But I Can't Wait For You To Change, No, I Can't Wait Another Day, Everything You Do Makes Me Crazy For You, Baby, I Can't Wait

--"I Can't Wait", Maggie Gyllenhaal

I've always had a theory about a people. I've always thought that the shortest distance between any two people is an angle. Even when someone says he doesn't want anything, he wants something. He might not know it, he might not believe it, but nobody gets involved in anyone else's business without expecting some kind of payoff.

Sometimes that payoff is in mutual respect.

Sometimes it's in something murkier.

I walked into Maclay's, this local Irish pub that I'd been frequenting since it seemed birth. I was supposed to meet The Duchess, sometime friend, but most of the time pain in my side. She had left a message on the machine saying she had finally done it, she had finally had gotten the big score she had always been after. I knew better than to believe her. She had burned me before. I had every intention of staying home tonight and letting her spin her wheels with somebody else. I didn't want to get involved. Not again. Not ever again.

But the thing about The Duchess was she had my angle. She knew my weakness and she had been using that weakness to keep our friendship alive for many years now.

Tonight was no different.

I had probably played that message five times. The first time I had been steadfast in my refusal. No way in hell I told myself. No way in hell. The second time I repeated that I wasn't about to let this happen again. She had used up all of her good grace and then some the last time she had told me to meet her. The third time I actually shut the door to my bedroom and forced myself to get ready for bed. The fourth time is when the doubt started to creep in. What if she really could pay me back? What then? Where was the harm in meeting her? If I didn't like what she had to say I would just leave. The fifth time I played the message I had already started to get dressed.

You've got to take a look at what I scored, Hokes. You ain't going to believe. I did it. I really did it. Meet me at Maclay's tonight at eleven. You just have to see.

I took a stool at the counter. I turned my back away from the bartender. There was no reason to get myself any more deeply involved than I had to. I'd give her ten minutes at the most and then I'd be out of here. I surveyed the bar. Not many regulars had made it out for a Wednesday night, but there were a few familiar faces. Happy Jack had his usual table in the corner. Mary and her sister, Margaret, from down the block had also popped in. I scanned for The Duchess, but came up empty.

This was just like her, I thought. The thing about her was you couldn't trust much of anything you said. If she told you the sky was blue, you could be sure it was gray. If she told you water was wet, you could be sure that it was dry. And if she ever told you she could pay you back the ten thousand she had sworn she was good for, then more likely than not she was not. The other thing you had to know about her was that she had herself convinced so much about her lies that she could always convince you too.

She wasn't a bad person. She simply wasn't very good at much is all. People helped her out because, if they didn't, there was little chance she would get by. That was the God's honest truth about her situation.

Yet it wasn't my sympathy for her that was my weakness. It wasn't because I felt sorry for her that made me constantly put myself in harm's way to help her out. I mean--I liked the gal and all, but I had never put myself out for people I had trusted half as much as her. My weakness was the weakness of all men. I had a secret. The Duchess knew that secret and, as long as she did, I was hers. I would do whatever it was I could to stay on her good side. Yeah, she knew my weakness.

In fact, she knew my weakness very well.

They were cousins.

I felt the tapping on my shoulder before I even realized the bartender was standing right behind me. I turned around slowly as not to look directly at her.

"Hello, weakness," I said to Matty, giving her my best smile.

I had known Matryoshka Kapelovich for all my life. She was from around the neighborhood--Matty from the block, if you will. We had gone to the same schools, attended the same church, hung out at the same vacant lots we weren't supposed to, and, apparently, had become great friends over the years. Imagine my surprise. She was a beauty to be sure--dark reddish-brown hair, baby blue eyes, and the rosiest cheeks you could imagine. She was also a pistol. She had it in for me from day one. It seemed her mission in life was to forever put me in my place and never let me escape it. If I told her I had just ran all the way from home to see her, she would tell me to go ahead run all the way back. If I told her she looked pretty that day, she would tell me that I still looked like crap. Every inch I gained with her was hard-fought and always frought with hurt feelings somewhere. Like I said, the fact we had become close friends over the years continues to mystify me to this day.

What you also need to realize is that when I was a boy I didn't like her at all. Nope, I lost my heart to her best friend, Rachel Staite, a long time before I lost it to Matty. It was always the three of us palling around. Sometimes she would invite her cousin, The Duchess, to join us, but those times were few and far between. I don't know if I loved Rachel exactly, but Matty and I both agree that it was probably the closest I've ever come to that feeling. I was probably too young to be in love. In fact, I'm sure of it. But those were some good times I had with Rachel. And they were some good times I had with Matty as well.

I have a picture of Matty taken while the three of us had gone up with her grandparents to their lake house. I took the picture while Rachel had called to her from off to the right. It's one of the rare times that I captured her smiling. I don't tell her this but I keep a copy of it on my shelf in my den behind a picture of Rachel and I. I keep it there because it's the last time I can recall her ever being that happy.



Before Rachel died.

Before I killed Rachel.

"Fucking Hokes, to what do I owe the pleasure?" she asked me, returning her hand to polishing the glass in front of her.

"Besides the gracious company?" I teased. "I'm just waiting for The Duchess."

"And what have you got my cousin involved into this time?"

"Hey, Matty, you've got it backwards. She's the one calling the shots this time."

"A likely story," she said before she was called away by another patron.

After we laid Rachel to rest, I didn't want to be around Matty for obvious reasons. The boundaries of my perversity stopped short of comforting the cousin of the girl I had allowed to die. Besides, I had my own problems to deal with. My family hadn't exactly been pleased with the turn of events. I had lived up to my reputation and failed them too.

I was supposed to have taken care of Rachel, simple and clean. She had seen something she wasn't supposed to see and it had been my job to make sure didn't talk. It was my job to basically insure she never talked again. I thought I could do it. Cruelty ran in my family so I assumed, when the time came, I could call it up like I could so much else.

The time came.

And I chickened out. I couldn't kill Rachel. She was too pure. Too innocent. Too young.

I told her to run. Forget her parents. Just start running and never come back. I thought that would make her safe.

It hadn't.

They had found her. They had found me. And I had to watch as they literally ripped her to pieces. She died never understanding why she had to die. Or how I had felt about her.

She had died and I had killed her. I couldn't save her and she had died because of it. It was my fault.

My family kicked me out. They had allowed me to live, but never again would I be a part of them. I had been exiled forever. My life from that point on consisted of learning how to live on my own and only for myself. I didn't exactly have the luxury of being picky how I made my money, where I lived, or who I chose to trust. My family kicked me out and from that point on I considered myself my own boss.

A few minutes later, after the action in the bar had died a bit, she came to check on me again.

"Staying out of trouble, Hokes?"

"Trouble knows better and stays out of my way, Matty."

"And yet you always seem to end up neck-deep in it, don't you?"

"It's a talent."

"Too bad it's not a talent you can get paid for or else you'd be a rich man."

"I'm too good for money."

"Hmmm. Too good for your own money, maybe. But you don't seem to have any problems with everybody else's."

"Speaking of which..."

I heard Matty laugh in that spiteful, sarcastic she has of doing it. Then she walked away from me once more.

It had been a full fifteen minutes and still no Duchess. I told myself to cut bait and walk away. Due dilligence had been given and I didn't believe enough in her to really believe she would pay me back. It was a fool's errand to have even come, I thought.

I was just about to get up when I noticed Matty glance at me out of the side of her eyes. They didn't exactly plead me to stay, but it was enough to get me to do it anyway.

After my family disowned me, I had nowhere to go. I had started to live in the same vacant lots that I had played in only a few years prior. I made due with hiding away in a tent beyond the neighbor's fence and begging for food during the day. Then came the stealing when people weren't home. Finally, I got so desperate I started taking to full-blown robbery.

That's when Matty stepped in. By that point, she was already halfway through college and making decent money at her uncle's bar, the one The Duchess was always too scatter-brained to manage properly. She had taken over the books and then had become a full-time manager.

It wasn't much and it was more than I could have expected from her, but she gave me a place to stay during my days and a hot meal or two when I really needed it. She even let me stay in the bar when the weather had been bad.

What followed after that were a few late nights while she totalling up at the end of the night where she and I just talked about things. We talked about what my next move was. We talked about her plans for the future. But mostly we talked about Rachel. How she was better than all of us by leaps and bounds.

I never saw it happen. I never realized it could happen but I found myself caring about her more than I should have.

Her regular bartender finally shoved his way through the front door. After taking him in the back for a few minutes, he took his place behind the bar, and she came around to sit beside me.

"I don't know what's going on with her."

"Worried?"

"Always."

"Well, don't. She seems to have stumbled into something great."

"Great for her could mean a stolen car or worse."

"I always keep on eye on her, don't I?"

"Like the blind watching the blind."

"I've kept her alive this long, haven't I?"

"True."

"I promise you, she'll be fine, Matty. Scout's honor."

"You weren't no scout."

"Well, I could've been."

"Girl Scout maybe."

I don't know if it's because she was always been nice to me or that I've always found her beautiful, but it became apparent that there would be no way I could continue to be around her and not want to be with her all the time. She was like raw meat. I couldn't be around her and not want to devour her.

There came a point where I told her the truth. I told her what I was and what I was capable of. I told her all about my family. Explaining the arcane rules, the bodies we had digging into our conscience, the restless nights worrying about when we would be discovered took almost half of that night and well into the next morning. I told her about the literal monster I was and the monster that she needed to avoid.

She didn't flinch. Not one bit.

She took it all in as if I were explaining I had dyslexia. She merely got up poured us both cups of coffee and sat down again.

"Is that all?"

I had nodded and expected her to start yelling. Instead, she grabbed my hand, started stroking it, and looked deep into my eyes with something I had never seen before.

She kissed me sweetly and longingly, with an aching that apparently had been building for a couple of years yet. I returned the kiss with the passion I felt for her. We sat inside the bar for a few minutes, the heat between us finally allowed an outlet. It didn't take long before I felt awkward, almost guilty somehow. I broke off my lips from hers. I watched her open her eyes and stare back at me. And that's when I saw the look in her eyes again.

Pity. Utter pity. She looked at me as if she felt sorry for me and that I was a cause to be championed. Well, I didn't want her pity and I didn't want her charity so I walked out right then and there. I could have let her help me. I could have allowed the feelings to develop to their natural conclusion.

But why mess up your life with paltry thing like happiness, I always say.

I moved out on my own, found a real job in the repossesion business, and stopped accepting her charity. It's been a few years. A lot has changed. Some things haven't, I guess. Maybe something like real love for her and I is in the cards, but I think otherwise.

"Tell your cousin I came and went. If she still wants to see me she can find me at home," I said, getting up.

"I wish I could say it was nice seeing you."

"If only you could."

"But I know better than to wish anything about you, now don't I?"

"Guess so."

I stopped myself as I was about to push through the door. Matty had just gotten up from her stool and was making her way back behind the bar when I stopped her.

"So when are you going to leave that husband of yours and marry me, Matty?" I said, smiling devilishly at her.

"When you actually mean it, Hokes. When you actually mean it."

Like I said, everyone's always got an angle and she knew mine.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

So If You're Lost And On Your Own, You Can Never Surrender, And If Your Path Won't Lead You Home, You Can Never Surrender

--"Never Surrender", Corey Hart

I'd make a lousy gambler. My predeliction for addictive behavior coupled with my rather impulsive nature tells me I would probably lose money hand over fist if I were to ever seriously take up gambling up as a pastime. But it isn't just those two qualities that lead me to this conclusion. It's also the fact that in every game I play; in whatever contest of wills, intelligence, or wits I engage in, I have one strategy I always seem to come back to that would preclude me from ever being a successful gambler.

I will play to the bitter end even if I'm losing.

I noticed it first in Monopoly. Whereas most people will eventually tire and give up at a certain point (of course, after playing the incorrect way the entire time), I have this need to finish every game I start. Not only that, but I would rather go out trying a risky strategy and losing big than playing it safe and be nibbled to death. In Monopoly this directive would lead me to use up all my money on building up the only monopoly I possessed, even if it was in the low-rent district, rather than following common sense and saving at least some in case I landed on my opponents' spot. My risk/reward spectrum is very much skewed to the big risk/big reward mentality.

Monopoly is where it began, but it's Magic that brought my no retreat/no surrender mentality under a spotlight. While the game was at its peak of popularity every week, sometimes multiple times a week, I would go over and play Magic with my cousins. I would see how my one cousin would play, cautious and calculating often to the point of slowing down the game for the rest of us. Then I would see how his brother played, mixing up strategies, attacking quickly one moment and holding back the next. But me? I always played the same. I would send the biggest guy I had or all my guys all at once to stomp my opponent. Then, failing that, I would sling a spell that served to kill my opponent in one fell swoop. Never mind that it would invariably kill me in the process--sacrificing myself and ending the game in a tie to me was better than waiting to lose after a five or ten minutes more. I would rather kill myself in a game if it means taking out my opponent than concede defeat.

In fact, when I designed my small quiz on the bottom of this page, "What Kind of Leader Are You?" I thought I would end up being a Mantis. I have no compunction against sacrificing the small pieces in an effort to achieve the overall goal.

It doesn't matter if those pieces are markers on a game board.

Chips at a casino.

Or friends in real life.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Funny How I Blind Myself, I Never Knew If I Was Sometimes Played Upon, Afraid To Lose, I'd Tell Myself What Good You Do, Convince Myself

--"It's My Life", Talk Talk

I have a problem with secrets. I keep everyone else's but I very rarely keep my own. People can tell me all manner of things and all that information will go to my grave with me. However, if I have something that I know probably would be better to keep to myself, whether it be damaging, private, or even strange, I feel compelled to relinquish the knowledge of it to at least one other person. The only variance in the pattern is the quantity of individuals I choose to trust and the timetable by which I unburden myself. I don't feel balanced when I hold onto too many of my own secrets at a time. I feel as if my feelings and thoughts on a matter should be on display for public consumption, as if keeping it to myself is depriving someone else to which the knowledge could be useful.

At least, that was the best explanation I could come up with at the time.

"She said she wasn't feeling good and wasn't in any condition to drive. Then she drove back to her parents' house," I said while Breanne and I were attempting to take a nap together. We weren't exactly doing the best job of it. At the time I blamed it on the being away from home factor, the being in a strange hotel room on a strange bed, but I knew it was more than that.

"Hell's bells, that was horrible of her. You must've been disappointed."

"There isn't even a strong enough word to describe it, B."

In truth, it didn't have anything to do with being in unfamiliar settings. If anything, my inability to rest after a three-hour drive up the coast with Breanne had more to do with the fact all of it felt familiar. It had everything to do with the fact that a few months prior I had flown all the way to Philadelphia, rented a hotel room just like the one I was currently in, and waited for an ex just like Breanne was to me. The whole set-up felt like deja vu because I'd actually lived through the familiar nervousness, the anticipation, even the same stupid giddy uncontrollable smiles. Except in the case of Breanne, she had actually made it to the room with me, and, in the case of Tara, she never even made it into the city. Whereas with Tara my excitement had faded and been replaced with a bitter anger that took the rest of the trip to satiate, with Breanne the eagerness had persisted even until the previously agreed upon hour of recuperation.

Sure, I wanted the sleep. I was eager to feel the wonderful sensation of being able to sleep and be next to the woman who meant and continues to mean so much to me, but I was just too damn excited. I was finally in my first hotel room alone with the only person at the time I wanted to be alone with. I felt vindicated. That was enough for me to start blabbering about how striking the differences in the outcomes were.

"When you talked to her next, sugar, did she ever say why?"

"I tried to ask her, but she couldn't quite give me a straight answer."

"Probably scared."

"Or my thought was she had some ethical hang-up about it."

"Yeah."

I wrapped my arms around her in another vain attempt to quiet down and allow the quietude of the afternoon lull to work its way over our beleagured bodies. My head said we needed to sleep, but I was bursting from the inside. Feeling the soft curls of her chestnut brown hair, the warmth of her skin, her every heartbeat, the impulse to sleep began to wane more and more. Yet I still shut my eyes, anticipating that my friend would drift off herself at any minute. I didn't want to get on her bad side so early into the trip--not when I had finally had what I had wanted for so long.

She literally surprised me when she spoke next.

"Did you yell at her?"

"What do you think?"

"I think your temper got the best of you."

"Like it always does."

"Which probably made things worse."

"Like it always does."

Having been on the other side of many occasions where I had lost my temper, Little Miss Chipper was well acquainted with how unreasonable I could be when I didn't get my way or when somebody had (again) disappointed me.

Though, to be fair, I didn't quite lose my temper with Tara as I could have. There were no putting a dent into the nearest wall, there was no pushing of anyone down to the pavement. Hell, there wasn't even one slammed door to be had. What there was yelling and lots of it. From the time I picked up the phone after she had informed she wasn't coming till I hung up the phone for the fifteenth and last time four or five hours later the entirety of our conversation consisted of my accusing her of leading me on, tricking me into coming all the way out to the East Coast for her, and then deliberately ditching me. Her end of the conversation consisted of her stating that she was confused, that she had changed her mind, and that it was entirely unfair of me. She reiterated the fact I had told her that I wasn't solely flying out to see her, that I had given her some cover story about wanting to check out jobs in Philadelphia and New York. She made it clear that when she had found out that all of that had been a ruse, had been a lie, that the pressure to see me had grown overwhelming. That's why she had cancelled, because of my small lie.

"Do you think I was wrong for wanting to see her?"

"I think it depends on what your reasons were."

"I don't know--I just wanted to see her."

"I think you do know. More to the point, sugar, I think she knew too."

"That obvious, huh?"

I wish I could say that I never lied to Breanne, but that would be an untruth too. I have this desire in me to exagerrate and to fabricate whatever I can to get what I want. Normally, this doesn't affect too many people because, normally, this trait only ever ventures to overblown compliments and outrageously demonstrative gestures that have no place accompanying my actual feelings. I have grown up saying the right things when things are going right for so long that it's hard for me to turn off. It would be as difficult if not more to do that than it would be to turn off saying the wrong things in the wrong situations.

Yet that day I chose not to lie in order to present myself in the best possible way.

"Yeah, I guess I wanted some ex sex. Pretty stupid."

"Flying out to visit your ex while she's off at college?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not saying one word."

"But would you do the same thing?"

"If the relationship had broken down to the point you and Tara were?"

"Yeah."

"Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps."

I sighed and rolled over onto my back.

I felt Breanne roll over on top of me so that she could look me in the face.

"Could you really be as awful as me?"

"As you? Never," I heard her laugh. "Besides I know how much Tara meant to you not so long ago. I was there hearing about it for a lot of it."

I don't if I've ever mentioned it before but one quality I've always admired about Breanne is that she's always taken the people who've come in and out of my life with a grain of salt. She doesn't have these jealous spurts that everyone else seems prone too. She has this zen-like acceptance that people close to you are going to have people who are close to them that you may not know. As she puts it, a person is like a note in a song, a person is best served when its surrounded by other persons in as many varied and different combinations as possible. She has never once asked me if I've ever loved someone more than her because she really doesn't need to know the answer.

"You want to know a secret?"

"Shoot."

"I don't know if I really still loved her at that point. A lot of how I felt about her changed in that year we were apart."

"I could've told you that, sugar."

"I think it was more the idea of getting to be with her one last time than the actual getting to be with her that I was concentrating on. It was as if I needed to prove to myself that I still mattered enough to her for her to want to come out to see me. I needed that validation, I guess."

"We all like feeling wanted, Patrick. We all like feeling that we still have it when we need it."

"I felt so humiliated. I felt like I'd wasted all this money on her and she didn't even have the decency to show up. I felt like such a sucker."

I tried to laugh, but it came out harsher than it was supposed to. I looked into the oceanic blue-green eyes of Breanne, trying to coax out of her some secret sign of disapproval. I wanted her to tell me that I had no right to do what I did. I wanted her to say that I had been underhanded and hadn't treated Tara fairly. I'd made her a promise that I wasn't taking a vacation strictly for her and that she could have backed out at any moment. Then, when she had taken me up on my promise, I chastised her for it. I hadn't told anyone about the secret deal I made up until that point. I hadn't blabbed about it because I had feared that they would, in fact, belittle me and taken sides with Miss Tara. It's one thing to believe you are wrong. It's another thing entirely to have your friends and family actually announce that the mistake was yours. I didn't want to face such scrutiny. Instead, I had allowed everyone else to believe she had been more spiteful than she actually was. Indirectly, I had made her out to be lying and conniving, deceitful to the core. The more lies I spread about her and that trip, the more I started to believe that I had been in the right. I started to really believe that I had been the victim throughout all of it.

But I knew Breanne saw through all that.

I knew she knew me for the bullshitter that I was.

What's more I wanted her to call me on it. I was telling her these secret thoughts because in my heart of hearts I wanted to be reprimanded for my unsavory behavior. She needed to be my confessor and she needed to let me know how to make up for my sin.

"I know you want me to tell you were wrong, but I can't."

"Why not?"

"For the same reason you're always telling, Eeyore. The heart has reasons Reason cannot comprehend, remember?"

"So you don't think I was wrong."

"About as wrong as me wanting to see you one last time before I go off to college."

"This is different. This is special. You're a special circumstance."

"Just because I want to be here just as much as you?"

"No," I said, brushing the bangs out of her eyes. "Because you came up here with both eyes open. I didn't exactly hide my reasons under a bushel."

"Hey," she replied, "we both have expectations here, darling. Let's get that straight."

I smiled.

"Secondly," she continued, "You and I aren't so different. I flew out here to be with someone I used to go out with--the same as you. I only proposed this idea because I knew you were still smarting over a recent break-up with someone else--the same as you did with Tara. I came here with the full knowledge that after this trip is over things like this trip probably will never happen again--the same as you."

"But it's different, Breanne. We're different."

"We're really not, not in the bigger scope of things."

I still insist to this day that we are. I can't even count another single person I've slept with over twelve years ago that I'm still in contact with, let alone to the degree that she's still the first person I call about everything. However, she's entitled to her point-of-view, I suppose.

"So this is just a fling for you, is what you're saying."

She giggled a bit and pecked me on the cheek.

"You know I'm not," she said, laying her head on my chest. "But you know it can't be anything too meaningful either. We both know that. It's too late for us for this to mean something."

She was right, of course. I didn't tell her that, but the two of us had come up with our own implied agreement. This trip was a vacation for both of us in more ways than one. This trip was a vacation from not only the lives that awaited us back home, but it was also a vacation from the restrictions we had placed on our relationship over the years in a helpless attempt to preserve our sanity.

"We didn't rule anything out," I whispered to the top of her head.

"I don't want to talk about it any more, Patrick. I think I'd like that nap now."

I don't believe we ever tried to dissect what exactly that trip was supposed to be for us. We both agreed to let the vacation be the exception to the rule that is us. We let it be the vestige of a dead dream that two kids had once shared when they had first met and fell in love. It kind of became the picture in our heads that we showed ourselves how life might have been if things had been different. Sometimes, when I get frustrated thinking that she and I should have ended up together, I remember that week and how we fought the least amount of time I've ever fought with her. I start to remember all the sights, all the times we had, all the words we exchanged, all the nights we had in each other's arms, and I can almost convince myself that those few days are enough for me to live the rest of my life with. I can almost convince myself that it would have been all downhill from that point. We had the happiest times we were going to have with one another and that I could make due with that fact.

Except I know all that isn't true.

"You want to know my secret, Patrick?" she asked me just before we were almost fully asleep that afternoon.

"What's that?"

"My secret is I worry about how I'm going to have to give this all up. My secret is that I hope that this isn't the last time we do this. I secretly don't know if I ever want to go back home."

She buried her head in me again, took a small yawn, and closed her eyes for the afternoon.

"Good night."

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Say, And So Say I, My Morning's Day Seems Nothing Like Its Night, My Night, So Self-Assured, Was All At Sea When Faced With Dawn's Strange World

--"How Can It Be", Forever Thursday

For as long as I've known her, Breanne has been trying to talk me into watching NASCAR for her and, for as long as I've known her, I've resisted. It wasn't anything personally against the sport. I merely have noted that there's a mysterious acrimony towards the hobby and towards its enthusiasts. There are plenty of activities and pursuits that I've taken a lot of heat for so I wasn't frightened of being thought of as odd. I just didn't have the heart or the patience to add yet another preference that was out of the mainstream. I didn't want to expend the energy to defend it against the masses who consider it a Southern redneck sport for people who didn't have the intelligence or patience to follow a real sport.

I believe the other reason I fought against getting into it was I've always carried a chip on my shoulder about being told what to like or dislike. Nothing annoys me more than being in a group of people and not being able to go to a restaurant I like to eat at, see a movie I would like to see, or generally being outvoted by the consensus of the collective. For this very notion, I strive to always choose where I want to go and what I want to do when it's just me and one other person. It's my way of making up for all those times I had to play along. Being told which hobbies to like falls under this purview. Very few individuals can tell me about a new phenomenom and entice me to like it upon the first try. I resist under the assumption my tastes are just vastly superior to everyone else's and that to make a recommendation is almost akin to sacrilege. It galls me sometimes when people presume to tell me what I might or might not like. That's why whenever Breanne told me to go watch a race on Sunday, I made up some excuse why I couldn't. She said NASCAR and I heard "I know what's best for you, Patrick."

However, I've come to the realization that this is entirely the wrong attitude to take, especially with people who have known me for awhile. I like to think of myself as multi-faceted. I'd like to believe I have avenues not yet trod by most people who've met me. But for those lucky few who have seen the seemingly opposite sides of my personality, I think they may stumble upon ideas, thoughts, and pursuits I had never considered for myself but, one day, may grow to love. I've stopped thinking of it as an attempt to do away my freedom of choice or freedom of opinion and started to think of it as encouragement to broaden my horizons. Yes, I could have stayed on the same course I've always taken, liking the same things and squashing all pleas for me to change a bit, but that wouldn't get me very far. Because as much as I am a packrat, hoarding onto my treasures that have kept me company all these years, I can also be rather impulsive. The more I look at it, the more I realize that, true, my stubborness and my refusal to accept the latest fad at first glance has kept me relatively stable, but it is also true that my willingness to jump in with both feet has led me to some of the greatest days, greatest discoveries, and greatest people in my life.

Like a certain Southern gal who insists forty-three cars doing circles around a track can be entertaining. I remember a time when I thought she wasn't as experienced, as cultured, or as intelligent as myself. But now I find myself realizing there's a great deal she's learned about over the years and that she probably really does know me better than I know myself. I resisted her once because she was so new and I didn't think she'd be sticking around that long, but now I realize how futile that whole exercise was.

So now I'm a bit of a NASCAR fan now if only because it makes her happy and because I have no doubt I may grow to love it as well some day.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

When The Routine Bites Hard, And Ambitions Are Low, And The Resentment Rides High, But Emotions Won't Grow, And We're Changing Our Ways

--"Love Will Tear Us Apart", Joy Division

People always ask "why do we always hurt the ones we love." I think a better question would be "why do we always love the ones we hurt." I mean--we're all guilty of it. We all seek out those individuals who, while not far beneath us in stature, are always a peg or two below us. We hardly chase after those who are completely out of our class. Even in those rare instances where we have delusions of grandeur, we always manage to find the flaw where we can reassure ourselves that they aren't so great, they aren't so glorious, they aren't perfect. We all possess that desire to confide and trust only those we are somehow better than because none of us want to unburden our souls to someone who hasn't experienced the same level of turmoil. After all, if an individual is perfect in every way compared to us, how can we expect them to understand our problems? It would fall on deaf ears because they couldn't begin to comprehend it all.

No, we always have to make sure that they have suffered like we have suffered. Somehow it makes it easier for us to trust. We figure, hey, they've had it rough too so it won't bother them hearing about our stupidity and knowing our failings. Soon they know all our secrets. Soon it even begins to feel like they know us inside and out.

And that's when we turn on them.

Julian Barnes once wrote:

They are scarcely adult, some men: they wish women to understand them, and to that end they tell them all their secrets; and then, when they are properly understood, they hate their women for understanding them.

That's the strange fact about people, not just men. We want to find that person that gets us, that knows what we're all about. But whenever we do, we get this sense of paranoia that they'll use the information against us. Worse yet, whenever troubles begin, we know that they know potentially damaging information about us so, like a nuclear war, we seek to be the one who pushes the button first. We use every bit of knowledge about what will really hurt a person... to really hurt a person. And it isn't because we truly want to devastate them; it's because we know that, given the right circumstances, they could hurt us first. We hurt people all the time to stop them from hurting us first.

And yet it's the same impulse that makes us be mean and spiteful that allows us the knowledge that we love them too. It's a dangerous thing this letting someone in. What makes us cause somebody to cry is also the same feeling of closeness that makes it so damn important to apologize after. You don't make somebody you're indifferent towards cry. It's not worth the effort or the stress. The only people you push to tears are the people who make you the happiest because, suddenly, they've failed to do their job. More importantly, they only get hurt because they love you so much. If you didn't matter to them, if they didn't care, whatever you said and did would slough off like water. They'd walk away because you'd be nothing to them.

But when they cry, when your words start to sting and singe and burn, that's when you know how much they care about you.

I wish it weren't so. I wish it could be like in the movies where I could see a young woman and think she's perfect. That would be the end of the story. I wish I wouldn't have to find fault with her. I wish I could just leave well enough alone. I know, though, perfection makes for an awful dance partner and that it's much easier to fall in step with someone as flawed as myself. It's easier to bring her down than to do all the work to rise to her level. It's easier to say I'm sorry for a mistake than it is to never make a mistake.

Sometimes it's easier to wipe away tears than it is to genuinely make her smile for a whole day through.


Then love, love will tear us apart again

I don't know why people hurt other people--sometimes I really don't. Nor do I understand why all these same people turn out to be the greatest loves of my life.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

They Say Your Middle Name Is Trouble, But I Know It's Caroline, They Say You Remind Them Of Problems, But I Think You Look Like Audrey

--"This Heart Is a Stone", Acid House Kings



Sometimes it feels like I live my life in solitude, that, instead of being social like all my friends are, I prefer to not get involved in life beyond my four walls. It's true, I have a certain respect for being alone with my own thoughts without the distractions other people seem to surround themselves with. But it is also true that it has led to my contemplating that, for all my talk about changing my life around and being more like Rachel, I still prefer to look out for myself before anybody else.

Other times like this week, I realize that, even though I don't go out and change the world, I am capable of doing small things to brighten up my friends' day or get them through a rough patch without ever leaving home. I've rediscovered a talent Sonja once said I should take more advantage of, a talent for being able to listen and offer advice that doesn't seem preachy or self-righteous. I rather enjoy knowing that my experiences can help people through similar heartaches.

That's when I realize I'm doing some good.

----
from the last few days...


Miss Flib (5:53:36 PM): MOTHERFUCKERRRR

Miss Flib (5:53:37 PM): not you

Miss Flib (5:53:38 PM): haha sorry

Miss Flib (5:53:46 PM): im just kind of angry right now about stupid shit

Miss Flib (5:54:01 PM): because i worked real hard to avoid drama and it turns out in avoiding it im about to run right into it

Mojo Shivers (6:54:15 PM): I'm sorry. Well, fuck them too, whoever they are....

Miss Flib (5:54:25 PM): yeah seriously!

Miss Flib (5:54:38 PM): ill do whatever the fuck i want and see a fucking show in any fucking city i want and like whatever fucking bands i want to!

Miss Flib (5:54:46 PM): and if im drunk or on acid who fucking cares

Miss Flib (5:54:51 PM): no one has any right to judge!

Mojo Shivers (6:55:12 PM): Pretty much. That's what I've always thought.

Mojo Shivers (6:55:33 PM): You have a choice to be friends with anyone. If they can't take who you are as a person, that's their problem. Not yours.

Miss Flib (5:55:31 PM): RIGHT!

Miss Flib (5:55:34 PM): its not a friend

Miss Flib (5:55:35 PM): its my ex

Miss Flib (5:55:37 PM): hahaha

Mojo Shivers (6:56:06 PM): Well, then don't give two shits what he thinks. There's a reason you're not together, right?

Miss Flib (5:56:15 PM): right on my man, right on.

Mojo Shivers (6:56:40 PM): Life's too short to have a hang-ups.

Miss Flib (5:56:37 PM): haha i feel stupid. i thought i was going to a concert
friday before i found out i had to go to palm springs and i forgot to take it off my last.fm.

Mojo Shivers (6:56:59 PM): I saw that, actually.

Miss Flib (5:57:52 PM): hahaha yeah i forgot to 'cancel attendance'

Miss Flib (5:57:56 PM): i went to the show last night though

Miss Flib (5:58:05 PM): the rest im not accidentlaly lying about

Mojo Shivers (6:58:29 PM): I still don't know how to take off the shows I went to already.

Miss Flib (5:58:39 PM): they go away automatically

Miss Flib (5:58:40 PM): you cant

Mojo Shivers (6:59:08 PM): Gotcha.

Mojo Shivers (7:00:50 PM): So if you're going to that wedding this weekend, is there a day you're free to meet up to work on the story?

Miss Flib (6:01:11 PM): im not going to the party

Miss Flib (6:01:28 PM): the actual wedding is spring break

Miss Flib (6:01:41 PM): the shower was supposed to be this next weekend or i dont know exactly when

Mojo Shivers (7:02:12 PM): So we should meet up this weekend sometime.

Miss Flib (6:02:31 PM): thats what i was thinking

Mojo Shivers (7:03:04 PM): I have Stephen Lynch on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday are open.

Miss Flib (6:04:01 PM): probably sunday because i have to go back to palm springs

Miss Flib (6:04:17 PM): i hardly see my grandparents so i kind of have to do my family duty and go as much as possible

Mojo Shivers (7:05:09 PM): That's cool. I have some other ideas. Not really ideas, but scenes we could work in.

Miss Flib (6:05:58 PM): those are ideas!

Miss Flib (6:05:58 PM): haha

Mojo Shivers (7:07:24 PM): I have no idea what they're going to say.

My big thoughts were that the son needs to hang up once during the conversation... and then decide to call back like a minute later for some reason.

And two the father needs to mention that he came to see the son once after he left, but he didn't have the heart to actually talk to him.

Mojo Shivers (7:07:37 PM): Like I said, not real ideas... just things I'd want to see.

Miss Flib (6:07:34 PM): yeah those seem pretty perfect

Mojo Shivers (7:08:47 PM): Actually, what you mentioned about your ex kind of fits the theme about our geisha/john story. It's sort of how he can't deal with what she is even though what she is is what he fell in love with in the first place.

Miss Flib (6:09:10 PM): woah

Miss Flib (6:09:15 PM): thats deep.

Miss Flib (6:09:27 PM): its true though. i mean ive changed a lot, yes, but not the essentials of me.

Mojo Shivers (7:10:11 PM): What can I say? I'm just that damn good.

It's like that quote I sent you. People always want other people to understand them completely. But once they do, they resent the fact the other person knows them so well.

Miss Flib (6:10:24 PM): too true.

Miss Flib (6:10:31 PM): he really resented that i knew him really well

Miss Flib (6:10:41 PM): and he thinks hes so hard to figure out yet everyone has him figured out

Miss Flib (6:10:53 PM): i dont really care if people have me figured out...i dont need to be all ehhh yeah im too cool.

Mojo Shivers (7:11:43 PM): Like you, I don't know how close we are, but there's nothing you've told me or I've gotten to know about you that would ever make me think less of you. I think that's the attitude you have to have with people you associate with.

Otherwise, you need to walk away. Why go through the hassle of being friends with someone who only causes you grief?

Miss Flib (6:12:15 PM): id say were pretty close. dont think i tell everyone some of the things i tell you!

Miss Flib (6:12:17 PM): yah

Miss Flib (6:12:19 PM): yeah

Mojo Shivers (7:13:30 PM): That's what I thought too. But it's like I've had people who've told me things that changed my opinion about them.

With you? I've always thought you were good people. And the more I've gotten to know you it really hasn't changed at all.

I think you're the first person I can say that about.

Miss Flib (6:13:57 PM): that makes me feel really good

Miss Flib (6:15:23 PM): what i can say about you that i really like is you dont go through a lot of the phases a lot of my friends do. i mean i know youre older and kind of done with that but i like the fact you know who you are (well you appear to) and youre just you.

Mojo Shivers (7:17:23 PM): You should. People have enough stress in their life not to hear that they matter to some people.

It's like I said in a message I sent to my friend. I think I'd only go to like a handful of people's funerals that I know. You'd be one of those people.

Well, it's also that I always seem to be friends with people who are more out there and extroverted, and yet I always eventually ended up being jealous or angry about how they lived their life. You're like my second chance to change my attitude about all that. It's like before I thought you had to live your life exactly like mine to be worth something, but now I see how you live has a lot of plusses too.

Miss Flib (6:18:48 PM): aww well i hope you dont have to attend my funeral any time soon but if you did i hope youd write a eulogy seeing as how the other one you wrote was pretty great.

Miss Flib (6:18:57 PM): haha i dont know im still young...im not sure exactly how im living life

Miss Flib (6:19:06 PM): i just kind of do what i want and take care of what i need to

Miss Flib (6:19:17 PM): and if doing what i need to gets in the way of what i want...oh well.

Mojo Shivers (7:20:35 PM): You read it? I didn't think you read it.

Exactly. You're a lot more open to possibilities then I was a few years ago. That's a good thing. In fact, it's a great thing. That's why I think I like you. Because you have a fearless attitude of saying or doing what you want... and yet you have the caring and friendly heart to go with it. It's a rare and beautiful combination.

Miss Flib (6:21:22 PM): aww im saving this conversation...it feels really good.

Mojo Shivers (7:22:12 PM): It just sounded like you needed a pick me up. And what's a #1 fan for than to point out what's good and decent about their object of attention? LOL

Miss Flib (6:22:50 PM): i think we have a good combo. youre pretty grounded and havent changed much since ive known you (in a good way). what i mean by that is youre just you and yeah youve become more open but youre still you and i like having a friend whos like that...its comforting.

Mojo Shivers (7:23:26 PM): Who doesn't go through all the drama and phases, right? That's me. lol

Miss Flib (6:24:04 PM): hahaha yeah well phases are good to help you find new things

Miss Flib (6:24:16 PM): i have to go...dinner time!

Mojo Shivers (7:24:33 PM): Night, Miss Flib!

Mojo Shivers (7:24:40 PM): I'm saving this convo too.

Miss Flib (6:24:32 PM): thanks for the pick me up. i was really stressing about stupid things and just feeling kind of down.

Mojo Shivers (7:24:53 PM): Glad I could help.

----

You think to yourself all siblings get into fights. Convince yourself it's okay. You tell him that you're done. You can't take any more. And he still continues to wail on you. He pushes you. Hard. Against the wall with the exposed nail because he knows it's there and you're too young and too small to fight back against him.

Tears. And trying not to scream. Then more tears.

And he pushes you again.

You're tougher than this.

But sometimes you're not.

Sometimes you're just small and young and you really don't understand why he has to hurt you this much. You think it's normal. That everyone's family settles arguments so violently. You think it's what every older brother does.

But sometimes it's not.

Sometimes you're just unlucky to have a brother who's cruel and who won't outgrow his cruelty for many years yet.

All you can do is just wait the weeks and months until he gets angry again. Unable to tattle. Unable to believe it's him. Unable to figure out how to make it stop.

And little by little, you learn to care less and less.

It's one thing when the monsters are outside your front door.

What do you do when the monster's bedroom is right down the hall?

~~Ilessa

Dear Ilessa,

Every household has some strife in it. Brothers and sisters will always fight with one another because any time you have two people living under the same roof disagreements will happen. Also, because of the relative immaturity, lack of understanding, and lack of experience, children aren’t often equipped to settle these differences peaceably. Quite often they do lead to fights. I fought my brother when I was younger. My cousin fought his brother. It always happens.

However, that doesn’t excuse or make up for what happened to you. Certain people are just cruel, like you said. You’re not the only one I’ve met who has been affected in this way. Hopefully, you’ll be the last.

I wish I could have been there to stop him for you. Violence feeds on violence. With some people the minute they see their brutal tactics work to get the desired result, it only serves to give them the go ahead to be more brutal. If somebody had been there early on to discourage such behavior, show him early on that he wasn’t going to get what he wants, things might have been different. At any rate, more than anything, it sounds like you could have used someone being on your side so you didn’t feel like you had to bottle things up. Keeping things like this a secret, keeping it from whatever friends you had at the time, from your parents, makes it all the more acute. You feel like you’re alone in this and you don’t have anyone to comfort you. That feeling of isolation is a nasty aftershock to the initial incident. Even after the bruises, that feeling of you vs. the world lingers, often to the detriment of your life afterwards.

I know you’ve probably put it behind because it happened awhile ago. But, in case you need some encouraging words, remember two things. One, it’s not your fault. It has nothing to do with who you were as a person back then. No matter how much you may have talked back, been a brat, or whatever else, nothing is worth being caused pain to such a degree. There is no excuse and there is nothing you should ever blame yourself for. Two, as difficult as it may sound, this shouldn’t define you. You were a victim then. You’re not now. You sound like you’ve got a lot more going for you and that should be what you concentrate on, a mindset I think you’ve already adopted. Don’t let this be the reason you fail at anything or the reason you give up on anyone.

You’ve got to care enough to allow for being hurt, even if you’ve been hurt pretty badly before. Not everyone is going to be cruel and not everyone is going to cause you suffering. There are going to be people who will only want to see you succeed, who only want to make you happy, and who only want to bring out the best in you. You’ve got to care enough to allow them the opportunity to do all these things for you.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Thank God For Chance Meetings, Chances Are Our Best Things, Up There With Ocean Waves, And Sleeping In All Day

--"Intentions", Whispertown2000

Speaking of chance meetings...

My parents have never owned a proper computer, which necessitated my having to go over to my friends' house to utilize anything resembling a normal entertainment and utilitarian computing device. From the time I was at St. Rita's till a couple of years into college I never knew what it was like to have such a wonderful device at my disposal. You can imagine, then, when I was a senior in high school I was rather technology-starved.

Thus, when my friend Dan proposed a bargain of my driving him back home so he could make lunch in exchange for having access to his computer, along with my being able to log on to his Prodigy account, I jumped at the chance. I had utilized the service a couple of years prior through my cousin and I knew it was right up my alley. I knew that through it I could connect with people that I normally would never ever even see in my lifetime. I knew that through it I would possibly be exposed to a whole other avenue of experiencing the world that I didn't have in my own household. Mostly, though, I thought it would be fun to play the games and somewhat surf the burgeoning web. All that other stuff was prosiac reasoning in lieu of the immediate gratification of having something else to do besides stare at the same old boring faces at lunch.

It was also during this time that I first got entranced with a tiny show called Avonlea. I couldn't get enough of it. I watched it two hours a night. I memorized lines. I literally became obsessed with everything about it. I started to dress like the characters on the show. I started to adopt their speech patterns. People began to question my sanity and, looking back, I couldn't blame them. I was acting even weirder than I normally did. However, for the most part, I cared little. The show arrived at a point in my life that was highly stressful--worrying about college, worrying about staying in touch with my high school friends, worrying about what the next step was. It filled up a hole in my life that I never knew existed and, for that, it really was a goodsend.

Little did I know that the show would also lead me to one of the biggest forces of good in my life as well.

I arrived one afternoon for lunch with Daniel in tow at his parents' place. He stayed downstairs to make his lunch, while I went up to his room, my lunch still firmly in its brown paper bag, and began to log on as he had shown me weeks before. I went through the usual rigamorale, checking various avenues as fit the pattern of "surfing" I had set out for myself. In the prior days to that afternoon, I had made a habit of checking the Avonlea bulletin board for anything I could glean about the show. In fact, I had learned a great deal of information that wasn't readily available to us unlucky folks in the U.S.. I had also met a few fellow fans as I began to see the same screen names creep up time and time again on their posts. I had also started a few threads about the show on my own, including one that mentioned Sarah Polley, the actress who portrayed the main character on the program, as being the most talented actress ever.

Imagine my chagrin when I found a reply waiting for me that mentioned the author finding Miss Polley "rather boring."

I was livid. More to the point, I was incensed enough to fire off a two-page defense of my beloved actress. I stressed how much talent she possessed for someone so young. I emphasized her amazing ability to cry often at the drop at a hat and to make me believe she was crying for real. I glorified her amazing beauty, disarming grace, and her natural intelligence. In short, I made my feelings of pride for her so well-known that the author had no choice but to acquiesce that Sarah was something special.

Something she did the very next day upon receiving such a heft reply.

Then a strange thing happened. Rather than let bygones be bygones, I continued discussing with this selfsame author about the show. Instead of utilizing the bulletin board as it was intended, this author and I through the course of a couple of weeks, began a dialogue exclusively back-and-forth, leaving other board members scratching their heads at exactly what was transpiring between us. If you were to ask Dan, I would daresay he might have said that I was slowly commuting my obsession with Avonlea to this fellow fan of the show. Inevitably, our discourse began to drift little by little away from the program and to more personal matters. I started wanting to know who this mysterious stranger was rather than just what her opinion about characters, plots, and themes were. It started to become important to me to learn as much about her as I could.

It turns out she was twelve--a fact which shocked both my friend Dan and I because we had been guessing all over the map from fifteen to twenty-five due to her use of language and her penchant for intelligent argument. (I swear, I've been fooled too many times by intelligent, young woman to make me want to give up even trying ascertaining their ages. I thought Breanne was in the range of twenty to twenty-five when I first encountered her and I guessed Carly was twenty to twenty-two when I met her.) It turns out she was far more intelligent than I had been at her age. She played multiple instruments, was interested in all matter of subjects--including The Holocaust, ever since reading The Diary of Anne Frank in first grade (!!!). It also seemed like I amused her highly.

Eventually, we moved our conversation to letters where it stayed for some three good years.

After that, I went to visit her on her fifteenth birthday and had probably one of the most memorable weekends I had ever had.

All that came to an end a few months after that as I proceeed to make definitely the biggest mistake of my life.

That mistake was only fixed early last year and I'm doing everything I can to make sure that it's the only one I make with her.


then we think we’re torn, when really we’re just worn

Her name is Jina. We used to be friends, then we weren't, and now, I guess, we're friends again.

Like I said, it's strange how things happen.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

You Never Know How Anything Will Change, Strange Attraction Spreads Its Wings, And Alters But The Smallest Things, And You Never Know...

--"Strange Attraction", The Cure

From a recent post on the RKNet forum...

I've met more than a few people in my life. I'm always more talkative when I get nervous or am in a new situation. Most of the time people just nod politely and engage me in small talk, but nothing of any merit happens. I pass the time and that's about it.

However, there have been a few occasions where a real chord is struck. I've always found it interesting how two people can go from being complete strangers to being friends, close friends, more than friends, &c... and kind have a hobby of asking people for their most interesting stories about how they met somebody they have gotten to know really well. So that's basically the point of this thread.

What are your most interesting stories about how you met somebody you consider close to you?

Like I said, I have quite a few, but here are three I think are kind of unique:

I met my friend Carly at the Wiltern show June of '05. I was there quite early (along with Shelma, badnewsmama, and a few others) and Carly and her friends sat down right next to me. That wouldn't be so odd of a way to meet somebody I'm still close friends with almost two years later, except for the fact I maybe, maybe said four words to her during those eight hours waiting in line. It was only after the concert, in fact, the day after, that I remembered her mentioning her screen name on this forum to somebody else in line. She seemed an interesting person so I came on here, checked out her profile, saw that it had an AIM profile, and sent out a weak hello. Not only did she remember me, but she was thinking of tracking me down too. One year and nine months later, I'm still amazed that somebody I didn't bother talking to the first time I met her I consider one of my dearest friends.

----

I met my best friend, Breanne, actually on-line. She's lived in Georgia all her life and I've lived in California for 95% of mine so there's no possible way we should have met. Couple that with the fact I am 4 1/2 years older than her and the odds get even more staggering. I was actually looking for a new writer for the 'zine I put out in 1993, Our Magazine, and went scouring the Prodigy Bulletin Boards (oh, how I miss the days before AOL) for new writers. I came across this poem by a girl named Breasier about how she felt when her best friend moved away. I thought she was talking past tense because her vocabulary, use of imagery, and overall style made me think she was early college student, at least. It turns out, when we got to exchanging information, she had just turned 13. I was 17 at the time so I thought there's no way we'd have anything in common.

I was wrong. We talked a lot--almost every other day for awhile. The next year she flew me out for Christmas '94. That was followed by my flying out for her birthday in '95. Then came us dating for like a year (long-distance horrible flying back-and-forth dating, but still dating). Finally, she came out to California for two weeks before going to school at UGA in '98.

Yes, her whole getting married to someone else knocked the friendship off-track for awhile, but we've managed to get it back on track now. She's still like the the little sister I have the hots for and I still catch up with her two or three a times a week for a half-hour or something. We've gotten even closer since she started writing at my blogger site, california is a recipe for a black hole. Currently, we're trying to work out a good time this year to visit one another which does not involve me meeting her husband. I may be more mature than I used to be, but I still consider her marrying someone else the premiere tragedy of my life.

----

Lastly, one of my more newer friends I actually met in 1991 when I got lost at Epcot Center at Disneyworld. I had finished having lunch with my two aunts and my brother. They were still eating so I told them to come pick me at the bank of computers in one of the science halls once they were done. Fifteen minutes passed and they still hadn't come by. Fifteen turned to thirty and I decided to go back to the restaurant to check what was keeping them.

Surprise, surprise, they weren't there when I went back.

I was totally lost with no idea how to find them. Before the days of cel phones, before my aunts thought a pager would be a good idea, and no way to broadcast a message over all of Epcot, I was up a creek without a paddle.

The brightest thing I could think of was to stay right by the front entrace where every visitor had to come and go through until they came back for me. Thus was I stuck in one of the most exciting and fun places to be at sitting quietly frustrated by myself at the entrance.

After about ninety minutes of this, I spotted another seemingly lost soul. Not having a thing to do and slowly realizing that, yes, my aunts and brother had decided to go explore the park without me rather than look for me, I decided to help her out. I said hello, asked her her name, and together we began a three or four hour trek from security station to exhibit to security station back to another exhibit. I learned that her name was Brandy, she was eleven, and that she was there with her parents and brothers.

I had some money so I bought her a hamburger or something while we took a break from frantically searching for her parents and/or brother, who I assumed were still looking for her even if my family had decided to stop looking for me.

As aforementioned, she eventually reconnected with her family three or four hours later. She actually took off running to them without a word of thanks. It was fine. I did it mostly because it was something to do and she looked absolutely frightened out of her wits.

I resumed waiting for my family for another two hours and never once thought anything would come of my meeting Brandy.

Cut to 2006. I had posted a story of my getting lost, meeting Brandy, and the subsequent musings about "what happens to people once they're met and never seen again." It's true. I always wonder what became of her, but the post mostly was about how pissed I was at being left behind and wasting six hours of my life sitting by a stupid entrance because my aunts were too selfish to give more than a small effort to find me. I hadn't intended to raise a beacon for Brandy to find me.

But find me she did. Thanks to one regular reader of mine who was friends with Brandy. Her friend recognized the story I posted as being similar in years (1991), stories (getting lost at Epcot, being helped by some goofy Flip), and, the kicker, my remembering her name was Brandy. A few weeks after the post I received an e-mail asking if I was, indeed, speaking of a personal experience and not just appropriating someone else's story. I told her that, yes, that really happened to me ad that, yes, jokingly, I was still sore she never said thank-you.

Now I chat with Brandy on the phone or on AIM once a week. She's actually the friend I referred to in the one post about losing somebody you love at an early age. She lost her self-described "love of her life" a few years back when they'd only been together for three years and she was only 23. I don't know how she copes, but a lot of the reason I like talking to her is because she seems wisened by her experience and has such a healthy attitude in dealing with setbacks and things we cannot change.

So, yeah, I met Brandy the earliest, but we actually became friends later than Breanne or Carly.

So what are your stories?

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers