I never really understood pen names until one day my writing started developing a different voice. Why would Stephen King of all people need to hide himself as Richard Bachman? Also, one of my favorite fantasy authors Seannan McGuire has an off shoot of horror work under the name Mira Grant. But why? It’s a different timbre, a different tone, and it’s sometimes darker. Sometimes so dark that you have to disassociate it from yourself as another author entirely.
Personally I think I'm being a bit cliché with this experiment. I sometimes sound like a grizzled hard-boiled detective who is aware that he exists in a shitty noir novel. He's trying to solve the mystery of why his life sucks so much, and the trail on the case is getting pretty cold.
I've never told some of these stories before. But I also took a page out of King's book and rewrote stories I've put to paper before just now in a tone coming from a different writer who was already a bit unhinged to begin with.
But are you a good man?
I want you to know that no matter how dark this journey you’re going on with me on gets, I’ve never considered killing myself. Do I have your attention? Is that enough of a cold open? It’s really simple. All my stuff’s here. Why would I want to leave? Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way let’s explore my rather entertaining mid-life crisis up to this point.
I often wonder if I should be telling some of these stories even though I don't name names. Then I think, well if you're getting involved with an artist don't be surprised when they express themselves to the world as part of the grieving process after shit has gone sideways. Ask anyone who ever dated: Alanis Morsette, Carley Simon, or Taylor Swift. You're going to be put on blast multi-platinum album style. Isn't it ironic, don't you think? You probably think this blog is about you, but I knew you were trouble when you walked in. I think some of these people can handle my shitty writing tucked away in the corner of the internets. Especially when I'm using creative writing parlor tricks like [REDACTED]. Unless at some point I get published. Then I'm getting a lot of angry calls from phone numbers I should have deleted from my phone a long time ago.
A late night intrusion
Two decades ago there’s a furious knock at the door just before midnight. I’m sitting in my cramped dorm room opposite my roommate who gets up to address the disturbance. The sad girl in the archway crumbles. Asking if one of our other roommates was awake. “He’s pretty much in bed by 10PM. Sorry.” my roommate who’s name I can’t remember for the life of me says. “Does anyone else in here know computers?!” she pleads. My roommate steps back and just points at me.
I want you to imagine a sad little language that’s just completely composed of sobs, tears, and fluids. It was hard to decipher it as she bursted into the room, but I think I got the gist of it. Asshole professor is accepting absolutely no excuses for late final English assignment. Yada yada yada. Assignment is due in hours… and the file on this shady ass floppy drive is corrupted.
If you're too young to remember floppy drives just know they had a 1 in 10 chance of self destructing that only increased the more times you used them. But I truly am a sucker for a damsel in distress... So it’s at this point I do the ol’ nerd equivalent of “Let me see what we’ve got going on under the hood” thing that every guy who may/may not even know how cars work, but wants to feel like a big strong man in front of a complicated machine to impress a woman on the side of the road anyway. I say “hmmmm” for a minute or two, preverbally jiggle the handle, then restore the corrupted file with little delay after that.
She thanks me profusely saying that she’ll be back with gifts later. If I remember correctly her name was [REDACTED]. I only saw her a few more times in the halls after that, before we both graduated. But each and every time she shied away from me as if I had saw her naked and terribly regretted it. She looked at me like a bad one night stand she wish she could forget. I could see it in her eyes. Call it projection, but I know that look. I guess it was just a different kind of exposure in a sense. She probably didn’t want me to see her in that way, and was greatly embarrassed by it. I wish I could have had the mindfulness to communicate to her that her vulnerability was OK, and completely understandable given the situation.
Wish not, would not, could not. I was still too stupid to express any of this, and a whole lot of ways I’m still emotionally dumb now.
There are bridges that I regret burning even if they were no fault of my own and/or I never intended to immolate them. Then there are others that I probably should have burned down sooner, most likely with myself still on it just so I could learn a much needed lesson.
You don’t always get to pick your muses
I once knew an ex-sex worker that broke my heart. It wasn’t… It’s not like that. She was only a friend. I should have been smarter. More aware. More sensitive to her mindset. The first time I had coffee with her she stated in no uncertain terms “I’m not a huggie bitch so don’t expect anything from me”. After that we agreed on a fist bump as our go to greeting/good bye gesture.
She had read everything I’ve ever written by that point. I’ve never met someone who knew my stories so well that they could quote things back to me. And when I say that we spent almost every day together for the better part of several months I mean that. She asked me once how long we'd known each other. I told her 2 weeks. She said it felt longer, and I couldn't have agreed more.
There was a dichotomy to her. She spent many of her formative years in Italy. Which while it meant she adamantly did not want to be touched at all, her sense of personal space was more European than American. In short, as someone who is admittivity a hugger, I had to respect that I couldn't touch her. But she talked with her hands enough, and would frequently hit, poke, push, and generally loom over me to make a point. So I'd purposely angle myself to allow her to do it. Because it was the only physical interaction I was able to have with this person I cared about.
I admittedly pushed it with her a few times, and we got on each other's nerves occasionally, but even when she told me about how her grandmother had recently past. I didn't hug her. Because by then I knew better.
We'd start a day over coffee and end it with both of us obnoxiously tipsy, belting out over piped in music at a dive bar somewhere late at night. We probably could have gotten kicked out of a movie theater one time we were so raucous together. She'd talk about things we were going to do in the future. But in the back of my mind I already had the haunting feeling that this friendship unfortunately had an expiration date. And whether that was just fate, or me manifesting it into existence via my own personal fuck ups it doesn't matter because the outcome would still be the same.
[Insert something more clever to say here later]
We were in a bar during the dead of winter. When I knew the words "How do you feel about me?" were a mistake as soon as they came out of my mouth.
[SCENE MISSING]
"GOD DAMNIT KEITH YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SUPPORT MY GOALS AND DREAMS!" She screams jumping off the bar stool and slamming a hand on the seat for punctuation.
Well that was public.
I like to think that many of my life's problems might have been avoided if I had stopped one drink earlier.
That said. I will say my feelings are valid. And I really wish things could have gone differently.
You could call it an overreaction. And she no longer returns my texts, but I knew she had difficulty maintaining relationships with men regardless that she was a difficult person for me not to fall for.
She listened to me when I was going through some rather depressing times. And I lost a friend due to my own insensitivity. I still get a sinking feeling in my chest every time I think of her. My memory of her will eventually fade. But not today.
When she became a ghost I knew it was time to get on anti-depressants, join the gym, and get a better handle on my drinking. The resulting clarity is what has inspired and produced most of this writing. I thought writing about it would be therapeutic. I assure you it's not.
Like I said, you don't always get to pick your muses.
I never did ask her about the seashell tattoo
It was the first time in a long time that I met a woman through a friend rather than a dating app. The only complication being that we both knew said friend also has had feelings for me in the past that I couldn't return, so this was already feeling sneaky, and I didn't like it.
But what's the harm in having apps over drinks?
I took an Uber there because I usually like to already have a bit of liquid courage in my veins pregame. She offers to drive me home, but we don't make it to the car door in the parking lot before we're kissing so hard that she almost draws blood by mashing her face against my teeth. Obviously more interested in devouring me than said apps earlier.
I'm absently minded playing with her hair most of the journey home, but only after she has to reholster her breasts back in her bra. There's something about playing with a woman's hair that can feel more intimate than say... playing in other areas.
She can't come up to the apartment tonight, but we put plans in place for the weekend.
The first red flag was when it was morning and she bursts into tears. She tells me about how she feels overwhelmed sometimes and asks me if I can play with her hair again because it's something her grandmother always did to calm her down. Bringing up grandma while we were both naked was red flag #2. Not that I noticed either of these at the time even though they were waving at me like a Navy deckhand wildly trying to tell an overdue jet plane they can take off now.
If you look up too much too soon in the dictionary you won't find me. Because I've taken up the entire page before it. Also you won't find me because "too much too soon" is a phrase not a word. Why are you looking up cute colloquialisms in the dictionary? I blame the public education system.
Speaking of words it's amazing how much the word "casual" can be misconstrued. I've almost always been alone on New Years Eve and I was tired of it so I asked if we could spend it together. I also asked if we could broch the subject of whatever this was with our mutual friend.
In retrospect I think I finally let go when she said: "You know you talk an awful lot for a bootie call." Bitch, you were only crying naked in my arms a few days ago. Forgive me if I formed some sort of emotional attachment beyond sex.
Stereotypical gender norms suggest that most often it's the guy who is just in it physically, using a woman like a human sex toy they're emotionally detached from. I never expected I could feel used like this. And that's just the thing. Too often it's just about the sex. When it feels like I'm looking for something rarer. A direct line to another human being at a personal level.
I'm tired of being misunderstood.
Speaking of which
I'm sitting with friends when they both ask me "She literally flew in from [REDACTED] to see you, and you still didn't fuck her?"
No. Because I didn't feel anything for her, and it would have been incredibly unfair to put her through that.
Let's get this out of the way right now. Yes whatever you read from me here is true. I am not a made up character spouting off fictional events. That said my recounting of them is from my own tainted perspective, and I have and will always will be an unreliable narrator by design. Most women understand where the line is, but in a couple of extreme incidents I felt like the person had created a version of me inside their head based on my writing, but I didn't quite match or line up directly with that man.
So yes, I have to admit my writing has arguably gotten me laid at times. Not really what I intended when I started blogging regularly, but sometimes you luck out, the other team kicks the ball into their own net, and you learn to take the 'W'.
She really was a wonderful person. It just comes down to chemicals sometimes. This was also during a period when I exited a long term relationship because my partner figuratively wasn't there for me. So I couldn't imagine starting a relationship with someone who literally couldn't be there for me because they were in a different state. I had to be brutally honest with her that I did not want to curl up at the end of the night with my iPad, virtually sharing a glass of wine thousands of miles away from each other. Also long term it just didn't make sense given our careers were very much tied to our locations. It's just a dark ally I didn't want to go down.
I felt unpleasantly tense the entire date which was mercifully brief for both our sakes.
I'm very tolerant of people touching me. Mostly because I live my life like an emotionally starved vampire that feeds off of any sort of affection. Dating is awkward sometimes. Flirting is awkward sometimes. I've been made uncomfortable by a woman's advances before, and I know damn well in my own follies that I've made women uncomfortable with my own clumsy advances as well. What I try to remind myself but fail as a man sometimes is that at no point when I was trying to decline said advances did I ever feel physically threatened.
OK maybe there was that one time with the cop who probably had the training to wreck me, but she was off duty and didn't have her cuffs... maybe it would have been more interesting if she did have her cuffs, I don't know. Her idea of flirting was "Let me show you how I can pin your arm behind your back" which even a colorblind bull with cataracts could identify as a red flag.
It doesn't matter that I find myself pathetically harmless. I don't have the perspective of feeling unsafe walking home at night. So if she wanted to rest her head on my shoulder for a few moments I could certainly allow it within my boundaries. I just had to be firm with the fact I wasn't reciprocating.
Scared you off real good I see
I like to think that if I was a comic book character my weakness would be redheads. I mean seriously Green Lantern's weakness is the color yellow. That's just dumb. But put a woman with even vague Irish heritage, and a few freckles on her face in front of me, and I have trouble thinking.
She was the first bisexual woman I ever dated. Which mostly meant we could talk about how awesome boobs are. You'd be surprised how much even that could bring two people together. It's like that pop 90's song about the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's", just with tits. Because if you can't bond over boobies there is no hope in this world, and I don't want to live on it. I'd want off this planet. Maybe move to that shitty version of Mars in the movie "Total Recall" where some of the women even have a magic 3rd boob. I'm making a lot of weird movie references now, and I don't like it. Where was I? Ah yes, me maturely punching in the number 8008135 on a calculator like a teenage boy.
I knew we had enough of a connection that I could have gotten away with kissing her goodbye after walking her to her car on our first date, but I purposely didn't. She then made sure to pounce on me after our second date where we spent entirely too much time publicly making out by the corner of the street in front of the German restaurant we just finished eating at. Both our mouths tasting of the sweet German liquor I couldn't pronounce.
If you've been playing the home game long enough up to this point I think you're sensing a pattern here. So here's the play by play of exactly how I fucked this up. I want you know that I do this, not out of self pity, but transparency. Sometimes you have to live as a dire example so that others might avoid the same historical pitfalls.
I had it in my mind that this woman wanted to sleep with me tonight. Something only reaffirmed when an alarm went off on her phone to remind her to take her birth control. That wasn't in the cards though because I can be a presumptuous asshole regardless of all the self esteem issues I developed in childhood that I'm still repairing today.
I spent too much time cleaning my apartment and obsessing over the right sheets to use that I ran out of time to actually cook for her which would have probably been a more intimate setting. So we had to go out to eat.
I even cleaned all those weird parts of the back side of the toilet that I have no idea how they get dirty. Those little nubs? You know what I'm talking about. Nothing says "I really REALLY want to have sex with you" like a man cleaning the whole god damn toilet until it's fit for eating off of. I could have served caviar off this toilet, and it still would have earned several Michelin stars.
We did eventually come back to the apartment to unwind a bit, but she wanted to call it a night shortly thereafter. I walked her back to her car a bit nervous. I had focused my energy on the wrong thing, and made assumptions.
"Would you like to do this again?" I stammered.
"I'm sorry, did I do anything that made you think I didn't?" she asks a bit taken aback.
Her job was that of a counselor on a suicide hot line. In the end I think she just delt with too many desperate people on a daily basis she really didn't want to take on a man who probably could be seen as another project.
I wasn't mentally stable enough for her so she texted me the next day that she was cutting me loose. I don't like to argue when someone has already made their decision.
Mental health
I still have the cineplex inside my head running a 24 hour marathon of all my various fuck ups in life. Every time the projector starts up, and an old memory comes to mind it feels like a sinking pressure in my chest, but it’s getting easier to push the films to the back of my mind. My goal is to turn this forever theater into a fucking Spirit Halloween store. I assure you things are getting better. So don’t worry. They still charge admission, but the popcorn machine is broken, and the soda fountain only serves Mr. Pibb for some reason. I could tell you more about how I’m trying to improve, but I’m all out of movie theater allegories.
I mean I could stare at the ceiling for the next several hours, but what’s the fun in that? I’ve never slept well, and usually when I see the sunrise it’s only because I’m still raging from the night before, attacking the AM like a Viking with insomnia. But the anti-depressants have granted me a new super power. The ability to wake up at 6AM every day regardless of when I go to sleep. So I could lay there in bed… or get an early jump on the gym down the street. I haven’t willingly worked out before 8AM in literally a decade (seriously I remember the race I was training for), but I have so much more energy now that I need to dissipate.
No, I don’t feel jittery like an overcharged battery ready to explode. I just feel like it’s a waste of consciousness when I could be doing something else, and it spurs me out of bed for once, where as before it would require a large crane to extract me from my slumber in the bedroom, complete with an energy drink IV bag in tow. And to think I hesitated. It’s granted me a horrible clarity where I wonder how many relationships I could have avoided destroying if I had gotten help sooner.
.jpeg)
Preface.jpeg)
Comments
Post a Comment