October 28, 2000

Ken and I went to a Halloween costume swing dance. He dressed up as Zorro and I went as Aphrodite. (What an ego I have!) Believe me, it is tricky to find a costume that is not only fun and original, but also one that you can Lindy Hop in!

Heading into Halloween I am still haunted by rage about how Candy hurt me.



October 31, 2000

My favorite holiday and I'm alone. I guess I didn’t properly convey to Ken how much Halloween means to me.

As kids, my sister and I enjoyed creating our costumes from scratch. As we got older, my parents turned our porch into a haunted house to scare the bee-jeebies out of the kids. Mom dressed up like a mute Vampira while Dad ambushed the trick-or-treaters by swinging from the trees in a gorilla suit. My sister and I would take turns popping out of a coffin, invisibly shaking a stuffed rattlesnake, or dropping spiders from the ceiling.

But tonight I sat alone on the couch with a book. No party, no Ken, and not even one trick-or-treater came by.



November 1, 2000

Saw the first issue of this ApparentDepth column published in 3AM Magazine. I experienced some mixed feelings about seeing my name online again. Part of me was excited to see the column so well laid out. But part of me was also humbled because the editorial blurb on the front page (at the bottom, no less) made me feel like my life was like an online Jerry Springer episode.



November 4, 2000

Itried to dye my hair back to its original color and ended up turning it dark purple instead. Driving through town at lunch in the sunshine yesterday, I caught a glimpse of my hair in the mirror. I almost hurt myself laughing at the image of a woman in a green convertible with purple hair in a demure pony tail with a pink bow. I looked like a cross between Courtney Love and Martha Stewart.

Today I managed to find the right color—a deep auburn brown—so hopefully I can stop all this dyeing now.



November 6, 2000

Found out today that my 19-year-old cousin has gotten herself pregnant. Neither she nor the father has a decent job but she wants to keep the baby. Idiot. Based on relatives like that, maybe I do deserve the Jerry Springer marketing angle. Hm.



November 8, 2000

Voting results from yesterday are not conclusive. Gore vs. Bush? I don't really give a rat's ass who wins: Gore's a sellout and Bush is an idiot. Either way we're headed down More-Of-The-Same Avenue.

I voted for Nader. I had to: someone with brains and integrity needs to hurry up and save this planet. I chafed when I read pundits saying that "the whole mess can be laid squarely at the feet of Ralph Nader." Um ÷ EXCUSE ME? Gore lost my vote because he failed to EARN it in the same way Dubya did—certainly not because Ralph stole it. That’s the way it is supposed to work. Maybe if we had more than two parties in this country all the candidates wouldn’t look exactly alike.

Okay, you’d better not get me started on this whole election thing. A rant on that topic could last days.



November 10, 2000

I am struggling with my new fitness quest. Sometimes I do really well. Other days I can't be bothered. It depresses me. I think that's the only area of my life right now that I'm unhappy with. Everything else is so groovy peachy keen.

Ken and I are going to Florida for vacation next Thursday night. We hope to see the Florida vs. Florida State game in Tallahassee. He’ll meet the parents and the rest of my father’s nutty family. (At least now he’ll understand how I got this insane. HA!) Vacation can’t come soon enough for me.



November 14, 2000

This election bullshit is so freaking ridiculous. I ALREADY HATE THE PRESIDENT (whoever he is) AND HE'S NOT EVEN SWORN IN YET.



November 15, 2000

It's a gorgeous day outside...

÷ but it doesn't matter because I woke up in a dark mood. I just feel shitty about myself. The weight loss is not going as expected, I’ve got zits all over my face, no idea where I can get my hair cut (or even if I should cut it at all), and I hate my clothes. Still feeling anger about how Candy dumped me.

Not to mention that the troubles with my apartment never end. The people below me cooked a stinky garlic dish, the smell of which was so strong that it woke me up an hour early this morning. Then, just as I was about to step in the shower, someone in an adjoining apartment turned on theirs so I had to wait, ran 20 minutes late. The worst part was that I ended up not going to dance class last night because the laundry room dryer was pumping cold air.

Basically I’m sad, feeling ugly, frustrated with this city, and slightly insecure. I can't wait to leave Thursday.



November 17-25, 2000

Vacation in Florida with my Dad's family. I played Julie McCoy for 8 days. Ken and Dad got along fine. My stepmother gave him a "9". We didn’t see the FSU ballgame in Tallahassee, but instead we watched it on TV like everyone else. Went to DisneyQuest in Orlando with my friend Karen and her husband Paul. Overall: not too relaxing, but at least I wasn’t at work or in California.



November 26, 2000

It’s official: Ken won the college pick em game against my Dad—by one whole point! I landed a solid third place.



November 27, 2000

To the Bitch It May Concern,

First of all, I want to say, "Fuck you."

Oh no. I'm so sorry. I take that back.

What I meant to say was, "Fuck you with a sharp, splintery stick. Repeatedly."

Yes. That’s much better.

The absurd reason that you gave for dumping me in your email kiss-off letter was that you felt your opinions were worthless to me. I don’t know if there’s an English word strong enough to convey the depth of my anger toward you for hurting me in such an arbitrary, selfish, petty, childish way. Is that your definition of friendship? Someone over whom you can have control with your "opinions"? Pretty sad life you’ve got there.

You claimed to be so "proud" that I was a writer—but I know for a fact that you never read anything I wrote. You never once visited my old ezine. Hell, you hardly even listened to me talk when we were friends because you were so busy trying to formulate the corrective procedures to fix whatever was wrong with me.

Fuck you and whatever you told The Hairdresser too. It was probably the truth and I'm glad to be rid of her particular baggage. I don’t care that she knows the truth about how I was constantly bored by her prattling. Eventually I probably would’ve told her anyway. But the evil thing was that you told her where you had no place to butt in. That’s all on your karma, baby. Enjoy it. Tell your God about it the next time you ask him for more money, or a baby, or to keep the groupie tramps out of your husband’s pants.

You and The Hairdresser can just jump off a bridge because you are both giant assholes who never deserved anything I ever gave you. So many pieces of me wasted. I could’ve been home writing or working out or picking at my fingernails—anything else except helping your crap-ass, piece-of-shit suburban life along its shallow path.

Why didn’t you just let me go when we fought in January? Oh wait, I know why: because then it would have been ME dumping YOU. Your Jovian-sized ego could never have tolerated that. So ever since then you must’ve been looking for a way out, trying to find some way that I would "offend" you so that you could have the last word. Wow, eight months of lying in wait. Your ability for cold calculation is astonishing.

How pathetic that you couldn’t handle me finally being happy with a man. Now that you’re gone, I'm magically clear of all the doubts I had about Ken. Coincidence? Not likely. I can see now that your mere presence in my life was the main reason my happiness was undermined in every relationship I had. It’s kind of funny because both Kerri and Ken had your number immediately. (You’re lucky that your husband deigned to marry you because without his charm I don’t think you’d have any friends at all.) They said you were a controlling bitch and that you treated me poorly. I wish I had listened to them.

I hope you get everything you wish for in your life. Then, when you look around at all this stuff you wanted and finally have, I hope you can still feel that empty black vacuum inside of you. Know what it is? It’s the hole in you where most people have a heart and soul. And guess what? You’re never going to fill it—certainly not with all the material goods and status items you crave. Every time you buy The Next Thing, you’ll still feel incomplete. You’ll keep looking but you’ll never find your heart. If I wasn’t so angry, I’d probably feel sorry for you.

I can finally see all of it clearly now: you used me only for your career. That’s all you ever wanted. I was a target. You saw someone you could manipulate. Well, you’d better hope to hell that we never come across each other in a business situation. I will not violate my personal ethics but you can bet your worthless, spreading ass that I will do everything in my power to get myself and my company away from you. Pray-and pray hard-that you never need me. (I would help your husband, but not if it in any way affected you. He can thank his dick’s poor judgement for that.)

I wish in my petty, karma-injuring heart that you could feel even 10% of the pain I feel right now. No, I’d never extract any active revenge on you. (But, of course, if you find your name on the Web somewhere in a column with my name on it, don’t be surprised.)

Know this: I will never, ever forgive you for how you hurt me. You are among only two people in the world that I will never forgive. (The other was the asshole who deafened me in my left ear.) You hurt me intentionally and while you were doing it you were fully aware of the scope of pain it would inflict on me. This crime is unforgivable in NatalieWorld.

I’m glad you’re out of my life you debutante, sorority, 4-H, cow-tipping piece of donkey dung.

Oh and while I'm at it, all the rest of you so-called "girlfriends" from my past can go straight to hairdo hell too.

Natalie DuPont lives in the Los Angeles area where she thrives on the sunshine, writes poetry, drives with the top down, dances Lindy Hop, and pays the bills with geekery. For four years she edited and published her own zine, ApparentDepth. Her work has also been featured in other zines like Alicubi, Keepsakes, Tongue, and Gigawatt.

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