Chapter Afterstand up, dust off, and get moving

I’ve been thinking a lot about how, once a relationship is over, most people have a bit of a sour grapes reaction. I think it helps the healing process — helps us to justify walking away. We tell ourselves about all the other people we dated who were cooler, funnier, smarter, better looking, maybe even all-of-the-above. Next, we tell ourselves that we did it once, and we can do it again — we’ll find that cooler, funnier, smarter, better looking someone. We’ll find them and love them and they’ll love us too. Lightning struck once, and it’ll damn well strike again.

It gets real disappointing when that doesn’t happen right away. I think it’s because we try to compare the optimal possibility (that dashing, awesome person we know we’re worthy of snagging) to that crushing despair of statistics: the average possibility. On average, we meet average people (average with respect to us, not average with respect to the whole world). When you’ve convinced yourself that only the best is acceptable, average just isn’t going to cut it.

Naturally, the cosmic joke is on you (me, us), because that “average” person you just dismissed thought exactly the same thing about you. It’s sad at the end of it. There’s far more loneliness in the world than there ought to be. All these countless people, so much in common, full of longing and desire. Each, no doubt, convinced (rightly!) of their own stable mental health and reasonable expectations. They neither think of themselves too highly nor suffer from low self-esteem. They go out and socialize, smile at strangers, occasionally venture upon a limb and introduce themselves. And still. Alone.

Perhaps most infuriating, the distance across purgatory from hell to heaven is “one” — one relationship with one other person is all it takes to shift a lonesome soul into a contented one. How strange that despite doing all the right things, two losers find becoming two lovers such impossible addition.

Now that I’m a father, I know what a complex dance of timing and body chemistry are required to successfully conceive a pregnancy. We don’t fully understand all the pheromonal  messages (and it might not make a bit of difference if we did). Could it be that our receptivity to someone new is just as misunderstood and magical? In two-hundred years when the subtile exchanges of molecules are fully explained, turned into pharmaceuticals, wired into nano-electronicis — when someone meets us, and their involuntary spark turns on a lightbulb in our heads, “Romantic Match Alert: Probability 99.9%”  What will be our excuse then?

If I’d managed to get through today without it costing $45, I’d be bragging right now about how hard I rocked it. Instead, I have to settle for having had a pretty good day, but too expensive. This morning, I convinced I__ to GET DRESSED SO WE CAN GO! (in my best Dooce all-caps voice).

First up was brunch at one of my favorite local institutions. The place has been there since well before I moved to town (which is saying something), and I fell in love the moment I tasted my first mouthful of their shrimp and grits. I checked the web for hours, because last time I tried this, the place had a line out the door and I gave up. It’s good, but it’s not wait-behind-forty-other-people-with-a-hungry-four-year-old-and-no-coffee good.

This time, we were on the money. There were about twenty people waiting in the cold, and we got there just as the doors were opening. I grabbed my favorite seats at the bar. They have these enormous, heavy, wooden doors with a nice percentage of window pane in, around, and above. The whole setup results in this stunning silhouette effect as you glance up to check out who’s coming through the door, and that’s exactly the direction our seats faced. It’s a thing of wonder as long as you’re not fighting a hangover, which admittedly much of the before-noon crowd is.

At noon, the church crowd forms second rush. One of my favorite things about this place (lost with the last change of ownership I’m afraid) was that the staff played punk-ish music on the stereo. Loud. Certainly louder than you’d expect at brunch on Sunday morning. Get there early enough, and you could watch the cultures clash as the Sunday-best-dressed walk in from morning services. Alas, only in memory. I’m sure there are those of the repeat-offender Saturday night alcoholic scene who don’t miss that particular detail one bit.

They didn’t have a kid’s menu per se, but I was hungry and batted cleanup. Exit $30.

Afterwards, we walked a few blocks up the street to a temporary ice rink they’ve set up. We must’ve skated for three or four hours. It was smaller than I expected and a bit crowded, but tons of fun. I__ had been a couple times already with his mom, so he’s impressive. The whole thing is some sort of downtown booster multi-channel marketing thing, but I didn’t notice any placards from the crappy radio station they were playing over the PA. I tried to bribe them into plugging in my iPod, but they wimped out. Something about “they say” and “have to.”

By late afternoon, I__ was well done. I convinced him to grab a hot chocolate with me and while fun, I regretted it almost instantly. The sugar immediately sent him sky high, and we had to split before he started bouncing off the walls in a place that oozes too-hip-for-kids.

Then we spent most of the rest of the evening playing Wii on my out-of-budget purchase from yesterday. Did I mention the HVAC system went out at the old house last week, and now I’m going to have to come up with an unexpected $6500? I’m hoping my car will hold out till spring. It’s a ’92. I’d tell you how many miles, but the odometer is one of the many, many broken bits.

I’m sure the day of reckoning cometh, and I just don’t give a shit. Today I had something like twelve uninterrupted hours of not feeling lonely. Sure it’s based on the hunter-gatherer endorphin response of consumer consumption. Save your I-told-you-so’s for the inevitable hangover. Today was fun, and I don’t want to kill the buzz just yet.

I__’s spent the last few nights with me. I made pancakes after getting up late, hopefully soothing any Dad’s-a-loser sentiment. The kid loves being outside and does not give a fuck if it is 28 degrees out–so much so, you’ve got to italicize it. Fine by me, as long as it doesn’t result in frostbite; I suited him up and sent him into the backyard to dig holes. This afternoon we took a three mile walk around a local lake once the temperature had climbed into the more hospitable forties. Tomorrow will probably be similar, and I’ll drop him off Monday morning at school, my debt for New Year’s weekend partying paid in full.

K__ is god-knows-where. I decided I wouldn’t ask again after she dodged it the first time. I__ said something that sounded an awful lot like “Mexico” and has mentioned more than once in the last few days that he knows a secret. What I know is I could pull it out of him if I wanted to, and that’s plenty satisfaction enough.

Well, almost enough. I’m big enough to admit (anonymously, ha ha) that I didn’t leave because of the infidelity. I thought at first I would, but once I decided I could forgive it, that ceased to be the reason. I left because I wasn’t getting any, and she was. My life had become all work and no play (pun yes) and it was quickly making J__ a dull boy.

So, I thought, no big deal. I can get a mistress. The more I thought it, the more impossible it seemed. Nobody (that I want to sleep with) wants to sleep with a married guy who, however unhappy he might be, still lives in the same house with his wife. Separate bedrooms, couches, and silent-treatments might be mitigating circumstances, but not nearly mitigating enough. The whole scenario is “loser” with a capital L. Men will sleep with losers if they’re hot. Women too sometimes, but I’ve never been that sometimes.

So I left. I figured an apartment would set me back around $1000 a month in recurring expenses, and that was a small price to pay for the dangled cosmic carrot of perhaps, maybe, having the chance of getting laid. Ever again.

The way this was supposed to be working out by now was I’d be getting enough action (like any at all) that my wife would be able to read it on my smug, grinning face, and it’d flip that hormonal jealousy firmly over to my-god-what-have-I-done mode. Maybe then we’d have a shot at salvaging things. That was pretty much my big master plan.

It isn’t so much that I cannot get laid, but I had allowed myself to forget just what an all-consuming undertaking it is. Do I really, really want to sacrifice everything for a little sex? (Yes, actually, I think I may). The time. The money. The endless douchebaggery. Sure, I possess worldly knowledge I would have killed for as a twenty-something, but alas, I am a twenty-something no more. There’s a whole new decade of worldly knowledge I am surely lacking.

It’ll be another few months before I can start openly expressing my distain that K__ still hasn’t found work, so I still have to support her 100%. The more I contemplate it, the more I believe it will come to be known as “The Nuclear Option.”

The money strategy is much like the sex strategy. Three months in just about any employment capacity should be enough to flip her empathy switch.

Except I know it won’t be. I was supposed to be hot shit, and it was supposed to make her jealous. I’m not, she isn’t. Even if it had worked out that way, what a dangerous fantasy. In retrospect, it’s probably how we got back together the first few times. Same goes for the employment angle. Even if it works, which it won’t (I’ll explain why sometime when it’s actually relevant), to what end?

We’ve been actively becoming separate. In no way is any of our daily life attuned towards anything else. It has been this way for months, perhaps years. To expect otherwise, to even hope otherwise is lunacy.

But then all lovers are loons aren’t they?

I don’t know if there’ll ever be music for it (if you think my poetry is bad, be very glad there’s no guitar), but I threw this down at the bar a couple nights ago while downing a couple beers [editor's note: good thing your editor's sober]. I’m not overly impressed with it, although I did manage to pull off a little ABAB action. In my head, it’s something fun by Johnny Cash or Reverend Horton Heat and makes up in superb groovyness what it lacks in genuine cleverness.

Here Before Blues

(verse)

Sitting by the corner,
saw her coming in.
It’d do no good to warn her.
Soon we would begin.

We’d start a conversation
with no way I could ignore
the familiar situation
and it chilled me to my core.

Despite my hesitation,
something small would lead to more.

(chorus)

There’s no time like the present
for bringing up the past.
“Once upon” that legend  went
and it wouldn’t be the last.

Ring round and let be,
for the circle’s part of life,
but I know she’s going to leave me,
’cause this’s where I met my wife.

(verse)

I had my lit’rature,
she read philosophy.
I said something immature
about modern poetry.

One thing leads another.
Her smile becomes a laugh.
I oughta head for cover.
Any fool could do the math.

It’s not funny, she’ll discover,
and I’ll be drowning in her wrath.

(chorus)

There’s no time like the present
for bringing up the past.
“Once upon” that legend  went
and it wouldn’t be the last.

Ring round and let be,
for the circle’s part of life,
but I know she’s going to leave me,
’cause this’s where I met my wife.

It’s no wonder everyone’s either 1) not getting laid or 2) terribly dissatisfied when they do or 3) not even interested in the first place.

A fascinating read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/books/review/Roiphe-t.html

The part of me that knows bars are a waste of time and money promised the rest of myself I’d find a more productive way to spend both. Instead, I went to L__ again last night. It was perfectly uncrowded and I got a chance to chat with a few regulars / bartenders. Hopefully I didn’t seem too douche-y. Talked to a few old coffee shop acquaintances that the years make feel like old friends.

At closing, I was invited to an after hours chill-out at A__’s place–someone I’ve seen around town but don’t remember ever having met. Ended up the last to leave at around 5AM. I just knew I’d wake up hung over as all hell, but the gods smiled.

Speaking of those grinning overlords, I told myself I wouldn’t try to pick up women at the place where I met K__. Too weird, how would you tell them? And then if you don’t tell them and they eventually find out, you’re fucked and there’s going to be no recovering. But I like it there and wanted a change of routine. Beautiful scenery and kind gender ratios notwithstanding.

I was doing ok, but then she needed to borrow a pen. Even then my resolve held on awhile longer, but … Well, I ended up having a wonderful time talking with E__. I didn’t want to eat alone, so I invited her to dinner, but she was working hard and against a deadline–there was no point flogging a horse so clearly deceased. I gave her a card and expect nothing, which is probably as it should be.

It took every spare ounce of mojo I could muster just to get out of the house last night, but I managed it right around 11pm. Parking downtown was a bit of a nightmare, but overall that’s a very good thing and I successfully fought the urge to complain. In the end, I felt pretty awesome squeezing my car into a semi-safe zone that, at the time, felt like the last available space on the planet. A short walk later, I was elbow-to-the-bar doing my best to get at least a first drink in with twenty minutes till midnight. It was no small feat. I smoked-up before heading out–desperately trying to kill the nerves and ended up forgetting my cell in my car, which let’s remember, was parked with questionable legality. Had I been towed, it’d have been quite an adventure. I’m not sure what people did before cell-phones; probably swore a lot.

I’ve been bringing a sketchbook to draw & write in when I’m out alone. Becoming a regular takes time, and I can’t bear to just stare at the wall. I’m probably supposed to just go up to people I don’t know and start blabbering, but I do enough of that anyway. Regardless, New Year’s Eve seemed like even more-so the wrong scene for such introversion, so I left the crutches at home.

The city where I live is just barely such allowing all these seemingly impossible rendezvous with people I haven’t seen in a decade. It seems magical when it’s happening, as though the universe is smiling down on you specifically. Last night, I had the opportunity to be on the other end somewhat. I found someone I knew and a free seat (ah, heaven), and the staff had just come around with complementary champagne for the community toast. Various people were flitting in and out of our group to say hello.

A woman, who I’ve seen around over the last few weeks, turns to me and asks if I remember her. I can’t say that I do. She offers her name. She says that we kissed New Year’s Eve back in 1996 or so. Still nothing, but that definitely narrows it down quite a bit. She’d undergone massive weight loss, so there wasn’t any pressure. As she described the group of us that hung out that night, and I focused on just her face, ignoring her hair and body, there was a definite tickle of memory.

She’d been the unattractive friend of S__, and in the spirit of the festivities, you kiss the frogs to get at the princes(ses). My buddy J__ later lost his virginity to S__. Lucky bastard.

I think back on all the people I’ve been enamored with over the years. Their faces and personalities often seared themselves into memory with such intensity, I know if I have any faculties left at all on my deathbed, I’ll have those to savor at the end. We don’t often think about whose memories we might be imprinted upon. Certainly not the un-pretty. Or the un-funny. Or the un-talented. Or the average. What if our paths should cross a decade later? Will there be cause for shame or regret?

…

Right after I discovered “what was up” with K__, I went out with my friend R__ who told me about an amateur burlesque show at a local club. We don’t get much of that here, and, I mean, c’mon. Arty nudity? I. Am. So. There. His girlfriend (at the time), D__, was megawatt hot, and, although I think it made him a bit uncomfortable, he wasn’t going to not go. I went along for … um … moral support. Yeah.

The show itself was more straight-up stripping with pasties than burlesque–a downgrade if you ask me. D__ was the standout “performer.” Relieved of our singles, everyone filtered into the courtyard to drink as though it was any other weekend night.

There, I ran into M__ who worked an internship at my studio several years ago. She’s pretty, bubbly, intelligent, successful, tall, and a total wacko–my kind of people. She gave me great advice on the state of things, and I spared few details trying to squeeze her for the best she could give. Her feminine perspective seemed compatible with K__’s and it gave me inspiration to give things another go. That didn’t work out so great, but I’m grateful anyhow.

Last night she was sitting next to the bouncer when I walked in. She said something completely intriguing and obtuse about life since our last conversation–said she’d tell me all about it sometime. She was headed to some other club, and I was tempted to puppy-dog over there, but these things move at their own pace and there was no way I’d have kept correct tempo.