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[Sunday, March 23, 2008]
I always thought certain things on TV weren’t true. I’ve seen a ton of television shows with the starving artist type, a writer fresh out of a divorce or something especially hurtful a lot of people can relate to. On screen we see the writer, hair frazzled, dressed in dirty clothes drinking from a bottle. In this drunken state, the writer types away, hitting the high notes on incredible prose. I never usually believed these portrayals, because of course, the guy is an actor. The liquid in the bottle is probably apple juice, and the prose was written by a real writer locked up in a tiny apartment somewhere with a few vials of coke, a few red bulls and some imported ass. I didn’t really believe those portrayals really, but last night it hit home.
In the blog I wrote before this, I can’t believe how honestly I wrote about such a sensitive issue as it related to my ex-girlfriends. I had a lot to drink, (as any well to do birthday boy would ) and honestly, the way the blog was written surprised me. It sounded a bit prophetic, amazingly reflective and serious.
So maybe these portrayals aren’t a crock of -ish. Maybe sometimes you need to be in a odd state of shock, or be dulled into a state of creative bliss with alcohol. Who knows. After reading the blog, I realize that I didn’t write the blog feeling pained up, or even filled with regret. Mind you, I woke up the next day, challenged a little bit with those memories from the past that any Ex generates. Sexual longing, little moments of laughter watching a movie. The quiet drives to nowhere.
At the very least, I’m glad I write my thoughts down in a way that others can see, and that I can relate to. There are moods I’ve been in that I can never imagine a few months later, but when I read what I wrote about it, I’m like “Damn dude, what the hell was going on?”
I like the portrayal of a writer as a sort of crazy, semi-drugged up guy with a seemingly endless well of passion within him or herself. I’ve been there, writing for so long I don’t’ eat. I’ve gone to bars and stood mute for hours, watching social interactions to get better descriptive techniques in my mind. Writing is crazy. It is nonsensical. I know now why not everyone does it.
This has been my birthday weekend, and its been VERY crazy in some ways. One day, in a tell all book, I might give a few tidbits, but its the usual cocktail ladies and gents. Alcohol, Women and Drugs, as predicted.
But i’m a writer, and I’ve decide to put a snippet of what i’m writing here. Like I said, one day the full details might surface, or they may not. Anyone who requests more, I’ll e-mail them the rest of what I have. [En-Joy]
HOTEL PARTY – PART DEUX – THE SNIPPET : -0
March 20th, 2008. 10:50 p.m
I spend the next hour or so talking to a cute girl from Boston. She’s leaving the next day, and I toy with the idea of trying to make out with her near the bathrooms but I toss it aside.
There is a bartender at the restaurant I’ve always wanted to hook up with, this gorgeous brunette that reminds me of a young Winona Ryder.
The crowd is a mixture of middle-eastern looking folk and capitol hill types. I hang with two girls for a while, Billie and Jordan. Billie is celebrating her birthday as well, and Jordan is one of her closest friends. I make small talk and snap a few pictures with my digital SLR.
I’m waiting on Amy to call me. After breaking open my emotional dam to Jen, I’m dying to see her. Her words gave me the final bit of strength in what I had to say. I was happy to be a priority for her tonight.
I end up being wrong.
Its almost 2 a.m and I realize I’m not going to get the call. I text her to see whats up, and she tells me she don’t think she’ll make it. My heart sinks to the floor. I can’t believe it, because I really needed the buttress of seeing her. I wanted a kiss, or a hug. I wanted to just see her and smile. That is all I would have needed.
Patrick comes over and rests a massive paw on my shoulder.
“We are heading out in ten minutes. Did you drive here? “ he says.
“No, I walked.”
“Okay. You can ride with us.” He says.
With that, it was confirmed. I was going to the drug party.
Bzzzzt.
Yoshi is hopping up and down in a strange way. “ I have to pee pee.” He says with a chuckle. I laugh. Patrick’s girlfriend hops out to grab some water from the seven eleven. Two other guys go to find their car to get parking. As we walk inside the hotel, I swear I can hear the a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack play in my head. The atmosphere was a hybridization of the 70’s era, laid to the back drop of contemporary interior decorating. The hotel has a lime green décor, and the walls are dotted with amateurish pictures of non-famous people. The place is clean and very hip. This is definitely a place do have an after party.
The room is great. I notice a few books laying by a wall that is covered in mirrors. A large tv-set attached to a swivel is facing the group. A small table in the left corner of the room is filled with DVDs, bottles of water and small snacks. We all file in and I slump to the floor. It’s a bunch of guys and one girl, but the vibe is cool. I’ve done this before, the party-hard then party-harder and get fucked up vibe. Everyone sits in a semi-circle of sorts, staring at nothing. A few of Patrick’s friends have this look in their eyes, a glazed looked that suggests a longing for something. It is a manifestation of group think, the leader and alpha male providing for his flock. Soon it happens.
[ end of snippet ]
Cheers.
I’m fresh from a party at the Japanese house.
The Japanese house is a place i’ve been partying at for a few years. Two fellows I know celebrated their birthdays. Twenty-seven and Twenty-eight respectively. I always enjoyed these parties. Over the years i’ve come to associate a certain feeling with the house; its smells, the people and the random circumstances that happen. Tonight, I ran into my ex-girlfriend Yuko.
My story with Yuko is like many stories of “weird love”. Yuko was Japanese, and my family had a grand time asking about her. My mother would always call her “yako” or “yuka” but never “yuko”. I would always have to explain to family members her name, and explain that she wasn’t chinese, but Japanese.
The funny thing about my relationship with Yuko, was that it was built on a foundation of intense emotion. She was reeling from the ravages of a bad former relationship and I was just ready to be with someone qualified. We played video games in her apartment, ate late night dinners at many restaurants and talked each other to sleep late at night. In the christmas of 2004, I went home for a two week vacation. When I went to the airport, she dropped me there, in her very comfortable Jetta. I gave her a warm kiss on the lips. “I’ll see you in two weeks.” I said.
This was not to be.
When I returned to the states, Yuko wasn’t there. It would be a full nine months before she came back to the U.S. During that time, I saw my grandfather die, and one of my best friends killed himself. When Yuko, finally returned in August of 2005, she didn’t want to hear from me, or talk to me. It had to do with a brief liason I had with a girl she might have met, but I’ll never know. It didn’t matter.
This was the weekend of Exes. On Thursday I spent time with another ex of mine, and it was an interesting affair. When you are around a person you love, who treats you like a friend, its like walking into a maze knowing you will get lost. The lips that touched your body are now afraid to even say certain things to you. The hands that caressed you early in the morning are afraid to touch you, and even words and gestures are limited. Its like being a pariah of sorts, a leper even. It is like the very things that made you close are the same things that keep you apart. Normal behaviour is awkward, in a way that people who aren’t familiar with each other are. It is sad. A regression into a stilted form of communicaiton, a less friendly, less loving mode of operation.
At my friend’s birthday party at the Japanese house, I was surprised to see Yuko. Her hair was different. It was a brown color.
“I did it just before I went to Paris.” she said.
I talked to her when I was buzzed, and the alcohol betrayed me. I spoke about things I had been doing over the last two years since we spoke, and for a while it seemed like she actually wanted to speak to me. “We should hang out sometime.” I said. She nodded, and then when I told her I didn’t have her number, she told me to e-mail her. That was a sign that it made no sense.
My other ex, who I saw on Thursday wasn’t in the same boat, but it was almost the same thing. We took pictures and it was almost uncomfortable for her to put her hand around my waist. Weird indeed. This hand that I had kissed so many times, held on so many walks, and felt touch me so many times. This hand could barely touch me.
Whenever I spoke to her, certain expressions were stilted and certain things were never said. It is the conundrum of loving someone when they can’t reciprocate. It is the ultimate representation of unrequited anythings.
It doesn’t bother me that Yuko doesnt’ want to see me. I haven’t seen or spoken to her in almost three years. Whatever love or affections I had for her have dissipated into that place where my dead grandfather rests, and where the soul of one of my best friends lies. One can’t help but remember how a person loves you.
You remember holding their hands as you walk down a nameless street, feeling blissful in each other’s company. You kiss and talk about random things while eating dinner in a nameless cafe. You make love looking into each other’s eyes, forgetting the world as your bodies caress each other.
These are the things that immediately spring into your mind when you see an ex. Does she think about the same things? I dont’ know. It doesn’t really matter. What is done is done. The past is the past.
Whatever love I have for someone will always remain within me, but I will never try to force their hand. I won’t make petulant requests for their company, nor will I try to prove myself in some extreme manner. Rather, I will hold on to the notion that I was loved and that I was appreciated at some point in time. That means that in the future, someone else can love me and be affectionate towards me.
I’m twenty-six years old, and I’m still growing up. Fate itself seems to be teaching me a lesson, putting two girls I love a few feet in front of me, almost teasing me and taunting me. It is as if fate is saying that I am looking at the past, an unrealized ideal that I cannot comprehend, and old situation that has beauty within that I can no longer touch, or sense. Fate is telling me thatI had something wonderful, but now, I have no more.
The party was fine, with a mixture of drinks, interesting people and good music. But what am I left with after this weekend? A dull rememberance of the beauty of my past? Or am I looking forward to the unseen riches of the future?
I don’t know.
I can’t forget the girls i’ve loved, or the reasons why. When Yuko dissappeard for nine months, the last thing I remember her telling me was that doctors found a microscopic cancer cell in her uterus. I was stressed out for months worrying about her, then I gave up. I had to let go.
With my other ex, I realized I loved her in a way that made me feel almost crippled. I wanted to hear her laugh, I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to smell and touch her. I didn’t need her to tell me anything. Just seeing her was enough. Hearing her voice talk to me was more meaningful than any massage, or any kiss. But she wasn’t there. She was far away, thousands of miles away.
So what have I learned?
I’ve learned that you don’t always get what you want. You don’t always understand the meanings behind what life throws at you. But at least you know that you loved, you lived, you existed. Whether or not your ex doesn’t have it in her to kiss you anymore, or she can’t stomach spending time with you because of a slew of reasons she created, it doesn’t matter. I hold within myself the knowledge that I have loved, I have given, I have lived.
In the end, that’s probably all there is, isn’t it?
Twenty-six and counting. Cheers to a wonderful life.
SUNDAY 11:45 P.M
I’m in the middle of a Kitchen in Mount pleasant, and four people are touching my head.
“I love your hair.” My friend says. She is an adorable Serbian, with classic dark European features; almost six feet of height, dark hair and sharp eyes. A few other people are touching my hair as well, including a moody guy named Peter, and a quiet Asian-American named Rebecca. The hair touching exercise came from a height comparison between myself and Peter.
“We are both almost six two right?” he says.
“Well, I have on these sneakers,” I say. “They push me up to about six two and a half, but I’m really six one.”
I had been drinking a lot of wine, so I can’t remember why everyone started touching my hair. They said it was cool, and the attention was interesting. I was at a dinner party.
During the night, our conversation was interesting. It floated between talking about breaking paradigms of thinking, the discourses of our failing social system, mother-love complexes and being attacked by wild animals.
This weekend has been interesting, as many of my weekends have been. I went to a 90’s dance party on Saturday night that had a high ratio of women and gay men. So high in fact, that many of the girls were dancing with themselves, amped up on brownies, mixed drinks and the sound of La Bouche blazing through the airwaves.
SATURDAY >:
It seems at these parties I always meet a very tall, very attractive woman. Last week, I met a statuesque Serbian girl ( a different Serbian ) who looked like she used to model. She went to American University and habit of punching me as I spoke to her. Tonight, it was a girl form Minnesota who looked straight out of an Italian Vogue catalogue. She was at least 5’10, with dark olive skin, jet black hair and those large eyes that make you think of porcelain dolls, or 1960’s European movies.
I found it funny that she referred to many of the patrons at the part as “white people”. I laughed to myself whenever she said this. “White people eh?” I replied. “I have identity issues.” She told me.
During the night, in between drinking a little too much, scarfing down brownies and dodging the advances of a drunk and very gay Latino guy, we salsa danced and talked about her job in IT. I found her fascinating. Probably because she was the hottest nerd I’ve ever met. Take a prototypical model-chick. Put her in an IT job, and you had Kristen.
At the party I saw a classmate of mine I hadn’t seen in at least 10 years, who was now married to a tall white guy from the Bahamas. They were an adorable couple. During the night I realized I had been drinking too much because I kept talking about myself being a writer to everyone.
Writers hate talking about being a writer. We just like to write and hope people appreciate it.
Nothing crazy happened. I met a girl named Virinda who goes to George Mason University who immediately told me that her friends said she dates too many guys. “I’m not a whore she says.”
“I believe you.” I reply.
In reality, I didn’t believe anything. I was more than tipsy and there was this cute girl sitting on a couch by herself. Her dating numerous guys was actually a plus. Later in the night I would see her gay friend dancing in what can be described as “nasty” with her.
There were a few good moments. I was upstairs waiting on someone to exit the bathroom and I suddenly heard “Marcus! Marcus!” echo from downstairs. A La Bouche song was playing and it was my Jam. I ran into a throng of girls, all screaming as I appeared. That was a good moment.
Miss model-nerd left and gave me her card. I found it funny that the address of where she worked was in a place called “Milky Way”. Doesn’t get more hot and nerdy than that. Maybe I’ll see her someday.
At some point during the party I start snapping pictures and try to catalogue the chaos. Elli, the cool Greek girl, was celebrating her birthday. My friend Cathryn, who I’ve also not seen in like ten years, was having a blast. I also met a few cool Harvard students with heavy accents. One, I thought was Indian.
“I hear an English accent.” I said.
“Well, I’ve lived in London, but I’m not English.” She replies.
“Oh, are you Indian?” I ask.
“No, I’m from Bangladesh.”
“Ah…”
It has been a while since I’ve met someone from Bangladesh. Everyone make sure to remember, Bangladesh is beside India, and they are different people! Say otherwise and you’ll be in trouble :p
Her friend was an Aussie who also went to Harvard. I made a lame joke about being an Aborigine which didn’t fly. After I was sufficiently buzzed and found myself doing a particularly intense running man dance, I decided to go home.
—- —– —
SUNDAY 5:30 A.M
For a brief moment, I am in a movie. I’m sitting on my bed beside my cute friend, who is playing my guitar. With vodka in my system, I explain at length the mechanics behind learning basic guitar and try to motivate her to do exactly what I’m saying. As she sits there, occasionally sipping on a cup of water (which we later find out has mysterious white particles in the bottom) I realize I don’t want to try anything with her. I’m completely tired and buzzed to the point where all I can focus on is what is presently on my mind. In this case, it is teaching guitar. Its 5 A.M and I do a shoddy rendition of a song I’ve been playing for a while. I walk out into 30 degree weather in slippers and follow my friend to her car. I shoot her a text asking her if she got home safe. Then I fall into dreamland without wondering why I didn’t try to kiss her.
8:45 P.M
This is the day of the dinner party. So everyone at some point was touching my hair, I drank lots of wine and again found myself trying to understand why I’ve been very hesitant about certain things lately.
I’m trying to plan a proper Eurotrip, and thankfully, I know a bunch of European women now who all have places to recommend. My tall Serbian-glass-of-water friend says:
“Go to Croatia. It has the most beautiful beaches you have ever see.”
(Okay she said “seen”, but I’m just being an ass.”)
Another friend, the cool Asian, says I should definitely checkout cheap airfares to fly wherever I need to go. I think its cool. I think I might go to Greece and hang out with Zeus for a bit. I’m tempted to go to Cologne. My friend said the hottest women in history were there. A country chock-full of six foot blonde women with interesting sexual dispositions. Can anyone say “hrrrmmm..”?
Alas, the weekend is over. After a semi-chilly bike ride home, I’m back in my room, staring at this very computer screen. My fan is echoing in the background and I’m still wearing a fleece vest and my scarf. I want to sleep, but I feel like writing. Typing pages of prose until nothing makes sense and life itself it some weird kind of aberration. Should writing be effortless? Should women be less hesitant around me? Or should I shave my head? Who knows.
I realize tonight that I might be in a phase. A phase where I’m hesitant for subtle subconscious reasons. Or I might just be tense because of my impending foray into the real world. Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it, and hopefully meet some more Serbians with soft lips and tall glasses of wine for me to sip on.
Toodles.
