Out, Out Damn Spot - Frankenstein's Ball

In the several weeks which have passed between posts I have been pleasantly surprised that concerned lurkers of my blog have written to me to inquire as to my well being. It now occurs to me that perhaps they sense danger or other need for caution which I have not picked up on while completely absorbed in a forum I practically have built my life around.

The fascination has been easily attributed to the excitement of some real social interaction despite no face-to-face or even voice-to-voice conversation. That was of little practical concern because the stimulating part has been the real-time give and take of the dialog. And . . . the random number of simultaneous conversations and posts makes for a very engaging atmosphere. Each participant is there to escape. For most the escape is from the monotony or avoidance of work. For others it is to reach out beyond loneliness, frustration, or isolation. Some simply enjoy being entertained. All are fine reasons and it really has become an addictive behavior for so many of the members. Unfortunately for me it has been an escape from reality.

If you are familiar with the concept of finger cuffs you will follow my analogy easily. My life has been continuing to become ever more constricted and the more I struggle and fight to free myself from the restraints the tighter and more desperate I have become. On the few occasions where from exhaustion or simply pausing to reevaluate and assess my lot I have simply yielded or stopped struggling all together the “hold” on my ambitions has relaxed. Likewise, the more I try to distance myself from my constraints the tighter they have become; while, if I face and draw nearer to the center of my entanglements the strictures slacken. I have realized this in every aspect of my life save one. The only area where I am still too wounded or conflicted and just have no resolution for the “what and the why” is the notion of dating, again. That’s where my escape through the forum I’m obsessed with has finally become apparent.

I have made the acquaintance of several women through this blog and an argument over a television show and through participation in the forum to which I will only elude. The first of these women reads my mind through the vaguest of comments, decrypts my veiled and cloaked thoughts, and puts them on display to me in her very next response. I am no longer going to bother “hiding” anything from her as it is simply impossible. She is also very much like me in her values and judgments and gives me no quarter for denial but somehow allows me more freedom than I permit myself. She has been encouraging me to find a real, in the flesh, tangible woman somewhere in close proximity to my own back yard. Another is always wondering why I am so willing to tell her nearly anything which comes into my mind and is always poorly arguing that I have misjudged her and given her more heart and soul than she possesses. She is wrong about this – and probably the only thing that she has ever actually been wrong about. Intellectually, she not only challenges me but would likely crush me. A third reminds me of when I felt alive and her vibrancy is refreshing. She has a host of interests and ventures underway that are the stuff I have always dreamed I would find in a woman to share my days with. I am not one to look for things I have in common and with her I do not have to as it seems to be an endless list already exists. She fills my longing to be with Audrey Hepburn. I’d always imagined sitting across a small breakfast table with a woman just like this for as long as I can remember. Then there are a host of vulnerable and sensitive and innocent ones that worry about my health and happiness and fawn all over me. It has been far too long since I have experienced any of that. And, there is even a contingent that is concerned about my body and more importantly its relation to their own. One, in particular has given her unconditional affirmation, affection and acceptance to me. That it has been in intent and not actually is of no consequence. In point of fact, it has made it all the more wonderful.

So what is the problem and where is the escape? I have reversed the story of Frankenstein and made a bride from the composite elements of about a dozen women. Assembled from the minds, and hearts, and souls, and appearance of all of these women is my collective virtual dream girl. They reach out to me and tease, and flirt, and nurture, and scold, and do all the attention feeding things I am so hungry to experience without any of the pain of day to day conflicts, misunderstandings, or responsibilities, or obligations. They are “on demand.” At the click of a button I have them to cherish and when I shift focus or interest I can click another button and they’re gone. This is not healthy.

Now, I am by no means insincere or disingenuous with any of them. I love these women (platonically) and cherish each and every one of them individually. But, my God I am such an attention whore that I need all of them and more. It is really a tiring addiction.
The things which I speak to them about and the flattery and encouragement I try to give them is without any ulterior motives and I am concerned for and about them all. I really try to give them honest praise and bolster their confidence and self-esteem. We are all involved in a dance of wanting to trust and be appreciated by the opposite sex. The problem for me is I am not prepared for when the music stops. I am not going to make the transition smoothly from virtual to real. So, when the band takes a break or everyone else goes home then you may be sure I will be found here more regularly - and although I would hope to be wrong about this – worse off than I was before.

Am I a misunderstood monster of misfit pieces and better off having been left dead rather than revived? My remains are yet to be seen.

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A New Wrinkle - Keeping the Flicker Alive

Belly up to the bar

In my wanderings, today, I had the great fortune to come across the blog of a still hopeful, younger version of myself. I expect to be inspired by his youthful exuberance and heartfelt account of his plunge into the abyss known as the quest for love. Love is not so much elusive as entrusted to the fickle care of women. It doesn't really stand a chance but that's the adventure.
His name is, Duncan Warner, and you may visit his blog here. Man Hints has a refreshing mix of self-awareness, optimism, and futility. What's not intriguing about that? Or, how can you not root for a guy whose About Me description in his profile simply states, "I am fantastic." He has a real gift for self-destruction. It is reassuring to know that I may pass the torch to another generation without fear of anything getting better.

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Friends Don't Let Friends Perform Sailor Dives Into 4 Feet of Water

Alright . . . Since yesterday’s Evan story was so popular I am going to treat you to another. Evan loves boats. He is particularly fond of kayaks, squirt boats, and C1’s. For those unfamiliar with a C1: picture kneeling like the Land O’ Lakes Butter, Native American squaw brand icon and then picture someone compressing your thighs until your heels disappear into the back of your lower legs. Got it so far? Now, paddle around like that with a goofy smile on your face through jagged rocks, white water rapids and near freezing air and water temperatures while the circulation completely ceases to your lower extremities and that’s Evan’s idea of heaven.

He is a master craftsman, especially in wood. He once bought me a set of traditional Japanese, hollow ground wood chisels. I have lost my marriage, my immediate contact with my children, my home, my career and what passed for self respect but I still have those chisels. I build guitars among other amusements. Evan builds wooden boats and occasionally prostitutes himself and repairs fiberglass hulls. He can hand plane a board over twenty feet long which will perfectly sit along the line of the bucks he has intended for it. He marvels at my skills. I have none in contrast to his. Both of us are fanatical in our devotion to the “old ways.” The shipwright is all but gone but there is still my friend Evan to prevent its demise. I love the sea but he would live on it if he could. Where I have a passing interest he has a devotion that borders on unrequited love.

As a consequence of our tireless longings to do beautiful work with our hands we had worked on many projects, together. We still spend a lot of our conversations detailing our latest wish lists for projects. I have a tendency to not suffer such distractions as concerns for my safety which makes the project ever so much more interesting. For Evan, it makes the projects ever so much messier when he’s preparing bandages and tourniquets for me. There was a particular incident when he rolled up in front of my house in a 1965 Mustang Coupe. We were in our mid-twenties and so although the Mustang was just fine as it came from the factory, obviously we could improve it. Work began. I sketched out and then completed the casting dies for the new aluminum valve covers. We got the green sand for the casting molds and Evan finished those after I rechecked my draft angle calculations, checked wind speeds, etc. etc. . . . over-analyzed everything as usual. Those valve covers were so good we just couldn’t wait to start tearing down the engine and rebuild it.

Well, I couldn’t wait.

I started wrenching on all of the fasteners and got down to a few head bolts that were a little stubborn after roughly twenty years of high engine heat. “Wait,” said Evan., “Rather than do something stupid why don’t I just go get something like WD-40 to free those seized studs.” “Eh?. Something stupid? Nonsense,” said I with my usual pluck and assurance, “I’ll just slide this length of pipe over the end of the ratchet to increase the fulcrum and my leverage [grunt, strain, minor internal bleeding . . .] and . . .” CRACK!!!

As I write this, I’m looking at the scar on my left thumb. I had both hands clenched around that pipe and put everything I had behind it. In a demonstration of Newton’s Second Law of Motion, when that bolt loosened, there was barely any resistance to the force I had exerted. Not only had the length of pipe increased my leverage but it also increased the mass. Mass multiplied times acceleration equals force (F=ma). It certainly does . . . Picture the position a thumb is in when making a fist and then picture that bent knuckle making contact with a sharp corner on a cast iron chunk of engine. I split that puppy wide and deep. There was some concern the wound might never actually close, since it could not be stitched and I had to rely on butterfly bandages as my only recourse.

This all occurred during Evan’s search for the solvent so imagine the look on his face when he returned to find spurting blood and me trying to stem the tide with an oily rag. In jubilation I proclaimed, “Got that bolt loose . . . “

But that story was just the setup for the real story. Because each of us was so convinced that our personal interests were superior sources of enjoyment over the other one’s hobbies and ambitions we were always trying to provide opportunities for each to experience the real deal. Evan’s turn came at the community college swimming pool. I am an excellent swimmer. I had been trained as a life guard at only twelve years of age. I know pool safety. No. Really – why are you smirking like that? I do! But, Evan is the water baby. He was teaching me some techniques used by sailors and among those was the Sailor Dive. The Sailor Dive, as successfully demonstrated to me by Evan, looks like a normal dive except that instead of extending your arms over your head and pointing your hands to form a sort of spear with your entire body you instead dive with your arms at attention against your sides. (As in the T-Shirt graphic for this post). “I can do that,’ I said, and off I went.

The Reason I Grew a Beard
The guy famous for calculating the volume of a gnat’s anus didn’t even consider that he was six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Evan. Springing gleefully into oblivion and only four feet of water when you are six feet, two inches tall presents difficulties. It also presents a brilliant display of intense red flashes across your entire field of vision. My chin, nose and forehead all made contact with the bottom of the pool at the same time. As my face detached from the grout and tile I paused to assess, “Hmmm. Not good.” I had recently learned of the means to kill a human being by shoving their nose into their brain. I figured I had just succeeded in testing that knowledge. The expiration was supposed to take no more than thirty seconds so I stood up in the pool and counted to thirty-six and determined it was likely I would live. It was also good that I had not forgotten any numbers along the way; two good signs. I turned to face Evan who was ghostly pale. “That was a sickening thud.” I asked him what was wrong. “You’re bleeding.” “Oh, Yeah . . . I know” I said calmly. Evan wasn’t so calm, “NO. Y-O-U A-R-E Bleeeee-DING!?!” Now, you medically inclined know that there are so many willing capillaries and such in the skin of the face that love to bleed. Mix that with a lot of water and it looks like hemorrhaging. So, I trotted off to the showers to rinse off and then get a look-see in the mirror for myself.

In the shower I could not figure out why as I ran the jet of water across the bridge of my nose that blood poured from my nostrils. When I got to the mirror I understood. The reason I had not died was because the cartilage in my nose had come out rather than gone in. It was sticking out of the top of my nose just below my eyebrows. The gouge in the flesh of the nose around the protruding, white, rubbery stuff was purple, and blue, and red. I spread and pulled up on the wound, the guy standing nearby watching me fainted, and the cartilage popped back inside my nose. All better.

The tile used to cover the swimming pool had left a reverse imprint in my face. My chin and forehead had what I was later told is called “Swimmer’s Cross” by competitive swimmers that dive too deep and scrape bottom. I headed out to locate Evan and then went to file an accident report. (I told you I was a trained life guard) I was the picture of loveliness with my red, criss-crossed gouges, punctured nose, and purple bruises under my eyes as I assured Evan that I was just fine. The staff turned out to be two women the same ages as Evan and myself. I do not think that “life guardettes” is the technical term but this was pre-Baywatch. The Blonde took immediate compassion on me and her nurturing, Florence Nightingale, genes kicked into overdrive. The Brunette must have been interrupted from her snack of lemons and persimmons and did not care for me - at all. As the rescuing angel began to ask me questions from the report form and apply bandages to my wounds the other stood rigidly with arms crossed and her weight cocked to one hip tracing the inside of her lips with her tongue. This was a marriage made in heaven for both of us. Guardette Sweet asked what happened and as I attempted to answer, Evan interjected, “Dummy hurt himself while performing stupid tricks at pool.” I laughed as did Evan and even Guardette Sour but Guardette Sweet shot Evan a look of death such as I have never seen. Several outer layers of his skin melted away . . . maybe I’m exaggerating . . . but, not by much. Evan continued to make insulting pokes at me to the delight of Guardette Sour and the glares of Guaredette Sweet and a good time was had by all. If Evan and I hadn’t been such morons we would have asked those two lovely ladies out. Ce la vie.

What did I learn from that experience?

1. Friends will be there to put the proper spin on your death.
2. Absolutely nothing about proper conduct around a swimming pool.
3. Practically nothing about my own mortality.
4. A woman’s attention makes everything all better.
   

A sidebar would be that when I went back to work I wanted to make the cuts and gouges less hideous for my co-workers. I found that by going for the humorous angle I learned something about the people around me. I used Snoopy and Woodstock comic strip bandages on my face. I thought that it would get a chuckle and the girls would find it cute. Nope. I found out the hidden feelings of the women I worked with by wearing those stupid things. The ones that secretly liked me were furious when they saw me wearing those! Who knew that something so simple could flush them out of hiding??! That was the event that defined my forever screwing with people’s heads. So, I guess you could say that dive knocked some sense into me.

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TAKE ME - I'm trying not to care what you do with me after that

A Welcome Reception

After my friend’s wedding, I of course, enjoyed the reception. I had such a good time feeling almost human. It’s fun, and I’m told healthy to pretend, sometimes. One of the many highlights of the experience was to meet a friend of the groom’s with whom I had only “spoken” through instant messaging a couple years ago. I was what I still am today and she was not far removed experiencing all of the same pain from the opposite spouse point of view. I had abruptly stopped communication at that time among many of my sincerely stupid moments of smashing what could not be incinerated in my life.

I introduced myself after speculating that the lovely, tall blonde with the handsome man at her side must be the co-worker described to me by the groom. Those two extremely charming people were stuck with me the rest of the night. I latched onto them and they were too nice to shoe me away. They were inundated with a numbingly detailed recount of my past twenty years. Fortunately, there was alcohol to anesthetize them. Talk, talk, talk . . . Blah, Blah, Blah . . . oh, today I feel bad about it but last night there was no stopping me.

Despite all of that I did come up for air occasionally and really enjoyed watching the relationship of “M” and “L.” (Initials have been used to protect the innocent.) “M” is so far down the road from the misery she had experienced those two years ago and “L” was just a great guy. He had gone through his own hell right along with us at roughly the same time. They got a few words in every now and again and I got to find out how they met – all good, good stuff. It was not lost on me that I was enjoying my dream played out by two different couples at the same event. The bride and groom had advanced to the bonus round but “M” and “L” are right on their heels. I can not stress enough how hooked I am on this pair. I hope I get other opportunities to be in their company (provided I have been properly medicated, of course). Either of them alone just leaves you thinking, “Wow! What a NICE person.” When the two are put together it is just remarkable. They were genuine, real, and they loved each other.

So, when I finally had to relinquish my death grip on the two of them and began my drive home the bottom fell out of my emotional bucket; All of these divorced people who had allowed themselves to find new loves – better loves. Then there was me, the stoically constipated dork losing more and more of that warmth I had just enjoyed with every mile of distance from the hotel. That’s what I keep doing; I keep distancing myself from what I really want.

So, I awoke this morning with what to me was a revelation. I had an epiphany. No. There was no heavenly light or choirs of angels only the usual stray headlight beam and hypersensitive car alarms.

I Want To Be RAVISHED.

There it is. The secret longing of my heart is to wake up to find myself being molested by a woman without reservation. I have searched for her forever. Before I was married, while I was married, and now in my solitary confinement I am still searching the classifieds for “Woman Seeking Man to Rape.” Where is the stalker waiting for me to turn on the shower? Where is the mouth to member resuscitation? Where’s the public groper in the red dress?

In an email discussing this with a happily married, curvy squishy bit critter with a thousand insights into my soul her reply was basically, “Duh – Stupid.” Well, she actually was more polite and said, “That's exactly the vibe I get with your blog.” Great, so everybody knows what’s going on but me.

She then concluded that I’m too conflicted to get out of my own way. I know that’s why I want to be sexually harassed in the most graphic of ways. I tell myself that if I were found in the clutches of a sexually secure woman who took all the initiative without any negotiation, bargaining, scheduling, asking, or pleading from me and could claim I was a “victim” that she groped me or took me in the most inappropriate places and at the most unexpected times that I would be ecstatic! I tell myself that a lot because I’m still trying to convince myself. Damn!? I’m pulled in two contradictory directions and I figure eventually I’ll wimp out and succumb to what will amount to a quickie fix (as in "Quickie," and, overdose) that will not fix anything at all. And the longer this nonsense goes on the less secure I become. It absolutely is not like riding a bike. You don’t have to kiss a bicycle. I’m becoming so ridiculously insecure that I couldn’t manage to go in for a kiss so there’s no chance I’m cool with any extra-curricular activities. (Although, not entirely true - those other activities have more tolerance built in for awkwardness.)

I can’t make the leap to man whore that this dilemma seems to deem as necessary. I’m not the dangerous, bad boy type that would make things easy. It’s damn pathetic and these are not the credentials of a man who’s seriously got a chance of getting any. Mrs. Squishy Bits told me I’m too cerebral to operate from my impulses. Well, doesn’t *THAT* suck. I take risks with everything else in my life and am able to self-destruct without a moment’s hesitation but I can’t bed a woman because I’m so morally superior. No I’m not – I just want to be. I am “complex” as my friend loves to quote to me from “The Money Pit.” I am sure he’s right but it’s the complex that I’m developing psychologically that has my attention. Mrs. Squishy Bits also dared to point out that I deny myself the notion I am allowed to have joy in my life. Joy would have to be the name of the man rapist that I’m looking to attack me to have hope of it in my life, now.

What should I do? Better yet, who wants to do it to me?

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Winner of the Wet T-Shirt Contest

Pissed on, again. It's a gift, really . . .

I have had yet another of "those" weeks. They are now far too common for me. And, just when it seems like external forces have conspired more than enough to keep me down I volunteer to finish the job myself. I really am my own worst enemy.

I am out of touch and out of step with the world. I already knew this but hope springs eternal. Such hope, in fact, that I found myself particularly low and thought I'd give an old friend a try at a conversation.

In fairness to them I really went for the gold and went way overboard to try to get a response. I sent off an email (my emails are like my blog - too long) and left that person at odds as to how or to just what to respond.

Now, I've probably scared them away and won't hear from them at all. So, I'm back at the keyboard broadcasting my distress signals to no one in particular. And no one in particular is replying. I am so not a part of the current "scene" that I wouldn't know where to insert myself geographically much less socially in a conversation. I was never the club kind of guy and to try that now would make me the cliché'd old guy. Forget that.

So, I'm pacifying my urge to be a part of the group somewhere while I write to imaginary readers. All of these little messages in bottles that I'm just tossing out and waiting for the winds and currents to change and help me reach out to someone.

I guess when you are on the losing end more often than not it 's supposed to make winning all the more sweet. Well, at least I've got this T-shirt . . .

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