do get a pretty one, she has existential problems worthy of philosophy professors, and at the same time, incredibly cold and unapproachable – which, according to her, was a symptom of pure non-conformity. My worst memories, however, are of the beautiful and submissive Iza. Sometimes it seemed to me she didn't remember my name (how can anyone have trouble remembering the name Tomasz?), but I could brag to the guys about our sexual encounters for hours. I owe the long-awaited loss of virginity and the almost equally long treatment for two sexually transmitted diseases with complications to this brief acquaintance. Apparently, Iza wasn't the only one who was a pleasant conformist. Ever since then, I've disliked blondes; they remind me too much of pain and a burning sensation in the groin, and you don't forget things like that easily.

Yes, I knew it. I knew from the start it was complete nonsense! A diary! A new perspective, a sideways look... Nonsense and nothing more! What perspective, what perspective? I sit here writing nonsense about Adrian, about baldness, even about that nymphomaniac Iza, and that's supposed to calm me down?! Show me a way out? I think I'd rather flip a coin. Heads for the mind, tails for the heart, and that's it. I've been tempted to write a diary, a good one, a 28-year-old guy looking for guidance on how to live from the pages he writes. For the first and last time. Thank you very much, I've had enough. I'm going to bed.

That's it, my... dear diary. I won't tell you anything more; you're not fit to be a guide in life. I don't care about that kind of perspective.

THE END, that's it.

31/01/06

Heads – mind, tails – heart. That's exactly what I wrote two days ago. Just yesterday I was dragging Adrian and his stupid diary idea through the mud, and today... I found this notebook in the trash, thought I'd read through my mental jumble before throwing it away for good. And I was right – a few chaotically written pages, something like a brainstorm, or rather a brainstorm, one of mine. And that sentence: heads – mind, tails – heart. Could this be the beginning of this whole perspective I was meant to achieve? So it's true after all? So simple. Heads and tails. Mind or heart.

Maybe I'll write something here after all. Not a diary (that's too childish, or effeminate, for me), a collection of free thoughts. Yes.

First, the Eagle. My Eagle is Helena. That little Helenka from the apartment building across the street. That's what I thought when Karol told me he ran into her somewhere downtown. Little, constantly snotty Helenka, perpetually dirty and always somewhere out of the way: in the corner of the sandbox, alone on the carpet rack. Well, maybe not entirely alone – her younger brother, Romek, followed her every move like a shadow. And though it seemed impossible, he was even smaller, even thinner, even snottier than Helenka. I remember their sad eyes and how they never cried. No matter how hard the kids gave them, or what happened at home when Father came home (we always knew when he came home: new, purple bruises on the kids and Mrs. Krystyna left little ambiguity), they never cried. They only curled up even tighter, as if they wanted to disappear. And they held hands. Romek was braver than Helenka, sometimes even shouting or throwing sticks at the more teasing boys. I even saw him playing with other children in the sandbox or playing tag a few times. But he always kept a watchful eye out for Helenka. He never let her out of his sight.

One June (I remember it was the first week of summer vacation), Helenka's entire family disappeared. We never saw them on the playground again. I asked my parents what happened, but they wouldn't tell me. Karol learned from the older boys that his father had returned home a few days earlier and, as usual, started a brawl. Only this time, he was dead drunk and angry as hell. Someone said Romek died because he shouted at him, or threw something at him, and he got hit harder than usual for it. Someone else said it was an accident, a belt buckle or the edge of a table. No one knew for sure. The only certainty was that Helenka's mother had taken her from the hospital and fled to her sister or cousin. Somewhere in the countryside. Romek's funeral was also there. The police caught my father the next morning; he'd slept at the train station. Apparently, he'd even bought a ticket to the seaside, but he'd missed the train's departure, so drunk was he.

I saw Helenka almost twenty years later when I let Karol talk me into a double date—almost blind. A week earlier, he'd met her by chance somewhere on the subway; to this day, I don't understand how he could have recognized her. He said she looked good, wasn't blowing her nose or slouching anymore, so he arranged to meet her. He'd arranged for me to meet some "little redhead" (he knows I don't like blondes) from his work. I had no desire to meet the woman Karol said was "just waiting for someone to help her," but I was curious about Helenka. I couldn't imagine her as Helenka—a woman. On the way to the meeting, I even wondered if she'd have any bruises.

We went out together, leaving Karol with the redhead, which actually worked out for the best. As an apology for the failed date, they made each other feel better. A few times.

That was three years ago. Now I have less hair, a little more money, a college degree, and I don't need it for anything. Six months ago, Helena replied, "I thought you'd never ask," when I asked if she'd marry me. And two months ago, I met my Tail.

2/02/06

Sometimes I wonder about the great force that guides me, my fate, and the events that happen in my life. Is life governed by pure chance, or by some top-down force, often called God, Allah, or Buddha, acting with premeditation and purpose? How would my day, my whole life, be different if I drank milk instead of coffee this morning? Or took the bus to work instead of driving? What impact do such trivial decisions have on our lives?

If I hadn't been fifteen minutes late for the plane to Lisbon last year, I would have died like all the passengers and crew who managed to board. If Karol hadn't recognized Helena in the crowd of strangers, I probably wouldn't even know her today. If I hadn't forgotten my car keys two months ago, I wouldn't be writing all this now.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

My Tails is Anna. Anka. Ania. A woman of a thousand names and a thousand faces. I fell head over heels for her the moment she first spoke to me. "Damn! And... ass!" Those were the First Words. She said them, I think, a little past me, perhaps to a spiteful fate that likes to trip you up when it's not necessary, but the next words were aimed right at me: "Damn! Be careful, man!" We were standing in front of my apartment building; I was just leaving, for the second time that morning—I had to go back for the car keys. I was rushing to work, and she was rushing to catch the bus, which was just disappearing around the corner. Pathetically prosaic. Painfully saturated with kitsch. I bumped into her, knocking some books out of her hand. And in return, she shattered all my peace of mind. I pretended for a moment that the foot she'd stepped on hurt terribly, so she wouldn't yell anymore. I must have been pretty good at it, because she suddenly abandoned the role of aggressor in favor of the remorseful culprit. She started gathering up her books and whatever trinkets had fallen out of her bag, mumbling apologies under her breath.

I don't remember what she said, I don't even know if I tried to listen. I couldn't take my eyes off her. If I hadn't been a Muggle, I might have thought someone had put a spell on me.

I'd be lying if I said Anna was beautiful. She doesn't look a bit like the models advertising healthy food and the new miraculous slimming sauna belts, much less like the Barbie dolls in Playboy centerfolds. That morning, as she gathered the treasures of a woman's handbag scattered on the sidewalk, she looked like my personal ideal of beauty.

I drove her to the library; she'd been working there for a week, and with a burning resolve to rekindle my old passion for reading, I rushed to the office. Only in the evening, when I left to meet Helenka (I still call her that, but I no longer picture a small, unhappy child when I say that), did I realize that I hadn't thought of my future wife all day.

But we had a wonderful evening, had dinner at a new Italian restaurant, returned to my place, and made love slowly, tenderly, joyfully. Not for the briefest moment did I recall the librarian, with whom my thoughts had entertained me all day. I fell asleep in the bed that smelled of Helenka. I felt the warmth of her body, curled up next to me in the position of a tiny fetus. I was happy. That was two months ago. And although I usually don't remember my dreams in the morning, I know that that night, for the hundredth and thousandth time, I ran out into the sun-drenched street to face blind fate or God, who each time sent my destiny right under my feet (specifically, my left foot).

4/02/06

I've had enough. This has to end. Apparently, I'm not cut out for bigamy, although it always seemed like the height of happiness to me – one man and seven wives, one for each night of the week. I can't cope with two, let alone seven.

So I have a plan. Tomorrow I'll spend the day with Helenka. The day after tomorrow, the afternoon with Anna. And in two days, I'll sit down with my reader… confidant… elicitor… of rebellious thoughts, and finally do what perhaps I should have done long ago: choose Heads or Tails. I hope none of them find out, because otherwise, all my choices could be crushed on the edge of my ass. I could go from a would-be bigamist to a lonely, pathetic fool. To console myself, I think that in life, things are like this: heads or tails; a coin never lands on its edge.