Chastity and Prudence

Flashback to a few months ago:
I'm on a dinner date with my female friend Chastity. At least I thought it was a dinner date...when we arrive at the restaurant, Chastity tells me that she had "forgotten" our date and had already eaten...oh, that's really awesome, I think, I've been looking forward to this all week and you forgot and now I have to either skip dinner or eat alone, in public, with an audience of one. I guess sex is out of the question.

Sex, Chastity informs me, is out of the question.

That's fine, I say. I mean it. It's Ok. I'm just glad for the company.

Chastity tells me that I'm not OK with that. She has brothers and she knows how men think. She knows that I'm only after sex and I'm not getting any from her.

Besides, she continues, I am dating our mutual friend, Prudence.

This is all news to me.

"Chassie", I explain, "I am not dating Prudence. Prudence gave me the "let's just be friends" speech a long time ago...that's where we stand now."

"No", she insists, " I have seen you together. Women know these things."

Waitress! Check, please!

Forward to much more recently:

It's late at night and I'm hanging out with Prudence. We're Googling weird bands and listening to snippets of music...it's in a semi-public place and there's absolutely no sex going on.

Just friends.

In walks Chastity. She sees me sitting next to Prudence and her demeanor darkens.

Liar, I can hear her think, I knew you were fucking Prudence.

Play Guitar and Wait

My twin brother gave me this 'inspirational' poster for X-Mas. He picked it up at a museum in Chicago.
It's the first inspirational poster that I didn't hate on sight. I loved it.

4 pm, Christmas evening. The food was ready.
The Twin had just finished setting the table, so I walked into the living room and announced that dinner was served, come on in and have a seat...it's a small Christmas, but there's a huge feast awaiting!

Instead of enthusiasm, my father and uncle displayed worry. Why worry? I've been cooking for thirty years and haven't killed anyone yet.

Oh.

My Grandmother was not feeling well. She was having difficulty breathing.

I leaned in closely so I could hear what she was saying.

Oh.

So I went to her room to gather a few articles of clothing while my father fetched her cane and the Twin prepared her portable oxygen tank. The whole thing had the feeling of a drill
but it was not a drill; ten minutes later we were gathered in the waiting room of the local hospital's Emergency Room.

A nurse escorted my Gran, my father and myself into an examination room. The Twin and my uncle waited outside while the lady asked the requisite questions and took the obligatory measurements. On a scale of 1 to 10, my grandmother rated her pain a '12'. She's been sick for years, terribly ill at times but she has never exceeded a '10' before...could she please get some pain medicine? But her blood pressure was too low for that...she was wheeled into another room where the nurse started hooking her to tubes and machines .

My father and I were banished to the ER waiting room, where it was decided that we would take 'shifts' going back to the house to eat...the Twin and I would go second, so we sat in the ER and watched a CSI marathon on the TV. At first, I felt that an endless barrage of simulated autopsy footage was inappropriate fare for a hospital waiting room but after about forty minutes I was engrossed, wondering who murdered the Crazy Cat Lady.
I never found out, but it was a welcome distraction while we waited...our wait was interrupted by the nurse, who informed us that they were waiting on tests and the arrival of another doctor.
Nothing to do but wait some more...eventually it was our turn to go home and eat.

By this time it was after 7 pm and the food, which had been abandoned when we rushed to hospital, had gotten cold and dry and was about as appetizing as paste...we ate anyway, we would need our strength, we reasoned. It was likely to be a long night.

When we returned to hospital, we learned that they had decided to admit my Grandmother- no surprise, really. We were allowed to go back and see her; she had stabilized enough to be given a bit of morphine...the nurse kept up a steady stream of banal questions as she administered the drug- after a minute or so, our Gran's answers started getting fuzzy and her pain had gone down to a "six or the number like six". The dope was working.

Then she started to vomit.

The last time I saw someone vomit in a hospital, the person I saw was myself; I was observing from a vantage point several feet outside and above my body, which was entering a grande mal seizure.
It's not something I like to think about, so I usually don't- but all the sights, sounds and smells were the same.

I started gasping and my vision was flashing white, black, white...the next thing I knew I was in the hallway, being held by a family friend as I bawled my eyes out. After that- a long while after that- I was able to pull myself together and assist the lone nurse as she navigated the gurney down the corridor to the elevator and up to my Gran's new room, where she was placed on a real bed and further sedated. Finally, she was calm and quiet and there was nothing for us to do but return to the family house.

It was after midnight. Christmas was over.

What should we do with our gifts?

My father, amazingly, was the one who stepped up. We need to exchange the gifts, he said.
He was right. We needed to. We did.

So I got the poster above...and this t-shirt( below, front and back), which, as I told my brother, is the best T-shirt ever. The Twin knows how I feel about signal flow.


BACK:

My father gave me a 'Car Talk' CD of songs about car trouble (ha!), which is something that I can use for my radio shows and a book called Auto Repair for Dummies...I gave him my old set of PC speakers so that he could listen to me play the CD in hi-fi. In our family, there is not much stigma on the giving of 'hand-me-downs' as gifts, it makes sense to us...why throw away an item that works fine and then spend money on replacing it?


I also got a set of Pyrex cookware and a shower curtain, two things I can certainly use...I actually asked for the shower curtain- I've already been fixing my own meals and doing my own laundry for decades- if I were to actually go shopping for a shower curtain I am afraid I might be lurching into metro-sexuality, a leap I'm not prepared to make- so I asked my Gran for a 'sensible' curtain. She came through- solid blue, no frilly floral pattern crap. Right on!

Best of all, the Twin gave me a new compact audio mixer, a TAPCO (below). My old Behringer died months ago and I've been feeling bereft ever since...now I can re-create the signal flow diagram as illustrated on the world's greatest t-shirt, above.

My uncle had to work today, so we left home early this morning...there was very little traffic, the interstate highway is a strange place at 3 am...especially the day after Christmas.
Today, I slept later than I have for months- well into the afternoon.

The Twin remained at home, waiting...as of an hour ago, Gran was unchanged, still stable- we continue to wait.

At first, I felt guilty about hooking up my new mixer and playing guitar until my fingers hurt- I mean, my Gran is in ICU and I'm playing guitar...but then I looked at my new inspirational poster and I knew that I was doing the right thing.

Other than wait, there is nothing else to do.

Waiting to Enervate

I had a job Friday night. The temp agency sent me to a black evangelical Mega-Church, where I thought I was going to tend bar...but there was no bar to tend.
I was reminded of an old joke:
Two men walk into a bar. The third man ducks.

I should have ducked.
This was a trap and I walked right into it.
When I arrived, a pleasant-seeming Church Lady escorted me into a small room crowded with temp staffers- after few minutes, we were joined by a man who was the spitting image of South Park's Chef...Chef instructed us to join hands as he led us through what seemed to be an interminable prayer, ending with..."let the Spirit of Jesus Christ enervate our souls, amen."

"...enervate our souls, amen". He really said that. Enervate.
And lo, it came to pass.
My soul was, and still is, wholly enervated.

My first task was to inspect a thousand garden salads, making sure that the cracker packets on each one were placed with the printed "Club" side facing up.

Geez...first we prayed for Jesus to sap the last bit of vitality from my being (He did), then I - the only white man in the entire building- was placed on Cracker Patrol. Normally, I could have found some amusement in this, but I was tired, sick and enervated.
I wanted to go home and go to sleep, but instead I was forced to endure religious insults and racial slurs...(honestly, I was probably the only one who was aware of the irony of putting the token white guy on Cracker Patrol, I wasn't really offended, just amused)...
I might have been able to 'crack' wise with the two other men who showed up, but they were whisked away to the dishwasher room before we got to introduce ourselves.

The women were split into groups and assigned to set the tables.

In other words, we were divided and sorted into stereotypical Southern race and gender roles- the black guys did the dirty work, the black women set the tables and the white guy was the Cracker Boss.
All in the name of Jesus, who would have wept if He saw how much food this church threw away...
The salad line was then replaced with a dessert-plate line; make sure the slices of pie are centered on the plate- and so on...until it was time for the doors to open and the dinner to begin.

If you have ever waited tables, you know what a difficult balancing act it can be...every time you remove an item from your tray, you have to account for the sudden change in weight distribution...this is much more difficult when you are in a crowded room with a rapt, oblivious audience- people who are prone to leap to their feet without provocation and yell testify! hall-a-lew- hah, Love Almighty Jesus, amen! You gotta learn to dodge, and learn fast, no easy task when you are as full of enervation as I was.

I was so enervated by the spirit of Jesus that I could barely lift my tray above this roiling sea of heads and hands...everyone had their best clothes on and I was certain that I was going to drop an entire tray of greasy Cornish game hens onto someone's lap, but somehow I made it through the serving process without mishap. Or tips.
I also managed to survive the guest speaker- a Bible Comedian who yukked it up about the lighter side of child abuse and homophobia:
-" Kids today need the Belt (haha!)- you know what I'm talkin' about? (hahaha!)- my Daddy didn't worry 'bout invading my personal space, he just put a whippin' on me !" (hilarious!)

-" You hear people today talkin' 'bout how all sorts of things are natural...things that ain't natural to Jesus, things like homosexuality. Some people say that ten percent of everybody, including black folk, is a natural ho-mo- sexual...well, I think they got us mixed up with some other minority, y'all know what I'm sayin'?" (Hahaha. Testify!)

Praise the Lord and Pass the Enervation!

Finally, it was over. By the time I got home it was nearly midnight - I watched a few episodes of Firefly and my enervation slowly lifted...by 4 am I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep at all, so I put on some coffee and just sat...and sat.
Before I knew it, it was time to be on the radio.

My enervation had returned. I made it through my shows, but just barely...the good thing about radio is that you only have to sound healthy, alert and engaged for a couple of minutes at a time, the rest you can spend in the toilet...I felt that sick.

I haven't felt physically ill since I quit drinking- I thought I was getting the flu , but today it just feels like the lingering enervation of Jesus, not the sinus plague I was expecting to expectorate.
Great.
I don't have the flu, I'm just so depressed that I can barely function.
I'd rather have the flu.

--------------------------------------

Songs From the Big Hair, Saturday , Dec. 15th:

Dream Syndicate- Until Lately
It just goes to show how wrong you can be...

Joe Jackson- Right and Wrong
Joe! Side four is completely blank! More water to table 18! Oh...that nightmare is over.

Cardiacs- Big Ship
Can one still run away from home and join the Merchant Marine?

Magazine- This Poison
*Snaps fingers* Special order for table 23!

Stranglers- Who Wants The World?
This is rhetorical. They already have it.

Tuxedomoon- Everything You Want
Is not the way you wanted.

Robyn Hitchcock - Chinese Bones
I'm avoiding the inevitable "recall season" by not purchasing any Chinese-made goods this year. In fact, I'm not buying anything at all. Safety first!

Talking Heads- Houses in Motion
I am starting to look at my car as a sort of low-rent mini-apartment on wheels.

The Residents- Less, not More
This album has 40 songs. Each song is exactly 60 seconds long. Genius.

Adrian Belew- Adidas in Heat
The Residents- My Work is So Behind
Dukes of Stratosphere- Little Lighthouse
Robert Wyatt- Age of Self
Golden Palominos- Strong Simple Silences
Snakefinger- Trashing all the Loves of History
Mission Of Burma- This is not a Photograph
Wipers- No One Wants an Alien

Godley & Creme- Cry
This one's for the Hat.

King Crimson- Sleepless
Oingo Boingo- Fill the Void
Pere Ubu- Miss You
Danielle Dax- Whistling for his Love
Grace Jones- Nipple to the Bottle
Jane Siberry - Mimi on the Beach
Lou Reed - Don't Talk to Me About Work
Tom Verlaine- A Future in Noise
Neil Young- No More

OK. I made it. Now I will go home and take a short nap.
A short nap. Hah!
I slept for twelve hours and barely made it the station in time for my morning show:

The New Breakfast Snob, Sunday Dec 16th:

Band de Soleil - Woman on the Floor
Michelle Malone rocks! For twelve minutes...I need a long song, my bowels hurt.

Little Feat - Dixie Chicken
Nine minutes...still not feeling so hot.

Claanad- Together We
Blind Faith- Had to Cry Today
Well, not only do I feel like crap, the turntable has crapped out again...there goes half my show.

Hot Tuna- Funk #7
Eleven minutes!

Blonde Redhead- Bipolar
No, it just looks that way.

Supertramp- Child of Vision
Seven minutes!

Eleni Mandell- Dreamboat
This song is very quiet and haunting...as it faded, I announced the songs in my best soft, seductive radio voice...let's take a moment and reflect on the year that's passed...setting the tone for something all mellow and sentimental-like.
Then-

Led Zeppelin- Communication Breakdown
Suck it.

Thin Lizzy- That Woman's Gonna Break Your Heart
Really? First time for everything, I guess.

10CC- The Things We Do For Love
Sometimes I like to pretend that I am on AM radio.

Steely Dan- Only a Fool Would Say That
Word.

Eleanor McCovey - Whisper and Prayer
Sigh. My heart is enervated today.

Mott the Hoople - Death May Be Your Santa Claus
This is the only Christmas song I'm playing this year. Next week, I may put it on a two-hour repeating loop and nap until it's time for the next DJ to show up.

The Doors- Blue Sunday
This is terrible.

Fiona Joyce- Long Road to Travel
This is pretty.

Jethro Tull- One Brown Mouse
This is for PETA.

Al Stewart- Sirens of Titans
This is for Leo.

Be Bop Deluxe- Love is Swift Arrows
This is for no one.

Austin Lounge Lizards- Jesus Loves Me (But He Can't Stand You)
This is for Friday's crowd.

Peter Tosh - Can't Fool Me Again
Well, you could. It wouldn't be hard to do.

Tom Verlaine- True Story
I swear I made it all up.

Pretty Things- The Letter/Rain
When I got to our meeting place/ I stared into empty space/ No one here for me...

Lou Reed- Vicious
Hit me with a flower.

That's all.

Not Pictured

One of my friends recently put together a slide show of pics from our station's last Fund Drive. It's on display at the top of the stairs when you enter the building- we walked past it last night and my friend remarked as to how there wasn't a single picture of me in the batch...during Fund Week I did six hours of live sound, ten hours of broadcast time and a three-hour phone shift and there isn't a single picture of me in the whole presentation...I swear, sometimes I feel as if I'm a ghost that slips in and out of the corporeal realm; that I'm invisible most of the time...I walk among the living, but to them I'm just a chilly draft in an otherwise warm room.

Do you know that vague sense of uneasiness you sometimes feel upon waking after a strange dream? That feeling is me, wishing that I could touch you and knowing that I can't.

-----------------------------------
THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, OCT. 28, 2007:

Funkadelic- The Song is Familiar
The waitress hasn't even brought our drinks over and my date has already begun describing herself as 'asexual'. That is one hell of a conversational icebreaker. King of the world! Glub...

Pretty Things- October 26
It's actually October 28 today... listening to Phil May plaintively croon ,"If I wanted to, could I depend on you , my friend?" and having the guitar sadly answer, " no, you are on your own" usually breaks my heart, but this morning that would be akin to using a hand grenade to destroy dust...my heart remains unchanged.

Jimi Hendrix- Little Miss Strange
Maybe she's the devil in disguise...naaah.

Jefferson Airplane- Young Girl Sunday Blues
Step into my life...nope, not that either.

Loreena McKennitt- Kecharitomene
Trying-and failing- to pronounce this song title actually cheers me up. I don't know why.

Blonde Redhead- Hated Because Of Great Qualities
I don't feel hated because of my great qualities. I do feel unappreciated and it makes me wonder if I'm not kidding myself; perhaps I actually suck at everything and I'm just too dense to know it.

Al Stewart- Sirens of Titan
Yeah, I know I already played it the other week, but this is my show and this song cheers me up. Who wants to listen to a depressed DJ? Trust me, it's a lot worse than reading a depressing blog.

Steely Dan- Only a Fool Would Say That
Right.

Television- See No Evil
Deaf, dumb and blind. Braille rocks!

Rickie Lee Jones- Lucky Guy
Friday night I was thinking to myself what a lucky guy I was...I was very optimistic. I shared this feeling with other people.

Tuxedomoon- Jinx
I should learn to keep my hopes to myself.

Marianne Faithfull- Annabelle Lee
Marianne reads Edgar Allan Poe's tragic poem. For me, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that. Sad, eh?

Marianne Faithfull- Witch's Song
Broken English (1979) is one of those rare records that changed everything without ever gaining widespread recognition- remarkable stuff. Happy Halloween!

Ray Manzarek- Wake Up Screaming
I love this song...Ex-Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek opens up with a evil 'M'whahahahh' laugh, then there are sound FX of a screeching cat, a Joe Walsh slide guitar solo and a snippet of Jim Morrison's awful poetry, read by none other than a then-unknown young lady named Patti Smith. A year later,Patti started putting out records of her own...


Alan Parsons- A Dream Within a Dream
The CD re-release of Tales of Mystery and Imagination opens with Orson Welles reading Edgar Allan Poe's Dream within a Dream, a wonderful piece which was omitted from the original vinyl.

Alan Parsons- The Raven
For Lenore. Don't think I'm not tempted.

Robyn Hitchcock- Grooving on an Inner Plane
"I've been through all of this before..." I'm not that tempted.

Jethro Tull- Up To Me
What else is new?

The Kinks- Love Me Till The Sun Shines
A Dave Davies song that captures a certain feeling for me. Wishful thinking, is what.

The Kinks- Wicked Annabella
Oooo...spooky! It's about a witch.

Damien Dempsey- I Believe in Love
I believe in romantic love in the same way that some people believe in God. I have never experienced it, nor can I offer any solid evidence that such a thing truly exists (in my universe, anyway), yet I have faith that someday I will be saved, so to speak.
In other words, I am insane and hopeless.

Black Sabbath- A National Acrobat
Gotta have some Black Sabbath- it's Halloween. Factoid: Black Sabbath were good musicians!

Jefferson Starship- Devil's Den
This song is a cautionary tale about mortal men assuming Divine Right and the inevitable corruption and collapse of those who hold unchecked power...this is Watergate Rock, but the message rings true today.

Marianne Faithfull- Gloomy Sunday
I once had a 'dispute' with an asshat blogger who was convinced that I had a nefarious plan to kill myself 0n-air during my New Year's broadcast. Seriously- he even threatened to call the station's management and warn them of my scheme, which would have been hilarious, since I would have answered the phone, being the only one there and all...

Caller: " I want to warn you that your DJ is a sick man. He is going to kill himself during his show. I saw the symbols on his website, I've saved screenshots of everything he's ever posted on his blog and I have shared them with a team of highly skilled professionals and they all agree- he is dangerous. You can tell from the picture on his blog. It's of a lightbulb! "

Me: "Gosh, that's terrible. Here's what I need for you to do: Call the FBI and tell them exactly what you just told me. Verbatim. When they come to your house, you can explain it all in great detail. Tell them you can read thoughts over the internet- they love that sort of call."

He never called the studio ,but since then I've been tempted to do a two-hour show entirely comprised of versions of Gloomy Sunday, which is one of the world's greatest suicide ballads.

Golden Palominos- Little Suicides
This song isn't about suicide at all.

Flaming Groovies- She's Falling Apart
Where there is life, there is sorrow...sometimes it becomes transcendent; beautiful in a painful, strange and helpless way. This song tells just such a story.

Patti Smith- Dancing Barefoot
Like some heroine. Like some heroin?

Sinead O'Connor- Drink Before the War
I have ups and downs with Sinead, but this song stays fresh to me. Sadly.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Next: Some good news and some bad news.

Robo Cop-Out

Irene was looking for RoboCop when we met.

"Excuse me, but do you have any RoboCop books?", she asked as she flipped through the boxes of comic books on the table separating us. I should have told her no, I was sold out - the actor who played RoboCop, which was currently in the theaters, was a guest at the Big Comic Convention I was working- but I was immediately attracted to Irene and her fishnet-based Victorian Gothic fashion sense. I wanted to keep her at my table as long as possible. To do that, I'd tell her anything, including the truth.

"Well, I don't have any 'Robo' books down here, but I have some Robocop stashed in my room upstairs."

Her black-lined lips twitched. Was she repressing a smile or a snarl?

"That is flat-out the worst pick-up line that I have ever heard."

Her stare was an icy dagger of laughter.
Laughter?

Ha, she was teasing me! I like this. Keep going...

"But, but...I do have a few. I figured I'd hold some back in case the prices went up during the autograph sessions, but if you want I'll run upstairs and bring one down for you during my next break. No extra charge, of course."

Oh shit. I've just revealed book-dealer secrets to an attractive stranger after ten seconds of conversation. Mata Hari would have had no problems with me.

Irene looked a bit disappointed. When exactly, she wanted to know, was my next break and how much was a copy of RoboCop: The Comics Adaptation going to cost her?

"Now, and your eternal soul, to answer your respective questions."

"Excellent!"

And it was. It turned out that Irene was a student at the art school back home- we were neighbors, in fact. We both agreed that this was a good thing and that we would pick up where we left off after returning to our mutual hometown. Where we left off was the floor, the desk, the tub....well, you get the idea.

I wasn't paying much attention to conversational clues at this point. I overlooked a critical warning sign when Irene referred to my cat as an "animal companion" and I, thinking she was being sarcastic, replied that I preferred the term "feline-American".

I was kidding. She wasn't, and we had our first argument, but we were at the stage in our fledgling relationship where such things didn't seem to matter. I didn't have any problem adapting to her excellent vegan cooking and she 'overlooked' my leather shoes...it was fine for a few weeks.

Until our Big Romantic Date.

I had recently sold some Silver Age Spider-Man comics to a local restaurateur who was also a Spidey addict, and part of our negotiations included a candlelight dinner for two at his restaurant. After making sure that the kitchen could prepare a proper vegan meal, I asked Irene if she wanted to dine out, all formal-like.

Hell yeah, she said, as long as it's vegan.

So we went. It felt great, being greeted at the door and escorted to our table by the owner, being told that we were "V.I.P.s" and to feel free to order anything we wished. We were a young, poor and strange-looking couple; neither one of us was accustomed to being treated so graciously by a 'straight' establishment. It felt good.
I was doing alright by Irene, I thought.

But during our meal, she kept staring at a woman a few tables over to my left. I should have said something, asked what was up...something...but I didn't. I was too busy enjoying the moment to notice how angry Irene was getting.
I wish I had, because before we ordered desert Irene finally stood up and approached the woman whom she had been glaring at all evening.

"Ahem. I can't help but notice that you are very proud of your fur coat. Well, I hope you are proud of all the animals who suffered and died in cages so you could prance around in their skins..."

"Well, I never...", the other, older woman stood up, " what gives you the right to talk to me..."

The woman's husband, older and much larger than me, also stood up. He didn't say anything, but his look was one of contempt as the two women started yelling at each other in the nearly full dining room. I tried to avoid his eyes.

"You murderous, evil bitch!"

"Crazy punk rock whore!"

"I'll fucking kill you..."

The entire dining room stopped moving, went silent and watched the argument escalate.

Clink, said a fork.

My friend, the owner, rushed over and stage-whispered to me: "Leave. Now."

"Irene! Irene!", I interjected, "we need to leave. Now. My friend is insisting that we go."

"Cunt!"

"Slut!"

On the walk back to her apartment I couldn't think of anything to say, so I sulked instead. I guessed, correctly, that this incident had cost me one of my best comics customers. I also felt the lurking specter of The End of my time with Irene.

When we got home, she started giving me crap about my leather shoes, my belt, the beef I had "hidden" in my freezer...I am a bit ashamed to admit that I wasn't the slightest bit prepared for this attack and I crumpled. I gathered up the things I had at her place and I went home. I spent the night alone with my beef.

A few days later, a mutual friend approached me. She said Irene had been "stressed" and needed to go back to her family for a rest period. She informed me that Irene wanted me to have something, but was embarrassed to give it to me herself, so she used our friend as proxy.

She handed me a comic book inside a plastic bag.

RoboCop.

Nothing Personal

I'm walking to the bustop and I'm forced to pause a moment when a blue Toyota noses out of the parking garage to my left. The driver, a beautiful dark-skinned woman, waves at me and smiles.
I smile politely back and continue walking, but she keeps waving.
Her window comes down and she calls me by name, beckons me over to her window.

Me? You know me? You want me to talk to you? Can do!

This is exactly the kind of thing that should happen to me every day but in reality never does. Except maybe now.

" Hi! Hi! Remember me?"

Wow. She is remarkably beautiful. My IQ plunges as a dormant part of my mind rouses itself and starts searching for something cleverly stupid to say, draining resources from my already faltering memory.

I don't recognize her.
Or.
Maybe I do. Ah...it's like a mnemonic sneeze waiting to happen.

"Uh..."

" I'm Kris! From Bank of Generica! How are you?"

Oh yeah. Now I remember. Kris with a 'K'... I liked her, but we didn't work on the same "team", so we didn't get much time to chat. She looks different now, but I can't say how.
I was mortally drunk during that period, so my recall of those days is just a little blurry.
She was nice to me. I remember that much . It's a start.

"Doin' good! Nice car."

Jay-sus. That's not quite the dumbest thing to say, but it is close. There's a second car pulling up behind her, forcing her to move out of the lane and I've blown my one chance at being witty and charming. Her face is round, beautiful, her expression expectant; I look at her and I go into instant mourning for our never-to-be children. They would have been wonderful, talented kids. Our life together would have been a blissful celebration of unending love- but I have already fucked it up. Our future dies a painfully existential imaginary death.

Years into the future, I feel the leaves falling on my solitary, unvisited gravestone.
No one clears them away.

"Need a ride? I'm going towards Suchandsuch street."

"Sure! Thanks!"

Hah! So much for falling leaves and unmourned graves!

This is cool. It's twenty years in the future and we are walking hand-in-hand along a moonlit beach and laughing about the old days which have suddenly ceased to not happen yet.

But first we have some small talk. We live in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks apart.
Good.
She refers to our ex-boss as a "fucking asshole", breaking the profanity barrier and establishing some common ground.
I am so digging this.
Ha ha, yeah you are right, I agree, that dude was a major asshole. Fuckin' checklist this, ya know?

Haha!

Do I need to be somewhere? No, not really.
Why?
Sure, that sounds great. They have a patio bar, maybe we can sit outside.
Park and walk? No, I don't mind waiting on your porch while you change.
Trust me, I understand what you mean when you say it's a mess inside!
It's a gorgeous day, take your time.

She's a quick changer and she looks great in jeans, two admirable traits. We head to the corner bar.

Dude. You are rolling. Don't fuck up.

Kris orders something with Crown Royal in it. I order coffee. Kris doesn't say anything specific, but I sense that my failure to order an alcoholic drink is a minor breach of an unwritten social contract. Not a fatal error, but a sign. Of what?

Nevermind to all that. This is going really well. Kris just got a promotion, she's branch manager at a competing bank; she's pumped up about it, thinking about buying a house...I can feel her imagination from across the table and it is warm and inviting. Kris is very articulate and funny, haha- I think everyone hated the "ice cream socials" at the Bank, but no one said so- Kris tells me she despised them, I tell her that I was actually ejected from one.
That was you? Haha! Awesome!
She gives me a hi-five. Well done!

The ice cream the bank served was barely edible cheap, mushy, terrible stuff made from tainted Chinese yak milk; yet we were supposed to act grateful and obedient for having it foisted on us in lieu of raises. Ten cents an hour more would have been better for morale than bad ice cream.

Kris points this out:
"The only thing worse than having a shit job is being forced to enjoy it".
Ha! Damn, that's true.. I like women who say stuff like that. It shows realism. I bet she's a good manager.
Hello, comfort zone.

Sure, why not have dinner while we are here?

Tonight's special: filet of carpe diem served with a garden salad of earthly delights. Just don't fuck up.

Kris is very animated, I'm entranced by her delicate hands as they tell the story of how she went from temp worker to management in less than a year. She is looking at houses, thinking of moving to the country even though the commute will be long. She would like to have a greenhouse and an outdoor dog. She has a cat now and it's stir-crazy in her apartment; her fingers make scampering motions on the tabletop as she talks. Manic cat, they say.
Her talking hands are not wearing a diamond. They gesture at me.

"How did you do that?"

Do what? My exploits are legendary. She could be referring to any number of my award-winning accomplishments but I haven't even had a chance to tell her how totally fucking awesome I am yet.

"What's that?"

"The weight. How'd you lose it? I hope that's not being too personal...but you look great."

That's right! I was fifty pounds heavier back then. At this moment I feel 75 ft. tall, but in reality I am short. Fifty pounds was 25% of me. I was in terrible shape back then.
I'm proud that I look good to Kris.
Don't fuck up.

"Well, I...uh...well let's just say there's a lot of calories in beer."

Her gaze shifts to my coffee and then to her cocktail and back to the mug. Behind her bottomless brown eyes, her banker's brain is busily calculating, doing the math. She adds it up. Smart woman.

"So...you don't drink at all?"

"No."

"Oh."

She needs to tell me something. She has dated two alcoholics and they are both dead. She was engaged to the second one when he killed himself. It is nothing personal, but if I have a drinking problem, she'd appreciate it if I told her now.

Don't fuck up. Now is not the time to mention my family history of self-annihilation, yet here it is again- the past is destroying my present.

I pause, fumble around... a refill buys me a few seconds to gather my thoughts.
This is tricky stuff.
I am convinced that I will never drink again, but I can't deny that I have a drunk in my past or that a single drink might kill me. I won't let that happen but I don't know how to explain this to her. There is no guarantee. I can't promise anything to anyone.

"I used to drink. I don't anymore."

"Used to... a lot?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Again, it's nothing personal, but she can't take a chance with a drug-using heavy drinker again. It's been too hard on her and she can't go through it another time.

I can tell that she has been having an imaginary future too, and in her vision a life that never was has just ended.
It's a familiar feeling and I recognize it for what it is.
And she is right.
It's nothing personal. I've had a number of variations on this conversation over the last two years and I know the only reasonable outcome is unfavorable to me- in an impersonal way.
I can't offer up any proof that I won't drink again. There isn't any.
I can't expect her to take a chance - not after what she's been through.
If you are betting on horses, it's not wise to put money on the one with a record of falls.
Given her luck, maybe it's best to avoid the track altogether, but we are all gamblers at heart, so some chances will always be taken.
Some will not.

Like people, the better the chance, the more likely it is to be taken.

I am an untaken chance.

This is an awkward moment. The chemistry is intense but Kris isn't looking for a one-nighter and frankly, neither am I.
It wouldn't work like that. We can both tell, no use pretending otherwise.
We are both looking for a nearly identical imaginary future and that search is what separates us.
Her dream requires an absence of alcoholics , mine merely requires my own sobriety.
It's a subtle but irreconcilable difference and it brings our imaginary tomorrow to a real end tonight.

Maybe my feelings should be hurt. Maybe they will be, but I doubt it.
I didn't do anything wrong- I didn't fuck up!- but I can't ask for trust that can't be given. Watching someone you love kill themself will fuck you up, no doubt about it. I know.
Two drunks in her life was two drunks too many and there is no third chance to be taken or given.
Who wants to volunteer for a suicide mission?
I understand this. It bothers me but it doesn't destroy me.

It's nothing personal.

Respect My Disbelief

I didn't know it at the time, but in the months preceding my forced hospitalization I did make a few half-hearted and ultimately doomed attempts to "get help" for my drinking.

Jenny was one of those attempts. Jenny was a girl that I worked with during my on-again/off-again temp assignments at Bank of Generica. She was slender and bookish, keeping her long auburn hair in an unfashionable bun and wearing unflattering, baggy clothing with minimal cosmetics.

She looked like the kind of girl who would play Dungeons and Dragons with you- the sort of chick who would allocate more points for her character's Intelligence than for Strength or Charisma.

She wore librarian glasses and sensible shoes.

To me, she was hot. She was real, and it made her the most attractive woman in our department, so I was delighted when she approached me as we were leaving a meeting.

"Do I know you from somewhere? You look very familiar- have we met?", she asked.

For a drunk, this is a tough question to answer. Drunks have bad memories and worse behavior. If she 'knew me from somewhere', it was probably from me being drunk and hitting on her in some stinky-ass rock club.
Perhaps I had sold cocaine to her?
Hmmm...I like this woman. Did I know her?
I wanted to.

"I don't know...are you into the local music scene?"

Maybe she had seen me at a radio-sponsored event. Perhaps she'd even seen me play guitar or bass on-stage!
That would be cool...but the look she gave me indicated that she wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a 'music scene'.

"No...that wouldn't be it. Have I seen you at church?"

"Uh...no, I don't think so."

Church? When was the last time I went to church? I have never attended church in my adult life. I'm sure she hadn't seen me in church.

"Well, it's from somewhere...I feel like I know you..."

She likes me, I thought, but work intervened before I could follow up.

A few days later, we were working together and she picked up our truncated conversation.

"I think I did see you at church."

She named a church. Sure enough, I used to attend AA meetings there when I was on probation, but I didn't want to tell her that.

"Oh, yeah...I have, uh, been there before. It's been a long time, though."

Jenny smiled and said she was glad she figured that out- she'd been thinking about me for several days, it seems. That turned me on. She likes me, tra la la...

We worked together quite well, Jenny was smart and funny and our tedious tasks were not so bad when we did them together- over the course of our talks, I learned that she was into Jazz Dance and liked to write fiction. Cool.

She rarely drank and she didn't do drugs.

I did both daily, but I didn't tell her that.

I didn't want to keep doing those things, I just didn't have a reason to stop. I didn't even know that I wanted to quit- all I knew is that my head was full of really bad ideas and I was desperate for something...but what?

One of my really bad ideas involved Jenny.

I thought that if I could get Jenny to date me, I would find the strength to quit. I would get my courage from her, not from a bottle.
For a woman like Jenny, I believed, I could do anything- including quitting booze.
I hadn't had a significant relationship for years, and the women I did know were at least as drunk and fucked-up as me. Eightballs and benders...I didn't 'date', I binged.

One time, my girlfriend stole all my dope and then tried to sic her half-wolf/half-Shepherd hybrid on me when I demanded the return of my drugs, which she had already sold and shot.
I was the one who usually fed the poor dog-beast, it liked me a lot so it just sat and whined while we fought, but the whole scene was fairly indicative of my success in relationships.

Hey man, can I crash on your couch for awhile?

Why?

My girlfriend threw me out. She tried to attack me with a wolf.

What would happen if I dated a a girl who didn't have a coke dealer on speed dial or a wolf in the backyard?
Maybe if I dated a 'straight' woman, I'd get clean- that was my hope. At least in hindsight, I think that was part of what I was looking for- Jenny was much too bright to date a fuck-up, so I thought maybe she could magically "fix" me just by sleeping with me on a fairly regular interval and doing whatever else it is that people do when they aren't fucking or getting wasted.

That was a false and wholly unfair hope if there ever was one, not to mention a completely ass-backward approach...definitely not a moment of clarity or reason for me. I had completely bottomed-out and didn't even know it.

But the bad idea seemed like a good one at the time.

Of course, first I had to get her to go out with me.

This was really easy to do. A friend of mine was playing at a local Jazz club and I had free admission. When I asked Jenny if she'd like to go, she readily accepted.
She'd been waiting for me to ask. So we went.

We had dinner in the club's quiet dining room- when the waitress cleared our plates, I noticed that I had three empty beer bottles and two shot glasses on my side of the table.

Jenny had consumed about one-third of a glass of wine.
Jenny was aware of this disparity.

"Look, I need to ask you something and you might not like hearing it", she leaned towards me.

"OK."

"How can you be a Seeker if you drink so much? How can you find anything in that condition?"

A Seeker? What is that?

"Um...what's a 'Seeker'?"

"A Seeker of Christ. Of the Truth. I thought that's what you were."

"Uh...well...honestly, I'm not religious..."

Oh no. I can't have this talk right now, I thought. I have too much liquor in me to be tactful and I'm not drunk enough to tell lies. Why is it assumed that I am a Christian? We've never even discussed religion before.

I raised my arm- another beer and a shot over here, please.
I am not ready for this.

"You do believe in God, though. Right? Don't you?"

Make that shot a double!

"Ah...no. I don't."

"What? How can you not believe in God?"

"I just don't...I'm an atheist...or maybe an agnostic. I dunno. I haven't really thought about it much."

This was true and it still is- except for the thinking part. After that night, it occurred to me that I might stand to benefit from giving religion some thought. I figured I 'd better learn enough about it so that the next time a woman asked me if I was a 'Seeker', I'd be able to give the answer that got me laid.

That's how I saw religion. As a tool to be used to coerce others into doing something that they might not otherwise do. A means to power.
Sure, I'll pretend to be a Christian if it means getting laid. Or a raise. Or elected.
Or at least I used to think that way.

After sober reflection, I have no faith that any 'God' exists, but I do believe that using religion as a tool for manipulating people is inherently wrong. It's how wars get started and it's a pretty shoddy foundation for a healthy relationship.

The truth is, I don't really care if there is or isn't a 'God'. It doesn't much matter to me.
I can change myself , but I can't change God. Can I ? Would I even want to?

The beliefs of other's shouldn't be cause for killing.

Does this exchange make sense?:

"Why do we hate them?"

"They worship in an improper fashion."

"How do we know that?"

"Our Book About God tells us that."

"And that is worth killing for?"

"Yes."

"But our God tells us not to kill."

"Die, infidel, die."

It doesn't make sense to me, but it happens every day.

When I was dying, coughing up my shredded guts onto the cold white ER floor, I didn't pray.
I didn't think about God at all. I wanted to live. I was afraid of dying, but not of judgement.
I was bleeding to death and I needed surgery.
God wasn't a part of the decision to go to hospital instead of letting the darkness fall.
Pain was. Fear was. God was not.

Who will feed my cats? I remember thinking about that, but I don't recall saying any prayers .
I remember wanting an ice cube really, really, badly and suddenly feeling quite cold.
No praying.
Whomever said: "there are no atheists in foxholes " was wrong.
I've been in a foxhole of sorts and I didn't convert.

But that was to be in the future.

In the past, I am still talking to Jenny.

All I needed to do was to lie to her and say I believed- and I would have been in her bed, making her cry "Sweet Jesus and Amen, Hally -Yoo-Ha!" all-night long...all I had to do was lie...but I didn't. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't.

"How", she asked, "is it possible to not believe in God? How can you even live like that?"

"Jenny, I really just don't know. I guess I just muddle along. I never really give it much thought."

Jenny was a bit stunned by my revelation.

"You haven't thought about it much? That's not possible."

Maybe I should have lied. She didn't believe the truth. Maybe I should have asked what particular faith she was...not that I much cared. She wasn't a puritan or a tee-totaler, I knew that much.

"Uh...it just doesn't come up much."

This was true, but it wasn't well received by Jenny, who was Seeking Truth.

Jenny took a long sip of her wine and stared at me. She looked stricken. She glanced down at her wine. I thought she was going to gulp the rest of it but she set it down, pushed it aside.

I thought, she's ready to leave and the band hasn't even started yet.
I'm not getting any tonight.

"I respect your beliefs."

That's what she said.

"I respect your beliefs."

It was a concluding statement but I was too drunk to let it go. Mistakes were made.

"You can't respect my beliefs. I don't have any beliefs.
I know things or I don't.
Things are or they aren't.
Whether I believe or not doesn't change reality, so I choose not to believe in anything."

Of course, I was too much of an asshole to keep that belief to myself.

"Are you sober enough to drive me home or do I need to call a cab?"

"I believe that I can drive."

"Liar."