Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Douchebags...

When you're new to a town, you don't know the rules. You don't know where to go for food, friends, stuff to do--it's unexpected and an intriguing twist when you've grown up in one place for so many years. You meet a few people here and there, but your social circle just isn't as large as you'd expected it to be, so you run out of ideas and join a dating site. You meet a couple neat people, and one in particular sparks your interest.

After a few weeks of texting (yes, one of the precious few you gave your number to), and a few rescheduled meet-ups, you agree to an impromptu date of sorts. I mean, why not? You were already out and about, had already had a few, and now's as good a time as any. Your aunt drops you off at the local gay bar (his suggestion), and you can't help but smile a bit as you question whether he really did mean this to be a date for the two of you. But, the drinks are good and strong and the environment's fun, so you stay.

You're smart about it, though. You finish your drinks before you go to the bathroom, you order a glass of water in between drinks, and you ask the bartender if you can charge your phone--just in case. He was nice, funny, and more than a little intelligent and charming. He makes a few awkwardly obvious attempts at physical contact: a touch of the knee, comments on how sore his neck is, etc. He invites you to his place to watch Doctor Who, but you politely decline--that's not how you wanted the evening to end. A few drinks later, he asks if you want to hit up another bar, maybe grab some food at a local crappy diner (Waffle House, anyone?). Sure, that sounds fun, safe, and you're more than a little hungry after such...significant servings of booze.

Being more than a shade more sober than you are, he offers to drive. "You know, I'm just at the point where if I have another drink, I won't be able to drive you home," he frowns a bit. "You know what I could really go for? Some Angels in Manhattan. I've got them on my hard drive at my place, and I could pour you a drink there, if you want. Then I could drive you home. Does that sound good?" It's awkward now. You already said no once, but it's a decent offer, and you don't want to come across as rude or stand-offish. You agree. You chat a bit more on the way to his place, and you end up talking about sex. Big surprise, right? "Are you a slut?" he asks, laughing a bit. "No judging at all if you are, I'm all for equal gender empowerment." You laugh uneasily, and say no, that you really don't sleep around with guys until you've known them for a while. He proceeds to spout some thinly-veiled spiel about women being called sluts when they sleep around, and how it's unfair since men aren't held to the same standards of chastity.

You pull up to his place (a large house shared by several students), walk up the stairs and he unlocks the door. Walking down the hallway to his apartment, you can't help but feel a bit intimidated: the ceiling is high, the walls are close, and the lighting is poor. You're sure he mentioned something about roommates before, but it's a one bedroom. He must have just meant he used to have roommates. An easy misunderstanding--the bar was distracting, and all the alcohol is really starting to go to your head. Actually, it's hitting you pretty hard.

You follow him into the kitchen, where he proceeds to make your drink--a coke and something strong with a dash of grenadine. You're still careful, and you watch him make it, just in case.

The damn thing nearly sets your breath on fire, and the glass is full to the brim. It's impossible not to spill a bit on the floor/yourself. He tells you not to worry about it, and starts to rub your neck as you turn to leave the kitchen. It feels so nice to get some of those kinks out, and you spill some more of your drink.

He turns on the tv and launches the first episode. "Why don't you sit down here on the floor?" He suggests, "Then I can rub your shoulders." Again, you feel awkward. A sip of the drink to ease your nerves, and you slide down onto the rug. You lean back between his knees, trying to avoid leaning back too far. You're already worried about the impression you're giving him. The show starts, and you try to focus on the show and not on the fact that his fingers are pressing harder...wandering further, even momentarily pushing themselves up the back of your shirt before respectfully pulling it back down. You tense up, but his fingers press into your shoulders so hard--it kind of hurts. He begins to massage your scalp, but then starts to pull your hair a bit. It's getting harder to watch the show like this. Pushing one sleeve to the side, he rubs under your bra strap--just a bit. Lower, further, his hands always pressing themselves where they shouldn't be--pushing the boundaries and your top a little further away from where they should be.

"You smell nice," he mutters, and you realize his face is right next to yours. "Um, thank you..."

Of course, somehow, he kisses you. It wasn't hard, he's still pulling your hair with barely contained self-control. The fingers, attached to those hands, wend themselves down your shirt. The front this time. Uninvited, unwelcome, unrestrained at first by you. This was not how you wanted the evening to end. The alcohol is really hitting your head by now. You must taste like it. You can't tell if he does. Something sharp in the corner of your mind. Some dying, drowning semblance of sobriety? "I should call a cab." You shrug him away, leaning forward and moving your drink away from you.
"You should..." he smiles, kissing your neck and pulling you back to him.
"No...I....I should call a cab.."
"okay..." he's still moving, he's still not supposed to be here--you're not supposed to be here. This wasn't how you wanted the evening to end. But it's been so long since you've....
"NO." The last drowning bit of your self-restraint wakes up again, and you're glad of it. "I'm going. I'm calling a cab." You break out of his grasp, grabbing your purse and standing--stumbling--up this time.
"Do you want to wait here while you wait for it to arrive?" He walks nearer, placing his hands on my hips--or maybe my arms--I can't really tell right now.
"No. I'll--I'll be okay. I have to go. I have stuff to do tomorrow."
"Okay, thanks for the fun night." He mutters as he smiles, kissing you again. His front door was locked. It shouldn't bother you as much as it does just then. You unlock it and practically slam the door behind you. That narrow hallway now seems like something from a dream: the door to the stairs outside is right there, if you can just reach it without being harassed. It's so far though. But you reach it. Of course you do. There's no reason why you shouldn't have. It's not like he was going to physically keep you from leaving.

You practically run down the stairs, jog past his house, glancing up at his windows. Your lips are still wet. You hastily wipe them off, then do the same with your neck, although that is dry. You half run once you hit the corner. Your phone. It's charged. You pull it out and text your aunt. She agrees to come pick you up.

You're not sure where you are, but you see a tall building with "Hilton" lighting up the side. A brief reprieve from the otherwise mostly flat Lexington skyline, and a near literal Godsend as to helping you get your surroundings. You power-walk the four or five blocks there, repeatedly wiping off your lips, your neck, the back of your neck like you're swarmed with some invisible swarm. People on the street must think you're high. You really shouldn't be so freaked out, but you are. You really shouldn't have felt so violated, but you did, and, for some unexplained reason, you keep glancing behind you, expecting to see his truck pull up and to have him offer you a place to crash for the night--to sleep it off.

There's a cop car in front of the Hilton, and for some reason this is more comforting than it should be. You lean against a concrete pillar until your aunt arrives, letting the cool, roughly-pebbled surface calm you back to reality a bit.

Two quick beeps, and your aunt pulls up. Your dog is in the front seat, all you can see is her head, and she's elated to see you. It's obvious that the adventure of both a car ride and seeing mom was almost too much for her soft little head to handle. You hold her the rest of the way home. You try to rationalize it. Your aunt helps put that to rest. You start thinking about all the men you've been with before, about what you would have done if any one of them had pulled away. About how they've all responded when you've turned them down in the past. Certainly not like this one had. You hug your dog closer as she tries to climb on the window to smell the fall air.

You settle in bed, surrounded by your things, your animals, your mess. Your phone lights up. It's a text message from him.

"Hey, you get home okay? :)"
You roll over and go back to bed.

I hope you know...

I hope you know, you fucked it up.

When you pick up that phone to text me a quip about your day, I hope you hesitate a little with regret before putting it back in your pocket. When you smile at an inside joke that is brought to light by something you see on the street, I hope you cringe a little inside at the thought of what you ruined.

When you hope there's someone there for you, when you ache not to feel alone and unloved--when you want someone to reach out to, but they're already gone, I hope you remember: you caused this pain.

I'm not trying to harp on you (or maybe I am), for I know that words hold no meaning anymore to situations like these. Words are empty, words are hollow, and--for all the power they hold--they can't fix it. And, my dear, they can't fix you.

I'll move on, I suppose. Mourn a little less every day, try to push those thoughts of you from my mind--try not to wonder what you're doing or think about what we had--brief as it was, real or not. Someday, I'll grow old and tired of this mindset, move on to the next good thing in my life, and appreciate what you did do for me--what we did for each other.

Until then, though: I hope you walk around the streets at night on your own, flipping your phone in your hand and debating calling me and apologizing for hours before your bitter pride gets the best of you. I hope there are moments--those terrible, bittersweet, truthful moments--where you're alone in your house, or car, or at work--when you break down inside and pray to God you lose the ability to grasp what you lost. Where you hang your head in your hands, pushing away the migraines and the troubled dreams and the occasional tears that prickle at the corner of your eyes, and you know--know then, more than ever--that you fucked this up.

Hi

I still wait for that text message. The one saying you're sorry..you hit just the right place, cracking open all my emotions and engorging the hemmorage with a crowbar

And then you left.

I still check your facebook, looking for signs that you miss me. I sure miss you.

I didn't think I could grow so attached so quickly,  and yet in did. Only to be let down. Thrown down.

Although I should move on, memories of happiness in others causes me physical pain and disgust.

I still wait for you, although I shouldn't.

Fly Racing...

So today, whilst nonchalantly sipping my instant coffee (only the best for me) and watching my dog lick the last of my cereal milk from the bowl (which eventually ended up almost under the couch), I noticed several flies on the window.

Since we leave the doors open for the pets, flies are not an uncommon occurrence in the house—at any given time, we probably have 2-3 hanging around, pissing off the dogs that are too lazy/too scared to work their way around the cats to eat them. These flies, however, were different.

Three small, determined little bastards seemed to be in a race to get to the top of the window. Not sure why, but they're not at the top of the evolutionary food chain for a reason, now aren't they? Anyways, seeing as how I've working in the horse racing industry for entirely too long, I started narrating their race, adding little names to them as they scuttled.

“It's Fly Me to the Moon in the lead, followed closely by Free Flyin' and Flyin' High bringing up the rear—Free Flyin' is closing the gap and might just catch up—OH NO! Free Flyin' has fallen off the fucking window and hit the sill behind the couch! Fly Me to the Moon seems to have taken a break and is resting—this could cost him dearly in the last leg. Flyin' High has forgotten where he's going, and—yes folks, he appears to be wandering SIDEWAYS on the track! Free Flyin' is still trying desperately to get back in the game, but he can't seem to figure out how to get out from between the window and the couch! He's jumping, he's flyin', but he keeps hitting the window and OOOH NOOO he's down again! Now it's between Fly Me to the Moon and Flyin' High, he's going, going, goooone! Folks for the third consecutive time, Fly Me to the Moon has won the Window Cup!”

I probably spent a good 10 minutes doing this....this is why I shouldn't be left to my own devices when I am in possession of caffiene.

And my dog just won't stop barking at them...

“The fireflies are out.”

They float and turn like some burning ember drifting from a fire, catching on the leaves and in the air before fading away almost as quickly.

Something new for me, a west-coaster. We have frogs, we have slugs, and we have mosquitos. But fireflies? No, nothing so quaint, so dainty, so memorable as those horny little beetles anxious to get a piece before they pass along into the soil they spent so much time cradled in.

I sit outside, the pale, sickly blue-yellow sky fading into a dusty indigo flecked with stars as I look farther and higher up. Trees form near-silhouettes on the border of my vision around me, surrounding me with a quiet arena of summer evenings.

They're pretty slow-moving, these fireflies. They nearly lumber about in the air, seemingly unconcerned by birds, bats or the easily distracted house cat. Just embers, drifting off to sleep, flicking off and on from the corners of your vision and skipping out of sight when you look at them, like when you rub your eyes too hard with your fists.

Power cables stretch across the backyard, and the bugs glint into a nearby lawn, behind the bushes and out of my line o fision.

Except one. Or two. They always come back. Just to remind you that they're still there. That they're still horny, still looking for a mate, and still drifting slowly away from that fire, and ever back towards the soil...

Baby Cage for Sale!

Ladies and Gentlenerds, I know having kids is hard. I mean, I don't have any of my own, or anything, but people tell me it's hard, and I once tried to raise a beta, and that was pretty frustrating. I imagine it's kind of the same thing, only with less fecal matter on the plants. Or maybe not, whatever.

One minute, you're organizing your eighteen tubs of Transformers by vehicle type and color (sub-categorized by quality of figure transformation, of course), the next, some little newborn nerdlet rugrat who clawed its' way out of your/your wife's/your partner's body with all the grace of a chest-burster on acid is jamming Arcee into orifices of your house you didn't even know it had (and you thought light sockets were your biggest problem!).

The madness ends now.

My dear nerdies, I present to you...The Baby Cage ZX2K.

Long gone are the days of penning your kid up in the kitchen like some common criminal while you overclock your hard drive (there are knives the kitchen! Sharp ones! The kid could use one of them to cut through the gate—and then no one would be safe!).

Made of ultra-durable, non-toxic Fenethylline, each Baby Cage is lined with luxuriously soft, easily cleanable, satin-lined Polyethylene. Allow your baby to bask in the lap of luxury by lapping at their state of the art, removable, wide-mouthed water bottle—conveniently attached with only the highest-quality stainless steel wire and outfitted with a medical-grade silicone nipple for the little allergy-prone bugger (he is your child, after all).

“But what about the gate,” you ponder? “Why, my little mouth-breather just chewed through my life-sized, stainless steel, model Buster sword like it was the human flesh he seems to have become so accustomed to.” Worry not, my friends! The gate of the Baby Cage ZX2K is made of nothing short of ultra-light, ultra-durable, titanium-alloy-coated steel bars. Even if he does manage to gnaw his way through the bars, it should slow him down long enough to get your PS1 black labels to safety.

With only 3 payments of $39.95, the Baby Cage ZX2K can be your ticket to financial independence and the solitary, non-committal lifestyle you've dreamed about since you saw that first grainy ultrasound. Order now, supplies are limited.

Happiness

Having someone choose someone else over you is a hard thing to accept. It's like they're saying, “You're not good enough for me, I'm choosing someone better. Someone who's worth my time.”

You hold onto that person with a piece of your heart—no matter how small—and, just when you think you've managed to accept and come to terms with the way life is in that particular situation, it throws you another twist and you're socked in the stomach without even the chance to clench.

So many people forget. Forget what it's like to be loved, what it's like to love others, or at least show that person the common decency that's supposed to be allotted to any other individual. Jobs, romance, relationships of any kind, really, are simply thrown out the window like your effort meant nothing. Like the work you put in, the heart, that shard of yourself—just wasn't enough to matter. Before you know it, that attempted masterpiece you've spent years sculpting, tweaking, trimming and curving just right has fallen to pieces, and you're left with a filthy slop, a heap of sludge and rubble of what you once were—what you once had.

The people who do these things, often times, are thinking of no one but themselves in that situation. It's a dog-eat-dog world, as they say, and if we don't grab a little bit of happiness for ourselves, then who will? The hurt it can cause, however, is often overlooked, even neglected, leaving the rest of us out in the cold.

These people are concerned with their own happiness, and not the happiness of others, or even what constitutes kindness in these situations. Their happiness, their joy in life, is so unattainable for them, that they must then turn to rejecting things they find hard, difficult, or unpleasant, even if it means getting diamonds in the end. They are to be pitied, to be learned from, to be sad for, not about. Tearing you down is not always a conscious decision for them, but it does not make that action right.

Do not let these people step over you to what is—in their eyes—the next great thing. Do not hold on to the past, do not let their choice hurt you in your everyday life. Grieve for the hurt, and mourn the loss of a friend, lover or missed opportunity. The opportunity lost was theirs. Don't forget that, and don't let it affect you for too long. Don't dwell on the past, it can only hinder your future.

And don't step over others in your search for your own happiness.