caffeineandcookies

A Trip Up the Coast of California (2009)

(September 2009)
It had been so hot in Los Angeles that a brief trip up the coast to San Francisco for a couple of days seemed in order. It’s hot here all the time in LA, people here are different, they’re used to it. I was living here for a month and a half I guess? I like it here, I’m getting used to it, but it’s tight and stuffy here. People are tight and stuffy, the roads are real wide but somehow stuffy, people crowd them and breathe down your neck for you to get out of their way. Coming from Boston where it’s pretty much the exact same vibe aside from people having bad accents (like me apparently!) and shittier roads. I grew tired of New England road trips. My whole life from when I started driving at 17 to maybe a year before I left was spent on gorgeous orange and sun soaked golden tree lined roads in the fall to bright green summer jaunts up to Southern Maine/New Hampshire or upstate New York. After doing these hundreds of times where I could practically drive these roads with a blindfold on I grew tired of them, but more importantly grew tired of my life back there. I lost any spark for anything whether it was going to shows, playing music or just plain going out. The last few months spent there I spent some quality time with good friends going to shows and being out and about in social settings. I obviously miss this aspect of living in New England and family and friends, everything else though, not-so-much.

G and I had just started dating, but knew each other for quite some time. She lived in San Francisco and I lived in Los Angeles and came down for the week. I had some plans for the us to see some outdoor places with my visiting friends from New England. We didn’t do all of that on the day we hung out but did have a great day outdoors and indoors with them and they all got along which was nice as I had wanted her to meet some of my friends from back home. This was also one of those instances where you want to show off your new girlfriend and hope your friends like her. They all got along great and we had a nice couple of days with them exploring Los Angeles from the coast to atop hills overlooking the orange specs below.

We checked out of the hotel in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning to drive my car back to my house. G was going to follow me there and then I would get in her car for the drive up to San Francisco. I get in my car and it won’t start. When I moved out here I had the same problem. My starter and alternator were dead and I paid $650 to have them fixed. We waited in the bright hot sun for the tow truck driver to arrive. Sun tired and slightly burned from the previous day the last thing I wanted to do was sit in the sun aggravated by more car issues. The night before swerving around like her twelve thousand mile long smile through canyons high above Los Angeles my brakes were continuing their squeak that had started a few days prior. Turns out my battery was dead, like forever dead. Ugh. Brakes, rotors, battery and labor here I am $855 poorer. Great. I avoided thinking about this for the majority of the trip as it would have made things shittier than they needed to be.

We started on Highway 101 which brushes against the ocean and snakes back inland here and there. Our first stop was a non-event in Santa Barbara, a quick lunch and we were back on our way. A nice little area I had sped through before, and for the most part sped through this time as we weren’t sight seeing. I did see a Mission that I plan on going back to some time soon to take pictures of. A bit south of San Luis Obispo (near Pismo Beach) we stopped at a pier G had been to before and took some pictures of sea lions and pelicans. The area was drenched in fog and was noticeably colder than any place I had been since I moved out to California. The pier and fishing boats made me feel like I was in New England again. The air here was particularly heavy on me. The fog at dusk , the chill in the air and that always welcome sound of an ocean sounding like an ocean is like no other sensation. We walked on the damp pier for a while. This was the first week we were spending a good amount of time together so only fond memories were being created. Any other emotion I could have felt would have been false; this was nothing but romantic in every way possible. I got some good footage of the sea lions on video, and then things “got racist” so we stopped. Long story.

With no place booked for Wednesday, just on Thursday and Friday in SF I successfully booked us a place in San Luis Obispo up the road a brief fifteen miles or so via the iPhone. The fact that you can do this kind of thing on a little hand held device and check it out and make sure it’s clean/safe, etc. is great, but there was always something about gambling with your evening by stopping at some random motel and paying for a chance. No such luck this time though. We make our way to the room and notice the bathroom sink is covered in ants. Ouch. I go down and talk to the manager and we are upgraded to a suite at no extra cost which is basically just a wider room with a stove, a couple of comfortable chairs, a working remote control (unlike the room in LA) and a bathroom that is two rooms. Nothing great really, but a step up from a bathroom full of ants.

San Luis Obispo, or SLO had failed us briefly and then redeemed itself but after that the thumbs would continue to keep pointing further down. A trip to the Madonna Inn to eat dinner at a restaurant that closes at 10:00 PM according to their website proved to be a waste of time. They are doing major construction in the area, with exits leading you to nowhere and not telling you where detours lead you…a mess for the most part. To top it off we get there a little after 9:00 to be told that they now close at 9:00 even though the doors are open and lights are all on. The gum chewing woman at the counter is not really interested in us and is doing math out loud while we stand there. The inside of the restaurant is all types of gaudy, like an Italian grandmother from the 70’s exploded all over the inside of a diner at Liberace’s birthday party type gaudy. But awesome. I made my way down to the ladies room and had G take my picture inside and then went into the men’s room and took a shit in the urinal just to show them how I felt about their letting me down. Not really, but I would have and will if it happens next time!

Close by was a diner that was all lit up, even the sign that reads “OPEN” was on in the window! We parked and walked up to an empty diner, a woman counting money at the cash register and a locked door. Eh. A trip downtown proved to be even less successful. Fucking downtown. A college. Only places open were loud bars and shittier restaurants. Well, bar/restaurants. We ended up at a shitty 24 hour breakfast chain (although after the preferable one was closed as well!). Horrible food choices were made by both of us and that’s about the extent of it.

We had another errand to run before ending the night, finding some medicine for her. After a creepy drive down a road curiously called “Tank Farm” we found an all night market helmed by this D & D reject named Neil (Limelight by Rush was playing on radio). He worked the register and had creepy eyes that he couldn’t stop moving. Just one of those talkative people who are nice enough but also sporting a depressing existence so it’s hard to pay them much mind.

We decided to take the rest of the trip on Rt 1 which is quite literally on the coast. The same drive I did a couple of years previous when her and I hung out the first time. It was nice being able to look out the windows and take it all in even if it was foggy for a good chunk of it. We did a few stops along the way to take in some of the breath taking views that are so high up, the wind made you a little nervous you may blow right off the particular cliff you’re standing at. I think I ended up taking three pictures for couples who asked for a scenic picture with them in the foreground. The ocean though…on a clear day it goes on for miles. it looks calm and inviting unlike the jagged gray crazy ocean of say, Northern Maine. I’d like to say I like the Pacific Ocean better than the Atlantic but really, there is no better or worse.

A room screw up in San Francisco resulted in an upgrade to a suite yet again. Perhaps I will start complaining every time I travel so I can upgrade my rooms. It’s usually not much more than an extra room with another TV or just a bigger area. It’s not like suites in real expensive places. I had a great time the day and a half or so I was in the city. The first night though, we hit this delicious ass hamburger joint in The Castro. I didn’t have cash on me when the food was rung up. I walked over to get cash to give the woman, meanwhile G paid part of it and was chatting with the woman. Afterward she told me the woman said “Does he always do this, make you pay for meals like this? I hate when men pull that shit” or something like that. Whoa! Hey lady how about a large order of mind-your-own-business with that good ass cheeseburger? The cheeseburger though, I would have married it.

We took some amazing drives through some beautiful areas I had never seen, off the beaten path areas outside of the city. The fog proved to be a little bit of a hinderance, but to me at the same time added a character and mood to the sky that I hadn’t seen since moving out to this side of the country which has been a barrage of sunlight. We walked around the city last night North Beach, Chinatown mostly, watched a bug scurry around different areas of a counter in this Italian bakery. We were hoping to see a customer discover it. We had really shitty service at an Italian restaurant. We tipped really low at G’s insistence. The food was the one redeeming quality of that. Running out and disappearing into the crowded streets was slightly exhilarating, not like the time I walked out without paying at IHOP a few weeks before leaving Massachusetts, but still fun nonetheless.

Leaving this morning was odd. For a moment I thought I was flying back “home” to Boston, but no this is home now. This area of the country, and of course the area north of me is one of my favorite places to explore and I highly recommend taking the Pacific Coast Highway at least once in your lifetime. By yourself, or with someone it’s a beautiful drive. With the right soundtrack and the right weather it’s even better. .

(All pics were taken on this trip)

December 12, 2011 0

A Dream and a Journey By Train

So I had this dream last night, I was walking through this series of buildings, this complex if you will. It started with me walking up a balcony in some sort of theatre. A real steep balcony, with soft lights on the stairs, and red velvet at the top; glowing from another series of 4 or 5 lamps of soft light. It was elegant, but dirty at the same time. Contradicting the red velvet on the walls was a dirty, grimy, sticky cement floor. Old dried up soda, and chocolate covered raisins. Cigarette butts, and dank beer smell. There was a group of people sitting in one of the aisles. 5 or 6 people that looked familiar. No faces whatsoever, but they looked real familiar. As I passed them, they started blurting my name out. Right at this moment, I was all of a sudden with a girl with no face, no personality, nothing, just “a girl”. We were rushing by them, and I seemed to feel particularly embarrassed by the whole situation for some reason. We made our way out into this courtyard type are that was real European looking. Lot’s of real old buildings with amazing stones, and windows and doors. The doors. The fucking doors. No, not Jim Morrison and his motley crew of “Doors” Doors I kept opening. Looking in the rooms and hallways for something. One doorway would open to a wall. Another doorway would open to a long hallway with more doors along the walls inside it. There was one door that held the room I always see in my nightmares. A big room with huge ceilings, and a floor that is basically big rusty beams. Real damp, and dark this room. I always end up in this room. Scaling the walls, trying not to “fall in”. This room is huge, probably 20 yards wide by 30 yards long. I opened this door and shut it immediately. The next door I opened there was a man there. There was a stairway that looked exactly like the one in this old apartment building I used to hang out at. Four stories high, old wood banisters. Doorways with apartments you’ll never see. So I open this door, and this tall blonde guy with a Hawaiian shirt on. I pick the guy up by the collar and heave him down the stairs. I run down after him swearing. I throw him down the next stairway. I run down after him, and do it again. I do this until he’s at the bottom, and start kicking him in the stomach over and over. I go back into the courtyard. The alarm clock goes off.

——————

The best vacations I have taken have all revolved around me seeing a band, usually it was the Grateful Dead. I don’t look like a “hippie”, but I learned years before, when I spent time in the punk rock scene for years, that it had nothing to do with what you looked like. Well, unless you are a punk rocker and you judge everyone who isn’t punk rock. Anyway, I just remembered my first trip by myself twenty or so years ago.

I bought this book listing every single Grateful Dead show available on tape from 1988-1995 or something like that. I opened it to February 25th 1990, in Oakland, California. I was twenty years old at the time. I was going to take a train from Boston all the way to San Francisco, and meet my best friend at the time, Derek there. He flew. I had never been away from home by myself for a long period of time, so this two week journey to see two Grateful Dead shows would prove to be a stepping stone to what I would still be doing ten years later, and define when I really feel myself. On the road, by myself. Previous to this show, I saw the band in the summer of 1989 and then a “famous” show in New Jersey in October of 1989.

So I get on this train in South Boston and I’m immediately feeling elated to be leaving, seeing the band, and seeing parts of the country I had never seen. I was a painfully shy person, but being on a train for four days straight will make even the most timid person a “life of the party”. I think we were maybe two hours into the trip, we stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts. The train was relatively empty, and I was lucky enough to score two seats, so I could sit at the window. In Springfield the train sort of filled up and I see this character walking down the aisle. About five feet tall, cowboy boots, denim jeans, a denim jacket, long black “ZZ Top beard”, and sunglasses (it’s 9:30PM in the dead of winter), a duffel bag in one hand, and a guitar slung around his shoulder. I of course make eye contact with him, and he immediately sits down next to me.

“HOW YA DOIN BUDDY, I’M JIM (I can’t remember his name at this point), WHERE YOU GOIN!!?”

“Ummmm, San Francisco.”

“WELL IT LOOKS LIKE WE’RE TRAVELING TOGETHER, I’M GOING TO DENVER!!!”

“Excellent”

Yeah, real excellent.

So he starts talking and doesn’t shut up about music and traveling. It was interesting, but his voice, and overall demeanor made it a little hard to take him serious. The best part was yet to come though.

“YOU LIKE VODKA???”

“No, I don’t really drink at all”

“WELL IF YA DO, I GOT PLENTY”

He opens his jacket and has two fifths in each inside pocket of the jacket, two nips in each breast pocket, opens his duffel bag, and he literally, no joke, had a little bit of clothing, and what looked like 6 more bottles of vodka. I got up and went to the restroom, and he showed up in there.

“OH THERE YOU ARE, HEY YOU WANT A SWIG OF THIS OR WHAT????”

“No really, I’m all set”

So we get to Albany and I know what I have to do. I knew that we would be switching trains in Chicago in the morning, but I really couldn’t deal with him anymore. I got out of the train and went into the station and asked if I could get a room for the night on the train. It would be eighty bucks. I forked down the money and got my upgraded ticket.

I went back in and told “Jim” that they fucked up, my ticket stated I was to be in another train. A likely story, as anyone who knows Amtrak, you buy a cheap ticket, you sit wherever the fuck you want. I went to my room, and it was literally about the size of a stall in a restroom…okay the handicapped stall (which begs the question I often ask myself when I perpetually use the handicapped stall, can I get arrested for using this, or get a ticket? I mean it does seem to me the same crime as parking in one of the handicapped spaces, but the room in there is great, you get those railings in case you’re sick, drunk, or handicapped; it’s a whole new world in there. I imagine the women’s room to have a similar affect on me if I was to ever walk in a “good one”[as opposed to the one I was in at Saratoga Springs, New York, which was so dirty I thought I was in the men’s room]). It was tiny nonetheless, enough room to stand, and fold down the bed which was right against the window.

Waking up in Ohio the next morning was an absurd feeling. Ohio. Who lives in Ohio? Guided By Voices. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ummmm…some other people that apparently love corn. So Ohio is pretty boring…on the train at least. I won’t ever just say a state is boring if I haven’t stepped on the soil there. Driving through Nebraska is as boring as watching ice melt, but when you get out and walk around a little, late, in the middle of a chilly, damp night you realize there’s nothing like it in the world. Nebraska.

So we arrive in Chicago, where you get to get on the double decker train. Much bigger, much more exciting. I still hadn’t seen “Jim”, but I was aware we was around. I did see him in the middle of the night actually for a couple of minutes at the bar (“why is he buying drinks with all that he has on him?”…I figured it out, he was just making his drinks even stronger, that’s apparently what you do or something when you’re a big drinker. Up the ante a little). The next time I saw him was in Denver where he was getting off. I went up to him and, knowing he was getting off for good and said:

“Hey Jim, I was looking for you the past day and a half to see if you wanted to hang out, we were supposed to be traveling together and all that…well, hopefully I’ll run into you again…have a good life”

It’s funny, all of the people I met on that first train ride it always ended with “Have a good life” What a strange departing phrase. There was no internet, well, not that I was using anyway, so there was no e-mail exchanging, and I was certainly not going to write anyone letters. I met a lot of great people. The most memorable after “Jim”, were the two old black men from Mississippi who got me drunk and told me stories about segregation, and John Lee Hooker and that kind of stuff. I have an amazing picture of one of the men reading the newspaper at dawn that I will post on here some day when I remember to scan it.

The other guy was an African fellow who was with me from Denver to San Francisco. He didn’t speak very good English, and he had a ton of money. He owned farms, had a big family, and traveled the world from time to time. Sam was his name. When we got to San Francisco, neither of us had been there before so we sort of hung out for a little while, until we got our shit together. I took a good photo of him at the San Francisco train station that I’d also like to put up here. I love meeting new people. I especially love it when I’m traveling though. You can’t really rely on small talk at all. You don’t have to make impressions though either. I like to put on an act from time to time when I meet people traveling. “Yeah, I’m a policeman in Boston” So this first trip was the first of a dozen of these, most of them small ones with friends, but I did three summers where it was two week excursions by myself that were both healthy, and bad for me at the same time. I had this a little on the first trip.

The train ride home got tedious. “Shit, Indiana again”

For subsequent summers, I will probably not be going on the same type of excursions though. There are no tours to follow around at my age. I am going to go somewhere though.. Either way, I need it again, and it can’t come any fucking sooner. That’s it, I’m going across country again.

December 9, 2011 0

Swimming Pool Lights

November whateverth, 2011

This place, the road, makes it easier at the end of the day

Nowhere to go but nowhere

Just like back home but with more mountains

Less horrible accents

“Nothing a gorgeous sunset can’t fix!”

Eight trillion amazing sunsets a week can’t cure what ails me though

“It’s fake out there” they tell me

I see how fake they are though

Every last one of them

I want to just do this every day

Wake

Drive all day

Report what I see to someone

Sleep for three hours

Wake

Drive all day

Answer to no one

They ask way too many questions

Thankfully I always know to say yes

This place right here, Las Vegas will leave you depressed, broke, horny, drunk and whatever else shitty feeling you can think of. I arrived here late in the afternoon just in time to take a couple of pictures of palm trees and blank faces. I am here on some high floor in a boring room. Harrahs. The room is big enough to hold a party though. I’m out of here soon. Wandering around hurting my feet and wasting a little money seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone here is ugly. The men all wear Ed Hardy gear and the women all wear shit that looks like chicks who like dudes in Ed Hardy stuff wear. Late at night, early in the morning like now though. This is when you see the hardcore: Whores looking for one more late night cock, the elderly looking to win yet another three hundred bucks so they can go back home and have forty-six more boring Friday night haddock dinners, and me walking around slightly dazed, tired worn down from a week of driving. I’m full of energy though. I feel like I could sleep off the few gross drinks I had and get back in the car and head right back to Massachusetts.

Walking back to my room a little while ago. A stunningly beautiful black woman catches my eye and smiles at me. I smile back. I am slightly fucked up in the brainwaves but not enough to make bad decisions. It is 4:45 AM. She approaches me

“Hey honey, what are you up to?”

“Nothing really”

“You want to hang out?”

“Do I have to spend money”

“Well of course you need to spend money to have some fun”

“Oh, yeah I’m out of money at this hour sweetheart”

“You have a good night”

“It’s fucking morning” I think to myself. The cheeseburger I just ate fifteen minutes ago is now reminding me of this. I make my way back up to my huge boring room that looks out at a fake Eiffel Tower and pass out. I like black chicks too.

The drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles is filled with douche bags and yellow dry mountains. Everything is yellow, gold and dusty. You see clouds billowing up to the sky, way off in the distance in the desert; someone driving through the middle of nowhere or a bunch of guys burying bodies all at once?

I have arrived in Los Angeles.

Early December 2011:

These late nights coming home

It’s finally quiet outside

Nothing but a few blue TV sliding glass doors

Silhouettes of palm trees

The golden swimming pool lights

What a calm scene to walk by

It lets you know where you are

I don’t even remember what New England is like

I know all the faces

All the voices of everyone I love there

Of every person I cared about

Here though

Everything goes on for miles and miles and miles

Streets, they never curve

You never have to pay attention on the surface streets

Every thought I have here

Is relative to something or someone back east

A million different mystery “hers” I’ll never tell anyone about

A million different roads traveled nobody needs to know I saw

I keep some of these travel stories to myself now

Without the energy or space to create right now

I have to keep it all to myself

I love it here

I love it there

I love the people here

I love the people there

The lights of the swimming pool at night though

They are much more inviting

More inviting than the frozen arms of snow banks everywhere you look

The lights of the swimming pool at night let me know two things

I’m home

I am far from home.

December 6, 2011 0

“What Am I Doing Here?”

note: I haven’t had time to edit or go through this much but wanted to post something as it’s been a while.

“Bon Voyage!!! Will be rad when we’re in the same time zone!” That is the message (still there) left on the wall of my Myspace page in August of 2009. Written by a girl I would eventually fall in love with. Today is October 17, 2011, a couple of weeks before I (think) I will be leaving here yet again. There won’t be any messages like that on my Facebook page or Myspace wall…or my Friendster this time though.

I’ll write more once I get into this trip a little more but anyway, traveling west again. Work didn’t work out as well as I thought it would and I rather enjoy living day to day out of bags. Right. I’m in Rochester, NY a mere 400 or so miles into this 3000 + trip. This is usually the time of the trip I am most energized even though there is the least to see around here. In the daytime, especially when it is overcast, Rochester looks like every JG Ballard story takes place here; a grey faceless city with streets that never end or go anywhere good.

So when I arrived last night I wrote:

Just before winter’s cruel frozen fingers can turn me all types of white blue gray and black I got out. Not before one brief little storm, a reminder of those six (thousand) months of winter. Wasn’t hard saying goodbye to New England again, was hard saying by to family and one friend I wish came with me. Spending a week out here alone is always a test I’m ready to pass.

Almost a week into this or what seems one and not ready to stop at all. The first half of this country is kind of boring. Its all one color and one temperature; I love it just the same but I feel like I know it enough at this point. The trip has been an interesting one so far. I think I’m making good time; although sometimes you hear people doing this trip in three or four days because they have a second driver. That sounds horrible and awful to me. Most shit people are into doing sounds horrible and awful though.

The first couple of days were non-eventful to the point where I barely even listened to music in the car. Rochester, NY and Dayton, OH were the first two cities. After that I met up with an old friend in St. Louis.

On the way to seeing Mike I stopped (as usual) in Effingham, IL, which is tucked between Indianapolis and St Louis. There is a Nike outlet store there and I needed more sneakers. The fifty or so pair in my car right now (including ones I bought here in the past and haven’t worn yet) is apparently not enough. I only ended up buying two pair. Before hitting the road I hit this fast food place called “Steak and Shake” which in retrospect is pretty disgusting. Sitting across from me is an elderly woman wearing a Frosty the Snowman sweatshirt. It is November 4^th and relatively warm outside, but I am in the middle of the country. She is sitting with who I assume is her son done up in cowboy boots and mustache and accent. The woman is eating a hot dog. The scene is pretty normal for this type of place. There is a little commotion at her table and I look up from my dry burger to witness her vomiting hot dog and what looks like Cream of Wheat from thirty-five years ago into a napkin. I end up finishing my sandwich and hitting the road. I post a condensed version of the events on Facebook and people laugh. I’m not really a funny person I just happen to witness things like this that I can report to people and then they can decide if it’s funny.

I have known Mike from the Internet for over a decade now from an old journal website we were both on just as long ago, Diaryland. I have been through St. Louis a few times and even stopped, but I never got a tour of the city like Mike gave me. He is a very smart guy, great personality and was a great host. It’s also nice to talk to someone as passionate about baseball as I am. Actually more. Also of note was the fact that the Cardinals just won their 11th World Series a week ago here. I got some pictures of the ballpark, saw some great looking neighborhoods and buildings and ate some good food. I can’t wait to go back there now.

The drive to Oklahoma City the next morning seemed short. Normally driving through Missouri feels like it takes a year. So there I am driving along the morning after staying in a place called Rolla, MO. There is a car pulled over by the side of the road and a person standing outside of it. As I get closer there is an elderly person bent over vomiting on the ground while the driver of the car stands watching. Good times in this part of the country indeed! What the hell are they eating out here?

I was going to see my ex-girlfriend of seven years and her new boyfriend and maybe stay on her couch that used to be in our living room. I ended up opting out of the invitation to stay on the couch for a motel. Seeing her and being in that city was bittersweet. We didn’t really end on a bad note but on the other hand since her and I broke up I haven’t been able to settle down anywhere or with anything. I’ve been semi-homeless since August of 2009. Her boyfriend was very nice and we had a good dinner, hung out at her place for a bit and then I went and checked into a pretty dirty motel nearby. The day before there was an earthquake in Oklahoma City, a small one. Around 11:00 PM I heard a low rumble, like something was being moved above me, this got increasingly louder and more violent until about thirty seconds of the room and ground shaking. I never realized how loud an earthquake would be. Jodie immediately texted me “did you feel that?” The earthquake the day before was smaller and this one ended up doing some small damage from what I saw on the news. So what did I do during that thirty seconds? Did I get under a doorframe like they say? No, I stayed on the bed watching King of Queens until it stopped and opened my door after. A bunch of other doors opening with accents from all over the country figuring out what they just experienced.

Leaving Oklahoma City the next morning, destined for another city nobody has heard of I felt an overwhelming sadness over me. This part of the country is real lonely feeling to me. Seeing her having a life in OKC again is great but just reminded me of how much I miss her and the good parts of our relationship at this point. Not to the point where I want to go back or anything, just that my life has kind of gone downhill since then. Taking these trips doesn’t help these types of feelings to come out. I have been listening to a lot of talk radio and podcasts on this trip in place of music to avoid too much thinking. I have to do quite a bit of thinking when I arrive in Los Angeles, why have any cares in the world now? The brief thirty-second relationships I develop on the road by myself are enough to sustain my contentment for fifteen minutes or so; the attractive waitress Bianca at the breakfast place, the guy with the appealing perfect Midwest/southern accent at the gas station, the fat kid at the hotel counter. These are all my friends this week. I haven’t talked to anyone on the phone besides my mother and one other girl from far away. The texts from good friends and comments and the like on Facebook over the week has also been great.

In Amarillo Texas I went to that place where you can order a 72 oz. steak and if you eat it in an hour it’s free. The place is like a playground for white people in Texas. I noticed one thing about Texas. Everyone from Texas looks and sounds like they are from Texas if that makes any sense. My waiter was a young man dressed up as a cowboy with a little mustache coming in and that accent. All the women working there were dressed as cowgirls which as it turns out is kind of attractive. Well, on the attractive women. On the ugly girls it just looked like some bird you would see in Walmart and ignore. I didn’t order the 72 oz steak but I did treat myself to some beer and a more food than I could eat. I watched the last few minutes of the Patriots game (I’ve been wearing a Patriots hat this whole trip). A few guys clapped when they lost. Fuck you guys, you guys live in Texas. Leaving there at dusk was nice. Driving through these flat places as the sun going down, there’s nothing like it. On this particular evening I listened to Explosions in the Sky and some 90’s music to keep me sane for a few more hours.

More late night ramblings from last night in Flagstaff, AZ:

I love that you can sneak in and out of these towns quiet like this. I am almost at the end of this trip and it feels different from all the others. I think because the idea of driving this long of a distance is such a chore and does a number on you after a few days I like it. It feels like I am still working. I still can’t believe I left that quick without a chance. Things started looking up there and then all of a sudden looked grim and horrible in the span of a week.

Today’s drive was amazing. Waking up in New Mexico is always nice especially when you arrived there at night. I did some good chunks of driving on Rt 66. It snowed for a good chunk of the drive and I had to get off before I was going to for fear of my safety. There are elk everywhere on these roads and the blinding snow was starting to become a problem. Not necessarily for me since I have driven in that stuff all my life, but who knows if these other people know what they are doing. Most of these interstates are filled with people from somewhere else.

Thoughts for the last couple of days: am I making the right decision leaving there again? I honestly feel so comfortable and okay with driving these long distances by myself I could turn this car around the second I get to Los Angeles and drive back and have no problem. Good Lord I miss my friend back home.

I have much more to go through, I’ll post later. For now, on to Vegas for my last night of the trip.

November 8, 2011 0

Adventures in Online Dating Pt. 7

“I like spending time down at the river, it’s where I can relax” Lynn told me a number of times. We planned on spending time at the river on our first date but the rain took it in a different direction all together.

I have been taking a break from dating for a little while now. Actually, this is a lie. I have gone on some dates but most of them were uneventful or worthy of writing about. It has become pretty easy to get a date at this point with women of all ages (no one younger than 30); for the most part though it has been a sad affair. It’s been sad for some of the women, and sad for me. My decidedly empty life has a little bit of meaning when I meet some of these strangers…well at least I tell myself it does.

Normally when I write these, I will change the name of the person. The fact that this woman was named Lynn though, I couldn’t change it. It fits way too well.

Lynn started writing to me a long time ago. Right around when I first started using the dating site. She lives in a part of New Hampshire that is a little too far away for me so we never exchanged anything aside from a few brief messages. She wrote me out of the blue a few months ago and we eventually exchanged phone numbers and started texting and then talking on the phone. After the first phone call we got along okay, she was very clear as I was that she wasn’t interested in anything serious, almost to the point of sounding like some sort of free loving hippie woman. Lynn lives in what I understand is a room in a friend’s house and she had car issues, often borrowing her friend’s car to drive home. Said car apparently didn’t have working headlights so if Lynn found herself out past sundown she would park the van in the lot of a Walmart and sleep there until the sun came up. Lynn is also a grandmother. A young grandmother at 43, although I believe she may have changed the age on her profile at some point as I remember her being older when we first started talking.

Speaking of talking, Lynn did quite a lot of this, and for a woman who agreed with me that I didn’t want any kind of situation where I was talking to someone on the phone or texting every day she sure was a bit talkative. I don’t want to know anyone’s schedule or what they are doing, and I certainly don’t want anyone to know what I am always doing (well, aside from my 300 + friends on Facebook). There were a few instances where she would call me and I wouldn’t pick up the phone and text me and I wouldn’t reply. I’m not going to get into small “cute” text messages with a woman I’ve never met. After my last relationship I think I am bitterly out of those for good at this point.

Lynn and I set up a date for a Saturday, and like the last time I went on a date far away in New Hampshire I got myself a room. For one thing, I’d have the luxury of spending the night in a bed. Since I have been sleeping on couches and floors for the last two and a half years this is always a highlight of my life. It’s the little things. Also it would appear that I might have been getting together with Lynn for more than just a “walk by the river”

She decided we meet at the hotel, which I was a little apprehensive about at first. Since this would be my little escape if I needed to run away. We met outside in the parking lot and she was pretty much what she looked like in pictures; short, long wavy blonde hair, thick and big tits. I’m not really a “tits guy” although I like to sometimes pretend I am when I am “out with the guys” and we are talking about women. Well when I am out with married men or men with girlfriends who seem to talk about women who they’re not in a relationship with more than us single men. Since it was raining our plan to go eat lunch and then go down by the river would change. She suggested we maybe hit up a club in the area after we eat and see some live music. Lynn doesn’t drink alcohol, and I barely do, but if I go out to a bar I might have one beer or a drink. Lynn apparently goes out at night to the bar and drinks “iced water and watches the music” Sounds fun Lynn.

She grabs a free newspaper called “The Hippo” in the lobby and we go up to the room. She mentions her cell phone is out in the car and we should use my phone to call all the venues in Manchester listed in The Hippo to see what kind of music the artists are. I tell her I have limited minutes (I don’t, I just don’t want to try and explain how to use a touch screen phone and what if a text comes in from one of my snarky friends while she is holding it?) We use the hotel room phone. She puts me in charge of the phone book and she will tell me the name of a bar, I will find the phone number, tell her and she’ll make the call. These are all the real names of bars we called and the artists performing, and pretty much exactly how she spoke to whomever picked up the phone.

First place is called Derryfield

“Hi, can you tell me what the band Phoenix is like? Oh, 90’s and classic rock covers? Okay thanks”

Now on to the Jam Factory

“Hi what is the band Cruise Control like? Oh, classic rock covers and 90’s? Okay thanks”

Mad Bob’s

“Hi can you tell me what the band Max Voltage (!!!) is like? Oh, classic rock and 90’s covers? Okay, thank you”

You get the picture…we called a few more and finally I stopped her and she stumbled upon an ad in the paper for a place called Shaskeen where a band called “Destroy Babylon” was playing. “They play reggae and dub…I’ve never heard of dub, what is that?” she asks. “It’s instrumental reggae” I tell her. The show is listed as tonight but the date is off so we assume a typo. We are going to get lunch right near this club so we will check when we get there.

We drive to downtown Manchester (in her car) and park right in front of Shaskeen where there is a sign that reads who is playing. “Toolfist” I am pretty certain Toolfist is a Tool cover band, which to me sounds like a nightmare. She apparently doesn’t believe me and still wants to go in and check. So she literally walks in and asks the bartender “Hi, what is the band Toolfist like?” I was correct.

We decide on Chinese food right next to the bar. She has been here before and tells me they have a fried-rice here that doesn’t have soy sauce in it. It’s white, but has the same vegetables and meat a generic Chinese fried-rice would have. I find it on the menu and when it comes time to order the food Lynn has a brief uncomfortable exchange with the waitress who can barely speak English

“We would like that fried rice that doesn’t have soy sauce in it, it’s that white one”

“Yes, white house rice special?”

“I don’t know, is that the one that doesn’t have soy sauce in it”

“Yes”

“Do you mean yes that is the name of it or yes I am right that it doesn’t have soy sauce in it?”

I pull the menu out and point to the “white house rice special”

Over lunch Lynn starts talking about her life and her son. I remember her telling me she had a son and a grandchild but that was it. She lets me know her son is in federal prison serving ten years and she takes care of his daughter from time to time but the mother may move away from the area and then her eyes start getting watery. Are we really going to start crying into the white house rice special or what? At some point she tells me, she may have to take a phone call from him so she can read him some docket over the phone so he can assure people in this jail he is not a rat. I can’t make this shit up. She never tells me what he is in jail for.

Once we finish I half joke how I could use a nap. For all I know this could be me being passive aggressive about sex, but I would never admit that here. It is early though, and these clubs all don’t start having live music until 9:30 or so. I really want to make sure I am fully rested before Cruise Control or Max Voltage takes the stage.

We arrive back at the hotel and her phone rings just as we are pulling in and I can hear the recording “You have a call from a federal prison….” I give her the second key card to the hotel room and make my way upstairs. She comes up about a half hour later, says nothing about the phone call and I am already on the bed getting pretty tired. Now normally I wouldn’t write anything this personal in this blog, especially as I don’t want people to think I sleep with random women all the time. But again, I can’t make this shit up.

So Lynn joins me on the bed and we start fooling around. It’s at this point when I realize she isn’t as attractive as I initially thought so I am a little apprehensive about ummm, “stuff” She takes her top and bra off and after a minute or so tells me “that one had pre-breast cancer in it so there might be a scar there you can see” Now I definitely would never make light of cancer, especially where I know so many people who have been affected by it but really. Don’t talk about cancer when we’re about to start doing some shit in bed. This pretty much turned me off, but not as much as what would come next.

I’m not going to lie and say I would never have sex with someone on a first date. There are lots of people who do this every day. To me it’s no big deal really, especially if it’s agreed that you’re not doing anything serious relationship-wise. So Lynn mentions she has a condom in her bag. She gets up to get it and casually says “You don’t mind having sex with me while I am on my period do you?” That Price is Right music when someone loses goes off in my head.

“Um, yeah I don’t think so”

“Oh okay, I figured I’d ask as some guys are okay with it”

Yeah, not guys who have the hotel room on their credit card and want to leave the room looking like a crime scene. It would appear Lynn was kind of a disgusting person. So this pretty much brings everything to a screeching halt and she puts her clothes on and says she is going to go out to her car and get a book so she can read while I take a nap. This is at 6:30. The next thing I know it is 7:45 and Lynn is still not back. And she has a key to this room. I assume she left for good. I clearly don’t want her to come back. The 90’s and classic rock cover bands can wait. I venture outside and notice her car is gone so I send her a text message

“So did you leave?”

I go back in the room and tell the clerk at the desk I may have dropped the second key outside with the envelope with the room number on it so he gives me a new card. About an hour later I get a response “I thought you were going to sleep longer. I’ll be back in a little bit”

I reply

“Don’t bother, I’m going to sleep”

She replies

“K, goodnite” and that is the last I heard from Lynn.

At this point I am going to put dating on hold. I have a number of other things going on right now that are preventing me from giving someone attention, even if it’s someone I am only half interested in. As much as I like to think I am cynical about these experiences, and think I have no room in my life for a real relationship it’s obvious this isn’t the place to find that. All of my best relationships have been by accident, or something that grew out of a friendship and that kind of thing. The closest friends in my life right now are all women. Either platonic friends or ex-girlfriends I have remained friends with. They all know me well and I know them well and sometimes having them in my life fulfills that need to spend time with a girl. What can I say, I enjoy spending time with women, whether it’s on a deep emotional level or some shallow empty one night affair in the middle of New Hampshire. Live free or die.

October 4, 2011 1

Adventures in Online Dating Pt. 6

A couple of Saturday’s ago, as usual sitting around waiting for something to happen I get an alert on my phone that I have a new message on the dating website. I had slowed down all dating activity for the most part. The message turns out to be from “Donna”. The first woman I went out with on this site, which turned out to be a nightmare. I received a number of messages from her over the couple of months since that date. I ignored every single one of them. Most of them just said “hi”, while some read: “Why are you ignoring me?”, etc. She finally stopped for about a month and then I get a two word message from her that just says “YOU SUCK”. I’m not really a mean person, but sometimes I have to be I guess. This is how the rest of the exchange went:

“Wow, thanks”

“WELL U DO”

“Look, it didn’t work out after that one date and I moved on. Sorry if that was wrong of me”

“OK then”

“So Donna, have you had any luck on here since our date? I haven’t”

“Well that’s UR Problem NOT MINE”

“Good luck being a drunk, lonely older woman forever Donna”

And then I blocked her.

For the most part this online dating thing is working. I have gone on dates. Most of them have been less than one time deals. It’s getting a bit exhausting at this point really. There’s only so much talking about yourself you can do, only so much listening to someone else talk or write about themselves you can take. Some of the messages out of the blue I get are painful. I feel like I have become shallower than ever. I like to think I am meeting people for practice, or because of some eventual time when I meet someone I really like I’ll suddenly be “ready”. What it all boils down to is I’m bored. I like hanging around with women more than men and, well I’m bored. I am not in any place to be in a relationship with someone. I most likely never will be. Even writing to women on there, after a few days you start writing each other more frequently and then start to know each other’s schedules and that kind of thing. I don’t want anything to do with that. It’s nice to share certain experiences in life with people, and obviously it’s nice to get laid, but really, I’d rather just be doing my own thing without having to “check in” or wonder where some girl I call my girlfriend/wife is. That sounds horrible to me at this point. Okay before I get too serious here…

I started talking to Jill on the dating website right when I started using it. It was really hard to talk to her as she would send these one-sentence responses to me and couldn’t keep a conversation going. I kind of forgot about her and then noticed her online one night and sent her a message asking how her search was going. Asking this seems like something everyone asks each other there. Usually when I ask someone I am trying to gauge how bitter she might be at that certain time. If they are really at the end of their rope it’s going to be harder to get a date. From what most women on there tell me, and from what most women I know in real life tell me, men are idiots. They have no idea how to talk to women, they say disgusting things right off the bat, assume women love photos of penises, etc. I never do this, and I’ve never sent a photograph of my penis to anyone via my phone…that didn’t ask me to. I have to say trying to photograph your penis with an iPhone in your mother’s bathroom at 5:35 AM is a skill every man should learn at some point. This is what I have heard anyway. I’m not some sort of gigolo with “THE PUSSY WHISPERER” airbrushed on the back of my Chevy or anything, but I like to think I can talk to women and generally am interested in things they have to say…well as long as they aren’t playing the “do I look fat?” game.

So Jill and I start talking and she is now more talkative, and admits that she is “shy at first” We exchange phone numbers and text for a few days straight. At one point, after a week I see on my phone I have a missed call from her. This is followed up by a text message. “Sorry, I accidentally called your phone! LOL” I guess we are at a text only situation. A few days later I suggest talking on the phone and through some miscommunication I assume she doesn’t want to talk on the phone. We continue texting for another week. In the meantime a new woman starts talking to me, also named Jill. At one point she gives me her phone number. I have no idea what either of their last names are but don’t want to put “JILL 1”, “JILL 2” as the contact names. I end up just putting “Jill” for the first “text only” Jill and leave the other one blank. In a year from now I will most likely have no idea who either of these two women are so what the fuck does it matter really? Finally the first Jill and I speak on the phone and arrange a date. Well, to hang out.

Jill lives in New Hampshire, about an hour from me. She lives with her son (11) and her brother (38), while he “gets back on his feet” The father of the son is homeless and has one leg. When I tell my friend about this a couple of weeks prior she tells me to “run away”.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I ask her

I am going to head up to her place on a Friday night and hang with her and her brother and the woman he met on the very same dating website. Oh yeah. So when Jill and I started talking she mentioned her brother seeing this woman he met from the same website. She showed this woman a picture of me from the dating site and she claimed I wrote her. When I arrive at their house, low and behold I recognize her as a woman I sent a message to.

I make plans to hang with the other Jill on Sunday afternoon. When I pull get off the exit to go to the first Jill’s place I note there are two towns listed on the sign that I am heading to. One is where Jill lives, and the other one is where the other Jill lives. I have to come back here Sunday.

The house they live in is a two family house with a huge yard. When I pull into the driveway I am immediately confused as to where Jill is. She ends up looking a little different than her pictures, but not much. Also, I have recently as of this summer realized I might need glasses so that might have had something to do with that as well. She greets me, and there is a younger skinny girl (upstairs neighbor) standing there, a guy (brother Billy) sitting on the porch with his date (Brenda). There is also a little Chihuahua running around and a little boy (the son) off in the distance. Everyone is smoking aside from the child and the Chihuahua. It seems as if for the remainder of the night there is always at least two cigarettes burning. Jill introduces me to them and then immediately mentions “See that’s Brenda who you wrote to”. I make eye contact with the brother and now I’m pretty uncomfortable. The brother is a normal looking New England type guy. He is wearing a New England Patriots shirt, has a goatee and is just New Hampshirey. He turns out to be a pretty nice guy. They are all really nice people.

We sit around a fire pit. Jill to my left, her brother to my right, Brenda to his right and the neighbor comes and goes throughout the night. Her boyfriend arrives at one point and he is an okay New Hampshirey guy as well. While sitting by the fire a radio plays a classic rock station that is playing some of my favorite music, and of course Billy has to call out the band every time a song comes on. I only correct him twice. He is wrong five times.

For whatever reason, I quiet myself into a personality that must have left little to be desired. I think we had talked about everything we could talk about those few weeks getting to know each other before meeting. This was the end result. Two people sitting there barely talking to each other with other people around to make it a little easier. Obviously everyone there must have noticed. I had three cans of Budweiser over the five or six hours I ended up hanging out. At one point while putting my beer can down in the tall grass to the left of my seat I secretly dumped out half of the beer on the ground. I don’t really like beer or alcohol that much so it’s usually a chore to get through a second beer, and a third one, forget it. I didn’t want to look like a pussy that doesn’t finish his beers.

Once they grew tired of some of the deeper cuts on the radio a laptop was brought out and we listened to some Pandora stations. I then learned that one of Jill’s favorite bands is Matchbox 20. I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard Matchbox 20. I mean I am sure I have but according to my friends on Facebook I am supposed to not like them or Nickelback, another band I’ve never actually heard. Thankfully the band names are so awful that I already just don’t like these bands on that alone. So we’re listening to some truly awful music I’ve only heard of. Shinedown. Disturbed. The Sick Puppies. There is apparently a band called the Sick Puppies and it’s not a punk rock band from 1981. “You like rock music and you’ve never heard of the Sick Puppies?” Jill asks me. I shrug. And then Kid Rock comes on.

An hour later as I am pulling into my driveway a little shy of 5:00 AM I get a text from her “You could have given me a longer kiss than that”. She is referring to the peck I gave her five minutes after the Kid Rock song ended.

“Oh we hit it off?” I thought to myself.

Later that afternoon I call the other Jill on the phone and cancel our Sunday date. I need some time to myself on a Sunday. That’s what Sundays have always been: for me and that’s how I want them to continue to be.

August 9, 2011 1

Pick Up Lines – A to Z

a) At Lynch Park we sat and drank wine coolers, and I think you threw up. At that age, it was easy to throw up. If you throw up from wine coolers nowadays, you’re considered a pussy.

b) We got this woman fired one day. She was out of line, and out of hand, so we had her fired. I am a fucking pussy, but I looked her right in the eye and said to her, well I said some shit that you normally wouldn’t say. I fucking told her some shit.

c) Annette Funicello walks into my fantasy and asks where the nearest Starbucks is. I tell her I loved her in “that one you did with the black guy and Don Rickles”

d) Children, being eaten by a gigantic woman with no eyes.

e) Imagine beating someone to death while wearing one of those tuxedo t-shirts?

f) “Wow that woman looks like one of my daughter’s friends, but if she was on Xanax”

g) He was so scared of her, he asked her best friend to dance to the Bob Seger song instead.

h) She got a text message that just read “Sheila needs tht $40 u owe her”

i) On Friday nights she would cry Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavored tears into her lonely bowl of lentil soup.

j) He would always give her the parsley off his plate. Three years later she jumped out of a window and landed on a white BMW with the license plate “SPOYLED”

k) “That might have been the best harmonica solo I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’m only twenty”

l) He would tell me war stories about how drunk he was this one time, who he fucked, how awesome life was. He never told me if my sister was still alive.

m) He bought a drink for her and her friend. When he got home that night he did crossword puzzles into the next morning.

n) “Hi Candice, did I happen to leave my dignity in your car last night?”

o) The first time you heard Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC

p) The guy in the Hawaiian shirt just showed up and apparently is ready to “fuck anything with two legs”

q) The guitar solo from “Hold on Loosely” by .38 Special

r) Oh man we ate some serious pussy back then. Then of course Craig had to move away.

s) “Did you used to work at Panera Bread?”

t) Side three of The Song Remains the Same soundtrack

u) “She practically invented abortions”

v) Adolf Hitler, completely covered in blood, feathers and smashed up little shards of Sarah Palin’s copy of Morrison Hotel on CD.

w) “Oh hey man…no, it’s Mike”

x) “I heard you knew a lot about music”

y) The first time I was truly scared it wasn’t going to work out between us is when we had that fight over soup in that Mexican restaurant in LA

z) “Oh”

July 31, 2011 0

Missing New England

(Note: While living in Southern California I fell for that tired cliche “I miss the seasons of New England” I would often write little blurbs about the seasons. As with all photos on this blog, I took them.)

“Spring”

I stepped out on the porch with a mouth full of beaches, and a head full of air and water. I made my way down the stairs. The ground felt a tad bit different, the soil was hard, yet it was early spring. I wonder sometimes where these moments of clarity come from. I wondered out loud, but the folks around me didn’t get it. They kick dirt around me, and make certain noises that one doesn’t normally hear. Stabbing motion to my back, yet I don’t even know you. What’s with that anyway? If I had had my real, true escape vehicles, my guitar, my typewriter, I would have created something. Instead, I destroyed. I turned myself into a baby boy. No diaper can hold the crap that comes out of me unfortunately.

“Summer”

I just got in from a day of pinball and coffee. I love the old video games and the pinball machines. I sneak around and spend a quarter here, spend a quarter there. I don’t win no gifts for girls. I ain’t carryin’ around no stinking big stuffed animals. I’m playing, it’s just me. ice cream soda and little kids biting at my ankles with their screams and fangs. I haven’t been down the road in a long time. I haven’t taken this route in so long. I like this route here. I like how this winds around and get’s me to where I think I need to be. Poetry and horrible letters are no longer needed, poetry and flowers and jackets across puddles. Karaoke on Friday night get’s canceled for a random trip to the moon. John Holmes and every teenage weed dealer I’ve ever known driving a station wagon to the ocean for conversation about ecstasy and Mick Jagger lips. Rug burn from sitting on the floor statuesque for far too long through scary movies and rock videos. Park the car by the side of the road, park it across the street so no one sees us. They all start rumors, they all fill themselves with lies about the moon and lies about the way my car runs. The motor runs great, it needs a tune up, it needs to take different drives, silently through beaches and neon lit strips of Elvis Presley videos. Like a man not even with himself anymore. Like a ninja. Like someone in the deep blue sea swimming. I don’t know, sort of like if you took one part reality and one part whatever you feel you need to think you would sort of feel this like this.

“Autumn”

The streets of downtown are covered with sausage wrappers and dried up footsteps. Footsteps soaked in whiskey and bad breath from the night before. Not deep footprints, as the people walking were weak. Looking for some sort of escape from the norm. They wanted a Sunday afternoon of headaches and vomit. They wanted to miss the snow I saw at seven this morning. They wanted to miss the cool brisk air this morning I felt standing on the porch watching the beauty of autumn with bloodless eyeballs. Like a shot in the arm the autumn is. It’s like a wake up call. All the fools come out to celebrate something they don’t really understand in the first place. Maybe catch a glimpse of a woman flying around on a broom or something cool like that. Maybe the front bumper of my car will catch their khakis. Maybe their tan khakis will be stained with blood by the end of the week. Maybe their stomachs will have to be pumped. Maybe this afternoon’s melancholy mood will force them all to see the beauty of a clear eyeball on a Sunday morning. The sky looks so great in the morning when your head is on straight, and there is not a drop of blood in your eyes. Your teeth are clean. The autumn feels good to me right now, cold and sort of lonely. Content. This sort of calm confidence one gets from time to time. This sort of feeling that comes around once a year. You know it. The unknown. Fear of the unknown. What’s going to happen to me this winter? You ask yourself that every year around this time. It’s always a different answer for everyone though.

“Winter”

(the heat in that car would be up so high our wet crunchy salt covered shoes would turn into little ovens covering our feet. Filthy floor mats in my car covered in little puddles with ice cubes in them like little spilled mixed drinks. Remember how many times I had my heart and brain destroyed by whatever haircut in a nice pair of shoes I was carting around New England staring at bare trees and salty sidewalks. Out here in sunny California, we don’t wear shoes in the car man and we say shit like “it’s all good man, don’t worry about it”)

July 25, 2011 0

Adventures in Online Dating Pt. 5

Somehow I got myself into a situation where a woman was sitting across from me telling me about how her Halfling character killed some beast with one eye with an enchanted crossbow (that was also flaming). I can explain.

I recently stopped using the dating site I was using as I was hanging out with a nice young lady I met on there for a little bit. I briefly mentioned her after my second one as she wrote me the morning after that date. Of course I managed to fuck that up but I’m not going to talk about that. I’m an idiot like that.

I was still getting messages from “the Kid Rock lady” as recent as last week. Just weekly one word e-mails “Hi”, etc. and then I got an e-mail from a woman named Jessica. She apparently liked my profile and when I went to check hers out it mentioned she played Dungeons and Dragons. It didn’t even matter what she looked like, I obviously had to meet her.

I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons anymore, especially since I discovered orgasms and I don’t know, eating. I have two Dungeons and Dragons stories. The first one involves me breaking the law. In Dungeons and Dragons there is a person named the Dungeon Master, or “DM” (check my profile pic). He pretty much controls everything in the game aside from what the players do. He maps out the adventure for you and is responsible for keeping the game interesting and challenging. A good DM should obviously be smart and have a good imagination. The DM my friends and I first used was an older boy named Andrew. He lived two doors down from me and was the ultimate nerd. Granted I was playing Dungeons and Dragons, I still kept my hair long and feathered, and my heavy metal t-shirts nice and tight on my little chubby self. This was 1983. I was in between heavy metal and punk rock, I was 14 years old, confused, covered in acne and had an active imagination. D & D was right up my alley. Andrew though, he was just a nerd. Math team, glasses that made him uglier, greasy hair, probably making millions of dollars now doing something amazing while I go on shallow dates with women, you know. So Andrew was our DM and he always had particularly hard dungeons he set up. At one point in the middle of a month long “campaign” he went away to New Hampshire with his family. My friend and I decided it would be a good idea to break into Andrew’s house so we could find the maps. Of course after spending a few scared moments rifling through his room we realized he probably took them with him and left.

My second Dungeons and Dragons story involves a stripper. We had another DM named Chris. Chris was this big dude, tall and fat, big white dude afro. He was also older than us, not as good as Andrew was, but he was okay. At one point when he turned 18 and we were all still 16 or so his brother held a birthday party for him. He hired a stripper. So in the basement of Chris’ parents house was a group of six or seven of probably the nerdiest looking kids you’ve ever seen in your life, and a stripper. I had a girlfriend at the time, but was still awkward around women and I can only imagine what this scenario was like. I wish there was a video of this as it may be the saddest video you could ever see, like sadder than watching a video of an old woman falling down and breaking her hip.

Those are my two biggest memories of Dungeons and Dragons. I recently bought a bunch of the old books again just to see them thinking I might get back into it at some point. Yeah right.

I replied to this woman and mentioned to her how I used to play Dungeons and Dragons too! I just didn’t mention it was when Ronald Reagan was president. She wrote me back three minutes later telling me about her character in the game and we ended up chatting back and forth for most of the day. She suggested we meet sooner than later, like that night. She seemed a little more normal than my first date; we decided to meet at a Barnes and Noble in between where she lives and I live.

Again, on the Internet and dating sites in general, the photos people post are (obviously) the best possible pictures they can find. Sometimes the pictures posted are jaw dropping. A faded photo where a woman has teased hair and stone-washed jeans…and a beeper, sideways photos, photos of pets, children, landscapes from trips they took, etc. I understand people are insecure and want to look their best or hide but come on, try a little harder maybe. Jessica had two photos up and neither really told much of a story. I certainly was not talking to her because of her looks. I wanted to meet a woman who played Dungeons and Dragons! Even when I played as a teenager there were never any girls playing so this seemed like a good idea. Also, I was kind of bored and was having a low self esteem day.

We met outside the store and she went to shake my hand and I gave her a sort of half-hug thing that was awkward and weird right off the bat. My first thought upon seeing her in person was “yeah I would never have sex with this person”. She looked like someone but I couldn’t place who it was. This bugged me for the majority of the “date”…well, until I figured it out.

Jessica was a little pushy. She had a personality that I don’t think I would be able to hang with at all. We sat in the coffee shop at the bookstore and talked for a few hours. She was another person who didn’t get the music part of my profile. Maybe I should just write that I am extremely hip and a music snob on there. Then I wouldn’t have to have these kinds of exchanges with anyone:

“I saw Alter Bridge in concert and they were amazing!”

“Oh yeah, I bet”

“Yeah, Mark Tremonti is great”

“Oh yeah, Mark is fuckin’ sick” I replied

I have no idea who Mark Tremonti is. Well, now I do because I had to Google “Alter Bridge” so I could remember his name. As it turns out Mark Tremonti is a founding member of Creed! Wow, that is one thing I never wanted to know. I knew there was a guy named Scott Stapp that sang for Creed and that was it. I’ve never heard them and was trying to never hear them or know nothing about them aside from that guy’s name and there was a connection to Christian rock. I wonder if when I die I will get the time back I spent having that conversation with her about Alter Bridge (it went on a little longer. Apparently the singer can “really sing” and she got a thumb drive shaped like a guitar with a recording of the concert on it), the time I looked up information to get Mark Tremonti’s name and now writing this. I bet Mark Tremonti would know.

She then wanted to check out my tattoos, so after seeing the (two) dragons, wizard, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and various other dude bullshit I have on my arms she points one out.

“What’s that one?”

“The Mexican God of Death”

“No it isn’t, it’s Achmed the Dead Terrorist” she says in a horribly executed Middle Eastern accent

“What?”

“Jeff Dunham’s puppet, you know”

“Oh yeah, that guy”

“It’s Achmed the Dead Terrorist”

“No, it’s the Mexican God of Death”

“And look he’s sitting there with his arms crossed like a rapper…like Eminem!”

“Well, he is usually perched on top of you know, like a pillar”

“Or like one of those Aztec temple things that look like pyramids”

“Sure”

(help?)

I’ve never seen any of this Jeff Dunham person’s stand up, but I know the audience he caters to and a good friend of mine who generally has great taste in stuff completely despises him so I just assume he is awful. I can still hear her and her voice saying “ACHMED THE DEAD TERRORIST!” and it’s very upsetting to me. Not as upsetting as whom I finally realized the woman reminded me of physically: PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN. While sitting there, maybe an hour or so into hanging out it came to me and I have to say it sealed my decision to most likely not have a second date with her. Even if she had turned out to know all sorts of things about John Coltrane and been into Mick Taylor era Rolling Stones the Philip Seymour Hoffman thing was now in my head and it wouldn’t go away.

While this was a public date and I didn’t get to survey one of those depressing lonely apartments, she pretty much turned me off personality-wise and I can just assume her apartment is filled with stacks of horrible books on dragons and the smell of lonely. On our way out of the store she stopped us and kissed me on the lips for a second. A half hour later she texted me “I could get used to that kiss”. I didn’t reply and haven’t heard from her since.

July 22, 2011 0

caffeineandcookies

Bad choices made, constantly

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