…in my fevered attempt to wrest a living from an unthinking and uncaring society, I was hailed by a cherished old aquaintance (deviate).  After a few minutes of conversation in which I established most easily my moral superiority over this degenerate, I found myself pondering once more the crises of our times.  My mentality, uncontrollable and wanton as always, whispered to me a scheme so magnificent and daring that I shrank from the very thought of what I was hearing. “Stop!” I cried imploringly to my god-like mind. “This is madness.” But still I listened to the counsel of my brain. It was offering me the opportunity to Save the World Through Degeneracy.

~john kennedy toole

It’s an odd feeling… farwell.

There is some envy in it.

Men go off to be tested for courage.

If we’re tested at all it’s for patience…

for doing without…

for how well we can endure loneliness.

But I have always known that.

It didn’t require a war.

~meryl streep

It’s weird the significance I put into things such as names, smells, and songs.  The thought of saying the name ‘James’, even in my head, and having sentimental meaning attached to it makes me cringe.  I remember learning in my general psychology class about food aversions; some food you attached to a traumatic experience and therefore avoid (mine include sour cream and onion chips, sierra nevada beer, and yogurt covered dried apricots), so I guess it makes sense that associations with other items are also possible, but a name isn’t even tangible.  Then I started thinking and realized that the reason why he goes by another name is mostly likely because he too has some bad association with the name he was given.  I remember meeting this brother and sister who were adopted by relatives because their parents were drug addicts and failed to care for them.  The little girl was just a toddler and didn’t remember much, but she would eat whatever she could get her hands on, and the boy who was a few years older was very sullen and quiet. After about a year with his adoptive parents he decided to change his name (which his given name was his fathers), at the age of six. This was when I realized that this little kid was never going to forget the horrible ways his parents had treated him and that even a reference to a name could trigger those negative thoughts.

I know, it’s not like I’m six and maybe I should be more grown up and not have such silly attachments, but I do.  I can no longer stand the smell of Calvin Klein’s Eternity, I can’t listen to Elliot Smith without crying, and I can’t refer to someone I care about as ‘James’.

I know this picture isn’t great, but it took me 15 attempts to get them in a way that represented exactly how they were.

I’ve never had this experience, the uncontrollable lust in a public place, and it got me thinking about love, life, and what I want. Then my mind started thinking about those moments you never forget, and although I have had many I will just describe the few that popped into my head first.

#1 The first kiss

His name was Joe and we met randomly at the public pool that I went to every summer afternoon, while I lived on Washington.  He had dark hair in that fabulous bowl cut, wore all black, and went to a private catholic school.  We exchanged numbers, talked every night, and eventually decided to go see a movie together. I remember it being awkward, because it was the first time I lied to my mom about what I was doing and with whom I was doing it with (yeah, even then I worried a lot).  After the movie we were sitting at the bus stop and he leaned in for this kiss. I had no idea what to do, or how long to do it for, but it was still amazing.  I don’t remember how long we “went out” for, but I do remember seeing him about five years later at a party (he was dating my friend, but we just never made the connection) and the butterflies I felt so many years ago after that innocent moment all came back.  We were speechless and it was adorable.

#2 The first date with my first love

This is sort of the dates of all dates for me and it’s not because anything original happened, but it’s just because how significant everything became from it.  We met at bar, a shuffleboard bar, the day after valentines day and he was there with his brother in-law and cousin, while his sister was in labor with her first child. We exchanged numbers, but we didn’t actually go out until about a month after.  We decided to start at the shuffleboard bar, play a few games, then get some food and see a movie. After a few drinks and the meal we go to see Curious George in the theater (and if you’ve never seen it, it’s the perfect date movie, little dialogue with good music), but what was odd is that we were the only people in the theater, a week after it came out, on a friday night.  We held hands, played finger sex, and made out for two hours all while knowing there wasn’t a soul there to be bothered.  I love thinking of that night and how utterly wonderful it was.  If only the end could have been as good as the beginning.

#3 The moment I fell out of love

I was visiting Harvard for an interview two months after our break-up.  He suggested I stay with him, and I pretended to ignore the horrendousness of this idea.  We were only left with one night where we were forced to socialize together.  He took me to a bar we played Wii and drank to the point of retardedness.  He reached out to hold my hand and held it for minute, but then pulled away. We walked home and I…

…can’t go there

thinking of this after drinking whiskey alone for the first time in many months has only reminded me how I still can’t do it.  What a horrible realization this is.

As much as I want to open up the beautiful package wrapped in elaborate paper garnished with sparkling ribbon…I resist, because I already know what it contains. I’d rather stare at it optimistically through the window and let everyone else see it as I once did.

…in that drunken place
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back

~charles bukowski

like…is a vague word

All I can think is that…

I like asparagus, even though they make my pee smell
I like my cat, but there are days when he drives me totally nuts
and that’s what I hate about the word “like” it is so easily followed with even and but
stupid exceptions
but you can’t say I love _____…but…even
it’s just wrong
when you move up to love the exceptions are no longer acceptable
so how often does anyone really love anything?
and so we reduce our love to like, because it gives us a way out
I may love you today, but I may not like you tomorrow
so I’ll just say I like you
because when I don’t love you anymore
I don’t have to say that
I can just say I don’t like you anymore
then you won’t hate me, or you’ll hate me less
and if I’m lucky maybe you’ll just dislike me

he saw that all the struggles of life were incessant, laborious, painful, that nothing was done quickly, without labor, that it had to undergo a thousand fondlings, revisings, moldings, addings, removings, graftings, tearings, correctings, smoothings, rebuildings, reconsiderings, nailings, tackings, chippings, hammerings, hoistings, connectings — all the poor fumbling uncertain incompletions of human endeavor. They went on forever and were forever incomplete, far from perfect, refined, or smooth, full of terrible memories of failure and fears of failure, yet, in the way of things, somehow noble, complete, and shining in the end.

~jack kerouac

yeah, it moves too

a close up

Today was such a weird day and these are some weird pictures of a real toy (oh and it pees too).

It starts off normal, leaving my house in a slightly sad mood after noticing the leaves are starting to turn and that the air is crisp (I am not ready for fall, in fact I am in total denial of it).

So I round the corner of my street to see this young woman with her dog. This old dog is sitting in the middle of the side walk and the woman is begging it to walk, she even gets down on her knees and pleads to it.  Feeling sort of bad for her I try to put my hand out to get the dog up and it gives me this look, like I’m some kind of crazy person, which was effective because I immediately take my hand away and slowly walk back from him as he stares me down.

I get to the bus stop and this guy starts talking to me in French, and for whatever reason I nonchalantly reply to him in English….Yes, is it a nice day…I am doing well…Oh thank you, that was nice to hear.  I guess he found this amusing because he kept laughing.

Before I get on the bus the old man who was also waiting taps me on the shoulder and says “you should wipe your butt”.  I looked at my butt to see some dirt on it, and so I brushed it off. He then says to me “much better”.

I get to school and I’m in the lunch room eavesdropping on the iltalians conversation.  From what I gathered one of the women is dating an older man who wears a butterfly belt buckle everyday, but no one believes her that an old man would wear such a thing.  Her response is “Well I can’t just take a picture of it, because it will appear as though I want a picture of his crotch and that just isn’t polite”.

Then we have our afternoon seminar, which as always with four o’clock seminars I sleep through most of it.  Of course I am always awakened by the words “I would just like to thank…” .  I just wasn’t prepared for what followed as this guy goes on a tangent about how he has a “man crush” on my boss.  This may have been amusing if his sexual orientation was ambiguous, but this guy is married, to a girl that works for my boss.  It just sort of seemed creepy and not at all funny. I even heard the audience give that sort of awkward chuckle to releive the tension of a rather inappropriate comment. why do scientists try to be funny? sarcasm is about all we got.

“Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool”

really?

this is swell

why couldn’t it be the song Marian the Librian at least that one is sort of cute

next thing you know I’ll be saying “yee gods” and frittering my time away with the old man on my road to degradation while drinking beer out of a bottle.