I don't even know what it means. For months we have danced around this word, "love". He asks what it means, and I have no answer; and tonight, as I go to sleep, I project him into it. My love.
I am not sure I will ever know what it means.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
There is so much more to this story.
All other issues aside, I think she is a well-meaning girl. But she has this DOG. The dog is a good dog but totally untrained; she took him to obedience school briefly but she didn't agree with the methods (typical dominance/reward training, very effective with dogs as it fits with their natural pack behavior) so she quit. He has extreme separation anxiety issues, and will bark all day if left alone.
This girl is a postgrad student and is not home very much. The dog DID have range of the back yard, but he really needs to be walked, and preferably taken somewhere to run, twice a day. I don't have time to do it and am not interested in taking over her responsibilities if I did. Her dog is a hunting breed, large and rangy, and dumb as a sack of hair trimmings, but I think he would be trainable if she would put in the effort. He's a barker, very noisy and difficult to control. I am home all day, so for the last two years I have been the person who has put most of the effort into letting him in and out of the back yard and trying to curb his barking.
Now we get to the good part. Because he's not getting enough exercise or attention, he started slipping out of the house and running away, and he does not come when called. He never does it when I open the door, and rarely when the kids do, because we're all pretty good at blocking him, but if ANYONE else comes over he takes advantage of their unwariness to push past them. He has absolutely no wariness of roads or cars and we live near a busy street. It got to the point where, if someone knocked on the door, I would put him in the basement before opening it.
He has also killed several of my trees and shrubs by urinating on them, including a 7-year-old paw-paw that SHOULD have fruited this year. This dog is a huge PITA, and a lot of it could be resolved simply with attention and training... but my housemate wants to spend time with her boyfriend instead of coming home and taking care of her dog.
So, then he figured out he can tear apart the side fence and get out. He did it twice, and the second time, what I had feared finally happened: he got hit by a car. Luckily, only his paw was hurt, but here's where it gets really weird; she handled this by locking him in her room ALL DAY while she's gone. It's ridiculous. A sixty-pound dog should not be locked in a 10x12 room for ten hours at a time. She comes home, takes him for a walk, and then puts him back in her room and goes off to do her own thing. I can understand doing this while his paw is healing, to make sure he rests and doesn't re-injure it, but then
And, OK, I realize I should probably step back instead of letting myself get upset with this, BUT
She is moving out at the end of the month (I am so grateful she decided this on her own, as I was dreading asking her to move) and is talking about how hard it is to find apartments with a big dog, and is trying to get him declared a service animal for her anxiety, so she can more easily find a place. I said "I hate to say it, but to be gently frank, I am not sure an apartment is going to be a good fit with your dog, because of his barking"
And she says, holy shit I could not believe it but she says, "My plan is to (a) move in where they already have dogs that bark and (b) use the spray bark collar and if he can't stop, then I can keep him in my boyfriend's adjacent basement."
The fucking basement. All day. Alone. In a basement. That is so absolutely not OK I can't stand it. I told her that locked in a basement is no life for a dog. She takes him nowhere. Not to the beach or hiking or anything. Ever. She goes to Sauvie's Island all the time with her boyfriend and never takes the dog. He just needs to get out and run, and be trained, and his behavior issues would be resolved. He just needs time and attention. I can't give it to him; I have three kids and two dogs of my own, neither of which have her dog's particular needs. I have neither time nor energy for this dog, which is why I don't have a large hunting breed.
The insanity of a full-time grad student getting a large hunting breed boggles my mind; it's like she has no regard at all for anything other than her own immediate desires. I am upset and frustrated and at the end of my rope; the girl won't even read dog-training books because she "disagrees" with them, meaning essentially that she is willfully ignorant of anything that might contradict what she WANTS to do.
Sigh. I am trying to just ride out the month. After that, what she does is her own problem and at least I don't have to witness it.
This girl is a postgrad student and is not home very much. The dog DID have range of the back yard, but he really needs to be walked, and preferably taken somewhere to run, twice a day. I don't have time to do it and am not interested in taking over her responsibilities if I did. Her dog is a hunting breed, large and rangy, and dumb as a sack of hair trimmings, but I think he would be trainable if she would put in the effort. He's a barker, very noisy and difficult to control. I am home all day, so for the last two years I have been the person who has put most of the effort into letting him in and out of the back yard and trying to curb his barking.
Now we get to the good part. Because he's not getting enough exercise or attention, he started slipping out of the house and running away, and he does not come when called. He never does it when I open the door, and rarely when the kids do, because we're all pretty good at blocking him, but if ANYONE else comes over he takes advantage of their unwariness to push past them. He has absolutely no wariness of roads or cars and we live near a busy street. It got to the point where, if someone knocked on the door, I would put him in the basement before opening it.
He has also killed several of my trees and shrubs by urinating on them, including a 7-year-old paw-paw that SHOULD have fruited this year. This dog is a huge PITA, and a lot of it could be resolved simply with attention and training... but my housemate wants to spend time with her boyfriend instead of coming home and taking care of her dog.
So, then he figured out he can tear apart the side fence and get out. He did it twice, and the second time, what I had feared finally happened: he got hit by a car. Luckily, only his paw was hurt, but here's where it gets really weird; she handled this by locking him in her room ALL DAY while she's gone. It's ridiculous. A sixty-pound dog should not be locked in a 10x12 room for ten hours at a time. She comes home, takes him for a walk, and then puts him back in her room and goes off to do her own thing. I can understand doing this while his paw is healing, to make sure he rests and doesn't re-injure it, but then
And, OK, I realize I should probably step back instead of letting myself get upset with this, BUT
She is moving out at the end of the month (I am so grateful she decided this on her own, as I was dreading asking her to move) and is talking about how hard it is to find apartments with a big dog, and is trying to get him declared a service animal for her anxiety, so she can more easily find a place. I said "I hate to say it, but to be gently frank, I am not sure an apartment is going to be a good fit with your dog, because of his barking"
And she says, holy shit I could not believe it but she says, "My plan is to (a) move in where they already have dogs that bark and (b) use the spray bark collar and if he can't stop, then I can keep him in my boyfriend's adjacent basement."
The fucking basement. All day. Alone. In a basement. That is so absolutely not OK I can't stand it. I told her that locked in a basement is no life for a dog. She takes him nowhere. Not to the beach or hiking or anything. Ever. She goes to Sauvie's Island all the time with her boyfriend and never takes the dog. He just needs to get out and run, and be trained, and his behavior issues would be resolved. He just needs time and attention. I can't give it to him; I have three kids and two dogs of my own, neither of which have her dog's particular needs. I have neither time nor energy for this dog, which is why I don't have a large hunting breed.
The insanity of a full-time grad student getting a large hunting breed boggles my mind; it's like she has no regard at all for anything other than her own immediate desires. I am upset and frustrated and at the end of my rope; the girl won't even read dog-training books because she "disagrees" with them, meaning essentially that she is willfully ignorant of anything that might contradict what she WANTS to do.
Sigh. I am trying to just ride out the month. After that, what she does is her own problem and at least I don't have to witness it.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
On contentment and questionable food.
I am among the nation's great unwashed masses of discontent.
Sunday mornings always do it for me. This is the morning when the fathers come to pick up my children, leaving me in my vast empty house all alone and usually bruised and/or mildly hung-over from whatever Saturday night shenanigans I got up to (hardly anyone was hurt and only one window got broken). I shower and oil my hair and my skin until I'm soft and glowing as an Egyptian whore and, depending on whether they've been assholes lately, put on something that will remind my exes that they will never, ever tap this again, hand off my kids with the requisite polite small talk, and bam. Door closes. Silence falls.
At first I clean. This is my big chance, you know? Three days of not having a sink constantly full of dishes, and towels that have been used to wipe up something questionable, dragged through a pile of dog hair, and then hung back up on the hook for the unwary showerer to anoint their face with.
And then, with a reasonable amount of vacuuming and laundry out of the way, I sit in my office with the sunlight pouring through the window, and I am discontent. An hour ago I was annoyed because my pubescent daughter would not stop rattling on about some anime she's really into, and now I don't know what to do with the absence of her noise. I look out at the cedar fence that separates my yard from the neighbor's and contemplate selling the house. I had a view of Mt. Hood, now I have a view of recently-built, overpriced townhouses. But I've got six, almost seven years worth of growing time on those fruit trees, and my garden is finally, for the first time since I bought the house, perfect.
I am discontent about my view.
I am discontent about my floor plan. This is a really shitty floor plan... who thought that would be a good idea?
I am discontent because nobody has called me back about hiking today and I don't really feel like going alone.
I have the problems of the lucky.
I am an ingrate.
Yesterday, in the grocery store buying birthday presents for my son's friends, I stopped in the frozen dinner aisle for what may have been the first time in my entire life, and I saw these little microwave entrees for a dollar each. A dollar. What the hell, that looks pretty fucking questionable. I selected a dozen of the more revolting-looking ones and trundled them along with my sixer of High Life tallboys (for the demolition, for fuck's sake. You can't do proper demolition without Miller High Life in cans) to round up my son and make my purchase.
Now, for fun, for shits and giggles, I'm sitting in my office eating a goddamn Salisbury Steak I got for a dollar. It is 100% as disgusting as you probably imagine it to be, and I'm enjoying the fuck out of it.
Later, I'm going grocery shopping at the Dollar Store. For thrills. For food that not only I, but pretty much no one, wants to eat.
This is America, guys.
Sunday mornings always do it for me. This is the morning when the fathers come to pick up my children, leaving me in my vast empty house all alone and usually bruised and/or mildly hung-over from whatever Saturday night shenanigans I got up to (hardly anyone was hurt and only one window got broken). I shower and oil my hair and my skin until I'm soft and glowing as an Egyptian whore and, depending on whether they've been assholes lately, put on something that will remind my exes that they will never, ever tap this again, hand off my kids with the requisite polite small talk, and bam. Door closes. Silence falls.
At first I clean. This is my big chance, you know? Three days of not having a sink constantly full of dishes, and towels that have been used to wipe up something questionable, dragged through a pile of dog hair, and then hung back up on the hook for the unwary showerer to anoint their face with.
And then, with a reasonable amount of vacuuming and laundry out of the way, I sit in my office with the sunlight pouring through the window, and I am discontent. An hour ago I was annoyed because my pubescent daughter would not stop rattling on about some anime she's really into, and now I don't know what to do with the absence of her noise. I look out at the cedar fence that separates my yard from the neighbor's and contemplate selling the house. I had a view of Mt. Hood, now I have a view of recently-built, overpriced townhouses. But I've got six, almost seven years worth of growing time on those fruit trees, and my garden is finally, for the first time since I bought the house, perfect.
I am discontent about my view.
I am discontent about my floor plan. This is a really shitty floor plan... who thought that would be a good idea?
I am discontent because nobody has called me back about hiking today and I don't really feel like going alone.
I have the problems of the lucky.
I am an ingrate.
Yesterday, in the grocery store buying birthday presents for my son's friends, I stopped in the frozen dinner aisle for what may have been the first time in my entire life, and I saw these little microwave entrees for a dollar each. A dollar. What the hell, that looks pretty fucking questionable. I selected a dozen of the more revolting-looking ones and trundled them along with my sixer of High Life tallboys (for the demolition, for fuck's sake. You can't do proper demolition without Miller High Life in cans) to round up my son and make my purchase.
Now, for fun, for shits and giggles, I'm sitting in my office eating a goddamn Salisbury Steak I got for a dollar. It is 100% as disgusting as you probably imagine it to be, and I'm enjoying the fuck out of it.
Later, I'm going grocery shopping at the Dollar Store. For thrills. For food that not only I, but pretty much no one, wants to eat.
This is America, guys.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Don't be here now
I don't want to fall in love again. Not anymore. Too much heartbreak, all at once. Abandonment, rejection, loss, in rapid succession like machine-gun fire because I fell for someone I shouldn't have. I just can't do it anymore. I feel numb. Even seeing last summer's lover was no great hurt... after all that, after the beautiful summer and the ending and the anguish... he walked up to me and gave me a hug and told me he was sorry, and instead of my friend buffering me from my former lover, it was my former lover trying to shelter me from the loss of my friend.
My other friends, they're angry and sad. I don't know what to say to them. I don't want them to be angry. They think I should be angry, too, and maybe I will be but I'm not ready for that yet, I'm still shell-shocked.
You would think I was writing about a death, reading this. It's not a literal death. It is a pushing-away, a walking-out. I don't know how to adjust from having someone go from being a constant presence to the gaping absence of them. Just being gone. It is like a death; in a way it's almost worse, not quite but almost, because he could call me, he could see me... but he doesn't want to. It's hard to wrap my head and my heart around the rejection.
And I miss him. I don't know how to lose my friend, not-quite-lover. It reminds me of my divorce, except by the time we got to divorce my marriage was already dead, I just had to make the decision to cut the rope and let it fall. There was nothing dead or over between my friend and I; no fights or anger or anything but laughter and comfort and love and support. As much as the divorce was a lingering cancer, this is a freak accident. He has seen me at my best and at my worst, and now I'm at my worst again and I can't call him... or, I can call him, but he'll never call me back. He made himself my home base, I let him, and now he is gone and I am anchorless.
I saw a plastic bag driven by gusts, tumbling in the air above the trees, and I thought, there I am.
I'm jumping the gun.
I have this problem of existing too much in the present moment. People say "live in the moment" as if it's a virtue to strive toward, but it's not a blessing, it's a curse. When the moment is all there is, it becomes all-encompassing, whether in happiness or sorrow. If you truly live in the moment, you have no perspective with which to temper your emotions.
I hoped a lot for a long time, and now I'm afraid of hope because that's what gets you, really. Despair is tiresome, but it's almost a relief, once you accept it. If I believe, or hope, that this silence is temporary and he'll be my friend again, be allowed to be my friend again, I'll be waiting for him every day and I'll go to bed sad every night. If I believe, accept, that it's over, my heart will break and be broken for a while, but it won't break anew daily.
We used to get sandwiches and two bottles of beer and go hiking together, and eat lunch out in the woods. We'd each get a different kind of sandwich and a different beer, and swap halfway through. We never hiked long; just an hour or so, long enough to get some air and get a little winded, and go back to work feeling good. It was one of my favorite things, a high point of my week. Even before I went off on his wife, she would fight with him over that, because she thought he was "wasting time" hiking instead of working or looking for work. Just two hours, once a week. I miss those two hours. He'd call me and see if I could take an hour off work to pick up chicken feed, and it was fun. Everything we did together was fun. We tore the rotted old arbor off the back of his garage year before last, and even that was fun.
You know, when I met him they were split up and I used to wish his wife would come back to him, because he was so, so sad. I've never seen anyone as heartbroken as he was. I wished it until I actually saw her manipulating, controlling, and putting him down, giving him hope and then yanking the carpet out from under his feet a few days later. And then, finally, she was engaged to another man, she was living with her fiance, and he was ready to be done. He was ready to file divorce papers, and suddenly, she broke up with her fiance, she had nowhere to stay, she came back. Now he is more miserable than he ever was when she was gone.
I know it's not the same thing, but I don't want to be waiting for him like he waited for her, and I don't want to hope for him anymore. I do want him to split up with her so we can be every bit the friends we were before, and I do want more than friendship if the universe would happen to go that way, but I don't want to do what I know I will do if I don't assume it is over, which is wait here with my little bloody heart wide open, hoping, trying to sew it back into my body every night so I can sleep with the disappointment of not having heard from him, again.
Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind
Images
You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes
Clever trick
I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
Images
And when you left you kissed my lips
You told me you would never forget these images, no
I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind
So you're gone and I'm haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that easy
To walk right in and out of my life?
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
(Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy)
And I miss him. I don't know how to lose my friend, not-quite-lover. It reminds me of my divorce, except by the time we got to divorce my marriage was already dead, I just had to make the decision to cut the rope and let it fall. There was nothing dead or over between my friend and I; no fights or anger or anything but laughter and comfort and love and support. As much as the divorce was a lingering cancer, this is a freak accident. He has seen me at my best and at my worst, and now I'm at my worst again and I can't call him... or, I can call him, but he'll never call me back. He made himself my home base, I let him, and now he is gone and I am anchorless.
I saw a plastic bag driven by gusts, tumbling in the air above the trees, and I thought, there I am.
I'm jumping the gun.
I have this problem of existing too much in the present moment. People say "live in the moment" as if it's a virtue to strive toward, but it's not a blessing, it's a curse. When the moment is all there is, it becomes all-encompassing, whether in happiness or sorrow. If you truly live in the moment, you have no perspective with which to temper your emotions.
I hoped a lot for a long time, and now I'm afraid of hope because that's what gets you, really. Despair is tiresome, but it's almost a relief, once you accept it. If I believe, or hope, that this silence is temporary and he'll be my friend again, be allowed to be my friend again, I'll be waiting for him every day and I'll go to bed sad every night. If I believe, accept, that it's over, my heart will break and be broken for a while, but it won't break anew daily.
We used to get sandwiches and two bottles of beer and go hiking together, and eat lunch out in the woods. We'd each get a different kind of sandwich and a different beer, and swap halfway through. We never hiked long; just an hour or so, long enough to get some air and get a little winded, and go back to work feeling good. It was one of my favorite things, a high point of my week. Even before I went off on his wife, she would fight with him over that, because she thought he was "wasting time" hiking instead of working or looking for work. Just two hours, once a week. I miss those two hours. He'd call me and see if I could take an hour off work to pick up chicken feed, and it was fun. Everything we did together was fun. We tore the rotted old arbor off the back of his garage year before last, and even that was fun.
You know, when I met him they were split up and I used to wish his wife would come back to him, because he was so, so sad. I've never seen anyone as heartbroken as he was. I wished it until I actually saw her manipulating, controlling, and putting him down, giving him hope and then yanking the carpet out from under his feet a few days later. And then, finally, she was engaged to another man, she was living with her fiance, and he was ready to be done. He was ready to file divorce papers, and suddenly, she broke up with her fiance, she had nowhere to stay, she came back. Now he is more miserable than he ever was when she was gone.
I know it's not the same thing, but I don't want to be waiting for him like he waited for her, and I don't want to hope for him anymore. I do want him to split up with her so we can be every bit the friends we were before, and I do want more than friendship if the universe would happen to go that way, but I don't want to do what I know I will do if I don't assume it is over, which is wait here with my little bloody heart wide open, hoping, trying to sew it back into my body every night so I can sleep with the disappointment of not having heard from him, again.
Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind
Images
You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes
Clever trick
I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
Images
And when you left you kissed my lips
You told me you would never forget these images, no
I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind
So you're gone and I'm haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that easy
To walk right in and out of my life?
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
(Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy)
Friday, April 2, 2010
The End of the World
The end of the world. It’s a different place for everyone, but everyone knows where theirs is, although sometimes they don’t know how to find it until the moment they need it.
That highway calls to us, the highway to the end of the world. If you feel inside yourself, you’ll find you know instinctively where the beginning is. Sometimes, driving, you might have the sudden urge to make that turn, take that freeway entrance, and just go.
It’s not like the lure of the bridges; the bridges are something outside of you, coercive, malicious. The siren song of the bridges is to distract you, to trick you. The bridges, beautiful, old; they have no love for you, other than their love of your sorrow. Just walk across one, you’ll see what I mean, the water glinting grey and deep between the slats under your feet. I have the fear sometimes that a bridge will get me and then that last moment will be eternity, the fear and loss and the cold and the choking, the taste of mud and corpses and sewage, the bones breaking as I hit the water, regret and heartbreak and agony all rolling into one permanent instant as I wish I could change my mind about the bridge, about everything, walk back up the street for a pack of cigarettes, a shot of bourbon, cry it out, shake it out, scream it out, sleep it out drugged and curled on the couch, anything but experiencing that one last moment more than forever, because when time stops there can be no end of the world.
No, the end of the world is something inside of you, which is why all the bridges stay the same for everyone, but everyone’s end of the world is different. It may be only a few minutes from home, but usually it’s a long drive away. The end of the world is not danger, it is solace. It’s where you go in your mind when everything is crumbling, the place you long for when the steel band circling your heart is two notches too tight. You close your eyes and feel it calling for you, yearning for you, loving you. It wants you there as much as you want to go.
Down the street, a left turn, a slight right, up the freeway north, north through the city and past the volcano, past where the cooling towers used to be, through the small towns and the capital, past the religious nut with the billboard and past the 47-year-old Columbus Day Storm snags of trees jutting like broken teeth along the wind tunnel of the I-5 corridor, north into the riparian jungle, the wetlands and marshes, off the freeway and onto the highway, past the casino, off the highway and onto the winding rural roads that take you through the reservations and the small, small towns, north until you get to the place where you can’t go north anymore, and you get out of the car and walk through the trees to the spot where the water crashes against the rocks 60 feet below, and maybe you take a small object out of your pocket and throw it, or maybe you sit on the edge looking down, or maybe you don’t, and you know that in all this solitude, in all this quiet, your dirt and loss and all your pain will be washed away, washed clean and smooth like an eggshell, like the blank slate you imagine you used to be, and out here at the end of the world no one will ever, ever find you.
I don't think anyone wants much more of an afterlife than they want from this one; a warm spot in the sun, a garden, that moment of bliss when you wake up in the morning and sense that the warm body next to you is someone you love. It's when all that goes awry that we have to run, have to lock the car doors and piss in a bottle driving ninety up the rain-slick freeway at one am to get away, to get the hell away from the city and the bridges and the wreckage of hope. Or you run by pouring it out onto paper or into song or by pouring whiskey down your throat, or you run by fucking someone new but the new never quite stops reminding you that those brown eyes and that smile are not the brown eyes and the smile that you're running from, and pretty soon, no matter how far you run, you can't quite remember if you were running away from something, or trying to chase it down.
That's why we need the end of the world, and that's why we need the wastelands and the bridges. The wastelands and bridges, their siren song scares us and makes us run, and the end of the world is the place where we get to stop. It's not the afterlife but it's close enough, close enough to let you sit down and catch your breath and try to remember whether you were chasing something or fleeing from it, and remember that the cigars and the bourbon and the tranquilizers and the sex and the running never did get you any closer or any farther away from whatever it is. And maybe you just take a minute, and that's all you need, but maybe sometimes you go to the end of the world and you never come back, and if there's anyone to talk to, you never, ever talk about why you're there.
Your heart’s on the loose
You rolled them sevens with nothing lose
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
You called all your shots
Shooting 8 ball at the corner truck stop
Somehow this don’t feel like home anymore
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
And this ain’t no place to lose your mind
And this ain’t no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try
Your body aches…
Playing your guitar and sweating out the hate
The days and the nights all feel the same
Whiskey has been a thorn in your side
and it doesn’t forget
the highway that calls for your heart inside
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
And this ain’t no place to lose your mind
And this ain’t no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try
Your lovers warm kiss…
It’s too damn far from your fingertips
You are the man that ruined her world
Your heart’s on the loose
You rolled them sevens with nothing to lose
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
(Ryan Bingham)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zelvaxvTaUk
That highway calls to us, the highway to the end of the world. If you feel inside yourself, you’ll find you know instinctively where the beginning is. Sometimes, driving, you might have the sudden urge to make that turn, take that freeway entrance, and just go.
It’s not like the lure of the bridges; the bridges are something outside of you, coercive, malicious. The siren song of the bridges is to distract you, to trick you. The bridges, beautiful, old; they have no love for you, other than their love of your sorrow. Just walk across one, you’ll see what I mean, the water glinting grey and deep between the slats under your feet. I have the fear sometimes that a bridge will get me and then that last moment will be eternity, the fear and loss and the cold and the choking, the taste of mud and corpses and sewage, the bones breaking as I hit the water, regret and heartbreak and agony all rolling into one permanent instant as I wish I could change my mind about the bridge, about everything, walk back up the street for a pack of cigarettes, a shot of bourbon, cry it out, shake it out, scream it out, sleep it out drugged and curled on the couch, anything but experiencing that one last moment more than forever, because when time stops there can be no end of the world.
No, the end of the world is something inside of you, which is why all the bridges stay the same for everyone, but everyone’s end of the world is different. It may be only a few minutes from home, but usually it’s a long drive away. The end of the world is not danger, it is solace. It’s where you go in your mind when everything is crumbling, the place you long for when the steel band circling your heart is two notches too tight. You close your eyes and feel it calling for you, yearning for you, loving you. It wants you there as much as you want to go.
Down the street, a left turn, a slight right, up the freeway north, north through the city and past the volcano, past where the cooling towers used to be, through the small towns and the capital, past the religious nut with the billboard and past the 47-year-old Columbus Day Storm snags of trees jutting like broken teeth along the wind tunnel of the I-5 corridor, north into the riparian jungle, the wetlands and marshes, off the freeway and onto the highway, past the casino, off the highway and onto the winding rural roads that take you through the reservations and the small, small towns, north until you get to the place where you can’t go north anymore, and you get out of the car and walk through the trees to the spot where the water crashes against the rocks 60 feet below, and maybe you take a small object out of your pocket and throw it, or maybe you sit on the edge looking down, or maybe you don’t, and you know that in all this solitude, in all this quiet, your dirt and loss and all your pain will be washed away, washed clean and smooth like an eggshell, like the blank slate you imagine you used to be, and out here at the end of the world no one will ever, ever find you.
I don't think anyone wants much more of an afterlife than they want from this one; a warm spot in the sun, a garden, that moment of bliss when you wake up in the morning and sense that the warm body next to you is someone you love. It's when all that goes awry that we have to run, have to lock the car doors and piss in a bottle driving ninety up the rain-slick freeway at one am to get away, to get the hell away from the city and the bridges and the wreckage of hope. Or you run by pouring it out onto paper or into song or by pouring whiskey down your throat, or you run by fucking someone new but the new never quite stops reminding you that those brown eyes and that smile are not the brown eyes and the smile that you're running from, and pretty soon, no matter how far you run, you can't quite remember if you were running away from something, or trying to chase it down.
That's why we need the end of the world, and that's why we need the wastelands and the bridges. The wastelands and bridges, their siren song scares us and makes us run, and the end of the world is the place where we get to stop. It's not the afterlife but it's close enough, close enough to let you sit down and catch your breath and try to remember whether you were chasing something or fleeing from it, and remember that the cigars and the bourbon and the tranquilizers and the sex and the running never did get you any closer or any farther away from whatever it is. And maybe you just take a minute, and that's all you need, but maybe sometimes you go to the end of the world and you never come back, and if there's anyone to talk to, you never, ever talk about why you're there.
Your heart’s on the loose
You rolled them sevens with nothing lose
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
You called all your shots
Shooting 8 ball at the corner truck stop
Somehow this don’t feel like home anymore
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
And this ain’t no place to lose your mind
And this ain’t no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try
Your body aches…
Playing your guitar and sweating out the hate
The days and the nights all feel the same
Whiskey has been a thorn in your side
and it doesn’t forget
the highway that calls for your heart inside
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
And this ain’t no place to lose your mind
And this ain’t no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try
Your lovers warm kiss…
It’s too damn far from your fingertips
You are the man that ruined her world
Your heart’s on the loose
You rolled them sevens with nothing to lose
And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
(Ryan Bingham)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zelvaxvTaUk
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The true story of Mr. Earfinger
Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
I walk to the upscale-ish restaurant/bar in my neighborhood, arrive exactly on time, belly up to the bar and order a well bourbon with a beer back. I'm wearing something cute but not risque; jeans, T-shirt, cowboy boots, leather jacket. It's a lovely evening, for winter. The door opens a few times and I keep turning to check. The third time, it's unmistakably the guy from the ad... 40 pounds heavier and a lot less attractive. I am tempted to bolt, but instead I smile and greet him politely with the requisite Portland half-hug (I greatly prefer a handshake, but everyone here seems to think hugging is the way to greet strangers).
He orders, pays for my drink, we go to the back and sit near a window. I am internally steeled for a polite hour of being pleasant and interesting. We chat.
He is actually not so bad to talk to. Quite nice, actually, fairly interesting. Kind of funny. He pre-emptively orders me another drink (a good reason to insist on going dutch on the first date) and I figure, oh, what the hell, I'm having a decent time. Shortly thereafter, though, the conversation starts to become decidedly less interesting and funny as he begins bloviating about the hospital he works in and how being in a hospital gown is the great equalizer of men blah blah blah. Then I register what it is he actually does, and where; he's an MRI tech in the same hospital my friend Surfer Boy works at. "Oh hey," I say, I don't suppose you know my friend Liam, do you? He's a film librarian there."
There's a pause, and he looks deliberately thoughtful in the way people only look thoughtful when they know immediately who you are referring to, but want you to think they don't.
"Liam? Hmmm. I don't know, there are a lot of people in my department... Liam... what's his last name?"
"Sandusky", I say, "Liam Sandusky".
More pretending not to remember. Then, a snap of the fingers; "Liam! Of course! He works my front desk sometimes when one of the ladies is out. Cocky little guy... really full of himself. He thinks he's the cock of the walk, doesn't he?"
Is this fucker really saying this about someone I just told him is my friend?
"Um. No, actually he's quite shy and self-effacing. He's a creative guy, writes poetry. He's really smart."
"Well he sure comes off like he thinks a lot of himself, the way he struts around flirting with the ladies."
I can see very clearly what the problem is. This bloated old fuck sees Liam's youth, his gentle quietness, his good looks, and the fact that women like him, and he's envious and threatened. Then he asks the obvious next question:
"So, how do you know Liam?"
"I met him online and dated him for a while, about a year ago."
"Oh... so, it just didn't go anywhere?"
"No, it went somewhere... he just realized he liked me too much to keep it casual, but isn't into kids, so we decided to just be friends."
Faux-sympathy. "Awww. That's too bad!"
"Not really."
Pause. Then he starts in on a story.
"You know the funniest thing? You know how Liam has those sideburns? Well, I used to have big mutton-chop sideburns, and it wasn't until I grew mine..."
"Oh, actually," I say sweetly, knowing exactly where this was going, "It's funny but I hounded him for MONTHS to grow those. He didn't want to but I was relentless."
Pause.
"I'll be right back," he says, "I need to use the restroom."
I sit in kind of mild disbelief at his rudeness for a couple of minutes, and then he returns... and oh FUCK, he's bought me another drink. FUCK FUCK FUCK. OK. I can live through one more. He sits down, sliding onto the bench next to me instead of the seat opposite.
"One more," he says, "I hope that's OK."
"Oh, sure... but this has to be my last one."
"You know, when I walked in I couldn't believe how cute you were. You're so... tiny. You're just really, really tiny and lovely. A tiny, tiny lovely creature."
WTF? What is this "tiny" shit? Is this supposed to be seductive?
"Um, thank you?"
"I really just couldn't believe it. It's like, you could fit in the cup of my hand. Is that perfume I smell?"
He leans in and sniffs, and then, suddenly, he is KISSING me. I fell for the oldest fucking trick in the book. We are in a restaurant, with people, and he is kissing me in public, in front of people, and I am contemplating how I am going to get away, and his hand is on the back of my neck, and then...
He puts his finger in my left ear.
Not like, a caressing fingertip. He sticks his dry index finger into my ear canal. I freeze, stunned like a deer in the headlights. Is this weird? I think. And then, the other finger inserts into my right ear. Fuck YES this is weird! Break contact! Break contact!
I don't really know if I jerk away, turn my head, slump into my seat, but blessedly, both lip and ear contact are broken.
"Ohhh, that was so lovely" he says with a little smug smile. "You know what? Those hipsters over there keep staring at us."
I turn to look, and sure enough, three young hipsters are looking right at us with combined expressions of amusement and disbelief.
"Wow, I really ought to head home! It was nice meeting you." I say, getting hastily to my feet and putting on my jacket.
"Hold on, I'll walk you to your car!"
"Oh, I didn't bring my car, I walked." OSHIT why did I say that? WHY?
"Well, you can't walk home alone in the dark! I'll drive you home!"
"NO um I actually really want to walk and it's my neighborhood and really very safe also I was um, planning on going to buy cigarettes first."
"I'll walk with you, then. I insist."
SHITFUCKDAMN.
I'm thinking, rolling over plans in my head. Can I go to the bathroom and call someone to rescue me? Or wait... maybe I'll just go to the mini-mart in the exact opposite direction of my house, so that he'll be tired out when we finally get back here, and he'll ditch. OK. Try that.
He settles up and we set off, me walking a bit faster than normal, him huffing and puffing to keep up. He tries to make small talk, but I don't really reply. At one point, though, he thinks we will hold hands, and his palm and fingers are eerily dry and scaly feeling, and warm like a lizard that's been basking in the sun. Repulsed, I pull away. Not one to take a hint, he tries again a couple of times, and I start walking faster. He's struggling to keep up, his great bulky body sweating and wheezing in what would otherwise be a lovely crisp night.
Three goddamn stores. The first two are closed, and I renew my suggestion that we go back to his car and I walk home alone but, inexplicably, he refuses to take a clue and follows me doggedly around my neighborhood until I finally score a pack of cigarettes at the Chevron five blocks from my house. Thankfully, by now his efforts at impressing me by talking have ended, because he doesn't have the stamina to walk and talk at the same time.
We get to my house. "Well, here I am" I say, extending my hand. "It was nice to meet you, have a good night!"
"Oh, it's been wonderful! Do you mind if I sit and catch my breath for a while?"
By now I'm past any pretense at being polite. "Uhhh fine" I say, and lead the way to the front porch, choosing to settle into the fortress-like rattan chair in the corner. This leaves him the bench, from which I am untouchable. I light a cigarette and offer him one. I know he doesn't smoke, but I was hoping that he would take it out of peer pressure and it would give him emphysema. He's shivering from the cold; he didn't bring a jacket.
"Would you mind terribly if I use your bathroom?"
Oho. He thinks he can get me inside. Think again, Earfinger.
"Sure, it's straight through the kitchen, to the right. Don't mind the dogs, they're harmless. Try not to scare my housemate."
It's an awkward moment, and I don't care. He goes inside, into dark and unfamiliar territory and barking dogs, and emerges a couple of minutes later. Unfortunately, he sits down again. I have to pee, but I am not going into my house until this behemoth potato on toothpicks departs.
I smoke. And smoke. I sit in my impenetrable rattan fortress for three or four cigarettes, and at last, after what feels like an hour, it finally seems to filter through his dense mass of cluelessness that he is absolutely not going to get anywhere with me, and that I will gladly keep him out on the porch until dawn.
"Well, I'd better go I guess. I had such a great time, it was so wonderful to meet you."
He stands up and I extend my hand from my fortress. "'Night" I say, and he pauses in one pathetic confused moment, then accepts my hand, says good night, and like a portly, oppressive cloud, blunders off into the night.
I walk to the upscale-ish restaurant/bar in my neighborhood, arrive exactly on time, belly up to the bar and order a well bourbon with a beer back. I'm wearing something cute but not risque; jeans, T-shirt, cowboy boots, leather jacket. It's a lovely evening, for winter. The door opens a few times and I keep turning to check. The third time, it's unmistakably the guy from the ad... 40 pounds heavier and a lot less attractive. I am tempted to bolt, but instead I smile and greet him politely with the requisite Portland half-hug (I greatly prefer a handshake, but everyone here seems to think hugging is the way to greet strangers).
He orders, pays for my drink, we go to the back and sit near a window. I am internally steeled for a polite hour of being pleasant and interesting. We chat.
He is actually not so bad to talk to. Quite nice, actually, fairly interesting. Kind of funny. He pre-emptively orders me another drink (a good reason to insist on going dutch on the first date) and I figure, oh, what the hell, I'm having a decent time. Shortly thereafter, though, the conversation starts to become decidedly less interesting and funny as he begins bloviating about the hospital he works in and how being in a hospital gown is the great equalizer of men blah blah blah. Then I register what it is he actually does, and where; he's an MRI tech in the same hospital my friend Surfer Boy works at. "Oh hey," I say, I don't suppose you know my friend Liam, do you? He's a film librarian there."
There's a pause, and he looks deliberately thoughtful in the way people only look thoughtful when they know immediately who you are referring to, but want you to think they don't.
"Liam? Hmmm. I don't know, there are a lot of people in my department... Liam... what's his last name?"
"Sandusky", I say, "Liam Sandusky".
More pretending not to remember. Then, a snap of the fingers; "Liam! Of course! He works my front desk sometimes when one of the ladies is out. Cocky little guy... really full of himself. He thinks he's the cock of the walk, doesn't he?"
Is this fucker really saying this about someone I just told him is my friend?
"Um. No, actually he's quite shy and self-effacing. He's a creative guy, writes poetry. He's really smart."
"Well he sure comes off like he thinks a lot of himself, the way he struts around flirting with the ladies."
I can see very clearly what the problem is. This bloated old fuck sees Liam's youth, his gentle quietness, his good looks, and the fact that women like him, and he's envious and threatened. Then he asks the obvious next question:
"So, how do you know Liam?"
"I met him online and dated him for a while, about a year ago."
"Oh... so, it just didn't go anywhere?"
"No, it went somewhere... he just realized he liked me too much to keep it casual, but isn't into kids, so we decided to just be friends."
Faux-sympathy. "Awww. That's too bad!"
"Not really."
Pause. Then he starts in on a story.
"You know the funniest thing? You know how Liam has those sideburns? Well, I used to have big mutton-chop sideburns, and it wasn't until I grew mine..."
"Oh, actually," I say sweetly, knowing exactly where this was going, "It's funny but I hounded him for MONTHS to grow those. He didn't want to but I was relentless."
Pause.
"I'll be right back," he says, "I need to use the restroom."
I sit in kind of mild disbelief at his rudeness for a couple of minutes, and then he returns... and oh FUCK, he's bought me another drink. FUCK FUCK FUCK. OK. I can live through one more. He sits down, sliding onto the bench next to me instead of the seat opposite.
"One more," he says, "I hope that's OK."
"Oh, sure... but this has to be my last one."
"You know, when I walked in I couldn't believe how cute you were. You're so... tiny. You're just really, really tiny and lovely. A tiny, tiny lovely creature."
WTF? What is this "tiny" shit? Is this supposed to be seductive?
"Um, thank you?"
"I really just couldn't believe it. It's like, you could fit in the cup of my hand. Is that perfume I smell?"
He leans in and sniffs, and then, suddenly, he is KISSING me. I fell for the oldest fucking trick in the book. We are in a restaurant, with people, and he is kissing me in public, in front of people, and I am contemplating how I am going to get away, and his hand is on the back of my neck, and then...
He puts his finger in my left ear.
Not like, a caressing fingertip. He sticks his dry index finger into my ear canal. I freeze, stunned like a deer in the headlights. Is this weird? I think. And then, the other finger inserts into my right ear. Fuck YES this is weird! Break contact! Break contact!
I don't really know if I jerk away, turn my head, slump into my seat, but blessedly, both lip and ear contact are broken.
"Ohhh, that was so lovely" he says with a little smug smile. "You know what? Those hipsters over there keep staring at us."
I turn to look, and sure enough, three young hipsters are looking right at us with combined expressions of amusement and disbelief.
"Wow, I really ought to head home! It was nice meeting you." I say, getting hastily to my feet and putting on my jacket.
"Hold on, I'll walk you to your car!"
"Oh, I didn't bring my car, I walked." OSHIT why did I say that? WHY?
"Well, you can't walk home alone in the dark! I'll drive you home!"
"NO um I actually really want to walk and it's my neighborhood and really very safe also I was um, planning on going to buy cigarettes first."
"I'll walk with you, then. I insist."
SHITFUCKDAMN.
I'm thinking, rolling over plans in my head. Can I go to the bathroom and call someone to rescue me? Or wait... maybe I'll just go to the mini-mart in the exact opposite direction of my house, so that he'll be tired out when we finally get back here, and he'll ditch. OK. Try that.
He settles up and we set off, me walking a bit faster than normal, him huffing and puffing to keep up. He tries to make small talk, but I don't really reply. At one point, though, he thinks we will hold hands, and his palm and fingers are eerily dry and scaly feeling, and warm like a lizard that's been basking in the sun. Repulsed, I pull away. Not one to take a hint, he tries again a couple of times, and I start walking faster. He's struggling to keep up, his great bulky body sweating and wheezing in what would otherwise be a lovely crisp night.
Three goddamn stores. The first two are closed, and I renew my suggestion that we go back to his car and I walk home alone but, inexplicably, he refuses to take a clue and follows me doggedly around my neighborhood until I finally score a pack of cigarettes at the Chevron five blocks from my house. Thankfully, by now his efforts at impressing me by talking have ended, because he doesn't have the stamina to walk and talk at the same time.
We get to my house. "Well, here I am" I say, extending my hand. "It was nice to meet you, have a good night!"
"Oh, it's been wonderful! Do you mind if I sit and catch my breath for a while?"
By now I'm past any pretense at being polite. "Uhhh fine" I say, and lead the way to the front porch, choosing to settle into the fortress-like rattan chair in the corner. This leaves him the bench, from which I am untouchable. I light a cigarette and offer him one. I know he doesn't smoke, but I was hoping that he would take it out of peer pressure and it would give him emphysema. He's shivering from the cold; he didn't bring a jacket.
"Would you mind terribly if I use your bathroom?"
Oho. He thinks he can get me inside. Think again, Earfinger.
"Sure, it's straight through the kitchen, to the right. Don't mind the dogs, they're harmless. Try not to scare my housemate."
It's an awkward moment, and I don't care. He goes inside, into dark and unfamiliar territory and barking dogs, and emerges a couple of minutes later. Unfortunately, he sits down again. I have to pee, but I am not going into my house until this behemoth potato on toothpicks departs.
I smoke. And smoke. I sit in my impenetrable rattan fortress for three or four cigarettes, and at last, after what feels like an hour, it finally seems to filter through his dense mass of cluelessness that he is absolutely not going to get anywhere with me, and that I will gladly keep him out on the porch until dawn.
"Well, I'd better go I guess. I had such a great time, it was so wonderful to meet you."
He stands up and I extend my hand from my fortress. "'Night" I say, and he pauses in one pathetic confused moment, then accepts my hand, says good night, and like a portly, oppressive cloud, blunders off into the night.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
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