Sober, even

 Jesus, the Dave Matthews Band! Is all I can think. I’m sitting in my kid’s dentist office when I notice that I’ve listened to an entire DMB song.

I can’t say it’s the first time, as I think it happened by accident somewhere in my past, but it sure as hell ain’t the third time. It was always somewhat of a badge of honor, being a graduate of the University of Virginia (read as nasally as possible) during the years of 1989 to 1993, and an extra year of being in C’ville while one girl broke my heart and I started another down a path that ended with me breaking hers…

“Does it always go back to a woman, Randy?”

Apparently.

There is ice on the ground and it’s cold as shit outside. I don’t know how I ended up this far north.

“North Carolina is north, Randy?”

Apparently to me it is.

I left Virginia in 1994 to go to Arizona. I remember being in shorts all year long, even on those rare below freezing nights at the bar, that would almost always lead to at least 50, but most likely 70-degree days.

After that, New Orleans. For not long enough. I still dream of that place. Just how magical it was. And just how much I seemed to fuck up the possibility of living there permanently.

“If you’re honest with yourself Randy, you’d probably be dead if you’d stayed.”

Yeah, probably. But damn never really knowing.

I know things wouldn’t have worked out, in my mind it was beyond repair. The redhead wasn’t the cause, she was just there at just the right time.

“Right time?”

Hell, I don’t know how to articulate anything. I’ve never been any good at talking about it, mostly because there was never anyone to listen to me. Not having “die for me” friends, is you don’t get to have those conversations. Internally, yes. But that really doesn’t help.

Eight sessions with a therapist. That’s it.

“I think we should have talked about her,” was her last words to me. That kind of scared me away from therapy. Shouldn’t have. But it did. That and using all my EAP on those sessions and getting laid off for the first time just weeks later.

Two years later, I had shittier insurance. But, I didn’t take advantage of 8 more EAP sessions.

Today, I’m working on myself again. I have too much baggage. I want to do the John Cusack thing, but I think most of the people I want to talk to would be like “who the fuck are you?” except one, who would be “get the fuck away from me.”

Funny. Not funny.

I downloaded any app. Those Instagram ads really work, I tell ya.

A few sessions in, lots of close to tears writing and AI responses and it dawned on me that yep, I need a therapist. Seriously don’t want all of my baggage being absorbed by AI and spit out back at me. I’d guess one day, my AI buddy would suggest a beer, a bullet and a bye-bye. So, doing a quick Google search brought me a bunch of options. But how do you pick a therapist nowadays. Too many options. Too many fake reviews. And who wants to lay it all out, then find out you picked a shithead. Then have to do it all again?

Eh. You are a coward.

“This beating myself up, isn’t helping.”

Thank you mind for pointing out the obvious as I sit here listening to Lucero, not drinking and trying to justify gaining 13 pounds in the last three weeks.

It’s cold.

Been working at home.

New job.

Terror. (GWB voice, please)

I want to get in my car and drive. South. West. Not North. Can’t go much more East.

I had tickets to the Glossary reunion show in Nashville. No one wanted to go with. Then, snow back-to-back weekends and the chance of going solo died in icy roads.

My mom has been gone almost 3 years now. That’s a skull splitter for me. It seems like yesterday. Nothing else seems like yesterday anymore.

Not the breakups. Not the miscarriages. Not the lies. Not the truths. Not even the good times. They’re faded. I think my early stage dementia is real. I have really hard times with words – but only when speaking. I really loathe speaking. Unless I’m drunk. And I don’t get drunk anymore.

I am also promising myself to get off the phone. I’m deleting apps as soon as I reach the end of this typing road. I wonder if I’ll stay committed to finally doing this again?

Sober, even.

By the way, copilot things I should write that “I am considering whether I will remain dedicated to undertaking this task once more.”

How the hell do you follow that with “Sober, even.”???

Drinking hurts now. Maybe that’s fitting. The hurt now lives elsewhere. It’s pretty to think so. Ha!

Yma Sumac in Farmville, North Carolina

The girlfriend and I, we used to go to thrift stores all over the little swath of eastern North Carolina that we were sentenced to all the time. Funny, I still live there, and still go to the same thrift stores, though not nearly as much as I used to. She? I don’t have a clue.

But one day we were in Farmville. A small town that I’d never heard of, and wouldn’t go back to again until almost a decade later – for a job.

That day, we just decided to take the road to the town. We used to so things like that. Go to a town via the highway – such as Goldsboro or Wilson or Raleigh – and then take some back roads way home to see where it led us. I saw the sign for Farmville at a blinking red light – it blinked yellow on the main stretch, which we were not on.

“Let’s go there,” I said.

“I’m kind of tired,” she moaned.

“I’ll get you a chick-a-philly!”

“Sold!”

It was a simple barter system we had. If I wanted something, I’d offer something in return. If she wanted something, she did the same. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with her. She liked to play the little game. And seemed to enjoy it as much as I. And, she didn’t mind my searching endlessly in thrift stores for vintage video games, LPs and glasses from all over the country. Such were my passions then. Two of the three still are. Don’t know why I lost the want of video games. I think it’s because the supply dried up. It got too hard to find them “in the wild.” And I hated buying ‘em on ebay and such.

We got to Farmville and it wasn’t much. A pretty little place that seemed to be lost a bit in time. Not like it was the 1950s there or something, but maybe 1987 or so.

I saw a Salvation Army and knew we’d be going in. If it was open.

Pulling up to the shop, the sign said “Yes, We’re Open!” and parked.

“Let’s see what we find,” I said enthusiastically.

“Alrighty,” she responded. I loved the – what I called almost Wisconsiny accent she had, although her mom came from New Mexico and her dad, I have no idea – and smiled at the sound of that reply.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked.

“Just you,” I said, meaning it completely.

We walked in, hand-in-hand, the little bell jingling as we pushed the door.

“Howdy, folks,” the lady at the cash register spoke to us. She had on a green shirt with some kind of logo on it. And purple pants. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”

“OK,” I said.

We wandered about the place – her looking at clothes, as always – me looking at everything but.

I noticed some LPs and started rifling through them. They were the usual: Roger Williams, Glen Miller, Liberace and lots of Christmas albums. I saw a Pete Seeger one, but it was rough. Then, I noticed a pile of old 78s. And among them was a box set – Yma Sumac “Legend of the Sun Virgin”.

Immediately, I had to have it. The price tag said $10. A bit much, I figured, for some old 78s that I’d never play, most likely, but something that I had to have. A compulsive spender of little amounts of money I’ve always been. And this was just a symptom of the stupidity that would lead to maxed out credit cards, road trips to nowhere and everywhere, rental cars and huge bar tabs.

“What’s that?” she said to me, her red hair shining under the light coming inside the old dusty store from the gigantic front window. I watched the dust in the light almost put on a show around her head.

“It’s some kind of cool old box set. But look at that art!” I said pointing to the box.

“Oooooooh, that is cool,” she responded. She stared at the box, opened it and then shut it. I loved that she played along with my silliness. Didn’t try to change that in me.

“You find anything?” I asked.

“Nah. It’s slim pickin’s over there. Let’s get out of here. You owe me a sandwich.”

“I sure do,” I said grabbing her arm.

We went to the cash register and plopped it down. That’s when I saw it. In the case was an almost brand new looking Intellivision II. Boxed and looking pristine. It also had a $10 price tag. I looked in my wallet. I had a ten, a five and four ones. Not gonna cut it. I’d have to choose.

In my head I debated. That video game was ultra cool. So was the album.

“You have a couple bucks I can borrow?” I asked.

“Nope,” she said. “I spent the last of my cash in Wilson.”

I then made the decision. I’ll come back later and get the Intellivision II. But I’ve got to have this album. Even though I’ll probably never play it.

I never went back to get the Intellivision II. But I did play the album.

And was shocked that the music was actually used in the soundtrack to “The Big Lebowski.” And that made my day.

Now, tonight, years and years later I’m watching Charlton Heston in “Secret of the Incas” in Raleigh. “Secret of the Incas” is the movie where old Charlie wears an outfit that had to be stolen by either Stephen Speilberg, George Lucas or Harrison Ford when they made “Indiana Jones.” It’s a dead ringer, proving that nothing is original anywhere, no matter how much you think it is. I’m on a couch, hanging out with two dogs and an empty bag of tortilla chips. The opening credits of the movie feature the exact same song. And I remember that day in Farmville.

Funny how memories come back.

paper cuts

“You know what sucks? Masturbating when you’ve got a bunch of paper cuts. Your fingers hurt and it distracts from the whole enjoyment part of jerking off.”

I looked at my buddy in the barstool next to me. He just said that. I wondered if he was just saying it to say it, or if he’d done that a few minutes ago and was now ruminating on the consequences.

“Let me see your hands,” I said.

He pulled his hands away from his bottle of Budweiser. A longneck, as always. They were not the hands of a working man. They had no blisters. No calluses. No broken fingernails. Not even a bruise. But, his fingers each had little red marks on them.

“Paper cuts?” I asked.

“Yep. Damn things hurt too.”

“I don’t even want to know.”

His wife came into the bar. Gave us the sheepish look she always does when she knows we were just talking about something “important.”

“Hey guys. What’s cracking?”

I looked at my buddy. He but his hands back around his Budweiser and took a long gulp. I guess that meant I had to come up with conversation for the moment.

“Me and your husband here were talking about paper cuts,” I said with a smile and a quick sip of my beer.

“Really?” she said. “And what brought this up on this glorious morning here in the bar?”

Instantly I knew that it wasn’t his masturbating that he was talking about. It was him trying to get her off today. Ha. Life is good sometimes.

“Oh, you know, it’s what us guys talk about. Paper cuts and daffodils.”

My buddy gave me an icy stare. It had been years since I got that stare. Way before he was married. Hell, back then, I thought he was as gay as they got. Instead, that fucker went and married his schoolgirl sweetheart. Me? I just kept fucking up relationships, one after the other. I even got in touch with my old schoolgirl sweetheart. Gotta love the internet. But a couple of weeks after I added her on Facebook (and she accepted!!!!) still not working up the nerve to even say hello, she put on that she was “in a relationship.” Such is life. Hell, the high school sweetheart sent me a message. I responded. She never responded back. Ha. I have a way with the ladies for sure.

But now he was giving me the “STFU” look. I guess those vaginal juices were still burning his open wounds.

I decided that when I got home tonight, I’d cut my fingers and try to jerk off. Just to see if, indeed, it hurt more than the pleasure you received. If I was a betting man, which I’m not, I’d say no. That the pleasure would win.

“How ‘bout them Redskins?” I suggested as a conversation starter and way around this whole paper cut theme.

She gave me an icy stare and ordered a Harp. At least she wasn’t going to carry a grudge. We all then proceeded to drink copious amounts of alcohol and just enjoy each other’s company. It didn’t happen often enough. They lived far away. They were rich. I’m poor. It makes for embarrassing moments and conversations.

“You should come up and go to New York next weekend with us?”

“Um, I can’t. Too expensive.”

“Shit, we’ll pay for it.”

“Yeah, I wish I could, but I work Friday and Saturday nights. Unlike you normal folks in the world.”

I used my shitty profession as a crutch many times. Like the many times girls want to go out with me and I’m just not interested or just can’t afford to. “We can hang out on Sunday or Monday!” The response is always the same: “But, I’ve got to work…”

Oh well. Being old and broke and horny all the time should make for inspiration at some point in my life. Of course, it didn’t when I was young and broke and horny. Of course, my dick worked a lot better then.

That got me thinking of paper cuts again. I don’t remember what movie it was, but somebody, I’d like to say it was Harvey Keitel but I know it wasn’t, described the vagina as a paper cut. I’m sure it was in reference to a young woman’s private areas, not that of a 39 year old. Not that I’d know anything about what a well-worn pussy looked like. Blessing? Yes. Curse? Of course. I’d rather see an old twat than no twat.

You start to wonder when it’ll stop. The dry spells. They seem to get worse the older I get. When I was young, I knew it was going to end. Now? I’m old. I could go out and score some ass. I know that. I’m not ugly. I have a decent rap. I just don’t like using it. Except when I want to. And that doesn’t happen very often.

The last time was a red head. Always a red head. She blew me off within five minutes of meeting me. But we’ve become friends. I do that. I collect friends. I’m that guy. John Cusack without a curveball to get the batters out.

It happens. And one day it’ll happen again.

Just like one day I’ll masturbate with paper cuts on my fingers. Just to see if it hurts.