I guess it wasn't too surprising to learn that Tom Stephens, of Suffolk serial killer fame, had a Myspace page as well. Not too popular though, the poor lad, with only seven friends, and that wanker Tom being one of them.
His mission statement, to take advantage of the site in order to improve in the tricky fields of "dating, serious relationships, [and] friends" apparently didn't take too well, huh?
What's a fellow to do?
Go out and murder a couple of hookers, I reckon.
Coincedentally or not, Mr. Stephens lists himself as a fan of 80's music, amongst other atrocities.
Oh, the humanity...
Remember, kids - every time you don't approve a friend request, you may be setting off a tragic chain of events that will ultimately lead to a CSI-esque finale.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Looking Down The Well
When I left it last, the affair with The Clarinet Player was dizzily driving towards adead-end. Even while staring at him spread out on my bed, fully acknowledging that he is a sweet, good-hearted fellow with a satisfactory build, pleasantly skilled in the oral sex department, and a wonderful conversationalist, I knew it just wasn't it.
Not that I was or am looking for THE IT, as in Princess Bride-esque love or what have you, but more an animalistic it, a raw, chemical it, the kind of it that would lead me to call in sick to the office in order to spend more time between the sheets.
Yeah, this definitely wasn't it.
It was a darling tumble in the hay, as far as these go, because the sex was excellent and there was a very instinctual attraction. But it was like looking at an emptied candy wrapper. I had already marked the metaphoric "V" on the fantasy, and it left me content, but not addicted.
As he was still sleeping, I was thinking how to either elegantly break it off, or even better, keep him around on a low-presence basis. After all, neither of us had expressed explicit interest in a meaningful or even exclusive relationship.
Of course, when he woke up and I dangled this topic in front of him, all emo hell broke loose.
"Is that what it's about? You want to sleep with other people?" he asked, seemingly appalled.
I myself was squeamish, for the words "other people" when coined together in this manner, seemed to be an entry-level indication of a fledgeling relationship.
Oops, I did it again.
Hand me the aspirin, because this will leave me with a headache.
"That's not what I just said."
And it really wasn't.
I had simply made it clear that I was well on my way to celebrating a year of independence after finally ridding myself completely of what may turn out to be the prototype for the worst boyfriend ever, and that I was happy this way - on my own and at large.
As for exclusivity, we had never discussed it, so why would he expect it?
Fast forward to a week and some after the incident, and he is offended and backing away, brushing me off. I have enough people I regularly ignore in my life, I thought to myself, and picked up the phone to text him and make amends. Eran said that in this situation, much like with a frightened puppy, an SMS may be a safer choice than an actual phonecall.
Another brush-off, even when I text him in Hungarian(don't even ask). My efforts go unrewarded, until finally, this week, he rings me.
I don't know what the hell happened with us, whatever "us" was, but I know that just because I don't crave couplehood with him it doesn't mean we can't be cool with one another. I don't want him to take it that fucking hard, anyhow. I don't need more males in the 03 shit-talking about what a heartless bitch I am, thanks.
He says he's been having a difficult time, and that he didn't mean to ignore me or brush me off, and that he is trying to understand. We talk a little, and everything is swell, and I have a feeling that we may be walking towards an Oslo of sorts, a calm return to friendship with the open option of sporadic sexual encounters on the horizon, until it comes.
"So guess who I ran into?" he says.
"Benny Sela?" I venture. "I hear he's been trolling around our parts."
"No," he says slowly. "I ran into your ex."
"Who cares?" I scan my nails for any visible polish chips while praying for the subject to magically change.
"Well, he came up to me and we had a little talk..."
I already know I am about to get pissed off. The question is, to what degree?
"And...?" I milk him.
"And he said I've wronged him, and that it's not cool. He made faces at me, you know. Said he would have acted differently."
"Really?! You don't say...How have you wronged him, exactly?"
"He says I should have...checked with him first."
At this point, not only am I extremely pissed at The Evil One, who has poked his pathetic head into my world again in the form of a social cockblock, but also at this poor, wretched fellow, for being passive enough to go along with this guilt circus. He is losing cred with me, and fast.
"REALLY! Wow. I feel like stock at a cattle show! It's been a fucking year, so I don't know where he gets the nerve to come up with this melodrama bullshit. Like you or anyone else need his permission for anything...You're not even that close as far as casual friends go!"
I am enraged.
"I know."
"So why didn't you tell him to just fuck off?" I wonder aloud.
"Because he made me feel weird. He was, you know, making faces."
"Yes, you've already mentioned that. Anyway, he's a dick. I'm sorry you had to put up with his hallucinatory aggro bullshit. Talk to me if you wanna do something over the weekend."
And with that, I hung up, suddenly understanding a whole fucking lot.
And I already have a feeling he won't call, because he is a coward.
God, just when I begin to think that maybe Matan has cooled off and perhaps had managed to get over that evolutionary hurdle to becoming a true man, he proves me oh-so-wrong. Just when I thought maybe sometime in the near future we can be chill with each other again, instead of just plain chilly, he flashes the grand neon "IDIOT" sign again. Way to go, asshole.
I wonder just how much sex I am being denied because of his big mouth and apparent concern for the ever-flimsy Male Code.
Which is just as well, considering the fact that my time with The Clarinet Player also taught me a few things about what I need, thanks to the process of elimination. While the sex with him was great, there were a few things that I had become accustomed to in these past few months, that were thrown out the window with The Clarinet Player.
The sex was very much Vanilla, and any straying on my part led to a shocked expression on his face, in the least. And so, when I disrobed in front of him one afternoon and sweetly instructed him to get down on his knees and eat me out, his reply was the kind that Baby doesn't like to hear from the boys.
And to top it all off, he suggested that instead, I do him the favor.
Honestly, men...Come on. Sex should never be an act where you're keeping tabs and scores. It isn't your bank balance. And nothing turns me off more than this attitude, or in general, displaying lack of sincere love and respect for the regal pussy, the very core of the fucking fields in which we flower.
As I put my clothes back on, I thought of R., who would get down on his knees without question. Now here was a fellow that had respect for the feminine abyss in all its glory. And he was better at spoiling it silly, anyhow.
And, true, with him I had achieved an outlet for exploring some more aggressive sides of myself, something that dear old Matan could never handle, by the way. I found myself missing him, at least where sex was concerned.
So after a week of waiting to hear a cry of manly affirmation from The Clarinet Player, or any evidence that would be contrary to his being a total chickenshit, I found myself knocking on R.'s door. As luck would have it, I was wearing boots, a known soft-spot.
If before I had simply enjoyed the overall vibe of dominance, now I had more motive to actually kick it into full gear. I guess Joni Mitchell was right about not knowing what you've got until it's gone, or until you find yourself engaging in highly standard, conservative sex. It also helped me realize that the mental block I had encountered with R. thus far, of his niceness getting in the way of me fullfilling the nasty with him, had quickly dissolved.
All it took was one band geek, and I am soaring.
Not that I was or am looking for THE IT, as in Princess Bride-esque love or what have you, but more an animalistic it, a raw, chemical it, the kind of it that would lead me to call in sick to the office in order to spend more time between the sheets.
Yeah, this definitely wasn't it.
It was a darling tumble in the hay, as far as these go, because the sex was excellent and there was a very instinctual attraction. But it was like looking at an emptied candy wrapper. I had already marked the metaphoric "V" on the fantasy, and it left me content, but not addicted.
As he was still sleeping, I was thinking how to either elegantly break it off, or even better, keep him around on a low-presence basis. After all, neither of us had expressed explicit interest in a meaningful or even exclusive relationship.
Of course, when he woke up and I dangled this topic in front of him, all emo hell broke loose.
"Is that what it's about? You want to sleep with other people?" he asked, seemingly appalled.
I myself was squeamish, for the words "other people" when coined together in this manner, seemed to be an entry-level indication of a fledgeling relationship.
Oops, I did it again.
Hand me the aspirin, because this will leave me with a headache.
"That's not what I just said."
And it really wasn't.
I had simply made it clear that I was well on my way to celebrating a year of independence after finally ridding myself completely of what may turn out to be the prototype for the worst boyfriend ever, and that I was happy this way - on my own and at large.
As for exclusivity, we had never discussed it, so why would he expect it?
Fast forward to a week and some after the incident, and he is offended and backing away, brushing me off. I have enough people I regularly ignore in my life, I thought to myself, and picked up the phone to text him and make amends. Eran said that in this situation, much like with a frightened puppy, an SMS may be a safer choice than an actual phonecall.
Another brush-off, even when I text him in Hungarian(don't even ask). My efforts go unrewarded, until finally, this week, he rings me.
I don't know what the hell happened with us, whatever "us" was, but I know that just because I don't crave couplehood with him it doesn't mean we can't be cool with one another. I don't want him to take it that fucking hard, anyhow. I don't need more males in the 03 shit-talking about what a heartless bitch I am, thanks.
He says he's been having a difficult time, and that he didn't mean to ignore me or brush me off, and that he is trying to understand. We talk a little, and everything is swell, and I have a feeling that we may be walking towards an Oslo of sorts, a calm return to friendship with the open option of sporadic sexual encounters on the horizon, until it comes.
"So guess who I ran into?" he says.
"Benny Sela?" I venture. "I hear he's been trolling around our parts."
"No," he says slowly. "I ran into your ex."
"Who cares?" I scan my nails for any visible polish chips while praying for the subject to magically change.
"Well, he came up to me and we had a little talk..."
I already know I am about to get pissed off. The question is, to what degree?
"And...?" I milk him.
"And he said I've wronged him, and that it's not cool. He made faces at me, you know. Said he would have acted differently."
"Really?! You don't say...How have you wronged him, exactly?"
"He says I should have...checked with him first."
At this point, not only am I extremely pissed at The Evil One, who has poked his pathetic head into my world again in the form of a social cockblock, but also at this poor, wretched fellow, for being passive enough to go along with this guilt circus. He is losing cred with me, and fast.
"REALLY! Wow. I feel like stock at a cattle show! It's been a fucking year, so I don't know where he gets the nerve to come up with this melodrama bullshit. Like you or anyone else need his permission for anything...You're not even that close as far as casual friends go!"
I am enraged.
"I know."
"So why didn't you tell him to just fuck off?" I wonder aloud.
"Because he made me feel weird. He was, you know, making faces."
"Yes, you've already mentioned that. Anyway, he's a dick. I'm sorry you had to put up with his hallucinatory aggro bullshit. Talk to me if you wanna do something over the weekend."
And with that, I hung up, suddenly understanding a whole fucking lot.
And I already have a feeling he won't call, because he is a coward.
God, just when I begin to think that maybe Matan has cooled off and perhaps had managed to get over that evolutionary hurdle to becoming a true man, he proves me oh-so-wrong. Just when I thought maybe sometime in the near future we can be chill with each other again, instead of just plain chilly, he flashes the grand neon "IDIOT" sign again. Way to go, asshole.
I wonder just how much sex I am being denied because of his big mouth and apparent concern for the ever-flimsy Male Code.
Which is just as well, considering the fact that my time with The Clarinet Player also taught me a few things about what I need, thanks to the process of elimination. While the sex with him was great, there were a few things that I had become accustomed to in these past few months, that were thrown out the window with The Clarinet Player.
The sex was very much Vanilla, and any straying on my part led to a shocked expression on his face, in the least. And so, when I disrobed in front of him one afternoon and sweetly instructed him to get down on his knees and eat me out, his reply was the kind that Baby doesn't like to hear from the boys.
And to top it all off, he suggested that instead, I do him the favor.
Honestly, men...Come on. Sex should never be an act where you're keeping tabs and scores. It isn't your bank balance. And nothing turns me off more than this attitude, or in general, displaying lack of sincere love and respect for the regal pussy, the very core of the fucking fields in which we flower.
As I put my clothes back on, I thought of R., who would get down on his knees without question. Now here was a fellow that had respect for the feminine abyss in all its glory. And he was better at spoiling it silly, anyhow.
And, true, with him I had achieved an outlet for exploring some more aggressive sides of myself, something that dear old Matan could never handle, by the way. I found myself missing him, at least where sex was concerned.
So after a week of waiting to hear a cry of manly affirmation from The Clarinet Player, or any evidence that would be contrary to his being a total chickenshit, I found myself knocking on R.'s door. As luck would have it, I was wearing boots, a known soft-spot.
If before I had simply enjoyed the overall vibe of dominance, now I had more motive to actually kick it into full gear. I guess Joni Mitchell was right about not knowing what you've got until it's gone, or until you find yourself engaging in highly standard, conservative sex. It also helped me realize that the mental block I had encountered with R. thus far, of his niceness getting in the way of me fullfilling the nasty with him, had quickly dissolved.
All it took was one band geek, and I am soaring.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Of Mermaids & Malignancy
It has been a hopeless week I am climbing out of. I am still dripping wet with panic, but I am beginning to see a little bit of what people like to call the light at the end of the tunnel.
I am trying very hard to be an optimist, even though this tunnel is fucking never-ending. For over two decades I have been scratching at the surface. Like trying to dig out an escape route from prison using a miniature teaspoon. I don’t understand how people can tell me I have a pessimistic outlook on life when after so many years of disappointment and humiliation I am still here, fighting on, wasting ammunition on a battle where the outcome is never clear.
I am probably the most fucking optimistic person you have ever met.
The first sign to quit, after all, came pressing rather early, in kindergarten. But tumors get removed, and you limp on and re-learn your walk. The first time I understood that this might not be the world for me, it was when I was five or six and I realized, at last, that mermaids, unicorns and centaurs don’t really exist.
Ever since then, I’ve been trying to bring them back to life.
Maybe if we lump together enough tumors cut out from elastic flesh, we could make a mermaid.
They just wont leave you alone in this place. They will mark you with ballpoint pens, ripe for the cutting.
It may sound rotten, but when I was ten, I wasn’t concerned with the future, simply because I assumed the world would crumble to bits by then.
I am quite surprised, frankly, that we are all still here.
I wish we could talk, even though old lovers are of no use to me. What could you possibly say when you understand absolutely nothing?
I am trying to piece things back into form. Trying to heal this sickness, to scrub everything clean. I have even seriously considered quitting smoking. I like entertaining that idea, until the thoughts of my dwindling funds and nauseating duties to society pull me back to my usual pack-a-day habit. I have quit buying smokes, though. My room once more smells like it did in middle school, before I picked up the charming habit.
I wish it was still possible to build a tent from blankets and pillows to hide in. To build a fortress in my bed. It's funny how as beds get bigger, the options become smaller and smaller.
The morning news warns of an upcoming Big Bad, as a result of naughty play in Gaza. I almost can’t wait for the next war, Summer Session 2007. Carnage and carnations. Husky Eyes will be visiting soon. He may not be the most reasonable man, to come here, true, but if there is to be a war, I find nothing more fitting than for us to be sleeping together like we did during the last war.
Sex and war...It’s a little bit like asphyxiation and orgasms. When men feel that close to their final demise, to THE END, they come like they know this is their last chance, their greatest exit. Like they have to somehow push and live on through a wheezing, coughing climax, going into premature rigor mortis, cock-first.
Sex and war, liebe und anarchie. Kisses and katyushas, missiles and moans. That was summer, and I wasn’t even in the war zone for the better part of it all.
But even at a safe distance, it made me live intensely.
Now, in a time of national post-war coma and relative quiet(we are still at the gates of hell, its on every map) I am sporting a mysterious 38 fever that comes and goes, a guilt complex the size of the Vatican, and a long list of casualties.
No mermaids here.
It’s all a matter of trades and barters. Paralysis for action, panic for temporary love, silence for laughter because you’ve got naught better to do.
I am trying very hard to be an optimist, even though this tunnel is fucking never-ending. For over two decades I have been scratching at the surface. Like trying to dig out an escape route from prison using a miniature teaspoon. I don’t understand how people can tell me I have a pessimistic outlook on life when after so many years of disappointment and humiliation I am still here, fighting on, wasting ammunition on a battle where the outcome is never clear.
I am probably the most fucking optimistic person you have ever met.
The first sign to quit, after all, came pressing rather early, in kindergarten. But tumors get removed, and you limp on and re-learn your walk. The first time I understood that this might not be the world for me, it was when I was five or six and I realized, at last, that mermaids, unicorns and centaurs don’t really exist.
Ever since then, I’ve been trying to bring them back to life.
Maybe if we lump together enough tumors cut out from elastic flesh, we could make a mermaid.
They just wont leave you alone in this place. They will mark you with ballpoint pens, ripe for the cutting.
It may sound rotten, but when I was ten, I wasn’t concerned with the future, simply because I assumed the world would crumble to bits by then.
I am quite surprised, frankly, that we are all still here.
I wish we could talk, even though old lovers are of no use to me. What could you possibly say when you understand absolutely nothing?
I am trying to piece things back into form. Trying to heal this sickness, to scrub everything clean. I have even seriously considered quitting smoking. I like entertaining that idea, until the thoughts of my dwindling funds and nauseating duties to society pull me back to my usual pack-a-day habit. I have quit buying smokes, though. My room once more smells like it did in middle school, before I picked up the charming habit.
I wish it was still possible to build a tent from blankets and pillows to hide in. To build a fortress in my bed. It's funny how as beds get bigger, the options become smaller and smaller.
The morning news warns of an upcoming Big Bad, as a result of naughty play in Gaza. I almost can’t wait for the next war, Summer Session 2007. Carnage and carnations. Husky Eyes will be visiting soon. He may not be the most reasonable man, to come here, true, but if there is to be a war, I find nothing more fitting than for us to be sleeping together like we did during the last war.
Sex and war...It’s a little bit like asphyxiation and orgasms. When men feel that close to their final demise, to THE END, they come like they know this is their last chance, their greatest exit. Like they have to somehow push and live on through a wheezing, coughing climax, going into premature rigor mortis, cock-first.
Sex and war, liebe und anarchie. Kisses and katyushas, missiles and moans. That was summer, and I wasn’t even in the war zone for the better part of it all.
But even at a safe distance, it made me live intensely.
Now, in a time of national post-war coma and relative quiet(we are still at the gates of hell, its on every map) I am sporting a mysterious 38 fever that comes and goes, a guilt complex the size of the Vatican, and a long list of casualties.
No mermaids here.
It’s all a matter of trades and barters. Paralysis for action, panic for temporary love, silence for laughter because you’ve got naught better to do.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Oh My God, It's a Greek Tragedy!
Something green and blue is glittering at me from the sidewalk. I kneel down in order to peer, half in love with it already, only to discover to my horror that the regal glow belongs to a dead bird, one of those painfully beautiful ones with the metallic feathers.
When I was little I used to see them swoop by flowers, maybe they were getting their nectar jones out then, I don’t know. I used to have this craving to sneak up on them in order to see them from close up, but they being birds, were smart enough to flee before I ever had the chance.
Now, here was my big day. The poor thing was fucking glued straight to the pavement, as if it had tried to smash directly through it. The metallic green and blue feathers and sleek black beak were laced with little droplets of blood, and I was reminded of my nail polish bottles.
The bugs hadn’t yet gotten to the now-expired specimen, clearly. Must have not been dead for long. I looked and looked until finally I sighed loudly, stating mainly to myself that this was a sad, sad day.
No one gives a shit about a dead pigeon, but this...This was the goddamn pageant queen of birds, not that I knew it by name.
Beautiful things have no staying power.
For some reason this makes me think of The Clarinet Player and the sad, beautiful music he makes. Such hard work it makes his teeth shift in their place, he says. He has the most beautiful hands I have ever seen on a man, with crescent shaped white parts and everything. Smooth, without a ridge. Some women would be quite envious.
The saddest thing is I know we will never work out.
All signs point to yes, but my intuition is screaming no.
Our first big night out, I convince him to skip out on picking up his elderly father from the airport. "Come spend the night with me instead," I say. "Let him take a cab."
I sometimes don’t know if I say things because I really want them to happen, or I am simply checking just how far certain individuals are willing to go for me.
Wait, that’s not entirely true in this case. I want to go home with him. Not to any particular home, really, it’s more of a conceptual thing. I want to fuck like crazy. With him, yes. I don’t know if I could ever explain it, but with some people I just feel this insane, almost animal chemical compatibility, like all my systems are sounding off, MATE IMMEDIATELY. It all boils down to our immune systems and genetic baggage and what his genes have to offer mine, I know, but it’s in the goddamn air.
I convince him quite easily, obviously.
4 AM and in the arrivals terminal at Ben Gurion, a stranger landing from Budapest has to hitch a taxi home because I am holding his son captive.
A few nights afterwards, I sweep him home to my place. I was out earlier, with Little T., who handed me a see-through rock. We were doing lines in public bathrooms and plowing the city with jittery teeth.
He is so sweet, so simple, so pure. Much like the rock I slid into my Cover Girl compact. I don’t use foundation or powders, so it only seemed natural to dump out the original contents of the package and turn it into an easy, breezy parcel for the occasional lump, bud, rock, stamp, powder or pill. Inside I glued a picture from Coney Island, circa 1949. Post-war optimism. The New Look. Coiffed hairdos. A group of people is on an amusement ride of some kind. The women are throwing their hands upwards in exhilaration. Whee! What a fitting image for all that this compact has been through. On the other side, there is the mirror that came with it, adhered to the interior. $2.89 at Rite-Aid, somewhere in Maryland. Cheap thrills.
I am driving in a progressive state of lockjaw. I pick him up even though I suppose I shouldn’t even be driving. We are seated on my bed, and I dig out the compact from my purse.
No one ever says, hey baby, I’m bored and you seem sweet, wanna get lost?
Instead I crush the rock with my Wells Fargo card and offer him a neat line. It’s a little bit like in elementary school, where there are those kids who will go along with nearly anything you pitch them. It’s how we convinced Arthur to accompany us through the woods to the Hook Graveyard in fifth grade, even though he was an only child and was to be grounded for life.
It's how Nash and I always played hooky in summer camp and pocketed silver nail polish and went to smoke in the woods, and Molly was the tag-along. Elaborate plans require scapegoats. People will do almost anything to be accepted. I feel kinda bad thinking all of this about him, but no one makes choices for you. It all boils down to what kind of person you are.
He is nervous and excited, in this adorable way.
What’s it like? He asks. I mean, what does it do to you?
Not a fucking thing, it's what you do to you.
I give a quick presentation on the difference between uppers and downers. In case anything screws up too badly, I am armed with Diazepam, to knock us out for a bit. I shouldn’t be here doing lines with the classical clarinet player, I should be trying to land a new job. I am too smart to wait tables, indicates common Ashkenazi logic. I shouldn’t be out corrupting innocents, I should get my ass back to University and hurry the bloody fuck up with getting a real degree.
I shouldn’t be here with someone who I can already tell is pretty much infatuated with me, when I can’t feel anything for them. I am haunted by thoughts that have nothing to do with me. I am thinking of a difference in class, in upbringing, in our histories. How different we are, how I was raised by bigots and elitists to believe that I am much better than he is. How different we are, and yet here we are doing the exact same thing.
It’s my fault, I know.
We stay up for two days, talking. We only leave the bed for the occasional trip to the washroom, to splash our faces with water, or to the kitchen, to bring some tea. A big pot of tea reminds me of Husky Eyes and Berlin and talking to Claudi until I fell asleep.
He can’t stop talking; he is on the upper wave. He weaves his entire family history spanning four generations back, and this is the most fascinating stuff I’ve ever heard. World Wars, the Holocaust, gypsies, affairs, alcoholism, deception and trickery, insanity and uprooting. It’s like an Amir Kostariza movie, and I tell him I think he should write it all down.
It saddens me to think that he comes from all this. But the most interesting stories are usually the painful ones. Eventually we are coming down, and we fuck. It’s the first time I drag him past the hurdle that always seemed to exist there, Shiri. He emerges with his back marked almost entirely by my nails, little pink half-moons turning dark red as the minutes drag on. I had clawed at him. When it was all over, he was panting so hard it sounded almost like muffled weeping.
Afterwards, he finally crumpled into sleep, but my body was still reeling from the lines. Try as I did I couldn’t fall asleep. My hear rate was shot. I could hear the pulsating beats inside my head, right above my eyes. I tossed and turned and tried to find things to think about in order to avoid thinking of other things.
I am thinking of how Husky Eyes bought a ticket to Israel and how he will be here in a month. I’m thinking of what misconceptions he probably has regarding me and what went on between us. I am thinking of the clarinet player sleeping next to me, in love and unaware. I am thinking of how my grandmother is in the hospital and the doctors can’t seem to pinpoint what’s wrong. I am thinking of how I don’t have cash for gas or parking at the hospital, and how she must feel like she is rotting away and no one gives a shit. No one is coming to visit, and I am a shitty grandchild. I am thinking of how I just got fired, so any thought of leaving my second job at Café Hell is now moot. The things we do for money.
I am also thinking of R. and how I pretty much disappeared on him. Not that I owe him any explanations, really. It’s just that he was so kind to me and withstood a massive amount of unnecessary bullshit on my part. And more than that, worst than that, I miss him, even if only in the most physical of ways.
I never know what I want. And I didn’t know that there was so much to take that I didn’t, until I tried to take the same things from The Clarinet Player, only to encounter a naïve wall of resistance.
When I was little I used to see them swoop by flowers, maybe they were getting their nectar jones out then, I don’t know. I used to have this craving to sneak up on them in order to see them from close up, but they being birds, were smart enough to flee before I ever had the chance.
Now, here was my big day. The poor thing was fucking glued straight to the pavement, as if it had tried to smash directly through it. The metallic green and blue feathers and sleek black beak were laced with little droplets of blood, and I was reminded of my nail polish bottles.
The bugs hadn’t yet gotten to the now-expired specimen, clearly. Must have not been dead for long. I looked and looked until finally I sighed loudly, stating mainly to myself that this was a sad, sad day.
No one gives a shit about a dead pigeon, but this...This was the goddamn pageant queen of birds, not that I knew it by name.
Beautiful things have no staying power.
For some reason this makes me think of The Clarinet Player and the sad, beautiful music he makes. Such hard work it makes his teeth shift in their place, he says. He has the most beautiful hands I have ever seen on a man, with crescent shaped white parts and everything. Smooth, without a ridge. Some women would be quite envious.
The saddest thing is I know we will never work out.
All signs point to yes, but my intuition is screaming no.
Our first big night out, I convince him to skip out on picking up his elderly father from the airport. "Come spend the night with me instead," I say. "Let him take a cab."
I sometimes don’t know if I say things because I really want them to happen, or I am simply checking just how far certain individuals are willing to go for me.
Wait, that’s not entirely true in this case. I want to go home with him. Not to any particular home, really, it’s more of a conceptual thing. I want to fuck like crazy. With him, yes. I don’t know if I could ever explain it, but with some people I just feel this insane, almost animal chemical compatibility, like all my systems are sounding off, MATE IMMEDIATELY. It all boils down to our immune systems and genetic baggage and what his genes have to offer mine, I know, but it’s in the goddamn air.
I convince him quite easily, obviously.
4 AM and in the arrivals terminal at Ben Gurion, a stranger landing from Budapest has to hitch a taxi home because I am holding his son captive.
A few nights afterwards, I sweep him home to my place. I was out earlier, with Little T., who handed me a see-through rock. We were doing lines in public bathrooms and plowing the city with jittery teeth.
He is so sweet, so simple, so pure. Much like the rock I slid into my Cover Girl compact. I don’t use foundation or powders, so it only seemed natural to dump out the original contents of the package and turn it into an easy, breezy parcel for the occasional lump, bud, rock, stamp, powder or pill. Inside I glued a picture from Coney Island, circa 1949. Post-war optimism. The New Look. Coiffed hairdos. A group of people is on an amusement ride of some kind. The women are throwing their hands upwards in exhilaration. Whee! What a fitting image for all that this compact has been through. On the other side, there is the mirror that came with it, adhered to the interior. $2.89 at Rite-Aid, somewhere in Maryland. Cheap thrills.
I am driving in a progressive state of lockjaw. I pick him up even though I suppose I shouldn’t even be driving. We are seated on my bed, and I dig out the compact from my purse.
No one ever says, hey baby, I’m bored and you seem sweet, wanna get lost?
Instead I crush the rock with my Wells Fargo card and offer him a neat line. It’s a little bit like in elementary school, where there are those kids who will go along with nearly anything you pitch them. It’s how we convinced Arthur to accompany us through the woods to the Hook Graveyard in fifth grade, even though he was an only child and was to be grounded for life.
It's how Nash and I always played hooky in summer camp and pocketed silver nail polish and went to smoke in the woods, and Molly was the tag-along. Elaborate plans require scapegoats. People will do almost anything to be accepted. I feel kinda bad thinking all of this about him, but no one makes choices for you. It all boils down to what kind of person you are.
He is nervous and excited, in this adorable way.
What’s it like? He asks. I mean, what does it do to you?
Not a fucking thing, it's what you do to you.
I give a quick presentation on the difference between uppers and downers. In case anything screws up too badly, I am armed with Diazepam, to knock us out for a bit. I shouldn’t be here doing lines with the classical clarinet player, I should be trying to land a new job. I am too smart to wait tables, indicates common Ashkenazi logic. I shouldn’t be out corrupting innocents, I should get my ass back to University and hurry the bloody fuck up with getting a real degree.
I shouldn’t be here with someone who I can already tell is pretty much infatuated with me, when I can’t feel anything for them. I am haunted by thoughts that have nothing to do with me. I am thinking of a difference in class, in upbringing, in our histories. How different we are, how I was raised by bigots and elitists to believe that I am much better than he is. How different we are, and yet here we are doing the exact same thing.
It’s my fault, I know.
We stay up for two days, talking. We only leave the bed for the occasional trip to the washroom, to splash our faces with water, or to the kitchen, to bring some tea. A big pot of tea reminds me of Husky Eyes and Berlin and talking to Claudi until I fell asleep.
He can’t stop talking; he is on the upper wave. He weaves his entire family history spanning four generations back, and this is the most fascinating stuff I’ve ever heard. World Wars, the Holocaust, gypsies, affairs, alcoholism, deception and trickery, insanity and uprooting. It’s like an Amir Kostariza movie, and I tell him I think he should write it all down.
It saddens me to think that he comes from all this. But the most interesting stories are usually the painful ones. Eventually we are coming down, and we fuck. It’s the first time I drag him past the hurdle that always seemed to exist there, Shiri. He emerges with his back marked almost entirely by my nails, little pink half-moons turning dark red as the minutes drag on. I had clawed at him. When it was all over, he was panting so hard it sounded almost like muffled weeping.
Afterwards, he finally crumpled into sleep, but my body was still reeling from the lines. Try as I did I couldn’t fall asleep. My hear rate was shot. I could hear the pulsating beats inside my head, right above my eyes. I tossed and turned and tried to find things to think about in order to avoid thinking of other things.
I am thinking of how Husky Eyes bought a ticket to Israel and how he will be here in a month. I’m thinking of what misconceptions he probably has regarding me and what went on between us. I am thinking of the clarinet player sleeping next to me, in love and unaware. I am thinking of how my grandmother is in the hospital and the doctors can’t seem to pinpoint what’s wrong. I am thinking of how I don’t have cash for gas or parking at the hospital, and how she must feel like she is rotting away and no one gives a shit. No one is coming to visit, and I am a shitty grandchild. I am thinking of how I just got fired, so any thought of leaving my second job at Café Hell is now moot. The things we do for money.
I am also thinking of R. and how I pretty much disappeared on him. Not that I owe him any explanations, really. It’s just that he was so kind to me and withstood a massive amount of unnecessary bullshit on my part. And more than that, worst than that, I miss him, even if only in the most physical of ways.
I never know what I want. And I didn’t know that there was so much to take that I didn’t, until I tried to take the same things from The Clarinet Player, only to encounter a naïve wall of resistance.
Monday, December 4, 2006
Breaking Point
It is a Tuesday and my knees are at breaking point. This is the most desperate I have ever felt, I think. Every time I feel the stinging pleas of my body to quit, to tell these poor, pitiful wankers to go fuck themselves while standing straight, I swallow hard(my pride, my pride) and force myself to think of situations where people had shit lined up much harder than I ever will. Say, the Holocaust.
Think of the showers. When you are about to cry tonight, in your own steamy washroom, rubbing your skin raw with a cloth until you nearly bleed, trying to cleanse yourself of this awful mess, think of the showers. Think of creaking sounds and the echoes of voices about to die. Think of the gas. Think of people stronger than you throwing themselves against the electric fences just to get the hell out of the game.
I would have definitely been one of those. There are just some people, you can tell. D., he is young and resourceful. Not the kind who would toss himself against any fence, electric or otherwise. Me, I am weak. I want to throw myself in front of a moving vehicle. But not really, right? Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here telling you all of this. I wouldn’t be here trying to remedy everything in the first place.
I don’t know what I want. It is a sad truth. Das Uberdog makes me scrub the patio chairs with bleach. Before assigning me this most important of tasks, he hands me a pair of latex gloves. To protect my hands. I don’t know if he is genuinely concerned about my tender digits or if this is just another one of his ways of mocking what he assumes to be my thus-far sheltered and spoiled existence.
Because he saw me wash the floors with rags, bent over like a scarecrow. Of course, as soon as I was done he proceeded to stomp all over the tiles. Black and brown with sooty mud and footprints, a size 43 like. Jurassic fucking Park, you know the kind.
Either way, the gloves he has given me are a few sizes too big and the bleach seeps in and gnaws at my nailbeds.
The look on my face must have said it all. Like I am counting the footprints.
You don’t mind doing it over, do you?
I lie through my teeth, like I do every night in this hologram of hell, even though there isn’t even a need for my lies. I would have to do it anyhow. No choice, no words, no liberty. No more porcelain life, as he calls it.
I don’t know what I want. You already know that.
I am waiting for my shift to end, for this brutal raping of my soul to slow down, and then finally cease. I am going to a show at a nearby club. I feel fifteen all over again. Not the fun parts of fifteen, either.
I invited the other employees at the café to come along, only I am thankful for their polite declines, since I hate them all anyway. I didn’t want them with me so much as I didn’t want to be alone. Cross that, maybe all I ever want to do is to be alone these days. I am going to see Brainville, but first I am going to transcend back in the evolutionary stages of me and go play band-girlfriend for The Clarinet Player. What the fuck, fuck, fuck am I doing.
He meets me outside. In the minutes it takes him to walk towards me I scan the crowd seated outside, disappointed to discover I recognize a long list of faces. He greets me with a kiss and I can feel people staring at me. People like The Solemn Drummer, who is probably fucking sick of seeing me make brief and painful cameos in his social circle, dating around like a vampire preying on his band mates as the years scratch along. I’m perfectly fine with that. I’m equally sick of seeing his oh-tormented-me crushed puppy look. There is the nationality factor kicking in, the fact that I don’t speak this language you have, but I understand enough of the mannerisms to know when an outsider is an outsider.
He says I’m silly because we are all outsiders here, and he is ten-fold the outsider because he is not even really of Russian descent. "Yes," I know, I say, "you’re a hick Hungarian. "
Feuding led to borders we set up in neat and orderly maps, and then wars led to crude redistribution. And people like you and yours were left stranded without clearly outlined roots, left to hang on newly drafted lines and names and treaties. Its okay, I don’t know what I am, either. I just don’t want to hang out here at night with my hands in pockets I don’t have because I am wearing a skirt and feeling quite fucking naked. I don’t care about identity, it is preconceptions I am wrapped around.
Whatever. I collect my guest pass and proceed along with the thirsty herd into the venue. I haven’t been here since...Ah yes, the previous boyfriend and his circus ego show. So you pick up a guitar and you think you can fuck like a god, do you? I suppose that even if you replace the guitar with a clarinet, it is still the same complex hiding underneath the floorboards, when the stage empties.
Whatever. I told you.
I watch the show. I watch people watching me. I watch guys who open their mouths to say things to me but I guess the expression I tend to wear after exiting a shift at the café causes the Pariah alarm to ring off in their heads like a blow to the balls, just in time for reason to kick in. Don’t talk to me. I don’t like anyone. This is a result of having liked everyone for much too long. This expression of lifelessness, with violence at the very core. Much like how something can hurt you long after it is dead. Much like memories of injuries and long lists of allergies and things you happen to hate. This expression, like a whore after a particularly busy day at the brothel.
My lips are burnt. It feels like the time I smoked crack with Narco Polo. near the old Central Station. I am a descendent of the Breslau clan, an Uber-Heeb, the offspring of courthouse heroes and enough MDs to operate a full-scale hospital, but I was spinning off crack in a beat-up car outside the lowest place in all of this wretched city. With a heroin addict. Did I mention that?
Anyway, this is real life, not the rerun. Right now I am in the Zappa, fetching a beer to calm my chapped lips. I suppose I just bit them too hard throughout the day, when I was trying not to disclose to customers just how much I fucking loathe them.
He told me to come to the backstage after the show. To the left of the stage, he said, like I hadn’t been here a million fucking times. I don’t go. In fact, I plant my feet firmly where I’ve been standing the whole time, in order to watch the main event. I don’t know who this supposed super-group is, I’m really far removed from anything relating to Sixties psychodelia, no matter how much acid I’ve shoved down.
I just don’t want to go backstage, to see people and talk and be offered a joint and attention I won't give a shit about.
The super-group takes the stage with British accents and senior citizen looks. A few lines into the second number, I am having the closest I have ever experienced to an acid flashback. Or maybe this is a panic attack.
Someone is giving me gummy worms. I am fifteen. Fifteen! I have yet to meet all the people who will have ruined my life. The love of my life left for a sunny state and I think things will be alright if only he would hurry the fuck up and come back to me already. A heartrate off the charts and an array of pretty colors.
Things change, people change.
The singer is bellowing, Who’s afraid of sex?
Probably not me, judging by the way I’ve been indulging.
Who’s afraid of the dark? Who’s afraid of dogs? Who’s afraid of food? Who’s afraid of looking stupid?
We all look fucking stupid, and I am quite afraid of everything.
Think of the showers. When you are about to cry tonight, in your own steamy washroom, rubbing your skin raw with a cloth until you nearly bleed, trying to cleanse yourself of this awful mess, think of the showers. Think of creaking sounds and the echoes of voices about to die. Think of the gas. Think of people stronger than you throwing themselves against the electric fences just to get the hell out of the game.
I would have definitely been one of those. There are just some people, you can tell. D., he is young and resourceful. Not the kind who would toss himself against any fence, electric or otherwise. Me, I am weak. I want to throw myself in front of a moving vehicle. But not really, right? Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here telling you all of this. I wouldn’t be here trying to remedy everything in the first place.
I don’t know what I want. It is a sad truth. Das Uberdog makes me scrub the patio chairs with bleach. Before assigning me this most important of tasks, he hands me a pair of latex gloves. To protect my hands. I don’t know if he is genuinely concerned about my tender digits or if this is just another one of his ways of mocking what he assumes to be my thus-far sheltered and spoiled existence.
Because he saw me wash the floors with rags, bent over like a scarecrow. Of course, as soon as I was done he proceeded to stomp all over the tiles. Black and brown with sooty mud and footprints, a size 43 like. Jurassic fucking Park, you know the kind.
Either way, the gloves he has given me are a few sizes too big and the bleach seeps in and gnaws at my nailbeds.
The look on my face must have said it all. Like I am counting the footprints.
You don’t mind doing it over, do you?
I lie through my teeth, like I do every night in this hologram of hell, even though there isn’t even a need for my lies. I would have to do it anyhow. No choice, no words, no liberty. No more porcelain life, as he calls it.
I don’t know what I want. You already know that.
I am waiting for my shift to end, for this brutal raping of my soul to slow down, and then finally cease. I am going to a show at a nearby club. I feel fifteen all over again. Not the fun parts of fifteen, either.
I invited the other employees at the café to come along, only I am thankful for their polite declines, since I hate them all anyway. I didn’t want them with me so much as I didn’t want to be alone. Cross that, maybe all I ever want to do is to be alone these days. I am going to see Brainville, but first I am going to transcend back in the evolutionary stages of me and go play band-girlfriend for The Clarinet Player. What the fuck, fuck, fuck am I doing.
He meets me outside. In the minutes it takes him to walk towards me I scan the crowd seated outside, disappointed to discover I recognize a long list of faces. He greets me with a kiss and I can feel people staring at me. People like The Solemn Drummer, who is probably fucking sick of seeing me make brief and painful cameos in his social circle, dating around like a vampire preying on his band mates as the years scratch along. I’m perfectly fine with that. I’m equally sick of seeing his oh-tormented-me crushed puppy look. There is the nationality factor kicking in, the fact that I don’t speak this language you have, but I understand enough of the mannerisms to know when an outsider is an outsider.
He says I’m silly because we are all outsiders here, and he is ten-fold the outsider because he is not even really of Russian descent. "Yes," I know, I say, "you’re a hick Hungarian. "
Feuding led to borders we set up in neat and orderly maps, and then wars led to crude redistribution. And people like you and yours were left stranded without clearly outlined roots, left to hang on newly drafted lines and names and treaties. Its okay, I don’t know what I am, either. I just don’t want to hang out here at night with my hands in pockets I don’t have because I am wearing a skirt and feeling quite fucking naked. I don’t care about identity, it is preconceptions I am wrapped around.
Whatever. I collect my guest pass and proceed along with the thirsty herd into the venue. I haven’t been here since...Ah yes, the previous boyfriend and his circus ego show. So you pick up a guitar and you think you can fuck like a god, do you? I suppose that even if you replace the guitar with a clarinet, it is still the same complex hiding underneath the floorboards, when the stage empties.
Whatever. I told you.
I watch the show. I watch people watching me. I watch guys who open their mouths to say things to me but I guess the expression I tend to wear after exiting a shift at the café causes the Pariah alarm to ring off in their heads like a blow to the balls, just in time for reason to kick in. Don’t talk to me. I don’t like anyone. This is a result of having liked everyone for much too long. This expression of lifelessness, with violence at the very core. Much like how something can hurt you long after it is dead. Much like memories of injuries and long lists of allergies and things you happen to hate. This expression, like a whore after a particularly busy day at the brothel.
My lips are burnt. It feels like the time I smoked crack with Narco Polo. near the old Central Station. I am a descendent of the Breslau clan, an Uber-Heeb, the offspring of courthouse heroes and enough MDs to operate a full-scale hospital, but I was spinning off crack in a beat-up car outside the lowest place in all of this wretched city. With a heroin addict. Did I mention that?
Anyway, this is real life, not the rerun. Right now I am in the Zappa, fetching a beer to calm my chapped lips. I suppose I just bit them too hard throughout the day, when I was trying not to disclose to customers just how much I fucking loathe them.
He told me to come to the backstage after the show. To the left of the stage, he said, like I hadn’t been here a million fucking times. I don’t go. In fact, I plant my feet firmly where I’ve been standing the whole time, in order to watch the main event. I don’t know who this supposed super-group is, I’m really far removed from anything relating to Sixties psychodelia, no matter how much acid I’ve shoved down.
I just don’t want to go backstage, to see people and talk and be offered a joint and attention I won't give a shit about.
The super-group takes the stage with British accents and senior citizen looks. A few lines into the second number, I am having the closest I have ever experienced to an acid flashback. Or maybe this is a panic attack.
Someone is giving me gummy worms. I am fifteen. Fifteen! I have yet to meet all the people who will have ruined my life. The love of my life left for a sunny state and I think things will be alright if only he would hurry the fuck up and come back to me already. A heartrate off the charts and an array of pretty colors.
Things change, people change.
The singer is bellowing, Who’s afraid of sex?
Probably not me, judging by the way I’ve been indulging.
Who’s afraid of the dark? Who’s afraid of dogs? Who’s afraid of food? Who’s afraid of looking stupid?
We all look fucking stupid, and I am quite afraid of everything.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Going for the Gold
We have a second date tonight, if this is how it's to be labeled. I hate labels...And our first so-called date was rather impromptou and accidental, anyhow.
Because all I did was sit at home and from out of nowhere he picked me up. It's not like it was scheduled. I never penciled in anything. The Shesek...Oh, why do I do this to myself? He paid. What the fuck does that say? Imported beer.
You all know that moment when you know something is about to happen between you and They. It's not up to definition, really. I just knew when he took my hand and said he is fascinated by my fingers. I am always told I have beautiful hands, I know, I get offers to do hand modeling(previously I had always assumed that this occupation didn't really exist). So fucking what, right?
"I could stretch beyond an octave," was all I could really say, because I'm not good when it comes to accepting compliments.
Just smile and say thank you, dumbass.
The Sweatshop had ruined my once-perfect nails. I feel disfigured but he seems to see things through the Photoshop filter reserved for non-obsessive males.
Oh, to be like him.
I can't.
Anyway, I know that there may be a slight chance that this evening will end up with me straddling him. I just feel it, you know. I remind myself to be a good girl, and that I am often paranoid, so maybe I am just imagining this.
But I wanted to jump his bones when I was seventeen, I can't help it.
Why are we here, really? We've been friends for some years, via the on and off route. But I don't think we've gone out for a drink together since the last century.
I don't pull back my hand.Instead, I am wondering when they'll kick us out of here.
They finally do, at around 6:30 AM.
We float out into the sunshine.
"I don't feel like going home," he says.
"Neither do I."
"You..."
"Well, I hope you're not thinking of going to an after, because I'm positively wrecked."
I know it's coming, but it's so me to fuck with his mind a little.
"No, I was thinking of something a little less grand," he finally says.
I really hope he's not about to suggest something disgustingly shmaltzy such as going for a walk on the beach. I hate the sand and I'm wearing really nice shoes.
The kiss goes off like a firing squad. I've had really fantasic lays in my ten months of renewed singledom, but no one has kissed me like that.
You're imagining, I tell myself, but it keeps getting clearer and clearer.
I see Shiri's face, inhaling a Marlboro 100 and telling me what a killer fuck he is. We were fifteen, maybe. What the fuck did we know.
She had woken up from a dream screaming that she loves him. They'd never met before.
Life is so...Fuck it.
I feel a little weird, because two blocks down there's a guy who's been waiting the entire week, looking forward to our usual encounter. There's another guy in Germany who's bought a goddamn ticket to come visit me here in a month's time.
And here I am, in all my indecisive glory.
Why is everything such a big fucking deal?
Shiri used to cheat on him and then call me hyperventilating to tell me all about it. God, we were terrible. I can't remove it from my mind.
I need to quit feeling so fucking responsible for everyone else.
We are now parked outside my place, and the sun is shining on us through the windshield. He wants me to come over tonight, but I never know what I want. I prefer my comfortable place on the fence. I do know that I don't want to leave the car just yet. I have that oh dear god I want to just sit on you sensation sweeping through me.
But there might be consequences. Like finding yourself in a relationship, for example.
I undo my safety belt, shift a little, and reposition myself on him, on the driver's seat. Frankly, I'm too aroused to let him go home, but having sex in a car is just too Degrassi for me.
Oh, the humanity.
"Why don't you come to rehearsal?"
"Because I'm not in a band," I smile. I've done this whole girlfriend-of thing too many times. Another goddamn musician. I need a cure.
"Then why don't you come over to my place tomorrow?" he says.
"Because it's morning. Tomorrow is actually today."
"Good, then come today."
"We'll see."
Of course, I never called.
Tonight is a door off its hinges. I see it slamming back and forth against the frames.
Volatile winds and mood swings. Candies tasting of pheromones.
He's picking me up at ten.
Because all I did was sit at home and from out of nowhere he picked me up. It's not like it was scheduled. I never penciled in anything. The Shesek...Oh, why do I do this to myself? He paid. What the fuck does that say? Imported beer.
You all know that moment when you know something is about to happen between you and They. It's not up to definition, really. I just knew when he took my hand and said he is fascinated by my fingers. I am always told I have beautiful hands, I know, I get offers to do hand modeling(previously I had always assumed that this occupation didn't really exist). So fucking what, right?
"I could stretch beyond an octave," was all I could really say, because I'm not good when it comes to accepting compliments.
Just smile and say thank you, dumbass.
The Sweatshop had ruined my once-perfect nails. I feel disfigured but he seems to see things through the Photoshop filter reserved for non-obsessive males.
Oh, to be like him.
I can't.
Anyway, I know that there may be a slight chance that this evening will end up with me straddling him. I just feel it, you know. I remind myself to be a good girl, and that I am often paranoid, so maybe I am just imagining this.
But I wanted to jump his bones when I was seventeen, I can't help it.
Why are we here, really? We've been friends for some years, via the on and off route. But I don't think we've gone out for a drink together since the last century.
I don't pull back my hand.Instead, I am wondering when they'll kick us out of here.
They finally do, at around 6:30 AM.
We float out into the sunshine.
"I don't feel like going home," he says.
"Neither do I."
"You..."
"Well, I hope you're not thinking of going to an after, because I'm positively wrecked."
I know it's coming, but it's so me to fuck with his mind a little.
"No, I was thinking of something a little less grand," he finally says.
I really hope he's not about to suggest something disgustingly shmaltzy such as going for a walk on the beach. I hate the sand and I'm wearing really nice shoes.
The kiss goes off like a firing squad. I've had really fantasic lays in my ten months of renewed singledom, but no one has kissed me like that.
You're imagining, I tell myself, but it keeps getting clearer and clearer.
I see Shiri's face, inhaling a Marlboro 100 and telling me what a killer fuck he is. We were fifteen, maybe. What the fuck did we know.
She had woken up from a dream screaming that she loves him. They'd never met before.
Life is so...Fuck it.
I feel a little weird, because two blocks down there's a guy who's been waiting the entire week, looking forward to our usual encounter. There's another guy in Germany who's bought a goddamn ticket to come visit me here in a month's time.
And here I am, in all my indecisive glory.
Why is everything such a big fucking deal?
Shiri used to cheat on him and then call me hyperventilating to tell me all about it. God, we were terrible. I can't remove it from my mind.
I need to quit feeling so fucking responsible for everyone else.
We are now parked outside my place, and the sun is shining on us through the windshield. He wants me to come over tonight, but I never know what I want. I prefer my comfortable place on the fence. I do know that I don't want to leave the car just yet. I have that oh dear god I want to just sit on you sensation sweeping through me.
But there might be consequences. Like finding yourself in a relationship, for example.
I undo my safety belt, shift a little, and reposition myself on him, on the driver's seat. Frankly, I'm too aroused to let him go home, but having sex in a car is just too Degrassi for me.
Oh, the humanity.
"Why don't you come to rehearsal?"
"Because I'm not in a band," I smile. I've done this whole girlfriend-of thing too many times. Another goddamn musician. I need a cure.
"Then why don't you come over to my place tomorrow?" he says.
"Because it's morning. Tomorrow is actually today."
"Good, then come today."
"We'll see."
Of course, I never called.
Tonight is a door off its hinges. I see it slamming back and forth against the frames.
Volatile winds and mood swings. Candies tasting of pheromones.
He's picking me up at ten.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Life of Pause
Highschool is when you find yourself taking a second job in the slavery trade otherwise known as waitressing, when you have been working in high-tech for some time now.
Adulthood seems to be knowing that you're doing this because you need to get out of here, of this. You need to sign a waiver on your pride, to ignore the fact that those bossing you around have an IQ lower than the common insect's. It's having to smile when you are serving fancyass schmucks who also work in high-tech, but who have never had to wait tables in their life.
Highschool is finding yourself in the arms of your ex-best friend's legendary ex-boyfriend, and he's confessing that he's was hot for you when you were seventeen. Highschool is being really thankful that you and her are no longer on speaking terms, because let's face it, you fantasized about him when they were an item and you kinda always hoped this ridiculous scenario would take place. Highschool is to still think about her while he's kissing you.
Adulthood would be knowing that not everything that glittered at seventeen is still gold at 23. It's knowing that sure, he is probably a blessing in bed, but there's the future to think of. There's the fact that you come from insanely different backgrounds and cultures, for one. There's the fact that he's a musician, which is somehing you swore you wouldn't do again, not this time.
There's the fact that he doesn't have any of those things girls approaching their mid twenties seem to look for, because these things are after all the foundation for The Future that everyone seems to be so worried about.
Highschool is to go for it anyway, and enjoy every second. But what the fuck do I know, I am now but a simple waitress.
Adulthood seems to be knowing that you're doing this because you need to get out of here, of this. You need to sign a waiver on your pride, to ignore the fact that those bossing you around have an IQ lower than the common insect's. It's having to smile when you are serving fancyass schmucks who also work in high-tech, but who have never had to wait tables in their life.
Highschool is finding yourself in the arms of your ex-best friend's legendary ex-boyfriend, and he's confessing that he's was hot for you when you were seventeen. Highschool is being really thankful that you and her are no longer on speaking terms, because let's face it, you fantasized about him when they were an item and you kinda always hoped this ridiculous scenario would take place. Highschool is to still think about her while he's kissing you.
Adulthood would be knowing that not everything that glittered at seventeen is still gold at 23. It's knowing that sure, he is probably a blessing in bed, but there's the future to think of. There's the fact that you come from insanely different backgrounds and cultures, for one. There's the fact that he's a musician, which is somehing you swore you wouldn't do again, not this time.
There's the fact that he doesn't have any of those things girls approaching their mid twenties seem to look for, because these things are after all the foundation for The Future that everyone seems to be so worried about.
Highschool is to go for it anyway, and enjoy every second. But what the fuck do I know, I am now but a simple waitress.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
