fuckedupedness

I don't make stuff up. That doesn't mean I don't creatively embellish (as in: he was like 6 feet tall and wore a red dress (maybe he was 5'10" and it was a red kimono), but any license I take is to paint a more visual or lucid picture. Still, I never just make anything up, and I never say something just to make myself look better-at the expense of making someone else look worse; which is why this really annoys me.

I work with this guy. It's just me and him in the kitchen, which is a recipe for getting on each others nerves. He is contrary. Just one of those people who loves to say the opposite-just to say the opposite. I know that type of person well-I am/was/attempt not to be-one of those people. It was when I first started this job (and worked with another guy whose nerves we got each other on (? WT . . . ). He was also contrary and working with him made me realize how annoying it was-and I vowed to try and reign myself in.

One morning this first guy came to work and told me this story: he was at a soccer game for his kids, hanging out and talking with all the other moms, and finally one of them turned to him and said:

"You like to be contrary don't you? It's annoying."

After he told me this, he just said to me-"it's know it's true, and I really don't like the way it sounded hearing someone say it" (or something like that ... my audiographic memory is weak on the exact verbiage). We were the same age.

Fast forward about 18 months, and several kitchen co-workers later (we have gone through about 35 employees throughout the store in the 20 months I've been there-but that's another story-many stories-woo hoo!) and here I am with this guy. This guy who, up until recently, I would have described to most people as a nice guy, but who increasingly gets on every last nerve I have.

So today I am saying something about these guys I dated in the past -(I try really hard not to speak about my personal life with him anymore, so I give him less opportunity to piss me off)- but sometimes I slip. So I say something about these guys I've been with in the last 2 years since I've moved to Maine as all being messed up, and he laughs; snickers really.

"What's so funny?" I say.

"You call everyone that-you think everyone's like that", he says.

"Well, that's because the guys I've dated since moving to Maine have been" I say.

I am already annoyed because:

One, I was stupid enough to set myself up, and two, because he has either:

a. not been listening to the things I've told him.

b. thinks I make all this stuff up.

c. disregards what I say because of the genitals I have between my legs.

d. is really just a jerk deep down and I gotta stop saying he's a nice guy.

You see the thing is, this is some of what I've told him . . .

Guy no. 1 was a compulsive liar. Shortly after we got involved with one another he had my name tatooed on his arm. He called me from the chair to say he was having it done. I really didn't think it was a good idea but hey, it's his arm. He later told my brother that I "was there with him when he got it done. Sitting in the chair, right next to him" (um . . . he did realize that me and my brother know each other right?). He later told the other woman he was seeing that, "he was drunk when he got it and was going to have it removed" (another story about how I find out these things).

Guy no. 2 was the Iphone dude, who as you may remember, I would find out was secretly bisexual and told me that the reason he had been unable to commit to me was that he thought when he had found the "right woman" his "disgusting" desire for men would go away and he would know he had found "the one". Since his tasty desires hadn't gone away, well ... He also didn't invite me to a Christmas Eve party because, there was a woman who would be there with whom he had a: "plantonic but very flirtatious relationship with", and he thought it would make me uncomfortable (how thoughtful of him).

Guy no. 3 was a guy who refused to ever give his dog water; and got angry when I did. He drank (the guy, not the dog) anywhere from 18-24 beers a day and gave me a lecture once on what defined "water" for his dog. I was not to let his dog drink from the toilet, from a five gallon bucket, from a lake, or from a puddle. Also, when I asked him those question we ask eachother: have either of us been married, had kids, etc. His answer was no. Turns out he was married and separated, had a 4 year old he never saw from a previous relationship, and, oh yeah, and the girl he was seeing before me . . . was five months pregnant.

Guy no. 4. is/was a guy (I am still withdrawing from this relationship) who also drank heavily. 12-18 beers a day and at 43 still does acid, ecstasy and nitrous oxide on a relatively regular (in relation to what most people might think of as normal or regular) basis. It's hard to describe the fear and timidity he instilled in me. I was not physically afraid, but emotionally afraid. He is generally a very gentle person, but would become very defensive and agitated at the strangest things. Life with him was a competition between the two of us and I just don't need to be a winner, or be with someone who needs to be. He once offered to be the designated driver when we went to see a show. I was tired, but he really wanted me to go and so made the offer. I was touched and grateful. After he downed a couple beers when we got there (okay fine, as long as he doesn't drink more) we were on the floor. I reached out to touch his face-he was drenched in sweat. I knew what that meant.

"You're on X", I said.

"I only took one." (he's saying this in his: baybeee it's not a big deal, come on sweetie-pie way he has).

"But you agreed to drive", I said.

"I'm fiiiiine", he crooned to me. "I just had one".

I wish that these details were "it"-you know? That other than all this craziness, all these relationships were awesome! But they are just little tiny details of really big fuckedupedness (I love it when I make up words). Which brings me back to the guy-this 23 year old guy that still has soooooooooooooo much to learn about life and relationships and people.

A, B, C or D?

I think all of the above.

In The Dark

This is a short story I wrote in college. One of several that I never quite finished - meaning, get to where I want it to be, or where it needs to be. But I've always liked it, and so here it is-in all it's unpolished glory.

In The Dark

Nothing grew. Every tree we planted, every seed pushed into the ground, every blade of grass we coaxed to the surface with water and sweat and torn skin withered when it touched the sun; it was as if we’d purchased death.

We saw the house the day we buried your mother. Afterwards you said you needed to drive, and so we drove to the beach and stood on rocks with salt water spraying our feet and when you told me you could’t have gone through this alone, I knew alone meant: without me. We drove back that night and first saw the house in the dark. The “for sale” sign hanging from the lamp post creaked in the quiet wind, while we walked on the porch peering into empty rooms, seeing our furniture and record collections in those spaces. We held hands and imagined our bare feet under blankets in bed, finding each other.

We took a mortgage from the bank, and our stereo and record collection to the living room and put our bed in a downstairs room instead of up, because you said you wanted to be closer to the sand. Every morning you opened the outer doors to our room and stood in the sun, the cool air growing bumps on your skin as I pulled the blankets to my chin and watched you. The floorboards creaked and I always knew when you woke in the night to find the bathroom, or water, or to smoke. I watched as your cigarette floated up and down like a red firefly, lighting your face as you inhaled and then as you exhaled, I watched as you slowly faded away.

We scrubbed old wooden door frames and polished tarnished brass fixtures and planted the garden. When it didn’t grow we said the soil needed work and we’d try again next year. We made shelves for our books, and put hooks under the cupboards next to the sink for our cups, and we bought a new blender. On Sundays in summer we played music and sat on chairs under the umbrella, its’ ruffled edge hiding us from the sun. We chose books from the shelves to read and you paused every few pages to put your head back on your chair and quietly look at me, and after a while I stopped asking why.

When I was sick in September you made me your mother’s soup. You rubbed my back and brought me tea and blankets to ease my chill. Too sick to sleep and too tired to see you read to me stories by Hempel and Carver and asked: wouldn’t I like something a little more upbeat? I fell asleep to the harshness of your voice, and the sound of living.

When the weather turned cold we folded away the umbrella. You wrapped it in an old sheet to keep the dust away and put it in the shed until next year. In winter you shoveled prairies of snow from the roof and paths to our chairs and then shoveled those too. On Sunday mornings we wrapped robes and blankets around our shoulders, and sat on frozen chairs eating toast with jelly and drinking coffee cooled too quickly by the cold air, while waves crashed against the break.

In March you went to bed and I rubbed your back. I made your mother’s chicken soup and wrote the recipe down to have for later; when you were gone. I shoveled wet, sun-warmed snow from soggy walks and scraped the ice from the windows of our car. I mixed our records together and crossed out names. No longer mine and yours, now ours.

In June I took the summer things back out alone. Brushing away cobwebs gathered over winter, I unwrapped your work. I set it on the patio where for a day it stood folded in the sun, it’s wooden arms tucked safely into it’s sides, until I could see enough to open.

"Them"

From the first moment we were physically near one another, it was like I had found that thing to fill the empty space beside me-a space I didn't even realize was there. Standing near him, barely minutes after we met, walking by his side, had the comfort of a deep hug. I quickly fell into sublimely comforting love.

He suffers from paranoia. I think he realizes this to a degree, but not enough to really do anything about it. To expect someone who thinks everyone around him is messed up and out to get him, to look that deeply inside and be able to see that they are really the one who needs help, is probably asking too much. But he has this heart. This sweet, tender, so giving heart, and an innocent, child-like quality that just wounds me in it's sincerity. But there is everything else. Between his alcoholism, paranoia and extreme (bizarre) defensiveness over the most unexpected things (he once told me he was more grown up than me because he lived in a house with a dog, and I only lived in an apartment with a cat), I felt sometimes like I was barely holding onto my own mind. And I could feel myself growing ever smaller as a person.

The last time I saw him he told me he didn't trust me. Basically that he thought I would turn on him and try to harm him in some way. He didn't want me in his house anymore when he wasn't there and one day he changed the locks on his doors. I can't say more about the last conversation we had that day, because it would be betraying a trust and there are a few lines I won't cross. I just know that with all the insanity up until that moment, that he finally did something I could not live with; he didn't trust me. I became one of "them" to him. Someone out to get him. And it was like in one of those movies (I think I've used this analogy before) where someone is standing and the camera shot pushes the back wall so far back that you can't reach it anymore, even though no one moved. And that's what happened in the car that day as we rode back to his house and I got in my car and drove away. Two feet away from each other, we couldn't even touch.

I texted him tonight because I have something at his house I need to get, and because deep down (not deep enough yet) I still crave any opportunity for contact. And so I asked him if he would be home Saturday so I could get my thing and he said he didn't know, but would leave the key. He would leave the key. "Why?" I asked. "Why now?", even though I think I already understood. "Just do it, okay", he wrote back. And because I believe there was so much more that he wanted to say but couldn't, when I closed the text I cried.

Men seeking men

Mike left his Ipod touch in my couch. It must have fallen from his pocket that day he sat there shortly after we had broken up. Having shown little to no interest in our relationship till then, now that I was finally saying: "aannnnnd cut!", he suddenly wanted more. Outside the door to my apartment, on the carpet in the hall, he dropped to his knees and looked up at me: "Take me back," he said. "This doesn't feel right". I reached down and put my hands around his confused, little face. "Call me in a month if you still feel that way" I said, and shut the door.

I met Mike in a bar. I was hanging and chilling listening to the band that it turns out he was playing in. When he walked by my table he immediately caught my eye in that way that makes me go, Oh! and catch my breath a little. Outside later he seemed to be waiting for me and after we talked for a while, without my asking, he wrote down his name and number and asked me to call sometime. Two days later, when I made the first call, would be the beginning of a pathetic effort of mine to make the connection that he had initiated. Finally, after a few efforts and being blown off, I said "nay" to the game and went about my business. A few days later, like the miracle of the face of Jesus on a piece of toast he called; on his big boy own. He wanted to get together; oh lucky me! Dreams can come true.

So to make a very long story short, and save enough material for my next one, I met him and his-taped-together-with-blue-painters-tape-headphones downtown, and continued our game of cat and mouse. So eventually (yada, yada, yada) I realized that I was wasting my time, which brings us back to Mike in the hall on his knees and the discovery of his Ipod touch in my couch.

After calling him and telling him I had found his little pod, I set it on the table next to my bed and went about my business. A couple of hours later, lounging in my bed, I looked over at it and thought I'd check out his tunes. He had freely let me listen to it before so it didn't seem invasive to me at all, besides, everyone I know-including myself-freely shares their ipods with others. It seemed like an okay thing to do. Ipod touches are a little different from regular Ipods though, because they can access the internet. And so it was with the great big blank canvas of my mind, that I powered it up and found myself staring at a CraigsList ad. A personal ad; men looking for men. It took me a while to register this and then of course I started to pry (that's right: pry, not cry). I had been dating and sleeping with this man for a couple months now and felt like I kinda had a reason to know. I pulled up the history of the other sites he had recently visited on the net. I guess I was hopeing my original discovery was some freak anomally, but instead what I saw was page after page of men seeking men ads. I was a tad stunned.

Later when I brought his Ipod back to him I asked him: "hey uh, you don't have to answer this but . . . what's up with all the dudes?" He only paused for a second before he answered.

Hello, I'm back.

Don't know if anyone is out there. Things are a little different now and I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to go with this, but somewhere. These last two years have been a ride, and a lot of it a pretty freaky one. I'm not making pots right now and thought about starting a new blog altogether, but I thought-hey-I've already got this one and so might as well carry on. I've got so much shit to write about you can not even believe. It's gonna blow your mind. If I had been writing all along, maybe it wouldn't have blown mine so much. This won't be for the faint of heart. I'm just gonna write real cause when I don't, I'm not real, and that just sucks. That's it for now. There's a lot swirling in my head right now and I'll let it out in a bit. See ya :)

Eeez pretty dang cold in the water ...

I'm really out of touch with what's been going on with everyone's blogs. I almost never take the time to get online, despite my new computer. But, things have been good. Let's see...what is going on with me? Still working at the same job cooking, asked for a raise and got it so that makes it less painful every two weeks to see my checks. I finally went snowboarding for the first time this year last Sunday. Awesome day. Went to Shawnee Peak. Smallest mountain I've ever ridden but still a good day. I am trying to learn to surf. This is by far the most difficult physical thing I have ever tried to do. Unfortunately I just did pretty major damage to my board the other day, but until I can get it repaired my friend will let me borrow one of his boards. I'd like to say that I was on a knarly wave and wiped out, crashing my board into a reef or something, but I just dropped it onto the corner of my bookcase. It's 9'2" long so difficult to manuever. Oh well. It takes an enormous amount of upper body strength in the right places to surf and so on top of just getting out there and paddling I'm doing pushups and pullups. It's really helped with my popups (getting up on the board from laying to standing-supposed to be done in one "explosive" motion). I don't exactly explode yet but at least I don't do it like I'm pre-geriatric anymore. It's pretty cold so I have to wear a full wet suit, gloves, booties and hood. The coldest day I've gone out it was 26 degrees air, and about 43 degrees water temp. Invigorating! Well hopefully it won't be so long next time till I sign in. No potter yet, but it's rolling around in my mind. Someday.

Starsucks

So tonight it's Starbucks. I hate coming in here. I feel a little like I'm selling a piece of my independent soul, and here in Portland, where supporting local independent business is like a religion I feel like I should have a hoodie with glasses on so no one sees me through the window. Problem is there was this big architecture gathering going on at the local shop I like across the street and too much chattering. So I'm slumming it here. The thing I hate about Starbucks is that they make it such an ordeal to get online. I mean this is a major company. It is doubtful that they are loosing too much money to freeloaders who just come in and suck the internet for free. I've never seen anyone sitting at their computer without some kind of beverage in hand in any of the other coffee shops that just let you hop right on. I think they want our personal info so they can attack us with their coffee propaganda. So what I do, out of spite, is give them a bogus phone number, my junk email address which I never check, and a fake name and address. My fake name is Autumn Woods, and my fake address is 1 Heaven St. Let that be our little secret.

Plastic snakes

Oh my gosh. For the hell of it I thought I would check my blog again tonight. I am at NorthStar Music Cafe. They have internet, coffee, wine, beer and music. The five essentials of life. I was quite surprised-pleasantly so-to find that my last post had been read. Funny, when you think you are dead and gone. I actually have a clay related event to write about.

They are digging up some holes out back where I work and I go outside today and all around these holes are this damp, grey-ish dirt. I'm like: that's clay! So I scooped a little up, only about a tablespoon, went inside and after adding a few drops off water and smashing it together a bit had a piece of useable clay. It was surprisingly plastic. Could bend a snake in half without so much as a crack. I think I will photograph it tomorrow and put up a photo of the little pinch pot I made with it.

So the studio is officially in storage. The house finally sold about two months ago and my Aunt and Uncle were kind enough to let me store my stuff in a spot in their furniture factory (Allen-Richardson). Really great furniture. I think when they saw the six to eight foot high, 10x12-ish space my stuff occupied when they came into the shop the next day they were probably a bit surprised. I still need to buy them some booze to thank them. Well, I'm trying to do some research so should probably go. Great to hear from everyone.