I'm Like A Bird, I'll Only Fly Away, I Don't Know Where My Soul Is, I Don't Know Where My Home Is

--"I'm Like A Bird", Nelly Furtado

Before I could drive and even before I knew about the restorative powers of the drive up PCH, I used to do a lot of my thinking on top of my parents' roof. I would go around to the backyard, I would walk around to where side fence met the lip of the roof, and Ild would climb on top. There I would sit, facing out into the street and waving to anyone who would pass by, and just let my mind wander wherever it may. I don't know what it was about sitting on the roof that allowed me this sense of serenity that being in my room didn't. It might have been that it was away from where most people could find me. After all, who sits on the roof of their house for hours at a time? For that matter, who takes a two hour drive to clear one's head and waste half a tank of gas in the process?

All I knew is that living in a house with three other people, having people know where to find you all hours of the day, made me stir crazy every now and again. Aside from those precious hours after ten, when my parents and Francis would go to bed, I never really felt I could get away from the clutter of the world. And every now and again I find it important to distance myself, even for a few hours, from everything. I don't know--climbing my roof really wasn't putting all that distance from anyone. It felt like it, though. Even when I would hear my parents call for me, even when I could hear the phone ringing in my room and the answering machine come on, even when night would fall and I still hadn't come down, it felt good to be alone. Alone by choice is a good alone, I think. It means that you have the power to come and go as you please into the world. While I hate when loneliness is thrust upon me, there are many times where optional isolation has brought me back to the point where I can face the days ahead.

There are some days where I wish the time we live in now didn't have so many portals to find me. There are some days I wish you couldn't type in "mojo shivers" or "Patrick Taroc" and find thousands of hits. There are some days where I regret ever getting a cel phone.

And there are days where I sorely wish where I live now had a decent roof I could get to.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Follow Me, Everything Is Alright, I'll Be The One To Tuck You In At Night, & If You Want To Leave, I Can Guarantee, You Won't Find Nobody Else Like Me

--"Follow Me", Uncle Kracker

There came a time when Lucy and I first became friends that it seemed like every other week she was calling me, telling me, "that she couldn't handle it any more," or that this time she "meant it and, hell's bells, she wasn't coming back this time." It became such a common occurrence that I almost came to count on it the way people count on their monthly bills being due; you don't really look forward to the experience, but it would be irresponsible to allow yourself to lapse even in the slightest. In that vein I always approached every time she came to me wanting consolation or even just a shoulder to bitch upon as something I was honored to do. I mean--it's pretty difficult to refuse somebody your ear when they're telling you that you're the only person they trust right then. To be honest, it made me feel kind of special to even be thought of in that category, let alone in practice.

In the end, I always managed to tussle things out with her. Even if I wasn't always able to rein in her impulses "to skedaddle," as she sometimes put it, I always able to at least get a commitment out of her that she would call her mom eventually that day. Even at the height of their troubles, when B was in eighth grade, and hadn't come back home or seen her parents for two days, I still was able to finagle her consent for me to call them and let them knows she was doing okay. That's how it is most of the time dealing with someone like Little Miss Chipper. You can never really give her advice in the same sense of telling her what to do. The most you could ever do is present her with options that she has the full authority to completely ignore, even outright resent. It's more of a challenge with her and with people like her, because there are days where she would come begging for advice and, when I would finally give her some, she would blow it off. Those are the days where I felt like telling her, "why the hell did I waste the last two hours talking to you if all you wanted to do is your own thing anyway?" Those are the days where I felt like it was just too frustrating to even commit to helping her out. All it did was leave me disappointed too.

Here's the thing: I've always thought of myself as someone who liked helping people. I've always made it a rule that anyone of my friends can call me at any hour of the day or night. I would and will always try to assist them as best as I could. But over the years people have abused that policy to such a degree that there have been many times where I thought it was a mistake to even extend that much generosity to them. Even though my inclination is to do what I could do for people I feel are close to me, I possess just as strong of an inclination to remain apathetic and uninvolved. It's a perilous task attempting to balance the two divergent philosophies. It's like I start every late-night plea for help with the intention of caring unequivocally, but after a certain duration of advice-giving has occurred, I myself get frustrated. That's when any ounce of me that once cared at the beginning of the conversation shuts off. I become stoic and introverted. I can only stomach so much stubbornness, so much "but I don't know" or "I don't agree," for so long. I know you don't agree and I know you're thinking of going in a different direction, but isn't the point of you calling me to find out what I would do and what direction I would head? If you didn't want that, then why call me at all?

I've had many discussions with various people about this. Most of them say that I tend to give out good advice, but I get horribly upset when people don't follow through with it. Most can agree with the notion that I would have made a terrible psychologist. I possess the insight and definitely posses the firsthand knowledge of most situations. I simply don't have the patience. As Breanne puts it, "You like listening to people, Eeyore. What you don't like is when people don't listen to you." And it's true. I've always been that way. I love hearing people's stories. I love learning about people, everything in the rich tapestry that they call their history. But I've always had a slight annoyance at people wanting me to care about them and then getting upset when I do. It hurts me when I care about someone and want them to do right, and then they turn around and do it completely opposite of the "right" way to do it. I can stomach people making mistakes. I just can't stomach them making mistakes on my watch, on my time, right after I told them how to best handle it.

I believe I've just gotten worse over the years. Fifteen years ago; with people like Jina, Breanne, and Margaret; I could give advice and walk away. I could. I could totally buy into the concept of letting people lead their own lives and not feel personally let down when they didn't listen to me. But over the years it's just gotten harder and harder. All the same problems start creeping up again. I start handing out the same advice over and over again. It's to the point where it all feels so futile. The same people are going to continually make the same sort of mistakes. No matter what I say, it's all going to turn out the same. There's no point in even my going over it again because it won't make a bit of difference.

Nothing of what I say matters. All it feels like is my words going in one ear and out the other.

I feel sorry for people I just met recently. People like Marion or her sisters, people like Casey and Laurel--they think I'm a good listener. And I just feel like telling them that I used to be so much better in my youth. I used to be this great listener. I used to be this person that was eager to help everyone out regardless of the situation and regardless of how well and how long I knew you. Even on rilokiley,net, I used to read and respond to everyone's problems on there as well, no matter how long they had been a member. Now I just find myself reading about people and lacking the energy to even respond. It's all the same bullshit that I've been hearing for the last twenty years. People are making all the same mistakes I made, or that B. made, or that Tara made. I can hear myself saying what I always say in those situations. I just can't actually bring myself to say it any more. It's like the impulse to empathize with people's plights is still there; just the energy to do something about it has all but disappeared. It's like I still care, but I want it to be somebody else's turn to take up the mantle of being advice giver and confidante. I want my turn to be done with. I just want to focus on me and my own problems for now.

But I can't do that with everybody. Because I still care, some may even say because I still care lot, I still fall into the trap of pushing past my frustration more often than not if the situation still warrants it. I still get those calls or e-mails from Marion that spur me into action. She doesn't know I've heard every one of her situations before. She hasn't heard the words out of my mouth that I've given dozens of people over the last twenty years regarding the same problems. To her, her problems are fresh. To her, she feels like the only one who has ever felt like that before. To her, I'm just a friend who can help her out. That's not the time for me to be petty and selfish, turtle up and say, "deal with it yourself." I can't do that to her. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I can't talk to someone I've known for years and years about a problem they've always had and completely shut off to their pain. I can moan about how they always fall into the same traps. I can wring every ounce of a guilt trip when it comes to receiving the same piece advice I gave you back in the 90's. But in the end, tired as I may feel and annoyed as I may feel, if you're my friend I'm not just going to allow you to twist in the wind. In the end, I'll do the responsible thing and get past my own self-centeredness.

I used to like giving advice. Parts of me still do. But I realized that I'm not cut out for being everyone's rock like I thought I could be. No one can be dependable all hours of the day. No one can go their whole life trying to help everyone out without getting a little burnt out at the process. Maybe this is a temporary stage of withdrawal for me. Maybe all it will take is some time to rejuvenate the old compassionate batteries. I hope so. I don't want to remain this bitter the rest of my life.

I want to see myself getting back to the place where I could be happy helping someone out again rather than relieved that they're not coming to complain any more.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

The Grabbing Hands, Grab All They Can, All For Themselves, After All, It's A Competitive World, Everything Counts In Large Amounts

--"Everything Counts", Depeche Mode

Some have called Small World a diceless version of Risk with powers. Others have labeled it a war game with most of the elements of randomness and chance removed. I happen to believe its definition may be a bit broader in scope than anything which can be summed up in a single chance. Make no mistake about it--it is a war game at it's heart. Armies both advance and retreat on other armies. The players as these armies' generals do make tactical and strategic decisions based on the single goal of obtaining the most area, and, by extension, the most power. However, I think at its heart there is something more symbolic underpinning the entire context of the game.

At its heart, I believe the board game Small World is nothing less than the pursuit of racial diversity given form.

For those of you who might not be familiar with the game, the game's publisher, Days of Wonder summarizes it thusly on their website (http://www.daysofwonder.com/smallworld/en/):

In Small World, players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate them all.

Designed by Philippe Keyaerts as a fantasy follow-up to his award-winning Vinci™, Small World is inhabited by a zany cast of characters such as dwarves, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs and even humans; who use their troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other races off the face of the earth.

Picking the right combination from the 14 different fantasy races and 20 unique special powers, players rush to expand their empires - often at the expense of weaker neighbors. Yet they must also know when to push their own over-extended civilization into decline and ride a new one to victory!

It's a fun game. I enjoy it a lot. Just yesterday I played it three times in the span of ten hours. And it wasn't because I was particularly fond of theme. Finding a fantasy-themed board games is about as hard to find as finding a church open on Sundays. And it wasn't because I liked its predecessor, Vinci. I liked it because there are fourteen different races in the game and they all more or less--the merit of the Dwarves is still being contested--provide the players a different, but equal, shot at winning the game. The Merchant Ratmen are just as likely to be as power-hungry and maniacal as the Seafaring Giants are likely to be cunning and devious. One player's Fortified Amazons can provide the keys to victory as the next player's Stout Halflings. In that concept alone I think the designer Phillippe Keyaerts should be commended. His previous effort with the same concepts, Vinci, lacked that certain something that makes a gameplaying session make the leap from being "just a game" to becoming a fully realized experience, to pronouncing it as a full-blown event worthy of remembering.

It's one thing to say my race has +1 coming off mountain terrain or my race is just as strong when they decline as when they are active, but by giving each of the races a name, you give it some immediacy and you let the player identify with the "meat" of the game. It's one thing to say my guys attack your guys, and leave it at that. But it brings the game another level when you say your Forest Tritons are currently decimating Dragon Master Skeletons. When you give groups names, when you definite the borders of where they live as their home, when you start identifying them as a collective, they become less pieces on a game board and become more like people we have an affinity for.

It's just like real life.

----

I've gone most of my life attempting to shut the rest of the world out. I've been accused many times of being xenophobic. I always had this thought that I'm never going to visit the rest of the world, I've never wanted to see any place outside of the United States, so why would it matter to learn anything more than I had to about it. I learned what I had to in high school and college. I wouldn't say I know nothing about International events; stuff leaks in one way or another regarding other countries. Yet for the most part I never had one inkling of desire to further my knowledge about the world intentionally. I turned off the news whenever the focus shifted to the global scene. My mind became numb whenever I was called upon to give an opinion about some huge crisis affecting a place halfway around the world. I slowly tuned out my curiosity for anything that was not at least nationally relevant. Everything in this county became what I thought of as us, everything else was what was happening to them. And I really didn't care what was happening to them. I had stripped whole countries of names, places, and events, and replaced it with a generalized "over there" concept.

It's not happening here; it's happening "over there."

They're not us; they're "over there."

It's not important to me; it's only important "over there."


picture it now
see just how
the lies and deceit
gained a little more power

But since I started reading blogs like my friend Cooper's Wonderland or Not (http://wonderlandornot.net) and my old friend Jina's Notes From Central Africa (http://jinamoore.com), I've started learning more about the neighborhood that exists outside of my front door. I've actually started to look out my windows now and again. I might not be ready to metaphorically leave the confines of my living room, but I can honestly say I'm not oblivious to the notion that what happens down the block does have some bearing on me. I'm open to the fact that no man, or no country, for that matter, is a completely an island.

And every man and every country has an agenda. Every man and every country has a game plan. Most importantly, every man and every country has a name.

----

That idea didn't really crystallize until I played Small World. It's a board game, yes, but an individual like me, somebody with a modicum of imagination, can't help but take it to that next level. What would a Pillaging Human actually do to Hill Orc if the battles they fought were fought in the real world? It's all well and good to remove that Orc token from the board; it's a different story when you realize that removal could mean death, could mean torture, raping, razing, and a half-dozen other time-honored tactics of war. It's all well and good to extend one's borders in the game by conquest; it's a different story when you realize that extending borders means displacing the units, the people already there. It's all well and good to announce a civilization is going in decline; it's a different story when you realize a civilization going into decline wouldn't be a good thing as it is in the game. It means a loss of population, a loss of culture, and a loss of experiences that most will never know.

Small World isn't a game that is only relevant to people who play board games. It's a game that's also relevant to anyone who has ever marginalized another human being by refusing them the simple act of acknowledging their identity. When people become numbers and statistic, when countries become colors on a map, and when the captain of your P.E. basketball team says he picks "the slanty-eyed" guy, that's the idea present in most games of war. Small World is kind of a radical departure from most war games that either adhere to emotionally flacid pawns on a map or stray too far into historical minutiae. Small World, by giving each of its fourteen races separate identities and personalities, and by not basing them on specific historical cultures, invites people to imagine a world where borders are being fought over, where people (or Giants or Ratmen or Amazons) are dying every moment, where there are far too little resources for far too many people.

It never spells it out, but the implication is there. Violence is a part of our world as it is a part of Small World. But maybe, just maybe, we can take a cue from the game and acknowledge that faceless violence is a lot easier to swallow than violence which you can put a name to, which you can put a picture (playfully illustrated or mercilessly photographed) to, which you can empathize with instead of stoically disregard.

What we have is a handful of different races... and not a single one of them inherently all-evil or all-good--each of them sharing a piece of this small world of ours.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

If I Looked All Over The World, And There's Every Type Of Girl, But Your Empty Eyes, Seem To Pass Me By

--"Dancing with Myself (covers)", The Donnas

Of the five, I can explain four of them rather easily.

Starting with number one, redheads, I can tell you that's a visual cue. I mean--from day one of school (and maybe even back to Wendy) red hair has always just looked better on a person than any other hair color. That can be chalked up to having a discerning eye,

Numbers two and three, Southern and Canadian, I honestly believe it harkens back to the accent. I've been a fan of the English-derived family of accents since I heard my first one on television. Australian, Irish, and, yes, even Canadian--people who speak with those particular vocal traits seem to be more interesting and possess more charisma than people who don't. Again, that's just my ears tricking my brain into paying attention.

Number four, basketball players, is an easy one. It's the uniform. 'Nuff said.

However, number five has never been an easy one to explain. Female drummers are an anomaly, even to me. It isn't like every female drummer does it for me visually. And the gods know only two well that I've never actually met a female drummer (other than Chloe from Smoosh) so it's not like there's a proven history there. Nope, for all intents and purposes, the reason female drummers make it onto the list of those ineffable qualities that comprise my perfect girl is strictly theoretical. I place stock into the concept of female drummers based on the idea alone.

And here's why.

Female drummers are, relatively speaking, a rarity. Unlike redheads and unlike girls from the South or Canada, or even unlike female basketball players, one is not going to be bumping into too many gals behind the drum set. That instantly puts them in the rarified air of being an elite class of people, which, as you may know by now, gives me reason enough to admire them. Anyone who can make it a field not normally catered to them will draw my attention rather quickly. That's enough to earn brownie points.

However, female drummers don't usually represent the face of the band either. They're not the front women, they're not the sexy lead guitarist types who crave all the attention. They're content to hang back and allow the uniqueness of the situation they have placed themselves in to be the only quality that makes them stand out at all. There's something to be said about people who don't have to make a big production out of themselves just to get noticed. Of any instrument, I've always thought drummers are the coolest people on stage because they allow everyone else the spotlight and never insist any for themselves. I think that's why I always notice the outstanding drummers, because when you notice the drummer it's because of their prowess and not some other quality like appearance, showmanship, or outrageousness.

Mostly, though, the best hypothesis I can come up with is that a female drummer represents a female presence in a usually male-dominated profession. Even moreso than the whole basketball player fetish, female drummers speak to the tomboy/girl-next-door fantasy that has been a staple of my writing. I don't get the deal with the whole sexy librarian scenario, but I do get it when one sees a lovely lady doing something that usually only guys do. It's not necessarily about empowering females to follow in whatever pursuits they want as much as the notion of it being a refreshing change of pace--not to mention a much-needed change of scenery.

I don't know where it started. I don't know why it persists to this day. But those are my ideas where the proclivity may have originated from and some of the rationale behind it. I've seen and dated a few women in my time, but I have never dated a female drummer.

I don't know--I guess I wanted it down on paper why that'll be a quest that may last my entire my life.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

One Swan Is Deceiving Us All, Oh, I For One Should Know, I Never Felt Myself So Graceful, And I Never Swam So Slow

--"Swans", Camera Obscura

Tomorrow afternoon, after I get home from work, I shall be purchasing an Xbox 360 game called Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. I'm going to get home, put it into the system, and probably play straight through the night. I've already decided that this endeavor will require me taking Wednesday off because, frankly, I know how I am with anything new and shiny. If it's anything like I have done with previous games I've been waiting a year for, I may need to take off Thursday.

Crazy, I know. It's what my co-workers tell me. It's probably what my boss is going to tell me when I request Wednesday off. It's what Laurel said when I had to turn down an invitation to the Red Sox/Angels game on Wednesday. On any other given day Red Sox would come first. But tomorrow is launch day for something that I immediately knew would be my cup of tea as soon as I heard the description. A hack-and-slash action RPG that can trace its lineage back to Diablo and Diablo II? Hell, that's all you had to say, son. I mean--it'd be one thing if this were an undertaking I thought I might like, but this is so in my wheelhouse, as they say, that it really should be called Sacred 2: Fallen Angel for mojo shivers and be hand-delivered to my house.

The last time I had this sure of a feeling I would like something was when Diablo II came out. Back in 2000, when it first came out, I spend almost four to five hours playing. My typical day after work would be have dinner with DeAnn, watch till like ten or eleven with her, and then play till like three in the morning. To put it mildly, I was obsessed with the game. I remember how much worse it got after I hooked my co-worker Will from Sears on the game. After that my days became literally play till three in the morning, sleep, go to work and talk about last night's adventures in the game for eight hours with Will, then dinner and tv with DeAnn. It was a non-stop cycle. It got so bad that there were nights where she, like she was mom, would cut me off from my time to play until we spent some alone time with one another.

To this day, I think if you ask her, she'll cite Diablo II as one of the contributing reasons we broke up. If you ask me, I'd definitely tell you that, barring an emergency, the game took precedence over her.


I'm still afraid to get lost
in a city I might explore

I'm afraid that's what's going to happen with this game tomorrow. I know I have an addictive personality. It's the whole reason I never started smoking. It's the whole reason I never started doing drugs of any sort. I already get tunnel vision when it comes to everyday habits; I don't need anything added to compel to keep at something.

Here's the thing, it wasn't just that I found Diablo II fun. It was the fact that the customization was so extraordinary. It gave me a sense of control that only writing has seemed to match. It was an escape, yes, but more than that it was my chance each day to feel like I mattered completely. It's really easy to become overwhelmed with the euphoria of being so completely immersed in one's own self-importance and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. As much as I hate to toot my own horn, I was good at playing the game. In those two years where I played it all the time, it began to feel like the only thing that I was good at. I hated my job, even though I loved my co-workers. I was falling out of love with DeAnn, even though I still liked her immensely. I was just dissatisfied with a lot of what was going on in my life, but not nearly enough to do anything about it. I felt stuck. And what's more I felt powerless to complain to anyone because, hey, taken against the backdrop of what my life was like five years before that, how I was doing was amazingly good. It just wasn't perfect.

Well, when I was wandering around Sanctuary, the world of Diablo, things were perfect. If I didn't like something, I just went out and found or bought new items. Unlike the real world, the most it ever took to change my situation was maybe a week of playing. Things happened quickly, things that I wished to happen. Instead of being mired in the quagmire of bureaucracy or compromise or sacrifice, I got what I wanted relatively immediately.

It made me feel good in a way that the rest of my world, including DeAnn and Breanne and everyone else I claimed to be close to, couldn't... at least at that time. I was searching for something that I didn't think people could give me, that real life could give me, so I started chasing something intangible. And I chased it to a silly, little game.

----

The only thing about chasing that kind of joy is that if you put all of it in that one thing it causes you to completely throw everything else to the wayside. Things were never the same with anybody for a long time after I started. To be honest, the only person I was able to hold a decent conversation with in those days was Will. He was the only one who could understand what it was like to be chasing that imaginary high. DeAnn couldn't understand and I partly hated her because I couldn't share it with her. Breanne and I stopped talking for weeks at a time and to this day I still think that's partly to blame for her and Greg meeting, because I wasn't interested in keeping my end of the friendship. I didn't even see or talk to my parents or the rest of my family for months at a time.

I put aside everything because nothing else could make me as happy as the game.

And then when the game stopped making me happy, guess what, nothing and no one could make me happy. Instead of cultivating multiple plants to provide me that brand of sustenance, instead of planting seeds of fulfillment in a few choice spots, I catered to one specific plant and let all the others die. That's the danger of obsession. In the end, one source of happiness is never enough. You've got to have a few different places to turn.

You've got to have a few different people to turn to.

You can't go on chasing one thing or one person in order to make you happy because, in the end, no one person can do that for you.

----

I'm hoping I don't get hooked on Sacred 2. I'm hoping that after Wednesday I can keep my play relatively under control. Unlike in 2000 I've got too much else going on to spend all my time on one hobby any more. I've learned my lesson (hopefully).

There's more than one game I play now, even though I'm thinking Sacred 2 will become new favorite. I know there's more than one star in the sky... even if she'll always be the brightest.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I'm Gonna Sing So You Can Hear, I'm Gonna Sing Away Your Fear, I'm Gonna Rock You To Sleep, A Sound Of Trumpets

--"A Call to Arms", Oh Laura

I was trying to interest Epcot in watching In Treatment the other day. I figured, of anyone I know, she's had the most training and the most extensive background in dealing withe people's problems. I figured the show would be right up her alley. That led us to talking about my history with being treated (namely, that I don't have much of one) and her asking why is it that I went for those three sessions when I did. I honestly didn't know what to tell her.

What I find odd, now that I think about it, is why I felt compelled to go after breaking up with Tara and not anybody else. I mean--there's Tara, who I went out with for a little over year. Yet I got shaken up enough after that break-up to seek counseling. And then you have people like Breanne, who I've had possibly the most fights with, and DeAnn, who hands-down I had the most knock-down drag-out fights with (not to mention the most physical altercations with). What was it about Tara that made me believe I couldn't handle sorting through the fallout on my own and what was it about everyone else that made me think that it wasn't bad enough to ask for assistance? What makes Tara so special. She wasn't hard to get along with. She wasn't cantankerous. She had an altogether pleasant personality most of the time. Yet something about losing her made me seriously tank the next few months before getting help. I stopped eating for days at a time. I missed like 80% of my classes for the next two months. I would take drives every night just so I wasn't tempted to call her or lay there late at night, hoping she would call me.

However, as far as break-ups go, it was relatively painless. I didn't have to see her everyday. There wasn't the slightest bit of vindictiveness on either one of our parts. Yes, there was that whole snafu in Philadelphia, where she basically ditched me for three days, but that was just as much my fault as hers. Honestly, of anyone I've ever gone out with and subsequently broken up with, she's the only one I still look back upon with any sort of fondness.

Yet for three hours over the span of three weeks I momentarily felt enough resentment to blather on in detail to a psychologist in Arcadia because I honestly felt like I was at my wit's end.

The only thing I could come up with is she warranted professional analysis for two reasons.

One, she's the first girl that ever officially broke up with me rather than drift away, let the relationship slide, or otherwise passive aggressively break-up with me. I don't know if it's actually true because I'm sure the words were said before me, but in those instances I think it was mutually agreed upon, but Tara is the first girl I believe that wanted to break up with me that I didn't want to break up with. You could kind of lump Jina in the same type of predicament, but in that case she never wanted to get a relationship started and told me no right from the get-go. It's one thing to end things when both people want to walk away. It's another thing entirely when one wants to go and the other wants to stay.

Two, she's one of only a handful of girls that I actually went out with for more than six months. Maybe it's only a number. Maybe I had some other relationships that might be lumped into full-blown boyfriend/girlfriend material, but it never starts being real to me until the relationship hits that six months plateau. I've gone out with exactly four women for longer than six months and one of them doesn't even count because I still to this day can't place a date on when we exactly started going out and when we exactly stopped. In that instance I'm doubly screwed because not only do I not have a sense of closure, but I never had a real sense of beginning either. That just sort of happened. However, Tara, I know exactly when we started going out and when exactly we stopped. That made a difference in why it hurt so much for so long.

It wasn't like DeAnn where I had three years to see the writing on the wall. It wasn't like we'd been fighting the whole time. To me it still seems like we had about nine great months that culminated in one bad weekend, after which we broke up. I still can't really do the math on the whys and hows. That was the bulk of my trying to make sense of the whole affair, the unfairness of the situation. I mean--with DeAnn and the others I can remember the fights. I can remember the issues we seemed to tussle about. I can remember every time I raised a hand to DeAnn or threatened to crash the car with us in it. I can remember every time I bullied Breanne into doing what I said, regardless of her emotional state. I can remember every time I took advantage of her age and inexperience to win an argument. I can remember with Ilessa all the shouting matches in the car where I just wanted to strand her out at Dodger Stadium or wherever we happened to be. But I can't remember a single fucking fight I had with Tara before that fateful weekend.

One of the first things I told my doctor was that with Tara it felt like I had lost a fight I didn't even know I was fighting. He then asked me if it would have made a difference if I had known she had doubts. I told him it would have made a big difference. You can't fix a problem you can't see.

That's when he told me that maybe it was the not seeing that was my problem.

In a sense, that's true and that's what make Tara's case special. Everyone else I could see the conflicts, the differences in temperament. I've always been really adept at pushing the right buttons to get someone angry or to get someone to agree with me, if it was important for them to agree with me. I might have lost a step or two in the last eight years since I broke up with DeAnn, but on two separate occasions I was told I had a nasty habit of employing guilt-tripping as my mine method of fighting my battles. DeAnn even went so far as to call my style of persuasion "mental abuse". But it was Breanne who put it more succinctly. When I'm upset, when I'm fighting with someone, I've always played the part of mental terrorist. There's a huge part of me that identifies with the tactic of "if I'm going down, then we're all going down." I don't just threaten it; I act on it. In my years of dating, having relationships, I've used every trick in the book. I've caused scenes in public, ambushed people at work or at their home, I've stopped the car on the side of the ride, I've physically restrained people from leaving, I've pushed people down, I've hurt myself to get people to listen, and I've even threatened and made valiant attempts at killing myself. My thinking was I needed to do whatever it took, to not only get someone to listen to me, but to agree with me. And when I say "people" and "someone," I'm talking about women I supposedly loved.

I've spoken many times about how bad of a temper I used to (still do?) have. What I haven't spoken all that often about is the other personality flaw I have, which is an utter lack of regard for anybody else's rules but mine. It's hard to show restraint or maturity, when I've spent a great number of years fighting against playing by concepts of goodness, decency, and legality. I've always preached doing whatever you wanted if it makes you happy. The unfortunate corollary to this philosophy is that I tend t employ the same disregard for playing by the rules when it comes to making other people unhappy. It's one thing Breanne and I share, nobody can tell me what to do. Where we differ is that I extend that to situations where people are telling me to stop hurting them, stop making them cry, stop tearing them down. Even in the midst of breaking someone down to the core, I have to be honest, it still annoys me a little when somebody insists that I should stop... and especially try to use arguments of conscience and taking the moral high ground. I get into a zone where when I want to hurt someone, I don't want to be told to stop. I don't want to be told to calm down. I want to do what I want to do, damn the consequences.

And that's what was different about Tara.

I never reached those crazy times of seething rage. I can remember her agreeing with the majority of what I had to say. I can remember her agreeing with the majority of what I wanted the both of us to do. It was perfect. It's what I thought I wanted. As I came to find out later thanks to many a long chat with Miss Brandy. It's the classic fantasy of a domineering personality type. Brandy asked me all those questions. Have you ever said to anyone, "I wouldn't have to hurt you if you just agreed with me," or "tell me the answer I want to hear or we'll go all night at this"? And I honestly have. I've caught myself more than once thinking that situations would be easier if I could just have my way.

Well, I had my way with Tara. She didn't fight back at all. She never saw the complete darker side to me.

And that's what my doctor told me by that last session. I wasn't upset that she left me. I was upset that she left what I thought was the "good" me. I was upset she found fault with the person who was ostensibly on his best behavior. It's one thing to want to run away from the beast; that's understandable. But when a girl rejects you when all you've showed her is the princely side, then it really puts a knot in your rope. It didn't make sense to me. Not at all. After all, if I couldn't sustain a relationship when I thought I was being nothing but a perfect companion, then what hope did I have in being with someone long-term once they saw the other side of me.

I mean--granted, the worst times weren't had until after Tara had dumped me. I never had to drive someone to the hospital because I'd hurt them so bad in a fight at home until a couple of years later. I never had to hear about making someone so physically afraid to talk to me from someone's mother until a couple of years later. But even with Tara the signs were there. My doctor told me she probably picked up the dangerous aspects to my anger without actually having to see them and she was probably protecting herself preemptively, before she got hurt. I couldn't blame her for that. I couldn't blame her at all for that. When I recall all the damage I've done to people I supposedly cared about, Tara was lucky to get out when she did.

And yet it's the people who stuck around after the mighty blows were struck that I'm still on good terms with today. I hardly ever think about those times of ugliness now if only because the people who really cared about me, stuck through them. Even after she called the cops on me because she was afraid of what I'd do, even after I'd embarrassed her probably dozens of times, even after putting her through all this "mental abuse", DeAnn still hung by me for three more years after we broke up. And it wasn't because she thought I could change. It was because to her, the good aspects of what I had to offer outweighed the bad. Or as Breanne explained to her mother about why she stayed friends with me even after basically using her as psychological punching bag when I was just hating the world, "You don't throw away the cat just because it scratches you a couple of times." I don't know if it's true or not--but she says that it's a balancing act. The times and ways I've made her into a better person far outweigh the times and ways I've left her life worse because of me.

Bre's had it the worse. She's had to listen to my stories about absolutely terrorizing people at one time or another, and she's beared the brunt of it as well. She might not have gotten the worst of it. She might be the only person I actually can catch myself before it gets out of hand. But she's had to deal with the most occurrences. If the DeAnn blow-ups were like huge earthquakes that came sporadically and the Ilessa blow-ups were like tornados touching down and staying for awhile, then the Breanne blow-ups were (and are) like winter storms; they don't do as much damage, but they're constant, and they can still kill you all the same. And I think it's worse with her too because it's like I know she's not going anywhere, which just makes it easier for me to want to hurt her more. I want to drive her away. I want to get her mad when we fight because it's almost like she can take it. It's like a boxer who's used to knocking people out with one punch meeting an opponent who can actually take a licking. It just make him want to hit harder because the usual stuff isn't working. I don't go into details about all the fights we've had, but we've had some huge ones where it doesn't matter how much I say I take it all back. The words are out there and they'll never be reined in again. Yet she stays because every year she knows me, we fight less often and less fiercely. She stays because I've been steadily been getting better on my own--thanks to Rachel and thanks to her, actually.

I've apologized to everyone. I've made up for mistakes. I've done a lot of soul-searching. And, yes, I think I've changed post-2000 as compared to pre-2000, but it doesn't matter. I'll never get the stain out of my soul for each and every time I've hurt someone because I wanted to. I'll never empty my head of the idea that, at my core, I'm just not a nice person to be around. I'll never fix myself enough to be with anyone worth being with.

Yet those are all concerns I deal with every day. Those are the problems I've accepted will by my lifelong burden to work on.

Tara was different. Tara was my one shot at playing it cool, playing it nice, and it still not working out. That's a puzzle I just needed some help solving. She's the one girl I don't think I did anything wrong with and still manage to fuck it up. Indeed, it's still a mystery I've come to accept will always be there, but I've accepted nonetheless.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

You've Got A Lot To Say, I'm Not The One To Make You Feel This Way, But You've Got A Lot To Say, And You've Got A Lot To Prove

--"Echo", The Bridges

"Can we buy a sponge first?" she asked as soon as she had gotten into the rented tan Corrolla. I thought to ask what she needed the sponge so urgently so far, but then I thought better of it.

"Sure."

Toby was dressed in a pinkish shirt with black tiger stripes on it. I remembered that because I thought it was odd that somebody as reserved as she proclaimed to be would wear something so garish out. Sure, she had sent me pictures about what she looked like when she went out, but somehow the pictures were something unreal, something like she was dressing up in costume. Seeing her in person was an entirely different reality.

"I would do it on my own time, but I figured since we'll be out..." her voice trailed off.

As far as first meetings go, it wasn't exactly Romeo and Juliet finding each other across the crowded room, but it was memorable. More than that, it was what I had hoped would happen when I first came to pick her up in front of her parents' house. I didn't want to spend a lot of time going through the motions of introductions or greetings. That's a brand of awkwardness that most of the time I could do without. I couldn't remember if I had imparted this knowledge to young Miss Frisson sometime in the last few months, but whether she picked up on the hint or such was her natural behavior, it was my natural behavior to skip the formalities and to get right into the meat of the matter.

I mean--I was excited to meet her as I'm sure she was to meet me for the first time face-to-face. Yet after talking to her off and on on the phone for the last year, it wasn't like she had to go through the rudimentary biography beforehand. It truly did felt like we had known each other for far longer than the occasion would have accounted for. I've just always found that the surest way to combat nervousness at first encounters is to treat them like they aren't first encounters. In fact, some of the best introductions I've ever had were the ones where I didn't couch it like an introduction at all. From telling people about the nuances of my day to peppering them about the more intimate portions of theirs, I've never gone into a worthwhile friendship treating it as if we were in first throes of getting to know one another. The way I figure it, you're always in the process of getting to know someone. However, you don't have to ever base your whole perspective on this fact. You really should go into every conversation as if you already know enough about the individual in particular to be holding a conversation with them. That's how I treated Toby on that day, that it was like the umpteenth time I've spent time with her even if was technically the first time I ever spent time with her face-to-face.

"Follow this street out and then make a left at the second light," she instructed me solemnly after I asked where we needed to go to.

Even while I was watching the road, out of the corner of my eye I noticed she wasn't entirely there. She's always been naturally reticent, but I was expecting a few more words to be falling from her mouth--small talk or not. I wanted to ask her what was wrong. I wanted to find out and help. But I knew Toby was the kind of person that didn't need to be questioned. She would open up about what was bothering her eventually.

"So what do you need the sponge for?"

"No reason. I was doing the dishes after breakfast this morning and I noticed we needed a new one."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's a habit. I like to buy a new sponge every two weeks on the dot. Usually I get my mom to do it, but since you're here."

I thought about it for a second before replying.

"Did you actually need the sponge then? Or was it more the two weeks were up?"

"Gosh. I don't know. After two weeks I start to think of the sponge as worn out. I couldn't even tell you if it's still usable."

"Can I tell you something funny, Marion?"

"What."

"I don't even know when the last time I bought a sponge was. I usually come home one day and there's just a new one there. It's kind of like the sponge fairy visits whenever I need a new one."

She attempted to laugh, but the slump to her shoulders and the way her voice had a habit of trailing off told me that her heart just wasn't into the humor of the situation. I had thought that would have gotten a rise out of her. Just the previous week I had told her that a scoop of cookie dough ice cream I had been eating had somehow ended up on the floor. When I had informed her that I had picked it off the dirty kitchen floor and put it back into my glass bowl she practically hung up the phone on me. It took me telling her that the kitchen floor wasn't as dirty as I made it out to be and that I had only dropped a spoonful at most to get her to calm down. Now she took the news that I wasn't exactly the most vigilant sponge monitor in the world with as much disgust as if I'd told her that I had blown my nose.

That's the problem with the meeting someone for the first time and they're not exactly jazzed to see you. You want them to be as excited for the meeting as you are for it, but to them it's more of a routine. Toby wasn't the one who had flown two thousand miles anywhere. She wasn't the one who had to rent a car. She wasn't the one holed up in a Sheraton across the river. She had woken up in the same bed she had woken up in the day before. She had had breakfast in her parents' house like she had the day before. And now she was riding down to the local store and picking up the same kind of sponge she apparently picked up every two weeks. The companion had changed, but she was still in the midst of her routine.

I had the feeling if she hadn't been mired in her own problems, she would have been more considerate of mine. I could forgive her for that. It didn't make dealing with the awkward silences any easier, however. It made for a very quiet few blocks' ride.

On the outside she looked alright--pink tiger shirt aside. But on the inside I couldn't help but wonder what kind of demons she was keeping at bay. For the first time in a long time I realized how maddening it was to have a friend who was naturally secretive. I'd gotten spoiled on Breannie, whose worst problem has always been knowing when to cool her jets. Talking problems out with her came as easily as falling off a log. I knew from day one that getting familiar with Toby's routines would be a wholly different experience. I could even see that in the way she writes. She writes far more in metaphor and imagery than most people I know. She doesn't spell it out for you A-B-C. She forces you to puzzle it out some. And even when she is being forthright she never entirely clues you into every detail. There's always been a part to her that remains under lock and key; there's always been a part she keeps to herself in order to maintain the illusion that nobody can understand all of her.

To be fair, that's always been the part that intrigued me most about her. I'm naturally secretive with most people. There's always been a part of me that feels like nobody understands everything about me. There's always been a manner in which I've held things in because I don't feel like people would want to concern themselves with my problems. Only people like Jina, Brandy, DeAnn, and, of course, Breanne have ever really gotten the full benefit of my capacity for sharing everything. With everyone else I've kind of hung back in sharing everything. Even here on this blog, I'm not entirely above withholding certain bits of information if it suits my purposes.

If I were entirely being honest with myself, I've always been attracted most to the facets of Toby's personality and history that remind me about myself rather than the differences. I have enough people in my life with whom I get to experience "the other side of life" with. I have enough people I know who I can live vicariously through rather than live their kind of life myself. With Toby it's nice to know someone other than me kind of calls a spade a spade for the exact same reasons I do.

What is not entirely pleasant is when I see the not so appealing aspects of my personality.

Listening to her lack of chatter, hearing nothing coming from her side of the front seat, and seeing on her face the lack of any enthusiasm I saw every complaint people have levied against me when I'm annoyed or unhappy. I retreat. I run away. And I'm not talking about the way Breanne runs away when she has a problem; that's the literal interpretation of what I do figuratively. If you confront Breanne, she'll try to fight you tooth and nail. But if she ever ends up feeling like she's not being heard, she'll run away. That's what she does. I'm different. I'll just shut you off in my head. Or, worse yet, I'll cut off all communication with you. 60-0, that's what Brandy uses to describe my penchant for expressing my interest in the conversation. Some people can fake their interest in a story or an argument; I won't. It's what Toby does too. She doesn't fake interest very well either.

And she wasn't faking it very well once we got to our destination.

"We'll grab the sponge and then you'll show me around, right?"

"That's the plan," she said, walking through the front doors ahead of me.

Was I this hard to deal with for most people? Did it seem to others who were around me when I was in one of my funks that I had a lot to say, but refusing to say it?

I walked inside the store and took up a position on the other side of the aisle where she was looking for the sponges. It didn't take her long to find it, but instead of just picking it up and taking it to the counter, she lingered with it in her hands. I could see her blue eyes focusing in on something else but the green and yellow sponge in her hands. Again, I was tempted to ask that simplest of questions, what was wrong, but something told me she needed to work a few things out in her head before she would be ready to tell me. She's a pretty girl; it rather bothered me to see her so upset and not to be able to do anything about it. It was like watching a turtle on its back, unable to get up, but being prevented at righting it by the double panes of glass surrounding it. In Toby's case the glass surrounding her was a lack of directness she had yet to develop. And in my case, the glass surrounding me was the lack of familiarity the situation entailed. It wasn't my place yet to talk about her problems like we had on the phone. On the phone she had asked for my help eventually, so eventually it became second nature for me to offer advice. But she had yet to ask for my help in real life. Until she did, it didn't matter what I told her. She wasn't going to hear it anyway. It didn't matter if I shouted to the high heavens. It would have never made it through the thick brown mane of hair shielding her ears in the store; it would have never penetrated the thick wall of introspection she had erected around her.

It was my first day in Louisville with Toby and all I could think about was how I wish could be back home. That way I could have called her and asked her what was wrong. She had a lot to say, I knew that much. She just didn't have a way to say it.

That's when it happened.

I watched her pick up her small grey motorola from her bag. I watched her dial a number in. And then I heard and felt my phone ring.

"Hello?" I said.

"It's me. I've got a problem. I need your help, Patrick."

For the first time all night, I watched her mouth fold up into a big smile. I don't know if you've ever known somebody with a smile that's as wide as mile, but that's the only way to describe Toby's mile. It's the kind of smile that makes you feel inferior because your own mouth can't stretch that large and it always makes me feel at least that I could never be quite as happy as she can be. I don't know if it was the smile that did me in, but I indulged her in little game. I spent the next ten minutes in the aisle with her, talking out an issue she apparently felt ill-equipped to discuss in the car with me. The funny thing was once the words started pouring out, they flowed out like a raging river. It was all I could do to interject here and there with the advice I had to give. In fact, the entire time it seemed to me that she the basic gist of how to solve her problem. All she really needed was someone to agree with her, to tell her that she was on the right track.


I heard the echo let go and I feel alright, at least I think so

There we were, standing less than two feet from each other, on our phones. Yet it made more sense to talk on the phone than just out in the open. Even though I was looking at her beautiful, freckled face the entire time, I wasn't concentrating on the voice coming out of her mouth. I was concentrating on the voice coming out of the other end of the phone.

In time we put away the phones. In fact, we talked the whole time in the car on our way to the seafood place we had decided to go for dinner in town. But it took something we were both comfortable with to get the ball rolling. Sometimes having something to say is less important than being comfortable enough to say it. And sometimes it's more important to get the words out there through any means possible than doing something slightly off-kilter in the process.

My only hope is that when I fly out there again this June 13th phones won't be necessary. I'm hoping the next time we spend fifteen minutes buying a solitary sponge, there won't be a phone in sight. The only thing I want to see is the person who reminds me so much about myself.

And, of course, that great smile of hers.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers