Where Did You Go, Where Have You Been?

Where did you go, the you that was there before?  The you that I tried so hard to be like?  You’ve settled in now, haven’t you?  Settled in for weekdays, Pampers, “the grind”.  You’ve all-but disappeared into it.  And that’s fine.  So have I, in my own way.  I look at the cubicle-dwellers, the 9-to-5ers, the mortgagers with judgment.  I judge them for a life spent in the cattle chute, but I’m the same, in my own way.  I wake up to an alarm five days a week, dash my utility bills off monthly in tidy little envelopes, take extra long showers and even bubble baths to de-stress from the rigors of a world I can’t even begin to understand.  I’m in the grind, too, in my own version of a cattle chute.  You were beautiful once, even more than you are now, supple like sand underfoot right after the wave withdraws, and I’ve never been a model but I had that nice little six-pack of abs and that 90s-era skater hair.  Who could forget the smell of your own hair in my face, your feet akimbo in the air.  We must have been dank and gorgeous like John Sloan’s Wet Night on the Bowery, everything akimbo in the air and musty and frivolous.  But who could look back and want that time again?  There was so much pain and we didn’t know a damn thing.  Who wants to not know a damn thing?  But then we wake up in this world, in this present-tense, and wonder where our beauty escaped to.  How did it siphon off?  We’re always so safe here, so comfortable.  When was the last time you felt real danger?  It is important to feel real danger.  What proof have you that you are alive?  What new horizon can you actually imagine, aside from the top of your stairs, or the local pizza parlor?  Dammit we were gorgeous but now it’s just about not forgetting umbrellas and digging out of debt.  Who ever heard of digging out of debt?  Does the field mouse understand what an interest rate is?  How about the barn owl, how much does it know about 401(k)’s?  What in the world is going on here?  What does any of this have to do with living?  Remember once, you and I were racing each other back and forth through my parents’ front yard–I guess it would have been my front yard, then, too.  And it kept bothering me when you would beat me because I was young and an idiot and full of the uncertainty of a scared animal.  I hated that you beat me again and again but I tried not to show it.  Then we laid in the grass and kissed deeply and for a long time, everything about our bodies sweet like warm milk just out of a cow’s insides.  Then we laid there and looked into the blazing-bright sky and, as young people are known to do, talked about the clouds, and what they looked like, and what held them there.  And then I asked you, Am I the funniest person you know?  I needed you to say yes to that, without any pause, but you didn’t say yes, you were honest, and it killed me inside.  Oh to be that young when such a small thing mattered so much.  Who wouldn’t love to hear, nowadays, near the midpoint of things, that you were the third funniest person you had ever met.  What a compliment that seems now!  These bits of personal fire are rare now, rare like two sweet bodies laying in the country grass, rare like paid-off debt.  Down the chute, down the chute, we all just keep going down the chute.  And what can we do?  Try and hop off?  What are the options?  Become a vagabond, wander the cities and towns, begging for whatever work there is and move on, like Richard Kimble searching for that one-armed man?  Or move to some commune–assuming they still exist–and paint or grow potatoes but also share your washcloth and help raise other peoples’ bratty kids?  No thanks.  The cattle chute’s the only way to go and still have your own place to poop every day, and there are so few comforts in this animal life as it is, you’ve got to keep the ones you’re able to find.  So slide, slide, slide we will.  But damn if one doesn’t miss the days before you knew you were on the cattle chute, the days with your hair in my face, where did you go, where have you been?

Someday You Won’t Feel Anything At All About Anything

I had never had to break up with a girl before.  I had been slow in figuring them out–or they had been slow in figuring me out.  Either way, I had never imagined that once I actually had a girlfriend (and one who let me have sex with her, at that!) that I would ever do any breaking up with her.  I figured I’d always be so happy just to put my hand on a boob, or my tongue in a mouth, that the first one who agreed to it would be enough forever.

It was this kind of thinking that kept me with my first “real” girlfriend for 3 years, despite the fact that we were obviously as mismatched as possible.  Looking back on it now, I can’t even remember what we must have talked about.  We did spend a lot of time together, and I have many memories that are not unpleasant (and more than a few that are unpleasant).  Three years is a long time, even when you spend 8 hours a day in school.  So there was a lot of shared history by the time I realized I had to break up with her–but I still don’t know what we talked about.  (not to mention we were each other’s first everything, if you get my drift.)

But I did realize, eventually, that we were a bad fit.  I probably realized this because having been with her for three years, I had finally learned a bit about women and was at that point recieving some other very tempting offers from girls a bit more like me.  I spent weeks agonizing over how to break up with her.  Have you ever had teenage sex with a girl whispering I love you in your ear, knowing full well you are going to break up with her soon?  Well, it’s not as fun as it sounds.

I don’t remember much about the day I did it.  I remember it was in my bedroom, sitting on the bed, and I said it’s time for us to part ways.  It did not go well.  She cried and I was stoic.  I drove her home that night and it was a long drive.  When I got back home, my dad was in the living room watching TV.  I sat on the ottoman and made some small talk as though nothing had happened.  Then I tried to mention off-hand I broke up with her but my voice cracked and a tear jumped into my eye.  It was so hard, I said, as I started crying for real.

**************************************************************

Two and a half years earlier….

The greatest thing about finally having a girlfriend was it finally gave me reasons and methods to be some sort of badass.

My friend Mike (I haven’t changed his name because everybody is named Mike) was dating her best friend, so we were a little group, the four of us, double dating, driving to and from school together, the whole bit.

The biggest problem in Mike and I’s lives, however, was that we were still virgins, all four of us.  I doubt it was such a problem for the girls, but it devastated Mike and I daily.  Then one day at school, the girls announced to us that tonight would be “the night”.  My girlfriend would be staying at Mike’s girlfriend’s house for the night.  This house was reachable by both my house and Mike’s house by bicycle (Mike and I were both driving by this time, but not our own cars, and we had curfews that missing cars would belie), and so it was agreed that Mike and I would both bike to the house in the middle of the night and somehow or other, all four of us would lose our virginities.

Mike and I made our own specific plans.  We chose a good spot about halfway between our own houses where we’d meet up on the bikes at precisely midnight and then go the rest of the way together.

Around 11pm, I opened my bedroom window, climbed out and walked around the house to where I’d laid my bike that evening, so I didn’t have to get it out of the garage.

Biking down country roads, alone, at night, in the silence that accompanies said action, is fucking scary.

It was a longer ride than it seemed in my mind to get to the meeting spot.  Since my family had moved out to the country a few years before, I hadn’t done an extensive amount of biking.  I grew up in the small town of Newville, where everything you could imagine was reachable by bicycle.  My brain was not equipped to deal in country miles.  After what seemed hours, I finally arrived at the spot.  No Mike.  I didn’t have a watch (and no, you bastards, this is way before cell phones) so I waited.  I checked the drainage ditches along the sides of the road in case he was laying there, hiding from passing cars (in the country when you’re a teenager, you somehow assume all passing cars are somehow going to tell your parents or the cops that you’re out late), but he wasn’t there.  I waited what I can only say was “a long time”, but I couldn’t tell how long.  It felt like at least an hour.  I couldn’t call out for him, because we had chosen a spot right in front of a few houses.

The thought of biking all the way to Mike’s girlfriend’s house–which I just now understood was really far away–all by myself just seemed like too big of a task.  I assumed he’d missed me, too, and gone on ahead, but if he hadn’t, I’d show up alone, and it would be awkward.  I got on my bike and rode home, climbed into bed sad that I was still a virgin, but somehow relieved that I hadn’t had to go through with the plan.

The next day, Mike told me he’d been hiding in some grass alongside the road and that he never saw or heard me.  It didn’t occur to me until years later that he’d been absolutely lying and he’d never even left his house that night.  Lord knows if the girls were even waiting up for us.

*****************************************************

One year after the bicycle night…

Her and I had been driving for hours in what seemed like a circle.  Why I even ever thought the two of us could navigate Philadelphia was a mystery to me.  I didn’t even bring a map, I kept thinking.  If there’s one thing I learned about traveling from my parents, it was to always bring a map.  Did I somehow think we were adults who could do things like drive around cities?  What a fool.

I didn’t want to fight.  I had seen couples who got lost start fighting and it always seemed foolish.  It accomplished nothing.  And so the more tense we got, the more calm I forced my exterior to appear, and the more I love yous I said, and before I knew what hit me, there was the sign for the Turnpike–always a surefire way home.

Once safely on the Turnpike, after smoking a few relaxing cigarettes, she turned and said Seth, you’re a good man.  It was the first time anybody had ever said that to me, and I’ll never forget it.

****************************************************

One year after the Philadelphia trip…

It was a Friday night.  I remember that for certain because we were coming from a high school football game (she was a cheerleader, so I attended every single game, and carried all her gear to my car afterward.  This provides a serious high for any teenage boy, to be seen carrying his prominent cheerleader girlfriend’s things to his car after a game).  It was October and she wanted to go to the “haunted house” that is put on in Newville every October, and which is walking distance from the football field.

I did not want to go.

I’d be in my mid-twenties before I even started watching horror movies, and even now I don’t like things like “haunted houses”–though I do now love horror films.

Back then, I was scared of everything but trying my best to learn how to hide it.  This is Central Pennsylvania, home of tall corn, taller trucks, Joe Montana, and Three Mile Island.  Five-foot-tall men who scare easily are not the preferred type, and I knew that, and so was consistently doing things like this that every fiber of my being told me to turn from.

We got in line for the haunted house.  I remember she was still in her cheerleading uniform which I–surprise–found very sexy, even after 2 years of having sex with her while she wore the damn thing every Friday night during football season (and after home basketball games, too).  It’s amazing how long a 17 year old boy can stay transfixed on a detail.  So even then, that night, I tried to stay transfixed on the uniform instead of what I assumed would be the bone chilling terror inside the haunted house.

She noticed how I was looking at her and backed me against a wall, slid her hand down my pants.  She wanted to get me off right there, in line!

But I wasn’t aroused.  After a minute or two of attempting to get me going, she asked what was wrong.

“I’m just a little…scared,” I said.

“Of the haunted house?” she asked.

“Yep.  Just a little.”

She withdrew her hand from my pants and, looking me square in the eyes, said You pussy.

That’s another thing she said to me that I’ll never forget.

 

********************************************************

Eleven years after the haunted house…

i was out shopping about a week ago with a close close female friend of mine i didn’t need anything we weren’t shopping for me we were shopping for her so of course it stands to reason we were spending alot of if not most of our time in clothing stores i like shopping for clothes with women at least if it’s a woman i like i like to be just honest enough that they believe me about how things look on them and besides if i’m spending a day shopping with a woman chances are i find her deliriously attractive to begin with and have on immense blinders and truly think everything looks good on her anyway so i rarely get bored while clothes shopping with women except for when they are a woman who takes forever trying clothes on and this particular woman friend of mine happens to be the type who takes forever trying clothes on so about two hours into the shopping excursion while she is in a fitting room i wandered out into the mall and spent about five minutes looking at this kiosk that was all about some homeschooling-over-the-internet thing and they had a nice display and i picked up some of the books children’s books and educational books and felt the heft of them paged through smelling the smell of them remembering when i thought books were like shiny little stars with worlds in them like ameoba in a toad’s pee-puddle and i would feel the pages the coarse roughhewn pages like they were an heirloom quilt and when i had had my fill of standing at the kiosk reminiscing i wandered back into the store and halfway to the back i saw her.  Not the friend i was there shopping with but the first girlfriend the first one ever she still looked like she was 17 although a bit more like a woman now in fact she looked very good–not as good as the friend I was shoppign with but very good nonetheless– and although i immediately turned my head and pretended i hadn’t noticed her it was like i could smell her hair and the minty basement smell of sex with her and could see from a distance the way her lips aren’t lined up right and the sad swing of her braless breasts and i wanted to turn to her from across the store and say ‘i never knew you and you never knew me and that’s pretty much all there ever is to anything but we tried’ and then promptly turn and leave.  but i didn’t.  i meandered around the store at a safe distance so she could see me, so she could remember, too.

 

**********************************************************

Fourteen years before the shopping trip…

We sat at the back of the bus, my friends and I.  We had finally graduated to that level of bad-assness.  We were the big kids on the back of the bus, though I was of course never “big”, but I had some major seniority on bus #10.

Lately, though, things had been all about our friend John, who had recently become the first of us to lose his virginity.  Each and every bus ride now, for the last week, had been filled with tales he’d tell us about what it was like.  We all wondered what this girl would be like.  John was an athlete and not unpopular, so she must really be something (I’d learn later that John had made up every sexual encounter with the girl; he ended up being a virgin longer than I was).

We were sitting in the school parking lot in the morning, waiting to be let off, when John said There she is, and he tapped on the window as a young girl passed by.  She stopped, grinned ear-to-ear, tapped back on the glass and blew a kiss to John.

That was the first time I ever laid eyes on her, and I remember thinking I was slightly unimpressed.  If only I knew how good she’d look fourteen years later while shopping in a backwater mall.

Lady

Lady
I will grab you by your nocturnals
and spin you on your hind Somethings
(putting my hand gently up
the unfurling swirling delicious)
and inside the library of your valley
I shall read like reading was meant to be done:
quickly, breathlessly, with a fervor for a moistened moment
upon the glinting bay of your skin;
then, putting you down
(while lifting me up)
I will race with my hands (like a hundred
crawling tulips) to the spot which rests
(crescendo) a shade shy of paradise,
south of your mortared heart.

And I will trace its painful shape
with the tip of my tongue
until daylight breaks
through my solitary window.

The Moon is a Mountain

The moon is a mountain we’ll never
climb, at 4am it runs from us, on
a descending train bound for Atlantic
City, to a shadowed sunset clawing the
land like a glacial set of fingernails,
it runs, always ahead, always lumbering
like some gilded potato
(I often wonder how our grey
spacesuited men would react if,
cresting a ridge someday they came across
some antiquated lunar shack
constructed obviously by 18th
century men…but how did they
get here? everyone would ask,
and we’d never know),
but even the moon my dear
was never as bright as your face
below mine, and never as
detailed, and here now
as the swollen moon subsides
sleep leaves our eyes
you pull your dress on
and open the door to rain.

My 12th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Everything In Its Right Place” by Radiohead

A song whose tone and tenor will forever be, to me, about early recovery, the first snow of the year, smoking delicious cigarettes in freezing cold cars, and the hottest sex imaginable.

“Everything In Its Right Place”
by Radiohead.

Everything in its right place.
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon.
Everything in it’s right place.
There are two colors in my head;
what was that you tried to say?
Everything in its right place.

New Euphemisms for Sex That I Just Thought Up Just Now

1.  Putting on a Second Coat of Paint
2.  Taking the 6am Flight to Sydney
3.  Re-enacting the Signing of the Treaty of Versailles
4.  Jaming the Toast
5.  Betting on the Jumping Frog
6.  Putting Salt on the Snail
7.  Editing a Microsoft Word Document
8.  Duck Duck Goose Gossage
9.  Inflating the Blimp
10. Throwing Pincher Bugs on the Campfire
11.  Dunking the Ccino
12.  Running Down to First and Feeling Something Burst
13.  Burning Down the Nightclub
14.  Voting for Pedro
15.  Chimmying the Changa

My 59th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to learn about this list, or click here to see all previous entries in the list.

…and my 59th favorite song of all-time is:

“Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel

It’s a shame that this song is more well-known for it’s groundbreaking video (which I admit is pretty neato) than it is for the pure fantasitcness of the song itself.  Gabriel crafted a catchy, pop-ready tune that features some of the more bold, challenging lyrics you’ll hear on the radio, in any era.  He opens with the line “You could have a steam train if you’d just lay down your tracks”, which is, frankly, one of the most foreceful and gutsy sexual innuendos I’ve ever heard.  And the simple line “I want to be your sledgehammer” is ridiculously ballsy.  Folks, he is really, REALLY talking about some sex here! 

 

What am I to Think Now

What am I to think now,
the white scut
of her bottom
disappearing
down the half-flight
carpet stairs
to the white-tiled
bathroom?
What am I to do
with this masted mental image?
I put all my doubt
to the mouth of her long body,
let her draw my night
out of me
like a thorn.

All the women I’ve slept with, ranked in order of greatness.

467.  Stewbuilder Janice
466.  Holly the Yegg
465.  Jen Williams
464.  Jill Frill
463.  Lord Dora Still-Dancing
462.  Marion Fitzfancy
461.  Bazino Bazino
460.  Ram Hair-on-Fire
459.  Nit Louse
458.  Gretta Dinsmore Tackadoo
457.  Character Zero
456.  The Silver Jacket Woman
455.  No-Shoulders Jones
454.  Kelly Franklin
453.  Sister Brothery Nabob
452.  Fanny Bannister, the Tree Surgeon
451.  Tarnose Cohen
450.  Mrs. Wilson Fancypants
449.  Flo Dangler
448.  Shawna Stoopback
447.  Wicked Paula Fourteen-Toes
446.  Normal-Faced Olga
445.  Tammy
444.  Tearbaby Hannity
443.  The Damned Swede
442.  Carla Tin-hat
441.  Jammie Jane
440.  Ol’ Barb Stab-you-quick
439.  Mrs. Whist
438.  James Fenimore Cooper
437.  Scoliosis Sarah
436.  Sweet Momma Champagne
435.  Senator Julie Scoffpossum
434.  Monk, the Monkey Man (which is to say: “the Man”)
433.  Nicole the Bunter
432.  Balloonpopper Chillingsworth
431.  Heloise Dummychuck
430.  Finnish Lynn
429.  Roadhouse Ogilvy
428.  A prostitute
427.  Jokestealer Jana
426.  Rhonda Johnson
425.  Dr. Brenda Stainchin
424.  Gila Monster, Jr.
423.  Irontrousers the Strong
422.  Reynaldo Reynaldoson, the father-killer
421.  Henrietta Hsu
420.  Fran Ox-Hands
419.  Ponytail Winthrop
418.  A leather glove
417.  Lil’ Jess Songbird, the songbird eater
416.  Marcy Miller
415.  Meep Meep, the Italian Seamstress
414.  Maria Pumpkin
413.  Bix Shmix
412.  Stun Gun Simpson
411.  Caramel Macchiatto
410.  Female Fonzie
409.  Prostate Debbie
408.  Jemma Jamey
407.  Nora Niggletoggle
406.  Tina Tinasimie
405.  Flea Stick
404.  Niles Butterball, the Frozen Turkey
403.  Chelsea Four-Flush
402.  Stick-Legs McOhio
401.  The Unanswered Question of Ida
400.  Mindy the Human Resources Officer
399.  Guesstimate Jones
398.  Goofus Rendohar
397.  The Duchess Roundbelly DeDelight
396.  Newton Fig
395.  Sue
394.  Chicken Nugget Marge
393.  Bathsheba Ditz
392.  Alice Pockmark, Esquire
391.  Lolly Hoot Holler
390.  Von Skump
389.  Lacy Choke
388.  Chisolm Chesthair
387.  Freak le Freak, the Freakster
386.  Veronica Spangler
385.  The Bedazzler
384.  Rita Mouth-harp
383.  Anderson Cooper
382.  The Fishin’ Physician
381.  Mariah Nix
380. Chrysler LeBaron
379.  Persuasive Francine
378.  Molly Bewigged
377.  Celestial Stubbs
376.  Teary-Eyed Fingal
375.  Cthulhu Cathy
374.  Del Folksy-Beard
373.  Booper O’Montauk
372.  Lois “Charles” Ladyfinger
371.  Zaxxon Galaxian
370.  No-Banjo Brenda.  It’s actually a pretty interesting story about No-Banjo Brenda.  I met her while riding the rails, hobo-style, between Antwerp and Cincinnati.  She wore an afghan as a cape and was as bald as Yul Brenner, but she offered me a can of sardines with bacon sauce and I was immediately in love.  Even hobos hate sardines but we have to pretend; they are like a commodity in the hobo community, much like the Euro, or Spud Webb jerseys.  We rode together for many hours, No-Banjo Brenda and I—in fact, it may have even been days.  At some point, she started telling me about all the songs she had written.  There were no words.  They were instrumentals, written almost entirely for the banjo.  The only problem was, No-Banjo Brenda didn’t have a banjo.  In fact, she had never had a banjo.  In fact, she had never even seen a banjo.  I think she was lucky she’d even heard of a banjo (she may never have, at that, if it hadn’t been part of her name!).  She had composed her banjo tunes entirely in her mind, and had been waiting her whole hobo-drifting life just trying to find a banjo and let the world hear the amazing tunes that had been welling up inside her forever.  She told me about them, and tried humming them, but you know how that goes, humming music.  Everything sounds a little but like a Yngwie Malmsteen solo.  Oh, then we had sex, and she died right afterward.  Damn shame.
369.  Zane Scary
368.  Claire Richards
367.  Norma Miller
366.  Huckle Smothered
365.  MmmmmmmDandy Dundee
364.  Mountain-Humper Edith Ames
363.  Cheesequake Lennox
362.  Terry Gross.  Really.  She’s gross.
361.  Zipgun Gluck
360.  Spooky Night Spooky-Day
359.  Lorna Chickenstock
358.  Sherlock-Holmes-Hat Cindy
357.  Ambidextrous Stang
356.  Yum-Yum Sinclair Snowballeater
355.  Ponzi Scheme Jenny Ponzi
354.  Toodles Skunk
353.  Monkeybars Melinda Manx
352.  Robert the Child-Size
351.  Robert the Wee
350.  Robert Fits-in-a-Case
349.  Missy the Pagan
348.  Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans
347.  Strictly Local Henrietta Bobtail
346.  Fry-Pan Tina Fry
345.  Joan
344.  Knee-Brace Wilma
343.  Cleats Omnipocket
342.  Gyppo Moot
341.  Mastiff Mama
340.  The couch cushion
339.  Cecelia Graveside
338.  Ma Churchill
337.  Pa Churchill
336.  The Ritual Master
335.  Laura Delite
334.  Sausage Patty
333.  The Nine Doctor Whos
332.  Thermos H. Christ
331.  Woody Damn
330.  Extra-Skin Betty
329.  Marnie No-Ears
328.  Linty Sullivan, the lint collector
327.  Dora the Explorer
326.  Ms. Mary Marley, the tailless cat
325.  Free-Peanuts Doug
324.  Enola Coughblood
323.  Zelda Goatflirter
322.  Muriel Mookadooka
321.  The Unshakeable Will of Wade Terps
320.  Tittytwister Francine Horrid
319.  Mallory Many-Bruises
318.  Big-Tipper Silas Fake-Nickel
317.  A box of hair
316.  Kneepants Erasmus
315.  Antlered Maxine
314.  Scarlett Omaha Omaha
313.  Honeypalms Gordon Lips
312.  Scabpicker Sandyrump
311.  Whiskeyblood Judith Sot
310.  Xtina Doublemunch
309.  Accusing Tim
308.  Tennessee Dust Helmet
307.  Telekinetic Darla
306.  Sarah Gluesniff
305.  Bell’s Palsy Brennan
304.  Pamela Chickeneggs
303.  Elihu Skinpockets
302.  Flora Smazell
301.  Carrie Coreleoleo
300.  Don Tomasino di Shit-the-Bed
299.  Markansas
298.  Magnetized Meg
297.  Jemma Brainache
296.  The Black Squirrel Fairy
295.  Andrea Caboose.  I actually once wrote a poem for Andrea Caboose, that goes like this:

Oh Andrea, oh Andrea,
your name rhymes with Pangea,
well…almost,
and I just wanted to mention Pangea
because nothing makes you seem
more intelligent than mentioning Pangea
in a poem,
oh Andrea, oh Andrea,
everyone loves your caboose.

294.  Kid Silverhair, the Person of Indeterminate Age and Gender
293.  Nutrition-Shake Emery
292.  Rheumy Sven
291.  Queen Cotton
290.  Georgeann Gravelshirt
289.  City Hall
288.  Julie Jingle-Jinglehar
287.  Trixie of the East
286.  Trixie of the West
285.  Canadian Trixie
284.  Lowly Highly
283.  Neckfat Trestle
282.  Pansy Overpass
281.  Dilly Shinguards
280.  Not the Goose
279.  Unnervingly Candid Nikki Thain
278.  Business Class Carla
277.  Princess Oystershuck
276.  Prettydimes, the Lamb
275.  Kandee, that Cheerful Fuck
274.  Clareece Dirigible Marsh
273.  Ashen Ashley Buzzard
271.  Tiffany Wilson
270.  El Boot
269.  Three-Bean Otz
268.  Gretchen Amityville Horror
267.  Panzo Spiral-Cut Ham
266.  Amanda Until
265.  Sasha Creak-Knees
264.  Phyllis Marijuana
263.  Bee Beard
262.  Crispus T. Muzzelwitt
261.  Questionable-Judgement Theodore Stomachbrace
260.  Edwina Winnipeg
259.  The Car-Bomb Killer
258.  Lil’ Shorty Longhorn
257.  Katarina Witt.  Well…a picture of Katarina Witt.  It actually may or may not have been a picture of Brian Williams.
256.  Cheryl Simonsimon
255.  Eyepatch Reese Andiron
254.  Stain-Sucker
253.  Heloise False-Lips Real-Teeth
252.  U.S. Fool
251.  Chili-Mix Shar Benson
250.  Whitman Sampler
249.  The Scientist
248.  Helga Gutthrower
247.  Angie Augiemarfel
246.  Crispy Morton
245.  The Moor of Venice
244.  Lord Winston Two-Monocles
243.  Food-Eating Emma
242.  The Hat.  I actually once wrote an incredibly interesting based-on-fact short story about the incredibly interesting day I met the hat.  At the time, she called me “the suit”.  Here it is:

I leaned up against the wall waiting for the scholarship dinner to officially start, my eyes roving back and forth over all the others milling around, engaging in small talk.

Hearing a girl mention a familiar name, I cocked my head to the left to better overhear.

“You should have seen Dr. Noteck’s last exam.  It was crazy!  For one of the questions, we had to draw a pair of pants.  What do pants have to do with English literature?!”

I grimaced sympathetically at this.  Have had Dr. Noteck two semesters in a row, I was very familiar with his, shall I say, eccentric testing style.

I saw her making her way through the crowd of people.  She moved from one group to another, jumping into any conversation that caught her fancy.  From her manner, and that of those with whom she spoke, it was often difficult to tell whether she was acquainted with these people or not.  She seemed to engage with complete strangers as easily as good friends.  Like me, she didn’t seem to belong to any one group.

As she passed nearby (she almost never stopped moving completely), I felt compelled to say something.

“That’s a very…interesting hat you have there,” I said.

She halted and turned around, quickly evaluating me with her eyes.  A wide smile broke out on her face and she answered, “Why, thank you, Suit!  You don’t look bad yourself.”

And a very nice suit it was: black with a jade green tie, gold cuff-links and a tie pin.  My shoes were also black, you may say they were polished to a mirror shine, but no one had bothered to check for a reflection.  My hair was too long; I had kept meaning to shave it all off like I usually did but I’d let it go too long.

Her hat—by far the most conspicuous part of her outfit that night—was a brightly colored jester’s cap, complete with bells.  Out from under it poured a mass of golden-red hair that tumbled all around her bare shoulders.  She wore a camoflage dress not exactly skin-tight, but not far from it, either.

Hat held out her hand.  I—not expecting such a positive reaction—looked at her with a quizically raised eyebrow for a moment before we shook hands.

“Where exactly—”

“—did I get the Hat?”

Irritated at her interruption, I took a short, audible breath (something like a sigh in reverse) before I responded, “Yes.”

“That’s always the first question people ask me.  You would not believe how much attention this hat attracts.”

My expression here hopefully indicated that I could indeed believe how much attention the hat attracted.  Her rapid flow of words, however, continued without pause.

“Me, Michelle, Jen, and Ron went to Ocean City for a week two years ago.  I think the whole purpose of going somewhere like the beach with your friends if for them to drag you into doing things that you’d never do on your own.”

My imagination reeled momentarily trying to imagine just what exactly this girl would do on her own.

She continued, “I’m not sure it’s legal to have that much fun in one week.  We went bungee jumping and water skiing.  If you want a cure for any possible desire to commit suicide by leaping, bungee jumping is your therapy.”

I was about to make it clear that I’d never had any such desire (for leaping suicide or bungee jumping) but I never got the opportunity.

“What else happened that week?” she asked herself and paused briefly before continuing.

I was beginning to be truly amazed at how fast and how long she could speak without pausing for a breath.  I took this brief pause as an opportunity to try to steer her back on topic.

“Yes, but where…?”

“Oh yeah!”  Hat said, with a light-bulb tone.  “I got my ichthus tattoo!  I knew there was something else important that happened that week!  And we—”

Finally I interrupted her.  “Yes, this is all very fascinating, but where did you get the hat?”

“I’m getting to that,” she scolded me.  “As I was saying, while the others lay out on the beach roasting—I have yet to see the attraction in such activities, I can tan perfectly well while in motion—I usually explore some of the shops along the boardwalk.  Most of them are colorful, but boring.  Occasionally, though, some of them have the most incredible—” she looked down a moment and softly muttered “right word, right word”, before looking up suddenly, “outlandish merchandise.  The particular trip I had managed to resuscitete Jen into accompanying me.  I heard her groan oh no.  She saw this hat and knew I couldn’t resist it.  She was right.”

“Ah,” I said, glad to have finally extracted the information from her.

“This summer, we’re planning on going back for a month.  I love the beach.”

“I love everything about it except for sunburn,” I said.

“Until the sheer heat of it drives you into the cool, pulsing ocean.”

The conversation reached a pause her, and just as Hat was turning around to go find someone else to talk to, I asked, “So what’s your major, anyway?”

She looked over her shoulder and then turned to face me again.  “I was thinking of becoming a teacher, but I realized I don’t have the patience.  I finally decided on music.  I play the flute.  Well, I play several instruments.  I play the guitar, too, but I do that quite badly.”  After a brief pause to think, she added, “I play the flute well,” and nodded in satisfaction with this summary.  “My parents were so frustrated with me when I told them my choice.  I believe they said I was ‘wasting the wonderful opportunity of my scholarship’.  As if music were a waste!  How about you, what’s your major?”

Before I could answer, she hit me with another question.

“So, do you think it’s legal to have that much fun in one week?” she asked in a very serious tone.

I drew my breath to answer, then wrinkled my brow in perplexion at the question.

Before I could begin explaining my understanding of the laws on enjoyment quotas, someone on stage tapped the mic a couple times, and people started moving toward their seats.

“Looks like the dinner’s getting started,” I said.  “I guess we’d better get to our tables.  It was nice meeting you.”  I held out my hand to shake hers.

With a wild grin, hat bent down and kissed the back of my hand, spun around, and disappeared into the crowd.

241.  Janice Shortwave
240.  Singleminded Hubbard
239.  No-stick McGee
238.  Merle Buzzard
237.  Nick Nolte
236.  Baldy Lutz
235.  Pickled-Noggin Nettles
234.  Handformed Hamburger Helen
233.  Doris Pitchfork
232.  Two G-Forces
231.  Lucy Burned-Beyond-Recognition
230.  El Caballo, the Spanish Steed
229.  Microbrew Sharon
228.  Rhythmic Abbey
227.  Overload-the-Dishwasher Octavia
226.  Crumbjacket Rachel
225.  Ramona Riprippy
224.  Happy Horace Noosemaker
223.  Mademoiselle Dookie
222.  Wanda Waverly
221.  http://www.crazycats.com
220.  Wendi Frickinfrack
219.  Abelard “Sunken Treasure” Lowtrousers
218.  Bo Bo
217.  a slinky
216.  Somersalting Mark Spitz
215.  Really Redneck Fatnuts
214.  Yakira and her Quaker Oats Box Drum
213.  Pirandello, the Many-Bearded
212.  Caitlyn Bindlestick
211.  Salami Sunshine
210.  Whatever that lizard is that walks on water
209.  Bleedingtoe the Barefoot
208.  Nick Chintz
207.  Treesap-covered Candace
206.  Thor Hammerskold, the Mexican
205.  Bambi Harlequin-Horsefart
204.  One of my closest friends’ mom
203.  Beatrice-Who-Lacks-Fingerprints
202.  Smoke-Collecting Meg
201.  Gunderic Godigiselson
200.  Pontius Cornstalk
199.  Hot Gnome Jimmy Jackson
198.  Shadow (“Blinky”) Preston
197.  Buttery-Cheeks Kacey
196.  Four-Fisted Jock Socko
195.  Dr. Zizmor
194.  Kami Kawasaki
193.  Arizona Ludwig
192.  Silas Swollen
191.  Mountain Woman
190.  “Taxachusetts” Tera
189.  Matter-Hater Leona
188.  Grumple Graxon
187.  Low-Carb Aleks Stovepipe
186.  Salt and Pepper Chest
185.  Huge Crybaby McWeepy
184.  Elffriend Weingarten
183.  Forktongue Fork
182.  Hairlip Libby
181.  Solid First Draft Patton Taylor
180.  Paige Pennyloafers.  I actually drew a picture of Paige Pennyloafers once.  This is it:

179.  Modem Guntherson
178.  Half-Albino Aaliyah
177.  The Treasurer
176.  Captain Slick-Talk
175.  Roundhouse Farter
174.  Fake Cockney Accent Adele Strippe
173.  Red Ball Pnutz
172.  Zahara Zimbalist
171.  Air and Whiskey Doris McGlue
170.  Yasmin RC Airplane
169.  Narcotic Morgan Suds
168.  Narcotic Nelson Suds
167.  Sir Frances Drank
166.  Mahayana
165.  Czech Czarlie Czill
164.  Ssssssssssssssssssssss, the hisser
163.  Thanatos Kelp
162.  Spiderwoman
161.  Gluttonous Slim
160.  Ragweed Wanda
159.  Moray Eel Wilhemina Elmer
158.  Plastic-Moutache Jennifer Tall
157.  Val Gel Insole
156.  Crispy Whiskers
155.  Astonishing Vanna Eyelash
154.  Prabhnoor Jones
153.  Owlie
152.  Johnny Johnny
151.  Anwar the Bionic
150.  Fibery Dana
149.  Cranberry Oppenheimer
148.  Holy Hannah Hottentot-Smythe
147.  Fleabottle Boone
146.  Stupefying P., the Riddle-Maker
145.  The Juror
144.  Yancy something-or-other
143.  Mariah Duckface
142.  Waspwaist Fritz
141.   Sally Hoot-Hoot
140.  Saves-Reciepts Dave
139.  Mrs. Pendleton
138.  Chelsea Bacon
137.  Annie Axe
136.  A Shapeshifting Demon
135.  Sir Walter British
134.  Amanda CeeCee Strobelight
133.  Ida Alva Edison
132.  Leather Apron
131.  Saint Sorryass
130.  Overly Familiar Fung
129.  Chalmers, the Bridge Champ
128.  Clingy
127.  Elephantine Samsonite
126.  Neekerbeeker Perry Tomaz
125.  Teatime BB Stiles
124.  Hubbel “I Predicted the Lindy Hop” Deerblind
123.  Hubie Hewitt, the Broadway Legend
122.  Poo-Knickers Iesha
121.  Amesy Squirrelstomper, the Chipmunk-Preferrer
120.  Baked Salmon Salad Finn
119.  Gabriella Donaldson
118.  Smokestack-Hugger Jools Nygaard
117.  Huge-Calves Edna
116.  Elaine Crackknuckle
115.  William Carlos Williams
114.  Snoops Lightstep Trenchcoat
113.  Ironbelly Norton
112.  Stool Sample Ellen
111.  Monkey’s Paw Patterson
110.  Slim Jim
109.  Mermaid Betty Scales
108.  Myron Biscuitspear, the Dumpster Archaelogist
107.  Old Pliny Dance-for-Ham
106.  Fay Charles
105.  Catscratch Tremont Nude
104.  Warbling Timmy Tin-Voice and his Voice-Box
103.  Rubber Chess
102.  Top Hat Swindlefingers
101.  Jane Crouton
100.  Nbdego Tch!ck
99.   Wormy Glenn and the Nootka Flatworm
98.   Hidalgo, the Artiste
97.   The Fucky from Kentucky
96.   The Man in the Foil Mask
95.   Cambridge Massachusetts Clara
94.   Cyrus the Persian Sturgeon
93.   Little Felicia Spittle
92.   Scrunchie
91.   Jaclyn “the lifestyle” Dammers
90.  Chicken Butt, Five Cents a Cut
89.   Wise Jackayla Babysplitter
88.   Uranus Nancy, the Star-Traveller
86.   Natalie Holowell
85.   The Unformed Twin of Tennessee Dust Helmet
84.   Turkeyballs Paco
83.   Eileen the Indianapolist
82.   Acid-Saliva Curley Stokes
81.   Candy Brennan.  Candy and I spent a lovely holiday together in the Swiss Alps a few years back.  She was a contestant in the World Paper Airplane Loop-the-Loop tournament that was taking place there, and I was doing research for my book, “Why I Hate Tidal Pools and What I Intend to Do About It”, and in between those intense activities, we met in our hotel room for what could only be described as marathon sessions of me pitifully failing to please her and then her crying in the shower.  But somewhere in there, we fell in love.  The problem, however, arose when my hetero life-mate, Ron Gutshall (please read all about our exploits here) showed up while Candy was out flying her paper airplane and I was researching my hatred of tidal pools, and as part of some strange experiment he had been working on for weeks beforehand, he filled our hotel room with rabid Spider Monkeys, mouse traps, and 16oz red Solo cups half filled with bleach.  Needless to say, when Candy returned and I blindly defended Ron (as one is forced to do for one’s hetero lifemate), Candy attempted to storm off in a bout of anger, but Ron silently suffocated her with the palm of his gargantuan right hand while checking his stock updates on his Blackberry with his left hand.  We buried her in the hotel shower and then Ron and I got some Benihana.
80.  Utility-Belt Deana
79.  Smokehouse Frankie Jowl-Poker
78.  Windowkisser Suzanna
77.  Twistback John, the Cracked Disc Sufferer
76.  Horus, the Bird-Headed Fool
75.  Foriegn Tammy, the Strangetalker
74.  Bianca Bettlegrebber
73.  Tabatha Tresselwreck
72.  JR Paperstockings
71.  “X”, the anonymous man or woman
70.  Ghostly Nose Sylvie
69.  Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins
68.  Canadian Football Tasha
67.  Beanface
66.  Sir Mix-a-Lot
65.  The Gimp
64.  Whistling Anus Meacham
63.  Juicepockets Moone
62.  Moosecloak
61.  Sabrina Smith
60.  Ventriloquism Sadie and “Madame”, her talking bean can
59.  Fake Noam Chomsky
58.  Klonopin Claudia
57.  Marian May Wyomingsong
56.  Samantha Warbledarble
55.  Mad or Sad Judd (no one can tell)
54.  Aesop Bedroll
53.  Rocky Shitstain Mankiewicz
52.  Shakira Tiny-Bites
51.  Mayonaisse
50.  Betty the Exorcist
49.  Atlas Flatshoulders
48.  Gin-bucket Greg
47.  Philatelist Joey Licks
46.  Stinging Polly Papercuts
45.  Shanequa Sha-na-na
44.  Billy Butterfly Net
43.  Nicknameless Norris Shine
42.  Sugarhouse Morris the Sapper
41.  Zaphod Beeblebrox
40.  The Honorable Janis Weedfarmer
39.  Nightblind and Snowblind, the Blind twins
38.  Marley Mingle
37.  Shagrat, Orc of the Ozarks
36.  Eustace Feetbeer
35.  Benny Twenty-birds
34.  Amnesiac Jared Stringy
33.  Antigone Spit
32.  PomPom the Texas Dancing Dog
31.  Yuri Trimble, the Alien Pod Person
30.  Sarah Lardblood
29.  Beery Clyde the Eunuch
28.  Milosz the Anarchist Pupeteer
27.  Donna Pina Colada
26.  Ursala Bobenfob
25.  Jonas Tugboy, Professional Masturbator
24.  Cinderfella Dana Dane
23.  Kerosene-Soaked Vivian
22.  Black Bottle Priam
21.  Socks
20.  Pinprick Butell
19.  Tailstump Gunther
18.  Nooney Rockjelly
17.  Ambassador Roasting Pan
16.  Chuck McKindred: No So Holy, but Very Moley
15.  Paula Chiclets
14.  Q the Quantum Woman
13.  Not-So-Raven
12.  Jane the Beekeeper
11.  Unpronounceable
10.  The Beloved Rebecca Thankyounote
9.    Thad Thadly
8.    Chiselchin Cathleen Man
7.    Candle-Eyed Sally
6.    Daphne Zuniga
5.    Fran Frijole
4.    Hazel Marlborough
3.    Not-Racist Whitey
2.    Trombone Snout
1.    Janet Howard.  She was really good.

I can’t sleep.  This happens often because of my ever-changing work shifts.  Usually, I have tricks to jolt myself into sleeping when I need to.  But sometimes they don’t work.

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about this Osama Bin Laden thing.  Everyone wanted him dead when he was alive, and now that he’s dead, a lot of people seem to have suddenly come across the notion that killing people is bad.  It’s odd.  I really don’t know what to make of it; mostly because I’ve been avoiding doing much thinking on the topic.  Some things just seem too confusing at the outset for me to approach them more closely.  I will say that I am certainly not sad he’s dead.  But also, certainly, killing people always sucks.  It seems to me that, for the most part, nothing major has really happened except an interesting news cycle.  The military/ industrial complex chugs on and Glenn Beck is still a vampire.  Really.

It’s more difficult in the spring and summer, because the birds start chirping around 5am, and sometimes, that is exactly when I want to fall asleep.  I’ve no idea why birds chirping should keep one awake; after all, train whistles and thunderstorms put me to sleep.  Is this an ingrained but learned reaction, from years of hearing birds in the morning?  Or is it something even further inside us, a pattern stitched onto our DNA, a swatch of our instinctual fabric?  Who the fuck knows.

PBS sure has a great lineup of shows coming up on Wednesday night.  First there’s an episode of “Secrets of the Dead” that’s all about that wicked crazy army of statues that were created for some Chinese emperor dude like a bajillion years ago.  I learn about that army of statues about once every five years.  Then I forget all about it and am all too happy to learn about it again later.  Then after that there’s an episode of “NOVA” all about Machu Picchu.  Most of it focuses on whether or not I spelled it correctly without utilizing Google, which is right beside me and which I could have easily used, but did not.  But the rest—about how they built it and such—seems pretty interesting, as well.  Then after that, there’s another interesting thing, but I forgot what it was.

It will forever be a mystery to me whether or not thinking about sex as I lay in bed keeps me awake or helps me to sleep.  I have tried this technique every single night of my life since I was 14, with what could only be called a mixed bag of results.

Every time I’m in a checkout line recently, I am taunted by TIME’s special edition on the Civil War.  It’s one of these mega-big, laminated and bound almost-book things that TIME puts out like 4 times a year and you don’t get them if you’re a subscriber.  Basically they are books.  And I mean this Civil War edition just looks badass.  It’s got all these pictures from the era (Civil War photographs are mind boggling) and what appear to be some killer articles.  But it’s freaking 13 bucks.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Thirteen bucks, the bank does not break.  But it’s right there in the impulse aisle, right beside copies of “Us Weekly”, chapstick, and 5 Hour Energy.  I can never seem to talk myself into adding thirteen dollars to my total bill when I am already at the register.  What an odd price point, $13.  I’d probably buy it for ten.  Fucking psychology.

Thank you for allowing me to type myself to sleep.  I shall now go lay down and see if the birds will let me sleep.  If I can stop thinking about sex long enough.  Or should I think about it more?  I can never figure that one out.

You Would Not Survive a Vacation Like This

So.  That was a pretty insane trip home (and lots of other places).  I’m not even sure where to begin.  This may end up being a ridiculously long and disjointed blog entry.  I apologize in advance.  If it ends up not being extremely long and disjointed, I will come back and delete this intro, and you will never read it.

First, I should like to thank my family (Dad, Mom, Sister) for their various forms of hospitality and much-needed displays of unconditional love.  Yay human spirit and the familial bond!  I feel pretty damn good about my family.  You guys rule!  And thank you to all my friends who made me feel as if I never moved away.  I am blessed beyond belief with deep, intense, loyal friendships!  In addition, a big frowny face to those who I had to miss on this trip (most notably, loyal blog reader and renowned Muse, Cory.  Little does she know, my next trip home is going to be so all about her, she will have to call the cops on me. And the truly lovely Mercedes, whom I am unabashedly smitten with.   Also, on-again-off-again blog reader Tiff, who I had *promised* a certain something to…well, next time, ok???).  I was stretched a little thin to do and see everything and everyone I wanted, but it was fairly satisfying nonetheless.

My Zany Itinerary

Let me just show you the zaniness of where I’ve been the last week and a half.  I am going to include tomorrow, as I go to Pittsburgh tomorrow for a work seminar.  Here’s where I was, for the most part, the last ten days:

3/25: Erie, PA/ Carlisle, PA
3/26: Carlisle, PA/ Asbury Pary, NJ
3/27: Mantua, NJ
3/28: Brooklyn, NY/ Newark, NJ
3/29: Manhattan, NY/ Mantua, NJ
3/30: Mantua, NJ/ Carlisle, PA
3/31: Carlisle, PA
4/1: Carlisle, PA
4/2: Carlisle, PA/ Erie, PA
4/3: Erie, PA
4/4: Pittsburgh, PA
4/5: Pittsburgh, PA/ Erie, PA

And I aint even tired yet.  Bring. It. On.

My Newville Tour

Early on in my trip, I had a little extra time to kill early in the morning, and I drove into Newville (the small town I grew up in) and walked around the town for the first time in many years (I have been there plenty as of late, but not actually walked around).  I took some pictures of major landmarks in my life, also making sure to get a few pictures of some of the places that have played large parts in some of my blog entries.  Here is a bit of a pictorial tour of Newville:

My first house, 66 Big Spring Avenue. My bedroom was the top two windows on the right of the picture.

The big enchilada….the childhood home.  Most famously portrayed in this blog entry right here.

I have been trying to upload the famous picture of my mother and I admiring my grandmother’s garden, but I am having some trouble, so here is a link to that picture on Facebook. And here is a picture of that back yard area today:

One of my most popular blog entries ever was “The Fruit that Ate Itself“, about me being bullied in a local church yard.  I snapped some pics of that area in current day:

The church yard itself.

The line of trees is where the dreaded swingset and slide had been.

The Senior Center where the "fight" ended. Those are the bushes I flew through in the climactic moment.

If you’ve read my blog entry “Down the Rabbit Hole“, you may be interested to see this cellar door on one of my childhood neighbor’s homes:

OK, so just a few more pics here, but not related to any previous blog, just some Seth-historic stuff:

The very spot where I got on a school bus for the very first time.

This was my corner when I was a crossign guard.

Friendies

I had almost too much fun with friendies to try to sum things up here.  I’ll hit some highlights:

I surprised Kate with my presence not once but twice, and she lost.  her.  shit. each time.  First, Michael and I surprised her at her house:

It was also on this visit that this picture of Michael happened:

A few days later, I was strolling through Carlisle wasting a few minutes before picking up another friend, when I came across Kate and her family at the local eatery The Green Room.  As I was leaving them I took this pic of Kate, her husband Matt, and their son Dylan:

Let me just take this moment to say, as I was strolling around Carlisle that night, I was struck by just how freaking cool of a town it is.  Those of you who still live there, please do not take it for granted.  First, it is totally adorable.  And such a great pedestrian town!  And for a relatively small town in central Pennsylvania, it is arts-friendly.  Open mic nights, free music, poetry readings, public displays of photography, and on and on, are quite common.  The area known as the square and the surrounding blocks are humming with a vibrant intellectual life (not to mention some fantastic cuisine).  Please partake of what the gem of a town has to offer!

My brief time with Burke was spent in some fairly intense conversation that may, in fact, make me think about my life differently.  Oh, and Johnny Depp is a fucking sellout.

I spent some truly hilarious time with Jenny.  Jenny is quickly becoming a Major Friend.  (if her name is unfamiliar to you, this was the last woman to be an “official girlfriend”…and if my hunch is true– that I am a lifetime bachelor– she may go down in the history books as the last woman to be an official Seth girlfriend…what a distinction!).  Anyway, I sure do love this woman.  She has the special ability to make me laugh until I am worried about my health…without saying anything. She has a non-verbal humor akin to Kramer.  She can just look at me and I lose my shit.  Here we are, loving life:

Of course, you know I saw Michael, and it resulted in a moment of hilarity that I am pretty sure you “had to be there” for, but we decided that Merle Haggard had at one point recorded the “classic” song “You’re Gonna Make Daddy Fart (and Momma Aint Gonna Be Happy)”.  I still laugh when I type that.

Mary and I had one helluva time trying to find parking in downtown Harrisburg—notable because it’s usually not THAT hard.  Sure, those few blocks in the very center of town are tough, but we were unable to find ANY spots on the street ANYWHERE.  When we finally did park (in a garage) we ended up just hanging around Strawberry Square , when in fact we had intended to go to the Susquehanna Art Museum. I’m still not sure in the least how this distraction occurred, but we had a blast.  But the major news from this venture is that Mary has OK’d some photographs of herself!  You may or may not know that pictures of Mary are quite rare.  She just hates pictures of herself, and of course I love taking pictures of people, so this is a friction.  Plus, she really is one of the most exquisite women in existence, so I always feel as though the world in general is being deprived of some joy by the absence of Mary pictures.  When I take a Mary picture, I have to show her, wheneupon she then either insists on immediate deletion, OKs the picture for my own personal collection but not anyone else’s eyes, or (the most rare) OKs a picture for online distribution.  So here, lucky world, are 4 new Mary pictures:

That's the back of Mary's head in the lower right.

Staying at Dad’s

It is with much chagrin that I realize I did not take a single picture of my papa and me on this trip. *sad face*  Nonetheless, I must say, spending time with my dad just gets more and more pleasant as the two of us age.  It never stops surprising me how we continue to grow into friends (while he retains his essential papa-ness).  He is one cool dude and we somehow never run out of things to talk about.

This also marked the first time in recent memory that I have stayed at Dad’s for multiple days without my sister also being there.  In this sense it was entirely unique.  The last time I stayed at my dad’s by myself for more than one night was way back when I was still drinking and on-again, off-again living there.  So this was new, and really, really great.  In a lot of ways, it felt like a true homecoming, learning how that house and I interact when I’m a grown-up, and sober, and left all alone with it.  Turns out we get along just fine.  And I sleep magnificently in my old bedroom.  But it’s tough getting used to that shower again.

Hey Rosetta!

I’m gonna really have to shrink down the Hey Rosetta! story, or I’ll be here all day.  So, in summary:

Here are pictures from Paul and I’s show in Asbury Park, NJ.  It was a fantastic time, both Paul-wise (Paul, thanks for helping me see that not all my close friends have to be women!) and band-wise.  Really, one of the more satisfying concert-going experiences I’ve had.

Then, I made an audible call and went to see them by myself twice more over the next three days, in New York City (more on NYC later).  Long story short, I ended up basically knowing the band.  But they started talking to me. I suppose when you are a band that is really famous and successful in Canada, and then you come to the states and are playing bars where most of the people are ignoring you, and there is a short fat guy with gray hair jumping around and screaming your lyrics, when he shows up to your NEXT show in a different state, it is worth taking note.  So as I was taking this picture of the chalk board advertising their show in Brooklyn, a few of the band members were walking out of the bar and saw me and introduced themselves.

Because shows like this entail a lot of waiting around (if you insist, like I do, on front row) in small bars with no “backstage” area for bands, as well as lots of changing-out of gear between bands (not to mention trips to very small bathrooms), the two shows in New York would prove extremely fertile ground for me talking to the band.  This went way beyond my previous “thank you, your music has meant so much to me” that I’ve been able to give other bands.  This was basically a getting-to-know-you situation.  Specifically cellist Romesh Thavanathan, lead guitarist Adam Hogan, and violinist Kinley Dowling spoke quite a bit to me and I was definitely on a first-name basis with them by the end of my second New York show, and I’d had a chance to speak to every member of this six-piece band.  Certainly, this was fairly incredible, but also….in some ways, not as great as you’d think.  Parts of this experience were awkward.  I may blog more about this at some point, just because it was pretty intriguing (ever have your favorite band watch you as they are playing?)  But don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  It was an amazing experience.  Here is a video I took of “Red Song” at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn, followed by a few select pictures of the New York shows:

I also managed to snag handwritten setlists off the stage two of the three nights.  Here are scans of the setlists:

So now, for the benefit of probably just myself and maybe Paul, here is some Hey Rosetta! setlist discussion:  on the first setlist shown, Bandages was skipped.  On the second shown (from my thrid concert, Manhattan) ‘Bandages’ and ‘Red Heart’ were swapped in position (as were the two songs where a swap is indicated, ‘Yer Spring’ and ‘Welcome’…and talk about a way to open a show!  “Lions For Scottie” into “Welcome”!)  Here are all three setlists for shows I went to this tour:

Asbury Park, NJ

1.  New Goodbye
2.  Yer Spring
3.  New Glass
4.  Bricks
5.  Another Pilot
6.  There’s an Arc
7.  Seeds
8.  Red Heart

Brooklyn, NY
(reconstructed via this photograph)

1.  New Goodbye
2.  Yer Spring
3.  New Glass
4.  Bricks
5.  Another Pilot
6.  There’s an Arc
7.  Welcome
8.  Red Song
9.  We Made a Pact
10.  Seeds
11.  Red Heart
12. A Thousand Suns*

*’Bandages’ is on the setlist in the 12 spot, but ‘A Thousand Suns’ was played.

Manhattan, NY

1.  Lions For Scottie
2.  Welcome
3.  Yer Spring
4.  New Glass
5.  Yer Fall
6.  There’s an Arc
7.  I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time
8.  Holy Shit
9.  New Sum
10.  Seeds
11.  New Goodbye

Encore:

1.  Bandages
2.  Red Heart

And now, for the record, the sum total of Hey Rosetta! songs I’ve seen, including the two acoustic shows I saw last year:

1.  Red Heart–5 times
2.  Bricks–4 times
3.  I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time–3 times
4.  Lions for Scottie–3 times
5.  Bandages–3 times
6.  New Goodbye–3 times
7.  Yer Spring–3 times
8.  New Glass–3 times
9.  There’s an Arc–3 times
10.  Seeds–3 times
11.  Seventeen–2 times
12.  Red Song–2 times
13.  We Made a Pact–2 times
14.  Another Pilot–2 times
15.  Welcome–2 times
16.  A Thousand Suns–1 time
17.  Yer Fall–1 time
18.  Holy Shit–1 time
19.  New Sum–1 time

Mom’s/ Sisters

So my mom now lives with my sister, which makes visiting everybody much easier!  It was quite nice to see everybody all at once!  In the same breath, however, I must admit it made me feel as though I did a poor job of paying ample attention to everyone.  When you are seeing a gaggle of loved ones all at once for the first time in a long time, it can be a strain to give equal time.  I think specifically of the nephews, who I love uncontrollably but whom I was not able to give the sort of attention they are accustomed to receiving from me.  When it came down to it, my mom and my sister were the center of my focus (not to mention the antics of Pumpkin Latte).  Don’t get me wrong, I had a lovely time!  I guess I’m just feeling some guilt, cause those boys worked up a good amount of anticipation for my arrival and I almost certainly dissapointed.  That being said, the time with Momma and Sis was marvelous. LOTS of laughs, and a new momma/ son tradition: I claim her and I are going to do the Jumble together, and then I end up freaking out over how amazing she is at it, while I add absolutely nothing to the process (she really is amazing at the Jumble).  Also, I “T”d my sister, which always rules.  A brief but incredibly heartwarming time.  Some select pics:

Sister and Pumpkin Latte, as she was taking their picture

Sis, Me, Mom

New York

The New York trip is another thing I shall have to gloss over, or I’ll be writing this blog entry until next week.  I did what I typically do: I drive right into the city, pay a thousand dollars to park, and just walk around.  I usually have very little plan other than one or two fairly simple goals.  This trip’s goals: see sunrise from inside Central Park, and buy a New York Times from a newsstand and read the whole thing from inside a midtown Manhattan Starbucks during the morning commute hours.  I’m not sure why I wanted to do these things, but once the goals were in my mind, I could not seem to let them go.  I accomplished both, and although being in Central Park during sunrise was magical, it was not easy to get any great pictures of the event, due to the vast amount of:

a) Tall trees, and
b) skyscrapers

These things blocked the view of the actual sunrise rather effectively, but feeling the world come alive from within the park was quite joyous.  Here is the best picture I got of the sunrise:

I spent almost two hours in the Starbucks, enjoying my latte and an incredible issue of the NYT.  I suppose for a moment I felt as hip as I’ve always suspected I am.  It was a quality time.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around, taking pictures, eating, even napping briefly in the tranquil section of Central Park known as the Woodlands.  I also visited, for the first time, the Central Park Zoo, which was a lovely treat.  Here is some video I took of the Sea Lions being fed (and putting on a little show) followed by some pictures:

Sunset, Brooklyn

Me in Central Park

Some Things I Learned

1.  8 months is not long enough to forget how to get around (but it IS long enough to cause some occasional navigation confusion)

2.  When you are a single man in your 30s who moves away from everyone he knows and doesn’t visit home for 8 months, a surprising amount of people from all demographics will just straight-up ask you about your sex life.  This is fodder for an entire blog entry at some point that will be in the form of a “rant”.  FYI, nobody need worry about my sex life, mkay?

3.  You may think where you live is boring, but leave it for a little while and then come back; you may just find it’s really cool.

4.  There are really hot ladies everywhere.

5.  Don’t tell people you got fat.  You may think it will make your fatness less awkward, but it makes it moreso.

6.  Things change.  Buildings get knocked down, businesses change their name, streets get re-directed.  Accept these things as a natural course of existence. (reminds me of a Hey Rosetta! song:  “The schools that we went to have all been closed./ And all of my teachers are dead, I suppose.”)

7.  You can walk further than you think you can.

8.  If you move and your sports allegiances change a little bit, you can just kinda keep that to yourself on your first few visits home.

9.  As you leave places you have stayed for just a day or two, remember to gather all your various “chargers”.  We have a lot of chargers in this day and age.

10.  Family and friends really are the best things in the world, even if saying so sounds cheesy and cliche.  Fuck it, it’s true!

I Almost Forgot…

Today is my 8 year sobriety anniversary!  The original purpose of this vacation was for me to have off and see my loved ones leading up to the big day.  (I just have to complete my anniversary tradition of watching “Dark Days” on the anniversary itself)  So…yay me!  But also…yay you!  Thanks everybody for putting up with my horribleness when I was horrible, and then helping me live such a satisfying and fantastic life in my sobriety!  What a treat, to be able to celebrate the week leading up to it in the way I did.  And how neat is it that I almost forgot today was the day???  That must mean life is pretty good.  I love you, everybody!

Audio Poem: “Upon My Birthday”

Year Written:  2006
Collection:  The Salt Flats

Click the gray arrow to hear me read this poem.

Upon My Birthday

I’ve spoken at length with you about years rolling by unhinged
like breathless wagons drawn by crazed stallions;
I’ve sat with you in the hushed cellars of our
toilsome peers devising machines of immortality;
I have calmly stepped with you through the doorways of hospitals and morgues,
scoffing at the gall of centuries to lay claim to my soul;
I have laid upon you, dear, halfnaked in dawn’s presence,
sucking sweetly through my nose the air you just breathed out,
heaving my breath in time to yours,
and even then, dear,
(even then!)
I did not feel as truly alive as I do now
upon my birthday,
this day with the earth in a precise arc in it’s trembling orbit
which somehow belongs to me,
this day swinging stubbornly around once a calendar year
so that I may live with true vigor and purpose these scant hours,
and be reminded there was a time
I was not even alive!

The Father

When I am deep inside her suddenly I see
what I am doing: I am like a man in a tunnel

clay walls moist, tracks
gliding off into the distance

I carry a weak flashlight,
peer forward

What am I doing?
Do I fear a cave-in?

No, I am seeking the other man
the rival, the brother, the father

Audio Poem: “Strawberry Tea”

Year written: 2006
Collection:  The Salt Flats

Strawberry Tea

I know of another woman
with an ivory throat
who washes clothes by hand
with Lava soap
and wakes each day
with flowers in her hair;
she doesn’t like bees
(although she’s never been stung)
this woman with the ivory throat.

When she plants a garden
(which she does, she does)
her plants grow plump
and juicy inside
and you can hear them sigh
as she walks by,
her gardening-skirt
rippling with her thighs.

Friday’s Film Clip: “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”

Ten Mini-Memoirs

1.  The first concert I ever went to was 80s superstar Tiffany.  I remember being very excited, despite not really knowing who she was or what was going on.  I went with my mother and my sister; it was at The Forum in Harrisburg.  This is one of those memories that consists of just a few details and sensory portraits. Bright, colorful lights.  Standing on the cushioned chair.  So many people. 

2.  I’ve always thought that somehow I got my love of Dr. Pepper from my Grandma Allie, though I do not know where this belief comes from.  I have never seen her drink it, not does she ever have any at her house.  But I have a flash of a memory:  my family, on vacation in Ocean City, Maryland.  Grandma and I, somehow, are alone in the hotel room.  I am very young.  We are sitting at the dining room table together, discussing (to my memory) two things:  how much my allowance is, and Dr. Pepper.  On the table with us is a sweating, lovely crimson 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper.  This small, insignificant memory has forever welded Grandma Allie and Dr. Pepper together for me.

3.  I lost my virginity in the Subaru Legacy station wagon that had been passed down to me from my mother, on a dirt road in the far, far out country of Perry County, Pennsylvania, at the age of 16.  The rap album Regulate by Warren G. was playing, and I was 16 years old.  The car smelled of vanilla car air freshener.  I had one of those tree-shaped air fresheners hanging from the volume knob of the radio.  I used a green condom, for reasons unknown.

4.  My dad and I used to go to Harrisburg Senators games all the time.  They are the minor league baseball team for that city.  I remember very little of the games themselves.  What I remember most is the arrival and the departure, but especially the departure.  We’d usually leave early if the result was clear, so we walked past all the seated fans, then out to a largely empty parking lot.  Then, inside Dad’s car, he’d tune into the AM station broadcasting the Senator’s game.  The combination of drying sweat, kicking-in air conditioning, the calming sounds of a radio-broadcasted baseball game, and often gloaming sunset light—well, things don’t get much better than that, at any age, I dare say.

5.  I went on a vacation to Vermont with my friend Brock’s family, when Brock and I were teenagers.  At the time, it seemed like a pretty boring vacation, compared to my family’s beach vacations.  We stayed at a sleepy lake town called Lake Rescue, in a very posh cabin.  It all must have been very expensive.  Nowadays, it’s just the kind of vacation I’d like to take—grilling delicious meat on the stained-oak deck overlooking the sun setting over the lake, lazy days canoeing, hiking the flat trails, falling asleep to the sound of ducks diving for food.  At the time, though, Brock and I were miserably bored, though we did invent a sport called Twizzling, the rules of which I have long since forgotten.

6.  My first real drink of alcohol—other than a few sips of champagne at somebody’s wedding sometime—was what the kids call a “40” (a 40-ounce bottle of Malt Liquor) and a few Zimas.  I was 16.  It was at the apartment of an adult who I did not know, but who knew one of my friends.  He supplied us the alcohol.  We just sat around, consuming, and it was frankly a little boring.  I didn’t feel much.  After completing my allotment of Zimas, I asked the adult friend-of-a-friend if he could go back to the bar (which was just across the street) and buy me “a beer”, which I thought might put me over some sort of edge.  I didn’t know you couldn’t just buy one can of beer, and I got laughed at.  I wouldn’t have my “a-ha moment” with alcohol until the second time I drank it, though I usually combine these two stories for a more powerful “alcoholic’s first drink” story, but that version is not true.  The bar where the adult frind-of-a-friend bought the alcohol went out of business and recently became a pizza shop, less than a block from my last apartment in Carlisle.  I used to go there for pizza all the time.

7.  I have had sex in the projection room of a movie theater.

8.  While I have never been a grade-A athlete, there were, for a time, things I excelled at, though none of them were of any use to me in organized sports.  I was very good at gym class type things, like floor hockey.  At my high school, we played a lot of a specific type of dodgeball called “bombardment”, and I was freaking amazing at bombardment.  Two years running, it was offered as a ‘club’ (a fun class of your choosing you had once a week) and I took it, along with my more athletically-skewing pals.  We were on a team called the Pussycats, and we dominated for the entire two years it was offered as a club, winning all 4 championships (2 a year).  The only thing is, the first championship we won, I cheated.  I had been hit by a ball, and no one saw it, and I didn’t tell anyone, and I was the last man standing for our team.  So if I’d have been honest, we would have lost.

9.  I once saw my sister fly over the handlebars of her ten-speed bike after she tried jumping a hill I had urged her to jump, and it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.  I thought she’d die!

10.  My father and I went golfing once, and little did we know that the water in the golf course’s drinking fountains actually had a high level of fecal matter in it.  It was a very hot day, and we drank a lot of it.  The next day, my mother, myself, and my grandma Cohick went to see WWF Live in Hershey.  On the way there, I ate (and swallowed) an entire pack of grape bugglegum.  Halfway through the show, I got very ill, and once we got home, I vomited and kept on vomiting for what seemed days (I think, in fact, it was days).  It wasn’t until later that we pieced together what all happened, after a class-action lawsuit was brought against the golf course.  To this day, I cannot chew grape bubblegum.

One of Cory and Seth’s Favorite Poems

After having a lovely phone conversation with Cory tonight, wherein we spoke at some length about our favorite poems, we ended up reminiscing about a shared favorite of ours, “sometimes i am alive because with” by E.E. Cummings, and I agreed to post it here on my blog today, but I thought I’d make it a special one-time “Cory and Seth’s Favorite Poems” entry (unless, of course, we ever realize we have more dual favorites to share!).  So anyway, this poem is freakin’ amazing:

“sometimes i am alive because with”
by E.E. Cummings

sometimes i am alive because with
me her alert treelike body sleeps
which i will feel slowly sharpening
becoming distinct with love slowly,
who in my shoulder sinks sweetly teeth
until we shall attain the Springsmelling
intense large togethercoloured instant

the moment pleasantly frightful

when, her mouth suddenly rising, wholly
begins with mine fiercely to fool
(and from my thighs which shrug and pant
a murdering rain leapingly reaches the
upward singular deepest flower which she
carries in a gesture of her hips)

Seth’s Favorite Poems

 Click here to read all the previous poems in this series.

The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
by Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
is my destroyer;
and I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
my youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
how at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
hauls my shroud sail;
and I am dumb to tell the hanging man
how of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
how time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
how at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

 

Audio Poem, “How Did You Get in Here?”

Fans of “How Did You Get in Here?” will note that I have edited it from it’s original version (striking in its entirely the original line 6 and altering line 7).  Click the gray arrow to play it.

Year written:  2004
Collection:  Of Course

How Did You Get in Here?

Promise me I’ll never find you naked on my bed,
your feet a yard apart, midsection arching skyward,
fingers clasping the oak risers of the headboard,
gasping for breath.  Oh dear what a nightmare!
Please don’t smile as I walk in, or wink.
As I circle the bed, slowly disrobing,
please do not snake your hand downward
toward your moist bubble
or begin making the kinds of sounds
that I associate with lovemaking,
like low throaty whimpers.
Oh, that would ruin me!
And as I waddle toward you on the bed
on my knees
raising myself above you
planting both my arms on either side of your head,
please don’t whisper that you love me,
or promise me eternity,
because I am through with empty gestures.

Suicide Note #1 (FICTION)

1. Georgetown, Great Exuma

             Two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in the Chat and Chill Bar on Stocking Island.  KB, the Bahamian who owns the place, is looking for an argument and can’t find one.  Mandela versus Boutelayzee, Army versus Navy, chanterelles versus portabellas.  Even Mushroom John, who brought his wife, Sandy, down here from their tuber farm in Pennsylvania for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, says the rule is to each their own.  Down the beach Junior is making the best conch salad on the island, conch so fresh it is still wiggling when he puts it down in front of us.  I drink two Bombays on ice to Albert’s five Kalik beers, and after some critical mass of mosquito bites we tumble outside to hit the blue, blue water.  I told Albert there was no blue like Exuma blue before we came, and now he says, “It’s so pretty, it’s corny.”

            Every Sunday at the Chat and Chill, KB roasts a pig, we can smell it where we’re floating, you can smell it all over the island when the wind is onshore.  A jellyfish floats across the beige sand below our floating bodies, and a little school of sergeant majors mistake the yellow in my bathing suit for one of their own.  The floating is so effortless, the sun so soft and warm, I’m almost asleep when Junior hollers that the conch fritters are ready, and we swim to shore and eat them, roll them around in the red sauce that has just the right amount of kick to it, get in one more swim before it’s time to eat the pig.

2. Davis, California

            Early morning on what they call the ‘greenbelt’.  Walking with Lucy, while Audrey leaps between furrowed, fallow fields.  Everyone we know calls Lucy Audrey and Audrey Lucy, which is strange since Lucy is a thirty-five-year-old woman, and Audrey is a German shorthaired pointer, but when you see the way they look at each other, you begin to understand.  Lucy has her sister’s name—Emily—tattooed across her bicep.  Last month, Emily tried to kill herself, succeeded, temporarily, was gone, in almost every way that counts, for more than two whole days.  Then she came back from the dead.

            Last night I heard a nightingale imitating a car alarm in a jacaranda tree.  This morning, a heron teases Audrey with a touch-and-go pattern along the creek.  I remember the day last fall when Murray and Melinda and I walked on Limantour Beach after the storm and watched the pelicans.  The storm had brought out all the animals, tule elk, fallow deer, and three coyotes who ran and leapt and did the kinds of things coyotes do in terrible lovely velvet paintings, while we watched, open-mouthed, from the side of the road.  We were each locked inside our individual sorrows, didn’t know each other well enough to share, but we agreed, out loud, that just like moose, pelicans were surely put on earth to act as suicide preventers, agreed we’d never kill ourselves in sight of one.

3. Ozona, Texas

Nine o’clock on a Thursday night, the bar full of Halliburton guys in their red suits, roughnecks from the oilfields for preseason football, hunting stories, and beer.  It is just dumb luck that I’ve worn my camo miniskirt, and I take the best seat in the house for watching the Pats beat up the Redskins, until the bartender comes over and tells us we’ve entered a private club.  Albert rises to leave.  He recognizes enemy territory, knows that sculptors and Halliburton guys shouldn’t drink together, especially not in Texas.  “In that case,” I say, “I’ll take two memberships and two double shots of Patron Silver, and a Coke.”

            We can mark this down as my last fearless moment.  After a few hours—and dozens of silent, accusatory stares—Albert says, “You might be the first woman to ever drink in this bar,” and I say, “You might be the first sculptor.”  Later, in the parking lot of the Best Western, I pick up both of our heavy suitcases and make a beeline for the stairs.  Albert says, “No! Pam, no!” which makes me lift the bags higher and run for it, and when I get to the top I laugh so hard I pee.

4.  Juneau, Alaska

            They said we wouldn’t see any orcas.  They said the humpbacks were in and when the humpbacks were in you didn’t see the orcas, because the orcas were predators and the humpbacks are prey.  It’s been a long day.  We’ve been all the way up Tracy Arm to the glaciers, and everyone but the captain and I are sleeping when a report comes over the radio: orcas in Shearwater Cove.

            By the time we get there, there’s nothing stirring.  A couple of humpbacks out in the main channel a sure sign the orcas are gone.  The captain is worried about the hour, worried about the fuel he’s got left, worried about his daughter, who’s got magenta hair and a T-shirt that says THIS is what a feminist looks like, who is back from somewhere like Berkeley working on his boat this summer, selling sodas to the tourists through a permanent scowl.  There is a flash of fin on the other side of the channel, distant, but unmistakable.  Orca.  Male.

            The captain says, “That’s four miles across this channel, minimum.”  I show him the silver charm around my neck, remind him that it’s my last day in Alaska, promise to swim for shore if we run out of gas.

            “Don’t lose that fin,” he says, turning the bow into the sunset, but I couldn’t lose it if I tried, the water of Stephen’s Passage backlit, a million diamonds rushing toward me in the sun, and one black fin, impossibly tall, absurdly geometric, the accompanying blast of whale breath above it, superimposed onto the patterns of light.

            Spotting whales at sea is not so different than spotting deer in the woods.  For hours you see nothing, and then you see one, and suddenly you realize you are surrounded.  This pod has twenty-five, by my best counting, the one male, who keeps his distance, and twenty-four females, all of them running steadily west.  We get out in front, and the captain shuts down the engines.  Every time the big male’s fin turns itself up and over and back down under the surface of the water, I can’t help myself, I gasp.

5. Laramie, Wyoming

            In the summer, the trains come through town more than once an hour, and Albert and I, locked all night in the bookstore like a fantasy left over from clumsy childhood, pulling books off whatever shelves we want to and reading to each other—poems first, and then settling into stories—on the old purple couch.  We’d come down that day from Walden, Moose Capital of Colorado.  I was sure we would find some marker on the fence where Matthew Shepard had been tied.

            Later, when we had turned out all the lights in the bookstore and thrown the mattress on the floor in the back room, the cow-boy band across the street tried to play “Free Bird” as an encore, and I watched his face above me change color with the flashing light.  He took my hand and made me feel the place we came together.

            “Holy,” he said, not believing in God.

6. Tampa, Florida

Eight o’clock on a Friday night, and downtown is rolled up tight.  Half a block from the old Tampa Theater, lights, voices, and the slow roll of reggae spilling out into the street.  Albert and I have been having a hard time finding fun in Tampa, and the Jamaicans at the Jerk Hut seem to be having some.  It has the feel of a private party, and no one else there is white, but the bouncer says five bucks a person cover, twelve for a bucket of Dos Equis, you can get yourself some food in the back.

            We fill a plate with jerk chicken and fried bananas, open two beers, and settle in on the perimeter.  The band is talented, everyone in the place knows the words and sings along, and even though Albert keeps trying to bend the lyrics political, all the lines I catch are about love and sex and girls.  Albert is not a dancer, but the beat is irresistible, so I compromise, as others do, by swaying in my chair.  When we are not ignored entirely, we are looked at with pleasant curiosity.

            Earlier that day, I was trying to buy some grouper somewhere other than a supermarket, and the woman at the Born Again Produce stand sent me to the Fresh Fish Market in the projects.  “It’s crazy,” she said. “Water, water everywhere, but that’s the only one there is.”

            The Fresh Fish Market is in a strip mall.  Next door at the Joyful Noise Karate Institute, teenage boys in white and purple robes are grunting in unison; the effect is an odd mixture of eerie and calming.  There was only one grouper left in the case, and the woman behind me in line wanted to arm-wrestle me for it, before she broke into a smile so wide it showered the dingy market walls with light.

            Back at the Jerk Hut, the band is on break, and Albert says, “We might be the only white people to ever drink in this bar.”  And I say, “And you might be the only sculptor.”

            I’m finally beginning to understand, that when we want to kill ourselves, it is not because we are lonely, but because we are trying to break up with the world before the world breaks up with us.

            When the band comes back, a waitress named Shaila with beaded dreadlocks and bright green pumps takes both my hands and pulls me to the dance floor.  She says, “We are going to get everybody dancing tonight.”  Two songs later she says, “I’m going back to get Mister,” and I know Albert won’t be able to resist her invitation.  She brings him to me on the dance floor, and two songs later, Shaila gets her wish.  Every single person—even the bouncer, even the kitchen ladies—are dancing, joyful, to the beat.

Monday’s Song: “No Pussy Blues” by Grinderman

No Pussy Blues
by Grinderman

My face is finished, my body’s gone
And I can’t help but think, standin’ up here
In all this applause and gazin’ down
At all the young and the beautiful
With their questioning eyes

That I must above all things love myself

I saw a girl in the crowd
I ran over, I shouted out
I asked if I could take her out
But she said that she didn’t want to

I changed the sheets on my bed
I combed the hairs across my head
I sucked in my gut and still she said
That she just didn’t want to

I read her Eliot, I’d read her Yeats
I tried my best to stay up late
I fixed the hinges on her gate
But still she just never wanted to

I bought her a dozen snow white doves
I did her dishes in rubber gloves
I called her honey bee, I called her love
But she just still didn’t want to
She just never wants to

I sent her every type of flower
I played the guitar by the hour
I petted her revolting little chihuahua
But still she just didn’t want to

I wrote a song with a hundred lines
I picked a bunch of dandelions
I walked her through the trembling pines
But she just even then didn’t want to
She just never wants to

I thought I’d try another ‘tack
I drank a liter of Cognac
I threw her down upon her back
But she just laughed and said
That she just didn’t want to

I thought I’d have another go
I called her my little ho
I felt like Marcel Marceau must feel when
She said that she just never wanted to
She just didn’t want to

I got the no pussy blues

Seth’s Favorite Poems

To the Whore Who Took My Poems
by Charles Bukowski

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn’t you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I’m not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won’t be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there’ll always be money and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.

Audio Poem: “Clean Heat”

“Clean Heat” is one of the rare poems that other folks seem to like more than I do.  Since it appeared in Ridiculous Things in 2004, at least 5 people have quoted a line from it to me, so there must be something about it (or at least those lines they quote) that sticks out to them.  Personally, if I had this poem to write all over again, I’d probably cut about half of it out (which I think would make it twice as good), but alas, I’d also like to cut the lines that people seem to like, and since it’s not very often people actually quote me to me, I’m not going to mess with what works.  As a caution, this poem is about sex and describes (tastefully, I’d say) some sex acts; I like to warn people of that in case my grandma or aunt Diane is reading.  It’s far, far from pornography but it might make you picture me naked.  So, here’s “Clean Heat”.  Click the gray arrow to hear it:

Clean Heat

Six years later and still I think of you,
you with so many faults and me with so few,
the two of us together for maybe eight months,
a wobbly pair.
I may never stop thinking of you,
and what a fact to behold!
And what memories I am forced to live with:
your pouty circular lips,
breasts perfectly shaped but too pale and veiny,
thighs tight to my ears so I couldn’t even hear the television.
I’m not even sure you moaned!
And that is the nature of what I selectively recall,
not the love,
no sentiment,
heartbreak forgotten and vanished.
Only how you smelled in the clean heat of the afternoon,
moving so well with my moving,
fumbling with my fumbling parts,
turning away death by proclaiming ourselves bodies.
I never fucked you, dear,
but I fucked my own terrible oblivion
right into forgetfulness,
and it is that which I shall never forget.

Oak Flat Road, Newville, Pennsylvania

Read the first paragraph here first.

The groundhog heard a twig snap, and it almost got away. But, being boys, we worked well in packs and had already anticipated all it’s escape routes. There were four of us, and we had it surrounded. It hissed once or twice before Adam swung his arms down, releasing the large, football-shaped rock we had found earlier that day. The rock connected, landing dead-center on the groundhog’s torso. Guts spewed from both ends of it as if it were a massive ketchup packet someone had stepped on. It was exactly how we had hoped it would look.

            Then, of course, we ran, because all kids are imbued with a knowledge that anytime they do something wrong, someone will chase them, even when nobody else is there.

            Running through the cow pasture was always difficult, because there weren’t many cows that grazed there. The long, leathery grass whipped your shins despite your feet, and also hid the many ankle-twisting rock outcroppings; you had to constantly look down to ensure your safety, which meant you didn’t really know where you were going. But we weren’t deep into the pasture, so we soon emerged—full speed—onto the gradual slope of a long lawn which seemed to belong to nobody in particular. Now the running was easy—downhill, mowed and manicured grass, the four of us practically tumbled down the long lawn (maybe having already forgotten our conquest of the groundhog) until we wildly approached the squat brown shed my parent’s had bought at Zizzi’s (which is still in full operation out on the Carlisle Pike, if anyone needs a shed). Someone always came very close to running into the shed, which in later years became a fantastic place to smoke pot out of bongs made from Sunny Delight bottles.

            And then, it came into view: the house. The brown, brown, brown house which we had built (OK we didn’t actually build it. We paid a fat drunk guy named Jim Piper to build it, but we told him what to build, which in this day and age is even more admirable than actually taking hammer to nail) and which always stood as a beacon of safety, comfort and rest to me and my weary young traveling companions. We clambered over the brown fence which housed the swimming pool and into the French doors in the back of this attractive one-story ranch house and did I mention brown?

            Of course we went directly to the kitchen, with it’s subtly patterned tan linoleum floor, tan-and-brown speckled Formica countertop (with a bar) and it’s three modest barstools, it’s tan and perfectly textured refrigerator, and the coup-de-tat, a Lazy Susan. Damn, I still love Lazy Susans. One word: convenient.

            My parents have always been very cool about my friends eating their food. This is part of what makes my parents great parents. They understood the importance of your house being the center of your little kid world, and your friends being welcomed there, and all that. Also, they put in a pool. And bought me a bunk bed.

            So the four of us– (none of whom I’ve seen or spoken to in over a decade)—proceeded to eat ravenously. Who knows what we ate? Sandwiches of some kind, or cookies. My parents also had good food that kids like that doesn’t kill you. Way to go, parents!

            I then decided today would be the day I’d unveil our New World to my friends. I’d been waiting almost three days and it was killing me! So I ushered them back the hallway—unlike the Big Spring Avenue house, this house had only one hallway, straight and to the point—to my bedroom. Since we…um, Jim Piper…built the house, I had been able to select the palate for my bedroom.  In a twist of decisions no one including myself ever understood, I chose a deep, grooved, dark gray carpet and a dark yellow wall paint. The yellow was the shade of the inside of an apple once it’s been bitten into and left on a countertop for three hours. These colors not only made zero sense with the rest of the house, they didn’t even make sense with each other. I think that was what I was going for in my head, a sort of incongruity. I wanted a room that not only did nobody else have, I wanted a room nobody else wanted. My poor little Ugly Duckling bedroom, how I loved you so.

            So I usher my young companions into my bedroom with me, and I don’t say a word to them as I reach under my bed (the one on the ground, of course. Remember, my awesome parents bought me a bunk bed.) and pull out the very first Penthouse any of these guys had ever seen. Now, I myself had perused quite a few in my day but had never spoke to anyone about what I had seen there, but this was the first one that had ever been mine.

            There is a big difference between Penthouse and Playboy, if you don’t know. Penthouse has pictures of men and women fucking.

            And so with my apple walls staring at us and the raccoon carpet holding up our little knees, I silently paged through this moist curiosity to six astonished eyes. Later, as we were playing basketball in my driveway, we all agreed it was the most amazing and downright disgusting thing we had ever seen. Which is still pretty much true.

Everything Was Fantastic and Nothing Hurt

I had never had to break up with a girl before.  I had been slow in figuring them out–or they had been slow in figuring me out.  Either way, I had never imagined that once I actually had a girlfriend (and one who let me have sex with her, at that!) that I would ever do any breaking up with her.  I figured I’d always be so happy just to put my hand on a boob, or my tongue in a mouth, that the first one who agreed to it would be enough forever.

It was this kind of thinking that kept me with my first “real” girlfriend for 3 years, despite the fact that we were obviously as mismatched as possible.  Looking back on it now, I can’t even remember what we must have talked about.  We did spend a lot of time together, and I have many memories that are not unpleasant (and more than a few that are unpleasant).  Three years is a long time, even when you spend 8 hours a day in school.  So there was a lot of shared history by the time I realized I had to break up with her–but I still don’t know what we talked about.  (not to mention we were each other’s first everything, if you get my drift.)

But I did realize, eventually, that we were a bad fit.  I probably realized this because having been with her for three years, I had finally learned a bit about women and was at that point recieving some other very tempting offers from girls a bit more like me.  I spent weeks agonizing over how to break up with her.  Have you ever had teenage sex with a girl whispering I love you in your ear, knowing full well you are going to break up with her soon?  Well, it’s not as fun as it sounds.

I don’t remember much about the day I did it.  I remember it was in my bedroom, sitting on the bed, and I said it’s time for us to part ways.  It did not go well.  She cried and I was stoic.  I drove her home that night and it was a long drive.  When I got back home, my dad was in the living room watching TV.  I sat on the ottoman and made some small talk as though nothing had happened.  Then I tried to mention off-hand I broke up with her but my voice cracked and a tear jumped into my eye.  It was so hard, I said, as I started crying for real.

**************************************************************

Two and a half years earlier….

The greatest thing about finally having a girlfriend was it finally gave me reasons and methods to be some sort of badass. 

My friend Mike (I haven’t changed his name because everybody is named Mike) was dating her best friend, so we were a little group, the four of us, double dating, driving to and from school together, the whole bit.

The biggest problem in Mike and I’s lives, however, was that we were still virgins, all four of us.  I doubt it was such a problem for the girls, but it devastated Mike and I daily.  Then one day at school, the girls announced to us that tonight would be “the night”.  My girlfriend would be staying at Mike’s girlfriend’s house for the night.  This house was reachable by both my house and Mike’s house by bicycle (Mike and I were both driving by this time, but not our own cars, and we had curfews that missing cars would belie), and so it was agreed that Mike and I would both bike to the house in the middle of the night and somehow or other, all four of us would lose our virginities.

Mike and I made our own specific plans.  We chose a good spot about halfway between our own houses where we’d meet up on the bikes at precisely midnight and then go the rest of the way together.

Around 11pm, I opened my bedroom window, climbed out and walked around the house to where I’d laid my bike that evening, so I didn’t have to get it out of the garage.

Biking down country roads, alone, at night, in the silence that accompanies said action, is fucking scary.

It was a longer ride than it seemed in my mind to get to the meeting spot.  Since my family had moved out to the country a few years before, I hadn’t done an extensive amount of biking.  I grew up in the small town of Newville, where everything you could imagine was reachable by bicycle.  My brain was not equipped to deal in country miles.  After what seemed hours, I finally arrived at the spot.  No Mike.  I didn’t have a watch (and no, you bastards, this is way before cell phones) so I waited.  I checked the drainage ditches along the sides of the road in case he was laying there, hiding from passing cars (in the country when you’re a teenager, you somehow assume all passing cars are somehow going to tell your parents or the cops that you’re out late), but he wasn’t there.  I waited what I can only say was “a long time”, but I couldn’t tell how long.  It felt like at least an hour.  I couldn’t call out for him, because we had chosen a spot right in front of a few houses.

The thought of biking all the way to Mike’s girlfriend’s house–which I just now understood was really far away–all by myself just seemed like too big of a task.  I assumed he’d missed me, too, and gone on ahead, but if he hadn’t, I’d show up alone, and it would be awkward.  I got on my bike and rode home, climbed into bed sad that I was still a virgin, but somehow relieved that I hadn’t had to go through with the plan.

The next day, Mike told me he’d been hiding in some grass alongside the road and that he never saw or heard me.  It didn’t occur to me until years later that he’d been absolutely lying and he’d never even left his house that night.  Lord knows if the girls were even waiting up for us.

*****************************************************

One year after the bicycle night…

Her and I had been driving for hours in what seemed like a circle.  Why I even ever thought the two of us could navigate Philadelphia was a mystery to me.  I didn’t even bring a map, I kept thinking.  If there’s one thing I learned about traveling from my parents, it was to always bring a map.  Did I somehow think we were adults who could do things like drive around cities?  What a fool.

I didn’t want to fight.  I had seen couples who got lost start fighting and it always seemed foolish.  It accomplished nothing.  And so the more tense we got, the more calm I forced my exterior to appear, and the more I love yous I said, and before I knew what hit me, there was the sign for the Turnpike–always a surefire way home.

Once safely on the Turnpike, after smoking a few relaxing cigarettes, she turned and said Seth, you’re a good man.  It was the first time anybody had ever said that to me, and I’ll never forget it.

****************************************************

One year after the Philadelphia trip…

It was a Friday night.  I remember that for certain because we were coming from a high school football game (she was a cheerleader, so I attended every single game, and carried all her gear to my car afterward.  This provides a serious high for any teenage boy, to be seen carrying his prominent cheerleader girlfriend’s things to his car after a game).  It was October and she wanted to go to the “haunted house” that is put on in Newville every October, and which is walking distance from the football field. 

I did not want to go. 

I’d be in my mid-twenties before I even started watching horror movies, and even now I don’t like things like “haunted houses”–though I do now love horror films.

Back then, I was scared of everything but trying my best to learn how to hide it.  This is Central Pennsylvania, home of tall corn, taller trucks, Joe Montana, and Three Mile Island.  Five-foot-tall men who scare easily are not the preferred type, and I knew that, and so was consistently doing things like this that every fiber of my being told me to turn from.

We got in line for the haunted house.  I remember she was still in her cheerleading uniform which I–surprise–found very sexy, even after 2 years of having sex with her while she wore the damn thing every Friday night during football season (and after home basketball games, too).  It’s amazing how long a 17 year old boy can stay transfixed on a detail.  So even then, that night, I tried to stay transfixed on the uniform instead of what I assumed would be the bone chilling terror inside the haunted house.

She noticed how I was looking at her and backed me against a wall, slid her hand down my pants.  She wanted to get me off right there, in line!

But I wasn’t aroused.  After a minute or two of attempting to get me going, she asked what was wrong.

“I’m just a little…scared,” I said.

“Of the haunted house?” she asked.

“Yep.  Just a little.”

She withdrew her hand from my pants and, looking me square in the eyes, said You pussy.

That’s another thing she said to me that I’ll never forget.

 

******************************************************** 

Eleven years after the haunted house…

i was out shopping about a week ago with a close close female friend of mine i didn’t need anything we weren’t shopping for me we were shopping for her so of course it stands to reason we were spending alot of if not most of our time in clothing stores i like shopping for clothes with women at least if it’s a woman i like i like to be just honest enough that they believe me about how things look on them and besides if i’m spending a day shopping with a woman chances are i find her deliriously attractive to begin with and have on immense blinders and truly think everything looks good on her anyway so i rarely get bored while clothes shopping with women except for when they are a woman who takes forever trying clothes on and this particular woman friend of mine happens to be the type who takes forever trying clothes on so about two hours into the shopping excursion while she is in a fitting room i wandered out into the mall and spent about five minutes looking at this kiosk that was all about some homeschooling-over-the-internet thing and they had a nice display and i picked up some of the books children’s books and educational books and felt the heft of them paged through smelling the smell of them remembering when i thought books were like shiny little stars with worlds in them like ameoba in a toad’s pee-puddle and i would feel the pages the coarse roughhewn pages like they were an heirloom quilt and when i had had my fill of standing at the kiosk reminiscing i wandered back into the store and halfway to the back i saw her.  Not the friend i was there shopping with but the first girlfriend the first one ever she still looked like she was 17 although a bit more like a woman now in fact she looked very good–not as good as the friend I was shoppign with but very good nonetheless– and although i immediately turned my head and pretended i hadn’t noticed her it was like i could smell her hair and the minty basement smell of sex with her and could see from a distance the way her lips aren’t lined up right and the sad swing of her braless breasts and i wanted to turn to her from across the store and say ‘i never knew you and you never knew me and that’s pretty much all there ever is to anything but we tried’ and then promptly turn and leave.  but i didn’t.  i meandered around the store at a safe distance so she could see me, so she could remember, too.

 

**********************************************************

Fourteen years before the shopping trip…

We sat at the back of the bus, my friends and I.  We had finally graduated to that level of bad-assness.  We were the big kids on the back of the bus, though I was of course never “big”, but I had some major seniority on bus #10. 

Lately, though, things had been all about our friend John, who had recently become the first of us to lose his virginity.  Each and every bus ride now, for the last week, had been filled with tales he’d tell us about what it was like.  We all wondered what this girl would be like.  John was an athlete and not unpopular, so she must really be something (I’d learn later that John had made up every sexual encounter with the girl; he ended up being a virgin longer than I was).

We were sitting in the school parking lot in the morning, waiting to be let off, when John said There she is, and he tapped on the window as a young girl passed by.  She stopped, grinned ear-to-ear, tapped back on the glass and blew a kiss to John.

That was the first time I ever laid eyes on her, and I remember thinking I was slightly unimpressed.  If only I knew how good she’d look fourteen years later while shopping in a backwater mall.

Audio Poem: “Conquests”

Here’s another one from The Mundorf Bench.  It’s pretty self-explanatory, but I’d like to preface it just a bit by explaining that at the time of its writing—living with my mother in New Jersey—I was experimenting a little bit with writing in form.  If you’re not a poet genius, allow me to explain a little Poetry 101. “Form” is just what it sounds like: any kind of pattern or system, from simple rhyming to complex rhythms.  I played around with all kinds of forms at this time, but I was best at “syllabic” poems.  Syllabic poems are basically the lazy man’s rhythm: you use patterns of syllables, though unlike rhythms, the words need not have stresses in any particular place.  Even though syllabic poems are easier to write than poems in a rhythm (or what we’d call iambic), they still aint easy, cause you have to fit what you want to say into very specific spaces.  And that’s part of why I’m so proud of “Conquests”—it’s syllabic (ten syllables to a line) and I also consider it incredibly succesful at saying what I want to say.  I still catch my breath when I read the last line.  So, now that I’ve thoroughly patted myself on the back, here is “Conquests”:

Conquests

I had been comparing mine to yours, see,
throughout the whole tenure of our friendship.
Your choices were always squeaky, buxom,
witless creatures, trouncing about like such
lurid trophies for me to covet, friend.
And now I can appreciate just how
you had been pulling it off all this time,
how you convinced them to hover in cars
above you horizontal, or got them
in swimming pools to unfurl a petal,

and in restaurant back room booths quickly.
I always plodding through the ritual,
the background, the family, likes, dislikes,
and they not always stunningly pretty,
not like yours: your stylistic pontiff
ladies never had nor needed dislikes
for you to learn or get accustomed to,
only marvels, busts, to ogle and pinch.
I wonder, have you ever thought about
my women, as I have yours, lustily?

Or, granted you had not, did you notice
what afflicted me, your damsels and girls
besting mine in the forms that all men crave?
But where have they ended up, these women?
It could have been your kitchen, baking ham
and waitng for Sunday, lonley housewives
whose singular carnal pleasure consists
of their fingertips while you are at work;
instead they are simply gone, as all girls
finally will go.  Years whisk them away.

Walking Through Invisible Fire

(originally posted to my MySpace blog on 9/23/06)

i was out shopping about a week ago with a close close female friend of mine i didn’t need anything we weren’t shopping for me we were shopping for her so of course it stands to reason we were spending alot of if not most of our time in clothing stores i like shopping for clothes with women at least if it’s a woman i like i like to be just honest enough that they believe me about how things look on them and besides if i’m spending a day shopping with a woman chances are i find her deliriously attractive to begin with and have on immense blinders and truly think everything looks good on her anyway so i rarely get bored while clothes shopping with women except for when they are a woman who takes forever trying clothes on and this particular woman friend of mine happens to be the type who takes forever trying clothes on so about two hours into the shopping excursion while she is in a fitting room i wandered out into the mall and spent about five minutes lookingat this kiosk that was all about some homeschooling-over-the-internet thing and they had a nice display and i picked up some of the books children’s books and educational books and felt the heft of them paged through smelling the smell of them remembering when i thought books were like shiny little stars with worlds in them like ameoba in a toad’s pee-puddle and i would feel the pages the coarse roughhewn pages like they were an heirloom quilt and when i had had my fill of standing at the kiosk reminiscing i wandered back into the store and halfway to the back i saw her.  Not the friend i was there shopping with but the first girlfriend the first one ever she still looked like she was 17 and although i immediately turned my head and pretended i hadn’t noticed her it was like i could smell her hair and the minty basement smell of sex with her and could see from a distance the way her lips aren’t lined up right and the sad swing of her braless breasts and i wanted to turn to her from across the store and say ‘i never knew you and you never knew me and that’s pretty much all there ever is to anything but we tried’ and then promptly turn and leave.  but i didn’t.  i meandered around the store at a safe distance so she could see me, so she could remember, too.

This Blog Entry is Definitely Not It

Something you already know about me:  I used to drink every day and I was a miserable human being.  Pathetic, really, in a lot of ways.  This story, like many I’ve told, starts back then.  But this one is only half about me.

You might not like the me that is in this story very much.

I don’t know where I officially lived at the time, if in fact I officially lived anywhere.  I spent alot of time at my mom’s small Dillsburg apartment (which I’m convinced, to this day, is still set up exactly how she left it, just waiting for me to drop by, watch some DVDs, eat some leftover lasagna from the fridge), where I had a tiny bedroom in the back which I shared with a multitude of big plastic bins filled with Beanie Babies.  I liked this room.

When I was staying at my mom’s, I’d often be up all night, drunk as humanly possible, and addicted to my newest form of escape:  the internet.  I don’t need to tell you the kind of horrible, immoral things a depressed  horny alcoholic misanthrope can get up to on the internet, especially when the tool is rather new to him.  Sure, sometimes it was Pearl Jam message boards.  Other times, it was more than that.

One night, in an especially deep alcoholic stupor, I was perusing some very adult chat rooms.  I have no clear recollection of how my relationship with her formed–what we said, how we started talking.  No memory of it.  But I know that we somehow had a nice enough chat to exchange e-mails.  This was before cell phones, and giving out home phone numbers over the internet was a very big step.  So for a few weeks, we e-mailed, chatted when possible.  I even wrote a poem about her (quite horrible).  It was the lonely misanthrope’s version of falling in love.

And then we did exchange numbers.  She lived in Chicago, so we could never talk as long as we wanted.  We were always worried about the cost of the calls (remember, I don’t have a home at the time, so it’s always someone else’s phone.  I bought phone cards, and so did she).  I loved her voice.  It was sexy without being demur and unapproachable.  I loved the way she described herself physically–digital photography and sharing of such online was much less prevalant than it is now; I had not seen a photo of her, but I believed her descriptions and it sounded right down my alley.  She was an artist (a singer and lyricist), she was fun-loving, spontaneous, sharply sarcastic, very sexual, and she loved to drink.  I was actually waking up in the mornings with that “I’m in love” glow, despite the fact that I’d never seen this girl and she lived in freakin’ Chicago.

Sometimes I’d call her from work, assuming nobody would know who the hell called Chicago.  Nobody ever knew.

Eventually, we said enough is enough, and she came to see me.  She flew into Baltimore and I picked her up in my falling-apart 1983 Ford Escort that my mom helped me buy.  I’d never done something like pick someone up at an airport.  I felt very grown up.  I of course had no idea what I was doing and struggled to get to the correct terminal on time.  I remember I was sober when I first saw her.

My heart sank.  She was ugly.  Truly ugly.  I cannot sugar-coat it for you.  She had not really lied at all in her description of herself, she had simply manipulated things a bit, used the creative vagaries of language to her benefit.  Now, I do realize that I am not Tom Cruise, but back in those days, I was almost Breckin Meyer, which isn’t nothing.  She looked kinda like a turtle. I knew immediately that I was still going to sleep with her.  It would just have to wait until I was all the way drunk.

What followed was three days of severest debauchery.  A lot, a lot of drinking.  Oh, and driving, too.  We spent all night in a bar watching bands play and then I tried to drive us to my dad’s house in Newville, but I was so drunk I got on a highway going the wrong direction.  When I realized it, I backed up–on the highway–for a couple hundred yards and back down the on-ramp.  While blindly drunk.  I think about that often, at least once a month, anytime I am feeling sorry for myself.  After getting off that highway we somehow ended up back at my mom’s.  I don’t know how I was too drunk to remember how to get to the house I grew up in.

And sex.  Yes, lots of sex, when I was blind enough to bring myself to it.  But once there, it was fantastic.  Despite being obliterated I still remember moments of it, as it was so transcendant it created moments of clarity.

And during these three days of debauchery, I did not like this girl at all.  Not a single little bit.  But what was I to do?  She was there for three days no matter what.  I couldn’t very well tell her I didn’t like her!  After all, she paid for the plane ticket!  I thought I was just giving her what she wanted.

Eventually I got her on a plane back to Chicago, breathed a sigh of relief, and figured I’d go back to my life.

Which is what I did, for the most part.  I gradually eased off the e-mails, IMs, and chatting. Phone calls became virtually non-existent.  I had succesfully gotten rid of her.

Except I was still a drunken lonely misanthrope at night, and sometimes the temptation to reach out became too strong.  And so, sometime about a year after our initial visit, I began communication with her again.  And around this time, a friend of mine was also in online talks with a girl who lived in Chicago.  I have no idea how in the world we actually set this whole thing up, but suddenly this friend and me found ourselves in his car driving halfway across the country to Chicago.  We had booked a hotel for two nights.  The road trip itself was marvelous because this friend let me smoke AND drink in his car.  I got drunk the whole way to Chicago.  Pretty much heaven, to me then.

I don’t know what I expected to happen.  I don’t know if I expected her to be pretty now.  But she wasn’t.  We met her at a friend of hers’ apartment and had a few beers.  I thought she was obnoxious and unbearable and uglier than before.  I could not believe we had just driven to Chicago for this! (although a part of me still remembered the amazing sex, but the draw of that was simply not enough)

I pulled my friend aside and told him we had to escape.  He understood.  We made up a story about an emergency with the girl he had came to Chicago to see, and I told her I’d call her to set up a time to meet the next day.  We got the hell out of there and went to see my friends’ girl.  She was adorable and awesome and her fiance was there to keep my friend away.  Both dejected, we went to our hotel room, dumped a bag of ice and a 12-pack of beer in the sink, and got wasted.  The next morning I called her and told her some lie I can’t even remember.  We drove back to Pennsylvania that very day.  I’d never see her again.

Many years passed.  My alcoholism got worse and my life got even more depressing.  I rarely thought about her.  There were new women to worry about, right in front of me.  Then things got better.  I got sober and happy and started living a good life.  I started to think about her sometimes.  Not because I wanted to see her or because I missed her, but because I knew I had, in some way, perpetrated a wrong against her.  I wondered how she was doing.

MySpace became a big deal, and I caved and signed up.  She was one of the first people I looked for, but to no avail.  Every few months I’d look again, and nothing.  Then Facebook became a big deal, and I caved and signed up.  She was one of the first people I looked for, but to no avail.  Every few months I’d look again, and nothing.

Then, one day about a year ago, I had a friend request waiting for me when I got home, and it was from her.  I was so happy!  I think I just wanted to see that she’d turned out OK, had a family and a dog and all that good stuff.

Turned out, she’d turned out just like me–if I hadn’t quit drinking.  She was single, living on friend’s couches, drunk and high every night, working at a string of low-rent bars and clubs who’d take just about anyone, depressed and talking crazy.  She was, however, still living quite an exciting life–she was still in a band, though they seemd to change monthly, and the pictures she posted to Facebook looked like she was living a celebrity lifestyle.

Oddly, she seemed to have no concept that I had harmed her in any way.  She immediately sent me many Facebook messages that were so complimentary I almost laughed at them.  If I were to print them here, you’d think I made them up.  It is not exagerrating to say that no human being has ever admired me more than this woman did after we reconnected on Facebook.  And despite the self-destructive lifestyle she was living, I started to see that this woman had a soul that shone so brightly it was nearly blinding.  What was annoying 13 years ago was now endearing, what was unbearble back then seemed bold now.  Not that I fell in love with her, oh no.  But I did see her greatness.  And she knew just what to say to me about our romps in the sack all those years ago to get my engine in the red in no time.  Yes, she was good at that.

We started talking on the phone every couple weeks.  She was amazed to hear my story from the previous decade, as she had never even known me as an alcoholic (she somehow did not recognize it in me during our three day meeting years earlier), and I think my story sounded more like I was reading a novel to her than it being my own actual life.  Regardless, it clearly hit home for her.  I could tell she felt herself slipping away into madness.  Her illness was not just one of addiction; she seemed to be going truly crazy.  She would call in the middle of the night and ask me how I’d turned things around.  I never know what to say to people when they ask me something like that.  There are no easy answers, and I only know about being a drunk.  I know shit about being crazy.  But I’d do the best I could, trying to listen more than speak.  Sometimes she was desperate, other times quiet and close to happy.  Always at the end, she talked dirty to me.

Once, she went a few weeks with no calls, texts, or Facebook posts.  Finally she called me.  “I’ve been away in the mental hospital for awhile,” she said.  She’d tried to kill herself.  I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not; she was crazy but also a drama queen.  But I treated it as if it were real.  She seemed more ashamed of having been in the mental hospital than anything else.  We were on the phone for hours that night.  She kept talking about coming to visit me, but I kept brushing it off.  I knew that I had changed a lot over the years, but not enough for that.  In the end analysis, I’d simply use her again.  Best to keep it to phone calls and texts.

About 4 nights ago, I was laying on my couch here in Erie, going through my cell phone deleting numbers I don’t use anymore.  I came across hers and realized I hadn’t heard from her in months.  I texted her asking what was up.  When, by the next night, no reply had come, I got on Facebook and went to her page.  I was aghast.  Here is a sampling—copy and pasted—of some of the posts on her wall:

“There’s no one in town I know You gave us some place to go.I never said thank you for that.I thought I might get one more chance.What would you think of me now,so lucky, so strong, so proud?”

 

“I am so sorry that you never got to meet Gabrielle. Who would have thought that Dave (the man you carded) would end up my husband and I would have a family with. I think about you lots.”

 

“Just logged on to Facebook and it “suggested” I re-connect with you. Oh how I wish I could. Love you — missing you more than you’ll ever know.”

 

So.  She’s dead.  It happened in May.  I messaged a few of her friends and it seems details are sparse.  All we know is that it “happened at her family’s home”.  It had to have been suicide.  If I know her–and I think I do, now–it was suicide.

I’m not extremely broken up about it.  I feel weird.  I only met her twice, in person, many years ago.  I don’t feel a void in my life where she once resided.  But, again—I feel weird.  There is no happy ending here, and I have no great wisdom to impart.  She’s dead, and I feel like I still owe her something.  And this blog entry is definitely not it.

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Bathtub Gin

imagine me sitting in a bathtub a bathtub with no water in it with all my clothes on staring up at you in the dark with the world’s saddest frown a moment before you hadn’t known where i’d disappeared to and you searched the whole apartment you skipped the bathroom the first time around because you saw the light was out so you were pretty sure i wasn’t in there but then after failing to find me anywhere else you went back to the bathroom and there i was in the tub with the shower curtain pulled just frowning at you what could you have thought I mean there are the obvious interpretations you know such as I must have found myself unclean and hence being in a state of such extreme intoxication my subconscious mind was in control and trying to cleanse me or maybe after getting up off the couch after having done that bonghit with you I thought you’d follow me into the bathroom and then the bathtub and we’d have insane glorious drunken sex in there and when you didn’t follow me I naturally got sad but the truth is who knows i mean it wasn’t the first time or the last time that someone found me in a bathtub like that and let me tell you sister it is right embarrassing the morning after when they tell you about it (He sat quietly in his dark apartment, pondering.  Was it still important if, all these years later, he still find the answer to why people always found him in bathtubs?  Perhaps it was no longer a key to unlocking his existence, if there are in fact such keys.  But what if it was?  When does one stop searching?  He thinks for a moment about the fact that both his parents were and still are bath-takers, not shower-takers.  And, in fact, as a child, so was he.  So are all children.  When does one make the decision to shower instead of bathe?  For him, it was early pubescence, shortly before the virginity-loss.  Was the drunken-bathtub-sitting a way of communing with his younger self, or even his parents?  Ah, but the things you think about when life is good!)