rental phone

As I sit here at 3:50 in the morning listening to Westside Connection, the ultimate in fake gangsta rap, I guess it’s all ok.

35 years ago sometime this week, Star Wars was released. I didn’t see it that weekend. I was six years old. I did see it however before the year was over.

My parents were, I guess, pretty damn cool when I was really young. We took the station wagon to the drive-in theater to see it. I remember seeing a few movies there. The Empire Strikes Back was one of them. So were a few Disney movies.

Maybe dad wasn’t so much a shit? Actually, I don’t remember him being there. I don’t remember mom being there either. I do remember sneaking in with my sister driving at some point. And since she was just 5 years older than me, I couldn’t have been less than 11 years old. “Get under the seat,” she’d say.

Ha.

I do remember watching Star Wars there. Sitting on the roof of the car. Just being fascinated by it. Honestly, few things over the years have had that effect on me.

Walking into my dorm room at UVA for the first time. That did.

Seeing a girls vagina for the first time. At UVA, in Lambeth dorm, second year. I, luckily, was so damn nervous I couldn’t even think about getting a hard on. So, she left. I was told that she asked one of my suitemates if he had a condom on the way out. No wonder.

Seeing a shooting star, at the age of 19, for the first time. That sticks out.

So does walking home with Rannette one day in high school. Sophomore year. Why that was the only time we did it, I’ll never fucking know. I guess she had a reason.

My first date with Sharon. I still vividly remember dancing with folks at some frat house. Me, doing things I’d never do. It’s why I think she was so special for so long. It passed, that feeling. But it took a long, long time.

My first kiss with Emily. Way before we were ‘dating’. I kissed her on the head. After she’d got second degree burns on her chest and head going to the beach with me. She didn’t remember it happening. And that made it somehow more special. And I guess to this day, makes it more special. Dream-like quality and all….

Seeing Alisa walk into the bar for the first time. Those boots and that attiude.

Talking with Adrianna outside of the State Press before we were dating. Her watching me. Me watching her. Eventually leading to that kiss. What a strange kiss, but magical.

The empty boxes of beer behind me when Alisa and I kissed for the first time. First time, second date.

Emily and I’s first kiss. In my room. Green sheet. Bad blinds.

I remember things that I shouldn’t and don’t remember things I should.

Fuck. I don’t want these thoughts. But I don’t want to toss them. They will lead somewhere, eventually. Because they have to.

My first interview as a reporter. It was on the phone. I was awkward. It sucked. I don’t have a copy of that story. It ran in the Charlottesville Daily Progress sometime in August of 1992.

The first one for real? On the ASU track team.

First scary interview? Carie Courty. Arizona State gymnast. Scary because I was a dork. She was hot. That was it.

Favorite story I covered? Chasing Bill Frieder the day he got shit-canned at ASU. Another one of those I shouldn’t have been doing it stories, but I was in the office when it broke, so it became my story things. Some days, those were my favorites. Even when they caused friction with the “Beat” guy.

I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever feel that thrill again. I haven’t written anything for publication that would get a byline since January of 2009. It is now May of 2012. That’s a long time. A long fucking time. It’s the kind of gap that employers go “well, why didn’t you write?” Well, fuck you. I’ve been writing every God damn day. Well, not every day. But damn close. Notepads and blogs and shitty briefs in your sacred fucking newspaper. Briefs that the guys you pay twice what I make don’t see as important. Until the next morning when they see them there and say “um….thanks for getting that in.”

That’s three days in a row that I’ve ended at exactly 750. I don’t know if that means I’m tapped out, or something is trying to tell me something.

It’s all good. And goo.

Speaking of…I heard Sonic Youth on the free XM radio today. I hadn’t heard anything from Daydream Nation in years. It felt dated. Like me, I guess. Who wants it? Not us. Except on 90s night on alternative radio.

How about alternative print guy night on the internet. The night when all the “modern” bloggers go the fuck away with their links and references to American Idol and Twitter. Instead, you hear about Ronnie Lane and actually standing in line for a movie, hoping you got a ticket, instead of ordering it online and printing it out at home or even using you fucking I-phone to just scan some bar code.

Fuck you.

Technology.

I’m old and it shows.

And you don’t care. Even though you’re old and hate it too. Or young and don’t know any better, but would feel the same way if you had just actually rented a fucking home phone. For almost 20 years. At $9.99 a month. Damn it mom, did you really do that?

star light, star bright...

Walking on the beach alone on Christmas night, taking small sips from a flask of whiskey you think of things. Some are good, like the girl I know who’d appreciate what I’m doing. Some are bad, like the asshat at work who doesn’t see the way he makes everyone else bow down to his simpleton-ness.

And then there are the memories that come back. I started to think of the five months that I got to be a dad. I’ve always wanted a kid. Things just haven’t worked out for me in that department. I know my rifle doesn’t shoot blanks, but I also know that the older I get, the less likely I’ll meet someone that shares this desire.

There was a time, however, when I got to be a dad. Experience some of the terror of it. Some of the thrill. Some of the mundane. Some of the joy. But it all ended with sadness. Not for him. Thankfully. At least I hope so.

She moved in with me pretty quickly in our relationship, Crys did. We kissed for the first time on her mom’s doorstep in the town I’d left just a little over a year earlier because it had nothing but evil for my heart. It was one of those moments. Everything just fell right into place at just the right time.

I’ve had that happen just a couple of times in my life.

The first time was in the amphitheater behind my old dorm in Charlottesville. Me and Samantha were just wandering around campus. Don’t really remember what we were doing. I think we’d gone to a party and got bored. Anyway, we walked around all the fraternity houses and took a detour to the dorms. Having been drinking some cheap beer, we both had to pee. I, being a shy virgin of 19 at the time, wasn’t about to pull out my stuff in front of her, a 20 year old who had at least once, tried to seduce me.

We found an unlocked door and got inside the commons area building. All the doors inside, however, were locked. Finally, a janitor came along, asking us “what are you doing here?” She jumped up quickly and said “looking for a place to pee” being all Massachusetts class that she was. I just stared. He said he’d open one bathroom up “for the both of us.” And he did. The men’s room.

I went inside with her. Only one stall. No door. She sat down, peed and flushed. Then stood and looked at me. I walked up to the bowl, unzipped my fly and held my dick. Nothing came. I knew it would be so. She snickered, then walked out. Sweet relief finally came my way about 10 seconds later. Fifteen seconds later, she jumped back in. I promptly stopped again. She laughed this time. Leaving me alone again.

After washing my hands, I went out. She was standing there, having a laugh with the janitor. He was an older guy, probably about mid-30s. Had on overalls that were of the blue striped variety. He was smoking a blunt. He passed it to Samantha. She took a hit. Looked at me and handed it back to the janitor. I walked up and she grabbed my hand and we ran out the door.

Skipping all the way back to the amphitheater we took a seat on the hard cement rows near the top where the colonnades were. I sat back and looked up at the sky. She laid next to me, her head right next to my lap. I got a bit uncomfortable, but in a good way.

She edged a little closer to me. I pointed up at the sky and said, “Wow, this is beautiful here. Especially with all the lights out around here.” She said nothing.

Soon, her head was lying in my lap. She grabbed my hand and put it in hers. This, to me, was pure heaven. Sitting out in the middle of summer, hanging out with the girl I’d been trying to get with for the entire summer, holding hands and just sucking in the night air.

After about five minutes, she unbuttoned her shirt. She was wearing a pink button down Polo shirt. It was the guy who’d I’d managed to give her $10 to afford to go on a dutch date with earlier in the night. The guy whose fraternity we had been to about two hours before. How’d I know this? She told me. Which, of course, made me feel oh, so brilliant.

After a few seconds, she took my hand again, placing it on her breast. I was stunned and completely shocked. In a good way. I began caressing it. I looked up in the sky, trying to not to allow my member to rise. Since her head was laying directly on top of it. But, of course, it was of no use. But she sat up, turned to me and looked in my eyes. At that moment, a shooting star buzzed over us. I leaned in and kissed her.

“What a perfect moment, one I will never forget,” I thought to myself. And quite obviously I was right as I am remembering it over 20 years later.

Her tongue was a bit annoying. I remember that as well. We would kiss a few times over the next two years. Always just flirting, never going anywhere. I told her I loved her the next summer, after she’d graduated and came back to visit me. She said she didn’t want that with me. But then kissed me again.

That first night, however, was almost perfect. At least in my mind.

Years later, I was at her wedding. We danced one dance together. I asked her “do you remember that night when we saw that shooting star?” She looked in my eyes, puzzled, and said “No. When did that happen?”

The music stopped a second or three later. I kissed her on the cheek and handed her back off to her husband. He patted me on the back and I ambled over to the bar.

Two years later, she moved back to Virginia. We had lunch. Her marriage came up. Friends, she said, told her they never thought it would last. What did I think, back then? I lied. I said “I knew you guys would make it.” She said. “I knew you believed in me.”

Three years later, they got divorced.

A couple more years later, she got married again. We had lunch one more time after that. She was still as beautiful as she always was. Me, I had crooked teeth and my hair was short. No longer nearly halfway down my back. I was wearing a buttoned up shirt. Striped.

Her first word to me were “you look like Ice Cube.” I found that funny. You would too if you could see me.

We talked. Fell right back into the old days. Me and her, we know how to talk to each other. I’ll give it that. I don’t think she remembers me the way I remember her. That’s OK. If she did, we probably wouldn’t be friends. That’s how it usually works. How it’s supposed to. I’m told.