please, don't pee on me

It can be awkward. Letting someone into a mind that’s been solo for so damn long. So long, in fact, that it doesn’t know how to let somebody inside anymore. You spend too much time blocking things, stopping them, avoiding them, eventually, they stop a callin’.

Someday I’ll find a way to describe the longing inside of me. Find a way to explain it. Make the words come out right so that it doesn’t hurt her feelings when I say them. But I just don’t know how to right now.

There’s so much inside of me that I don’t like. It’s like an infection or an abscessed tooth. You know it’s not good to keep around, but you don’t do anything about them. You could mow the lawn, or you can let it grow. Eventually turning to weeds and dandelions, which of course, are just weeds.

Moments come and moments go. They seem right, but turn wrong. It’s impossible to explain that moment, but you always know it when it happens. Yet you’re powerless to stop it. And then you wonder if you would have tried with the ability to do so?

I think about my dad sometimes. The state he’s in now. I seem to be heading in a similar direction, and it scares me. I don’t like where he’s at. I’ve rarely liked anything about the man. But every so often he shows the good that’s inside of him, and I fear that I am just like him. So many have told me that I shut them out, I keep them at arms’ length. Of course I don’t see it that way. Who does though?

Words are a struggle sometimes.

Eating is easy. Eating right isn’t.

I used to exercise because it was my mode of transport. Then I got a car, a job and I got fat.

The tingling won’t go away like it used to. It scares me. A little more every day.

I hear songs in my head when I type certain phrases. It annoys me.

I wanted to go to the circus. But I didn’t.

The eagle crashed in my back yard. I looked at it. It looked at me. Then another eagle swooped down and clawed the other eagle. I guess eagles fight too.

My beard annoys me. I think it’s a problem.

Trying to do this every night has been a breeze. Until now. I need a beer. Or six.

The dogs sit on my carpet and never stop moving. It’s strange. I’ve never seen two dogs who just can’t settle down and crash out. One is just old. The other is nervous. Guess that could be me.

One day I stood in front of Barry Bonds. I stuck out the baseball and he signed it. I didn’t say a word. I was 16 or 17 years old and still had a bowl haircut. He must’ve been really impressed.

There are days when I wish I’d now crashed my bike. Even though the scars are cool. The aches in my jaw aren’t.

The cockroach stumbled out of the house when I came home today. It seemed like it didn’t want to be inside. I wonder what is so bad inside? Maybe he just wanted to see his friends, the outdoors cockroach family?

It used to inspire me to listen to certain music. Inspire me to get sad. Inspire me to drink. Inspire me to write. I don’t think it inspires me anymore. Love is like that. It comes, it flourishes and then it goes away. Leaving you behind to wonder what the fuck happened.

The tuba sat in the pawn shop window for 11 years. The price never changed -- $150. So, Edward decided to change it. He made it $175, but also put a big “On Sale” banner next to it. Damned if the thing didn’t sell the very next day.

So he tried it with other things. And without fail, they sold.

This was the beginning of advertising. And lies in advertising.

Ok, it wasn’t the beginning of advertising. Or lies in advertising. Just lies in advertising for Edward the Pawn Shop guy.

My neck crackles every time I move it. I wondered a few years ago what it was, so sure it was a clogged artery that would one day kill me. My doctor laughed at me. Said I was fine. Now, I’m not so sure about his diagnosis. He really didn’t inspect me too well. He was a drunk, like me, after all.

The dog is staring at me. He hates me I think, but is so desperate for any kind of attention and love, he hangs out. He lies on my feet. He wags his tail. But he also pees on me. Which if you’re not getting paid for isn’t very fun.

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.