I hear a lot of fucking bullshit from girls about how boys broke their hearts, how they're the big fucking victims, about how he's such an asshole. Why don't you stop seeing the fucker then? No answer.

No, you ask me, the real losers in this game is the boys. Let's think about it. Have you noticed how we have to do the approaching? It's us who lays our fucking hearts on the line, ladies. Yeah, sure, there are girls who are exceptions, are forward - but during a boy's life it isn't statistically likely that he'll meet many of these girls. As it stands, we have to put our feelings in the firing line, and you can just shoot them the fuck down if you want.

Some guys just seem to want to fuck. Fine, let them, and if you get with one of them girls, like it or lump it. Some of us want something more, we want love, and we have a tremendous amount to give in return. I've had physical relations. Sometimes I've been offerred them and turned them down. I'm not saying I don't want to get laid, every guy wants to get laid. Shit, I don't know why I rejected them - was it fear? I don't know. But what I do know is that I'm not that bothered, nor about the rejections I made or about whether I'm gonna get shagged in the future.

What I am bothered about is love. I want a fucking soul mate. Someone to help me through this shithole that we call the world, someone who will stand by me as willingly and lovingly as I will stand by them. Someone who will realize, like I do, how lucky we are to have found each other. Is there any greater joy? I have never known a greater joy than when she told me she loved me, and I believed it. I don't believe it any more, and when I confront her about it we'll have another big juicy day log. That day is in the future, right now I'm wallowing in my own angst and mixing spirits.

She's out there, somewhere. The girl who I will share an intense love with. She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful to me, even if not to others. One day, I'm going to meet her, and we're going to be so fucking happy nothing else will matter.

I can't fucking wait.

"Oh. Hi. It's you!"

A friend of a friend answered the doorbell. I should have known the moment I saw the lights were out and all the cars in the driveway had left. I suddenly felt like a complete idiot doing a social call at 0330 in the morning. The warm-up had ended here at half nine before we all headed to the jam session at the pub.

I hadn't seen her in almost fifteen years before tonight. She was anything but an eighth-grader now, just as I was anything but a budding rock star.

"Yeah. I heard you were having a party here?"

"Well, no. I told everyone I was too tired and called it off. I think I had enough during the jam."

She had opened the door ever so slightly, peering out with a surprised set of brown eyes.

"You want to come in or something? You look cold."

"Err...no. I don't want to bother you being asleep and all."

Her bathrobe and sleep-warm body couldn't cope with the arctic outside. The decision eventually came.

"It's fifteen below outside. I'll fix you some coffee before you get on home. Are you staying with your folks while you're up here?"

She opened the door a bit so I could step inside the hallway. My nose whisked by her hair on the way through the door, leaving a faint tingle of cigarettes and perfume in my beat-up sensory system. Electric guitars and amplifiers does that to you.

"Yeah. My old room. They changed it a bit the thirteen years since I stayed in it the last time."

"I doubt you need any of your old stuff now."

"You're right" I said and tried smiling with my gone-numb-from-fifteen-below face. "Bedrooms are for sleeping nowadays."

She kept smiling and ordered my socks and jacket off. I kept the t-shirt and jeans.

"Have a seat while I get the coffee machine going."

From the kitchen she stole an occasional glimpse of the figure in the big leather sofa. The figure in the big leather sofa returned the favour, wondering if the smiles inside came from the unexpected and pleasant hospitality or the fact that his body was slowly thawing in room temperature.

She returned with coffee and two sandwiches.

"I rented a movie. You want to watch it with me? I reckon this is as good a time to watch it as any."

So we drank warm coffee and ate sandwiches under a wool blanket at four in the morning, while George Clooney and Brad Pitt were being sharply dressed in Las Vegas.

--

I woke up at eight thirty, her head on my shoulder. The two half eaten sandwiches and cold coffee were bathed in the flickering static from the television set.

"What happened?"

"Nothing" I said, slightly uncomfortable from the four hours of half sitting, half lying asleep.

"In the movie, silly!" she said, yawning, stretching and laughing at the same time.

Then we laughed the way people laugh when they don't really know what else to do while I tried to find my socks and shoes. We shared a cigarette while the final minutes of the leaving ritual came and went.

"You coming to my cousin's party on new year's eve?"

"Yup. I got an invitation."

She kissed my forehead while I stood in the doorway trying to say thank you, goodbye, see you later or something appropriate for the situation. I couldn't think of anything.

"See you then."

It was still fifteen below and no daylight outside. I lit another cigarette and went home to my old room.

Got back from a visit with my family yesterday. Typical Christmas stuff. As I only get to Lake Charles once in a while, I qet to see how the town has changed, and get some food that is hard to find in Ohio (at least done well).

The big news was the creature living in my sister's wall. Though this story is set in a small city in southwest Louisiana, I believe it could happen anywhere. Please don't go thinking my family is a bunch of coon asses. This could happen to you.

When we arrived, my sister explained she had something sleeping in her wall. She could here it scurry about, and even snore. She left her husband in charge while she picked my wife and I up at the airport with her kids my mom.

(As I dawdled on getting tickets, we had to fly in to another city. Don't get my wife started...)

I come from a line of control freaks, however. Sis spent a good portion of the ride to my folk's on her cell phone, sorting out the different advice she was being given. Each agency she spoke with either had different advice (contradicting the prior advice), or lead her in a circular loop. All she really knew is that she wanted it out of her house before it died in her wall, or it clawed through the drywall.

One guy did provide her good advice, in a fashion I hope my team would. He explained to her what could or could not happen, how he would approach the problem, and his contingency plans for various scenarios. It gave my sister a warm fuzzy. On Christmas Eve, he came to her house, investigated her whole house, and set out some bait.

The critter didn't show Christmas eve. He did come back Christmas day.

My brother-in-law was going to be there when the exterminator came back Friday, but had an appointment at work. I went over to her house, for emotional support as well as to help if it got loose. Of course, even though it kept them up the previous night, it was nowhere to be found when I was there.

The exterminator removed an access panel behind the tub, and started pulling out plastic bags. The creature was trying to build a nest. The exterminator did a few things to verify that the creature nor any of its babies were in my sister's wall, then went under the house to board up the hole it climbed up.

So far, no word on a return....

My New Year's Resolutions

Learn to play the piano.
Play Hearts with President Clinton.
Appear on The Daily Show.
Learn Gaelic.
Discover something.
Be a sunbeam.
Quit e2.
Fly the space shuttle.
Kill a clown.

You'd think after three years I would be over her. But I can't stop thinking about her and the way she made me feel once up on a time. Heartbreak has torn me apart and as I have slowly put myself back together over these long years, I can't forget the pain or the loss, I can't forget her. So I will sit alone in my room and lament for the love I once had. Maybe she sits and thinks of me still.

What the secretaries sing and the CEO's bark in the bars -
What do the dead say to the ones who still think they're alive?
"With your heads all on backwards you can't see in front for what near
behind you lies"...


I keep wondering how close I came to missing this.

December 12, 2002

She's always been there. Always on the edge of my vision...just slipping around the centre of my sight, and fading away. Dripping from the edges.

The ray of light, shining straight into my eyes...blinding me.

Children are running around, Santa's made an appearance. Alcohol is flowing, the sun shining down on a football, kicked between groups of people celebrating.

I don't remember much more, until I stood with her on a small wooden bridge.

'..do you have any idea how good looking you are?'

...remember to breathe...

Awake, and dreaming
But I'm only sleeping...


Now...

She looks at me, in a sideways glance. Christmas day three days gone, the last time I'd seen her.

'You know, I missed you...'

Remember nothing...simply allow your face to form this impossible to contain smile.

Just keep, your eyes on her
Keep
Don't look away
Keep your eyes on her horizon...

The Metro is taking us to the suburbs so that we can pick up our Xmas loot from my parents. The Metro is full today, which seems strange for a Sunday. Scoresby and I are reading, trying to ignore the ugly Maryland suburbs that are swishing by outside the window. The only beauty can be found in the haphazard graffiti sprayed on the sides of abandoned buildings. He is reading the Stephen Ambrose book about D-Day and I am reading Breeder: Real-life Stories from a New Generation of Mothers. We are planning our first child and I am learning to love being a woman.

"Did you know Hemingway was on the beach at D-Day?" Scoresby asks.

"No, I did not,” I answer, interested. "How did he survive?"

"He was covering it, not fighting," he says.

"Do you know what the Roman origin of the word 'vagina' is?" I whisper because we are on a train full of loud men who might become interested by this conversation.

"No. What?" he responds.

"Sheath for your sword," I say. "Isn’t it great that my parts are defined by yours?" I ask a little too snarky.

"Not my fault," he says. And he is right. I make a mental note: Think of new word for vagina.

The two sweatshirt-wearing, baseball-capped men beside us are having too much fun. They are laughing and talking about football and going to Hooters. The woman with them are pretending to enjoy the conversation. A couple across from us are dressed in all red and gold.

"There must be a football game today," I say to Scoresby.

"That explains it," he says, turning back to D-Day.

At the stadium stop, the Metro driver mentions this is the stop were the Redskins will be beating those Cowboys. Cheers and laughs rise up all around me and I feel like I’m floating in a pool of testosterone. The cap boys pump their fists in the air and cheer as they get off the train. The open train doors are a window to streams of pale men in over-sized coats. I try not to dislike them, but they are all so dull. I don’t even know them. I shouldn’t get angry about what other people enjoy.

I rant to Scoresby that isn’t it sad that we, as a culture, celebrate these sporting events, but not a woman giving birth. Sure, we fawn all over babies, but what about the act of giving birth. I envision stadiums full of women watching someone on a huge screen pushing out a baby. "The head is crowning," says the announcer, excitedly. And 10 thousand woman cheer and do the wave.

I have read 10 books so far in my pre-pregnancy studies. Maybe they are just serving as feminist propaganda, but my feelings about being a woman have changed dramatically in that time. Having had a cold mother, I found it difficult to relate to women. Difficult to appreciate my own gender. I used to think if I could choose, I would choose to be a man. Now I love being a woman. I love that someday, I will give be able to give birth. I mentioned this to my mother-in-law the other day. I mentioned that all the reading that I had done really made me believe that we were the stronger sex and that is why we were oppressed for so many thousands of years. They knew that we were stronger than them, so they oppressed us. It was a wonderful speech for someone like me to give. Someone who used to hate being a woman. She told me this was stupid, that women are smaller and weaker physically. This made me sad. I wished she would roar with me! Even if it isn’t true, why not believe it? I said that I thought pregnancy would be empowering. She frowned. Just wait and see, she said.

After my trip to the suburbs, I settle down on the couch to watch a little television while I wait to get dinner. Johnny Depp is talking to James Lipton on Inside the Actor's Studio. Johnny Depp isn’t a favorite of mine, but I do love James Lipton. Depp says that after he was present at the birth of his daughter, he realized that women truly are the stronger sex. This made me smile and laugh. Why is it that Johnny Depp will roar with me and cheer for me, but my own mother-in-law will not? He is not someone who I ever thought would be allied with me. I wonder if he knows any better words for vagina.

And in my darkest moment, feeble and weeping
The moon tells me a secret, a confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
Familiar light reflections pass over me
The source is the light and endless sheen
The source that makes the hole black
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting

The Saga Continues...

She messages me daily. We talk often, and she often initiates the conversations. I don't know how to take that; does she like to talk to me, does she like me at all? And if so, how much? Maybe I just have to stop moving my mind towards what I want to think. Maybe I should stop moving at all, and let the currents take me where they wish.

It was a lonely holiday. No girlfriend this time. Everyone had their significant other, except me. It was tough; for once, I lacked someone hanging on my arm, a beautiful girl to introduce and smile for me. Instead, my eyes did double duty, scanning the room for someone breathtaking, and making sure my lonely nature didn't shine out like a lighthouse, attracting all the other lonely vessels on the sea.

Char leaves me excited and happy, incredibly happy. I haven't felt it in a long time, and it's time for me to make something of it. We're going to spend time together after the new year starts, probably early January. This is my chance to see if happiness is within my reach, or if it's something I've been imagining for too long. Through all the pain and suffering, all the deliberation and planning, I am realizing something that never occurred to me before: we have no control. I had no control falling for Char, and I hope I cause her heart to spiral as mine does. Of course, this time, I won't try to make it happen. Hopefully, it just will.

Thursday was the one month anniversary of my bariatric surgery. In the wake of that event, I have lost 37 pounds, dropping from 384 to 347. 21 to go to get back to where I was in the 10th grade, believe it or not. My wife notices the difference already. She says my gut is much smaller. I notice my neck and face are thinner. My diet has changed again. I can eat tuna salad, chicken salad, and thin sliced deli meats. I can eat hard boiled eggs as well.

According to the doctor, I am doing spectacularly well. I can expect to lose about 80-100% of my excess weight, which, considering my height and build, means I have 150-180 pounds left to go to get to 100%. I have been walking regularly, and soon I will get into weight lifting again. I feel essentially normal now, except that I cannot eat much. I can't quite hold an entire egg at one sitting. Any really tough proteins like meat and eggs fill me up quickly, and I will vomit if I eat too much. Things which easily dissolve and liquids are much easier.

I get to have fruit now, too. I'm going to eat a bit of banana today. I still need to get protein first, so I'll try not to overdo it on other stuff.

Today, it begins.

Woke up about an hour ago - much later than I wanted to. But, all is most certianly not lost. I'm heading into the shower, and then dressing for a day of gathering the many supplies I will need to construct Mister Moogle. Including, perhaps, items to make a pole arm for him. After all, Moogles are fond of pole arms. So, after a couple of hours of scouring the local (ha!) shopping complicies for the materials, I will be home, hot gluing and stiching for most of the evening. Oh, yes, and paper mache-ing the headpiece. It should be an interesting time, mostly because I have never embarked on such an adventure in costume construction. We shall see.

Incidentally, I had a really disturbing dream last night, which will end up in today's Dream log. It was terrifying, and elating, all at once. Totally.

At any rate, it's time I get cleaned up, and on with the friction of the day.

Where were you when the asking
of me became the way? 

Needing to fade slightly
From the light and the play
Creating the surface
Shining and ripe for scratches
In shapes portraying the delays

The need to fade,
It’s taking me away
because the place I leave 
Is the place I cannot presume
Of making mine enduringly
	And continuing
To breath
    And be
      The same
As the image that became
Distorted by the very same
Shadows intimidating me into
Taking the blame
		
Today I escorted a stranger's wife in her quest to purchase pornography.

Began on 8th Ave and 40th St. Was smoking a cigar, leaning (somewhat) shiftily against a wall, mostly trying to finish it without ashing on some poor hapless tourist in the throngs which cover the sidewalks in ceaseless queasy motion.

"Pardon me, but do you have a light?" A fair question. She's perhaps five foot five, expensively (if subtly) dressed, and she's holding an unlit cigarette between the second and third fingers of her right hand, which is encased in a nice leather glove.

"Oh...yeah, sure do, one sec." Rummage through pockets, retrieve (new) lighter from beneath coat, offer a quick silent thanks that I've practiced lighting it (side-mounted bar mechanism) and flick it on. She places the cigarette in her mouth, cups a hand around my wrist, and holds my hand (and, perforce, the lighter) to her cigarette until it glows. Released, I snap the lighter closed. She drags, once, ensuring the light.

"Thank you."

"You're most welcome." Put the lighter away. She's somewhere between my college neighbor and the Oriental supermodel I have Suzy Rottencrotch dreams about, but my voice is steady and my smile only slightly ironic.

A beat.

"May I ask you a favor?"

"Well..." - take a drag on the nearly-gone cigar to stall for time - "...sure, I suppose."

"Will you come into this store with me while I shop?"

Brief confusion. I turn around and look up at the sign.

ADULT DVD EMPORIUM, it says. I choke slightly on the cigar (a decent Maduro Fonseca) as I turn back to her in surprise. "Why?" Not the smartest response, dipshit.

"I just don't want anyone to hassle me while I'm in there. If they think I'm with you, then..." She shrugs, acknowledging the stereotyping unapologetically.

"Um..." dummy. "Okay."

She smiles, once, economically, and swings into the viewblocked store, leaving me to stub my Fonseca and follow.

Surreal experience...several envious looks from other men in the store as they look over my companion (the only woman here) and then to me, as she holds DVDs in front of me and asks my opinion in bright tones.

"How about this one, hon?" ASSWOMAN DOES TOKYO, says the case.

"Uh..."

"Or this?" (WHORIENTALS! almost makes me choke in laughter).

"Oh, yeh, that one looks good."

Several DVDs later, she heads for the cashier with me in tow. Arriving, she turns to me and says "Why don't I get these?"

"Okay, dear." Hah. Two can play that one.

Outside, I manage to speak first.

"What's your name?"

"I can't tell you."

"What?"

She pulls off her left glove to show me the ring. "I'm married. I'm sorry."

"Where's your husband, then? You didn't just drag him through a porn shop. Can I buy you coffee?"

"He's...not in town. Thanks again. Here." She hands me something. I look down just long enough to register that she's handed me a porn DVD. I look up. She's gone.

Fuck.

I sigh, stuff the DVD in a pocket, and head downtown. I've been used, but at least I got an $8 porn DVD out of it. And a daylog entry, I guess.

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