A friend inspired me to "liveblog" the new Ryan Adams & The Cardinals album, Cardinology. He does not know that I've been inspired to do this, and I like it better that way, there's something about how inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of sources and all that. One more thing before I press 'play': I've never done this before so, enjoy.
Born Into A Light
I'm struck by the 'in your face' attitude of this song. I like it, I'm not in love with the song, but it is my first listen. "For everyone alone, I wish you faith and hope" is a nice line, and then Ryan starts singing some real upbeat stuff. I hope no one busts into gospel music, because in my opinion, the Willie Nelson/Ryan Adams take on that with the Songbird album wasn't that great. This, however, was a great way to start an album. I'm in the mood for good things.
Go Easy
This sounds much smoother to me than the first song though the subject material is a little sadder. "I'll always love you, so go easy on yourself" turns into the title chorus and as soon as that's over I find my toe is tapping (I'm not wearing any socks) because this is such a good tune. I like the "go easy on yourself" mantra that gets repeated. It's a great ideology to adhere to and ought to be repeated over and over, regardless of the emotional history behind the statement.
Fix It
It starts out almost funky. The Cardinals are bringing the funk, which I always like to hear. About a minute into the song I am almost wishing Ryan Adams would shut the hell up and let the music take me somewhere. I don't know where I want to be taken, but it feels like one of those melodies that will move you somewhere you ought to be. I'm not trying to say that the lyrics to this song aren't any good, I just haven't been paying much attention. The ending was anti-climactic too, I don't know what specifically that means, but it's pretty close to being a letdown.
Magick
"You're like a rain cloud, if it rained [reigned?] mushroom clouds." I hope to hell this isn't a political song. "What goes around comes around" could go either way but ok, he's talking about dancing and magick now, I'm really glad this doesn't sound overtly political, I'm really sick and tired of hearing about politics anymore. It's a cool song and there's someone singing backups that I could probably do without but I'd give this a thumbs up.
Cobwebs
Moments ago I was told that this was a song to watch out for on this album, in a good way. It's slow to start up and I hope that the hype wasn't too high for this. "Confuse my love for the cobwebs" is pretty symbolism as "If I fall, will you catch me?" is crooned. I am thinking of the feeling that I've experienced plenty of times where I'm just moving through life, falling, and I want something to catch me and stop me, I'd hate if a spider caught me and ate me. You gotta stop and take a look around, but you don't want to be caught by the wrong thing. I like the message this song is sending.
Let Us Down Easy
"Easy" seems to be a recurring theme for this particular troubadour/band combo. I know that Ryan Adams was all about being emo (or whatever) for a while, but I can't say I always enjoy when that type of influence finds its way into his singing. It's like Ryan is whining half this song instead of singing it. It sounds all right, but the lead vocals are not doing it for me. I like the "Let us down, Let us down" backup chorus/vocal line going on. I'm really under the impression that this song was written on a napkin in poem form, it doesn't ring true to the spirit of a Ryan Adams & The Cardinals song. On a positive note, the song ends much better than it began. He did let me down easy!
Crossed Out Name
This is another of the hyped songs from before. That will teach me to run my mouth off about my happenings as part of the point of this was that I'd be totally unaware of what was on the album beforehand, oh well. "The crowded streets lead me back home" and as they should! Maybe the problem with the last song is that it felt like a song instead of a story, this song feels like a story being told. The music builds and the story builds about how he feels like a piece of paper with a crossed out name on it. I don't know what that means exactly, perhaps further thought is needed for this, but I liked it.
Natural Ghost
Cool. "I was waiting around for somebody to die" sounds like a Johnny Cash line. I will say that the Natural Ghost title of the song flows well with the ghostly feeling I get around 50 seconds in. "I am more than you think I am" could mean anything, but "you make me feel like a natural ghost" makes me think that this song is about how people can be ignored sometimes. Maybe all that's needed is a little love to be passed around, maybe our songwriter needs some attention. I don't know, the song strikes me as one of those 'take it or leave it' kind.
Sink Ships
A little twang in my ears is always nice to hear. It's about an office of some sort that doesn't quite live up to expectations. I don't really understand why this is called 'sink ships' because it sounds to me as if it's about how someone didn't get the job they wanted. It's not great, but not horrible. I don't know what to make of this, so on to the next.
Evergreen
I like this song a lot so far. Oh now, Ryan Adams seems to have picked up a bit of a Bob Dylan slur for whatever reason. A slower than normal, but very colorful song. I like this except for the slur. It's a real cool link between how people can be like different things in nature. Some folks are like the clouds while others are just looking for an evergreen tree to grow up next to them. I like the peaceful ambience of this tune. I'd recommend it!
Like Yesterday
Oh cool, a nostalgic song. I like songs that make me think of the past, being a history major and what not. Oh now, something about sleeping pills and less pain. That's cool too, everyone has a past that has some things they don't like, but then this song turned sad on me. I could take this or leave this song.
Stop
Piano man. The piano makes this sound spooky and real sad. I'm reminded a lot of Ryan's Love is Hell right now, much more than anything else. "Political Scientist" is the song that comes to mind. It's a cool effect, I guess, but aurally, I'm not impressed. I hope this cd doesn't end on such a downer. "You and I won't ever ... ever ... ever ... stop." I'm not a fan of this song, but it's picking up now at about 5 minutes in with 30 seconds left. I didn't want the good times to stop, but this song was all right stopping when it did.
Since there are 12 songs on this album, I'll pick the top one-third of the songs that I like in order:
1) Go Easy
2) Evergreen
3) Born Into A Light
4) Magick
Enjoy yourselves.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
daydream up a trip to the shit filled sewers
Wrote this a while back. It'll be 'internet wednesday' or something like that.
As I was trudging through the tundra to class, I overheard two young ladies seriously debating something I never thought possible. The discussion broke out when one of the girls claimed that the other's 'relationship' wasn't official until they both changed their status on facebook.
Perhaps I've come across something very grave. This is the great continental divide for web-based networking. On the one side, I stand facing west, ready to flow majestically into the pacific. I will live peaceful like a river otter, cutely cracking nuts (or whatever it is those little monsters eat) on my belly as I lay on my back and lazily float the day away. Behind me stands this young woman facing east, trolling down the dirty Missouri to the muddy waters of the Mississippi and out into the polluted Gulf.
This girl clearly weighs her life spent online equally with her actual life. How can this be? I remember when there were debates raging (and sometimes still do) about video games and their effects on the youth. I brushed this idea off very easily because I knew firsthand what it was like to fall from a height or to be hit with something large and heavy. It hurt like hell. I knew the distinction between the real and the imagined because I lived in both worlds. Transformers and Voltron and Thundercats where all my friends when I imagined flying around through space to distant worlds. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were there whenever I wanted to daydream up a trip to the shit filled sewers.
On the other hand, when I went outside and played in the woods or the creek near my house, my friends were the neighborhood children. My red headed cousin would visit every summer. We would have a glorious time and almost every day would come home with a new set of bruises or cuts. We were stupid fucking kids.
This girl, her friends are the people she knows from school and her other friends are her online friends. The problem is that there is no separation, her real, live friends contact her through text messages and online chat. Her imaginary friends and her real, physical friends are one and the same.
That continental divide earlier is no figment of my imagination, it exists. Perhaps I'm the youngest of the older generation and she's the oldest of the new. Maybe I'm tied up in there more than I think, maybe none of this even makes sense and I'm a fool for bringing it up. There is a difference between her and I, though. I see the internet much like I viewed those cartoons and played those video games, as if they exist in another realm. A realm of bits and bytes and internet titties. This is good and healthy, or so it seems.
As I was trudging through the tundra to class, I overheard two young ladies seriously debating something I never thought possible. The discussion broke out when one of the girls claimed that the other's 'relationship' wasn't official until they both changed their status on facebook.
Perhaps I've come across something very grave. This is the great continental divide for web-based networking. On the one side, I stand facing west, ready to flow majestically into the pacific. I will live peaceful like a river otter, cutely cracking nuts (or whatever it is those little monsters eat) on my belly as I lay on my back and lazily float the day away. Behind me stands this young woman facing east, trolling down the dirty Missouri to the muddy waters of the Mississippi and out into the polluted Gulf.
This girl clearly weighs her life spent online equally with her actual life. How can this be? I remember when there were debates raging (and sometimes still do) about video games and their effects on the youth. I brushed this idea off very easily because I knew firsthand what it was like to fall from a height or to be hit with something large and heavy. It hurt like hell. I knew the distinction between the real and the imagined because I lived in both worlds. Transformers and Voltron and Thundercats where all my friends when I imagined flying around through space to distant worlds. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were there whenever I wanted to daydream up a trip to the shit filled sewers.
On the other hand, when I went outside and played in the woods or the creek near my house, my friends were the neighborhood children. My red headed cousin would visit every summer. We would have a glorious time and almost every day would come home with a new set of bruises or cuts. We were stupid fucking kids.
This girl, her friends are the people she knows from school and her other friends are her online friends. The problem is that there is no separation, her real, live friends contact her through text messages and online chat. Her imaginary friends and her real, physical friends are one and the same.
That continental divide earlier is no figment of my imagination, it exists. Perhaps I'm the youngest of the older generation and she's the oldest of the new. Maybe I'm tied up in there more than I think, maybe none of this even makes sense and I'm a fool for bringing it up. There is a difference between her and I, though. I see the internet much like I viewed those cartoons and played those video games, as if they exist in another realm. A realm of bits and bytes and internet titties. This is good and healthy, or so it seems.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
look, babe, what's wrong with us? (the julie chronicles pt 4)
part 4, maybe the end.
I decided I'd fucked around enough putting this whole awkward morning exchange off. It was time to go downstairs. If I didn't go down soon, I had a feeling my breakfast would get burnt. Either that or if I waited too long then breakfast would get cold. If I had to choose, I'd rather deal with Julie than have a shitty breakfast.
======
The first time I broke up with her, it was after the better part of a year being together. I had all kinds of issues when I tried to quantify my feelings for this girl. I remember asking myself if the amount of time spent together should be taken into consideration. It was hard for me to think of the time we spent together, time that I spent with someone, as wasted. Was Julie a tramp? Was I an asshole for not seeing it sooner? I liked her but she was kind of a bitch. I was honest with her while she liked to hide things from me. We spent a lot of time together and I felt comfortable with her. I was a man. She was apologetic. It's not like I had anything else going on.
Once we did get back, things seemed to be going really well. We'd get together nearly every afternoon for about three weeks, smoke pot and fool around. The ground picked up its first coating of white for the season sometime during those weeks, we didn't notice and couldn't have cared less. I forgave her, we got over it and moved past it, but I never forgot it happened.
Jules started staying at my place almost every night at that point. My roommates kept giving me shit about the whole thing though. Every time she left in the mornings, John would come running upstairs to my room and ask if Julie was going for a jog to "get some real dick." John was under the impression that Julie was "brainwashing me with pussy and weed."
======
I got up out of the chair and stood there, took a deep breath, and walked towards the door. I shouldn't have been wary of this girl. She was someone I might have loved at one point, maybe I could again. Before my foot touched the top stair, I was smiling a little smile. I wasn't mad at Julie for staying over, but I wasn't exactly enthused either.
======
We stayed together until the end of that semester, but I always looked back on those first 3 weeks together as 3 of the coolest, most comfortable weeks I've ever spent with someone. We spent most of our time together for the rest of that semester until finals rolled around. At the time, I was on this "finish my senior year strong" kick and I had a lot of paper writing to do. Julie went to a party with some of her friends on one of those work nights of mine. It was the Saturday right before classes were over. I got a call from John.
Me - "Yeah, I told you I'd call you when I was done."
John - "Right, but Julie's here. She's tanked and making out with some dude."
Me - "What the hell? What dude?"
John - "I don't know, some dude with a beard. He's got a blue shirt on and a goofy hat."
Me - "Fuck it. Whatever, I wanna finish this. I'll deal with it later."
I didn't get done until much later that night and never went out. I asked Julie about it the next day and she said she didn't remember. She said she wasn't sure what happened, but she woke up at bearded dude's place.
======
I was a couple stairs down, treading quietly. All these memories and feelings this girl was bringing forth weren't making for an awesome day. It's tough, that whole relationship thing. That was a long time ago, I was a different person now. I was younger then, I had questionable morals and a more idealistic outlook. I narrowed my eyes as I steeled my resolve to finish this confrontation through to the end. I was older, wiser and stronger.
That second semester of my senior year was a wild one. I had almost all the classes done that I needed in order to graduate save for a few electives, mostly blow off stuff. I hadn't talked to Julie since New Year's Eve. It was one of those nights that started late, I wasn't that drunk by midnight and so I stayed up until 5 in the morning calling people and leaving voicemails or lecturing anyone bold enough to answer. The call to Julie came much later on that early morning. She sent me a text message the week before wishing me a merry Christmas, so when I was drunk off my ass I felt it was the best time to wish her a happy New Year.
The worst part about the whole thing happened the next day. I woke up just before noon to a pounding coming from upstairs. A friend of mine at home hosted the party and I wasn't real familiar with the layout of the house. I stumbled upstairs from the basement and found that I was the last to wake that morning. The pounding was my roommate Derek, he was stomping on the floor arguing with someone about something or another. There were a couple people spread out around the living room and my other roommate John was in the kitchen making himself a bowl of cereal. I was glad that they were able to come hang out over the holiday.
John - "Morning sunshine, how's the day treating you?"
Me - (pulling out a chair and sitting down, I grabbed at a bottle of water on the counter) "Give me that."
John - (with a mouthful of cereal) "What the hell happened to you last night?"
Me - "What do you mean? Nothing, I was here the whole time. Is there anything else for breakfast?"
John - "You could have a beer. Breakfast of champions. How long were you on the phone last night?"
Me - (checking my calls) "I don't know, I think I just called my mom and then my brother ... ahhhh fuck. 48 minutes here on a call to 'Jules.' Why'd you let me do that? Asshole."
John just laughed. I tried to forget about it. Don't know what was said, she was probably too drunk to remember herself. It made me think more self-referentially the next couple times I went out and got crazy, though. I was a bit more careful with who I called.
It'd been about 2 months since I broke things off with Julie that last time. It'd been about a month and a half since the drunk dial she got from me on New Year's. It was important to me that I wasn't being a dick about things. So when I saw her, I would always exchange some minor pleasantries. I was trying to stay on the high road. It was weird sometimes, sure. That didn't stop me from trying to move on with my life. The pleasantries devolved after that month of being back at school.
I saw Julie one day at the library while researching for a paper for some class that didn't really matter. I waved, neutrally. She waved back and I went to a computer to look up some books. In the middle of writing down the books I wanted, she came and sat next to me.
Her - "Hi."
Me - (leaning back in my chair) "Hi, I'm kind of busy."
Her - (leaning towards me, almost whispering) "Yeah, ok. Well, I wanted to talk about what we talked about on the phone on New Year's."
Me - "Wait a second. I want you to know that I was hammered drunk, shit faced to the extreme, whatever you wanna call it. I don't remember even talking to you. Not to be a dick or anything."
Her - "I figured. I wasn't as drunk as you were though. I told you I was sorry and you said it was all right."
Me - "Well whatever I said was all right might have been at the time but that doesn't mean it is now. I don't want to get into this. Like, not at all."
Her - (she grabbed for my hand and I pulled away) "All right, maybe some other time. I miss you. I want you to know that I feel bad too, I don't know. I miss you. I miss you."
Me - "Yeah. I'm going to get books. Write this project up right fast and ... well, maybe I'll think about calling you later."
It was hard to put my foot down with Julie. She looked cute. I had to keep myself mentally prepared for anything because she knew me very well, knew me well enough to know that as soon as I told her I'd think about calling her, I would eventually do so. I made her wait a couple days before doing it, but I did. The next night we had dinner together. By the end of the week it looked like we were back together. By the end of that weekend people were wondering where we were because things were back to the way they used to be. We spent most of the week indoors getting re-accustomed to each other. By the end of the following week we weren't on speaking terms anymore. It's hard sometimes.
I waited until we were "back together" for one week and I went out with my roommates, got tanked and made out with a girl from my Intro to Islam class, Katie. She's the one that originally got Julie all excited. Julie thought I would cheat on her with that girl because she was thinking of cheating on me, maybe with the bearded dude. At least that was how my thought process was going, I thought it was poignant. Almost like, haha, got you bitch!
======
I reached the bottom of the stairs and made the turn towards my kitchen. My bong was sitting in the middle of the coffee table in my living room alongside a couple of empty beer bottles. Apparently the festivities of the night prior were not quite enough and when I got home, I decided I needed a nightcap. Taking a couple long bong rips after getting home from a bar was one of my favorite things to do. It helped center me before going to bed. I thought all these things because they pointed towards me having a reason to get centered before bed. That reason, just around the corner, had a really sweet jam playing on the radio. It's amusing, the things I think about to distract myself.
======
Julie blew up when she found out that I was kissing some other girl. I calmly told her she deserved it. That she had it coming, that I was just letting her know it wouldn't be tolerated.
Things never were the same as those first months or those three beautiful weeks during the fall of my senior year. Our relationship didn't die completely. I knew I could count on Julie to always be there for me. Even though I hated her sometimes, I knew who she was and still had feelings for her in spite of it. She was loyal, but fidelity strangely wasn't a factor in her idea of loyalty. She was like the cat that would run away from home for a while but always came back. Kind of, I didn't see myself as her home by any means.
We spent the better part of the following year seeing each other every two weeks or so, once a month we'd get together and smoke pot and drink until the sun came up over a weekend. We'd fool around most of the time but it never moved past that until the following spring.
There had been two girls I went out with while still spending illicit evenings with my ex. It was strange, Julie was seeing other people and so was I, but we were both still kind of seeing each other. I never questioned it, I didn't want to because I knew that we didn't work well being 'together.' We'd go so far as to talk about the other person when we'd meet up. She would rate her fling against me and I would rate mine against her. It was a very self-conscious and honest undertaking that we were venturing in on. I think at some point that honesty morphed itself in my mind and made me somehow forget the greek tragedy that was mine and Julie's relationship.
That following spring saw a rebirth of Julie and I as a couple. It had been over two years since we met and we had slowly developed a comfort level again with each other. That round lasted from April to June and we started fighting. One thing that could never be said about Julie and myself was that we lacked passion. The unbridled emotions that flowed forth when we would fight were terrific. In one day I would hate her, love her, loath her, want to kill her, have sex with her, want to toss her down a flight of stairs, and then at night we'd fool around and cuddle.
We started fighting one drunken night and she pulled a knife on me. It was a steak knife from the kitchen, I could tell, as she was holding it to my throat.
Me - (grabbing her wrist) "I'm going for a walk, maybe go pick up a prostitute or three."
Her - (dropping the knife) "FUCK YOU!!! But, I won't stab you, not for real anyway. You just make me so mad!!"
Me - (pulling her head close to mine) "Look, babe, what's wrong with us?"
She couldn't tell me, so I kissed her instead.
June rolled around and I told her I needed a break. That was the last time 'together' but I saw her every once in a while. I'd get drunk and call her, or she'd get drunk and call me. Sometimes I'd see her 3 or 4 times in one week and other times I wouldn't see her for a month or two. We would inevitably get together though.
======
Relationships are hard sometimes, I thought, as I stood in the doorway to the kitchen. This past stretch of being apart from Julie with no drunk dials and no word was longer than usual. I'd made some progress in a normal relationship with an interesting girl I'd recently gotten re-acquainted with in the frozen food section of the supermarket up the block. It was poetic, in a way, that it was Katie in the kitchen.
Katie - "Good morning. You were a drunken wreck last night."
Me - (smiling) "Yeah, I've been trying to piece everything together. Did I do anything embarrassing?"
Katie - "Nothing more embarrassing than anything I did. I made a mix cd the other day I forgot about, how do you like it?"
Me - (sitting down at the table) "It's great. I mean it, heard it upstairs. It reminded me of some of the old days."
Katie - "The old days? Let's make some new days, you want to go for a walk after this? Maybe read a book outside? It's such a nice day."
I leaned over the table and kissed her. It's not like I had anything else going on.
I decided I'd fucked around enough putting this whole awkward morning exchange off. It was time to go downstairs. If I didn't go down soon, I had a feeling my breakfast would get burnt. Either that or if I waited too long then breakfast would get cold. If I had to choose, I'd rather deal with Julie than have a shitty breakfast.
======
The first time I broke up with her, it was after the better part of a year being together. I had all kinds of issues when I tried to quantify my feelings for this girl. I remember asking myself if the amount of time spent together should be taken into consideration. It was hard for me to think of the time we spent together, time that I spent with someone, as wasted. Was Julie a tramp? Was I an asshole for not seeing it sooner? I liked her but she was kind of a bitch. I was honest with her while she liked to hide things from me. We spent a lot of time together and I felt comfortable with her. I was a man. She was apologetic. It's not like I had anything else going on.
Once we did get back, things seemed to be going really well. We'd get together nearly every afternoon for about three weeks, smoke pot and fool around. The ground picked up its first coating of white for the season sometime during those weeks, we didn't notice and couldn't have cared less. I forgave her, we got over it and moved past it, but I never forgot it happened.
Jules started staying at my place almost every night at that point. My roommates kept giving me shit about the whole thing though. Every time she left in the mornings, John would come running upstairs to my room and ask if Julie was going for a jog to "get some real dick." John was under the impression that Julie was "brainwashing me with pussy and weed."
======
I got up out of the chair and stood there, took a deep breath, and walked towards the door. I shouldn't have been wary of this girl. She was someone I might have loved at one point, maybe I could again. Before my foot touched the top stair, I was smiling a little smile. I wasn't mad at Julie for staying over, but I wasn't exactly enthused either.
======
We stayed together until the end of that semester, but I always looked back on those first 3 weeks together as 3 of the coolest, most comfortable weeks I've ever spent with someone. We spent most of our time together for the rest of that semester until finals rolled around. At the time, I was on this "finish my senior year strong" kick and I had a lot of paper writing to do. Julie went to a party with some of her friends on one of those work nights of mine. It was the Saturday right before classes were over. I got a call from John.
Me - "Yeah, I told you I'd call you when I was done."
John - "Right, but Julie's here. She's tanked and making out with some dude."
Me - "What the hell? What dude?"
John - "I don't know, some dude with a beard. He's got a blue shirt on and a goofy hat."
Me - "Fuck it. Whatever, I wanna finish this. I'll deal with it later."
I didn't get done until much later that night and never went out. I asked Julie about it the next day and she said she didn't remember. She said she wasn't sure what happened, but she woke up at bearded dude's place.
======
I was a couple stairs down, treading quietly. All these memories and feelings this girl was bringing forth weren't making for an awesome day. It's tough, that whole relationship thing. That was a long time ago, I was a different person now. I was younger then, I had questionable morals and a more idealistic outlook. I narrowed my eyes as I steeled my resolve to finish this confrontation through to the end. I was older, wiser and stronger.
That second semester of my senior year was a wild one. I had almost all the classes done that I needed in order to graduate save for a few electives, mostly blow off stuff. I hadn't talked to Julie since New Year's Eve. It was one of those nights that started late, I wasn't that drunk by midnight and so I stayed up until 5 in the morning calling people and leaving voicemails or lecturing anyone bold enough to answer. The call to Julie came much later on that early morning. She sent me a text message the week before wishing me a merry Christmas, so when I was drunk off my ass I felt it was the best time to wish her a happy New Year.
The worst part about the whole thing happened the next day. I woke up just before noon to a pounding coming from upstairs. A friend of mine at home hosted the party and I wasn't real familiar with the layout of the house. I stumbled upstairs from the basement and found that I was the last to wake that morning. The pounding was my roommate Derek, he was stomping on the floor arguing with someone about something or another. There were a couple people spread out around the living room and my other roommate John was in the kitchen making himself a bowl of cereal. I was glad that they were able to come hang out over the holiday.
John - "Morning sunshine, how's the day treating you?"
Me - (pulling out a chair and sitting down, I grabbed at a bottle of water on the counter) "Give me that."
John - (with a mouthful of cereal) "What the hell happened to you last night?"
Me - "What do you mean? Nothing, I was here the whole time. Is there anything else for breakfast?"
John - "You could have a beer. Breakfast of champions. How long were you on the phone last night?"
Me - (checking my calls) "I don't know, I think I just called my mom and then my brother ... ahhhh fuck. 48 minutes here on a call to 'Jules.' Why'd you let me do that? Asshole."
John just laughed. I tried to forget about it. Don't know what was said, she was probably too drunk to remember herself. It made me think more self-referentially the next couple times I went out and got crazy, though. I was a bit more careful with who I called.
It'd been about 2 months since I broke things off with Julie that last time. It'd been about a month and a half since the drunk dial she got from me on New Year's. It was important to me that I wasn't being a dick about things. So when I saw her, I would always exchange some minor pleasantries. I was trying to stay on the high road. It was weird sometimes, sure. That didn't stop me from trying to move on with my life. The pleasantries devolved after that month of being back at school.
I saw Julie one day at the library while researching for a paper for some class that didn't really matter. I waved, neutrally. She waved back and I went to a computer to look up some books. In the middle of writing down the books I wanted, she came and sat next to me.
Her - "Hi."
Me - (leaning back in my chair) "Hi, I'm kind of busy."
Her - (leaning towards me, almost whispering) "Yeah, ok. Well, I wanted to talk about what we talked about on the phone on New Year's."
Me - "Wait a second. I want you to know that I was hammered drunk, shit faced to the extreme, whatever you wanna call it. I don't remember even talking to you. Not to be a dick or anything."
Her - "I figured. I wasn't as drunk as you were though. I told you I was sorry and you said it was all right."
Me - "Well whatever I said was all right might have been at the time but that doesn't mean it is now. I don't want to get into this. Like, not at all."
Her - (she grabbed for my hand and I pulled away) "All right, maybe some other time. I miss you. I want you to know that I feel bad too, I don't know. I miss you. I miss you."
Me - "Yeah. I'm going to get books. Write this project up right fast and ... well, maybe I'll think about calling you later."
It was hard to put my foot down with Julie. She looked cute. I had to keep myself mentally prepared for anything because she knew me very well, knew me well enough to know that as soon as I told her I'd think about calling her, I would eventually do so. I made her wait a couple days before doing it, but I did. The next night we had dinner together. By the end of the week it looked like we were back together. By the end of that weekend people were wondering where we were because things were back to the way they used to be. We spent most of the week indoors getting re-accustomed to each other. By the end of the following week we weren't on speaking terms anymore. It's hard sometimes.
I waited until we were "back together" for one week and I went out with my roommates, got tanked and made out with a girl from my Intro to Islam class, Katie. She's the one that originally got Julie all excited. Julie thought I would cheat on her with that girl because she was thinking of cheating on me, maybe with the bearded dude. At least that was how my thought process was going, I thought it was poignant. Almost like, haha, got you bitch!
======
I reached the bottom of the stairs and made the turn towards my kitchen. My bong was sitting in the middle of the coffee table in my living room alongside a couple of empty beer bottles. Apparently the festivities of the night prior were not quite enough and when I got home, I decided I needed a nightcap. Taking a couple long bong rips after getting home from a bar was one of my favorite things to do. It helped center me before going to bed. I thought all these things because they pointed towards me having a reason to get centered before bed. That reason, just around the corner, had a really sweet jam playing on the radio. It's amusing, the things I think about to distract myself.
======
Julie blew up when she found out that I was kissing some other girl. I calmly told her she deserved it. That she had it coming, that I was just letting her know it wouldn't be tolerated.
Things never were the same as those first months or those three beautiful weeks during the fall of my senior year. Our relationship didn't die completely. I knew I could count on Julie to always be there for me. Even though I hated her sometimes, I knew who she was and still had feelings for her in spite of it. She was loyal, but fidelity strangely wasn't a factor in her idea of loyalty. She was like the cat that would run away from home for a while but always came back. Kind of, I didn't see myself as her home by any means.
We spent the better part of the following year seeing each other every two weeks or so, once a month we'd get together and smoke pot and drink until the sun came up over a weekend. We'd fool around most of the time but it never moved past that until the following spring.
There had been two girls I went out with while still spending illicit evenings with my ex. It was strange, Julie was seeing other people and so was I, but we were both still kind of seeing each other. I never questioned it, I didn't want to because I knew that we didn't work well being 'together.' We'd go so far as to talk about the other person when we'd meet up. She would rate her fling against me and I would rate mine against her. It was a very self-conscious and honest undertaking that we were venturing in on. I think at some point that honesty morphed itself in my mind and made me somehow forget the greek tragedy that was mine and Julie's relationship.
That following spring saw a rebirth of Julie and I as a couple. It had been over two years since we met and we had slowly developed a comfort level again with each other. That round lasted from April to June and we started fighting. One thing that could never be said about Julie and myself was that we lacked passion. The unbridled emotions that flowed forth when we would fight were terrific. In one day I would hate her, love her, loath her, want to kill her, have sex with her, want to toss her down a flight of stairs, and then at night we'd fool around and cuddle.
We started fighting one drunken night and she pulled a knife on me. It was a steak knife from the kitchen, I could tell, as she was holding it to my throat.
Me - (grabbing her wrist) "I'm going for a walk, maybe go pick up a prostitute or three."
Her - (dropping the knife) "FUCK YOU!!! But, I won't stab you, not for real anyway. You just make me so mad!!"
Me - (pulling her head close to mine) "Look, babe, what's wrong with us?"
She couldn't tell me, so I kissed her instead.
June rolled around and I told her I needed a break. That was the last time 'together' but I saw her every once in a while. I'd get drunk and call her, or she'd get drunk and call me. Sometimes I'd see her 3 or 4 times in one week and other times I wouldn't see her for a month or two. We would inevitably get together though.
======
Relationships are hard sometimes, I thought, as I stood in the doorway to the kitchen. This past stretch of being apart from Julie with no drunk dials and no word was longer than usual. I'd made some progress in a normal relationship with an interesting girl I'd recently gotten re-acquainted with in the frozen food section of the supermarket up the block. It was poetic, in a way, that it was Katie in the kitchen.
Katie - "Good morning. You were a drunken wreck last night."
Me - (smiling) "Yeah, I've been trying to piece everything together. Did I do anything embarrassing?"
Katie - "Nothing more embarrassing than anything I did. I made a mix cd the other day I forgot about, how do you like it?"
Me - (sitting down at the table) "It's great. I mean it, heard it upstairs. It reminded me of some of the old days."
Katie - "The old days? Let's make some new days, you want to go for a walk after this? Maybe read a book outside? It's such a nice day."
I leaned over the table and kissed her. It's not like I had anything else going on.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
more beat than your butthole (chronicles of Julie pt. 3)
third part, better than the first.
I got up from the bed feeling much better than the first time. Sitting down in my chair, I flipped my laptop open to see a few things. Checked the weather, read an email. Send anything stupid the night before? No, good, didn't look like I was anywhere near the thing at all. Occasionally I'll get out of hand on "Tequila Tuesdays" but it looked like my only problem from the night before was the visitor in the kitchen.
I kicked my feet up on the desk and lit a cigarette. The first cigarette of the day is always the best, and it was even better that morning. My bedroom caught the morning sun and the smoke would dance as it floated off the tip. I leaned back and exhaled, thinking about how things could have been a lot worse than they were. If Julie stayed over the night before and wanted to make me breakfast, I'd let her. As I was reclining in my chair, I started to think of some of the good times that we'd had.
===========
It was a couple months after that drunken night down at the bar and Julie was spending the weekend at my place back home. My parents had gone to Vegas for a long weekend and my brother was off at a friend's house. He never cared much about what I did even when he was home.
I smiled as Julie's eye caught mine over the glare of my lighter.
"Pass that bowl already!" She joked as she punched my shoulder.
I passed the pipe with the lighter between two of my fingers. She grabbed both, lit it and took a deep breath.
"You're an all right girl, you know that?" We were smoking a lot of pot in those days, but I never over did it. Julie had the habit of smoking too much and cooking various types of chicken. I would smoke too much and get intellectual, it worked out because we'd talk philosophy over a plate of spicy grilled chicken.
We worked well together at the bar, too. We'd both get ourselves nice and drunk and magically appear safely back home the next day. I personally think that was mostly my doing, but I'd be lying if I said I remembered many rides home from bars, ever.
We were getting comfortable with our situation. I hated the idea of trying to start something over the summer, but it was working out despite my fears. I figured things would either fizzle quickly or it would turn into some kind of perverted phone relationship. Nothing bad happened at all, things were actually going really well.
The rest of the summer went much the same, I would visit her and she would visit me. Sometimes we'd meet in the middle and I even had dinner with her parents once or twice. Things were moving to enter into a new stage in the relationship by the end of that summer and I felt fine with it. I liked this girl, she liked me. It's not like I had anything else going on.
As school started back up again in the fall, there were a few bumps in the road. The first couple weeks went past in the blink of an eye that year. I was excited about being so close to the end of school, the situation with Julie kept moving along, and none of my classes started before 1 in the afternoon.
Eventually the days got shorter and the nights, colder. I went out one night with my roommates to a party across campus. The place was packed by the time we got there because Derek decided to crack open a handle of whiskey before we left the apartment and we started doing shots. At some point between the second and third stop sign on the trip over, the empty bottle was thrown out the window. It was shaping up to be a fantastic night of merriment and revelry.
We pulled up to the house and saw that people were piled in tight like immigrants in a pickup.
Me - "Look at this bullshit. It might look like fun now but with that many people, this party is gonna be more beat than your butthole in about 8 and a half minutes. ... More beat? Beater? Which one is it?"
John - "It's more beat, I think, and I hope you were talking about Derek's butthole."
Me - "It was a fucking phrase, people say that"
Derek - "My butthole is not beat up. Fuck you guys." He slurred.
I was starting to slur a bit too and I didn't think what I had said about the buttholes made any sense but I remember I went with it. It's not always what someone says, it's how confident they are in saying it that matters. We decided to go to that party, in spite of my protestations earlier and continued annoyance at the proceedings, because John went to high school with someone that lived there. This connection did not go unused as within a few minutes of walking in the door I was asked to play beer pong with John's friend because John was terrible. The previous partner had gone outside to smoke and never came back, I didn't care why because I was really in the mood for some kind of game and I had some practice at this particular one.
That night is one of the biggest reasons I hate text messaging. At the time though, I liked the idea immensely. The first game went well and as I started talking to John's friend, I realized he was a generally tolerable human being. Some might even have called him a "sweet dude." I was text messaging Julie to come to the party as the second game started.
I like to think that it's my good looks and charm that bring home the bacon, but it might be my wit. Maybe it's because when I start to get drunk my eyes narrow. I drink and I get bedroom eyes, it's weird, I know. The alcohol might have made the girls on the other side of the table look better. All I know is that I started chatting to the dark haired one, Katie. I was talking shit to Katie, text messaging Julie, and about to sink the last cup to get Katie's team off the table.
We won that game, and the next, but Katie stuck around for a while. I wasn't thinking about doing anything with Katie and I wasn't exactly getting the vibe that she was into doing anything with me either, but that didn't make things look any better to the untrained eye. Julie walked in to see me engaged in an argument with Katie.
Me - "Vin Diesel's way cooler than Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is, in fact, an asshole."
Katie - "Chuck Norris would kick Vin Diesel's ass. Period. You're smoking crack rocks if you think any different."
Julie - "Heeeeeyyyy baby, who's your friend? I'm Julie, by the way." She introduced herself to Katie.
It was a totally innocent argument anyone could have found themselves in with anyone else at any given point in time. Julie made it a little awkward for a minute, but Katie left. No harm, no foul. We lost the next game and I wanted to leave, but Julie had wandered off. I figured she wasn't very far so I went out for a cigarette to wait.
The air was cold enough to see your breath. I love those first fall nights where it's cold enough to do that, I always walk around pretending I'm some kind of steam breathing dragon about to terrorize a small town. Katie must have seen me walk out the door and wanted to say goodbye before she left. It was kind of embarrassing to be seen walking around like a drunk dinosaur huffing and puffing all into the night. So when Katie saw me and started laughing, I did too. It was funny, I was drunk and my phone started ringing.
Me - "Hold on a second, lemme get this. I wanna tell you something."
Katie - "Ok, but my friends are leaving."
Me - "Yeah babe, outside. ... That's just my friend, don't worry about it. ... Yeah, come outside and let's go. ... Yeah, bye, get out here. ... I'm sorry, actually that's what I wanted to say to you, Jules gets weird sometimes when she's drunk."
Katie - "Oh it's no problem, are you talking about that awkward exchange earlier?" She forced a polite laugh.
Me - "Yeah, she's really a nice girl. But I gotta go find her around front."
Katie - "I'm going that way too."
Julie didn't say anything when she saw me walk around the corner still talking to "that girl." She waited until later when we were back at my place. I guess it looked bad, I still don't know. It was entirely innocent, or mostly innocent. We got into an argument about it regardless.
Julie - "You seemed a little friendly with that girl."
Me - "Jules, I just met her a few minutes before you walked in and then I saw her outside later on. It was a coincidence. I wasn't getting friendly with anyone."
Julie - "I saw what I saw and it looked like you were getting a little friendly with her."
Me - "Julie, I don't want to deal with this shit right now, you're drunk ... I'm pretty drunk, let's just go to bed."
It went on like that for awhile until I let it slip that if I knew she was going to be acting like that I never would have told her to come. She took this to mean something entirely different. She was madder than hell and it was cute. I probably shouldn't have laughed at her that night either, but she reminded me of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I told her that, thinking it would calm her down, but it didn't.
It was a couple of weeks after that night and I wanted to surprise Julie with some kind of peace offering. We fought a bunch of times after that party because, basically, some words were thrown around that neither of us meant. I still really liked her, but we both needed to apologize to each other and be serious about things before anything got out of hand. I bought a bottle of wine and took my nice bong and a bag of weed over to Julie's place. She mentioned earlier that day that she needed to study for some test she had the next morning, so I figured if I went over later she might be in the mood for some making up, so to speak.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
I walked up to the door with the bottle stashed in my bag hoping I could keep it a surprise. Julie's roommate answered the door and told me that Julie would be right downstairs. We were past the point in our relationship where I waited for her to come down any stairs, anywhere. So, I walked up the stairs and turned the corner to her room and found it was locked. I started knocking on it.
Me - "Hey Jules, open up. We gotta talk."
Julie - "Yeah, gimme a minute."
Me - "What the fuck? Seriously girl, I've seen that before."
She came to the door and opened it, but not all the way. She told me she was busy studying with someone from class. I told her to open the door, that I had weed and wine, and they were two of her favorite things. She told me it was an important test. I told her she needed to open the door before I got mad. She refused, I got mad.
Turned out I arrived just in time to interrupt Julie and her friend from consummating their evening of study. She cleared her study friend out of her room and we talked. She chose this time to tell me the whole truth, thinking that maybe if she were honest I would be fine with her plans to fool around with some dude from her stats class. We argued about a few things, I called her a few names and she called me a few of her own. I stormed out of her house with the weed and wine and kept it to myself that night.
Since she didn't technically cheat on me, I took her back eventually. I didn't know what else to do, I really liked her, I hoped we'd be able to move past the whole thing and go back to the way things were.
I learned one important lesson that night at the party, that text messaging is the devil. I would later learn another lesson, that things can never go back to the way they were.
to be concluded...
I got up from the bed feeling much better than the first time. Sitting down in my chair, I flipped my laptop open to see a few things. Checked the weather, read an email. Send anything stupid the night before? No, good, didn't look like I was anywhere near the thing at all. Occasionally I'll get out of hand on "Tequila Tuesdays" but it looked like my only problem from the night before was the visitor in the kitchen.
I kicked my feet up on the desk and lit a cigarette. The first cigarette of the day is always the best, and it was even better that morning. My bedroom caught the morning sun and the smoke would dance as it floated off the tip. I leaned back and exhaled, thinking about how things could have been a lot worse than they were. If Julie stayed over the night before and wanted to make me breakfast, I'd let her. As I was reclining in my chair, I started to think of some of the good times that we'd had.
===========
It was a couple months after that drunken night down at the bar and Julie was spending the weekend at my place back home. My parents had gone to Vegas for a long weekend and my brother was off at a friend's house. He never cared much about what I did even when he was home.
I smiled as Julie's eye caught mine over the glare of my lighter.
"Pass that bowl already!" She joked as she punched my shoulder.
I passed the pipe with the lighter between two of my fingers. She grabbed both, lit it and took a deep breath.
"You're an all right girl, you know that?" We were smoking a lot of pot in those days, but I never over did it. Julie had the habit of smoking too much and cooking various types of chicken. I would smoke too much and get intellectual, it worked out because we'd talk philosophy over a plate of spicy grilled chicken.
We worked well together at the bar, too. We'd both get ourselves nice and drunk and magically appear safely back home the next day. I personally think that was mostly my doing, but I'd be lying if I said I remembered many rides home from bars, ever.
We were getting comfortable with our situation. I hated the idea of trying to start something over the summer, but it was working out despite my fears. I figured things would either fizzle quickly or it would turn into some kind of perverted phone relationship. Nothing bad happened at all, things were actually going really well.
The rest of the summer went much the same, I would visit her and she would visit me. Sometimes we'd meet in the middle and I even had dinner with her parents once or twice. Things were moving to enter into a new stage in the relationship by the end of that summer and I felt fine with it. I liked this girl, she liked me. It's not like I had anything else going on.
As school started back up again in the fall, there were a few bumps in the road. The first couple weeks went past in the blink of an eye that year. I was excited about being so close to the end of school, the situation with Julie kept moving along, and none of my classes started before 1 in the afternoon.
Eventually the days got shorter and the nights, colder. I went out one night with my roommates to a party across campus. The place was packed by the time we got there because Derek decided to crack open a handle of whiskey before we left the apartment and we started doing shots. At some point between the second and third stop sign on the trip over, the empty bottle was thrown out the window. It was shaping up to be a fantastic night of merriment and revelry.
We pulled up to the house and saw that people were piled in tight like immigrants in a pickup.
Me - "Look at this bullshit. It might look like fun now but with that many people, this party is gonna be more beat than your butthole in about 8 and a half minutes. ... More beat? Beater? Which one is it?"
John - "It's more beat, I think, and I hope you were talking about Derek's butthole."
Me - "It was a fucking phrase, people say that"
Derek - "My butthole is not beat up. Fuck you guys." He slurred.
I was starting to slur a bit too and I didn't think what I had said about the buttholes made any sense but I remember I went with it. It's not always what someone says, it's how confident they are in saying it that matters. We decided to go to that party, in spite of my protestations earlier and continued annoyance at the proceedings, because John went to high school with someone that lived there. This connection did not go unused as within a few minutes of walking in the door I was asked to play beer pong with John's friend because John was terrible. The previous partner had gone outside to smoke and never came back, I didn't care why because I was really in the mood for some kind of game and I had some practice at this particular one.
That night is one of the biggest reasons I hate text messaging. At the time though, I liked the idea immensely. The first game went well and as I started talking to John's friend, I realized he was a generally tolerable human being. Some might even have called him a "sweet dude." I was text messaging Julie to come to the party as the second game started.
I like to think that it's my good looks and charm that bring home the bacon, but it might be my wit. Maybe it's because when I start to get drunk my eyes narrow. I drink and I get bedroom eyes, it's weird, I know. The alcohol might have made the girls on the other side of the table look better. All I know is that I started chatting to the dark haired one, Katie. I was talking shit to Katie, text messaging Julie, and about to sink the last cup to get Katie's team off the table.
We won that game, and the next, but Katie stuck around for a while. I wasn't thinking about doing anything with Katie and I wasn't exactly getting the vibe that she was into doing anything with me either, but that didn't make things look any better to the untrained eye. Julie walked in to see me engaged in an argument with Katie.
Me - "Vin Diesel's way cooler than Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is, in fact, an asshole."
Katie - "Chuck Norris would kick Vin Diesel's ass. Period. You're smoking crack rocks if you think any different."
Julie - "Heeeeeyyyy baby, who's your friend? I'm Julie, by the way." She introduced herself to Katie.
It was a totally innocent argument anyone could have found themselves in with anyone else at any given point in time. Julie made it a little awkward for a minute, but Katie left. No harm, no foul. We lost the next game and I wanted to leave, but Julie had wandered off. I figured she wasn't very far so I went out for a cigarette to wait.
The air was cold enough to see your breath. I love those first fall nights where it's cold enough to do that, I always walk around pretending I'm some kind of steam breathing dragon about to terrorize a small town. Katie must have seen me walk out the door and wanted to say goodbye before she left. It was kind of embarrassing to be seen walking around like a drunk dinosaur huffing and puffing all into the night. So when Katie saw me and started laughing, I did too. It was funny, I was drunk and my phone started ringing.
Me - "Hold on a second, lemme get this. I wanna tell you something."
Katie - "Ok, but my friends are leaving."
Me - "Yeah babe, outside. ... That's just my friend, don't worry about it. ... Yeah, come outside and let's go. ... Yeah, bye, get out here. ... I'm sorry, actually that's what I wanted to say to you, Jules gets weird sometimes when she's drunk."
Katie - "Oh it's no problem, are you talking about that awkward exchange earlier?" She forced a polite laugh.
Me - "Yeah, she's really a nice girl. But I gotta go find her around front."
Katie - "I'm going that way too."
Julie didn't say anything when she saw me walk around the corner still talking to "that girl." She waited until later when we were back at my place. I guess it looked bad, I still don't know. It was entirely innocent, or mostly innocent. We got into an argument about it regardless.
Julie - "You seemed a little friendly with that girl."
Me - "Jules, I just met her a few minutes before you walked in and then I saw her outside later on. It was a coincidence. I wasn't getting friendly with anyone."
Julie - "I saw what I saw and it looked like you were getting a little friendly with her."
Me - "Julie, I don't want to deal with this shit right now, you're drunk ... I'm pretty drunk, let's just go to bed."
It went on like that for awhile until I let it slip that if I knew she was going to be acting like that I never would have told her to come. She took this to mean something entirely different. She was madder than hell and it was cute. I probably shouldn't have laughed at her that night either, but she reminded me of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I told her that, thinking it would calm her down, but it didn't.
It was a couple of weeks after that night and I wanted to surprise Julie with some kind of peace offering. We fought a bunch of times after that party because, basically, some words were thrown around that neither of us meant. I still really liked her, but we both needed to apologize to each other and be serious about things before anything got out of hand. I bought a bottle of wine and took my nice bong and a bag of weed over to Julie's place. She mentioned earlier that day that she needed to study for some test she had the next morning, so I figured if I went over later she might be in the mood for some making up, so to speak.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
I walked up to the door with the bottle stashed in my bag hoping I could keep it a surprise. Julie's roommate answered the door and told me that Julie would be right downstairs. We were past the point in our relationship where I waited for her to come down any stairs, anywhere. So, I walked up the stairs and turned the corner to her room and found it was locked. I started knocking on it.
Me - "Hey Jules, open up. We gotta talk."
Julie - "Yeah, gimme a minute."
Me - "What the fuck? Seriously girl, I've seen that before."
She came to the door and opened it, but not all the way. She told me she was busy studying with someone from class. I told her to open the door, that I had weed and wine, and they were two of her favorite things. She told me it was an important test. I told her she needed to open the door before I got mad. She refused, I got mad.
Turned out I arrived just in time to interrupt Julie and her friend from consummating their evening of study. She cleared her study friend out of her room and we talked. She chose this time to tell me the whole truth, thinking that maybe if she were honest I would be fine with her plans to fool around with some dude from her stats class. We argued about a few things, I called her a few names and she called me a few of her own. I stormed out of her house with the weed and wine and kept it to myself that night.
Since she didn't technically cheat on me, I took her back eventually. I didn't know what else to do, I really liked her, I hoped we'd be able to move past the whole thing and go back to the way things were.
I learned one important lesson that night at the party, that text messaging is the devil. I would later learn another lesson, that things can never go back to the way they were.
to be concluded...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
the binge drinking commenced (the julie chronicles pt 2)
part 2...
I stepped out of the shower and couldn't find a towel. In my haste to get in, I didn't bother to check for any. It was already on track, but as the cold air got to me on my trip across the hall I knew it was going to be one of those mornings.
As I creeped to the top of the stairs I heard the radio in the kitchen blaring some indie band I'd never heard and probably wouldn't ever hear again. Yes, I was trying to verify my earlier notion that Julie was my breakfast bandit, and that was just the kind of music she liked to listen to.
I went back in my room and started to get dressed. I sat down on the bed to pull on my socks and started thinking again.
======
It was about a week after our initial meeting that I stopped to sit and enjoy the day on a bench on campus. I was living about a half mile away and rather than head back to my apartment for an hour, I killed it bumming around. I tried to schedule my classes back to back so I didn't have all that time to waste, but I decided it was better to take a class I liked instead of another in-depth look at the intricacies of the ancient romans or the medical history of 19th century Russia.
"Can I bum a cigarette?"
I was startled back from my daydreaming by a familiar voice. Julie was wearing a hat slung low over her face and I didn't recognize her immediately.
Her - "And I'll even smoke it with you"
Me - "Good, you better. Hey sorry I had to cancel the other day, I really needed to finish that paper. Trying to be a good student and all."
Her - "It's not a big deal. I was better off not going out that night anyways. Uhhm, do you still want to do something?"
Me - "Definitely, let's say tomorrow night, or no, Wednesday night. ... We'll get fucked up and burn down this town?"
Her - "Ok, sounds great." (she wasn't as enthusiastic as her words would lead one to believe)
We eventually worked out the plans to head down to a bar that had their special billed as "Penny Pitchers." Pay a cover and drink all you can for two hours until the special is over. One bartender actually required a penny per pitcher, but most just refilled your pitcher for free. I told her a few sordid tales of the seedier side to my experiences there and she didn't seem to mind. I, of course, glazed over some of the grittier aspects of my misadventures involving large amounts of alcohol at basement bottom prices, but she wasn't phased by what she heard. It was good.
We chatted for a while longer until it was time to head our separate ways as my 3 o'clock was quickly approaching. I remember sitting in that class that day and staring out the window thinking of how great this girl seemed. She was cute, she was fun, and best of all she seemed to be into the same types of activities I was interested in. I was glad it was mostly a lecture that day in class as I had some time to organize my thoughts.
That gladness turned quickly to anxiety as some of my neurosis started to kick in. I imagined we'd get to this bar and she'd find some of her friends and blow me off. I'd get inhumanly drunk after that and cause a scene, as was my habit when things didn't go my way. I thought of how she might turn out to be a raging drunk that couldn't handle her alcohol, she'd throw up all over me and I'd get pissed because she ruined my new sweaties. Another possibility I foresaw was one in which we ran into any number of people that I know. Forced introductions are never a good thing to deal with on a first outing. I tried to block these scenarios from rising in my mind, but once they started, the floodgates opened wide.
I was glad when the professor told us "Blah blah blah, see you on Wednesday" as it gave me something to think about that wasn't an unlikely scenario combining all of the most notable parts of every bad date in a bar I'd ever had. I knew that a bar probably wasn't the best place to take a girl to, but I firmly adhered to the idea that crowded places were good because they offered a distraction if the conversation got dull. Nothing bored me more than dull conversation, and nothing was worse than being trapped in a situation where it couldn't be avoided.
I went home after class and fucked around for the rest of the afternoon. My roommate John came back later that night and informed me that we were all going to the bar that Wednesday. I didn't bother to tell him that I already had plans to do just that. I hoped that I could avoid the awkward conversation resulting from my plan to take a girl to a bar on our first date. Turned out that I couldn't, the next day as I stood in the living room trying to explain how I'd be there but I wasn't planning on getting "buckwild," John started to get mad at me.
Him - "So you're saying that you're going to the bar but you're not going to drink a lot and you're going to try and hang out with some cunt instead of me and Derek?"
Me - "Man, fuck. I made these plans before you said anything about this. Don't try and put blame on me because you're being an asshole."
Him - "What? I told you yesterday. You didn't seem un-enthused then, now you're acting like a twat-waffle. We're going down, and we're going to have a good time. You're being a stupid fuck. What kind of a degenerate takes a girl on a date to penny fucking pitchers?"
Me - "No man, not happening. My plans are my plans and that's final."
As I was driving to pick Julie up the next day, I figured I had better call her and let her know I was almost there. "Hey... Yeah, almost at your place now. Hey look, I uhh... I got my roommates with me, they're coming too. ... Yeah. Yeah, all right, like 2 minutes. See you." It builds character, I remember telling myself. It's an exercise in character building and it's a great opportunity to test Julie to see how well she gets along with my friends. A little early for this kind of test, all right, sure. The test was being administered that night regardless of timing. Rationalizing the change of events in my mind, I picked her up and John was nice enough to make her ride in the back.
Julie impressed me by taking care of the introductions herself. Turns out she had a class with Derek, so they chatted for the short trip down to the bar. Everyone got in just fine and we found a table in a corner and patiently awaited the slowly moving arm on the clock above the bar to turn ten. As was our custom, my housemates and I went up and got two pitchers apiece. With 6 pitchers on the table, realistically speaking, Julie didn't need to get her own pitcher. I told her to get the cups and the binge drinking commenced.
I can't be sure, but I think it was the feminine member of our group that changed the dynamic. Like a couple of kids in the schoolyard, each of us kept trying to out-drink the other. There were no spoken words stating how far ahead John was getting, or how far behind Derek was, but we all knew that there was a definite leader. Exchanging glances in between conversation and slamming the cups down on the table as we finished each was a sure way to start a drinking race under most circumstances. As I felt it wouldn't paint an accurate portrait of exactly who I am, I held back. I didn't want to get shitty just because of the posturing of my friends. The green flag was thrown for the race but no one ever shouted "go."
So it was this precarious balance I was maintaining between fighting for my spot as the alpha male by drinking my friends under the table and trying to pretend I was normal in front of this girl that I wanted. Julie offered to get the next round and with a quick rise, I got up to help. We walked over to the crowded bar and I pushed my way to the front and handed back a pair of pitchers to Julie, but on our way back she stopped and started talking to a group of her friends. I realized that she knew they were there the whole time. I had a suspicion that her original plans for the evening were to do the same thing only with this different group of people. Sneaky, she was more clever than I gave her credit for. I took my pitchers back to our table and went to find out what was taking Julie so long, even though it hadn't been but a few minutes. I figured that she would be a while as the girls she was talking to all knew her, so I wanted to get back to that table to see if I couldn't glean some useful information from her friends. She introduced me to everyone with no problems and then the table got quiet. These bitches were talking about me, or so it seemed.
Back at our table the evening continued as before but I started noticing some of the details I'd been missing all night so far. Julie was drinking quite a bit, I should have known though, because she was a bit wobbly by the time she got back to sit down. The other detail I was missing, but shouldn't have been, was that John was bombed. Midnight came and went, the special was over, but we weren't all the way done just yet.
Things got blurry but I remembered clearly ordering a pair of jager bombs as we were about to leave. Downing her drink, I knew Jules was the coolest girl that I'd met in a long time and she was as clearly interested in me as I was in her. Derek drove my car home that night, but the sneaky fucker didn't bother to stop at Julie's place on the way. This was probably a good idea because John was passed out in the passenger seat. Her and I were sitting in the backseat when we realized that we were parked in front of my apartment.
Me - "I should be fine to take you home."
Her - "Yeah, all right. Do that."
Me - (as we both got into the front of the car) "See you fuckers in a bit."
I drove her the mile or so to her place and put the car in park as I leaned over to kiss this wonderful girl a goodnight. The next thing I knew, I'm back at my place being woken up by the sun shining in my window to Jules' smiling face next to me. Yeah, I liked this girl.
to be continued...
I stepped out of the shower and couldn't find a towel. In my haste to get in, I didn't bother to check for any. It was already on track, but as the cold air got to me on my trip across the hall I knew it was going to be one of those mornings.
As I creeped to the top of the stairs I heard the radio in the kitchen blaring some indie band I'd never heard and probably wouldn't ever hear again. Yes, I was trying to verify my earlier notion that Julie was my breakfast bandit, and that was just the kind of music she liked to listen to.
I went back in my room and started to get dressed. I sat down on the bed to pull on my socks and started thinking again.
======
It was about a week after our initial meeting that I stopped to sit and enjoy the day on a bench on campus. I was living about a half mile away and rather than head back to my apartment for an hour, I killed it bumming around. I tried to schedule my classes back to back so I didn't have all that time to waste, but I decided it was better to take a class I liked instead of another in-depth look at the intricacies of the ancient romans or the medical history of 19th century Russia.
"Can I bum a cigarette?"
I was startled back from my daydreaming by a familiar voice. Julie was wearing a hat slung low over her face and I didn't recognize her immediately.
Her - "And I'll even smoke it with you"
Me - "Good, you better. Hey sorry I had to cancel the other day, I really needed to finish that paper. Trying to be a good student and all."
Her - "It's not a big deal. I was better off not going out that night anyways. Uhhm, do you still want to do something?"
Me - "Definitely, let's say tomorrow night, or no, Wednesday night. ... We'll get fucked up and burn down this town?"
Her - "Ok, sounds great." (she wasn't as enthusiastic as her words would lead one to believe)
We eventually worked out the plans to head down to a bar that had their special billed as "Penny Pitchers." Pay a cover and drink all you can for two hours until the special is over. One bartender actually required a penny per pitcher, but most just refilled your pitcher for free. I told her a few sordid tales of the seedier side to my experiences there and she didn't seem to mind. I, of course, glazed over some of the grittier aspects of my misadventures involving large amounts of alcohol at basement bottom prices, but she wasn't phased by what she heard. It was good.
We chatted for a while longer until it was time to head our separate ways as my 3 o'clock was quickly approaching. I remember sitting in that class that day and staring out the window thinking of how great this girl seemed. She was cute, she was fun, and best of all she seemed to be into the same types of activities I was interested in. I was glad it was mostly a lecture that day in class as I had some time to organize my thoughts.
That gladness turned quickly to anxiety as some of my neurosis started to kick in. I imagined we'd get to this bar and she'd find some of her friends and blow me off. I'd get inhumanly drunk after that and cause a scene, as was my habit when things didn't go my way. I thought of how she might turn out to be a raging drunk that couldn't handle her alcohol, she'd throw up all over me and I'd get pissed because she ruined my new sweaties. Another possibility I foresaw was one in which we ran into any number of people that I know. Forced introductions are never a good thing to deal with on a first outing. I tried to block these scenarios from rising in my mind, but once they started, the floodgates opened wide.
I was glad when the professor told us "Blah blah blah, see you on Wednesday" as it gave me something to think about that wasn't an unlikely scenario combining all of the most notable parts of every bad date in a bar I'd ever had. I knew that a bar probably wasn't the best place to take a girl to, but I firmly adhered to the idea that crowded places were good because they offered a distraction if the conversation got dull. Nothing bored me more than dull conversation, and nothing was worse than being trapped in a situation where it couldn't be avoided.
I went home after class and fucked around for the rest of the afternoon. My roommate John came back later that night and informed me that we were all going to the bar that Wednesday. I didn't bother to tell him that I already had plans to do just that. I hoped that I could avoid the awkward conversation resulting from my plan to take a girl to a bar on our first date. Turned out that I couldn't, the next day as I stood in the living room trying to explain how I'd be there but I wasn't planning on getting "buckwild," John started to get mad at me.
Him - "So you're saying that you're going to the bar but you're not going to drink a lot and you're going to try and hang out with some cunt instead of me and Derek?"
Me - "Man, fuck. I made these plans before you said anything about this. Don't try and put blame on me because you're being an asshole."
Him - "What? I told you yesterday. You didn't seem un-enthused then, now you're acting like a twat-waffle. We're going down, and we're going to have a good time. You're being a stupid fuck. What kind of a degenerate takes a girl on a date to penny fucking pitchers?"
Me - "No man, not happening. My plans are my plans and that's final."
As I was driving to pick Julie up the next day, I figured I had better call her and let her know I was almost there. "Hey... Yeah, almost at your place now. Hey look, I uhh... I got my roommates with me, they're coming too. ... Yeah. Yeah, all right, like 2 minutes. See you." It builds character, I remember telling myself. It's an exercise in character building and it's a great opportunity to test Julie to see how well she gets along with my friends. A little early for this kind of test, all right, sure. The test was being administered that night regardless of timing. Rationalizing the change of events in my mind, I picked her up and John was nice enough to make her ride in the back.
Julie impressed me by taking care of the introductions herself. Turns out she had a class with Derek, so they chatted for the short trip down to the bar. Everyone got in just fine and we found a table in a corner and patiently awaited the slowly moving arm on the clock above the bar to turn ten. As was our custom, my housemates and I went up and got two pitchers apiece. With 6 pitchers on the table, realistically speaking, Julie didn't need to get her own pitcher. I told her to get the cups and the binge drinking commenced.
I can't be sure, but I think it was the feminine member of our group that changed the dynamic. Like a couple of kids in the schoolyard, each of us kept trying to out-drink the other. There were no spoken words stating how far ahead John was getting, or how far behind Derek was, but we all knew that there was a definite leader. Exchanging glances in between conversation and slamming the cups down on the table as we finished each was a sure way to start a drinking race under most circumstances. As I felt it wouldn't paint an accurate portrait of exactly who I am, I held back. I didn't want to get shitty just because of the posturing of my friends. The green flag was thrown for the race but no one ever shouted "go."
So it was this precarious balance I was maintaining between fighting for my spot as the alpha male by drinking my friends under the table and trying to pretend I was normal in front of this girl that I wanted. Julie offered to get the next round and with a quick rise, I got up to help. We walked over to the crowded bar and I pushed my way to the front and handed back a pair of pitchers to Julie, but on our way back she stopped and started talking to a group of her friends. I realized that she knew they were there the whole time. I had a suspicion that her original plans for the evening were to do the same thing only with this different group of people. Sneaky, she was more clever than I gave her credit for. I took my pitchers back to our table and went to find out what was taking Julie so long, even though it hadn't been but a few minutes. I figured that she would be a while as the girls she was talking to all knew her, so I wanted to get back to that table to see if I couldn't glean some useful information from her friends. She introduced me to everyone with no problems and then the table got quiet. These bitches were talking about me, or so it seemed.
Back at our table the evening continued as before but I started noticing some of the details I'd been missing all night so far. Julie was drinking quite a bit, I should have known though, because she was a bit wobbly by the time she got back to sit down. The other detail I was missing, but shouldn't have been, was that John was bombed. Midnight came and went, the special was over, but we weren't all the way done just yet.
Things got blurry but I remembered clearly ordering a pair of jager bombs as we were about to leave. Downing her drink, I knew Jules was the coolest girl that I'd met in a long time and she was as clearly interested in me as I was in her. Derek drove my car home that night, but the sneaky fucker didn't bother to stop at Julie's place on the way. This was probably a good idea because John was passed out in the passenger seat. Her and I were sitting in the backseat when we realized that we were parked in front of my apartment.
Me - "I should be fine to take you home."
Her - "Yeah, all right. Do that."
Me - (as we both got into the front of the car) "See you fuckers in a bit."
I drove her the mile or so to her place and put the car in park as I leaned over to kiss this wonderful girl a goodnight. The next thing I knew, I'm back at my place being woken up by the sun shining in my window to Jules' smiling face next to me. Yeah, I liked this girl.
to be continued...
Sunday, March 16, 2008
a prince in a brothel (the julie chronicles pt 1)
A bit of stuff from the vault...
The sun was shining. I knew because it hurt to open my eyes. The blinds were drawn shut but it was one of those mornings where the sun seemed to shine twice as bright as normal. The light seemed to shoot through the cracks in the blinds like they weren't even there. I wasn't happy.
Rolling over and sitting up, I kicked a glass as I swung my feet onto the cold hardwood floor. The glass fell and rolled slowly, spilling a foul mixture of yellow water and cigarette butts.
I sighed as I stood up. Slowly, I had to sit back down. Vaguely in a haze of intermittent memories I recalled my last lucid moments from the night before, downing shots of tequila. I remembered yelling something about "Tequila Tuesdays" and constantly being corrected that it was, in fact, Saturday night.
It was a decent night, waking in my own bed with no stranger laying next to me. Breathing deeply the morning air, I smelled something cooking downstairs.
With a roll of my head, I slowly bit down on my lower lip. The only person that could be cooking breakfast in my apartment was Julie. She and I had a tumultuous past. I didn't want to think of how she came to be there just then, so to distract myself I hopped off the bed and slowly crept into the shower.
The apartment was in an older, somewhat more affluent part of town. It was the kind of area with young people, and specifically what seemed like a lot of couples. They were still finding their place in the world, somehow the older buildings and quaint shops brought their world together. There was a time in my life when I would have been interested in the history of the area, but all I cared about that morning was the creaky floors.
I let the warm water spray on my face as I tried to piece together what could have brought me to this situation.
=========
It was 6 years before I woke up that Sunday morning to my peculiar situation. I was at a house party back in college. It was my junior year, second semester and spring was finally in full bloom.
The house was set back from the street and people were overflowing into the front, back, and side yards. The spring thaw brought out the worst in the student body. Winter left one's soul lonely. The cold and snow made more hermits than snow bunnies and when the opportunity arose, everyone flocked to get out and experience the life they were missing in excess.
The fun in the fall seemed more mechanical, as if people just did what they felt they had to. It wasn't spontaneous and wild like the spring.
So I got a little spontaneous that night. I was never a fan of the chaos of parties like that one. They were savage and unrefined. On some level, they were appealing not in spite, but because of this. Letting go of my civil self, I would exist for a few hours on this more basic level. The loud music and louder smells were tolerated because they felt natural. I was a prince in a brothel.
This was an environment where emotions reigned. The people swooned over those with the most excitement. They hated the people who were angry. In order to just exist, everyone had to give in to one feeling or another. Love the party and it will love you.
I did what I thought I should, make a full circuit around the place and find somewhere I felt comfortable. Ultimately, that was all I felt compelled to do.
My comfortable spot was in the main living room. It wasn't overly packed in, nor were there so few people that I felt walled off from the rest of the party. It was a high traffic area with many faces coming and going so I felt my social fulfillment was done.
I knew the people that lived in this house, felt kind of sorry for them really. The important thing was that I knew them well enough for there to be some bad feelings if I smoked freely inside. There was a small deck behind the house that offered some privacy because the door led into the dungeon part of the basement. Not that people were tortured there, but it felt like a dungeon and I always half expected to see some critters. People shied away from the door and tended to shy away from the patio back there as well because of it.
As I lit my cigarette, I saw a girl walk around the building. She couldn't have been much taller than 5'4", maybe shorter. Dark hair, almost black but with brown highlights. She had the look in her eye that said she was about to ask me for something.
Her - "Hey, can I bum a cigarette?" (she must have seen me grabbing for my smokes as I walked out upstairs)
Me - (always hesitant about these kinds of people) "uhrrr. Yeah, if you smoke it here"
Her - (laughing) "Okay, you know that came off as kind of creepy?"
Me - (lighting her cigarette) "Oh, that was the plan"
And we talked. She was a political science major, my year. We never lived in the same building or took any of the same classes but because it was basically a small school, it turned out that we both shared some mutual acquaintances. She said she was also very good friends with the people that lived there. A cigarette quickly turned to two and a solid 20 minutes seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Her dark eyes, deepened and darkened by the poor lighting and alcohol, seemed to have their own shine. I knew my own were telling her enough about how I was feeling, if only she were paying attention.
As we talked, I began mentally running down the list of things I'd like to do with her that night. Most of them would have been so vulgar as to keep the neighbors awake at night, even if they moved away. I wasn't on the prowl for women, but it's hard to ignore the signs. Though, they could have been brighter and growling for my attention because that's what alcohol does to me. It helps me see things that aren't there and miss the things that are.
Her - (grabbing at her hip and pulling her phone out of her pocket) "Ah shit, it's my friend's birthday tonight, or last night if it's past midnight, but either way..."
Me - "I'll walk you."
Her - "No, it's all right. Let me see your phone"
Me - (handing it to her) "Why?"
I knew she was putting her number in, and I only asked to pretend like I didn't know. The signs were there, I wasn't blind and more importantly, I wasn't seeing things that weren't there. I was glad she was leaving because I liked her enough that I knew I shouldn't defile her just yet. That's what I do, I get it in my head that a girl I can have my way with too soon isn't clean and that only gets the gears in motion to an inevitable torrent of self-loathing and hate. It's how relationships explode so often with me, they've got to be built up and not given up.
to be continued...
The sun was shining. I knew because it hurt to open my eyes. The blinds were drawn shut but it was one of those mornings where the sun seemed to shine twice as bright as normal. The light seemed to shoot through the cracks in the blinds like they weren't even there. I wasn't happy.
Rolling over and sitting up, I kicked a glass as I swung my feet onto the cold hardwood floor. The glass fell and rolled slowly, spilling a foul mixture of yellow water and cigarette butts.
I sighed as I stood up. Slowly, I had to sit back down. Vaguely in a haze of intermittent memories I recalled my last lucid moments from the night before, downing shots of tequila. I remembered yelling something about "Tequila Tuesdays" and constantly being corrected that it was, in fact, Saturday night.
It was a decent night, waking in my own bed with no stranger laying next to me. Breathing deeply the morning air, I smelled something cooking downstairs.
With a roll of my head, I slowly bit down on my lower lip. The only person that could be cooking breakfast in my apartment was Julie. She and I had a tumultuous past. I didn't want to think of how she came to be there just then, so to distract myself I hopped off the bed and slowly crept into the shower.
The apartment was in an older, somewhat more affluent part of town. It was the kind of area with young people, and specifically what seemed like a lot of couples. They were still finding their place in the world, somehow the older buildings and quaint shops brought their world together. There was a time in my life when I would have been interested in the history of the area, but all I cared about that morning was the creaky floors.
I let the warm water spray on my face as I tried to piece together what could have brought me to this situation.
=========
It was 6 years before I woke up that Sunday morning to my peculiar situation. I was at a house party back in college. It was my junior year, second semester and spring was finally in full bloom.
The house was set back from the street and people were overflowing into the front, back, and side yards. The spring thaw brought out the worst in the student body. Winter left one's soul lonely. The cold and snow made more hermits than snow bunnies and when the opportunity arose, everyone flocked to get out and experience the life they were missing in excess.
The fun in the fall seemed more mechanical, as if people just did what they felt they had to. It wasn't spontaneous and wild like the spring.
So I got a little spontaneous that night. I was never a fan of the chaos of parties like that one. They were savage and unrefined. On some level, they were appealing not in spite, but because of this. Letting go of my civil self, I would exist for a few hours on this more basic level. The loud music and louder smells were tolerated because they felt natural. I was a prince in a brothel.
This was an environment where emotions reigned. The people swooned over those with the most excitement. They hated the people who were angry. In order to just exist, everyone had to give in to one feeling or another. Love the party and it will love you.
I did what I thought I should, make a full circuit around the place and find somewhere I felt comfortable. Ultimately, that was all I felt compelled to do.
My comfortable spot was in the main living room. It wasn't overly packed in, nor were there so few people that I felt walled off from the rest of the party. It was a high traffic area with many faces coming and going so I felt my social fulfillment was done.
I knew the people that lived in this house, felt kind of sorry for them really. The important thing was that I knew them well enough for there to be some bad feelings if I smoked freely inside. There was a small deck behind the house that offered some privacy because the door led into the dungeon part of the basement. Not that people were tortured there, but it felt like a dungeon and I always half expected to see some critters. People shied away from the door and tended to shy away from the patio back there as well because of it.
As I lit my cigarette, I saw a girl walk around the building. She couldn't have been much taller than 5'4", maybe shorter. Dark hair, almost black but with brown highlights. She had the look in her eye that said she was about to ask me for something.
Her - "Hey, can I bum a cigarette?" (she must have seen me grabbing for my smokes as I walked out upstairs)
Me - (always hesitant about these kinds of people) "uhrrr. Yeah, if you smoke it here"
Her - (laughing) "Okay, you know that came off as kind of creepy?"
Me - (lighting her cigarette) "Oh, that was the plan"
And we talked. She was a political science major, my year. We never lived in the same building or took any of the same classes but because it was basically a small school, it turned out that we both shared some mutual acquaintances. She said she was also very good friends with the people that lived there. A cigarette quickly turned to two and a solid 20 minutes seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Her dark eyes, deepened and darkened by the poor lighting and alcohol, seemed to have their own shine. I knew my own were telling her enough about how I was feeling, if only she were paying attention.
As we talked, I began mentally running down the list of things I'd like to do with her that night. Most of them would have been so vulgar as to keep the neighbors awake at night, even if they moved away. I wasn't on the prowl for women, but it's hard to ignore the signs. Though, they could have been brighter and growling for my attention because that's what alcohol does to me. It helps me see things that aren't there and miss the things that are.
Her - (grabbing at her hip and pulling her phone out of her pocket) "Ah shit, it's my friend's birthday tonight, or last night if it's past midnight, but either way..."
Me - "I'll walk you."
Her - "No, it's all right. Let me see your phone"
Me - (handing it to her) "Why?"
I knew she was putting her number in, and I only asked to pretend like I didn't know. The signs were there, I wasn't blind and more importantly, I wasn't seeing things that weren't there. I was glad she was leaving because I liked her enough that I knew I shouldn't defile her just yet. That's what I do, I get it in my head that a girl I can have my way with too soon isn't clean and that only gets the gears in motion to an inevitable torrent of self-loathing and hate. It's how relationships explode so often with me, they've got to be built up and not given up.
to be continued...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
just lighting up the dark corners of my mind
Not to say that I'm a thief, but I've stolen some things. I've stolen some souls, some hearts and even an object or two in my past. Most recently I found a marker sitting on a table at the cafeteria and I took that. Of course, I don't consider taking that sharpie as a theft because all I was really doing was preventing someone else from stealing it. I'm holding on to it until the rightful owner comes to claim it. No, I won't be putting up any signs advertising to the owner that I have it, but if someone were to come up to me and describe the marker then I would give it back to them.
When I was much younger, I didn't have quite the same clarity of conscience in regards to these matters. My favorite tale of youthful thievery is the time that I borrowed some cigarettes from my grandparents. I was in the fifth grade at the time and in the narrow mind of that young self, I thought that smoking would make me cool. My grandparents smoked, and so I reasoned that it can't be all that bad and I ought to give it a try.
The hardest part of the whole endeavor was getting the nerve up to sneak a couple cigarettes. I'm not sure if I was worried more about getting caught with cigarettes or actually taking something that wasn't mine. I managed to grab one cigarette (my grandfolks smoked Kools) one day and cart it off to my room hidden in my pocket. I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but it's not a good idea to put a cigarette in your pocket all loosey-goosey like. When I got to my room I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of brown bits of tobacco and two smaller cigarettes. This obviously would not work, but after some searching, I found a method of moving these forbidden fruits safely.
I had a pencil case in my backpack that I kept all of my other illegal childhood paraphernalia in. A fifth grade entrepreneur, I was in the business of fashioning mechanical pencils into various types of projectiles and small hurling devices. Use the spring in a mechanical pencil correctly and with a little bit of pressure the entire device can be shot across a room. Fix one up right and it would shoot any small projectile across that same room with startling speed and little accuracy. I sold these at above market value and kept the money and goods in this pencil case. It didn't occur to me that I had the means and method of smuggling cigarettes already in place.
With bolder steps this time I grabbed three cigarettes and quickly hid them away in my tin case as I slid it into my pocket and ran out the door. There was no need to run away from the crime scene because I learned that my grandparents never suspected a thing. I didn't know this at the time, of course, so I had to act with care and caution. What could an 11 year old want with tobacco products, anyway? After years of inquiry, I have concluded that I wanted it all. I wanted to have everything to do with tobacco products and more.
Safely away from the house and out of sight, I paused to look at my bounty. I'd seen cigarettes hundreds of times, touched them and smelled them more often than I could hope to count. I lived with two smokers, these were nothing new to me. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that these two-toned sticks held for me now an intense draw. I felt them pulling me as I popped one into my mouth to see how it tasted. Like nothing, because I had no fire.
I never professed to be a mastermind of planning. Not at that age, at least. If I had thought things through though, I might have remembered to bring some fire with me. Matches, a lighter, hell even a magnifying glass to catch the sun and light up a dried leaf. I couldn't always plan things out perfectly, but I fancied myself quite resourceful. Fortunately for me, this was the age at which my friends and I were already old hands at catching things on fire. The summer before, in fact, I had spent testing various substances in my house for their degree of flammability.
I went to the neighbor's house to see if I could find a comrade willing to bring some fire out to me rather than going back home to sneak away with some matches. I reckoned that someone might realize what was going on if they saw me return to get some matches only to leave again. At the very least I would be questioned about the fire. I imagined it going something like this:
Them - "What are you doing with those matches?"
Me - "Science experiment"
Them - "Are you planning on lighting something on fire?"
Me - "Just lighting up the dark corners of my mind"
Them - "I don't buy that bullshit for an instant. You're smoking cigarettes! Cigarettes you stole!"
Me - "Damn and double damn." (As I ran away)
So instead the only dealing I had with an adult was my neighbor. I walked carefully to the door because I was worried that word was already out about my activities. I was suspicious of all adults because they liked to tell each other about all the adventures I would find myself in. They didn't always see what I did as adventures, but arguing semantics with an 11 year old is foolish.
Neighbor - "Hi Rory*, Tim's inside. Do you want me to get him? Come in, come in."
Me - "Is he in his room? I'll go get him."
Neighbor - "Yeah, you know where it's at."
I stalked through the hallway to Tim's door and slowly pushed it open. After learning of this utterly interesting course of events, Tim grabbed a lighter he kept hidden under the box spring of his bed and we were off. After yelling back to Tim's mom about how we were going outside, I knew I was about to join the ranks of the cool. Or maybe I should say of the Kool. Either way, parents love it when kids go outside and we would be left to our own devices at least until dinner time.
Behind Tim's house was a large growth of weeds and bushes that we'd cleared away discretely enough so as to allow entrance to only people who knew the way. That list of people consisted of myself and my partner in crime. After sitting down on a large log we'd moved there for that purpose, we exchanged goods. I pulled out two cigarettes, handed him one and he handed me his lighter. Since I took the risks, I would be the first to enjoy the rewards.
Again I put the contraband to my lips, but this time I tasted something. I thought I did at least, if anything it was the sweet taste of victory. I had trouble lighting the cigarette. Though I'd seen it done plenty of times, the difficult part was inhaling while I held up the flame. Some coughing came and I knew I had it lit. I passed the lighter to Tim and he struggled similarly.
I remember we didn't talk much while we were smoking that first time. After my first couple of hacks, I stopped coughing. I thought it was weird at the time that a strong wind could kick me into a sneezing attack and coughing fit because of my allergies and asthma, but smoking a cigarette only made me feel awesome. A little lightheaded, I smoked and was chilled out to a degree that I'd never known before. Most of all, I felt like the coolest and most bad ass sonofabitch that ever walked the earth. My first foray into mind altering chemicals was a glorious excursion save for the fact that I smoked some of that first filter.
This scene would play out a couple times over the next few weeks, though I stopped burning filters. I would nab some smokes and Tim's house/lighter would provide the rest of this amazing cocktail. Smoking was more a method of wasting time than a way of getting high. I didn't know what to call it at the time, but these cigarettes I smoked were giving me a delightful buzz that I would forget about for a very long time. It was only on my 18th birthday that I really remembered that first amazing experience with tobacco and I've never forgotten her again.
*Edited to protect the innocent.
When I was much younger, I didn't have quite the same clarity of conscience in regards to these matters. My favorite tale of youthful thievery is the time that I borrowed some cigarettes from my grandparents. I was in the fifth grade at the time and in the narrow mind of that young self, I thought that smoking would make me cool. My grandparents smoked, and so I reasoned that it can't be all that bad and I ought to give it a try.
The hardest part of the whole endeavor was getting the nerve up to sneak a couple cigarettes. I'm not sure if I was worried more about getting caught with cigarettes or actually taking something that wasn't mine. I managed to grab one cigarette (my grandfolks smoked Kools) one day and cart it off to my room hidden in my pocket. I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but it's not a good idea to put a cigarette in your pocket all loosey-goosey like. When I got to my room I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of brown bits of tobacco and two smaller cigarettes. This obviously would not work, but after some searching, I found a method of moving these forbidden fruits safely.
I had a pencil case in my backpack that I kept all of my other illegal childhood paraphernalia in. A fifth grade entrepreneur, I was in the business of fashioning mechanical pencils into various types of projectiles and small hurling devices. Use the spring in a mechanical pencil correctly and with a little bit of pressure the entire device can be shot across a room. Fix one up right and it would shoot any small projectile across that same room with startling speed and little accuracy. I sold these at above market value and kept the money and goods in this pencil case. It didn't occur to me that I had the means and method of smuggling cigarettes already in place.
With bolder steps this time I grabbed three cigarettes and quickly hid them away in my tin case as I slid it into my pocket and ran out the door. There was no need to run away from the crime scene because I learned that my grandparents never suspected a thing. I didn't know this at the time, of course, so I had to act with care and caution. What could an 11 year old want with tobacco products, anyway? After years of inquiry, I have concluded that I wanted it all. I wanted to have everything to do with tobacco products and more.
Safely away from the house and out of sight, I paused to look at my bounty. I'd seen cigarettes hundreds of times, touched them and smelled them more often than I could hope to count. I lived with two smokers, these were nothing new to me. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that these two-toned sticks held for me now an intense draw. I felt them pulling me as I popped one into my mouth to see how it tasted. Like nothing, because I had no fire.
I never professed to be a mastermind of planning. Not at that age, at least. If I had thought things through though, I might have remembered to bring some fire with me. Matches, a lighter, hell even a magnifying glass to catch the sun and light up a dried leaf. I couldn't always plan things out perfectly, but I fancied myself quite resourceful. Fortunately for me, this was the age at which my friends and I were already old hands at catching things on fire. The summer before, in fact, I had spent testing various substances in my house for their degree of flammability.
I went to the neighbor's house to see if I could find a comrade willing to bring some fire out to me rather than going back home to sneak away with some matches. I reckoned that someone might realize what was going on if they saw me return to get some matches only to leave again. At the very least I would be questioned about the fire. I imagined it going something like this:
Them - "What are you doing with those matches?"
Me - "Science experiment"
Them - "Are you planning on lighting something on fire?"
Me - "Just lighting up the dark corners of my mind"
Them - "I don't buy that bullshit for an instant. You're smoking cigarettes! Cigarettes you stole!"
Me - "Damn and double damn." (As I ran away)
So instead the only dealing I had with an adult was my neighbor. I walked carefully to the door because I was worried that word was already out about my activities. I was suspicious of all adults because they liked to tell each other about all the adventures I would find myself in. They didn't always see what I did as adventures, but arguing semantics with an 11 year old is foolish.
Neighbor - "Hi Rory*, Tim's inside. Do you want me to get him? Come in, come in."
Me - "Is he in his room? I'll go get him."
Neighbor - "Yeah, you know where it's at."
I stalked through the hallway to Tim's door and slowly pushed it open. After learning of this utterly interesting course of events, Tim grabbed a lighter he kept hidden under the box spring of his bed and we were off. After yelling back to Tim's mom about how we were going outside, I knew I was about to join the ranks of the cool. Or maybe I should say of the Kool. Either way, parents love it when kids go outside and we would be left to our own devices at least until dinner time.
Behind Tim's house was a large growth of weeds and bushes that we'd cleared away discretely enough so as to allow entrance to only people who knew the way. That list of people consisted of myself and my partner in crime. After sitting down on a large log we'd moved there for that purpose, we exchanged goods. I pulled out two cigarettes, handed him one and he handed me his lighter. Since I took the risks, I would be the first to enjoy the rewards.
Again I put the contraband to my lips, but this time I tasted something. I thought I did at least, if anything it was the sweet taste of victory. I had trouble lighting the cigarette. Though I'd seen it done plenty of times, the difficult part was inhaling while I held up the flame. Some coughing came and I knew I had it lit. I passed the lighter to Tim and he struggled similarly.
I remember we didn't talk much while we were smoking that first time. After my first couple of hacks, I stopped coughing. I thought it was weird at the time that a strong wind could kick me into a sneezing attack and coughing fit because of my allergies and asthma, but smoking a cigarette only made me feel awesome. A little lightheaded, I smoked and was chilled out to a degree that I'd never known before. Most of all, I felt like the coolest and most bad ass sonofabitch that ever walked the earth. My first foray into mind altering chemicals was a glorious excursion save for the fact that I smoked some of that first filter.
This scene would play out a couple times over the next few weeks, though I stopped burning filters. I would nab some smokes and Tim's house/lighter would provide the rest of this amazing cocktail. Smoking was more a method of wasting time than a way of getting high. I didn't know what to call it at the time, but these cigarettes I smoked were giving me a delightful buzz that I would forget about for a very long time. It was only on my 18th birthday that I really remembered that first amazing experience with tobacco and I've never forgotten her again.
*Edited to protect the innocent.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
the room stunk like a whorehouse in mid-July
I recently was a party to one of the oddest, and strangely most fulfilling, experiences of my life. There are so many names we could have used but we finally settled on "Whack Fest '08."
On the most basic level, Whack Fest was just a bunch of dudes jerking off in a room. It was so much more than that though, there were rules and codes of conduct that needed to be followed. It was a game, a contest of wills and determination. By the end of it, there were so many tissues around the room someone might have thought there was a flu epidemic and we were under quarantine. Things got wild, to say the least.
We'd decided that the only way to tell who was the manliest man in a group of men was to see who could beat themselves up the most in one day. Whack fest was all about survival, making it to the end of the day while also proving to your fellow men that you were able to produce quantity as well as quality. It was the most American thing we could think to do, not that we were assaulting ourselves for the troops or anything.
Things started out as you'd expect with a roomful of dudes going to town on themselves. There was a TV playing a stream of porn titles throughout the day. A couple of laptops were strewn around pointed at different websites. Some over-eager contestants tried to race ahead and lead the pack while others decided to go the way of the tortoise and pace themselves. I can't imagine a loser being declared amongst our lewd group, but there would definitely be a winner that stood tall above the rest.
Conversation for the first couple rounds was flowing freely. We would talk about school and the weather in between and during flogging sessions. Some complained about politics until the rapture would make them forget why they were upset in the first place. It was just us dudes exercising our right to be free-spirited and natural. Natural, of course, meant naked. We decided to go totally bare out of necessity rather than try and wear any type of clothing that would only become so soiled it would need to be burned after the game was over.
Our initial enthusiasm quickly wore off as the horror of what we were doing started to sink in. I remember looking over at "Weird Balls" and seeing tears rolling down his face. He was really beating his dude up. He was beating dude like he owed him a couple years worth of back rent. In Weird Balls' eyes there was sadness and fear. Of course he was sad, he was abusing himself almost to the point of self-mutilation. I think he was afraid because he knew he liked it and the capacity to enjoy that kind of abuse is a very scary thing indeed.
It was weird that we settled in to relative synchronization but as round 5 came and went, everyone still seemed to be going strong. "Dirty Dick" jumped up, covered in sweat and fluids with his eyes all bloodshot and asked everyone if that was where we wanted to be when Jesus came back. I answered him with a series of grunts as I proudly marched onwards to round 6. As I shook it off, I looked Dirty Dick in the eyes and told him he could quit at any time. I imagine that I was a frightening sight to behold with one hand choking myself purple and the other proudly locked on my hip. Dirty Dick came to his senses and started in on himself again but for the rest of the day he was quiet save for a few times I heard him reciting the lord's prayer.
By round 7 or 8 everyone had settled comfortably into a spot in the room and there wasn't as much moving around anymore. "Hairy Ass" stopped talking and started hanging his head low as he turned his back on us to sit and look out the window. He probably wanted to keep in touch with the outside world because we weren't exactly human anymore. We'd all become robots, our primary objective was self-gratification. This was the goal, but it was slowly becoming less gratifying and more like work. We'd finally reached the most important phase of the endurance trial. Since it felt like work, only those with the strength and will power would outlast the rest.
Covered in drool, tears and about as much semen as the navy, the room stunk like a whorehouse in mid-July if the air-conditioning was broke and it was dollar day. Someone suggested a change of venue. I don't remember a lot of the details by this point, but I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I was slumped against the wall, slowly pumping away while my eyelids drooped and sweat began pooling around my ass on the floor. It was a pretty good spot to be, I remember reflecting, for when Jesus came back.
Immanuel Kant once said that 'a man gives up his personality when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive.' He was right. I was a heaving, sweating beast with only the intention of winning on my mind. Every time I minded my own business was a step closer to winning. I'll be damned if I wasn't stewing in my juices though, in more ways than one. I learned the joys of being ambidextrous as I was left to my own devices more often in the later rounds.
There was one quitter before, but round 10 saw a wave of people tagging out because they "couldn't take it any longer" or "felt sick from the stink" or "were afraid if they continued they would never be able to sleep again." 4 people were left after the 10th round. Myself, Dirty Dick, Hairy Ass and as I started calling the final man "Mr Kleenex" because of the stack of dirty rags he had surrounding himself. He was like an island surrounded by balled up tissue and tears.
The four of us would last another 6 rounds without much to mention. The only thing missing from this sinner's sauna was the steam. It was hotter than satan's asshole in that room and the air was thick and humid. The window was almost completely covered in condensation when Hairy Ass finally decided to call it quits. He said nothing. He did not even bother to pick up his clothes and after about a half hour we realized he wasn't coming back. We didn't see him for a couple days afterwards either. I imagine it was the shame he was feeling that kept him away from the rest of us for those few days. I know I had trouble looking these warriors in the eye for a while. Then there were only three.
Another round over and Dirty Dick congratulated us for lasting so long and picked his things up and left. He seemed smugly full of self loathing as he walked out with no confidence in his step. What happened next has never been repeated until now.
It took a few moments to see clearly through the haze what had happened, but Mr Kleenex and myself realized at about the same time that we were really the only two left. I made eye contact with him and with a nod from each of us, we locked stares and wouldn't break it until there was a winner. When one of us would start revving our engine up to the red-line, the other would try as hard as they could to follow suit. I watched another man's pupils dilate in release 3 times before I'd had enough. I couldn't take it anymore. My hands and man were battered and bruised and I felt so dirty that I knew even an hour in the shower with scalding water couldn't make me clean again.
Exhausted, beaten up and sorry for being alive, I slumped all the way to the floor and fell asleep in my own muck and mire for I don't remember how long. When I woke up, Mr Kleenex was gone and I knew that it didn't really matter that he went one more round than I, neither of us would have ever gloated about our victory. There were no losers, like I said. Curiously though, there were no winners either. None ever spoke of it again in fact, so winning and losing lost all meaning.
No one's talked about that day since it happened and I doubt anyone ever will. I made up some descriptive names to be used so as to protect the innocent. That's horseshit though, as I was there, and in that room there were no innocents. You can't watch a group of men shake their steak and walk away thinking everything is going to be all lollipops and dandelions ever again. Part of me died in that room, and not the part that I was trying so hard to choke to death. In that death, though, came about the birth of a new part of me. Sure, I can now say that I was a part of one of the greatest adventures into social experimentation that ever existed, but I can also say I truly know what it is to be human.
On the most basic level, Whack Fest was just a bunch of dudes jerking off in a room. It was so much more than that though, there were rules and codes of conduct that needed to be followed. It was a game, a contest of wills and determination. By the end of it, there were so many tissues around the room someone might have thought there was a flu epidemic and we were under quarantine. Things got wild, to say the least.
We'd decided that the only way to tell who was the manliest man in a group of men was to see who could beat themselves up the most in one day. Whack fest was all about survival, making it to the end of the day while also proving to your fellow men that you were able to produce quantity as well as quality. It was the most American thing we could think to do, not that we were assaulting ourselves for the troops or anything.
Things started out as you'd expect with a roomful of dudes going to town on themselves. There was a TV playing a stream of porn titles throughout the day. A couple of laptops were strewn around pointed at different websites. Some over-eager contestants tried to race ahead and lead the pack while others decided to go the way of the tortoise and pace themselves. I can't imagine a loser being declared amongst our lewd group, but there would definitely be a winner that stood tall above the rest.
Conversation for the first couple rounds was flowing freely. We would talk about school and the weather in between and during flogging sessions. Some complained about politics until the rapture would make them forget why they were upset in the first place. It was just us dudes exercising our right to be free-spirited and natural. Natural, of course, meant naked. We decided to go totally bare out of necessity rather than try and wear any type of clothing that would only become so soiled it would need to be burned after the game was over.
Our initial enthusiasm quickly wore off as the horror of what we were doing started to sink in. I remember looking over at "Weird Balls" and seeing tears rolling down his face. He was really beating his dude up. He was beating dude like he owed him a couple years worth of back rent. In Weird Balls' eyes there was sadness and fear. Of course he was sad, he was abusing himself almost to the point of self-mutilation. I think he was afraid because he knew he liked it and the capacity to enjoy that kind of abuse is a very scary thing indeed.
It was weird that we settled in to relative synchronization but as round 5 came and went, everyone still seemed to be going strong. "Dirty Dick" jumped up, covered in sweat and fluids with his eyes all bloodshot and asked everyone if that was where we wanted to be when Jesus came back. I answered him with a series of grunts as I proudly marched onwards to round 6. As I shook it off, I looked Dirty Dick in the eyes and told him he could quit at any time. I imagine that I was a frightening sight to behold with one hand choking myself purple and the other proudly locked on my hip. Dirty Dick came to his senses and started in on himself again but for the rest of the day he was quiet save for a few times I heard him reciting the lord's prayer.
By round 7 or 8 everyone had settled comfortably into a spot in the room and there wasn't as much moving around anymore. "Hairy Ass" stopped talking and started hanging his head low as he turned his back on us to sit and look out the window. He probably wanted to keep in touch with the outside world because we weren't exactly human anymore. We'd all become robots, our primary objective was self-gratification. This was the goal, but it was slowly becoming less gratifying and more like work. We'd finally reached the most important phase of the endurance trial. Since it felt like work, only those with the strength and will power would outlast the rest.
Covered in drool, tears and about as much semen as the navy, the room stunk like a whorehouse in mid-July if the air-conditioning was broke and it was dollar day. Someone suggested a change of venue. I don't remember a lot of the details by this point, but I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I was slumped against the wall, slowly pumping away while my eyelids drooped and sweat began pooling around my ass on the floor. It was a pretty good spot to be, I remember reflecting, for when Jesus came back.
Immanuel Kant once said that 'a man gives up his personality when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive.' He was right. I was a heaving, sweating beast with only the intention of winning on my mind. Every time I minded my own business was a step closer to winning. I'll be damned if I wasn't stewing in my juices though, in more ways than one. I learned the joys of being ambidextrous as I was left to my own devices more often in the later rounds.
There was one quitter before, but round 10 saw a wave of people tagging out because they "couldn't take it any longer" or "felt sick from the stink" or "were afraid if they continued they would never be able to sleep again." 4 people were left after the 10th round. Myself, Dirty Dick, Hairy Ass and as I started calling the final man "Mr Kleenex" because of the stack of dirty rags he had surrounding himself. He was like an island surrounded by balled up tissue and tears.
The four of us would last another 6 rounds without much to mention. The only thing missing from this sinner's sauna was the steam. It was hotter than satan's asshole in that room and the air was thick and humid. The window was almost completely covered in condensation when Hairy Ass finally decided to call it quits. He said nothing. He did not even bother to pick up his clothes and after about a half hour we realized he wasn't coming back. We didn't see him for a couple days afterwards either. I imagine it was the shame he was feeling that kept him away from the rest of us for those few days. I know I had trouble looking these warriors in the eye for a while. Then there were only three.
Another round over and Dirty Dick congratulated us for lasting so long and picked his things up and left. He seemed smugly full of self loathing as he walked out with no confidence in his step. What happened next has never been repeated until now.
It took a few moments to see clearly through the haze what had happened, but Mr Kleenex and myself realized at about the same time that we were really the only two left. I made eye contact with him and with a nod from each of us, we locked stares and wouldn't break it until there was a winner. When one of us would start revving our engine up to the red-line, the other would try as hard as they could to follow suit. I watched another man's pupils dilate in release 3 times before I'd had enough. I couldn't take it anymore. My hands and man were battered and bruised and I felt so dirty that I knew even an hour in the shower with scalding water couldn't make me clean again.
Exhausted, beaten up and sorry for being alive, I slumped all the way to the floor and fell asleep in my own muck and mire for I don't remember how long. When I woke up, Mr Kleenex was gone and I knew that it didn't really matter that he went one more round than I, neither of us would have ever gloated about our victory. There were no losers, like I said. Curiously though, there were no winners either. None ever spoke of it again in fact, so winning and losing lost all meaning.
No one's talked about that day since it happened and I doubt anyone ever will. I made up some descriptive names to be used so as to protect the innocent. That's horseshit though, as I was there, and in that room there were no innocents. You can't watch a group of men shake their steak and walk away thinking everything is going to be all lollipops and dandelions ever again. Part of me died in that room, and not the part that I was trying so hard to choke to death. In that death, though, came about the birth of a new part of me. Sure, I can now say that I was a part of one of the greatest adventures into social experimentation that ever existed, but I can also say I truly know what it is to be human.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
it's not gay!
"It's not gay if you throw-up afterwards!!!"
I heard this exclaimed proudly over the sounds of my own retching.
"Get it? Because he knows it's sick!"
We'd been playing a game, of sorts, the entire night. It's not gay if ... you're blind, you high five afterwards or if you kiss him when you're done (because that means you're in love). This game came about mostly because we were mixing boredom with heavy drinking. It was easy to play and could be taken anywhere, kind of like Eye Spy for grown-ups, or at least immature twenty somethings. Of the three of us, Jake was by far the most enthused about the game and even more so with this new insight.
I was throwing up because in those days I was just beginning my habit of drinking 151 from the bottle. Plus, it's not gay if you're drunk. I still wasn't used to my new favorite drink and so I remember throwing up quite a bit for a period of time. Eventually though, 151 and I would reconcile and our relationship would blossom into something more akin to spousal abuse. 151 loved me, but in her own unique way. My abusive spouse would comfort me when I was down, but she would take her time letting me forget about her 'help' the next day. Of course, more often than not she'd still be 'comforting' me the next morning at work so I didn't mind too much.
It's not gay if you never look him in the eyes. Because that means you don't really like him. It came to be that my lady friend, Ms 151, would never look me in the eyes. I remember those days were filled with the dumbest drunken adventures I've ever enjoyed. One night I was drinking 151 until I was blue in the face. Seriously, I almost drown that night and I imagine that Jake would have told me "It's not gay because he's choking." Occasionally the 'it's not gays' wouldn't make much sense, but that didn't matter.
There was another pool incident, separate from the near-drowning, where Ms 151 helped me soak my new phone and ruin a pack of cigarettes and lose a lighter. That same night, if I recall correctly, (because it's not gay if I don't remember it) I walked to the gas station near my house with no shirt on and soaking wet pants. The cashier got mad at me when I decided to pay with wet money. He didn't care that I was dripping on the floor or stumbling around the place.
Ms 151 left quite an impression on me the morning I found myself buying a flask so that I could discretely mix her with my coke at Denny's. One of my best friends worked there, he was gay, and he loved the 'it's not gay...'s. If it made sense, he would have said it's not gay if you're gay. Instead Ms 151 helped me think of that particular expression.
My lovely lady friend, as I said, would stay with me long after I wanted her to leave. She was that kind of girl, 'the wolf' I believe they are called. You know the kind where you'd rather chew off your own arm to rid yourself of her the next morning rather than waking her. Maybe the phrase is 'wolf ugly' but the idea works the same. I thought of her like that because I worked outside. Around 11 every morning I would invariably vomit whatever the contents in my stomach were because the heat and sweat did not co-exist with Ms 151. She expelled them or they her.
I started to realize the destructive aspect of this relationship. It's not gay if you're breaking up with him afterwards. Because, well you're breaking up with him. And so I decided to try and call it quits with the lady. Except she would not go away. The friend of mine that normally bought my alcohol at the time (I wasn't quite old enough to drink yet) forgot about it the next time I sent him to the liquor store. I'm pretty sure he remembered but saw that he could pocket more change if he got that instead of a handle of smirnoff. I wanted to play the field a bit, 151 wasn't having that.
My misadventures tipped off another friend to the glorious underbelly of 151. If you drink enough of it, strange things will happen. I thought after that final hurrah from the 'mistake' above, things would be over. No, that week I shared my lady with this 'friend.' I feel that somehow 151 convinced everyone around me that she was good for me and that they shouldn't listen to what I said. I felt betrayed. People I thought were my friends were only keeping me locked into this liquid destruction. I wasn't about to quit drinking, I just needed some options that I wasn't being given.
Eventually I did break up with Ms 151. Every now and again I let her back in and she still gives me that warm feeling inside. It's different now somehow, I don't see her as much anymore so when I do, I forget how bad she treats me. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all. I guess it's not gay if you miss each other. If that's true, it makes everything all right again.
I heard this exclaimed proudly over the sounds of my own retching.
"Get it? Because he knows it's sick!"
We'd been playing a game, of sorts, the entire night. It's not gay if ... you're blind, you high five afterwards or if you kiss him when you're done (because that means you're in love). This game came about mostly because we were mixing boredom with heavy drinking. It was easy to play and could be taken anywhere, kind of like Eye Spy for grown-ups, or at least immature twenty somethings. Of the three of us, Jake was by far the most enthused about the game and even more so with this new insight.
I was throwing up because in those days I was just beginning my habit of drinking 151 from the bottle. Plus, it's not gay if you're drunk. I still wasn't used to my new favorite drink and so I remember throwing up quite a bit for a period of time. Eventually though, 151 and I would reconcile and our relationship would blossom into something more akin to spousal abuse. 151 loved me, but in her own unique way. My abusive spouse would comfort me when I was down, but she would take her time letting me forget about her 'help' the next day. Of course, more often than not she'd still be 'comforting' me the next morning at work so I didn't mind too much.
It's not gay if you never look him in the eyes. Because that means you don't really like him. It came to be that my lady friend, Ms 151, would never look me in the eyes. I remember those days were filled with the dumbest drunken adventures I've ever enjoyed. One night I was drinking 151 until I was blue in the face. Seriously, I almost drown that night and I imagine that Jake would have told me "It's not gay because he's choking." Occasionally the 'it's not gays' wouldn't make much sense, but that didn't matter.
There was another pool incident, separate from the near-drowning, where Ms 151 helped me soak my new phone and ruin a pack of cigarettes and lose a lighter. That same night, if I recall correctly, (because it's not gay if I don't remember it) I walked to the gas station near my house with no shirt on and soaking wet pants. The cashier got mad at me when I decided to pay with wet money. He didn't care that I was dripping on the floor or stumbling around the place.
Ms 151 left quite an impression on me the morning I found myself buying a flask so that I could discretely mix her with my coke at Denny's. One of my best friends worked there, he was gay, and he loved the 'it's not gay...'s. If it made sense, he would have said it's not gay if you're gay. Instead Ms 151 helped me think of that particular expression.
My lovely lady friend, as I said, would stay with me long after I wanted her to leave. She was that kind of girl, 'the wolf' I believe they are called. You know the kind where you'd rather chew off your own arm to rid yourself of her the next morning rather than waking her. Maybe the phrase is 'wolf ugly' but the idea works the same. I thought of her like that because I worked outside. Around 11 every morning I would invariably vomit whatever the contents in my stomach were because the heat and sweat did not co-exist with Ms 151. She expelled them or they her.
I started to realize the destructive aspect of this relationship. It's not gay if you're breaking up with him afterwards. Because, well you're breaking up with him. And so I decided to try and call it quits with the lady. Except she would not go away. The friend of mine that normally bought my alcohol at the time (I wasn't quite old enough to drink yet) forgot about it the next time I sent him to the liquor store. I'm pretty sure he remembered but saw that he could pocket more change if he got that instead of a handle of smirnoff. I wanted to play the field a bit, 151 wasn't having that.
My misadventures tipped off another friend to the glorious underbelly of 151. If you drink enough of it, strange things will happen. I thought after that final hurrah from the 'mistake' above, things would be over. No, that week I shared my lady with this 'friend.' I feel that somehow 151 convinced everyone around me that she was good for me and that they shouldn't listen to what I said. I felt betrayed. People I thought were my friends were only keeping me locked into this liquid destruction. I wasn't about to quit drinking, I just needed some options that I wasn't being given.
Eventually I did break up with Ms 151. Every now and again I let her back in and she still gives me that warm feeling inside. It's different now somehow, I don't see her as much anymore so when I do, I forget how bad she treats me. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all. I guess it's not gay if you miss each other. If that's true, it makes everything all right again.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
daydreaming
There is one of just two things I think about during my last class of the day. I think of dinner, specifically what I want to make, and I think of RollerCoaster Tycoon. If I were to tell someone what I'm most passionate about, truly interested in, it would be building theme parks and cooking. I can't come up with anything that might incorporate these two lovely activities, aside from baking cakes that look like roller coasters. Bakers are fags, so that idea's out.
I'm left with . . . what? A dream unfulfilled? Hell no, I'm too persistent to give up that easy. I've decided on a course of action that I feel will suitably cater to my unique needs. Much like a special ed teacher, I approach this situation with caution. Always I'm mindful of flying feces and retarded fists of fury. I'm a cowboy taming a wild bronco bucking about like a palsy victim.
That imagery is probably more than is needed to truly explain this idea. I'd like to be Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagasse, but still retain my heterosexuality. You see, these two fun bags got down and dirty in Orlando. Emeril kicked it up a notch and hung out for a while at Universal Studios while Wolfgang most likely sucked off Micheal Eisner to get that awesome gig in that mega-verse of theme parks.
The beauty here is that these two can hang out in a damned amusement park all day if they so desire and they have throngs of fans willing to pay exorbitant prices to dine in their restaurants. Then, every time some unsuspecting Asian tourist happens along and gets the false impression that these two are the coolest cooks in America, he goes back to where he came from and spreads the word. If Emeril were so inclined, he could go to Japan and be knee deep in pint sized pussy. If only Alton Brown or me had there gig ...
But, look at the life of luxury these two titans of chef-ery enjoy; they can ride all the sweet rides they want, cook whatever the hell they want and call it delicious, and then they slam all the Asian tail they want until sunrise. Lather, rinse and repeat until they grow old and die.
What I don't really understand is how these two get by in America when neither of these top chefs can speak English. Emeril does his best impression of a retarded southerner while Wolfgang speaks like he's from wherever the hell he's from. I didn't bother to look this up, he's from Norway or Sweden or some fucking place, I don't live in Europe, they're all the same to me.
I figure if I can break onto this sweet scene, all these glories could be mine... and then some. You see, I would organize my Asian followers into a tiny band of marauders pillaging the countryside until one of these theme parks would let me design a roller coaster. I've all the experience I would ever need in this line of work from all my years of designing coasters on my computer. Here, everything comes full circle, back to daydreaming about RollerCoaster Tycoon and cooking dinner.
I'm left with . . . what? A dream unfulfilled? Hell no, I'm too persistent to give up that easy. I've decided on a course of action that I feel will suitably cater to my unique needs. Much like a special ed teacher, I approach this situation with caution. Always I'm mindful of flying feces and retarded fists of fury. I'm a cowboy taming a wild bronco bucking about like a palsy victim.
That imagery is probably more than is needed to truly explain this idea. I'd like to be Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagasse, but still retain my heterosexuality. You see, these two fun bags got down and dirty in Orlando. Emeril kicked it up a notch and hung out for a while at Universal Studios while Wolfgang most likely sucked off Micheal Eisner to get that awesome gig in that mega-verse of theme parks.
The beauty here is that these two can hang out in a damned amusement park all day if they so desire and they have throngs of fans willing to pay exorbitant prices to dine in their restaurants. Then, every time some unsuspecting Asian tourist happens along and gets the false impression that these two are the coolest cooks in America, he goes back to where he came from and spreads the word. If Emeril were so inclined, he could go to Japan and be knee deep in pint sized pussy. If only Alton Brown or me had there gig ...
But, look at the life of luxury these two titans of chef-ery enjoy; they can ride all the sweet rides they want, cook whatever the hell they want and call it delicious, and then they slam all the Asian tail they want until sunrise. Lather, rinse and repeat until they grow old and die.
What I don't really understand is how these two get by in America when neither of these top chefs can speak English. Emeril does his best impression of a retarded southerner while Wolfgang speaks like he's from wherever the hell he's from. I didn't bother to look this up, he's from Norway or Sweden or some fucking place, I don't live in Europe, they're all the same to me.
I figure if I can break onto this sweet scene, all these glories could be mine... and then some. You see, I would organize my Asian followers into a tiny band of marauders pillaging the countryside until one of these theme parks would let me design a roller coaster. I've all the experience I would ever need in this line of work from all my years of designing coasters on my computer. Here, everything comes full circle, back to daydreaming about RollerCoaster Tycoon and cooking dinner.
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