dinosaur wars

jumpin' virginians

first post

This will be photos of written letters, the names may be changed but the details are basically true.

ponies and such

Ronny loved ponies. They were like regular horses, only smaller. This made them naturally more adorable and Ronny would just melt when one of those baby horses would look his way. Those big eyes with that short frame made him weak in the knees.

Kathryn loved Ronny. He was clumsy and never had anything even remotely approaching “grace” in his life. He had a problematic love for ponies, of all things, and he was lanky and homely. To most people, Ronny would have been grossly out of his league with Kathryn. She didn’t care though because his habits and his faults (many they may be) were ultimately what attracted her to hideous Ronny in the first place.

Ronny’s love for ponies recently lost him a job. See, he wasn’t a particularly intelligent man but when it came to repairing an engine, no hands were smarter than Ronny’s. The only problem was that Ronny plastered his work space with pictures of ponies in various poses. He was looked up to for his abilities, looked down on because of his strange fascination with those baby horses.

His coworkers got over Ronny’s horsey love pretty quickly but every once in a while a customer would come in the shop and hassle Ronny about his ponies. They would, at least, question why there were 73 different ponies prancing around an auto shop. Normally this was easy to explain because the owner’s son had some sort of mental disorder and he hung around the shop often after school. A simple shrug and a nod in the kid’s direction quelled most questions about the overabundance of prancing ponies. The poor child took a lot of the pony blame. On the other hand, if Ronny overheard any insults about his beloved ponies, he’d become visibly upset. If anyone trash talked ponies, it felt to Ronny as if they were trash talking him!

hood with the fur

Dearest [redacted],

I’ve been watching you for a very long time. Well, not always me personally, but you’ve been watched by myself or one of my “team” your entire life. Keep in mind that life, to me, starts after your egress from your mother’s nether regions. I don’t get down with that kind of messy situation. I probably should because it’s kind of what I do but when my old lady popped a critter out, she made me be there and I did pretty well until the slimy bugger got too close and I vomited on it. In itself, this wasn’t a terribly traumatic event, now the aftermath of blood and guts and bile made the inside of the hospital room look like someone had bombed the slaughterhouse. It was like the devil’s wet dream.

At any rate, once you got all cleaned up from tromping down your mother’s lady tube, that’s when I come in to the picture, your “always-voyeur.” I see you when you’re sleeping, I actually watch you most then because I can slowly satisfy myself whereas when you’re awake you’ll often do something to “soften the blow”, so to speak. What my team does to themselves while watching you, I can’t even imagine. I’m pretty sure that Sven, the elf, is into the butt play pretty hard so your guess is as good as mine. That reminds me, if you’re ever here in my neck of the woods, no matter what he says do NOT take your pants off around Rudolph. See, he’s got no fingers or thumbs and consequently can’t work a button or zipper or belt. I rock all three because of one drunken night a few years back when I accepted an invite to a rousing game of strip poker. Blitzen, Cupid, Rudolph, and I were playing for a few hours. They would cut off some tufts of fur whenever they lost a hand and my magic tended to give me the advantage so I was winning for a while, until the drank started to set in. I lost a few in a row until I was down to my knickers. Cupid and Blitzen said they needed to hit the little deer room and got up to leave. After the door shut, I heard two quick clicks. First was the lock on the door and next were the lights in the room. Next thing I knew I was being mounted like a Picasso painting. Arms pinned to the wall by a pair of fiendishly sharp hooves, pants gone off to god knows where at this point. All I really remember was terror and a pulsing red light which flickered until it’s glow eventually saturated the whole room and I finally blacked out.

my first beef with the post office

“I’ve been thinking some of suicide, but there’s bars out here for miles.” –David Ryan AdamsGreetings,

The address you gave me looks straight-up made-up. If you’re reading this, it’s a goddamned miracle. You’ve undoubtedly already discovered the friendship bracelet included if this made it though. I hope these colors aren’t offensive to any ethnic group you’re carousing with around Iraq or wherever the hell. It’d be pretty ironic if you were to get hurt because of friendship. I mean I’d chuckle, but it’d still be basically un-funny. Also, do me a favor and don’t do anything super gay with this bracelet, it was made out of love so don’t like go get a buddy and tie your dicks together and race. If you do this, don’t tell me. You should just write about it, keep it in your diary or something. Dick races, fag.

I’ve been bugging [redacted] a bunch to get her to send me a titty picture. You should do the same. Two heads working on this problem are probably better than just the one. You could always fuck things up but I reckon I could too. Titties are sensitive things, you’ve got to be careful, unless they’re into that sort of thing. I like to get bit from time to time, pain can be pleasure or whatever. I’m not saying that’s what I’m all about, just that it’s something I enjoy.

I also really love my old lady friend [redacted]. We got back together again and it’s like every time we get back: love at first sight like Kylie Minogue. I’ve hollered at a few of those broads from them interwebs, just in passing though. I also keep bitching out of meeting up with them. Partly because of some bad experiences: the swede and then that big girl from second senior year that wound up living on the floor below me. I bitch out of meeting partly because these bitches seem to want to go on a right proper date like coffee and conversation and such. I basically want to meet a broad at a bar, get sloppy and then get it sloppy. Aw, see what I did there?

I’ve been slumming with gutter trash lately and that’s not doing anyone any good. I gotta find myself a nice pussy to hibernate in for the winter. Hump on a regular slam piece, feel me? I’m talking about a real nice one too, with glitter and such. Blow me some kisses.

Lately the old boss lady’s been cracking down on my arts and crafts time, that’s why I made this bracelet instead of sending you a paper dragon. Basically, I have to hide or mail away any new origami because apparently arts and crafts are a waste of child support’s time. That’s bullshit because I was under the impression that child support was wasting my time, AKA arts and crafts time.

When next you’re in town you’ve got to hit on these electronic cigarettes I smoke. They are the best thing ever. I can smoke ‘em wherever, whenever, however and I like the way they taste. Tasting good is usually a requirement for me to endorse something or someone. No smell and no more cigarette holes burned in my sheets/mattress/clothes/car upholstery/etc. Hooray for this happy day.

I don’t want to write too much because like I said earlier, I have no idea if this will even reach you. Since I steal most of my envelopes (pre-stamped, knuckle) I often hesitate to put a return address. Your address is clearly fictitious so I’ll be sure to include the return instructions this time. If you get this, let me know. Also, I’m mailing this on September 14th.

Regards,

Javier F. Nelson


P.S. – Don’t enjoy your friendship bracelet too much, try and sell it. I can send you a couple of these shits per week if we can bang a few bucks out of the whole ordeal. Keep it realer, negrodamus.

*The above letter was sent to a friend of mine in the armed services and returned to me. It’s being transcribed here because the post office is clearly incompetent. Some of the names have been changed but the places remain the same.

legalize bluegrass

"The months roll past the love that you struck dead, did you love me only in my head?" -Doug Hopkins

If I were a bettin’ man, I’d bet everyone else in the world were eating two hot dick sandwiches right now. You and I are the only two able to successfully avoid the hot dick sandwich temptations. We (if you were around, asshole) could be the two folks that save the world from dick sandwich infestation.

You may be wondering why I wrote “legalize bluegrass” on the top of this correspondence. It’s because I wanted you to know there’s always a place for you in my heart (or bluegrass band) and for all time I don’t think you’ll be forgotten, at least by me. Additionally, if you’re ever out of work and need a bud, I’d learn to pick the banjo right proper like and you can “play the jug” in my bluegrass band. That’s just the kind of friend I am. If you fell on hard times, you couldn’t count on me to support you but you could count on me to voluntarily put myself in your shoes or a similar situation and then I’d naturally start a band to make money. In summary (or what I’m really trying to say) is that if you ever needed me (and I mean really needed me), I’d fabricate a situation where I seem needed back and I’d be able to help you out (hopefully) by giving you your fair share of our band’s take on any given night. I would never jump in your boat, but if yours were different than mine, I’d totally get in on that, heard?

I CANNOT SAY THE SAME FOR YOUR SELFISH ASS.

I realize it’d make more sense, if you fell on hard times, to simply say “hey bud, stay at my place” then keep my situation “as-is” or attempt to improve it, but honestly, I’ll tell you what. Sunset sensibility can eat two dozen dirty hot dick sandwiches. I’m me, and as such, capable of far more than the average asshole. But, whatever. I reckon that type of faithfulness doesn’t much matter anymore these days what with the kids on the old twitter and facebook and such.

What do I know about wooden pens? Only that they’re the bee’s knees and that the cat’s pajamas have a habit of finding their way to my bedroom floor. You’ll have that though, it happens.

REM (the band, not the sleep cycle) broke up not long ago and the nostalgic dipshit in me immediately ran to the old I-P-O-D* and it was all butterfly decal, rearview mirror, dogging the scene. Withdrawal, in disgust, is never the same as apathy. Do you remember when they were relevant? I remember when we were relevant and I suppose that’s a little more important.

Wooden pens. Bow ties. Typewriters. 35 millimeter cameras. The tribes-folk naturally dislike these things. Harder, smaller, faster, stronger are the cries of the zombie apocalypse of uniformity.

Swimming towards the open ocean instead of the closest boat. Live together and die alone. Damn near one hundred miles in the wrong direction and humming along full steam.

What news does our future hold? Grimness, destruction, withering and sadness until it’s all over and the sweet release of death sweeps us off our feet and beds us both. The next morning he’s gone and never calls.

Regards,
Javier F. Nelson
<3

simply killing time until i kill again.

“Yes, it was a dreadful thing to do, but she had very thick ankles.” – Oscar Wilde

This month is dragging ever so slowly and it’s already rife with unpleasantries and general nastiness all around. Nearly my entire second paycheck this month will be going to my mechanic. Naturally, when it rains, it pours and the perfect storm of car problems coalesced during one of the only pay periods I’d set aside for no bills, just fun. My entertainment budget for the second half of October was going to be out of this world! This basically meant I could afford to eat out, and not the free kind. Luckily, I’m a forward thinking individual and I purchased a used copy of the Sims 3 to pass the time. I got it on the cheap and my hopes were high, feel me?

I’ve got a few characters already established with full histories and futures and dreams and such, for instance, Hans. He takes taxis everywhere and attends classes whenever they’re available and once a week he goes to the local bookstore to collect his rent check and buy his books on the cheap. Hans has a teenage daughter and she’s pretty precocious. She sometimes gets out of hand when she stays out way past curfew but I have to cut her some slack because the time in that game is seventeen different kinds of confusing and 4 kinds of fucked up. Larissa does well in school and I’m pretty sure she’s banging the quarterback of her high school’s football team. She must have gotten that sluttiness from her mother, god rest her soul. As soon as Larissa is old enough I’m going to make her go to the police academy for a career in law enforcement.

Larissa hates Hans’s current beau. Her name is Bonnie and she is actually enrolled in criminology classes at the local institute for crime. She’s on a fast track to becoming a master thief and often brings me presents she stole during her work day. Last night she brought me a beautiful old-timey spin globe. I put it in our bedroom; it really ties the room together.

A lot of the free time I have in the game is spent flirting with the ladies around town because I’m working on Hans’s charisma skill. Aside from reading how-to books on the subject or attending a charisma class, flirting is the best way to gain more of those elusive skill points (well any type of friend making really, but Bonnie is at work like every day and Hans has a lot of free time to pursue these things). Whatever, don’t judge him.

These three characters form the basis of my Sims family but during my trial run I realized that it’s difficult to live on a single income in Sim world. Also, in Sim world, you’ve got to pay bills. My first venture was not very successful, I think I got evicted. Either eviction or I became hopelessly lost, so the second time around I “rented” the spare room to two business women; Tina and Trisha or something. They both started working on the same day in the coffee shop of the town’s largest corporation and have both received two promotions already! A promotion for them is a promotion for me because they’re not really “renting”, I’m basically just taking their paychecks and spending it on computers, books, music lessons and the constant redecorating I’ve been doing to the apartment. The extra income they bring in allows me the financial independence to go out and thoroughly enjoy the culture and sights and sounds of Sims Town. The additional money also allows Hans to pursue his own interests.

Hans, as it turns out, isn’t a bad fisherman. On his first trip out to the old pond by the cemetery (near the Crime Institute), he caught tons of gold fish and minnows and was able to sell them for like 60 dollars. I’ll be honest though, they’re obviously not “real” dollars but I’m not so sure they’re even called “dollars” in the game. Simeoleons or something, something fucking stupid that sounds like a lizard anyhow. Also, I say he’s not a bad fisherman but realistically I have no idea, I kind of forgot he was fishing for a while and started doing something else and only realized he had a full catch when the option to sell his catch came up later. Minnows and goldfish, heard?

Speaking of lizards, there’s a 6th house mate that’s about as useless as tits on a bull. This bitch just sits around the house all day cock-blocking Hans in the living room because she never leaves. From what I can tell she just lounges around all day and reads books about gardening but there’s no garden anywhere to be found. No fresh fruits, no fresh vegetables, just a fresh bitch loafing around the house. I thought she was all right for the first couple of days because her incessant reading was quickly increasing her gardening abilities while Hans was able to go out and be a man about town, strutting his stuff and hollering at them Sim sluts. I figured while Hans was about town, Gretchen would be somewhere planting and weeding and watering and working hard to offset the cost of some of the groceries. Well, after I had Hans take a few classes in handymannery and he subsequently began spending more time around the house improving things and fixing the perpetually leaking toilet, I realized that bitch did nothing but watch television, sleep and read her fucking gardening books. Gretchen is the absolute worst kind of day laborer/gardener though, to her credit, the dishes, sink and table that Hans always leaves his dirty dishes on are always cleaned up whenever he gets home from a hard day exploring Sim town and pimpin bitches. Regardless, the point is that this Gretchen had better get some act-right or I’m going to murder her and throw her in the pond by the cemetery. If that’s impossible then I will have Hans make her cry.

The two business ladies that live with the gang are always dressed very similar and I’ll be the first to admit I constantly get them confused and I’m simply awful trying to differentiate between alliterative names, let alone a pair of computer game girls that dress alike and live in the same computer game house. The point I’m getting to here is that you can learn a lot from the Sims. When Bonnie the criminal wasn’t home, Hans would naturally hit on whatever women were around, for the charisma points, obviously. Well, it wasn’t just one of the business ladies, but both, that took a fancy to Hans and developed some amorous feelings that were totally unreciprocated, unless he was bored. One of the T-girls (I laughed out loud when I typed that) slapped Hans right in the face because he was making out with the criminal broad in the kitchen one night. The T-girls were chatting amongst themselves nearby and Larissa was doing something at the table and the next thing I know there’s all kinds of red things blinking over one of the T-girls’ heads and then the game actually made me agree to “Get Slapped” and boy howdy! What a slap. Whichever of those bitches slapped Hans is a right proper cunt because it’s not like he asked anyone to “Go Steady”. Catty bitches.

OH! My first girlfriend died. I met her the first day when there were all manner of achievements to be had by attempting to bed the find young lady. Her name was Kara or Tara and she lived entirely too far away for Hans to visit so I would page her to meet him at various places but since she lived so far away it seemed to take too long and Hans would invariably start chatting up someone else while waiting for her to arrive, naturally. She was only really around a couple of times because Hans moves quickly and never lingers too long. In his native land, Hans was always told that if you linger too long people will begin to think of you as a venereal disease. It’s an old Danish saying and apparently some of its gusto is lost in translation. “Hurdy burdy durdy yurdle” is the phrase in the original Dutch. Anyways, Tara or Kara was a hippy chick and I think she was only interested in Hans because he took music lessons and they met outside of the art gallery. Art-grubbing whore.

I’m largely uninitiated in the world of Sims and my initial reaction is one of fascination and wanderlust and infinite possibilities. I hope someday Hans will marry the world’s greatest criminal and she’ll steal him stuff like the actual statue of liberty instead of a model she swiped from the check-out line at the local grocery store. Hans’s child, Larissa, will hopefully become a decorated police officer only to fall from grace and into the cantankerous embrace of prostitution and a life on the mean streets of Sim town. The gardener will hopefully get off her lazy ass and grow some fucking tomatoes or I’ll send her to the army. There’s a military career choice and she’ll soar to new heights of greatness in the armed services only to fall on hard times and have to sell fish for a living down by the docks. Hans, of course, will continue his life of leisure and maybe someday become a prolific writer the likes of which the Sim world has never seen. Apparently he’ll be a science fiction writer though because it seems to pay the best and that’s where all the real royalties money lies.

Oh, I also built a moat (of sorts) around the house because some fucker stole my couch in the middle of the night. Once I figure out how to build a drawbridge that shit won’t ever happen again. Also, the Sims is racist because the dude that stole the TV was definitely black. Also, I’m merely stereotyping when I build a moat for protection because black people can’t swim.

the angel of death smokes kools.

He was a small dog and the fur standing up on his neck did not have the intended effect of making him look bigger. His barks were yappy and made him sound smaller than he was. His only ferociousness lie in his shiny white teeth, but this dog would never dream of biting anyone, he was too afraid of everything. The window offered the dog enough protection to act as big as he liked towards the robin that had taken up residence in the bushes outside the house though.

"Shut up, no one likes you!" yelled Nick.

This did not help the situation as the dog seemed to double the speed and ferocity of his barks and he also increased the pitch to new heights of annoyance. Finally, Nick had had enough and he pulled his jacket on and walked out the door, slamming it as he left. The door startled the robin, and once Nick was out of earshot, the dog stopped barking because his critter had flown away.

Nick was above average in height with thick brown hair and blue eyes. He liked the outdoors but never liked to spend too much time away from what he called "civilization," which was actually just a hot shower and central heating and it didn't matter where they were. Nick felt civilized even in the back woods of northern Pennsylvania where the cabin his family owned had literally just that: a hot showed and heat. The heat wasn't of the central kind, but it sufficed to keep the place warm nonetheless. He was intelligent and the kind of person that frowned on humility. He never had a problem telling someone when they were wrong and for a long time, took great pride in his ability to do just that, evolving this into a kind of game that no one else ever liked to play. More often than not, though, the folks Nick would play this game with never had any idea there was a game being played.

The leaves were falling around Nick as he walked. It was one of those picturesque fall afternoons: lazy with a chance of rain. His long legs could move him quick enough when he wanted to, but he much preferred a lazy stroll with his hands in his pockets to get around town. As he walked, he lost himself in thought. Nick found himself doing this with greater and greater frequency these days. An hour could pass and it would seem as if it were only a minute when Nick was in this contemplative state. He never dallied in his mental pursuits, they were always and only of the loftiest type. He thought much about good and evil, he thought about love and life, and he thought about the future. He would carefully plan and mastermind the most beautiful of crimes, but never carry them out. There was always some great foe that needed vanquished, if only he had more motivation.

Casually, Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarette pack. He lifted one to his lips and sat down under an old maple tree, the kind that were common around the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Silver maples, he thought to himself. The unlit cigarette hung loosely from his mouth as he fumbled in his jacket for the lighter. Too many damn pockets, thought Nick. He stopped fumbling and put his chin on his hand with his elbow resting on his knee in a reflective pose and waited a few minutes idly rolling the cigarette over his tongue and between his pursed lips before lighting up.

Nick was tired. Not the kind of tired that can be fixed with a good night's rest, but the kind that needed a year or more of sleep. The kind of tired that not even a Van Winkle nap could cure. He was tired of his situation, weary because his youth was waning and he'd nothing to show for it but a pile of debt. He hadn't been working his job for more than a year and he wanted to quit, no, he wanted to just leave. He planned on not showing up for work one day and never calling or going back. He'd leave town, leave the state or even the country and never turn back. Surely somewhere there was something that would help soothe his weariness. It was a grandiose plan, but those were the kind he was most accustomed to: grandiose and unfulfilled.

Nick laughed out loud. He did this a lot and mostly at himself, a kind of short exhaled guffaw that escaped from his nose. The current topic swirling in Nick's head was nauseating and it caused his mouth to curl down on the side, just as if he'd tasted something terrible. The thought that was leaving an awful taste in his mouth was the prospect of settling down and finally dealing with the source of all his anxiety: the pressure.

Most other times throughout his life, Nick shrugged all the pressure off his shoulders and kept going with a stubbornness that could be credited to a bull. He'd plod ahead with the course he had laid out in his mind regardless of the consequences. He often convinced himself to do things merely by repeating the mantra "Consequences be damned." He would often foolishly rush forth into the fray, into whatever got in his way.

Nick had at least a dozen applications out for new (more gainful) employment but all he ever received in response were what he called "fuck off letters". These were carefully worded rejection letters that "took too long getting around to telling me to go fuck off" and Nick hated those. A simple phone call would have put his worried mind at ease better, instead he felt like a nameless cog in a faceless machine constantly whirring and moving with no direction. Coincidentally, this was also the metaphor Nick liked to use whenever he spoke of anywhere he felt was too "corporate".

Nick felt the pressure from his family, they expected him to be successful. They expected him to be something, Nick simply wanted to exist. He wanted to succeed, but in his way. There was no corporate ladder to fame or infamy in Nick's image of his future. He would prefer to ... well, he didn't quite know what he'd prefer to do and this was part of the problem. Continue schooling as he felt he ought to? Continue trudging through the world of the working man in his current 9 to 5 with advancement opportunities quickly arising sometime in the same amount of years? Continue anything? The idea of simply walking away grew more and more appealing with each passing day of ... status quo.

Gone are the days where the boring tedium of a "day job" could be forgotten with the first few swigs of a hearty cocktail or sips of a dirty martini on a Friday afternoon. Gone are the days when he could light up a tightly packed bowl, fill his lungs and make the worries float away with the first puff of smoky deliciousness. Gone are the days, he thought.

Nick wondered which direction he ought to take. He knew a decision was necessary, and soon. It's not like there were no viable avenues for him to take the next step onto, there were plenty. None that were of any particular interest, everything seemed so terribly dull and boring. He only hoped that it would all make sense someday. That it wouldn't all be as pointless as he worried it would wind up being. That somehow, in the midst of it all and through extreme adversity, he could find some meaning in a meaningless existence. Maybe that was all the meaning there would ever need to be: that nothing meant anything. Nihilism but not even for the sake of nihilism, nothingness with no meaning or purpose, existence just because. Nick stood up under the maple tree and lit another cigarette. He paused, looked down at the flame burning between his fingers and read the label. "Kool".

more beat than your butthole.

"That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes." - Kurt Vonnegut

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.

========

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.

========

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.

========

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.

Written by: Javier Nelson

gypsy jesus will strike halloween this year.

"Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert." -Kris Kristofferson

Halloween is a fun time of year. The end of October is blessed with cold nights, but at least the waning daylight hours offer some relative comfort from the unforgiving cold of winter. The leaves have already turned colors and fallen peacefully to the ground. It's often a wet month in Pennsylvania, giving the earth a bit more bounce to it when you walk. Later though, that bounce turns to mud, but at the end of October it's not too bad.

Halloween offers children a day of free candy and role playing. Dressing as their favorite cartoon character or superhero, the kids have a respite from the dull experience in school. I remember we'd do battle against our schoolyard foes with sticks as swords and bad candy as fake grenades, we'd litter the neighborhood with candy corn and popcorn balls. It's a time in school where your feet start to drag. It's after the novelty of new faces has worn off yet before the Thanksgiving to Christmas countdown. I remember the school year seemed to crawl through October and I'd just phone it in until one day I'd realize Halloween was almost upon me and I still needed a costume. Hours of planning and discussion would go into my candy grubbing alter ego garb until I'd lazily settle on a hockey mask and black cape. A sorry excuse for a vampire who didn't even care enough to put on any make-up.

Out of this exciting history stems my current philosophy on Halloween. If it's warm enough, I'll just wear a wife beater. It goes well because I drink so much Pabst Blue Ribbon. If it's too cold for the white trash get-up, I toss on a baseball hat and make a different identity for each person that asks. After all, the point of this holiday is to grab a handful of ass and titties and see as much muff as is normally not allowed. Creativity is a must for this disguise, but most don't even ask what I am.

So it was with my baseball cap donned I went out for Halloween my sophomore year of college. Depending on when we managed to scrape the money together for a case of PBR, we'd start drinking anywhere between noon to 8PM (when the distributor closed). We always managed to make it before 8, miraculously. If memory serves, we got on to an early afternoon start that day.

Normally we'd leave after the initial supply was gone and search out alternative forms of liquid sustenance. Sometimes we'd raid the supply of the apartment downstairs because they always left their door unlocked. Other times we'd head to the bar to continue drinking. This time it was too damn early for either of these options. With a few quick phone calls we found enough money to buy a case of 40s. Olde English malt liquor was our ghetto cocktail of choice.

By 9 o'clock the 5 of us had cut through two and a half cases of PBR and 12 40s. The great thing about 9 was the parties starting up at this time. Halloween had finally caught up to our early start.

A short walk down the street was our primary target. The girls on some random sports team had got together with their neighbors and were throwing a rager. Walking in to the house, my eyes beheld the full rainbow of feminine diversity. From the dykes of hazzard on one end to some sexy Bunnies on the other. They probably weren't dressed as lesbians, though that's what I called them. Mostly everyone was in costume to some degree, from the silly hats all the way to the aforementioned bunnies and even a couple of nurses.

As my haze started to creep further over my eyes I only grew more thirsty. Luckily for everyone, there was plenty to finish the job on me. Calmly at first but with increasing ferociousness I went from lighthearted conversation with a dixie cup to violently insulting people while chugging the drinking juice straight from the vat.

The party began to turn on me and my friends decided it was time to leave. Struggling to pull me away from my vat of alcoholic wonderment, my friends picked me up and carried me out of the party. It was that time. That time where it was the end of the party for one person yet not for everyone else. That guy/girl was the outcast. It was the end of their night even if they disagreed. No matter how convincing their argument, they were done. They were shunned and they were over.

Dragged out of the festivities, I began to sober up. I didn't sober up like normal folks, I was one of those slow to wake drunks. Slow to wake while my friends wanted to continue partying meant I was going back to the apartment and being put to bed whether I liked it or not. Four men my size or bigger were going to make me do what they wanted, so I capitulated. Luckily, there were no fantasies played out this night.

I slept peacefully for a while until I awoke suddenly. A noise from downstairs jumped my heart and slapped me to wakefulness. It was time to descend on the town once more. Glancing at my watch, I had only lost an hour or two. 1 o'clock is early for most drunkards and I felt like I had the whole night ahead of me.

Stumbling to my feet I tried to open the front door. It was locked. From the outside. Someone had locked me into a prison I had no idea I'd ever be locked in. I tried the door but it was one of those older locks that could only be fixed by the key from either side. BANG! BANG! BANG! I tried knocking it over. It didn't work. About to give up, I began frantically searching for a key on the inside. No one was around but there must be a key somewhere...

Shortly after my key hunt began a click and a clack were heard from the door. Certainly none of my comrades would be coming home this early, I outdrank them all. To my surprise, the 6th member of our usual group opened the door and asked me what I was doing there. Instead of answering, I bolted for the opened path to freedom.

After breaking free, I realized why my friends had locked me away. I was drunk enough to be a danger to myself and anyone around me. I couldn't even make it down the single flight of stairs to the ground level. I fell down the second half of stairs and came to a few minutes later in a heap at the bottom. The cool night air brought me all the way to the surface. I threw up.

Hearing some noise from the downstairs neighbors, I decided to investigate. To their surprise, I acted as sober as I could muster the few moments it took to take a trio of shots of whiskey. It hit me again, the drunken demon I thought I had just gotten rid of outside. I was right back where I came from, but I could fake it for a while, at least long enough to finish the job on myself. I blacked out soon after that.

I'm told I tried to go home that night, but I didn't know how to get there and my keys were missing. I wound up passed out next to the passenger side of my car, only slightly out of view of the street. Maybe I was trying to drive somewhere, realized my lack of keys and just gave up. Maybe the cold, wet grass looked comfortable. No one will ever know.

I do know that I couldn't have been lounging in the night air for too long because my partners in crime from earlier were due back not long after I checked the time while I was throwing up. They helped me back to the apartment and might have saved me from a night spent in jail, though I saw the spot where I laid and it was pretty well hidden from the street.

Waking the next morning, I had dirt all over my face and vomit all over my pants. The hardwood floor felt like a sheet of ice and I was shivering, a lot. I found the key thief and drove home, still very drunk and looking disgusting. Before I was able to get in the car though, the morning sun set off a negative reaction and I dry heaved for a few minutes. As bad as I looked, I felt worse and spent the rest of the day hiding under my blankets because the sun hurt my eyes and brought about renewed fits of nausea.

It wasn't one of my proudest moments, but there were no casualties. Always look on the bright side and all.

bum-chic

nostalgia is a motherfucker.

"You want to get some food?" It sounded like she was interrogating me, spitting the question out as if I had no other alternative but to say that I did.

I was up for the challenge. "No, not really, I had a sandwich a little bit ago." That's right, there won't be any of that. Not tonight, maybe not ever again. I knew where she wanted to go get food, there was a little pub about 15 minutes west that served the best spinach artichoke dip around, maybe in the whole world.

I wasn't up for any of that pub-foolery because I was cited again for public drunkenness last Friday. The last time that happened I swore it was the last time it would happen. This time though, will be the last time, I'm sure. Then here Julie was, pestering me to go to the bar again. It hadn't even been a week, I needed at least that long to wallow in my self-hatred and listen to some Death Cab and Elliot Smith in the dark.

"If you really want, we could go grab some ice cream, I don't know." I thought a compromise would be good, she knew I didn't want to go anywhere with cheap booze. If I wanted any hooch, I could always nip off the emergency bottle I kept in the closet. Tucked under a pile of dirty clothes and some books I never read from freshman year, I always kept a fifth of whiskey. If I drank it, I replaced it. It happened to be Jim Beam this time, it was on sale when I drank the old emergency bottle and I had a few dollars at the time so I didn't mind going all out for my secret stash. I wouldn't say that it was an expensive buy, though it could just as easily have been something better like Jack Daniels or (god forbid) Old Crowe or something even more vile.

I liked to keep whiskey on hand in case of an emergency because it was the end all to soothe the mind. Strong, and yet it still had a decent taste, it was a great way to catch myself before I ever fell too far into the arms of depression. Drink the whole bottle and pass out, maybe I forget whatever it was that bothered me. Too often I'd remember too much of it.

"I was thinking we should get some spin-dip, we haven't for a while" Finally she says it, I hate how every time she wants something she never just comes right out with it. I roll my eyes and toss my head back. Staring at the ceiling I take a few moments to consider my next words.

"I'm not going to any goddamned bars tonight." I over-emphasized the 'I' because I didn't really care if she went by herself. She should just go get the fucking dip and leave me out of it.

As soon as I heard her pause I felt bad. I knew her eyes were trailing down to the floor and then the corners of her mouth would follow. I used to think that face was so cute, like a child confused because they've been told 'no.' That face still is cute, in the right light, but it makes me feel so guilty anymore. She's probably just trying to cheer me up, she knows I could probably go for a couple drinks right now.

I stayed quiet for a couple seconds, looking at the floor. She knew I would go because of the long sigh I managed to hiss out through the phone.

"I need a few minutes to get ready." She said before I could even tell her I'd go. You spend enough time with someone, they can read you better than you can read yourself. We ended the call and I knew she didn't really need any time to get ready. She'd just show up in shorts and a hoodie, if I was lucky she'd be wearing shoes instead of flip flops, but I wasn't normally lucky. 'Bum-chic' I called it.

I slipped into a pair of my own flip flops because it was too warm for May. It felt like the middle of summer. It was cooling down now that the sun had gone down, but I wasn't worried about a jacket in this kind of weather. I drove over and sat in my car with the headlights off. I'd do that sometimes, it calmed me down before I had to deal with whatever problems I had. Just listen to the sound of my radio and the calm, dull vibrations of the engine.

The night was clear and calm, I could make out a couple stars as I looked up into the darkening purple sky. Such a beautiful time of year, with the green coming back on the trees and the long days and, as was happening more often, longer nights. Forget about that citation from last week, the quiet night made me want to celebrate. Celebrate the fleeting hold I had on my youth, I could only act like a fool kid for so long. I wasn't a sheep looking for a shepherd to show me the way to live my life, I was a wolf looking for prey.

She finally sidled up and into the car, right into an awkward exchange of 'Hey' and 'Hi' followed by some silence before I turned the radio on and sped down her street. I could tell that she was excited to see me again, she denied it. Though I suspect if pressed for the same, I would follow her example. The ride was short and uneventful. School was out, so parking was no longer at a premium as the mostly student demographic went home for the summer.

We walked in and I was leading the way by a couple paces. That kind of subdued body language was something she was sure to pick up on. Even if I wasn't entirely into the idea of going to a bar before the ink on my last citation was dry, I could act like I was. A few familiar faces were speckled across the room but I ignored them. I went straight back and found a booth that was unoccupied and sufficiently away from the part of the place that got crowded later in the evening.

I catch shit about it, especially because I like to refer to it as a beer-o-colada myself, but Blue Moon with an orange slice is awesome. It certainly doesn't hurt when it's on special. "How've you been?" I asked, looking this time for more depth in the reply. Julie started running down what it was she'd be doing, so I stopped her and asked again. Trying to confuse me and dodge the question might have worked on someone else, but you can't shit a shitter, as they say.

She paused. I wished she'd missed me more. She was doing fine, and I never know what that means. Sometimes fine is fine, other times it's bad or even good. It's an ambiguous monster with thousands of meanings, thousands of degrees of confusion. That's fine. She could avoid eye contact and answer my questions however she wanted. I'd decided against playing those games that night. It'd only serve to cramp my style.

Another beer. Then my first shot of the night. And another beer. I was drinking too fast, I started to panic. I always had nightmares that I'd turn into my father, and it was those times when I could stop myself and think about how I was drinking too fast that my fears would surface. I couldn't turn into him, I'd promised myself long ago that if that happened I would end it. Vague at the time of the promise, vague at the time of recollection, I did know that I wouldn't end up like him. Unloved, unloving, irresponsible.

Sometimes that panic I'd get would turn to more drinking. Heavier and faster. Sometimes it would make me stop. I never wanted to be a cripple, like my father. His crutch was alcohol, I preferred to stand on my own feet.

I decided then that it was time to stop, time to evaluate myself, time to go back to my original plan of depressing music in a dark room. I got up, tossed a crumpled twenty on the table and said "We're leaving."

Like I said, if you spend enough time with someone, they know you better than you know yourself. Julie never voiced it, but she understood somehow what was going on in my head. She tried to make me feel better, but she couldn't pull it off, at least not in a bar. There was a time in my life when I answered every question with a "Let's do another shot!" even if I didn't know what the question was. I don't think I knew what the question was that night, but whatever it may have been, as soon as I walked outside I knew the answer was "Not tonight."