tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784478259267331912024-02-18T21:31:38.891-08:00Hooved ShamanLooking at life, the curve balls thrown, WOW (occasionally) and dating.
There is an Archive of WOW related articles...life just seems more interesting.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-37889791351500218112009-08-20T16:41:00.000-07:002009-08-20T16:45:47.067-07:00Life ChangesI've made a sweeping clean out of the friends that I've known in the past year. I was leaning on them thinking that they had my best interest at heart when in reality the interest they were looking out for was their own. Which was unfortunate to learn.<br /><br />Anyone who knows me well knows that I live and die for the people that I bring into my life. Sadly sometimes that's taken advantage of. This was the case with a large number of people that I had surrounded myself with.<br /><br />Earlier in the year I had moved in with a couple of friends who needed a place to stay. That blew up in my face as they both found ways to break my trust, even before they moved in with me. After learning about the unfortunate betrayal I had a gut check moment and kicked one out. About a month later the other person showed their true colors and once again, out the door they went. That left me with the center that I'd had for a while. Jen, Travis and Tracey.<br /><br />Problem was that as I was dealing with my own house, they were pulling on me as well. When I was on the verge of kicking of my roommates out Tracey came into a situation where she needed a place to stay. I have a big heart, almost too big... and while I knew I was being taken advantage of, I hated the thought of kicking someone out. Jen, Travis and Tracey put pressure on me during that time and basically put out a "Get it done and move Tracey in or we'll all stop talking to you!"<br /><br />Emotional blackmail is not cool.<br /><br />More over, if you have friends that are using it to get you to do something, reconsider the friendship. I did what I was asked to do, I kicked one out and let another move in. The friendships after that, well you can't really call them that anymore can you? In the back of your mind you're always wondering if another situation will come up where that same ultimatum is thrown at your feet making you deal with a difficult decision.<br /><br />Looking back, I think those friendships were over the moment they cornered me the way that they did but for a few months after that I tried as best as I could to maintain it. It never worked the same, at all.It's one thing to tell someone how you feel about a situation, it's another to try and sway them in the worst possible way and then wonder why things aren't the same anymore.<br /><br />Personally I mourned the loss of those friendships but their decisions put me at arm's length and I was never able to get comfortable again.So I lost five friends basically. Five people that I thought were going to be long standing people in my life, two for lying and three for trying to control me and manipulate me in a manner that I didn't want to be.<br /><br />When things finally came to an end it was completely toxic. I would go over, get sad and go home feeling like less of a person because of them. They befriended an ex of mine to trash talk me with, even though, if she only knew just how much they sat there and blasted on her for who she was long after she was gone, she might reconsider the friendship she's trying to drum up with them. However to each their own.<br /><br />/end rant<br /><br />On to other things. While that was slowly going South I ended up meeting someone that blew everything out of the water...I met Crystal.<br /><br />Crystal was a bit of a mystery to me when I met her (she still is in some ways but none of them are bad). She is confident, sure of herself, smart, funny, insightful, beautiful beyond words and has been able to keep up with me in several different ways. We took a little bit of time to feel out the water but when we were both comfortable, the fireworks really exploded and have continued to do so.<br /><br />You guys know that I've been trying to find someone, someone that could basically allow me to be me but also challenge me to grow and grow with me. There aren't enough words to tell you how I feel about her. She has been a constant and a sounding board. She's been there to pick up the pieces and challenges me constantly to look beyond the paradigm that I have about life, love, art, and anything else we talk about. She's not much of a comic fan though (I guess no one's perfect :P).<br /><br /> After two weeks of being with her, we both knew where we wanted it to go and life went ahead and took over.<br /><br />She's currently four months pregnant with our first child.<br /><br />She has a little girl who's five, who I love with all my heart, she's outstanding, smart, funny and a bit of a prima donna, but what little girl isn't. The Lord takes away but also gives back in spades. He took me out of a situation that was going to literally kill me with my first wife and after a season introduced me to a woman that was beautiful in His eyes and mine.<br /><br />We got married on July 17th and have had nothing but blessings since we met.<br /><br />The latest is that while I've enjoyed my time working for Clackamas County, a better job has been given to me.<br /><br />It all started on a lark. I've basically been living with Crystal for about three months. I've had my place and have being paying rent, my lease ran out this month and hers ran out this month as well. So we both started wondering. Did we want to re-up for another seven months where we were or did we want to look elsewhere?<br /><br />Crystal's mom lives in Lewiston, Id. (Which is on the Wa/Id border) and she and Grace, our five year old, are thicker than thieves. It's noticeable when they're together because Gracie absolutely glows with happiness. Our original idea was for baby to be born and then maybe next summer move closer so that they could spend more time together.<br /><br />So knowing our lease is up, I started looking for jobs within the Lewiston area. I found a hospital, St. Joe's. If you want an idea of what kind of hospital it is, think of the biggest hospital in your area where everyone wants to work. Applications are put in and usually it takes about six months to even get a response.<br /><br />I put my application in for a position at about 9:30 in the morning. By 1 I had an email from them asking some additional questions. A week later they were gracious enough to do a phone interview with me and 24 hours later I was offered the position of Surgery Unit Clerk. Just like that the door opened. After praying about it and talking to Crystal, we made the determination to take the position and start asap.<br /><br />So I start the 1st of Sept. Full benefits the day I start and they are giving tutition assistance. I also decided to go back to school and get the nursing degree I should've gotten forever ago. So that's my up to date. The house is packed. My notice for work and my apartment is given. The goodbye bash is being held tomorrow night and Yun's, the favorite Friday hang out and in a week's time we'll pack a U Haul and truck over into the Wa/Id area.<br /><br />Nothing is done alone.<br /><br />There have been people with me the whole time.<br /><br /> Jacqui - My rock. My best friend in many respects. We've cried and laughed with each other and basically raised hell. My cheerleader when I've needed it and momma bear when required. Hearing her laugh every day will be one of the things that I truly will miss the most. Diet Squirt, Pepporoni Sticks and Bar food will always remind me of the good and bad times.<br /><br /> Leah - the devil horned angel. The most quiet one when she wanted to be, never afraid to speak her piece or say what needed to be said to get me breakdown and deal with a situation. Her continued support and brightside manner kept me going even on the days when I wanted to be done. Our early morning conversations have always been a bright spot each day and I"ll miss them. Without her steely attitude and determination I might have given up long ago. Thanks for showing me how to stand tall, even when the world is on your shoulders.<br /><br />Nola - heh. the new kid. She's fit right in and being able to bounce off of her has been a blessing. I'm glad that we got to know each other in the short time that we have. I pray that you continue on being who you are and never giving up on what you want to do or who you want to become.<br /><br /> I know there are more people but these three, kept me sane in the recent tough times and not acknowledging that would be unfair.<br /><br />My final week in Oregon is coming up fast and I've got a couple of things to do before I can close up shop. It's been an adventure but one that has come to an end, at least for now. As always it's uncertain what the Man has in store for myself or my family.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-23133345278058807422009-02-19T16:05:00.000-08:002009-02-19T16:06:54.027-08:00Thomas Wolfe was rightThomas Wolfe once said, You can never go home again.<br /><br /><br />In my mind’s eye when I used to hear that term I thought he meant, home as in, your childhood home, you’re parents and your relatives. Unfortunately that’s not the case. It doesn’t just touch on your childhood and the things that went on there. It’s talking about any point in time in your life where you once had a home and now you’ve moved on.<br /><br />How do I know this?<br /><br />I learned it the hard way. For some of you, you’ve followed along, for others; well you’re probably scratching your head wondering what I’m talking about.<br /><br />Eight months ago, after almost six years of marriage, I woke up one morning and had a moment of clarity. I was in a situation where I was giving until I couldn’t give anymore and then asked to give again. I had reached my limit. I was living in a situation where my wife had been constantly drugged for the last two years. I had lacked in the many departments that help us get our needs met and all I was doing was care giving for someone who didn’t give about anything.<br /><br />I gave her one month. I told her that if she could show me something, anything in that month that gave me some hope, that showed me that perhaps she did care. I would reevaluate the situation, stick around and work things out. The month came and went, I went with it.<br /><br />The first couple of months were the hardest, I won’t lie. Having known that I would come home to the same person and be given a respite from life was warm and welcoming and suddenly I was living without it. I was living without the safety net that I had become accustomed to.<br /><br />In the end, the edge of being alone got the best of me and I made some sad decisions when it came to dating, ask around and you’ll be told exactly what I’m talking about. It felt like a build up of crap, one bad thing to the next. Then I met someone who I thought was genuine and at the end of it I was still staring at the same issues that I had when I started.<br /><br />Nothing went right for me. Be it by Devine design or just by bad decisions, I felt like the opposite of King Midas, where everything turned to dung.<br /><br />Near the end of the year a few things happened. In October, I had a car accident, the vehicle in question was totaled but I was able to walk away without a scratch. Within the month I was able to get a new car for a small sum that was better than the one I had.<br /><br />The relationship I had been nurturing it slowly and as quietly as possible. Not wanting any ripples, hoping that it wasn’t just a smoke screen, fell apart right in front of me in the span of two weeks. Like a bad paper-Mache that had finally dried out and started to crack under it’s own flaws. There was nothing to be done for it. I had to let it go.<br /><br />Just as that was coming to a close I got a bombshell at the beginning of December. I was being kicked out. The owners of the apartments I was living in wanted to turn a quick buck with the down turn in the economy. They kicked out all of the month to month renters to make them into condos. Unfortunately for me, no one moves in December. This meant that I was stuck couch surfing for the month of Dec until I was able to get a place again in Jan.<br /><br />This is where my biggest mistake lay.<br /><br />I didn’t have a shortage of options. Looking back on it now? I probably had more options that I even realized then. I’ve talked to friends who have looked at me dumbfounded and wondered why I didn’t call on them. I think part of it was me just being stubborn.<br /><br />M walked back into my life. She had gotten somewhat better. She was more like the person I remember in my mind’s eye. It blinded me. It made me feel like perhaps there was still a chance, still an opportunity. And, ever the optimist that thinks the best of people, I tried again.<br /><br />The old resentments, the old anger, never really dies you know, it just slumbers. It waits for the time to rekindle itself. To catch on fire the soul of the person it breathes within everyday hoping for the opportunity to scream out that it’s right. It stews, it slumbers, it waits, and it hungers.<br />Slowly it consumed me. It took me by the hand and guided me through the steps, made me see the same things that had accumulated through the first time for so many years. Instead each time one of the old habits would crop up, I was aware, well aware of it and it gutted me. It tore me up and I would talk about it, how it made me feel, what I was worried about.<br /><br />The week I was supposed to move out was the hardest. I was entrenched again in the same place I had been for years and as angry as it made me, it was comfortable, it was safe. Why should I crack my skull trying to start over when I could just fall into mediocrity and forget about it, forget about dreams, aspirations, hopes, desires and live a life amongst the unwashed and unknown, never blazing a trail for myself in this life or this World. Complacent in knowing that there was a warm body next to me, even if she wasn’t affectionate.<br /><br />I debated because I feared. I feared because I had already gone all in with someone else and they hadn’t been able to cover my bet. I had shown all my cards and come up short of the winning hand. So what would make me think that the second time around would be better. What makes me think that it wouldn’t lead to a third try or fourth? How far was I willing to go? How often was I willing to bet all my chips?<br /><br />I hemmed and hawed. It didn’t help that she wanted me to stay. It didn’t help that I wanted to stay. The strength that I had the first time I left wasn’t available. I had lost that yearning and burning because I was getting cowed again and I didn’t even see it.<br /><br />If you ask me now what exactly it was that lead to my leaving, I still couldn’t tell you, that week was a complete blur. However I got out and was on my own. We tried to make it work. I know how much I gave to it. She has an idea as to what she put into it, I can’t speak for her. I’m not going to demonize the woman I once called wife but I will say that in my eyes the effort wasn’t enough and we ended up falling into our own ways.<br /><br />This week I finally came to grips with the fact that the woman that I married that fine summer day was long gone and never to be seen again.<br /><br />The second time, I think, was the hardest. It’s that finality that I know that there’s nothing else to do. There’s no where else to take this endeavor so with a heavy heart I’ve had to say it again. This time knowing that what I once called home is now nothing but an empty house.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-26045069975577092952009-01-05T15:55:00.000-08:002009-01-05T15:56:45.386-08:00Lich King ObservationsSo I’ve been silent for quiet some time. Much of that has to do with the fact that I’m currently homeless. To use a sad term, I’m hoofing it.<br /><br />Long story short: I got notice eight days before eviction, turns out the company that I was renting from went bankrupt. So I had to pack everything up from my little hut and put it in storage. Little known fact: December is usually the month where people move the LEAST because of the holiday season, which means that finding a reasonably priced place to live is impossible. I did manage to line up a place, I move in at the end of the week.<br /><br />So that being said I’ve been couch surfing as it were. I’ve been playing more WOW again and just spent the Christmas season alone and you know what I got for Christmas? A lump of coal. Yep, that’s right, zip, zero, nada, the big empty.<br /><br />In any event let’s move on to WOW shall we?<br /><br />There’s several observations that I want to point out. The first of which is this: Being a Shaman is fun again.<br /><br />Now I will admit this, my Death Knight, named Luknight, is the highest toon I currently have sitting pretty at 76. After her there is Lubacca, my druid, who is sitting at 73 and Luciel, everyone’s favorite shaman is sitting at 70 (two bubbles away from 71).<br /><br />Observation 1: This expansion is no where near as difficult as the last. If anything it’s almost easier than Vanilla WOW. It appears there was some QQ-ing over the difficulty of Burning Crusade and Blizzard took it to heart, leaving us with a "Kill this many things" quest in EVERY SINGLE AREA so far.<br /><br />Observation 2: While there are two starting areas, they play like you have to do Tundra first and then Fjord because of the difficulty. At least with a regular toon.<br /><br />Observation 3: The world is over populated with Death Knights but only a fraction know what they are doing in any event. Making it harder to weed people out is the fact that you have to go through so many. The same can be said for ANY class obviously but because of the hype, 11 million people have a Death Knight. Think about that for a second. Yea, that sucks.<br /><br />Observation 4: As much fun as I’m having playing, it’s no where NEAR as engrossing as Burning Crusade was.<br /><br />Observation 5: The instances are both easier and faster to run. The only exception to that for me right now is Old Kingdom, which also happens to be my favorite with a HUGE cavernous area for the instance it makes it interesting to see how much time they put into it. It also has some side quests that help with xp.<br /><br />Observation 6: The gear doesn’t jump as fast as Burning Crusades did, instead giving an increase in all aspects of gear slowly but surely. Case in point, Luciel is still decked out in his epics from PVP and has yet to fully turn in his epic weapons. That’s even after having cleared the first starting area. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting that but I’m not upset by it in the slightest.<br />Those are just the ones that I wanted to get out there at this moment. I will try and bring this back to what it was, a WOW blog about misadventures and more, thoughts on the several classes I’m currently playing.<br /><br />Til next time!Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-29463834804553136922008-11-20T14:53:00.000-08:002008-11-20T14:54:56.738-08:00The ReturnNews of my death…<br /><br />… Has been highly overrated.<br /><br />This is probably the most I’ve written in one week in a bit but this one isn’t a self reflecting blog.<br />Lick King came out last Thursday and DROVES of people went to buy it, I wasn’t one of them.<br /><br />Not like with Burning Crusade where I was standing in line at midnight waiting for my copy. In this instance I really didn’t even know if I would ever play Warcraft again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the experience and as you can obviously see I’ve thrown plenty of time into the game, I just didn’t know if I’d have the resources and time to continue to play.<br /><br />Divine Forsaken has been my home for the better part of almost two years now and I’ve made some very outstanding friends. One of them is Forester, or Don in RL.<br /><br />When Don and I met, we were in Aerie Peak, the default server at the time. We were in the same guild together and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was called at the time. I met some awesome people and at one point some of the people I met, who were just trying out a new server and were going back ‘home’ invited me to come with them. I refused. At the time I thought that I would always be at Aerie Peak.<br /><br />So Don and I were on the same guild and you have to understand that if I have something on a character and someone else needs it, I don’t think about gold, I think about how I can help someone. Don was new to the game (And honestly so was I, I think I had been playing two months at the time.), had an extra of some weapon and went onto guild chat to try and sell it to some other guild member.<br /><br />At the time, and still, I held that ‘help others’ first motto and I blasted into him basically about how there’s honor in guild and you don’t sell to a guild member to make a profit, you help them. From that moment we were inseparable. We quested together a lot, we did some dungeons and started new characters together. Then one day I was just sick of Aerie Peak and the wait times and I moved to Nordassil. I’ve been on that server since. Yes I trekked the other servers and hung about but home has been Nord and Divine Forsaken.<br /><br />I raised four of my 70s there. One was a transfer from Aerie (McGregor) but the rest, home ground from that soil. I’ve watch the server mature if not get more populated. I’ve watched friends come and go and when I left M and the house that she and I ambled about in, I thought that I was done with the game.<br /><br />Then I get a text on Monday from Don. He’d already gotten the expansion and wanted to know when I was going to start playing and I told him that I may just not play with the expansion at all.<br /><br />Then I heard nothing for a day.<br /><br />Then he asked if it was available for download, the expansion, yet. I said it was.<br /><br />He sent me that Serial number and a 60 day pass card number through a text. He didn’t ask for payment. He didn’t ask if I could give him something in return. He just sent that and then the following text, "See you in game bro! LOL"<br /><br />People who don’t understand gaming like to make fun of World of Warcraft players and how they don’t have any friends in the real world so they create an account. The question is, how much more authentic a friend are you going to find here in ‘real life’.<br /><br />I think many of you would understand my thought process, here is a person who I’ve never met in person or ever had a meal with and they went out of their way to get me a game and time to play it with. Might not seem like a big deal to the naked eye but think about it.<br /><br />I just wanted to share that with you because I think that’s the kindest token I’ve received in a supremely long time and I’m feeling very blessed with the true friends that I have, even the ones I didn’t realize I had.<br /><br />So be prepared to have a smattering of WoW again and the adventures I’m bound to have.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-34296228762307096412008-11-18T18:29:00.001-08:002008-11-18T18:29:59.067-08:00Where are you?Honestly I can say that in this life I don’t know what I’m doing.<br /><br />I’ve been:<br />A student<br />A teacher<br />A lover<br />A fighter<br />A writer<br />A preacher<br />A wanderer<br />A healer<br /><br />And still I don’t know what my life is going to look like. It’s not about labels however, it’s not that I want the world to look at me and say, “There’s So and So and he’s a (fill in the blank)” it’s about wanting to know who I am within myself.<br /><br />Each aspect of who I am within my life has been a heartstring, something I’ve felt adamantly about. In one way or another I’ve felt righteous when I’ve taken the stands that I’ve taken. I’ve never looked back at them and thought, “What a waste.” Instead, I’ve felt proud of standing my ground when that choice has been made.<br /><br />Even today with the wreckage that I’m slowly leaving behind in my life I feel like I’ve made the right choice, the choice that will help me reach whatever ultimate goal it is I’m supposed to fulfill in life.<br /><br />I’ve had several people over the years tell me that I’m here to do something wonderful. Something that’s going to change something in the world, that everyone will know about in some way.<br /><br />I don’t live for that.<br /><br />I say, we’re all here for something wonderful to be done. It’s the definition of the word that changes, the outcome that’s different.<br /><br />To some the fact that they’ve gotten that type of thing said about them would make them proud, arrogant and eager to see what tomorrow brings, to face the world with a smug look in their eyes that says, “I got this.”<br /><br />I can’t say the same. Oh don’t get me wrong, I look to tomorrow with an eagerness that’s only surpassed by the imagination of a nine year old who doesn’t really know that the world’s going to chew them up and spit them out. But proud and arrogant? Not a bit. Instead I tread lightly and realize that the choices that I make not only affect my now but those around me as well and the future that might happen if things go well.<br /><br />One of my favorite arguments is free will vs. pre-destination.<br /><br />Hear me out. If God knows you’re every move and where you’re supposed to end up, how is it that you have free will?<br /><br />Answer: Just because God knows each and every spoke on the wheel of your life it doesn’t mean He knows which direction you’re going to pick until you pick it.<br /><br />Think about it. You know that at some point your child is going to run into drugs or alcohol. You KNOW this, it’s a fact of life. The question is what your child is going to do with it once that choice is in front of them. Sure there’s something that you want them to do, a choice you would prefer for them to make but in the long run it’s a decision that’s out of your hands and you can only hope that you’ve instilled enough in them for them to make the right choice.<br /><br />Mother/Father is the name for God in the lips and hearts of all children.<br /><br />God is no different. He is the perfect parent but even He has to leave some of the decisions of life to us.<br /><br />So in this thought I sit. What does my Father want me to do? I know He’s not angry at me for my choices, He honors them, even if He doesn’t agree. But is there a way that He would have me go. Is there a road that I should be taking? Will I ever stand before the mirror and know without a shadow of a doubt that my choices are the ones that I’m supposed to take, I don’t know.<br /><br />What I do know is that those burning questions are what drive me in my everyday life and they are what I think about when I’m making a choice, good or bad, right or wrong.<br /><br />How about you? Does any of this burn within you? Do you dwell on these questions in hopes of finding something better in your life? I’d love to know if you do, I’d love to know that I’m not the only one.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-81446406252781620082008-11-17T15:50:00.001-08:002008-11-17T15:50:53.433-08:00Road MapLife is funny isn’t it? In a sense we’re born into this world without a road map of our lives and are expected to make the right choices without knowing what that choice is going to do to the people around you or to you long term.<br /><br />As children we’re told about the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Basically if you want people to be nice, be nice to them. It’s something that over the years we forget because we all want respect. We feel that we DESERVE respect and as such, won’t give any out until some is given your way.<br /><br />I’m thirty years old as I write this. At this age I’m still asking the question of, what now?<br /><br />I’m sure none of you are surprised by this if you’ve read any of my blogs. I’m constantly trying to figure things out. Constantly trying to use this space to make myself a better person and by the same token, show you how a person can grow and what are the obstacles that he’s facing that force him to do so.<br /><br />One of the things that I’ve come to realize in the current past is that with as much bitching as I do about change, I handle it better than most people.<br /><br />I have to wonder sometimes if there isn’t something broken inside of me. Something that’s sick or twisted that doesn’t feel that I deserve happiness or that I put myself in situations where in the long run I won’t be happy.<br /><br />Am I perhaps torturing myself because I feel like I don’t deserve anything but malice and anger in my world. I honestly don’t know. I know that I keep getting all of these chances thrown at me and each time I balk, bitch, or decide it’s not for me.<br /><br />Sarah had me watch Brokeback Mountain just last week. I hated it. Not for all of the ways that you THINK I would hate it but because it made me look in the mirror (Shut up and just keep reading, it doesn’t mean I’m in the closet.) The two characters are Ennis and Jack. They work together one summer high up in Brokeback Mountain watching over sheep and become really close. So close that the line between life long friends and life long loves gets blurred and they cross it.<br /><br />The thing about it is that they’ll two sides of the same coin. Ennis is unwilling to look past his fear of what would happen to allow the love to take on fully what it should be. Jack on the other hand is willing to drop everything for Ennis thinking that a future with him would be the only thing in his life to make him happy.<br /><br />They go on like this for 20 years.<br /><br />Something happens and Jack’s life is snuffed out, leaving Ennis to pick up the pieces. He realizes that Jack has always thought highly of him, enough to talk to his parents about Ennis and the dream that he has for the two of them.<br /><br />At the end of the movie Ennis is left with nothing but regret, longing and loneliness.<br /><br />I realized at that moment, watching the screen with Heath Ledger tearing up thinking about his best friend and possibly only true love Jack and how he missed out on a wonderful life long adventure because of his own fear. Because of his own inhibitions and because of his own stigma. He lost everything, without ever reaching out to it, even though it was right in front of him.<br />Am I living my life like this? Are my own stigmas about myself and life holding me back? Am I constantly looking back instead of forward, worried that I’ve left behind something wonderful and will never find something to equate to it?<br /><br />I was angry when I finished the movie, I was angry that the mirror was staring at me and that I had to see the cracks in the image. (no pun intended)<br /><br />I look back at M and I know that I made the right choice but honestly can’t help but be angry and hurt over the fact that I know, I know, if she had followed through and grown with me, there would be something magical between us still.<br /><br />Now? Now I live in fear that even capturing a glimpse of that will be impossible. That I’ll not live up to anyone’s expectations or someone won’t live up to mine. I’m afraid that I’m just some cipher that was hiding carefully behind someone with more issues than myself.<br /><br />Do I fear life? No. I fear failing at life and I won’t know whether I did or not until it’s too late.<br /><br />I asked Jen if she sometimes wished she had a crystal ball, she said yes.<br /><br />Personally? I wish I had a road map to tell me which way to go.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-67873159720101695052008-11-04T16:23:00.000-08:002008-11-04T16:24:12.539-08:00All Hallow's EveAll Hallow’s Eve has come and gone, the goblins, ghosts, princesses and pirates have all been put to slumber for one more year. In that time everyone will be a year older and in that we can all rest assured.<br /><br />This was the first Halloween where I wasn’t home for five to six years. Instead I was taken to a concert for a band named “Smoochknob”. Seems they’re a local band that recently got signed by the same label who produces the Killers. They have a good sized following and they have great stage presence.<br /><br />The concert itself was at a club in Downtown Portland named Dante’s, as in Dante’s Inferno. If you try to picture the type of people you would find there, you’d be wrong. From industrial, to older, to my age, to younger, all walks of life were there for this concert.<br /><br />The atmosphere in Dante’s is a mix between upscale posh and downtown punk. The walls are covered in a red crushed velvet, there’s three bars with about six bartenders and one roaming waitress. I’m told that usually there’s tables and chairs but for this party, it was standing room only. There were a few bar stools that were never unoccupied the entire night, I was there for over four hours.<br /><br />The sound board is by the front door, next to that there’s an open fire, it is Dante’s after all, and beside that there’s a door for the kitchen. You pick up your food, no one to serve you. To the left of that is the first bar. It’s right in front of the freezer and dishwasher, there’s always one person coming out with steaming hot crates of clean glasses. To the left of that there’s the stage which is probably a third of the club itself.<br /><br />Then there’s the smoking section. At the beginning of the year Oregon is going to a smoke free environment which means that soon smokers won’t be able to even have a smoking section at a restaurant. So they have a bar that wraps around two pillars, essentially making it two bars, one for the smokers and one for the non smokers. In the smoking section there’s some slot machines, and of course the bands set up their wares there to be sold.<br /><br />The concert was three local bands.<br /><br />The first: Cellar Door. It appears that it’s a local band that’s been together for three years or more. The concert was a Halloween theme party, so everyone was in costume. The lead singer of Cellar Door came in and wore something that everyone else was going to wear but took it a step further. He came dressed as the Joker, in his nurse disguise. Definitely one of the best costumes of the night, he wore it like he was Ledger’s stunt double. The band itself was kinetic as they were a mix of Fuel, STP, Black Crowes and Live. They did a five song set and sold me instantly on them, the songs were full of lyrics that make you think but can be fun as well.<br /><br />The second act: Sinnergy<br /><br />Another local band, they delved right into the hard metal that many find inspirational but I found to be drab as a follow up to Cellar Door. I mean, they were complete opposites in energy and musical styles for the most part. They did one song which I enjoyed the version of, Possum Kingdom, originally done by the Toadies. They captured a lot of that essence that made that song so bad ass to begin with and they did rock it well. The rest of the set wasn’t as memorable.<br /><br />The main event.<br /><br />Smoochknob. If you haven’t heard of them yet you will next February when they’re major label debut comes out. They were just recently singed and I can see why. They have a good gimmick and a good hook. The songs are short, much like many of Green Day’s songs were back in the day. Energetic, silly lyrics and great stage presence, the majority of the crowd was there to see them. It was already midnight when they took the stage and they were going to play until closing, so about a 2 hour set. The songs that I heard were funny, the crowd was extremely interactive and they also have their own type of groupie, smooch grrls. Still, even with them being on stage, I really feel like Cellar Door just took the cake that night and it was hard to live up to the energy they brought to the gig.<br /><br />I will admit that I felt extremely out of my element. Most of the people came dressed up for Halloween, the largest group was in their twenties and were looking to get high and find some free love. It’s never been the biggest part of my scene. Sarah saw just how, odd I felt in the whole situation and understood. We meet two of her friends there but a concert is not the best way to get to know someone you’ve never met, I mean it’s loud as shit for crying out loud!<br /><br />In case you’re wondering, not sure if you are can’t tell anymore, the relationship is going well. There’s a lot of respect by both parties and our sails are set for the same course.<br /><br />We have our moments don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we walked into this from the best of situations, either of us. We both have doubt, we both have fear of the things that have fucked us up in the past. Both from relationships and just overall past, it happens right? No one walks into a relationship freshly minted.<br /><br />One of the things that I have noticed about her is that she’s unsure a lot. She worries about the past, the things she’s done. She looks at the future and it’s almost too much for her, she looks at the big picture. I don’t have to tell you guys that looking at the big picture will swallow you whole, you have to look at small chunks.<br /><br />I look at my past and I cringe. I know I’ve done some messed up things. I know that I’ve made some mistakes and I know that I’ve been used as an emotional punching bag one too many times but I can’t let that rule me. To do that would be to basically admit that I can’t live my life, that I’m so stuck on the things that have happened that I can’t move on. I’m sick of being stuck in neutral and I know that’s how I felt for so long with M.<br /><br />Shannon asked me once, “Hoovey, how do you fall in love with people?”<br /><br />It was a good question, it still is, occasionally I think about it and I still hold true to the answer. I look at the person, the REAL person, not the personae they want to portray, not the person everyone else says they are, I look at the things that make them a complete and unique person and then I look at their potential. The potential of a person and the overall good of a person is what draws me to them. It’s what shows me just the type of person that they are and from that is where I usually make my determination about how I will feel in the long run.<br /><br />Sarah, has oodles of potential. Here is a woman who’s coming into her own, fresh ideas, great beliefs and an overall good person. Don’t get me wrong she’s made mistakes in her past, there’s things that she’s not proud of just like there’s things that I’m not proud of but I can see the overall in her and the good definitely outweighs the bad.<br /><br />Still, she lives in fear. There are times when I catch her and she’s so caught up thinking about past mistakes or feeling like she won’t accomplish anything in life because of the things that have happened to her. The times that she does that are few but when they happen I see just how fragile she can be. I see that she’s still in a state of flux, that she could go either way if allowed. Sometimes that scares me.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Basically and simply, I don’t want to see her waste that potential. I don’t want to see her become stagnant. I don’t want to see us drift apart. In the time that I’ve known her, she’s shown me a lot of fun, a lot of truth and a lot of herself. I don’t want to give that up.<br /><br />Does that make sense?<br /><br />All Hallow’s Eve. Halloween, where people dress up and pretend to be something their not. Occasionally we do that in the everyday aspect of life but the rare time when you can have someone take the mask off they wear on a regular basis? That’s when you’re blessed.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-30703536374146775802008-10-24T16:26:00.000-07:002008-10-24T16:27:46.160-07:00Halloween Campfire Stories (Kinda)Next week is Halloween, the best time of the year to pull a nice prank, to go around and have a great party or to just run around collecting candy.<br /><br />I’ve had my moments during Halloween just like the rest of us. I can think of a few times where I’ve really enjoyed Halloween.<br /><br />When I was ten, I was living in the Miami area, we had just moved to a house and the area was ripe with kids about my age. We never sat and completely associated with each other but we knew of each other’s presence. To this day I can’t remember anyone’s name from that night but I know that we decided to go out and have some fun.<br /><br />I never was very good for costumes; I usually just tossed something together at the last minute and hoped for the best. This year my best was basically one of my sister’s dresses and a basketball. I was a pregnant woman. (Yea I know super sad.)<br /><br />So me and two or three other ghouls got together, grabbed about 3 dozen eggs and walked the streets. We’d pick our targets at random. Perhaps a kid walking on the other side of the street, maybe a house that didn’t have any decorations. Whatever. The point was that we wanted to have some fun… DAMNIT!<br /><br />At one point we decided cars would be the best bet. We lived in an area that had a main drag right next to it and a service road running parallel to it. We found some bushes, squatted low and waited for what we considered to be the best cars… the newer ones. We managed to hit three or four without incident, the drivers either didn’t feel the eggs, weren’t sure WHAT was going on or weren’t willing to stop in case there was trouble.<br /><br />Still, the rules of probability state that just because things happen one way, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect it to stay that way. An Accord was driving through the service road, we tossed three eggs on it and it screeched to a halt. The tail lights burned bright red like the eyes of a demon who’s found it’s prey. The four of us took a quick glance at each other and booked it. The Acura peeled some rubber and headed forward, made a right and started to double back, they were going to try and catch us on the other side of the street.<br /><br />I took the district bus to get to school every day and it so happened that my stop was on the little connecting street between the two roads. I knew the owners of the house by my stop because they let me sit on their front porch until the bus got there. I jumped over their fence, lost my basketball and hid behind the front porch pillars. The Accord sped past us, stopped, backed up and cruised the area slowly. He did this for about twenty minutes. His passenger side window down, the driver side window up, the windows were tinted. He was concealed in the shadows. We weren’t worried that he was an off duty cop, we were worried that he HATED the cops.<br /><br />That last car was the end of that night. It just wasn’t enough fun.<br /><br />The other time I can remember I was living away from home. It was my junior year and I picked up Moshe, Omar and Mick and we were driving to Miami’s Haunted House extravaganza. It was chilly I suppose. All the windows were up and we were driving along when we felt that all too familiar impact of eggs hitting my car. I came to a stop, pulled to the side of the road and surveyed the damage. Four hits, passenger side and it had happened within a hundred feet of where we stopped.<br /><br />I didn’t get back into the car. Not me, I decided we would WALK back and see who had caused the issue.<br /><br />The unfortunate part of that decision is that this was Omar’s neck of the woods and well, he wasn’t very well liked by some of his neighbors. They had seen us pick him up and when they saw us walking toward them, well that just made their evening.<br /><br />To make a long story short, we showed up to the haunted house and while Mick, Moshe and I came away clean, Omar looked like Humpty Dumpty AFTER his fall.<br /><br />You can always bet on at least one good story from Halloween experiences.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-76103189836586881472008-10-22T16:07:00.000-07:002008-10-22T16:09:31.344-07:00Thoughts of the year so farIf you ask some people, change is a four letter word. It instills dread and fear into the hearts of which it takes place. Humans, as a rule, are creatures of habit. They do the same thing day in and day out. They go to the same haunts during the weekend and mingle with the same people over and over again. In some circles, people become so comfortable with each other that the inner circle knows each other intimately.<br /><br />This year has been about change. I might have already touched on it before. I’m not willing to search older blogs to know for sure but I know this much. Change affects everyone.<br /><br />For my two friends Jen and Travis the change has been one that has forced and is forcing both of them to grow. From the rubble of both their lives they realized that had something special in each other and have decided to follow it through. In doing so though, they are challenging each other to grow and change out of the way that they’ve handled relationships before and try something new, learn something different. If you ask them they’ll tell you that they’re the happiest they’ve ever been and I believe it , but I also know that change can be daunting.<br /><br />Ryan, one of my oldest friends, has had several changes this year as well. He’s gone from a single man to a husband, he’s moved into a better location and he’s managed to go back into school to study for a field he has always had interest in. All of those have ups and downs attached to them. In walking that path though, he’s becoming a better person, a better husband and a better friend.<br /><br />Shannon, the immovable object, has finally found the unstoppable force and decided that while her times alone have been fun, perhaps there is more to life than that and made the decision to try and remember what a relationship can look like.<br /><br />I’ve got several other examples that I can toss out. Several things that I noticed this year and I know that many of you are saying, "Life is about change." Yes. This is true but so much change at such a quick pace? That’s not something I’ve ever seen. Most cases, one person’s life changes but everything remains status quo until that’s been absorbed and everyone can cope. Not this year.<br /><br />This year, which is rapidly coming to a close, has really tested everyone’s ability to grow up and move on. It’s trying and difficult, it’s brought me to the verge of tears a couple of times if you know me at all.<br /><br />Personally? There was a point in the year where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to see the end of it all. I seriously had doubts whether my sanity or my desire to live would continue to hold and if it wasn’t for excellent friends and fantastic people around me that lent me some support when I didn’t think I could do it alone, that I’m still here.<br /><br />The beginning of the year was rough; I don’t have to tell you. My misadventures during the summer could’ve put me in the grave (Insert Ariel jokes here). Because many of my choices were self destructive. I went against everything I was being told,, everything I was taught to do and I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off.<br /><br />I think that I started getting it right a little over a month ago. I got all of those bugs out of my system, the partying, the bed hopping, the everything that you’re told to do when you’re young.<br />I think the accident was my catalyst. In that moment, in that specific moment in time, I think I saw everything crystal clear for the first time since the buzzing began in my head. The buzzing that told me that my life for the last 2 ½ years had nothing to truly show for it except hurt, pain and the feeling that I wasn’t enough.<br /><br />In that moment, I felt it all melt away and I felt centered again. Stupid as it sounds, I felt like it gave me that straight shot to where I’m supposed to be in my heart, where my brain is supposed to be centered on, and what my soul should be trying to accomplish.<br /><br />The year is drawing to a close and I find myself better off than I was at any other time this year, or for several years in point of fact. I have my own place. The first place that’s been mine in I don’t know how long. I don’t have to depend on someone else to have a roof over my head.<br /><br />Losing my car cleansed me of so many things I was holding onto from my past. The more time passes the more I remember other little things that were the car that I didn’t bother to try and grab. Did I forget that stuff because I didn’t care? Did I forget it because it was blocked from my memory? Did I forget it because holding on to it would have been holding on to a past that caused me hurt? I’ll never know, at least not in this life.<br /><br />My perspective of this life that I live is much different now. I feel more solid. I feel like there’s something for me to accomplish now. I feel like, time is on my side.<br /><br />I’ve got a beautiful girl by my side, a nice flat, a great ride, a stable job and great friends. It’s more than I could ask for at any one time and I’m getting it all at once.<br /><br />Life is good. Don’t stress out about the same things in life. Money comes and goes, places to live and cars can be replaced. Feuds within family are common. Love, Health, and Happiness, those three things, no matter what you may hear, are priceless. Don’t ever take them for granted.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-87495144523696988522008-10-09T13:28:00.000-07:002008-10-09T13:29:01.747-07:00SarahSarah.<br />I’ve been asked about the mysterious Sarah and we’ve gotten enough time under the belt where I feel more relaxed in telling you about her. Part of the reason that I’ve waited so long I’m sure I don’t have to spell out for you. The Ariel fiasco left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and honestly after the complete and utter fool I made of myself with that whole thing, I considered taking this blog back to what it originally was, just a WOW blog with stupid little factoids that I found interesting and though no one else knew just yet.<br />As you can tell, I’ve decided to continue to share my exploits. Not because I’m a sucker for punishment but because I feel that since I’ve already started this, I should see it through. If you’ve read this steadily you’ve seen me at my worst, it can only get better right?<br />So, after the Ariel fondue that I ended up mixing, I decided to take some time to myself. For about a week I went about my business, I did a lot of writing, I got together with friends, and I just spent time by myself. It was great. I was very thrilled to just me. I got some good story ideas going and everything. (I’m still dabbling in them)<br />Remember, this was also the week of my birthday. I spent three days getting happily buzzed with friends and family. Then on Sunday I was supposed to rest. Travis and Jen recruited me to help them move some things but as it turned out we got a stay of execution. So I didn’t have to go.<br />At this same time Sarah’s going through some shit. See, Sarah ended up in a similar situation like I did in the same time frame. While I was burning life away with Ariel, she was getting played a rag named Troy. A Juggalo (Points if you know what this means, if you know what this means and you ARE one…well then….ick.)<br />Troy won the fair lady’s heart in a cheap way. She was already wounded; he swooped in and made himself look like the knight valiant. Trouble is that he couldn’t keep up the front just like Ariel couldn’t keep up hers. He strung her along, promised marriage, kids and the whole kit and caboodle. Does that sound familiar? So that weekend the façade drops and Troy walks. He’s been living with her this whole time but still had a fiancée that had just had surgery waiting for him as well. It was some sick game, a game where they find ways to make each other so jealous they figure out they can’t live apart and Sarah had been caught in the cross fire.<br />We’d been keeping in contact for a while now. She would root me on with my relationship with Ariel and I would do the same for her and Troy, send updates and when my bubble popped and found out what was truly what, I let her know. So when it happened to her, she did the same. That’s when we decided to meet up for a meal. We both needed to vent, we needed to talk to someone who had been through something similar and would understand how we felt.<br />Meeting her was like falling back into routine. We’d been messaging back and forth on MySpace for a bit but it was our first encounter. There wasn’t any of the awkwardness that you usually expect to encounter when meeting someone for the first time, it was like we just hadn’t seen each other in a bit and things were back to status quo.<br />We went to Shari’s, the local eatery, and just talked. We talked for about fourteen hours straight that first day. We spent a good while at Shari’s, then went to a park near her house, decided we were hungry again and went back to Shari’s.<br />Okay, you’ve read this far. At least I hope you have. If you’re anything like my friends Jen and Travis you are at this point shaking your head and thinking, "Dude, what are you doing?"<br />Before I left to meet Sarah I had Jen and Travis over at my place. We had just finished some beers and were hanging out. I told them I was going out to counsel someone, which is exactly what I was headed out to do, that was my mindset. That’s all I had in mind. They warned me. They told me to just do what I was going to do, talk to her and then head home.<br />Here I am fourteen hours later and I have spent all day and night talking to her. I head home and get some sleep. In that conversation we covered a million topics it feels like and it went from coming out to counsel to having found a good friend to realizing that there was something more than that there, to understanding something pretty fundamental about each other. We matched. Plain and simple. Our frame of reference, our humor, our sense of honor and truth, our ways in handling certain things.<br />I went to see her again that Monday. I had the day off of course cause of my birthday and used it to my advantage, we spent another long day and half the night talking about things, sharing pasts and secrets and anything else that might come to mind.<br />Tuesday I met with Jen and Travis and it didn’t go like I thought it would. It was another ‘intervention Tuesday’ where they sat me down and told me what’s what. They of course voiced their concern.<br />"Bro, you’ve been spending a lot of time with this girl. Are you getting serious again? Are you falling head over heels? Leading with your head?"<br />What do you say to something like that. I admit, leaving M was the best and worst thing. I left her in hopes of finding someone better and up until that Tuesday I had possibly ONE or two people that I thought could fit the bill. How do you tell your best friends some song and dance they’ve heard before. At one point Travis told me he thought that having Ariel in our place had turned it into a crack house. My judgment has obviously been impaired when it comes to women.<br />"No, I’m not. I’m just taking it slow, seeing where it leads."<br />"What is it about her that you feel you need to keep seeing her?" Jen asked.<br />It was a question I didn’t want to answer. And I didn’t answer it for a while. We had been playing the question game about Sarah for hours now, there’s only so much you can take before it gets annoying.<br />"Notice how he’s not answering the question?"<br />That tore it, "Notice how I’m not answering cause I’m done answering your questions and this fucking game?"<br />Any other time, I probably would have laughed it off but for some reason, the line of questioning and mocking behind their voices really irked me. Jen and I went outside alone to talk after ten tense minutes.<br />"What was that about? Are you mad at me?"<br />"You kept pushing Jen."<br />"I always push. Why won’t you answer the question?"<br />Sigh, "You can’t tell Travis this. One of the main things that I like about her is that she reminds me of you. I didn’t have a lot of great role models when I was growing up and obviously my taste in women sucks. In many ways you’re my ideal. Not that I feel that way for you, you’re my sister. But I see how you are with family, with your daughter, with Travis and that’s the standard that I set my bar to. Sarah, in more ways than you know, is very much like you."<br />Does that make sense? Think about when you were single, or if you’re single now, who did you use as your standard? Who did you measure others by that you were interested in? For girls, it’s usually their dad. For guys, usually their mom. I can’t say that I felt that strongly about either. In my adult life Jen has been the one that points things out to me about a relationship that works. Why not use her as a measuring stick. Thing is that with Sarah, she was honestly and genuinely meeting the bar and surpassing it.<br />That answer quelled that uprising and I left their house with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I felt like I hadn’t said enough, but they understood that it had to see it through. That night I went back to see her again after Jen and Travis and I talked to her about everything that was said, everything I thought and more. I had my first deep spiritual conversation that I hadn’t had in months. I was able to be silly, I was happy again.<br />The rest of the week went the same way. I’d want to hear her voice so I’d go see her, or call her. It wasn’t that puppy love feeling. It was a feeling of a cauldron finally being stirred up enough to be able to produce molten lava to seal up wounds.<br />That Thursday Sarah met Travis and Jen. Softball is a great place to talk. Jen liked her instantly, Travis not far behind.<br />That weekend I had her spend some time at my place alone. Talking, enjoying the company, feeling everything out to see if we would drive each other nuts. We didn’t. Instead we grew closer. We were willing to be honest with each other about everything.<br />When M called that weekend, and asked for money for more medications, Sarah was there holding my hand the entire time. She didn’t tell me what to do, she listened.<br />When I had my accident a couple of days ago I didn’t get one recrimination, what I got was love, support, understanding and respect. After everything settled down and we were able to talk in private, she cried. They weren’t tears of anger like I expected but of fear losing me.<br />For once I feel like it’s a partnership. I feel like I’ve found someone who gets me but also more than that, gets things about me that even I don’t see. If you notice though, this is very different for me. It’s mature in a way that there isn’t a bunch of bickering, nit picking or placing blame. We’re working together on everything that comes our way.<br />Next Tuesday the 14th will be a month since this started. I have known a lot of peace in that month. I don’t feel like I have to showboat or pretend and neither does she.<br />I’m hesitant to say more of anything because I’m cherishing every moment of this time with Sarah. She is truly one of a kind and it’s something that I’m cautious with. I will mention her more often and now that you have some of the background hopefully you’ll get it.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-32945375548230721642008-10-08T16:33:00.001-07:002008-10-08T16:33:49.688-07:00Brushing...It’s been a bit since I made an entry. I figured now would be the best time to do it.<br />I’m going to start backwards, instead of catching you up.<br />These last two days have sucked and been good in their own ways. Monday morning I woke up ready to go into work. I got dressed, new shirt, jeans, fedora, and sprung sneaks. I make my way out of room to the living room, getting ready to leave and I suddenly feel like a guy at a restaurant. I got all the fixings but I need a steak, I can’t find my keys.<br />My keys, my ever loving keys that start my car, my Saturn, my Betty and get me to work.. I can’t find them. I spent the weekend at the house of my girlfriend, it’s a high likely hood that that’s where they are. Unfortunately her mother lives forty five minutes away in the wrong direction. My day is shot. I call into work and I explain to them how I lost my stupid keys and I can’t come to work.<br />I call my insurance and they send pop-a-lock who is able to make me a spare key, for 65 dollars. Money I don’t have but NEED to spend since I use my car EVERYDAY! By the time I get my key done it’s 3 o’clock, the day is wasted but I spend the time to make dinner for Sarah for when she gets home. Why not right?<br />Tuesday is a brand new day. It’s also my late day. I wake up on time, get dressed and head out the door for work. I’ve got my spares in my pocket, a full tank of gas, half a pack of smokes and a nice cold beverage to keep me company. I head down the rural road (Hogan) that I take to hit one of the main drags (212).<br />Speed limit’s 45, so I’m cruising. I’m smoking a cigarette, rolling down in fifth gear. Hogan has two Y splits in the road. The last one takes you over about a country mile and then leads back down to 212. The difference is that Hogan has a school zone at the end of its bleed into 212 which slows you down considerably. Normally I would take the last Y out of Hogan and just continue to cruise.<br />For some unknown reason I didn’t take that Y turn yesterday morning. When I do I usually slow down some since it’s a bit of a curve and the road itself is windy. Instead I continue down Hogan, I hit the small hill and come down on the other side and I can’t feel traction on my wheels…at all. I swerve into oncoming traffic where there’s three cars coming. The first one is maybe one hundred fifty feet away. I can hear Cross Canadian Ragweed’s "Hey Hey" playing on my Ipod. My cigarette was tossed out the window and I’ve got both hands on the wheel. I try to correct the slip into the other lane, manage and then slip back. I figure at this point the only thing that matters to me is that everyone be safe.<br />I manage to keep the swerve going into the median, which is someone’s front yard. I end up spinning out of control, I spin probably twice, the thing that stops me is a giant oak pole that’s being used by the Hay Barn that I’ve driven into. It smashes my windshield and destroys my back end. I hear the pop of my radiator and see steam coming out of my engine. My air bags don’t deploy but I feel each impact as it happens all over my body.<br />You know what though? My life didn’t flash before my eyes, what did are the people that I care deeply about. I thought about Sarah, her smile and how she makes me feel. I thought about how I wouldn’t get to see Jen and Travis get married. I thought about how I wouldn’t see Annika grow up into a young woman. I thought about how I wouldn’t be able to see Ryan and Kristin’s first child. I thought about Jeremiah and how I wouldn’t see him become a man. I’d never see Shannon settle down.<br />The things that mean the most to us, the things that touch us and mold into who we are, are the things we cherish the most. I know what means the most to me, it’s the people that are in my life. The people that matter, warm my heart and help me become who I am supposed to be slowly.<br />So I shook off the glass from my hair and did a quick visual check, all limbs accounted for. The people running toward me kept saying something about how bloody I was, even though I didn’t have a scratch. The paramedics didn’t believe it, the cops were freaked out and the rubber neckers kept waiting for a stretcher that never came.<br />I’m alright. I’m stiff, a bit upset that I’ve totaled my car and I definitely have a respect for rural roads. I’m in the market for a car, any help? LOLLucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-42738138311341395922008-09-26T10:24:00.000-07:002008-09-26T10:34:21.776-07:00Realizations..<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250384493285248146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 345px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 221px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" height="221" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Fk9R3mC3H15kLJACBxY_BDNA3BIp_Lr2YnVThPV503nerRWazh2WKXDIN3KSe6ivjEFIoBGw0EtK_7Wsr-uUya2uI-Eiknf2VQqgpFGNM5CSelCk-b8xeA4ZjJMMcSM4ZUkJkyNvLyo4/s320/sad-man-looking_~bxp249843.jpg" width="412" border="0" /><br /><div></div><div>There are certain things that are certain in life. The Sun rising in the East and setting in the West; Spring leading to Summer, then Fall and then Winter and the fact that whether we can see them or not, the stars shine brightly over our heads.<br /><br />I can look at that small list and tell you that every single one of those is true, but I can’t tell you much else.<br /><br />My living situation is changing again. My whole year has felt like it’s all about change. Change to grow and stretch me to become a better person. Change to help me realize that I can strive for more, I don’t have to settle and I can accomplish much if I set my mind to it.<br /><br />Travis is moving out. The bond between Jen and him grows stronger everyday and I get to watch it with my own two eyes. There are times when we’re hanging out that we play the question game and they’ll ask tough questions. About a week ago, we’re in our cups and sitting at the table of truth, asking our questions.<br /><br />“Gabe, how does it feel to know that you brought us together?” Travis asked. (Paraphrase I believe)<br /><br />That’s a loaded question.<br /><br />I’ve already told you their story, at least I think I have. They’ve become my shelter because they’ve been so honest with me. Because they’ve been so genuine. Because they’ve decided to let me in. Yet they both look at me like I’m the reason they’re together when in all honesty, it was and is the ardent love that they have for each other that brought them together. Watching them is like watching a supernova. Bright and full love light, but also hot and dangerous in a sense that getting too close will scorch you.<br /><br />I explained myself as best I could. They are my family. They are the world to me in that they show me that there’s hope in this fucked up world. They show me that even though we all have a tendency to screw up, we can still have a happy ending. For that I’m always grateful.<br /><br />So today I’m emailing back and forth with Jen because that’s what we do and we’re both talking about our exes.<br /><br />The whole conversation came up because M called me last night. She heard through the grapevine that I would be losing a room mate and she sent me an email a few days ago. The email was the type that you never want to read. She wanted to try again. She wanted to move in with me, get a job and see how things went from there. The thing is, even in the email she wasn’t the woman I remembered. I’m not a grammar nazi BUT I do know the writing styles of the people close to me and the way that she wrote that letter made me sad because I KNEW that she wasn’t the same.<br /><br />I didn’t answer right away. Honestly I didn’t know how to answer that question without sounding like an asshole. While it doesn’t really matter I suppose, I didn’t want to hurt her more than I already had.<br /><br />So she called instead, five times yesterday after work.<br /><br />I was having dinner with Sarah, no you don’t get an explanation yet. And I explained to her what was going on and how I was trying to gauge what I should do exactly. She helped me out, she knew I had to make the call but she was my moral support while it happened.<br /><br />The person on the other end of the line was NOT my ex-wife. She couldn’t be. Recently she had a shunt put into her brain because the doctor’s felt that there was too much brain fluid in there. According to her they haven’t perfected it yet.<br /><br />Still, this isn’t the first time I talk to her in weeks. I just spoke with her on Sunday. She called then too. I took the call, not sure of what to expect and what I got was hit up for forty five dollars for her to pick up pain meds. Something that I was not willing to do.<br /><br />In this call she’s trying to present her case, however, I had to ask her to repeat herself more than once because I couldn’t understand her. It sounded like a severe case of cotton mouth and it just crushed me more. I know that some of you may think that I’m crying over spilled milk but I hold by the fact that I will always love her. I am not IN LOVE with her and I haven’t been in a while but still, she was an important part of my life for a long time. Hearing her the way that she is just killed me.<br /><br />Then she asked if I had found a roommate and I said yes. She asked if it was a male or female, I told her it’s a female. That’s when things went very south. She started asking some personal questions that I didn’t feel comfortable with answering or telling her about. I explained that to her and she seemed okay. We hung up with me promising to call her back today, why? Cause I couldn’t listen to her like that anymore.<br /><br />The texts started an hour after that. Full of recriminations and accusations, full of frustration and anger I’m sure. How I never truly loved her because I was trying to move on, how I never gave her a chance and I didn’t give her an opportunity to clean up.<br /><br />I texted back and forth for an hour and finally gave up. It wouldn’t matter what I said to her, she would feel that way.<br /><br />Back to today and I’m talking to Jen and she says something that clicks, “Now that I know what it’s like to really be loved, I know for sure that my ex didn’t love me.”<br /><br />Okay, am I the only one that’s like, “FUCK?”<br /><br />Don’t understand? Think about it. You spend so much time loving ONE person and things fall apart and you find someone fun and then when things get heavy you realize that true, unselfish love has been something you’ve never received, you’ve only receive the pale shadows of that love but now you’ve got something so strong and powerful that it makes it harder for you to breathe.<br /><br />Have you been a fool for too long? Were you blinded by some minimal attention that someone showed you? Did you settle?<br /><br />The worst thing about moving on is that the past can haunt you if you let it. I’ve been trying to ‘break off the rearview mirror’ as it were, easier said than done.<br /><br />I had been trying to be civil up until this point but the conversations and texts I’ve received in the last week tell me that it’s something I’m doing in futility.<br /><br />When Ariel was still hanging around I tried to get the rest of my stuff and it didn’t happen. I was stalled by the MIL about how M was supposed to get half of everything. What I’ve learned? Oregon doesn’t work that way and if I call the cops, they can help me get my stuff. I don’t want to go that route, I hate to have to burn a bridge but the options are becoming less and honestly, I want to move on with my life.<br /><br />There’s nothing worse than knowing that maybe, maybe you were never understood at all.</div>Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-70072458261920422512008-09-19T14:15:00.002-07:002008-09-19T15:48:37.965-07:00Shaman, Where are you?Shaman, Where are you?<br /><br /> If you’ve noticed because you follow the blog and watched it’s mutation from a hard core WoW addict to a guy just expressing his life, you know that I haven’t posted in a while. Indeed the last post that I made had been written for a while and I had forgotten to post it. (At least here.)<br /><br /> I’m not neglectful. I’m burned. Not at writing, I love writing and as I felt earlier in the year this is a productive season for me. I’ve written more words in this year than I had in the last two combined. Much of that is that I’ve been left to my thoughts and the fact that I’ve been able to experience so much more than the four walls that I live in. I’ve made friends. I’ve gone through hard times, I’ve had huge laughs and I’ve figured myself out little by little.<br /><br /> The burn I’m talking about is the last time I wrote on here, shoving my gun ho attitude down your throats like it was going out of style. My last decision was a costly one in that I learned the hard way some truths about life and I learned some truths about myself.<br /><br /> I’m a believer. I like to believe what I’m told. I like to believe that there’s more to life. I like to believe.<br /><br /> The Simpsons have a character, Ned Flanders, and I can sometime associate with him, just not as naïve, at least I hope. He has a positive attitude most of the time, wants to have the world be happy, never a cross word to say about anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I get down, I get sad, I get angry but for the most part I love seeing the good in people and pointing it out. I’m infamous for it with my friends and family.<br /><br /> The problem that I’ve now encountered is that, I’m having a hard time taking things at face value. People mostly. Women especially.<br /><br /> Which sucks since I have a lot of girl friends, not ‘girlfriends’ just girl friends.<br /> <br /> Hell my best friend is a girl. (both of them actually, long story)<br /><br /> So I’ve told you about everyone else under the sun basically, there’s a couple that I’ve left out of the loop intentionally but at this point there’s one more person in my life that I think I should introduce you to.<br /><br /> Shannon.<br /><br /> When I had just gotten away from the things going on with M I wanted to make friends and Shannon was one of the first ones that I made. We hit it off, became fast friends and have had a bond ever since. It’s a nice thing, we can call each other and talk shit all we want or vent, or talk about fears and blah blah blah.<br /><br /> She’s gotten to hear my exploits first hand when it comes to dating. She’s been the one that I’ve told about aspects of relationships and other things (more guy like conversations but I’ve been able to have them with her.) the thing is that some where along the way the edges got blurred.<br /><br /> (don’t worry this isn’t anything like you might think)<br /><br /> Recently, recently I’ve begun to notice how the friendship works, and I don’t like it. Why? Cause I’m starting to feel like second string.<br /><br /> Here’s the deal. Each time that I’ve met someone new, Shannon has come forward and expressed something to me that I didn’t know. When I was with Amy, she expressed love for me. When the Amy thing ended, she moved away from me.<br /><br /> Then the Ariel thing happened. One night during a phone conversation she said, “I always thought when I was ready to settle down it would be you and me.” Then we ALL know how that happened and then she pushed away.<br /><br /> Things like that, if it happened once, okay I can understand it. To have it happen several times though? Yea, not so much, then it’s a mind game and I LOATHE mind games. I try to be open and honest about everything that I do, all that I am and then here’s this lady who can’t say something straight to save her life? Yea, no, I don’t see it happening.<br /><br /> I think things happen for a reason and I think the reason why the Ariel thing happened was because I needed to know the things in life sometimes aren’t as cut and dry as we might love to believe. Sometimes there’s ulterior motives, be it because they want to leave the situation they’re in, they want to have control, or maybe they don’t even know what they want. Sometimes, when people who are lost and don’t really know anything about what makes them tick, they find those that have it more on the ball and they latch on or try desperately to bring that person down so that they no longer feel alone.<br /><br /> I’m not doing it again.<br /> <br /> I am talking to someone new. Someone special, at least in my eyes and probably in yours at some point too. I’m not putting it out there, I’m guarding it. Why? Because I want to figure it out on my own. I want to stand on my own two feet about something for once and I want to take it slower. I want to build it from the foundation up, not from the penthouse down.<br /><br /> Yea, that’s me right now.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-26030881001389870732008-09-19T14:15:00.001-07:002008-09-19T14:20:35.562-07:00MOTW<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR8Y1m0OYhCqdjrFeNIn_IF-yaB4hTWBIy33IegVSTyNVFfMhVRyIXE855xUW_P2ZP9gt1eFNv3FgdRhyphenhyphenH5GVnVLKRK54RdWBlxcgZ9SeZyGSeAN_W-w2sVUXssU-jEWpEPqi1ukf_gXZv/s1600-h/514y+jdWfUL._SS500_.jpeg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247844850656032466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR8Y1m0OYhCqdjrFeNIn_IF-yaB4hTWBIy33IegVSTyNVFfMhVRyIXE855xUW_P2ZP9gt1eFNv3FgdRhyphenhyphenH5GVnVLKRK54RdWBlxcgZ9SeZyGSeAN_W-w2sVUXssU-jEWpEPqi1ukf_gXZv/s320/514y%252BjdWfUL._SS500_.jpeg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><em>"I want to show you how he lived..."</em></div><div><em></em> </div><div>Say what you will about Tom Cruise, this is by far a masterpiece in regards to showing us how the Samurai truly worked. The scenerey, costuming and casting really bring you into the era in a way very few movies can anymore. </div><div> </div><div>It's a great movie to watch, it's a great movie to have as background noise. I've watched it a few times in the past couple of weeks. </div><div> </div><div>I haven't done this segment in a while, I needed to dust off the cobwebs! </div>Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-33972167105832921682008-09-16T17:46:00.000-07:002008-09-16T17:47:31.545-07:00Grateful to be hitting 30 (4)This is a bit late, my birthday has come and gone. I have this one to post and one more I'm working on and it'll be the end of the series.<br /><br />A warning, this is a LONG blog but vital for the story itself. If you are going to read it, have something to drink first, your smokes (if you got'em) and an empty bladder.<br />Otherwise, enjoy!<br /><br />This is one of my greatest loses as far as I know to date.<br /><br />/Flashback<br /><br />I had an interesting high school life. I dated a teacher beginning my sophomore year and back then I had no idea just how much power that truly gave me. Were I a different person or had a different mind set, I probably would've used that to my advantage, instead I just ran with it as fun and familiarity. I was grateful to have someone to talk to.<br /><br />In the middle of my tryst with my teacher I had some people sniffing around. I was always around this teacher, I didn't really hang out with friends after a while, it started looking suspicious. So I got a beard.<br /><br />You don't know what that is, do you?<br /><br />A beard is another way of saying a decoy. You have two lives basically. You have your private life which you keep just that, private. Then you have a person that you show off in public. No emotional attachment, just someone that you take to functions or you want to be seen with in public so that you don't arouse suspicion to anything odd going on.<br /><br />I picked a girl named Sue.<br /><br />I was a Drama/Yearbook brat for the most part of my high school life for several reasons. The first, it was a creative outlet where they couldn't measure how well you did on paper, it was the involvement that mattered. The second, I had creative license to do many things others wouldn't be given the chance to; I wrote school plays and was the editor of my senior yearbook. The third was that the rooms to my two classes, which I had right after lunch, were literally ten feet from each other. So it was home base for me. It's how I met Sue.<br /><br />Sue, full name Sujiery, she was one year younger than I, putting her at 14. She was from a full blooded Cuban family and had two younger siblings. She was smart, funny, great artist and bubbly. When we met, we teased each other mercilessly, much like kids do when they like each other and don't know how to express it.<br /><br />When we became friends I was hanging with my little crew.<br /><br />My Crew:<br /><br />Rolando – Wheel man. He had an older Supra but had rebuilt the engine to his specks. The odometer was one of those electronic ones, it went up to 99 and then stopped, the car was almost always stuck at 99 MPH, we went much faster. Tall, lanky and full of hurt. He had a family situation that I didn't envy. He never finished high school as far as I know and the one time that I tried to contact him after school I called his home phone, asked for him by name and got hung up on. I wish him the best.<br /><br />Martha – She was a strange one. I mean that in the best possible light I can think of. We had many long talks; she was the first sister I adopted. Petite, short hair, brown eyes, thin line lips and wide hips. My clearest memory of her was when she came and told me that she had given her virginity to her boyfriend at the time (They're now married with two children and counting.) It broke my heart, don't ask me why, it shouldn't have. We lost contact long before school ended.<br /><br />Roberto – Martha's boyfriend. He wasn't part of the original crew, more of an add on because of necessity since Martha wanted him there at all times. He was quiet, kind of into the rap scene (His favorite rapper? Queen Latifa). We kind of saw eye to eye but he was threatened by me and honestly I thought Martha was WAY too good for him.<br /><br />Hector – Heavy set kid that most people would pick on, except he had money and cars so he got some status off of it. He humor was crude and his jokes were lame, he was just trying to find himself like the rest of us. If we ended up with more than 6 people for an outing, he'd take some of the group in his car.<br /><br />Moshe – If you've been following the series you already know about him.<br /><br />Paul – out of all of us, he had to grow up the fastest. He was just a silly guy, great to have around when you wanted a good time. I saw him lose his spark when his sister was shot during a drive by. The only thing that I think is worse than losing someone to a drive by is getting to keep them but having them be different. He dropped out of school and stayed home to reteach his sister the things she would need to survive in life.<br /><br />So out by the track we had a couple basketball courts, a couple tennis courts and some portable classrooms. The trail that leads to the portables was short but at the start of it had a giant tree. I'd say Elm but I know nothing to trees so I'll stick with my original description, a giant tree.<br /><br />When the lunch bell rang we all made our way to the tree, and from there we decided what the rest of the day was going to look like. Most days we decided to go to Taco Bell and chill. Of course I should let you know that the Taco Bell we frequented was in Miami Beach which was a good twenty five minutes from school. So that meant that we weren't planning on heading back to school.<br /><br />Now while I was with Sue, my sister found out about myself and Mick (The teacher) because I'm a sap and had kept all the letters she wrote to me… yes she wrote me letters. I did what I thought was reasonable in that situation, I called the relationship, at least for a bit and told her that I couldn't hang out with her anymore. What that did was that it left a lot of time for me to get to know Sue.<br /><br />Getting to know her was extremely fun. We talked for tons of time on the phone, we were teenagers after all, we ate lunch together, I walked her from one class to another, she told me about her hopes and dreams.<br /><br />Then I tried to take that big dirt nap.<br /><br />Now with Moshe and Mick being there, I could understand that. At that point in time the bonds between the three of us were strong, that was our time together and I knew that they would be there for me. Sue didn't have to be but she was. In my fevered condition as my body fought the toxins that were in my system I remember times when I would look up and had my head on her lap, she was there to dry the sweat off my brow and silenced me back to sleep.<br /><br />That's when I felt loved for the first time.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong family love is something completely different. This was one human being looking out for another human being in a way that she didn't have to do but did anyway. She did it with compassion and tenderness and made me feel like I had someone who cared about me. In those three days, she won me over.<br /><br />The time that we had together was outstanding. We would talk for hours about things in life, watch movies together and eventually we got physical. We couldn't go back to my place since my grandmother was always home and we couldn't go back to her place because of her mother and siblings. We did the next best thing, we cut class and hid in the yearbook office. That same office that had seen my twilight was the burgeoning place of our romance and lust. We could hear the classes going on outside of our door while we kissed and explored each other.<br /><br />Our love his it's peak there, in more ways than one, one Friday after school had gotten out and we were the only ones left in the room. I was so scared at that moment. I remember looking down on her and asking her several times, "Are you sure?" and when she finally looked at me that certain way I knew and there wasn't any stopping us.<br /><br />Meet Douglas.<br />Douglas was an Explorer with Miami P.D. and had a bit of an attitude problem about it. He thought that because he was an Explorer we were beneath him. I tried to like the guy but he was annoying, immature and self centered. The typical teenager and the fact that sometimes he and I were confused for one another in the hallways didn't help. He was into yearbook at the same time and we had to work together but didn't have to like each other. Little did I know he would be the Iago in my life at this time.<br /><br />It was another Friday night. Mick and Moshe were in the yearbook room listening to Peter Frampton Comes Alive (A record that will always be connected to my teenage years) while Sue and I were in the office getting ready to do our thing.<br /><br />There was a bang at the door. "Sue, It's your mother, open up."<br /><br />Her mother was the most disinterested person when it came to her kids. She had told all of them the reason for their conception:<br /><br />Sue: Oops!<br />Sister: A wild concert<br />Brother: The outcome of too much wine one night.<br /><br />So for her to even be near the school when they lived in Hialeah which was a good twenty five minutes away, something was up.<br /><br />Longest five minutes of dressing in my life. We weren't fully naked but enough to take time and that whole time we can't say much, the walls may be concrete but the doors are paper thin. I finally managed to get dressed and act like I was in front of one of the computers (Like that's REALLY going to help right?) when Sue opened the door.<br /><br />"Get your shit, we're leaving."<br /><br />We didn't say good bye or kiss, the eyes of Darkseid were upon us and we didn't want to piss her off anymore. I gave them a five second head start and then came out of the Yearbook office and stared at Moshe and Mick for an answer.<br /><br />"Guys, what the fuck?"<br /><br />Mick: "Dude I swear, she came in through the door and didn't even look at us, she knew where you guys were."<br /><br />I bolted out the door and looked down the hall; I caught up fast enough to watch her mom hit her upside the head. I knew I'd hear from her later.<br />Douglas came out of the drama room and asked me what happened and I told him the bare bones story. I mean I was at a loss, I didn't know what to say or think.<br /><br />"Wow, I didn't know that she'd react like that."<br /><br />That sealed his fate as my nemesis for the remainder of our high school careers. It took everything in my power not to choke the little shit right where he stood. Moshe overheard the little back and forth between us and he managed to stand in between us at just the right moment.<br /><br />I'm not sure what Doug thought he was accomplishing by doing that except gain my anger.<br /><br />That started quiet the odd adventure for me…<br /><br />The first thing that her parents did was take her out of school.<br /><br />Then they forbade her to talk to me.<br /><br />Alas, like most teenagers I think that made us both want to see each other more.<br />I jumped through the hoops that were put out before me. I excelled at school, at this point living with the teacher so I'm sure that had something to do with it, I wanted to go out with her? Fine, I needed a Chaperone, it usually ended up being her mother. First time I saw Desperado was in the theaters with her and her mom. When they came to the sex scene her mother ran out of the theater like she had never seen a naked man before. (Come to think of it, she might not have.)<br /><br />It was my Senior year and I was still 'dating' this girl. We would run through hoops, call each other every night and I finally managed to get some clout in High School. I knew enough jocks that the coaches wouldn't bother me if I was late to school. I knew enough preppies that if I needed a car all I had to do was ask. I basically had the faculty in my back pocket because they all knew who my 'guardian' was. Plus, I was head of drama and editor of yearbook.<br /><br />Doug and I had some run ins after that. Most of the time they consisted of me seeing him, then seeing red, then him running away. He tried to call me a few times to try and 'explain' things but it just never went anywhere. He finally transferred out of schools and from what I hear, because a corrupt cop in Miami. Good luck to my people down there, he's a real winner.<br /><br />During my senior year I skipped full days of school but not like I used to. I would come into school, meet up with one of the preppies and get the keys to their car. Then I would drive forty minutes to go to the campus where she was currently attending. I wouldn't ask her to cut class, instead I hung around, waited for the bell to ring, walked her to class and had more time to kill. We'd have lunch together, I would hang out some more and then walk her to her bus for her ride home.<br /><br />I kept doing this, and calling her, occasionally going out with her family and even though I had people knocking on my door, I never once bothered to even try.<br /><br />One of the solicitors was Vicki. Another Cuban princess she was a transfer from Miami High on her senior year. I was also working for the school newspaper and she ended up picking it as she enjoyed to write. She drove me crazy in all the wrong ways. She was loud, obnoxious, opinionated, brash, and full of herself. If there was one person that I felt that I could unload on, it was her, simply because she was such a bitch.<br /><br />I remember one day, this was right after the yearbook had come out, I had put so much time and effort into it, it was my good bye to the school as a student and I wanted it perfect. She cornered me in the newspaper room and asked me why there weren't more pictures of her in the book. I went off on her real hard. I mean I was screaming at the top of my lungs about how much of an ungrateful little bitch she was being and blah blah blah and I stormed out of the room. Twenty minutes later Ms. MacElrath sent for me to let me know Vicki had fainted.<br /><br />As much of a bitch she was and granted I didn't know she had a thing for me at the time, she was always willing to let me borrow her car and on a couple of occasions she invited me over to her house to hang out during school hours when no one was home…. Yea I am that dense.<br /><br />So the school year goes according to plan. I managed to get good grades, put out an excellent yearbook that many were happy with, published four issues of the newspaper with more than just fluff and had managed to keep my girl.<br /><br />It was a week before prom. I had gone to the Junior prom stag with Moshe where we managed to get shit faced and almost tossed on our ass. This year, I wanted to go to my Senior year prom and I wanted to take my girlfriend with me. I was already contemplating future. Before Sue I hadn't given a shit about marriage or kids or that whole noise. Then on one day she, for no reason at all, grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes and said she wanted to have kids with me.<br /><br />Yea, it doesn't take much to get the wookiee all mushy.<br /><br />So I cut class and beeline it over to her school so I could try to finalize how in the world we were going to figure this out. At the time her mom had sworn me off again, I was a bad influence so it was about stealth and planning.<br /><br />I got there, it was sunny, as it almost always is in Florida, the campus was quiet, and the year was ending. We basically had the run of the place and I see her and I'm talking a mile a minute and she says:<br /><br />"Stop."<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"I've been thinking about this prom thing.."<br /><br />"Yea? Do you not want to go? We don't need to, just thought.."<br /><br />"It's more than that."<br /><br />"How so?"<br /><br />"I've been thinking a lot about us and life, what it would look like. I know what you've gone through but honestly, I don't think that I can pick you over my family. I'm sorry."<br /><br />And just like that, she was gone. (Okay, there might have been some serious crying.) Sue and I did run into each other one other time before I left Florida but it was a run in I don't think I'll ever feel like sharing because I like to remember the person who taught me some things and not the one that she turned into.<br /><br />Two weeks later was my graduation. I was highly drunk for my walk across the stage, Vicki and I had stop talking to each other but I could see her from where I was standing, she looked back a couple of times but I thought it was in scorn. None of my family showed up for my graduation. Only Moshe and Mick did.<br /><br />As an Epilogue, I ran into Vicki one more time after that. It was the end of the summer and I was on the college campus getting my affairs in order for classes. She was taking some classes there too and she asked how things were going with Sue. When I told her the time frame of the break up she got infuriated at me. "You realize that I had a thing for you all year and I kept waiting for a chance to say something? You were so caught up in Sue that I knew I'd lose your friendship if I crossed the line. I would have been there for you if only you had asked."<br /><br />I didn't and I never did.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-84295479323230204932008-09-05T15:54:00.000-07:002008-09-05T16:11:17.618-07:00Screwball - Conclusion/AftermathAriel Conclusion<br /><br />I’ve been focused on my birthday. The “Grateful to be hitting 30” segments have really gotten me going to write more about my misadventures but on my last one posted someone asked about the Ariel situation. So I’m going to try and sum things up in one post. Kind of a bookend if you will to everything that you’ve already read.<br /><br />Now I was very good about detailing all the little things about the first week that she was back at my place and after that I tapered off for two reasons, first, it felt that no matter how much I wrote it just wasn’t going to catch up to what was going on and the second was that honestly I wanted to try and process as much as possible.<br /><br />After the first week the petals began to fall off the flower. I know that it happens inevitably, that we go from new love to constant love to comfortable love. It’s a healthy down point where you realize that the person you’re with is going to be with you for a while and you shouldn’t burn yourself out trying to steal as much time as possible and remember to BREATHE!<br /><br />When it comes to new romance my school of thought is this: you give 150% to who you’re with. You do it to prove that you have something of value that they want in their lives. You do it to show them how grateful you are to have them with you. You do it out of respect, kindness, courtesy, love and admiration. It’s a healthy 150 that you hope to get in return.<br /><br />I didn’t.<br /><br />Granted I gave her the first week as a type of vacation. I mean she had been describing all of the things going on with her and in her life and her depression and everything else, I wanted to recharge her batteries. She was here for almost a month.<br /><br />I went to work everyday, came home and did the dishes from the night before, she would cook, I would do dishes and then we’d hang out. It wasn’t a bad routine but then I noticed some stuff and Jen and Travis noticed some stuff.<br /><br />I’d come home, the house was in disarray. Nothing had been cleaned up and instead there was MORE cluttere and garbage to be had, empty soda cans, used plates, empty boxes and everything else. I’m not as much as a clean freak as I should be but I’ll be damned if I want my house to look like no one cares. So I’d come home and start doing some cleaning, thinking that maybe she would get up off the couch and help me do it. It never happened.<br /><br />One of the biggest things that happened that kind of woke me up to what was wrong was three weeks ago. I work a health clinic, one of the front office people was on vacation and the other called in because her son was sick, which left me alone in the front office to check people in and out, answer phones, and answer questions that might come my way. The office doesn’t close for lunch and I had no one to relieve me for breaks. So really I’m working a straight day through, nine hours. While that’s bad, it’s also the day that I stay late, we come in at 11 and leave at 8, then come back in at 8am the next morning. It’s the hardest day I have. Made even harder by not having any real down time to recharge at work. So when I get home I’m going to be EXHAUSTED.<br /><br />Jen and I talk all day on email so she heard my tale of woe as it happened. She relayed the information to Travis and I called Ariel during my first break and explained to her how exhausted I was already getting.<br /><br />Okay. Here’s the question for you guys… you are at home all day, your boy/girl friend, significant other calls and tells you of his/her day. What do you do?<br /><br />Personally? I know my lady’s having a shit day, I’m going to make sure that she knows she’s appreciated, maybe make her dinner or get take out, give a back rub and be ready to listen to the day they’ve had. I’m built that way, I know it’s SUPER feminine but honestly it’s how I was raised and I wouldn’t change it. I show affection by touch, by words and by deeds. I’m not going to try and BUY love, but I will show how much that love means to me.<br /><br />I called Ariel at about 1pm to let her know what’s going on.<br /><br />Travis and Jen have basically moved in together but Jen doesn’t have internet access and his computer is at our (Travis and my) place. So he’s got a key, he comes and goes, as is his right. He got home that day about three o’clock and Ariel was still in bed. The house was a sty and she hadn’t done any of the dishes. He was upset.<br /><br />When I say he was upset I’m not talking about because the house wasn’t kept up, he was upset for ME because of the condition of the house and the fact that I was having a bad day. The possibility that I might come home and nothing had been done.<br /><br />So he takes it to Ariel, “Hey Ariel, Gabe’s having a bad day at work, are you going to do the dishes and stuff before he gets in?”<br /><br />“Well dishes are his responsibility and he didn’t feel like doing them last night, he’ll do them when he gets home from work.”<br /><br />Travis is a gunslinger, he shoots from the hip, eyes like a hawk, reflexes like a snake, his words can bite if he needs them to and at that moment he felt like they did, “That’s pretty messed up, he’s having a hard day at work and you’re going to make him come home and clean? Really?”<br /><br />He didn’t say anything else to her, he didn’t feel like it was his place. Instead he took charge and started cleaning. Jen heard about this and left work early to go help him clean up as well.<br /><br />Understand that they’re cleaning up not because I’m that dirty but because they know the type of day that I’m having and they don’t want me to come home to have to do something else. They don’t think it’s fair or right.<br /><br />These guys, they’re my family. I’ve said it over and over again and while you don’t know the full story yet, each time we get together that bond grows closer because we understand each other in levels that many people strive to accomplish after years. Due to the stress of our lives this year we’ve compressed that and it’s strengthened us as individuals, friends and now family. I can not say that I have EVER had a pair of my friends come to my house to make sure that I had little to nothing to do when I got home because of a rough day.<br /><br />So with a fifth of Pendleton in hand they begin the arduous job of cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom. They’re both upset, I’m their friend and they feel like I’m getting shafted because the woman that I’m providing for at the time doesn’t want to make sure I have a good evening when I get home.<br /><br />The best way to defuse this situation if you’re Ariel? Get out of bed, come help them and apologize, show that you care. That goes so far into how they would have seen it. Instead she closes the door and shuts herself in. She doesn’t come out until I get home and coax her out of the room.<br /><br />That was the first sign.<br /><br />There are other little things that got dropped on me.<br /><br />We spend a lot of our time on the front stoop, we smoke and I don’t like that smell in the house. It’s a quick walk into the house to get something to drink if you’re thirsty. I just don’t want people smoking inside so I ask them to wait or they ask someone to get them a drink, we all take turns going in, it’s a friendship thing. I got thirsty and I asked Ariel if she could please get me something to drink since I was smoking. She said sure.<br /><br />After twenty minutes of prodding and finally just getting up to get it myself, she went in and got me something to drink. I know it sounds petty but to me, you would think that if the person that you’re with asks you for a drink and you sit and wait 20 to 30 minutes and then you only get going after they say they can do it themselves, that’s not really fair.<br /><br />While I’m showing you that let me tell you how I tried.<br /><br />She likes to have foot rubs, and back rubs and to get lotioned, I did it every day. Why? Because I was putting my best foot forward and it’s who I am. When she same up she had duct tape holding her glasses together because they didn’t have the money to get them fixed, I got her new frames. I got her new clothes; I made sure that the pantry was always full. Stopped and get her flowers, made sure she had soft drinks at home and a few days I just brought home fast food so that neither of us had to do any work. I did it without complaint. Again it’s because of my personality. I like to take care of people but my flaw is that I don’t look out to be taken care of the same way.<br /><br />We made two shopping trips while she was here, well three technically. Two to the local supermarket so she could have the things she felt she needed or wanted to cook and the other was to Costco to get some random supplies we thought would be cheaper there and to help Travis and Jen get ready for their camping trip.<br /><br />She had a checkered past when it came to her sexual habits and while I know that no one is perfect I didn’t dwell on it. Way I saw it she was with me and the past was the past. The thing is that for that to really work, you both have to get over the past, your and the person who you’re with. She didn’t. She would talk about her exploits and while I knew stuff had happened, I didn’t need to hear about it. Still I kept my silence because I really thought it wasn’t my place.<br /><br />Travis didn’t have the same issue. He tossed out some comments and seethed for me in silence. That’s when I think we realized something wasn’t right.<br /><br />The thing that happened that Tuesday I was swamped? It happened all the time. I would come home and nothing would be done. She had spent DAYS watching Buffy reruns, playing on the computer and anything else that was relaxing. She didn’t really try to make the effort to help.<br /><br />While she was here I did laundry multiple times after I got home from work. She never asked to help, or at least offer to switch the clothes from the washer to the dryer…. I was doing her laundry too.<br /><br />The other stick point were some of my friends. I was raised by women, I get along more with women. One of the women in question is Shannon. Shannon I’ve known for about five months and we clicked, we’re good friends, we tell each other everything and we have a good time. Wednesday nights I’ve started to make it a habit to go play poker at her local hangout because she enjoys it so much.<br /><br />This did not sit well with Ariel, she felt threatened and what’s more, she felt like Shannon had to be cut out of my life. She was intimidated by her and didn’t want to put up with it.<br /><br />Keep this in mind. She was intimidated and wanted her gone but she was still going back to her husband. The time with me was sweet but she still felt a duty to try and work something with her husband. I can understand this but the double standard she was setting was, getting to be with her husband while I sat in the wings and waited, alone and having to be okay with her being with him in all ways possible.<br /><br />There’s only so much that’s okay.<br /><br />So Travis and Jen went camping this last weekend and I let them use an air mattress that I had been using for a while as a bed, it was something that Amy had let me borrow kindly enough when she heard about my situation. Travis isn’t really at our place so he has been generous enough to let me use his bed. I thought that was great, least I can do is let them use the air mattress and if Travis really liked it, hell he could keep it.<br /><br />The mattress however seems to have met and early demise at the hands of a sharp object while it was still in my house, someone stabbed it. Okay, jealousy is cute but that’s bordering as far as I’m concerned. She never admitted to it but the body language gave a lot of it away as far as I’m concerned.<br /><br />Immature, yes. More to the point Travis and Jen were counting on that bed and none of us knew what she had done. They took it up thinking it would work just as well as it had for me and instead the plopped themselves on an air mattress that let out all of it’s air and all they felt were hard rocks against their backs, I KNOW how much that hurts. If not for the quick thinking of one of their friends they would have had back problems for a week.<br /><br />Tuesday I get an email from Jen that asks me to please stop by their place directly after work. “We would like you to swing by the house on your way home if you get a chance, we’d like to talk to you.”<br /><br />That’s code for: Something’s wrong and we need to find a way to fix it.<br /><br />On a side note: That same day was the day that they took Jeremiah away. I was informed that the state took him out of the home of my Ex and was going to place him somewhere else. It’s the third son I’ve lost in my life.<br /><br />So I’m already having a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and the only two people in the world that I consider my nearest and dearest are calling me out to try and help me.<br /><br />I beeline it over to their house as soon as I get off of work.<br /><br />I walk in, “Don’t be alarmed, we’re beaners”<br /><br />On the stove Jen’s making Pan Fried Oysters. In the oven Travis has, Portobello mushrooms, Baked potatoes, Asparagus, and Garlic bread. I look on the counter and there’s three dishes out.<br /><br />We’re doing this over a meal.<br /><br />If you don’t know by now, for me talking to people over breaking bread is an awesome thing indeed. It’s a personal thing, you only eat with those you are comfortable with. You would never eat with an enemy or someone who causes you grief, you do it with those you love and want to confide in.<br /><br />So they set the table and we sit to eat and the intervention begins.<br /><br />They’ve been watching from the side lines while this whole thing has been happening. When they met Ariel they gave their vote of confidence and I don’t need to remind you that the vote they give, WAY important.<br /><br />Then they started showing me the signs.<br /><br />Some of the mile markers that I’ve already explained.<br /><br />Travis: “Can I say something? Brother, I love you, you’re a lot like me. You don’t want to be alone. You hate having an empty house and any port in the storm is better than nothing but I’m going to tell you this and if I’m out of line you can punch me. You’re getting played. She’s using you, she doesn’t help you, doesn’t lift a finger, eats you out of house and home, and what do you get in return?”<br /><br />Jen: “We know that when we met her we told you to keep her and at the time, Hoovey, you look so happy and even though we had reservations about the situation, because you were happy we were happy but watching the dynamic, the lack of respect and caring about you. That worries us. This is a situation that we think is going to cost you a lot if you stick around. You need to cut ties.”<br /><br />The conversation went on all night. They would remember things they wanted to tell me but were stuffing in the hope that it was something small and petty and they were just overreacting.<br /><br />The cards laid out on the table. The image didn’t look good. The saying that started all of this? “You can’t tell there’s a problem when you’re inside the box”<br /><br />I spent the whole night talking to them and having them show me the outside of the box. After a month of me putting out maximum effort to show her that I care and I got had gotten the bare minimum. It was time to change tactics, maybe giving her a break from me would help. Letting her go back home so she could see the contrast between who she’d been with for a month and who she was married to. See perhaps the difference in affection and attentiveness, maybe that would shake her out of whatever she was thinking because for all she was getting she wasn’t showing anything in return.<br /><br />I didn’t go home that night. I had to think. I went right to work. I had to.<br /><br />Travis the next day found the final straw. The house was tore up from the floor up. It looked like someone had come in and just let a hurricane loose. Dishes were piled up in the sink, the living room was a mess and she was firmly entrenched in the bedroom that Travis’ bed was in, which is where his clothes are in.<br /><br />Travis: “I tried brother, I really tried but she’s got to go. I’m sorry. I pay half of everything and she’s using shit up and not helping and not contributing in any way. I want her out of the house.”<br /><br /> I got home and she was pissed. She was pissed that I had been out all night, that I had done it with my friends. It wasn’t fair, what was so important?<br /><br />So I laid it out for her the best way that I could. I tried to keep myself in check, I tried to be very polite about pointing little things out but I did end it with, “It feels like I’m getting played. Like I’m being used.”<br /><br />Retaliation: “Well I feel like I’m only being used for sex and food.”<br /><br />That my friends, that one line was all it took to put everything in perspective for me. She’s a kid, she’s not ready, she may never be ready and in my eagerness to find something and someone of my own I looked right past it and got sucked in.<br /><br />I gave her the option of what she wanted to do. She decided to go to a friend’s house in the area and they could drive her back to Eugene the next morning.<br /><br />So just as quickly as she swooped in, she’s gone again. I would love to say that it’s a love story ending but for the Shaman it appears that something like that, if it ever happens, is a long way off and shouldn’t be rushed.<br /><br />As always, I’m still writing. I’ll continue to blog. This is a chapter I won’t be revisiting any time soon. I’m looking forward and breaking off the rear view mirror as a gunslinger I know is wont to say.<br /><br />Thanks to all who showed interest and passion in this situation, it was a fifty/fifty chance and I needed to know what was there now I know it was a mirage and I can move on.<br /><br />/EndLucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-51172824311713700712008-08-29T16:34:00.000-07:002008-08-29T16:45:12.875-07:00Grateful to be hitting 30 (3)Dipping into the way back machine is weird, if you do it just right, you actually have a lot of the emotions that you did when stuff happened come back to you as well. While the past few weeks have definitely about looking forward at what I want to do with my life, I can’t help but get introspective on the things that have happened in my past.<br /><br />While most of my stories have taken place during high school, I’m going to jump ahead some time for this one.<br /><br />/flashback<br /><br />Michael Cox was from Chicago. He was part of a biker crew down there; he did some real heavy stuff according to him. He was a short and stocky guy. He had a balding mullet thing going which was hysterical to look at. Gruff hands, plastic smile and throaty laugh. Because he was a bullshitter, he and I hit it off instantly.<br /><br />Did I mention I was in Seminary at the time?<br /><br />About 2 years into my being in Oregon I was informed that my calling was to be a pastor. Now I wasn’t always a believer. I really only started noticing God when I was about seventeen. I was at the theater with Moshe and Mick, we were watching Devil’s Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. At the time I was still heavy with Sue and we got to the scene where Charlize Theron has finally lost all her marbles and slits her own throat.<br /><br />I lost it. I got up out of my chair and blotted for the bathroom where I had dry heaves. On my knees before the porcelain god I decided, if anything ANYTHING that evil could exist in life, there just HAD to be a God and I commended my soul to him. I walked out of the bathroom and straight out into open air, it wasn’t until years later that I saw how the movie ended, and Moshe was standing out there. He’d been waiting for me. He was leaning against the guard rail, lighting up a Camel and said, “You just got saved huh?”<br /><br />I stood up a little straighter and said, “Yes I did.”<br /><br />“Welcome to the club.” Then he handed me a cigarette and we went about our business.<br /><br />I didn’t become a Bible thumper. It’s not in me to tell people how to be and what to believe. It’s in me to believe the BEST in all people. So my relationship was a loose one. I’d talk to The Man every day but I wasn’t thinking there was a calling in it for me. Seriously who does?<br /><br />I come up here and someone ‘speaks’ over me and says that my calling is to be a pastor to the minorities and the people that others won’t touch, geeks in other words. So I plop down my money and as I work full time I go to school full time.<br /><br />So in 2001 I’m in school with Mike and we BS a lot. We end up coming to each other for the random things in life. He’s happily married and he’s got like five kids. At this stage I’m single and enjoying it, having left one crack whore and having yet to find that kind of interest in Mary.<br /><br />I was also working as a bouncer for a little Mexican placed called, La Macarena. So I worked there six days a week, Oregon bars close at 2:30 and drinks stopped being served by 2am. I’d get home about 3 or 4 depending on what was going on. Sometimes we stayed after hours and had a couple drinks, sometimes I went over to someone’s house and hung out or crashed. Still, I was renting a room from Mary’s family and I tried to be civil about the hours that I kept. They weren’t thrilled with the job, as church goers they thought it was too close to ‘temptation’ but took with a grain of salt.<br /><br />That winter I got an itch. It happens every couple of years. I get the itch to FLY somewhere. I don’t care where or why but I just get the urge to travel. This particular time, due to my involvement in Seminary and helping out some other people, I wanted to fly down to Argentina. I wanted to fly down and take about 100lbs of clothing with me to give to a needy orphanage down there. Someone who I thought deserved it basically.<br /><br />So I got the clothes together, got the money to go on the trip, got my passport and got out of dodge. The trip was wonderful, I have stories for that as well but now’s not the time or the place.<br /><br />Instead I’m going to go fast forward. I was able to communicate with Mary and her family in Oregon while I was away. I took three weeks off. I spent two weeks in Argentina getting to know the lifestyle, the people and the fact that the nation was crazy and was at the beginning of that time period where they went through seven presidents in like three months.<br /><br />I spent one week in Florida to catch up with my family. My grandma the most, I miss that old lady.<br /><br />While I was away I started getting strange information. Bottom line of all that information? Michael Cox had taken things I had told him in confidence, twisted them and then told everyone about them. In his mind, for some reason, I was a coke head, a vein popper and a whore. While I might be a whore to some, I can tell you this, I didn’t get anywhere NEAR the amount of ass it would take to be a whore in that time frame, let alone my life.<br /><br />Because he opened his yap two things happened. I had a full ride to seminary until he did that, so the school suspended me pending an investigation. The second thing was that the family that I was renting with didn’t want me around because they were doing foster care. So the day I flew back into Portland, there was no one to greet me at the airport. I had to grab my luggage, get on the MAX (Public Transportation Train) and ride down to my school in hope of fixing whatever was going on.<br /><br />Easier said than done, the dean had been expecting me to darken his doorstep and when I did all he said was, “I can’t help you Gabriel. It would be different if the school had not been notified of these activities. As it stands you’re going to have to confront your accusers before you’re able to go any further.”<br /><br />Did I also mention I was jobless? Yea. The tri-fecta: no work, no school and no home.<br /><br />I called in one marker that was owed to me by a teacher in the school, Carl Culley, taught some of the fundamentals in the school and also runs one of the churches in Vancouver. It so happens that the church ground is also a camping ground, so he came to pick me up and took me up to Washington.<br /><br />It was bitch cold that year. I remember seeing my breath all the time. The cabins were nice and also isolated. I would have some privacy and also die of boredom. There was only one set of people there, they land keepers. They were very nice, geeks after all, but the majority of the time I spent by myself trying to figure out where the fuck I went wrong.<br /><br />Due to the constant exposure to the elements, my trip overseas and then my stay in a hot temperatures I ended up getting pneumonia. It was the worst kind that had shivers at any time, constant headache. It took me four days to sit and get the ball rolling and by that time I was already very sick. This was a time where there was NO ONE for me to turn to. My friends had betrayed me, the ones that I considered family had cut me the worst.<br /><br />It took a month to finally talk to my accusers alone. Everyone thought that I was guilty long before anything was finalized. When I did meet them all they had for evidence was slip covers to Stephen King, specific comics and movies. Funnier still? The guy who started this whole thing, Mike, was no where to be found during this little confrontation so all they had was hearsay and my choices of reading and watching material.<br /><br />Not enough to amount to anything.<br /><br />I got reinstated into Seminary. If you ever have someone kick or get hitched, you can ring me up and I’ll help out. The rest of it, the friendship with Mike and my trust in Mary and her family, that didn’t turn out as hot.<br /><br />Fast friends can be fun to have but you need to watch who you trust. Trust is something to be earned, not given and when it comes back to haunt you, it’s the worst way to find out.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-75751844409488277912008-08-29T15:16:00.000-07:002008-08-29T15:17:46.617-07:00Grateful to be hitting 30 (2)Into every life there’s a bit of calamity that must fall. The reason being is that if we don’t know stress and unhappiness, well then we won’t realize when we’re getting the goods. It doesn’t matter what period of your life you’re in, this applies for all of it. When you’re little, when you’re a kid, when you hit puberty and then when you’re an adult. There’s always some adversity in your life, big or small, and that’s what helps you continue to become the person you’re supposed to be.<br /><br />Course that doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt….<br /><br />/flashback<br /><br />Tenth grade was amusing. It’s the year where a lot of things changed for me. I wasn’t as much of a pudge but in my own eyes of course. I had made more friends that were seniors and some that were my own age.<br /><br />While the seniors were fun, my memory of them is hazy at best, they all had pirate nicknames that tickled me a bit and were overall wonderful people. Out of all of them there was one that was with me for years until we couldn’t be in contact anymore. His name was Moshe Seymour.<br /><br />Named after a famous general Moshe was a total stoner. He was taller than I was, so I’d put him at 5’11 at the time, black, dreadlocks, devil may care smile and lanky. His taste in music, movies and food was completely eclectic. He would listen to Steely Dan one instant and then jam out to Led Zeppelin the next. Watch the Dukes of Hazzard and then be enthralled in the Matrix and want to talk about all of the spiritual influences that were tied into it.<br /><br />The guy was a renaissance man and we were great friends. During his senior year I was a junior and we went to his prom. We took in bottle of vodka with us and got lit watching people do the electric slide over and over again like it was going out of style (I wish it would already).<br /><br />But we’re still talking about my sophomore year so I won’t jump around. There are two stories that deal with Moshe.<br /><br />The first was the first time that I cut class with TC, the little crew of seniors that seem to enjoy having me around, like I was their mascot. This also happened to be the day of Brandon Lee’s The Crow theatrical debut. We were all geeks and wanted to see the movie. We had heard what happened to Brandon during the making, we’d all read the comic book it was based from (Yes, it’s a comie.. James O’Barr, go get it) and just overall had the hankering to see it.<br /><br />We had used most of the day to do other things. This was Miami and movies didn’t start showing at that time until after like 3 for some reason. So we had a whole day to kill before we could book it.<br /><br />We were at one of the local malls, the other one was about a thirty minute drive away from us. We’re looking at show times and the first showing of the Crow isn’t until 5 pm. It’s like 2:45 when we read this. Obviously we don’t want to be hanging around that late. So we go to the nearest phone booth and ask the other theater what time their first showing is, it’s at 3:05.<br /><br />Our only mode of transportation was an older van. It only had one seat in the back and the rest of it was set up for transportation of materials. So there’s about nine of us and only five can have an actual seat. So we all pack into the van and tear off into the day.<br /><br />We got there in ten minutes. I don’t need to tell you just HOW fast we were going. We got there with enough time to play some arcade games. It was the scariest and most fun I’ve ever had.<br /><br />The second story that I’ve got with Moshe isn’t anywhere near as fun.<br /><br />During my sophomore year I fell in love. At least I thought I did at the time, with a girl named Sue. Now there’s more back story to how and why I picked Sue but I’ll leave that for another time. Right now what you need to know for sure is that Sue and I, after some ups and downs, clicked. We were both drama geeks, enjoyed the same writers and overall had a good time together. I was doing some drinking at the time and having a bad time of it at home.<br /><br />I was the only man in a family with eight women. They all loved me in their own way but also tortured me in their own way as well. My mother and I never saw eye to eye.<br /><br />This particular year we had already had some serious fights that had lead to electrical chords and broom sticks being used on me for punishment. I’m a tall guy and my mother felt that she no longer had the physical strength to put me in my place with just her hands. So she resorted to other means.<br /><br />That day that we saw the Crow I got home late. I had been getting home late for various reasons before, school drama, hanging out with friends or whatever else I could think of to have some freedom.<br /><br />My mom had gotten home before I did from watching my movie and she was waiting for me when I came in. Sue is Cuban. Many Cuban families celebrate a girl’s fifteenth birthday with a huge party, much like the American Sweet 16. It’s a gala event and she and had been dating for a while and my mother knew it.<br /><br />Her punishment to me? Grounding me from going to my girl’s party.<br /><br />I have to admit that I had a touch of Emo in me when I was in school because my reaction was to try and kill myself, literally. I took some medicines from the cabinet, downed it with a two liter of Coke while my mom and grandma were grocery shopping and laid down waiting for sweet bliss to just take me away.<br /><br />Two hours later I woke up. My mother’s car was idling in the driveway, they were back. I got up to help bring food in. During my second run from the car to the house I collapsed. My knees finally gave way. I knew that I wasn’t doing hot, I had looked in the mirror and I was pale and sweaty. Whatever I had taken was doing the job, it just needed time.<br /><br />My grandmother knelt down to help me and my mom gently pushed her aside.<br /><br />“Leave him be. If you’re trying to kill yourself make sure you do it right, I don’t want to take care of a vegetable for the rest of my life.” Was all she said and continued on her way.<br /><br />I went to school the next day, somehow I didn’t die, and I found Moshe. He took one look at me and knew what I had done. He took my arm and wrapped it around himself and took my shuffling husk to the Yearbook room where they also had a private office. He set up three chairs, put his jacket down and told me to stay there. He went and got Sue and Mick from wherever they were and told them what was going on. He cast on weary eye at me and said, “I have to do some things. I’ll be back to check up on you. Don’t leave.”<br /><br />The next three days those three people held vigil over me during school. I didn’t go to class, it didn’t matter, I had an in and the teachers turned a blind eye. Sue would watch over me for some of it, then Moshe would come in, I’d talk him into dragging me outside to smoke a cigarette and talk for a while and Mick would be teaching the whole time in the classroom, one spoken word away from me in case I needed something.<br /><br />I don’t talk to any of them anymore, life’s funny that way when you think you’ve made life long friends until something in life changes that perspective. Sue and I went our separate ways, never to speak to each other again it seems, Mick is in Florida doing whatever Mick does in Florida and Moshe lost his life being the carefree guy that he’d always been.<br /><br />Still, those three made sure that I would be here for this birthday. They made sure that I understood what it was to live to make sure another survived. They probably won’t ever read this but I wanted to thank them for making sure that I realized that life was to be enjoyed, not suffered.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-72478110034310665562008-08-21T12:58:00.000-07:002008-08-21T13:00:22.942-07:00Grateful to be hitting 30 (1)My birthday’s coming up. I’m turning thirty this year and while most people would have an issue with that number, I don’t. The way I see it, some of the things that have happened in my life, I’m grateful to be thirty.<br /><br />/Flashback<br /><br />I was a freshman in high school. I was raised in Florida, Miami to be exact, and I ended up going to an inner city school. In my neighborhood there were two high schools. One was an all Latino high school; most of the Cuban kids went there. It was right at the border with Coral Gables, which is a some what posh area. To go there meant that you had some status. When you told people that you went to Miami Senior High, they took you seriously because they knew that it meant you had money.<br /><br />The other school was Miami Jackson Senior High. It was a school that was located right in the middle of nothing. There was nothing but small businesses in the area that were working out of warehouses. There was a 20 MPH speed limit but we were on a main drag and no one slowed down for the kids. The population was about 95% black, 4% Hispanic and 1% white (That poor white kid). You went to that school and you weren’t up to snuff you would more than likely get your ass kicked on a consistent basis for the four years you were there.<br /><br />My hope was to go to Miami Senior High but alas it wasn’t my fate. I ended up in Jackson. My mother freaked when she found out. She was a bit of a racist and didn’t want me hanging around with ‘black folk’. She tried to fight about it with the school board but because of how the district was cut up, she didn’t have a leg to stand on.<br /><br />So here I am, straight out of being a big fish in my middle school to staring up at the competition in high school. All of my friends had gone to Miami High which left me stranded.<br /><br />Jackson is still an imposing school to this day, the original building was three stories tall, and they expanded and added a few more buildings that were also two stories tall. Open air hallways so you could always see the weather and it was open campus at the time I was there. I had a couple of strikes against me when I walked into that school. The first, and the most widely understood, was that I was a pudgy kid. I had been fighting with my weight my entire life and in high school that’s like having a big ass kick me sign on your back. I also wore glasses. I have bad eye sight and have for as long as I can remember, some people call the glasses that I wear Coke bottles and I can tell you that to this day I’m incredibly glad I didn’t have the triple threat of having to wear braces as well.<br /><br />I tried to wear clothes that I felt were ‘hip’ at the time but when you’re overweight and wear glasses, even if you’re plated in gold you’re going to get mocked.<br /><br />I’ve always been into comics and one of the first things I found out when I got into school was that there was a comic club and of course I joined. This was at the height of the X-Men craze, so everyone was talking mutants and powers and when I walked into the comic club that very first time I made fast friends with a guy named Abel.<br /><br />Abel is what could be considered in this day and age as a bit of a poser. At the time of the story however he was the baddest bad ass that I knew and we made fast friends and started hanging out. He had a car, was a sophomore and didn’t mind having me around. We talked a lot about nothing and drove to lunch on a regular basis, he always had a gangsters roll and usually paid for lunch. The kid was rail thin but wiry. Bushy black hair and a pock marked face, he did have a winning smile and a good sense of humor, he just thought more of himself than he really was.<br /><br />About a month into our friendship he started dating Sandra. Now Sandra was quiet the catch in my estimation. She had green eyes, long brown hair, full lips and curves in all the right spots. She was sweet but aggressive. She liked him because he had an air of danger to him. On the weekends the three of us would go out to the mall and hang out, maybe catch a movie, maybe just go and do nothing but there was a very big difference between Abel and myself.<br /><br />I’ve already told you how I was raised, so I did all of the things that I was taught I was supposed to do for a woman. I’d open her door, if she got cold, I’d give her my jacket. Now it’s not that I was putting the moves on her, it was that Abel didn’t know these little things. He didn’t know that a girl wanted you to walk next to them instead of in front of them. It was all that little stuff that ended up forming our odd little love triangle.<br /><br />They hadn’t been dating long when Sandra would just call me to talk instead of him. At one point, I remember this, I was at the top of the stairs on the third floor and Sandra caught up to and planted one right on my mouth. I headed back into class and one of the girls noticed that I had lipstick on my face. The good thing about high school is that there were so many different groups that people didn’t really talk to each other.<br /><br />Still I knew that I had just crossed some invisible line that couldn’t be uncrossed. The three of us kept hanging out but I have to admit to being weirded out knowing that my friend’s girl was making eyes at me while hugging him.<br /><br />Eventually our little group broke up. Some of it was due to life and the rest of it was just due to burn out. You hang out with one person too long in high school and there’s that possibility. So Abel and I burned out on each other, Sandra burned out on him and somehow she and I ended up hooking up.<br /><br />There are two stories that I think should be told in this instance that I think reflect my gratitude for hitting 30 and being where I am in life.<br /><br />Miami has a train system, not a MAX like Oregon, but a genuine train system that connects the important parts of the city together. Sandra lived right off of one of those stops. It was a four block walk to her house from the station if you cut through some backyards and avoided some not so friendly spots.<br /><br />I had cut class one day to go see her at home because she had missed school. This is the age of pagers and everyone had one, me included. She sent me whatever code meant come over (fuzzy on that one) and so I did. When I got to her place the house was dark. I had been there once before with Abel and knew the layout of the house. The front yard was totally paved over; there were a couple of cars in various degrees of repair lying out. The front porch was barred in, with tile on the floor and two windows one that looked into the living room and one that looked into one of her bother’s bedrooms. In Florida, everyone has potted plants and nine times out of ten, you’ll find a spare key there. That’s where I was told to look, which I did, and go inside and make myself comfortable.<br /><br />Imagine my surprise when there was another guy already sitting in the living room, in the dark, wearing dark clothing, waiting for her to come back.<br /><br />Ulysses was his name. Very non-descript. The type of guy you want with you when you’re pulling a heist because everyone will have a different description of him, because he looks like everyone and no one. Just a nameless face in the crowd. Sandra, like the majority of my school, including the Principal, was 420 friendly and this guy was a runner.<br /><br />While Sandra was somewhat of a catch she also came with a catch 22, three older brothers who were all involved with the Latin Kings. So they knew enough to get in trouble but weren’t well connected to be trouble, at least in my mind.<br /><br />So he’s waiting to make his delivery and I’m just sitting around waiting for her hoping to get some tail when I notice there’s a rifle sitting out in the open of the living room, leaning up against the television set that was staring out at us like a blind eye. I picked it up, it wasn’t too bad, it felt nice on the hands. I’m staring at it thinking how it had gotten a lot of use out of it. I lift it up and put a bead on Ulysses, “BANG!” I say.<br /><br />My finger was on the trigger this entire time. I had a mind to pull it to hear that dry snap of dropping the hammer on an empty chamber but something told me to think twice so I didn’t. After my moment of silliness I brought the rifle off my shoulder and popped the chamber, it was loaded.<br /><br />I had come a second away from becoming one of those statistics about violence at home without meaning it. I could’ve been sent to Juvie since it more than likely would have been manslaughter to some degree. I remember the strength leaving my legs and my knees buckling when I realized what I could have done t the guy. Dealer or runner, it didn’t matter, I would have taken another life.<br /><br />The second story I have about this girl is the infamous story.<br /><br />Another day where class was cut, I swear I spent more time cutting class than in class itself during high school, and she was home alone.<br /><br />In Florida, even when it’s cloudy it’s hot. Most places have central A/C but she lived in an older house and they only had one window unit in one of the bedrooms, so that’s where we went. We had been going at it for about forty five minutes when the door swung wide open on us. One of her older brothers stood in the doorframe looking in on us.<br /><br />“Get dressed.” Was all he said. She and I laid there for a second just staring at each other, coming to grips that we got caught with our hand in the cookie jar. We were unsure of what was going to happen.<br /><br />“God damnit I said GET DRESSED!”<br /><br />We hopped up out of bed, got our clothes on and I bee lined it for the door. I kept expecting to hear a car start revving looking to make me a splatter on the road, perhaps the slider of a gun as a shell was loaded into the chamber but I didn’t hear either of those things, not that day.<br /><br />Instead I got an unexpected visit four days later. Like I said earlier it was open campus which meant that when the lunch bell rang you had the chance to go out and get food from wherever. On this day I was going across the street from school for some chicken and fries when a Green Accord with tinted windows came screeching to a halt in front of me. Out piled four guys, all of them looking incredibly pissed and one of them is the brother that caught me with Sandra.<br /><br />He came within two feet of me and pulled out a .38. He points it right at my temple.<br /><br />“On your knees.”<br /><br />While I would love to say that I stood up to a guy with a gun, let’s be real, I was a freshman and there was a guy with a gun pointed to my face, you know I got on my knees faster than a five dollar hooker being offered a ten spot.<br /><br />His boys huddled around me, covering what was going on, the rest of the student body just kept walking like it was something that was seen everyday and they couldn’t be bothered with something so mundane.<br /><br />“So you and your friend think you can run train on my sister, is that it? You figure your boy got a piece so you can too?”<br /><br />For the record, anytime you’re faced with a gun, an angry brother and questions that no matter how you answer him are going to get him more angry, keep your mouth shut.<br /><br />That’s exactly what I did.<br /><br />He pressed the muzzle into my skin a little more, “I don’t want to see you near her again. The only reason why you’re not more hurt right now is because she likes you and doesn’t want you hurt. Next time I catch you with her, I won’t be as forgiving.”<br /><br />He put the gun away, nodded to his buddies, they piled in the car and drove off, leaving me on my knees on the sidewalk, watching the student body pass me and look at me like I picked the worst place in the world to say a prayer.<br /><br />You know what I learned in that situation? Don’t mess with girls named Sandra and don’t pretend to be something you’re not.<br /><br />/End flashbackLucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-44025412168581363072008-08-18T11:36:00.001-07:002008-08-21T14:39:21.134-07:00PTI part 2It appears that I’ve become more verbose recently, you’re either enjoying it or you’re annoyed by it. Time will tell.<br /><br />I wanted to take a moment to talk about someone who was in my life who recently passed on, Dr. Clare Koznek. You all know that I work at a health clinic and Dr. K was one of our providers. On Aug 8th, as I began my trek to Eugene I received a call from one of my co-workers to inform me that he had passed on. None of us saw it coming, sure we knew that he had health issues but we had just been talking to him the day before, he was still full of piss and vinegar and the last thing we expected was to get that call.<br /><br />It shook me and it still does. The man was in his prime at only 61 years young. He touched the lives of so many people that it’s incredible. His appointments were only supposed to last fifteen minutes but always lasted at least thirty because he cared about his patients, wanted to know more about them than their health concerns and just liked to talk to people.<br /><br />His funeral was last Thursday. It was a celebration of the man and his life. There were over 150 people there, standing room only and the stories that were told about him, his life and his family really brought home the type of exceptional person he truly was.<br /><br />I just wanted to take a moment and write this good bye. The man wasn’t a saint, he had his issues like we all do, but he was true to himself, his patients, his family and his friends.<br /><br />I just wanted to say, Thank you.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-74035740869454259952008-08-15T16:08:00.003-07:002008-08-15T16:08:34.157-07:00Screwball Part 6 (Week's highlights)Time flies when things are going right for you, this week has been the prime example of it. It’s been eight days since my trek down to Eugene and in those eight days it feels like I’ve tried to fit a lifetime into it, I’ve loved it. I can’t say it’s been out of a storybook since I don’t know any fairy tales where the maiden fair is married to some other guy while the knight is trying to win her over (Arthur not withstanding).<br /><br />We’ve accomplished several things together. I know they might sound mundane to the readers but to me they’ve been shining pieces of jewelry that take my breath away. As a bachelor I don’t do much shopping for food. Honestly I don’t eat at home. Most of the time when I’m at work I eat lunch and then skip dinner all together, I don’t feel like dealing with it. My fridge was filled with drinks, alcohol and snacks but nothing really put together for an adult that needs a meal. So the first order of business at the beginning of the week was to go shopping for fixings.<br /><br />When I was married I did all the shopping. I’d be sent to the store with a list of goodies that were wanted by all, but not for any type of meal plan. With Ariel it’s completely different. She takes the helm and starts putting stuff in the shopping cart for food for the week. Ahi steaks, Chicken breast and Steaks are the choices, eggs, potatoes, vegetables that include mushrooms (Which I, until recently, would never choose to dine upon). Even with the buying of food, she’s reluctant to get anything for herself. So I make sure to pick things up that I know she’ll eat for junk food: Double stuff Oreos, Chips, soft drinks and iced tea.<br /><br />Putting food in the fridge is like playing Tetris, we actually have so much that we have to move the drinks already in the fridge around to get it all in. The girl can cook.<br /><br />First night she was with me, in Portland, she made Steak, Baked potato and that delicious pasta from the Friday before again. Yea, it was yummy.<br /><br />Other things that she’s done that I’m not accustomed to:<br /><br />Each day she’s been with me she’s gotten up with me, made breakfast and packed me a lunch. Try to understand that while for some that’s the norm, for me it’s something that I can’t say that I got and if I did, there was much complaining to be had.<br /><br />We fall into a routine when it comes to dinner. She loves to cook and does it well; I take on the job of cleaning the kitchen for her before she cooks and making sure that the dishes get done. It works well, she keeps me company while I’m cleaning and I snack on her ingredients while she cooks. It doesn’t feel odd, it doesn’t feel like something new, it just feels…right.<br /><br />We stay up late into the night talking about nothing and everything that comes to mind, we’re built the same way in that we enjoy constant contact with the other person. Holding hands, playing footsie, whatever we’re able to, we do. Our conversations touch on our pasts, our hopes for the future, our regrets, our challenges, joys, loves, quirks and whatever other subject we can think of. None of if sounds rehearsed; neither of us is unwilling to answer a question posed. No secrets.<br /><br />Thursday we decided to do a couples night. It sounded fun. I invited Jen and Travis over to eat with us. Ariel and I would provide the food and the drinks. First time we get to host something and we’re excited about it.<br /><br />The night before we go out shopping for ingredients, I leave the dinner plan to her, she’s cooking and I’m just assisting. She decided to make Chiles Reyenos, stuffed peppers. It’s a recipe that’s difficult and it’s also a family recipe. She’s got all kinds of fears about making it but she’s also very adept at doing it. The way I understand it, you go out and get some nice big peppers that you feel have the space inside of them to stuff with ground beef and other fixings, you then fry the pepper and serve. Now just so you understand this is a very simplistic way of telling what to do, her instructions were about three pages long.<br /><br />She spent hours in the kitchen last night. We started at about six o’clock and finally were able to sit down and eat after nine. She made home made nacho chips, home made Guacamole, and home made pico de gallo for appetizers. They were greeted with hungry stomachs and grateful mouths. <br /><br />For most of the time she’s in the kitchen I’m around her. I help her do the little things that she can’t get to fast enough; I don’t mind it a bit. The dinner gets served and it’s the tastiest that dish has ever tasted. Jen and Travis eat enough to split as do I. <br /><br />We find ourselves being comfortable with things that we aren’t comfortable doing in front of others. It’s another thing we have in common and something that we don’t over look. The best times are the times when we have the music playing and we’re sitting talking about nothing to each other and loving it.<br /><br />Travis and I were sitting outside at one point, I needed that fix, and you know how it is. I’m sweating because of course we pick one of the hottest days of the week to prepare this meal and I have no A/C to speak of. My shirt is sticking to me, I can feel the beads of sweat just running down my cheeks but I’m happy because I know that I’m sweating cause I’m helping prepare a meal for my friends.<br /><br />He’s sitting across from me in one of the lawn chairs. His Yankees hat low on his head, giving his eye shade. If you look at him fast enough, he almost seems like a gunslinger out of place and time; you can picture the brim of his hat, smell the hot smell of the Earth’s dirt and see that those eyes are tracking their next target who is a block away.<br /><br />He takes a drag of his cigarette, “Can I ask you something, man to man?”<br /><br />“Of course.”<br /><br />Exhale. “I’ve been in your shoes before man. I’ve had to try and pick myself out of the rubble of my life. In a lot of ways, believe it or not, I look at you and I see myself. I know that you lead with your heart and I know that it’s hard to not have someone to come home to. Which is when we just start picking up chicks at random. What I want to know is, is this just some girl or is she your Jen?”<br /><br />That’s a deep question. Asking me if Ariel is my Jen holds all KINDS of implications that he and I completely understand but we wouldn’t be able to express them to anyone else. I’ve seen the man go through hell and back for the woman that he loves and has loved for a long time. He waited for her, he’s helped her in whatever she needed, he loves her unconditionally.<br /><br />“She’s not some girl Travis. I’m beginning to feel that she really is my Jen.” Inhale.<br /><br />He takes a look at me, gauging my honesty in this situation. Whatever he sees satisfies him and he nods his head, “Then whatever you need, let me know I’m there for you.”<br /><br />Our little circle has grown by one but it doesn’t feel odd. It doesn’t feel forced, it feels fun and normal.<br /><br />Life continues to move forward, whether you’re ready or not, right now I’m definitely ready for whatever the future’s going to look like. I’m just hoping that I’m planning a future for two…Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-62806671216518007862008-08-14T16:32:00.001-07:002008-08-14T16:32:47.640-07:00Pardon the Interruption... part 1I’m going to say this once, for the cheap seats in the back, so that we’re all on the same page.<br /><br />When I started this latest little adventure I honestly didn’t think I would be gaining or losing anything. You guys have to realize that I’ve been to rock bottom and I do mean ROCK bottom not too long ago. It’s not a part of me that’s something I’m going to share but I will tell you that if it wasn’t for Travis and Jen, I would’ve done something pretty silly.<br /><br />I have spent the last several months feeling like I’m worthless, feeling like nothing I would do in my life would amount to much of anything.<br /><br />I’m a caregiver. It’s what I do, I love knowing that there’s someone that I can help. It’s when I feel like I’m accomplishing the most in my life. That’s why I counsel people through tough situations, that’s why I share my life with the World Wide Web, so that if someone is going through something similar then they’ll have the decisions of someone else to look at and gauge what they want to do.<br /><br />I’m transparent on purpose. If you leave nothing to the imagination then the world will k now who you are at first sight.<br /><br />I’m not going to lie and say that I’m not scared in this situation okay? To have you sit there and make you believe that this is all just status quo for me would be unfair. I spend each and every single moment I’m getting with Ariel like it’s my last. Why? Because shit like this just doesn’t happen often and usually it’s ends in some sad way. I don’t know what my ending is going to be, I know I love what’s going on.<br /><br />You know why? I’ll explain it to you because I know that I’m going over stuff a bit slower than normal, for me it’s trying to get it all down and remember it as best as I can, the details guys, the details.<br /><br />I was married for close to six years and I can count on both hands the times that my wife got up with me when I went to work. I can count on one hand the times that she made me breakfast or dinner. And I can count how many times she told me she was going to cook without cracking the number fifty.<br /><br />I know what some of you are thinking, “People put their best foot forward.”<br /><br />This is a possibility but then I look in her eyes, and I know what I see. If you guys are unsure of my ability to tell the truth, and I totally understand that thought process, I turn to Jen and Travis.<br /><br />I turned to Jen and Travis immediately when things got a little more, interesting. I’ve turned to them to see what they think, what they feel and how they perceive the situation. I’m not reading this wrong, we’re all getting the same vibe. If it was only two of us, there would be skeptics and if it was only me, then I’d be screwed. <br /><br />If you’ve ever felt a connection with someone. A connection so strong that just walking into the room with them you know how they feel or that they’ve been thinking about you. A connection that just takes ahold of your wrist, whips you around the room and then kisses you like a passionate lover, you know what I mean.<br /><br />I HAVE to follow this through. I’ve read the comments and I knew that what I’m doing was going to cause some head shaking and some people deciding not to read anymore. I’m sorry for that because I do care about what you guys think, you’re my audience. By that same token, you’re my audience and I have to be open and honest with you about this shit.<br /><br />I am in love with her, hard. I wish I could play the guarded role and be all cool and shit, act like I don’t care. But I do and I know it and it shows. Co-workers have commented on a change in me, my friends have pulled me aside and told me that they’ve never seen me this happy. Never.<br /><br />I hope that those who are thinking about leaving, don’t go away thinking that I’m some monster. I’m just a guy. I found someone who completes me. (Fucking Jerry Maguire) I’m going to be in this until the end, I’ve already made myself that promise. I don’t know if the end is a month from now, a year from now or until my dying breath. I don’t know but I want to find out. I want to live this life to the fullest and when I’m with Ariel I have that feeling.<br /><br />Stay tuned guys if you want to. I promise to keep talking if you keep listening.<br />The Shaman.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-24322539454334076072008-08-13T16:37:00.001-07:002008-08-13T16:37:50.548-07:00Screwball part 5Screwball part 5<br /><br />The long road home…<br /><br />The road is a tricky thing, in several ways it feels alive. Headed down to Eugene it felt like the road stretched out before me with no end in sight, on the way home it literally was shoving us back to home base. The drive was great. We spent two hours talking nonsense, trivia and excitement. I wouldn’t have guessed that I would be bringing her back with me but there it was.<br /><br />I had left a MySpace comment that I was bringing home a surprise. Jen and Travis, God love them, enjoy busting my balls and since I didn’t give them as much as about the situation as I should have their comment back to my mood was, “what you bringing back an STD?” It was a joke…<br /><br />Still Ariel saw the comment as she looked over my shoulder and gave me a look with those grey eyes that told me she was even more nervous now. I explained the logic my two best friends shared and it settled her a bit. What we wanted was a way to get them back. So we both decided that as we got closer to Portland we’d call them, see what they were up to and where and then just drop right in and see what happened.<br /><br />A little after 5pm we got to our destination. Neither Jen nor Travis answered their phones when we called, decided to go to my place then. We had just started to get settle when I hear Jen and Travis outside and settling into the lawn chairs. I ask Ariel to go hide in my room for a second.<br /><br />Jen and Travis had been at the zoo all day with Anni, Jen’s daughter, and Travis’ nieces. They both looked dog tired but still managed to smile when they saw I was back. Course the first thing that Travis says is, “Hey beaner, so you get a form of STD over there?”<br /><br />It gets a chuckle out of all of us, “Seriously, what’d you bring back from Eugene?” Jen asks. I smile and tell them to give me a moment and go to get Ariel.<br /><br />I come back with her on my arm and they almost choke on their tongues. The look on their faces is going to be one that I cherish my whole life. They knew when I left that this was a married woman and they both had reservations and now she’s with me away from her husband. You have to remember ‘guy world/girl world’ in guy world my accomplishment deserves at LEAST a high five. In girl world there’s disgust, shame, anger and regret. Those aren’t any of the vibes I got from Jen, they actually looked like they got hit in the gut when they saw her walk through the door and join them outside.<br /><br />Jen and Travis are my compass. They are all I have left in the sense of friends or family. I’ve burned a thousand bridges by either choice or by fate. The people that I had known for years in my inner circle? All my Ex-wife’s people. Not only would I never go to them, they wouldn’t want me around. So how they feel about the person that I’m with, pivotal because if I can’t hang out with my friends well then, maybe it’s not the best fit in the world.<br /><br />First order of business is we need MORE BEER, so I go on a beer run alone. Thought process is that if she can survive a barrage from those two then she’s strong and if she can win them over it’s a plus. Honestly, I was sick of being in the car, I wanted to get in and get out of the store as quickly as humanly possible. I could only do that alone.<br /><br />The evening went well. Jen and Travis didn’t disappointment me with the embarrassing conversation about the stuff I’ve done in the past to make myself look like a fool. We all laughed. Then they asked her pointed questions about her intentions, her thoughts, aspirations, stuff like that.<br /><br />They finally call it a night at about eight since they have Anni with them and they want to make sure she gets to bed on time. Everyone says good night and we go our separate ways.<br /><br />Then Jen and Travis blew up my phone. Not only did they like her, they LOVED her. They wanted her to stay, they wanted me to do the very best that I could to keep her, period. They weren’t going to let me let her get away. It’s not how it would go down, at least not in their minds. It was probably a good forty minutes of back and forth with them about how they thought I should handle it and what they saw when I was with her.<br /><br />Friends are wonderful in that they’re honest with you no matter what. Jen and Travis have really seen me at my worst. They’ve seen glimpses of who I can be when I’m happy, it happens occasionally but not consistently. They kept saying that with her I looked totally and completely happy and at peace. They kept saying that the looks she gave me were more than just passing fancy.<br /><br />It boosted my spirits to hear them say that. To know that my friends saw what I saw and felt how I felt. They weren’t just telling me she was okay, they were telling me she was phenomenal. Why wouldn’t they when I think she definitely is?<br /><br />Playing house has its ups and downs. When we got into town I reminded her to call Kevin so that he wouldn’t worry. It was a short call. At the end of the night I told her to call him again, make sure to wish him goodnight, still a short call.<br /><br />I take all of this in and say nothing. Like I said, I can’t push or pull, I can’t put out ultimatums. The fastest way to make a miracle disappear from your life is asking why it’s in your life in the first place. I’m not that dumb, I’m not going to ask the whys, I’m just going to enjoy the ride. I’m going to show her how much I care. It’s all I can do.<br /><br />The following day we go over to Jen and Travis’ for drinks and conversation and things get very interesting.<br /><br />Now you guys know Jen and Travis. These two speak their mind in a fashion that many people wouldn’t be able to get away from. They’ll sit you down, tell you the worst thing in the world about yourself but in a way that once you think about it you’ll be thanking them later. When I had my moment of clarity that led to me leaving the situation I was in, they had spent some time getting me to that point. They had shown me the mile markers that I had passed during my time with her that told me repeatedly, Get off the road moron!<br /><br />So Travis and Jen have been given the entire story at this time. By the time I left on Friday Jen was worried about me and of course Travis was tickled pink, here’s his large Latino shy friend, going out to score with a recently married woman. They were taken aback that I brought her with me, although proud, and embarrassed by their little STD comment. By the time the next day rolled around they had a course of action, they wanted her and me to stay together.<br /><br />Jen, “Gabe, we can see who you really are when you’re around her. You’re our Gabe! Silly, funny, no need to put on a show, you’re just you!”<br /><br />Travis, “Brother, I’ll tell you the same thing that my granddaddy told me when I told him about Jen: Knock her up and knock him out. He says that’s how he got his woman.”<br /><br />So I’m sitting there with three people I admire and suddenly Travis looks at me and says, “Let’s take a walk.”<br /><br />Ariel looks at me with her grey eyes and they ask me what’s going on.<br /><br />“He can’t help you honey. He and Travis are going to have guy talk while you and I talk girl talk.”<br /><br />Life is a comedy, I swear it is. I’ve found someone who so completely enjoys the same bloody things that I enjoy and she’s married. Recently married no less, figures. Travis and Jen don’t see that as a problem, only an obstacle that must be over come.<br /><br />Travis’ conversation with me is how it usually is, part bullshitting, part truth, part teasing and part love, mix it all together and you have two guys that look at each other almost as family trying their best to make sure the other is getting what they need in life.<br /><br />“Brother, I’m not going to lie to you, when Jen told me what you were doing in Eugene I had my doubts and when she showed up here but seeing you with her we can tell you two are happy. I don’t know what’s going on or whatever, but I know a good match when I see one and you two need to be together. We don’t want you to say anything to her. We want you to be who you are with whomever you end up with and this girl makes you the happiest I’ve ever seen you. You can’t let her go man, you guys have a real connection.”<br /><br />While I’m getting the brother speech from Travis, Ariel’s getting the twenty questions from Jen.<br /><br />I have to admit that I was curious as to how twenty questions could be played with a woman that’s already spoken for. I mean technically we can’t hold any expectations.<br /><br />For the record this is fictionalized.<br /><br />Jen: “So how ya doing?”<br /><br />Ariel: Giggle, “Okay I guess.”<br /><br />“What are your intentions toward our Gabe?”<br /><br />“Well I’ve always had a thing for him and I called to see if he did too and now here we are and I love him.”<br /><br />“You love him? But you’re married.”<br /><br />“I know, it’s his fault. I called a bunch of times during the last year and if he had only picked up the phone this would be a different situation.”<br /><br />“What do you mean?”<br /><br />“I mean that I love him and I would have left whoever I was with if he had only asked.”<br /><br />You get the gist. I’ll see if Ariel wants to do an entry.<br /><br />For the moment, this is all you get.<br /><br />To be continued.Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-9500092665935876062008-08-12T18:51:00.001-07:002008-08-12T18:52:06.491-07:00Screwball Part 4<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUOLSlfiGGpvOAAPwcVu_-p8jzP8knKbN-j_qHunF0a8EMCacNX5LwcVYU-kU-MtfxB10gYL7keN3GUNYtR_44mx8MhsjU5ARX3zqkcsBG4gSZCBWoEbJGtCXNkkMFv56CiVBE1h6Mr6R/s1600-h/young-adult-caucasian_~15262-68CR.jpeg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233814100475807010" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUOLSlfiGGpvOAAPwcVu_-p8jzP8knKbN-j_qHunF0a8EMCacNX5LwcVYU-kU-MtfxB10gYL7keN3GUNYtR_44mx8MhsjU5ARX3zqkcsBG4gSZCBWoEbJGtCXNkkMFv56CiVBE1h6Mr6R/s320/young-adult-caucasian_~15262-68CR.jpeg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Sharing emotions is hard, anyone who’s ever wanted to share the love they feel for someone else can testify to it. You look at some of the great loves in history and it’s a funny thing because it takes time for it to be revealed but once two people know the truth it burns hot and brightly like a supernova.<br /><br />Sitting across from Ariel I felt that hot supernova effect for the first time myself. It wasn’t something that was worked on, it wasn’t something that felt contrived, it just was. It seared my nerve endings in a way that’s inexpressible but I knew at that moment that this wasn’t just some momentary thing but a feeling that was lasting and that would follow me to the end of my days.<br /><br />How do you woo someone you’ve lost the right to though? Seriously, looking at the situation, how exactly do you say, “Yes, I know it, you’re the one for me and only you!” when they can’t say the same in the situation? We’d look at each other and smile this smile that said everything, “I can’t believe that you’re here, with me and that you think I have enough value to love.”<br /><br />You guys remember that one scene in the Lion King where Simba meets Nala after they’re all grown up and they both realize that they love each other? They’re playful but bashful, both unsure of what to do next, yea that was us. Circling around each other unsure of what to say, how to hold each other, if we had the right to.<br /><br />The first kiss was like fireworks. It was electric and bombastic. We’d both been waiting for who knows how long to kiss and there it was and it was as sweet as I always thought it would be. It tasted like a lazy Sunday afternoon with the one you love as you read the funnies to each other.<br /><br />The weekend was a whirlwind guys. I remember each moment and by the same token could never do those moments any justice on paper. I know that I felt love, true genuine love, for the first time in a long time. I know that it felt more kinetic, electric and fated. I didn’t feel this way when my wife and I were courting. It’s a real love but one that burns you enough to let you know that it’s real.<br /><br />We watched some movies, Across the Universe was WAY better than I expected it to be and we ended up singing songs from it to each other. I know that sounds REAL cheesy but we both love music, can’t live without it, so it just felt right. Neither of us was embarrassed in any way while we did it, cause it felt like a good way to exchange the feelings we had going.<br /><br />We talked about our lives after our last encounter with each other. How she had gone to another job that hadn’t appreciated her, how I had moved on to a county job and started figuring out that I wasn’t ever going to be happy again.<br /><br />Here’s a tidbit you, faithful reader, didn’t know, Ariel figured out I was unhappy in my marriage long before I did. She’d listen to my stories and the things that I did and she knew that I wasn’t happy, probably not appreciated and taken for granted. She could read the dedication that I gave the relationship I was in but understood that it was a dedication that I thought was important, just that it wasn’t right.<br /><br />She told me little things like when I would give her a ride home every night, she wanted to reach out and hold my hand, tell me everything was alright and show me that someone cared and knew my worth. How she knew that I had this one song play every time she got into the car specifically because she had mentioned once in passing how she loved it and didn’t hear it often anymore. (My Own Worst Enemy by Lit) The way that when she brought food to the office she always made sure she saved me some so I could enjoy it.<br /><br />Little things, it seems to be the best way to describe us. We remember the things that most would take for granted. Like I remembered her favorite drink was Dr. Pepper and that Cheetos were her munchie of choice. She remembered how I used to give her extra breaks just so I could talk to her for a little bit (yes folks, abuse of power).<br /><br />It’s remembering those little things that got us comfortable with each other again. That night is something that I’m always going to remember because to me, it’s the start of a new chapter for me, the start of something fresh and hopefully real and long term.<br /><br />So the following day we went to Empire. It’s a Chinese buffet that had pretty good food. Now I’m one of those old school fools who really only enjoys the stuff that he knows well and has a hard time trying something completely new. Ariel enjoys Sushi. I know that’s it’s supposed to be this great thing but honestly, I have issues with putting raw fish in my mouth. If we were supposed to eat crap raw, we wouldn’t have been given fire.<br /><br />In any event we go and this place has decent food. It’s not to die for but it’s not really that bad either. We get there and she tells me to get my food.<br /><br />“Why don’t we go up together?”<br /><br />“Cause I always wait to go after Kevin gets his food.”<br /><br />Yea, not going to fly with me. So we’re both looking at the buffet seeing what’s what. They have some pork ribs, pot stickers and the like. So I grab what I would usually eat and she comes back with Sushi on her plate.<br /><br />So we’re sitting across from each other and doing the stupid smiles thing and she nudges a piece of Sushi my way. “Try it.”<br /><br />You know how many times I’ve been asked to try Sushi? So many times I’ve gone out with friends and I’ve never tried it, I’ve just flat refused to even consider it. All she has to do is look at me once and ask and I try it without a second thought. I have to admit that it’s not bad. She had me try five different types and explained each one too me. (I can’t remember it all.. LOL)<br /><br />We eat and talk some more and I excuse myself to use the bathroom. I’m not gone five minutes but I come back to the table and the bill’s already paid and she’s no where to be seen.<br /><br />Fuck.<br /><br />Fuckity fuck fuck.<br /><br />She paid and left. I know she did. I was sitting there being all retarded and she was just thinking how she could get away from the weirdo. I ask the server if he’s seen her and he shakes his head.<br /><br />Yes folks I had a very mild panic attack. I found her and now I lost her. Figures, good job Shaman, way to…<br /><br />Then she walks out of the ladies bathroom takes one look at my face and giggles, “Silly, you thought I left didn’t you?”<br /><br />Reads me like a flipping book.<br /><br />The rest of the day goes the same. There’s all kinds of chemistry between us, all of it is good and just seems to get better. We talk about likes and dislikes and the similarities keep piling up.<br /><br />Later that night we start talking about health. I’ve been prone to cysts on my back. I’m a diabetic and it seems that it’s just what happens. One of the spots that I had healed weird and now there’s a lump on the top of it. She’s asking about all of the scars and looks at that one and get concerned. She wants me to go get it checked out.<br /><br />I’m an instigator, “Why?”<br /><br />She gets quiet, chews on her bottom lip before she says, “Because I want you around for a while.”<br /><br />Then we talk about her health and I get the chance to be worried.<br /><br />Hasn’t had a women’s health exam in over two years, has a couple of swollen lymph nodes behind one ear, retaining lots of water and some depression. I’m no where near thrilled that she hasn’t taken care of herself. It comes down to money, or lack of it. So I get a brainstorm.<br /><br />“Listen. I work for a county clinic. Talk with Kevin, I’m willing to take you down with me for a couple of weeks when you both agree to it, no strings. I can schedule you appointments for a WHE, a regular doc visit and a follow up just to make sure there’s nothing that pops out at them.”<br /><br />Now when I offer this to her I don’t mean now. I’m thinking in another month or so when they’ve mulled it over I’ll get the okay, which is fine. No she picks up the phone then and there, “Hey, it’s me. Listen the Shaman is giving me the opportunity to get some doctor’s visits done. You know that I need to be seen and such for my medical stuff. I’d be gone two weeks.”<br /><br />“See you later.” Is what I hear from him.<br /><br />Wow.<br /><br />Can I just interject for a moment and tell you that if my woman, whom I just married, told me she wanted to leave for two weeks with a guy that she’s already told me she loves, I’d throw a fit? Yea, a huge two year old fit complete with screaming, crying and kicking but this guy just takes it in stride and after a two minute conversation he’s ready to hang up with her. Lolwut?<br /><br />So my plans, as they were, change drastically. I’m coming home with a guest. She’s staying for two weeks and we leave the next day.<br /><br />In my mind, this is what I expected Sunday to look like. I check out of my room and drive to her house, drop her off and give them time together. Let them say what they need to say to each other, talk like lovers do or whatever. I mean, I’m the third wheel in this situation, to ask for more would be stupid.<br /><br />It went nothing like that. We did leave my room and head over there but I think that how I picture things is a little too romantic. He leaves because he has to get the marriage certificate for her to get a new ID, which takes him about an hour or so due to distance. He gets back and I think, okay now he’ll want to spend time with her, it’s only right and I’ll totally understand, go for a walk or something.<br /><br />Not even a moment. Literally what happens is that the other roommates put in a Jet Li import and start watching, he sits right in the midst of them. He doesn’t ever look up, he doesn’t ever touch her, give her a kiss, nothing, he’s in his own world. I give him another hour or so, thinking it’ll get better but it doesn’t at all. WTF? Finally at three I ask her if she’s ready and she is, she’s packed for two weeks, bringing some movies to watch and all the other stuff she feels she’ll need. We get ready to leave and she has to call his name a couple of times to get his attention to let him know she’s leaving. He doesn’t even get up.<br /><br />This was when I was writing Part 3, so in a round about way we’ve caught up to my earlier to be continued.<br /><br />The good byes having been said, we head out and start a new adventure.<br /><br />To be continued, come on, you know it was bound to happen.</div>Lucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178447825926733191.post-1698425143850835812008-08-10T23:05:00.000-07:002008-08-12T18:51:21.065-07:00Screwball Part 3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU80tzF5seuwCQ9GKAvbZG9NdrSiAHXCIUnqi4ep4ULCE7KRPGv_9FZV2nai74W_FQTm8I4wEIGnJ_yMD2RviA2jcG7DnRKARqR5V9nng7DgLeiCvPP3DD_tF34UBBH-Av83ZxmaDxyiWA/s1600-h/open-door.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233137629467843890" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: pointer; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU80tzF5seuwCQ9GKAvbZG9NdrSiAHXCIUnqi4ep4ULCE7KRPGv_9FZV2nai74W_FQTm8I4wEIGnJ_yMD2RviA2jcG7DnRKARqR5V9nng7DgLeiCvPP3DD_tF34UBBH-Av83ZxmaDxyiWA/s320/open-door.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Curveball City<br /><br />It’s Sunday morning for those of you who would like to know when this is being written. I’ve spent the weekend with Ariel and things aren’t clearer, in a way. In another way they’re the clearest they’ve been in a long time.<br /><br />The drive up was something interesting. I live in Oregon but haven’t explored much of it. I know that farmland takes up a big chunk of the state itself. Since I’m a city boy, I never felt the desire to learn anything about the state. Salem is the state capital and it’s about an hour away from Portland, Eugene is an hour away from Salem, putting me on the road for about 2 plus hours for this little trip. Funny how the mind works though because during the time on the road I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, it never did.<br /><br />Instead Ariel kept me company during the trip. I got out of work an hour earlier than usual, ran some errands and then put myself on the road to see her as soon as possible. Sadly it was a Friday night right during rush hour, so while it felt like at one point I was ahead of the pack, I was swallowed by it shortly afterward.<br /><br />Things I noticed on the road about Oregon, there’s a lot of mountains, there’s a lot of farmland, trucks are forced to go 55mph, so getting behind one will do absolutely nothing but slow you down and that no matter how fast you think you’re going, there’s always someone going a bit faster.<br /><br />The butterflies took the entire trip with me which was unexpected and if anything they got more active the closer I got to seeing her. It was sweet and it was a bit disturbing, I kept hoping that I would see it as no big deal at some point but it never happened.<br /><br />The trip itself was uneventful. We talked about random things, music, movies, games and the like to pass the time. Once I got to Eugene some of the excitement happened. Kevin, the husband, wanted me to come in one way and Ariel had a different idea of how to get me to their house. I got lost… never a fun experience. Less so when you’re already nervous and that only makes it worse. Kevin was able to lead me into the area that I needed to be in to get to their house and the first thing that I’m greeted with is a man in a kilt, standing outside his house and guiding me. Meet Kevin.<br /><br />About 5’3, long hair, though not as long as mine, bright smile and a mischievous personality; I like him instantly, can I just say, fuck? Yea I will, fuck.<br /><br />Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad that I like him instantly but in another place and time this guy could’ve been a good friend and right now I’m not feeling it. Not because he’s rude, or crass, just the situation itself doesn’t really lend to being buddy buddy. I live two hours away, it’s not like I can come down for a night of boozing with the guy, if I’m in town, it’s going to be for a very good reason and he’s going to be the last person that I’m going to invite to hang with me. Sadly this tears at me a bit, not much but enough to throw me off a bit.<br /><br />So Cast of Characters:<br /><br />Kevin – cause I’m lazy and just introduced him.<br /><br />Albert- Wow. Yea… um he also tried to get me to the house and was doing really well, if he was using directions to get me to the house from the RIGHT area. He was quoting directions from a different highway to me…. It was funny. He’s a cool guy just a bit, eccentric to say the least. He’s probably about 5’5 and 102 soaking wet. Think of a sturdy twig and you’ll have an idea of what he looks like. Nickname seems to be Spider-Monkey on Crack… cause he can climb any surface, any surface…no I didn’t ask so I can’t tell you anything more.<br /><br />Pip (not actual name) is Albert’s friend. Seems that everyone else had met her that day as well. She was kinda reserved until we got her going. Lanky, blond hair, about 5’7. Think Barbie kinda but maybe like one step down. I don’t know if that makes sense. She seemed to have SOME brains but she’s the American standard right now as far as looks go, there’s a dozen of her at any mall in the nation as I type this. I’m not taking away from who she is, just laying the groundwork. Oh, I’ll explain Pip in a bit.<br /><br />So, Kevin’s standing outside the house. I’m neck deep in Oregon Ducks territory, you see those little wannabe Donald’s on everyone ‘s windows, cars and houses. Even the stores have little Oregon Duck logos on them. I’m not much into college anything so it’s like walking into a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. You know like that one where the girl has the plastic surgery and she comes out looking like a fox but then they show the doctors and their disappointment and to them she’s this horrible fucking CHUD. (Clerks 2 reference)<br /><br />In any event, I walk into the house and it’s a nerd’s paradise. On the walls they have posters of comic books, anime, old school movies and tons of action figures on the mantle. (Dragons included.)<br /><br />For the record I’ve got a little pixie sitting next to me as I write this so if some of it doesn’t sound like my normal rambling, wave to her, she’s editing as I type.<br /><br />They have several game consoles, an area where TPBs for comic series are stored and at the dining room table, there’s a game of D and D going on and I get to hear a conversation about the exploits of the man of steel versus Batman OUTSIDE of a comic store or convention. Like I said Twilight Zone, this is the norm here… how odd is that? Most of us have to hide in our rooms and chat online and here’s a house where D&D, comics and women playing WOW is common and accepted. Maybe I died and didn’t know it, it’s the equivalent of my 72 virgins! (Points if you get the reference)<br /><br />Okay so I walk through the door and I take this all in. Kevin’s leading me around and for the record I did shake his hand.<br /><br />So I go into the back of the house, where the kitchen is and it’s a nice kitchen, definitely built for someone with skills in cooking, which means it would go to waste with me. Albert is there, so’s Pip and I’m looking around and I haven’t seen Ariel yet. My heart’s going like a trip hammer, my brains on overdrive and I suddenly have an extremely high urge to go out and smoke a pack of cigarettes at once. Maybe that will help how I’m feeling but I know it won’t and then I hear her voice and my knees just give just a little.<br /><br />There she stands my Aphrodite, and everything becomes a little crisper in my eyes. I can tell that Albert and Kevin are goofing off over something I have no clue about as Pip is trying to find something to occupy herself with because she feels out her of element. That there’s dinner that’s sitting on stove that Ariel had been preparing as I drove down. That the guys at the table are really getting into the game and the other girls in the house are trying to figure out who wrote Reign of the Supermen, that there’s a cat sitting by a pond in the backyard watching fish that aren’t there. This is all going through my mind and I’m staring at her.<br /><br />She’s sitting right here, so I’m trying to focus I swear.<br /><br />Can I say that she’s more beautiful than I remember her? Yes, without a doubt. I think I stopped breathing for a second. I put down the soda that I’m holding (Cause every road trip needs caffeine) and we start bridging that distance between us. Okay, more me than her but still, you know there’s that silly moment like the old movies where two people have been separated for a long time and they’re running to each other in some empty field with “Sweet Mystery of Life at last I’ve Found You” Playing in the background, yea I know.<br /><br />That first moment where we’re in front of each other with less than three feet separating us is awkward, mainly because we both have an idea of how we want the hello to go but are also just aware of everything else. I do end up giving her the best hug I’ve given in some time and get it returned in kind which is all kinds of awesome.<br /><br />She’s still as amazing as I remember her. Grey eyes that speak volumes without her having to say a word, blue black hair that’s short at the back with long bangs in the front. A smile that would definitely send a man into lunacy if he wasn’t able to ever see it again. I’m looking at her and I’m positive that she’s glowing and while many might attribute it to a thousand different things I would like to think that it’s a glow that’s just for me.<br /><br />She made us dinner, Crab Louie, which is a cold dish, kind of like a Crab salad basically with dressing over it, it’s was very tasty. She also made a pasta dish with a homemade sauce and chicken. It was fabulous, seriously even though I was full I still went ahead and finished everything on my plate. I knew that she could cook but I was floored by two things, the first just how GOOD she can cook. I mean I’d tried her cooking before on some other things but this was outstanding! The second, that she had bothered to make anything for my coming in to see her.<br /><br />Look I don’t have to tell you guys my recent track record and the things that I’m used to getting, you’ve been reading this blog and you know me. So far I’m getting blown out of the water by the effort she’s put forth just for the evening. Many might consider dinner a not big thing but I’m not one of those. People who cook for other people, there’s emotion behind that meal and you can usually tell what emotion when you get that first bite. It’ll either taste like heaven or scorched Earth and not in a good way.<br /><br />She serves me up and sits across from me, though I didn’t want to sit just yet because of the long drive and my back tightening up, I did anyway, she asked and who am I to say no?<br /><br />As we’re sitting eating Albert comes up behind me and playfully puts his hands around my neck. I’m not going to shy away from rough housing. Now remember the description that I gave of him, I stand up, put him in a head lock, double him over, ready to go ahead and sweep one of the legs out from under him so I can put him on the floor, pin him and prove my point. I’m halfway to doing this when he says, “Wait, wait, don’t put my back out.”<br /><br />Crap.<br /><br />I let go and sure enough his back is out, he’s got to go sit down and I suddenly feel like the big lummox from Of Mice and Men because I don’t know my own strength and I’m also waiting for Ariel to say something to me. She doesn’t, she understands, which is nice but I still worry about the guy.<br /><br />Now everyone of the cast is out in the back deck while Ariel and I begin to eat. Albert comes back in and starts retelling how he was bent over outside and Kevin was across from him, something happens between Pip and Albert, playfully, where Kevin’s white hairy ass gets exposed because the man wears his kilt traditionally, commando.<br /><br />Albert’s retelling this story and says, “Man that was some hairy man ass.”<br /><br />The story’s over, so I say, “How’s your back?”<br /><br />“What do you mean?”<br /><br />“I mean how’ s it doing?”<br /><br />Suddenly Albert gets this weird look in his eye.<br /><br />“When I checked this morning it was fine.”<br /><br />He walks away from me, lifts up his shirt and starts checking his back in the reflection. Somehow he got his wires crossed and thought that I meant he had a hairy back, which he doesn’t. So he’s standing by the reflection, bugging out and PIP started laughing which is where the name came from. It appears that she has a Pig in her Pocket. She’d sit and snort as she laugh, which got Ariel going and she’s a squeaker so we had a nice snort and squeak going for about a solid ten minutes. It was short of hysterical.<br /><br />They get going and Kevin and Albert are behind the glass doors leading the orchestra.<br /><br />So since I’ve come to town Kevin’s going to a strip club with Albert and Pip to spend the time. Which is fine as he’s getting ready to leave he says, “Do I have the sixth liberty?”<br /><br />Uh…<br /><br />Seems there’s liberties and hell if I know they all are.<br /><br />Ariel says, “Yes there’s some condoms in the car, take a three pack with you. How you use it is up to you. When you run out, though, you’re done. Kay?”<br /><br />Open relationship remember? So what’s good for the goose is good for the gander in this situation. Still how many of us can say we’d be cool with sharing someone we love? Yea not many, me included but like I said this is a very different situation for me and everything that’s been about me has straight up gone out the window with this woman.<br /><br />We finish dinner and head out to my motel room for the weekend. See she’s promised to be mine for the weekend. If this seems odd to you, think about how this is on me for crying out loud. This woman, who has plagued my dreams with apocalyptic consistency for two years, is putting everything else in her life on hold to spend the entire weekend with me. I’m all kinds of crazy over her and I’m not going to give up my time with her.<br /><br />We get there, the door closes behind us and we clam up. We finally feel all that fear that we’d been holding back. In my mind’s eye I’m staring at the woman that I’ve longed for for years now. I know there’s stuff I want to say, emotions that I was to share with her, devotion that I want to offer, it’s all at the tip of my tongue but I also don’t know how she’ll take it. Will I be laughed at? Mocked? Tossed aside? Will this be the first and last time that I see her like this in my life?<br /><br />Yea it’s a lot to swallow at once and I’m looking at her and she won’t even make eye contact, she’s that nervous about being in close quarters with me. I can read that she wants to be there but is also all kinds of freaked out about it. It’s not a bad thing, she’s going through the same thing that I’m going through in my own way.<br /><br />We make small talk, talk about the silly things in life, talking nothing about how we feel, saying nothing about our hearts and we both know that it’s waiting to bubble up.<br /><br />Slowly it starts coming out between us. Her fear was rejection, same as mine. The question that I’ve had since this all started up like it is, “Why’d you wait until after your married to call me?”<br /><br />“Honestly? Because I needed to know. I’ve wanted to know for a long time but I didn’t know if I could handle you saying no without someone there to pick me up.”<br /><br />This is about when we start realizing that we’re looking at a mirror and the longer the night goes the deeper that realization comes to us. It’s stopped being this small time thing that could be a tryst or could be a lost weekend, this is closer than the two of us understood.<br /><br />I’m staring at those grey eyes and I’m just seeing all kinds of things that I never expected. I can feel her love for me palpably and I see in her that same light that I saw earlier. It’s brighter and pulsing and I know that she’s not pulling my leg on this one.<br /><br />I know this is going to sound sad but come on now. A beautiful woman calls you out of the blue and tells you that she wants to be with you, while you’re going to love that fact, there’s still going to be something in the back of your mind that tells you “You’re going to be disappointed”.<br /><br />Okay I’m distracted right now… (No I’m not telling you)<br /><br />Can you say:<br /><br />To be continued?<br /><br />I knew you couldLucielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17525955277284598131noreply@blogger.com0