and as I swing the door open and wide, I have to shield my eyes from the unexpected luminance issuing forth from our nearest star. I am temporarily blinded, and broadcast a moderate cry as I take another step out onto the sidewalk, and wait just a moment before I fully commit myself, releasing the doorknob to my front door, and I let it shut behind me with a 'click' as the lock snaps home.
I am all-in this game now, like an astronaut upon feeling the shakings of the vehicle below him as ignition takes place, who must submit entirely to fate and blind beliefs. I was this astronaut now, there was no turning back at this point, and I was going to the liquor store.
I stepped cautiously, allowing my eyes to adjust the the sudden brightness of a late May day in Oregon. You see, in Oregon in May, you just don't know. You can never know. Sunny, rainy, maybe snowing, probably raining, but maybe sunny? Maybe for only a few minutes? Maybe all day? Who knows? Do not bother checking with the weather people, they don't know either, although they like to pretend like they know. They are paid to pretend to be able to predict the weather. How crazy is that?
So, my eyes began to adjust, and I stepped again and again, no longer having to watch my feet, or my shoes to see where they may land next. There was traffic in the street nearby. I saw a fellow pedestrian coming my direction on the sidewalk, and I was afraid I may have recognized him as a neighbor, although I did not know or remember his name. This could be trouble. I was in no condition to mingle or perform smalltalk. I stopped moving. I spun around, and then I looked straight up into the sky. 'WHY ME?' I asked a god I did not think could hear me. 'Why do I have to try to talk to this guy when I only want to be left alone on this Saturday? KILL ME NOW!' I demanded from my god.
My god is a tricky god though, he would not allow me the convenience of killing me here and now, he wanted me to mingle apparently. As my neighbor approached I realized I was looking up into the sky and muttering to myself, cursing. My neighbor avoided eye contact. My neighbor walked right past me without saying anything to me. ... Maybe there was a god after all? Was I saved?
A moment later I continue along my original path, past a few shop windows to the liquor store just down the street. I made a mistake, I looked at myself in reflection in a shop window as I was passing, and I was disgusted with myself. I was incredibly fat. I had a beard. I had something inappropriate on top of my head, a baseball hat, a do-rag, a knit cap, something to obscure the shame beneath. I was an abomination, an abortion, tottering around on two legs. From the inside, I felt like a caveman. I felt very hairy and large and strong, but maybe slow. I felt like I could not express my feelings, but could only grunt and point at what I wanted, and make primal expressions with my face. I had a wallet and I had money - but would I be able to use it? Could I count? I felt incapable of managing my finances. I suddenly felt like a fossil, I was evidence that man DID exist here and now, and definitely had a skeleton, but I was no longer relevant. Did I matter? I made it to the corner, and waited for traffic to thin before jaywalking across the street against the light. Me. Want. Go there.
With my every step, I was aware of my 300 chins jiggling, my bloated personage far overweight, my knees struggling to maintain. This could not possibly be good, I thought. My face was itching crazily with the beard I had just recently decided to cultivate for some other silly purpose. I felt a little like King-Kong, but a tiny one. I could not swat an airplane out of the sky, and I was not about to scale a tall building, and there was not even any tiny blond woman I wanted to hold tightly in my mighty grip or embrace. I thought about this. King Kong had way more going on for him than I do. I had to admit this, and it did not make me feel good.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Future caste 2069
109. One hundred and nine years old. You made it.
Now you are crowned and get a booth in the library, the children get in a big circle and fidget until you start to speak and then they have to shush, they pull their feet and shoes up close to their bodies and their eyes get big or glaze over as you tell them about Richard Nixon and how he lied, or how there was a time during which people did not carry tiny wOrkpads with them everywhere they went, distributing their, and your, global position and body temperature.
You are old. This means you are privileged. You get your name etched on the sidewalk on a famous boulevard in California. A blimp flies around, for just one day, flashing your name and birthdate along it's swollen side. You are in line for a governership now. You are guaranteed a place. Your time was worth it. You were not lost in impulsive reaction. You have stories to tell. You will tell them. Again and again. The children must stay and listen, until you are finished. Until you fall asleep, your face in your own lap, finger atwitch, mouth breathing.
Now you are crowned and get a booth in the library, the children get in a big circle and fidget until you start to speak and then they have to shush, they pull their feet and shoes up close to their bodies and their eyes get big or glaze over as you tell them about Richard Nixon and how he lied, or how there was a time during which people did not carry tiny wOrkpads with them everywhere they went, distributing their, and your, global position and body temperature.
You are old. This means you are privileged. You get your name etched on the sidewalk on a famous boulevard in California. A blimp flies around, for just one day, flashing your name and birthdate along it's swollen side. You are in line for a governership now. You are guaranteed a place. Your time was worth it. You were not lost in impulsive reaction. You have stories to tell. You will tell them. Again and again. The children must stay and listen, until you are finished. Until you fall asleep, your face in your own lap, finger atwitch, mouth breathing.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Eye on the ball (b)
I've known Monica for over half my life. I've lived with her more than I have lived with anyone else, including my own family. She IS my family too, I meant to say my own 'Blood Family', my parents and brother.
Twenty-two years. Twenty-two years we have lived together, not counting the eleven months she was married that one time. During those eleven months she spent a good deal of time in our house anyway, at least for the last half of it. Her room had remained pretty much as she left it. I had a feeling about that thing, not to gloat. He wasn't right for her. Obviously.
I had almost been married twice myself, and both times Monica seemed to know something I didn't, she had warned me that she didn't have a good feeling about either one, and as usual, she was right. I can't tell if she is actually looking out for me or sabotaging my potential marital bliss, but either way here she is still, and those other women are gone. We'll circle back to this later.
We've been living in our current home for 6 years now, longer than in any other place. We're getting old, I think. We just don't have the energy any more to want to live on the other side of town where more things are happening, don't have the energy to put everything in boxes again and load up a couple of U-Haul trucks and drive back and forth, painting and sweeping and arranging and putting screws in a wall, and taking screws out of other walls and all of that type of thing. It's hard to believe, but we just want to come home and eat something that won't upset our stomachs, complain about our romantic endeavors or lack of them, and then read while our cats slink around the room staring at the aquariums, licking their lips and watching the fish swim around behind the glass. We have a fireplace. We enjoy a lot of fires together. Summer, Winter, doesn't matter. We like to watch the fire the way those cats watch the fish. I think we see something in the fire that we want, and we silently try to figure out how we can make it ours, but we are too lazy or tired to actually do anything about it.
She works as a mental health therapist for a college in town. This means she gets to sit around and encourage people to spill their gossip and dark secrets and this also means she gets to come home and tell me these other people's gossip and dark secrets. Sometimes it feels wrong, but that is usually only when I find her stories boring. Otherwise, I don't mind her breaking her confidentiality agreement and risking her position. Some of the stories are pretty good, and SOMETIMES they are even newsworthy, or involve local celebrities, athletes, people of that nature.
I fix old cars and restaurant equipment, and sell things online. I operate under the radar, more or less. I make my own schedule. Some people envy me my freedom, but Monica does not. Monica knows that I am the sort of rare person who does not know what to do with his freedom, or how to enjoy it. Monica knows that I squander my freedom worrying about how I should be doing something else, no matter what it is I am doing at the time.
I heard her keys in the door rattling around for a moment and then the door opened up and she was standing there, a force of nature in a leather coat and a stylish dark red beret and she was pushing the door open with her knee and balancing two large grocery bags in one arm and still trying to remove her keys with the semi-free hand, hopping on one leg after the arc of the door as it swung inside. I hadn't heard her car pull up outside, the music was up too loud and she was home early.
I froze, caught in the act of rebuilding a Maserati brake caliper on the kitchen table, shirtlessy sweating and drinking wine straight from the bottle. Guilty, I stared at her for a moment, planning my escape strategy.
She froze too, staring back at me for a couple of seconds before speaking, "Are you going to help me or what?"
"SUUURE!" I answered, relieved. If she were really angry like I thought she was, she would not have spoken to me at all. I stood and sauntered over to her, grabbed one bag out of her arms, and removed her keys for her. She walked past me with the other bag, glancing at my mess on the table as she passed it.
"You like nice," I offered hopefully. "Are those pants new?"
She put the bag down on the counter and returned to where I was standing still, and reclaimed her keys, knowing I would lose them in another few seconds. She reached behind me for the door, and when I stepped away she closed it.
"What happened to your shirt?" She asked rhetorically. She looked at the brake caliper resting in a large glass baking dish, surrounded by brake fluid. "Is that for the guy in Florida? Ferrari brakes? Why are you doing that on the kitchen table again?"
"Maserati." I corrected her "Florida though, yes. I put cardboard down this time. AND some plastic bags. I wanted to be inside, it's too hot out in the garage."
"Is that mine?" she asked, nodding her head at the table. I thought she was indicating the Pyrex baking dish full of dirty brake fluid.
"No," I lied "That's one of the ones I got at that flea market a few months ago, remember?"
"Not the dish, the wine. Is that mine? That better not be the bottle that What'shisface gave me."
"No, no... I'm pretty sure it's mine," I assured her as she walked past me again and and into the bathroom. I heard the sound of the toilet seat slamming down through the open door, immediately followed by the sound of her urine splashing into the bowl.
"This is just some cheap stuff here. Came from Trader Joe's. Nothing to celebrate. Not yet, anyway. You want some?" I yelled at the open bathroom door.
There was the sound of toilet paper being pulled off the spindle, then a flush, then she emerged pulling her shirt down and wiping her hands on the front of her pants.
"I didn't hear you wash your hands in there. GROSS!"
She walked past me again, glaring silently first at my bare torso, then my poor brake caliper resting in it's puddle and then warned me; "Don't even talk to me right now about gross."
She returned to the kitchen and began to unload the grocery bag onto the counter. I followed with the bag I was still carrying and put it down beside hers and started to rummage through it, but only after pouring her a glass of wine and handing it to her. Her hand hesitated for just a moment before accepting it, this would mean we were at peace, but she could not resist even if we did like to bicker.
"Blah!" she spat after sipping the wine "That tastes awful. Why are you drinking that?"
"Because it was only four dollars." I answered, right in her way now, examining her purchases. "Did you buy any cheese? You ate the last of it last night."
Ignoring my question, she began to relay another installment in a never-ending story about the hiring politics in her office, the various egos and personalities involved, names I recognized but could not put faces to although I had met these people many times, these people she worked with, these people who spent 8 or 9 or 10 hours a day in little cubicles, filing reports, using copy machines.
"I understand. Jesus yes, I understand. That is AWFUL." I had learned to give her what she wanted. I learned to listen and agree with her. I learned to do it, and I was happy to do it. But, I had my limit, and I had not taken food all day. "I agree," I cut her off as she was saying something, standing beside the refrigerator, the door of which was wide open, a bunch of celery hanging in one hand and her empty wine glass in the other, and YES, I interrupted her, "And those people should all be wiped from the face of the Earth, but God woman! IS THERE CHEESE?"
**************************************************
A couple of hours after I made dinner and we ate, I cleaned up the kitchen and we found ourselves installed on the couch in front of the fire, despite the heat in the house. There we were, like an old loving couple, her feet up on the coffee table in front of us where our cold highball glasses were sweating, making rings of water there on the table top. We were sufficiently relaxed now, and I had my head in Monica's lap while she absently played with my hair while we continued to gently insult each other.
"You know something," She began in a typical fashion I recognized as pre-insult, "You have more hair on your back than on your head."
"So do you."
"No I don't." She stated, watching the flames dance around in the fireplace.
"Well, YOU'VE got a mustache. Or you would, if you didn't shave it off. Bleach it, whatever." I said, tracing my finger around on her thigh. She had really great legs. Strong. Meaty. Long. "Don't take this the wrong way," I continued "But sometimes I sure wish you weren't YOU. You know?"
"I know." She said and leaned over my head, smashing my face into her shirt as she reached for her drink on the table. "But then I wouldn't be ME. Right? I'd be different."
I understood her logic. This was the pattern of thought and conversation we would fall into about once a week. I reached for my beverage and carefully took a sip sideways, my head still resting on her legs.
We watched the fire for a few more minutes and then I removed myself from her bubble and stood up, digging my finger around in my bellybutton and then sniffed at it. "Smells like a vagina," I said proudly.
"You're a pig." She told me without much conviction "It's no big mystery why no one will marry you."
"I'm going to be nice now and ignore that commentary," I replied "I don't want to stay up all night discussing who has more failed relationships and the hows and the whys. Can you wake me up when you leave tomorrow? I have to get going early."
"Okay," She said "Don't forget to water the stuff in the greenhouse before you go out though, alright?"
"Never do." I said, turning away and wandering towards my end of the house, then stopped and reminded her: "Put the screen up if the fire is still going when you go to bed. Goodnight Gorgeous."
"I will. Goodnight." She said, picking up her iPhone from the arm of the couch and began to return text messages or browse Facebook, something hideous like that. Women and their phones. Jesus. What a nightmare.
I set a course for my room and made my way down the long hall, bouncing only two or three times off of the walls on my way there, careful to knock nothing off or down, I entered my room and flopped down on the bed, on top of all the blankets and pulled nothing over me, and thought about her out there sitting on the couch by herself. I fell asleep clutching a pillow next to my bare chest, confiding some admission of fondness into it's imagined ear for the thousandth time. I fell asleep and dreamed of being late to class, late for a test and finding I was naked, I dreamed of getting in fights and losing, I dreamed of finding dying animals and not being able to help them, I dreamed of my teeth falling out, my mouth full of blood.
Twenty-two years. Twenty-two years we have lived together, not counting the eleven months she was married that one time. During those eleven months she spent a good deal of time in our house anyway, at least for the last half of it. Her room had remained pretty much as she left it. I had a feeling about that thing, not to gloat. He wasn't right for her. Obviously.
I had almost been married twice myself, and both times Monica seemed to know something I didn't, she had warned me that she didn't have a good feeling about either one, and as usual, she was right. I can't tell if she is actually looking out for me or sabotaging my potential marital bliss, but either way here she is still, and those other women are gone. We'll circle back to this later.
We've been living in our current home for 6 years now, longer than in any other place. We're getting old, I think. We just don't have the energy any more to want to live on the other side of town where more things are happening, don't have the energy to put everything in boxes again and load up a couple of U-Haul trucks and drive back and forth, painting and sweeping and arranging and putting screws in a wall, and taking screws out of other walls and all of that type of thing. It's hard to believe, but we just want to come home and eat something that won't upset our stomachs, complain about our romantic endeavors or lack of them, and then read while our cats slink around the room staring at the aquariums, licking their lips and watching the fish swim around behind the glass. We have a fireplace. We enjoy a lot of fires together. Summer, Winter, doesn't matter. We like to watch the fire the way those cats watch the fish. I think we see something in the fire that we want, and we silently try to figure out how we can make it ours, but we are too lazy or tired to actually do anything about it.
She works as a mental health therapist for a college in town. This means she gets to sit around and encourage people to spill their gossip and dark secrets and this also means she gets to come home and tell me these other people's gossip and dark secrets. Sometimes it feels wrong, but that is usually only when I find her stories boring. Otherwise, I don't mind her breaking her confidentiality agreement and risking her position. Some of the stories are pretty good, and SOMETIMES they are even newsworthy, or involve local celebrities, athletes, people of that nature.
I fix old cars and restaurant equipment, and sell things online. I operate under the radar, more or less. I make my own schedule. Some people envy me my freedom, but Monica does not. Monica knows that I am the sort of rare person who does not know what to do with his freedom, or how to enjoy it. Monica knows that I squander my freedom worrying about how I should be doing something else, no matter what it is I am doing at the time.
I heard her keys in the door rattling around for a moment and then the door opened up and she was standing there, a force of nature in a leather coat and a stylish dark red beret and she was pushing the door open with her knee and balancing two large grocery bags in one arm and still trying to remove her keys with the semi-free hand, hopping on one leg after the arc of the door as it swung inside. I hadn't heard her car pull up outside, the music was up too loud and she was home early.
I froze, caught in the act of rebuilding a Maserati brake caliper on the kitchen table, shirtlessy sweating and drinking wine straight from the bottle. Guilty, I stared at her for a moment, planning my escape strategy.
She froze too, staring back at me for a couple of seconds before speaking, "Are you going to help me or what?"
"SUUURE!" I answered, relieved. If she were really angry like I thought she was, she would not have spoken to me at all. I stood and sauntered over to her, grabbed one bag out of her arms, and removed her keys for her. She walked past me with the other bag, glancing at my mess on the table as she passed it.
"You like nice," I offered hopefully. "Are those pants new?"
She put the bag down on the counter and returned to where I was standing still, and reclaimed her keys, knowing I would lose them in another few seconds. She reached behind me for the door, and when I stepped away she closed it.
"What happened to your shirt?" She asked rhetorically. She looked at the brake caliper resting in a large glass baking dish, surrounded by brake fluid. "Is that for the guy in Florida? Ferrari brakes? Why are you doing that on the kitchen table again?"
"Maserati." I corrected her "Florida though, yes. I put cardboard down this time. AND some plastic bags. I wanted to be inside, it's too hot out in the garage."
"Is that mine?" she asked, nodding her head at the table. I thought she was indicating the Pyrex baking dish full of dirty brake fluid.
"No," I lied "That's one of the ones I got at that flea market a few months ago, remember?"
"Not the dish, the wine. Is that mine? That better not be the bottle that What'shisface gave me."
"No, no... I'm pretty sure it's mine," I assured her as she walked past me again and and into the bathroom. I heard the sound of the toilet seat slamming down through the open door, immediately followed by the sound of her urine splashing into the bowl.
"This is just some cheap stuff here. Came from Trader Joe's. Nothing to celebrate. Not yet, anyway. You want some?" I yelled at the open bathroom door.
There was the sound of toilet paper being pulled off the spindle, then a flush, then she emerged pulling her shirt down and wiping her hands on the front of her pants.
"I didn't hear you wash your hands in there. GROSS!"
She walked past me again, glaring silently first at my bare torso, then my poor brake caliper resting in it's puddle and then warned me; "Don't even talk to me right now about gross."
She returned to the kitchen and began to unload the grocery bag onto the counter. I followed with the bag I was still carrying and put it down beside hers and started to rummage through it, but only after pouring her a glass of wine and handing it to her. Her hand hesitated for just a moment before accepting it, this would mean we were at peace, but she could not resist even if we did like to bicker.
"Blah!" she spat after sipping the wine "That tastes awful. Why are you drinking that?"
"Because it was only four dollars." I answered, right in her way now, examining her purchases. "Did you buy any cheese? You ate the last of it last night."
Ignoring my question, she began to relay another installment in a never-ending story about the hiring politics in her office, the various egos and personalities involved, names I recognized but could not put faces to although I had met these people many times, these people she worked with, these people who spent 8 or 9 or 10 hours a day in little cubicles, filing reports, using copy machines.
"I understand. Jesus yes, I understand. That is AWFUL." I had learned to give her what she wanted. I learned to listen and agree with her. I learned to do it, and I was happy to do it. But, I had my limit, and I had not taken food all day. "I agree," I cut her off as she was saying something, standing beside the refrigerator, the door of which was wide open, a bunch of celery hanging in one hand and her empty wine glass in the other, and YES, I interrupted her, "And those people should all be wiped from the face of the Earth, but God woman! IS THERE CHEESE?"
**************************************************
A couple of hours after I made dinner and we ate, I cleaned up the kitchen and we found ourselves installed on the couch in front of the fire, despite the heat in the house. There we were, like an old loving couple, her feet up on the coffee table in front of us where our cold highball glasses were sweating, making rings of water there on the table top. We were sufficiently relaxed now, and I had my head in Monica's lap while she absently played with my hair while we continued to gently insult each other.
"You know something," She began in a typical fashion I recognized as pre-insult, "You have more hair on your back than on your head."
"So do you."
"No I don't." She stated, watching the flames dance around in the fireplace.
"Well, YOU'VE got a mustache. Or you would, if you didn't shave it off. Bleach it, whatever." I said, tracing my finger around on her thigh. She had really great legs. Strong. Meaty. Long. "Don't take this the wrong way," I continued "But sometimes I sure wish you weren't YOU. You know?"
"I know." She said and leaned over my head, smashing my face into her shirt as she reached for her drink on the table. "But then I wouldn't be ME. Right? I'd be different."
I understood her logic. This was the pattern of thought and conversation we would fall into about once a week. I reached for my beverage and carefully took a sip sideways, my head still resting on her legs.
We watched the fire for a few more minutes and then I removed myself from her bubble and stood up, digging my finger around in my bellybutton and then sniffed at it. "Smells like a vagina," I said proudly.
"You're a pig." She told me without much conviction "It's no big mystery why no one will marry you."
"I'm going to be nice now and ignore that commentary," I replied "I don't want to stay up all night discussing who has more failed relationships and the hows and the whys. Can you wake me up when you leave tomorrow? I have to get going early."
"Okay," She said "Don't forget to water the stuff in the greenhouse before you go out though, alright?"
"Never do." I said, turning away and wandering towards my end of the house, then stopped and reminded her: "Put the screen up if the fire is still going when you go to bed. Goodnight Gorgeous."
"I will. Goodnight." She said, picking up her iPhone from the arm of the couch and began to return text messages or browse Facebook, something hideous like that. Women and their phones. Jesus. What a nightmare.
I set a course for my room and made my way down the long hall, bouncing only two or three times off of the walls on my way there, careful to knock nothing off or down, I entered my room and flopped down on the bed, on top of all the blankets and pulled nothing over me, and thought about her out there sitting on the couch by herself. I fell asleep clutching a pillow next to my bare chest, confiding some admission of fondness into it's imagined ear for the thousandth time. I fell asleep and dreamed of being late to class, late for a test and finding I was naked, I dreamed of getting in fights and losing, I dreamed of finding dying animals and not being able to help them, I dreamed of my teeth falling out, my mouth full of blood.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Electrons, photons, bon-bons, hard-ons...
Even though we were fighting, or play-fighting, of which there was quickly no line of demarcation between the two, and I felt aggravated, watching her there, watching her mouth move and her lips blow out her spirited syllables, I felt something in my chest melt and grow warm, and I felt such a strong feeling of love for her I could almost not bear it any longer.
She mistook my silence for anger and looked away from me, she turned up the volume on the radio then looked out the window at the passing scenery, and while the back of her head was directed at me I whispered to her I loved her. I told the back of her head I wanted to be with her forever if it meant I could wake up and see her and spend all the rest of my mornings and subsequent days with her, or even just one more day, I told the back of her head she made me happy.
She must have heard my whispering because she suddenly spun her face back around on me like a surprised owl and demanded to know what I just said to her.
I smiled, hoping my warm feelings would float happily across the car and lodge themselves into her brain or her heart, and words would be unnecessary in this instance. This would prove something to me, it would prove my feelings had transcended this physical world and our understanding and mutual respect was of a different dimension altogether. I continued to smile, sending my benevolent wordless transmission to her through my every opening, glancing away only once or twice, briefly, just to make sure we were staying in our lane of traffic and I was not going to ram into anything or anyone. I watched her and waited, I was looking for the slightest sign of her detecting my message of love.
The expression on her face began to change, it softened a bit and then she said to me, "Take me home."
We were already 30 miles into our journey, and so I was confused as to why she wanted me to turn around now. Perhaps she wanted to be ravished suddenly? I felt that could be done just as easily parked on the side of the road in a somewhat obscured location as at her house though. Maybe she forgot something there? Some electrical heating device left on perhaps?
"What? Why?" I asked her "Are you hungry? We can stop up the road at the pie place - "
"I don't want to go anymore. This weekend is fucked. Just take me home."
I became silent for a few minutes and considered my options. Nothing smells quite so revolting as desperation, so I did not want to beg her to continue on with our plans, but I also was aware that sometimes a person just wants to be reassured that they are wanted, they long to hear kind words. Into this equation was also figured my desire for dignity maintenance, MY desire to be told kind words and reassured, and it all became very confusing for me. I was silent. I continued to drive. I was not angry, but I was contemplative. I wanted to make the right decision here. I remembered hearing that love conquers all, and knew from watching many after-school specials as a child that one's true feelings of fondness should not be stifled, and so I resolved myself to say the kind things I felt for her. As I began to draw in the breath which with I would begin this vocal expression, she beat me to this next step.
"I'm seeing someone else."
She mistook my silence for anger and looked away from me, she turned up the volume on the radio then looked out the window at the passing scenery, and while the back of her head was directed at me I whispered to her I loved her. I told the back of her head I wanted to be with her forever if it meant I could wake up and see her and spend all the rest of my mornings and subsequent days with her, or even just one more day, I told the back of her head she made me happy.
She must have heard my whispering because she suddenly spun her face back around on me like a surprised owl and demanded to know what I just said to her.
I smiled, hoping my warm feelings would float happily across the car and lodge themselves into her brain or her heart, and words would be unnecessary in this instance. This would prove something to me, it would prove my feelings had transcended this physical world and our understanding and mutual respect was of a different dimension altogether. I continued to smile, sending my benevolent wordless transmission to her through my every opening, glancing away only once or twice, briefly, just to make sure we were staying in our lane of traffic and I was not going to ram into anything or anyone. I watched her and waited, I was looking for the slightest sign of her detecting my message of love.
The expression on her face began to change, it softened a bit and then she said to me, "Take me home."
We were already 30 miles into our journey, and so I was confused as to why she wanted me to turn around now. Perhaps she wanted to be ravished suddenly? I felt that could be done just as easily parked on the side of the road in a somewhat obscured location as at her house though. Maybe she forgot something there? Some electrical heating device left on perhaps?
"What? Why?" I asked her "Are you hungry? We can stop up the road at the pie place - "
"I don't want to go anymore. This weekend is fucked. Just take me home."
I became silent for a few minutes and considered my options. Nothing smells quite so revolting as desperation, so I did not want to beg her to continue on with our plans, but I also was aware that sometimes a person just wants to be reassured that they are wanted, they long to hear kind words. Into this equation was also figured my desire for dignity maintenance, MY desire to be told kind words and reassured, and it all became very confusing for me. I was silent. I continued to drive. I was not angry, but I was contemplative. I wanted to make the right decision here. I remembered hearing that love conquers all, and knew from watching many after-school specials as a child that one's true feelings of fondness should not be stifled, and so I resolved myself to say the kind things I felt for her. As I began to draw in the breath which with I would begin this vocal expression, she beat me to this next step.
"I'm seeing someone else."
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
HI, I'm a Bonobo
and I've got a secret which I am not going to share with you. You'll have to scratch around for it in the bottom of the litter basket, smashing pulpy paper between your dingy digits, searching and sniffing every bit of suspect substance. I had to make it MY WAY, and so should you!
I'm not running a charity here.
It took me the LAST TEN YEARS to figure this all out, and it was not easy or pleasant going. Most of the answers were not obvious but required a good deal of trial and ERROR, and I place a great emphasis on the word 'error' there on purpose, that was not a MISTAKE, like the many which I made over these years doing the things I have done, the things you still do not know about but have been asking me to explain to you. TEN YEARS I burned to arrive at a truth that I would now like to seal away from the world, it must remain obscured from the collective mind. Errors, yes, but to say they were all unpleasant would be to tell you an untruth, for these errors were often the result of feeding the Id, and in doing so were satisfying and rewarding endeavors. Impulse satisfaction may not always be the correct path, but it is a path. At the very least. And, unlike what some people may try to tell you, you actually CAN get there from here.
Come on over here. Closer. Clo-SERRRRR! There. Smell that? I did that. That's what all the talk here is about. Take a good hard look at THAT. They should put that on the cover of a magazine. THAT is what stick-to-it-tiveness can do. Don't give up.
I'm not running a charity here.
It took me the LAST TEN YEARS to figure this all out, and it was not easy or pleasant going. Most of the answers were not obvious but required a good deal of trial and ERROR, and I place a great emphasis on the word 'error' there on purpose, that was not a MISTAKE, like the many which I made over these years doing the things I have done, the things you still do not know about but have been asking me to explain to you. TEN YEARS I burned to arrive at a truth that I would now like to seal away from the world, it must remain obscured from the collective mind. Errors, yes, but to say they were all unpleasant would be to tell you an untruth, for these errors were often the result of feeding the Id, and in doing so were satisfying and rewarding endeavors. Impulse satisfaction may not always be the correct path, but it is a path. At the very least. And, unlike what some people may try to tell you, you actually CAN get there from here.
Come on over here. Closer. Clo-SERRRRR! There. Smell that? I did that. That's what all the talk here is about. Take a good hard look at THAT. They should put that on the cover of a magazine. THAT is what stick-to-it-tiveness can do. Don't give up.
Answers in the Ashes
She wanted me to do this thing, but she did not tell me this. She did not have to, we had had a talk earlier, during which she told me the EXACT OPPOSITE thing, but I detected a twitch in the corner of her mouth when this was said, I knew what this meant, and I knew she wanted me to see it; she was lying. We were going to play 'The Opposite Game' now, in case anyone were listening, in case one of us was recording this conversation, she was being safe. She was very clever like this.
So, She wanted me to come back, she wanted me to save her. She wanted me to take her away from all of this, her suffocating life she had constructed accidentally around her, she wanted me to come in and fix it all, she knew I was strong and she knew not only COULD I do it, be she knew I WOULD. I was that rare person who would follow through with such a mission, even when only hinted at in Opposites. Even though we had engaged in sexual congress only once or twice, and during those times it had felt awkward or forced, I knew this to be more of her crafty tricks, it had been just a show, if even only for herself, so as to feel like she was doing something she did not really want to do, to make it seem like I had MADE HER do it, even though we had only fucked those two or three times, I knew she had enjoyed it really, I knew she wanted more, and she wanted this more for forever. I was prepared to provide this future for her. She did not have to tell me, this was because we already had that connection, that sort of a connection you have with another person where they are not limited by words and language in their expressions to you, they have VIBRATIONS as well, they send FEELINGS. She even went so far as to send images and her voice into my head, she was able to sneak her messages into my dreams, while I was asleep as well as while I was awake. Our resonance was that type, it was that strong.
And so it was her voice in my ears I heard, telling me to buy Chloroform on the local college campus and extra large zip-ties from the appliance repair supplier online with a fabricated name, and to collect a few pollen masks as well from wherever I could find them, there was a puzzle here which even I did not know the solution to yet, but I was sure she did, she was a planner, she planned ahead, this was another reason I knew we were good for each other, for what I lacked in planning I made up for in DOING, and she was just the opposite. Just like an electrical circuit or other perfect system, you need a positive matched to a negative, a low to a high, a Yin to a Yang, you know what I mean. Opposites. Not only Attract, but Belong Together.
She sure was sending me a lot of commands/images and messages! For someone who told me to my face to 'Just leave her alone' three weeks ago, she was behaving in quite the opposite manner in which to make that happen. She could be confusing, it is true, but I chalked it all up to her high degree of intelligence/ cleverness.
So, She wanted me to come back, she wanted me to save her. She wanted me to take her away from all of this, her suffocating life she had constructed accidentally around her, she wanted me to come in and fix it all, she knew I was strong and she knew not only COULD I do it, be she knew I WOULD. I was that rare person who would follow through with such a mission, even when only hinted at in Opposites. Even though we had engaged in sexual congress only once or twice, and during those times it had felt awkward or forced, I knew this to be more of her crafty tricks, it had been just a show, if even only for herself, so as to feel like she was doing something she did not really want to do, to make it seem like I had MADE HER do it, even though we had only fucked those two or three times, I knew she had enjoyed it really, I knew she wanted more, and she wanted this more for forever. I was prepared to provide this future for her. She did not have to tell me, this was because we already had that connection, that sort of a connection you have with another person where they are not limited by words and language in their expressions to you, they have VIBRATIONS as well, they send FEELINGS. She even went so far as to send images and her voice into my head, she was able to sneak her messages into my dreams, while I was asleep as well as while I was awake. Our resonance was that type, it was that strong.
And so it was her voice in my ears I heard, telling me to buy Chloroform on the local college campus and extra large zip-ties from the appliance repair supplier online with a fabricated name, and to collect a few pollen masks as well from wherever I could find them, there was a puzzle here which even I did not know the solution to yet, but I was sure she did, she was a planner, she planned ahead, this was another reason I knew we were good for each other, for what I lacked in planning I made up for in DOING, and she was just the opposite. Just like an electrical circuit or other perfect system, you need a positive matched to a negative, a low to a high, a Yin to a Yang, you know what I mean. Opposites. Not only Attract, but Belong Together.
She sure was sending me a lot of commands/images and messages! For someone who told me to my face to 'Just leave her alone' three weeks ago, she was behaving in quite the opposite manner in which to make that happen. She could be confusing, it is true, but I chalked it all up to her high degree of intelligence/ cleverness.
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