It’s Thursday. Today is Thursday, July 17th, 2008.
It’s eleven am. I’m at work, but I feel as though I’m somewhere else, sitting on a park with a sun rising in the chilled morning air sipping a warm cup of something delicious.
My dad and littlest sister, my unashamedly favorite sister ever will be here in just a few more days. I’m working a ridiculously long shift every day till their arrival and still trying to weasel in just the right off-days, Monday and Tuesday, so that we can spend some time together. They were going to show up earlier and stay a little longer but it would have been right around the time that I was working every day, ten hours or more a day. I asked them to detour and visit Washington DC first. In exchange I’d set up a few off-days and get them a free place to stay while they’re here.
I’ll be there, on that park bench in the sunshine. I’m taking Bethany to Hecksher park one of those mornings. Just me and her and then some breakfast afterwards.
…There are not words to express the amount of pure pride I have in that girl. It surpasses every pride I’ve ever felt for anyone or anything, even my own. It crushes everything else… And when I wander over those thoughts and feel it welling inside me… I cry.
I’d commit genuine intentional murder over that girl. I couldn’t even give it a second consideration.
She and I have secrets to exchange in that park…
They will be here for little more than two days. Sunday evening to early Wednesday morning. They left yesterday and have probably arrived in DC by now. They’ll have hotels for those days. And while they’re here in New York they’ll be staying at Jack’s where I’ll take them place to place and orient them with the trains. My dad isn’t going to want to leave when he wakes up and looks out the window at the bay. He’s going to burn with desire as we drive past all the schooners and sails oh he’s going to hurt…
He’s going to hurt when he fills up the car too… ha.
… I’m ecstatic about this. I am actually jittery with anticipation… I can’t wait. I don’t know why I’m so excited. I’m quaking inside as I sit in this chair with the two customers yammering and yelling above the din and thrashing of the copiers to their respective insurance companies over the dates on their cards for title re-registration.
In my quiet park bench with the thin air moving and the over-caffeinated morning-birds whistling in their branches and leaves.
Etcetera.
Though seriously… I’m thrilled. I can’t believe how intensely… eager… I am to see her again.
Note now that this is nothing similar to the article I posted a few days ago. Absolutely not. I can understand that story, heck I can even appreciate it for its sincerity and its own unnatural beauty but I certainly cannot relate.
I just miss my favorite little sister and perhaps number one favorite being on this earth. Couldn’t begin to express my admiration for her…
Yesterday I took a little excursion out to the Citibank building in response to a response to a response to a Craigslist posting. I spent a little more than 45 minutes doing a trial run through a simple script to propose my candidacy as the new voice of Doctations.com.
If I’m picked over (what’s his name such and such other guy who also applied and came in for a prelim) then on Friday IMMEDIATELY after work (and not a moment later I was told) I’ll be headed back to that building till late into the night talking into a microphone for a none-too-shoddy $100 an hour.
I stand to make like… $500 in one day.
Yes. $500 in one day.
So I’m stoked. Checking my email every twelve seconds… crossing my fingers… shouldn’t be checking the email, that’s kind of against policy. The little monitor that tracks the actions on this computer should flag it and expose me too… but I distracted with a Scooby Snack.
… I miss Australia today… hard.
I’ll post again tomorrow about whether or not I got the job. Cheers everyone.
From The Times (original article can be found here.)
July 15, 2008
I had sex with my brother but I don’t feel guilty
A woman slept with her sibling for years and has good memories. Not many people understand their relationship, she says
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Strangely enough, Daniel’s wedding day didn’t upset me at all. It was his 30th birthday six months later which really got to me, as he stood there with his wife Alison while they greeted the guests. I can honestly say that that was the only time when I felt real envy and wished desperately that it was me standing beside him, arms round each other as we showed the world how much we loved each other.
It’s not as if I’m not allowed to love Daniel, but the way we feel about each other isn’t something that we can share easily with anyone else. Daniel is my brother, but since I was 14 we’ve had a sexual relationship - and that’s not something that many people would feel comfortable with.
I’ve only ever spoken about this once before, and even then it was very much in the abstract. While I was still at university a friend had a major misunderstanding with a relatively new boyfriend when one of his friends had reported back to him that he’d seen her hugging and kissing another man in the union bar. She was firstly annoyed at being questioned and became even more exasperated when she explained that the man in question was her brother, as her boyfriend refused to believe her. Their loud discussion took place in the union with an interested audience, until he finally stamped out in fury, still refusing to believe her. As she flounced back to join us she made a remark about preferring her brother to any other man, whereupon one of the crowd said “Yuck, how pervy!” As she sat down beside me she muttered something like “It’s not that strange,” and three or four drinks later I quietly asked her what she’d meant.
Fuelled by drink or maybe just rage, she started talking in a very intense but hushed way about how close siblings could be, going on to say that she was sure that many people experimented sexually with them as they grew up and then simply grew out of it. She said it was like practising your social skills on your family and so long as it was mutual, she couldn’t see the harm. I didn’t say much - partly because I couldn’t believe that I’d met someone who seemed to be like me - and she very quickly clammed up and moved over to talk to someone else and never brought up the subject again.
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I think the only reason that I’m talking about it now is to emphasise that I truly believe that she was right - it doesn’t happen to everyone but it happens to some, and I don’t want to be made to feel guilty about it. Incest is so often spoken about in the same breath as abuse, but if you’re close in age and equal in relationship terms then it’s entirely different. Of course abuse happens, but it can happen in any sexual relationship and there’s an expectation that a family member would never hurt you in the way that someone else could. There’s no comparison between siblings close in age having sexual feelings and contact and an adult forcing a younger member of the family to do something they neither understand nor want to be involved in. I think incest is traditionally seen as bad, but in some cultures that isn’t the case. When I was small I asked a Sunday school teacher if Adam and Eve’s children married each other since they were the first people on earth. She just laughed and didn’t reply. Having children with Daniel was never an issue and we were always careful about contraception.
All my memories of my relationship with Daniel are good. He’s only a year older than me and we’ve always been close, especially since we always seemed to be full of nonsense compared with our older sister Jane. She’s four years older than Daniel and very studious and focused, while he’s bursting with fun and light-hearted enthusiasm. I’ve adored him for as long as I can remember and my parents were always delighted by our closeness when we were small. We shared friends and moved happily in the same social circles, so I could never understand girls who didn’t get on with their brothers.
Things changed when I was 14. I had spent hours getting ready for my first Christmas dance when I knocked on Daniel’s bedroom door. It’s a dodgy age as you’re trying to come to terms with your developing body and worry endlessly about how you look, so his wolf whistle was very welcome as he swept me into his arms and we pirouetted, laughing, around the room, before going downstairs to show off our finery to our parents and Jane.
Daniel’s appreciation really helped my confidence and I was aware of him smiling approvingly as boy after boy asked me up to dance, though my greatest pleasure was when he claimed me for the last dance. We giggled home to gossip and hot chocolate with our parents and by the next day all the finery was discarded and life was back to normal.
On New Year’s Eve Daniel went to a party and by the time he got home I was already asleep. I was extremely sleepy when he crept into my room and curled up on my bed, which was something we’d both done for years, especially if we wanted to share some snippet of gossip. When he started stroking my hair and face it was a surprise, but I could feel myself drifting pleasurably back to sleep as he caressed me gently. Then I became aware of his hand drifting lower and suddenly I was wide awake as he stroked my neck and started sliding his hand down my vest top. I wasn’t scared but I was surprised as he started stroking me, though my overriding sensation was one of sheer pleasure. I instinctively lifted my mouth to his as he kissed me and then he hugged me very tightly and left.
I lay in complete confusion with my mind racing and my body totally turned on. All the sex education I’d had said that this was wrong, that it was abuse and incest. But it hadn’t felt wrong and I certainly hadn’t felt forced. Rather, I felt that Daniel had stopped long before I’d wanted him to. It was hours before I finally fell asleep but I was sure of two things - that I’d really enjoyed it and I still adored my brother.
The next morning it was clear that Daniel had a hangover but as he grinned up at me from his prone position on the couch there was no awkwardness or regret between us. We didn’t discuss what had happened, but went for a long walk that afternoon with Jane and the dog and everything felt the same, down to Jane chiding us about being irresponsible about leaving our parents to do all the tidying up after new year’s dinner.
Over the next few years we had sexual encounters every six months or so, each time going farther and farther until I was 17, when we had full sex for the first time. We both went out with other people and there was never any jealousy, although I found it hard to be physically intimate with anyone else. Part of that was because sex with Daniel was so amazing that I had no patience for all the fumbling that seemed to happen with other boys. The sex was never pre-planned, but just always seemed to happen when there was no chance of being discovered.
Every so often I would wonder what people would think if they found out, especially our parents, but it always felt so right and was so exciting that these concerns were never enough to stop me. Sometimes he initiated sex and sometimes I did, but in between times our relationship was as easy, relaxed and affectionate as ever, with the incredible passion of each encounter quietly banked away until the next time.
I missed Daniel when he went to university, but went to stay with him every three months or so. Sometimes we would have sex and at other times neither of us seemed interested. By the time he met Alison he was working and I was a student, and I knew that this relationship was different, but it still came as a shock when he told me he wanted to marry her. However, I was more shocked when he said: “You only have to say and I won’t marry her, but then I want us to stay together and not see anyone else. We could be the old boring brother and sister who never got married, but ended up sharing a house because no one else would have them! I know this is meant to be wrong but I’ve never felt anything so right.” This echoed everything that I’ve thought about our incestuous relationship over the years. After hours of discussion we agreed that it was time to stop the sexual side of our relationship and also decided that telling anyone else was a bad idea, parting in tears afterwards.
I know Daniel loves Alison, but she’s very wary of me. I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t see me as a sexual threat, but she thinks of me as an emotional rival and I suppose she’s right. It’s not unusual - there are countless people dealing with all the emotions that result from partners becoming officially family.
I have wondered if there will ever come a time when I’ll look back on my relationship with Daniel in disgust, but I don’t think so. Everyone has relationships where the sexual element has ended but a great friendship remains, and that’s as good a way as any of summing up what’s happened with us. Daniel has a unique place in my affections, as I do with him, and that will never change.
As an academic I have a tendency to draw logical conclusions. I like to see a pattern and resolution, so it does pain me that what appears so lovely and natural to me would be regarded as abhorrent by most people. It’s not my subject, but I would be really interested to see a study on incest done on these terms, moving it away entirely from the concept of abuse. However, I simply cannot imagine that many people are happy to talk about it and I certainly wouldn’t put my family through hell by being the first to go public.
Three months ago I met Derek and I think this is going to be a lasting relationship. The sex is certainly amazing and he’s a warm and lovely man, so I have high hopes for this. The trouble with having someone like Daniel in your life is that it leaves you with very high expectations, but it’s hard knowing that the one person you love above everything is out of bounds. Perhaps worst of all is the fact that you can’t tell anyone, as his or her disgust would ruin everything.
This is about to sound really really stupid. But seriously, it’s about the most awesome thing I’ve done all week… Since Kristin left at least.
I have turned my car into a bowflex. Yes… Yes I have.
w00t.
I started running agin. Sorta. Every other morning I’ll get up and take a jog around the hill. That hill is murder so I figure once only every other day is sufficient. Wow this is a really silly post. In all seriousness though, What I’ve started doing ACTUALLY REALLY WORKS>
I’ve srtarted working out, in my car, while I’m driving.
Yes. You can read it again, that’s what I’m going. It is way working too.
It started while I was sitting in this very chair at Office max. (Work) and I noticed that I was developing a little rim around the waste. Partly because of all the incredible food I’ve had with John Lately, Mostly because I work at Office Max and do nothing but sit in a chair all day. (Blech.) Good money though.
I figured out that by lifting my legs while I was sitting in this chair that I could actually get a serious workout on my abdomen. To the point that it started to hurt! Which… exercise is supposed to hurt so I thought that was a pretty good thing…
I did that for about a week. Then I figured out that I could do it in my car while driving. And WOW…. That stuff is way intensely effective. That ring is gone and I am carved….
I’m going for the record silliest post. I’m killing it…
I started doing that about a week back and there is a visible difference EVERY TIME I get out of the car. Just keep my legs up, as long as I can… and it really pressures the adbomen. I’m getting a while abdominal workout WHILE driving!
Figured out that pressing in on the sides of the steering wheel works the pectorals, There are some other things that work other things. Now basically I get a full Gym routine every time I drive to or from work. Between that and running every other day… I’m in about the best shape of my life. This HILL is SO HUGE!
Not really an important message to the world, just thought I’d let people know it’s possible to have a schedule like mine and do a lot of driving and still work in some great exercise…
I’m a nerd. ^_^
Kristin Mullins only watched Broadway shows on YouTube.
Kristin Mullins has never been to New York.
Kristin Mullins does not speak Jamaican for anyone.
… eh, well you can’t win them all. From July 2nd to July 6th I was an inexistent pile of vacation. Some of you, knowing that I’ve been living on Long Island for the past six months might call that a little redundant. … ha.
If that’s redundant than I’m never going to Alaska. (winks at John Castaldo.)
I picked Kristin up from the airport on time (flight landed early due to the incredibly awesome weather) and after all the hugs and hellos and “Welcome to New York” and “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M ACTUALLY IN NEW YORK!!!” We got in my car and made our way over to Steve’s house in Queens, picked him up, drove out to Starbucks between all the “Hey Kristin” “Hi Steve!” “What’s goin on?” “Oh my god your accent is so cool.” “What?” “I’M IN NEW YORK!!!” and so on and so forth.
We got Starbucks, which was delicious, and then we fled to Kmart to get Kristin some hair product. Travelers hair product sales are up apparently as you’re not allowed to bring onto a plane more liquid than you can fit into a thimble just in case it might be a bomb. We got her hair product and took Steve delivered it to the Econolodge that John works at. He’d given her a splendid deal on a room for the five day, four night trip and we thanked him generously.
Somewhere in the weeks before the trip Kristin and I had actually had somewhat of an argument about my staying in the room with her. She wanted me to stay with her and I said I’d be just fine staying at Jack’s. I can’t really describe that argument, but it wasn’t worth having the first time and I didn’t want to have it again when she got here so I did eventually agree to stay in the room. Following that I heard nothing else from John Castaldo but about how much sex I was going to be having with Ms. Mullins. I told him flatly that I’d not be having any kind of sex with Ms. Mullins while in that room. From there he stopped teasing me about the supposed potential of my apparently raging heterosexuality, and decided instead to just call me gay.
Thanks John. You’re a pal.
After getting solidly oriented in the room we left again to get Steve (who’d we’d lost after the Kmart excursion to some other business for which he was urgently, and suddenly needed, but turned out to be a false alarm… anyway)… on the way there we had many wonderful conversations mostly having to do with Kristin being in New York and a small amount having to do with my mindblowingly savage habit of NOT COVERING MY MOUTH when yawning. For the rest of the five days, any time I yawned, Kristin covered it for me.
Thanks Kristin. That was way weird.
Also on the way there we created our first inside joke when I stopped at a stop light and reached down and across Kristin to turn on the power inverter on the floor on the passenger side. The guy in the car next to us took it the wrong way and started shouting “Whoa what!? He can’t do that! Naw man you can’t do that you gotta get a room for that! What is he doing?”
Thanks random guy in the black Pinto in Queens. We laughed about that for the next five days. Go you.
We watched HANCOCK! Seriously went to the Multiplexes and bought drinks and nachos and EVERYTHING and watched the movie on premier night and it was actually a really good movie.
We took Steve home, and then drove back to the Hotel where, much to John’s disappointment, we did NOT have sex.
DAY TWO:
We went to the mall. That was the first thing we did. I had told Kristin that there was a three-story shopping mall in the city adjacent to us and upon hearing that it bounced merrily to the top of the schedule. We visited the mall, walked around every inch of it, didn’t go into anything, and didn’t buy anything (incredible? Read on) and even passed by a COACH store complete with real Coach bags and even after recovering from her slight euphoric heart attack Kristin STILL didn’t buy anything. Probably because she’d left all her money in the hotel.
It was actually a really short time in the mall, from there we drove out to Huntington and visited the one place on earth that I’ll say honestly trumps anything and everything I know and have heard and want so badly about Australia. Hecksher Park. This place is an absolute story book. Between the little streams, the bursting flowers, all the little kids running around, the ducks, geese, and swans in whole flocks milling casually around, the butterflies… the unicorns… (okay so not unicorns, but here, in this place, it would genuinely not surprise me, it is that much of a fairy tale.) We took next to no pictures of it. Sat on a bench and drank it in for a while, watched the world move around us… smiled a lot. And then we moved on. We went to Fleets Cove, the small beach no more than a block from Jack’s house. Neither of us had brought swimsuits but just to see the sand and the ocean it was worth the detour. Jones would come later, we’d go swimming then. Jones Beach is MASSIVE.
Somewhere while standing on the beach someone decided it was alright to just go ahead and walk into the water whether there were swimsuits or not, and someone else followed as if dared by the action, till there we were both standing knee deep in the ocean and the clothes we’re wearing absolutely soaked because the water was creeping up the absorbent fibers of our pants.
It was then that someone realized that… oh yeah… we were supposed to go eat at a really fancy restaurant with John Castaldo in about… three hours. And now we’re soaked and have nothing to change into…
We walked around Huntington for about an hour. Between the casual flapping motion of our legs and the fact that it was 102 degrees we dried out wonderfully. It really is a great city, I got to point out the stop I’d met Walter. The little villa restaurant where I saw the guy get hit in the head with the chair on Cinco de Mayo. We did go into one shop, a novelty and joke shop that sold whoopee cushions, hand buzzers, those little imitation beanie babies that are getting popular now, fake snakes, and all kinds of other things. Again, didn’t buy anything. Nothing in there that we needed. But oh the potential…
We went to John’s, he took us both out to the Brazillian Barbecue restaurant that he and I had been to before. That place is incredible. The amount of food offered to you makes it appealing not to eat for at least two days before visiting. It’s incredible. John and I feasted like kings. Kristin nibbled like a small bird. We were both ashamed of her but everyone got along great. She and John talked and laughed and called me gay and laughed and called me gay and talked and called me gay and called me gay and it was a wonderful time.
Went back to the Hotel, did NOT have sex. (I had eaten too much to even consider it anyway. Phew…)
Day three, New York City day. The fourth of July.
We really didn’t plan a thing for this day except that in the evening we’d go watch the largest fireworks show on the planet on the south side of Manhattan at Battery Park. Which we did end up doing. The rest was mostly going to Times Square, marveling that Kristin was actually here in New York, going into my absolute favorite spot in that city, the Marriott atrium. The Times Square Marriott hosts some of the most incredible rooms at about $300 a night or more right off all the lights. It’s expensive to stay there, but the Atrium and the lounges are free. Any fellow can just walk in off the street and relax in the giant room, more than fifty stories of open space to the roof and enjoy a drink or something. Very relaxing, very nice, very luxurious… and great if you’ve been walking for a while. Which we had been. We took the Clearavator (elevator made of glass so that you actually see how high in this massive room you’re rising.) to the forty second floor and took a look back down. We actually did get a picture of that. Everything and everyone looked very small from up there. So we went back down.
Back out into the streets I got us both hopelessly (almost) lost looking for Central Park. Turned out we were on the Avenue right beneath it and for only that one block we missed the entire thing, but we did see some very cool brick sidewalk designs and a lot of pigeons along the way. Yay pigeons!
Tracked back, finally got there, got lost, figures, that park is the size of a city itself. Walked in circles about… seven times. And then finally left where on the east side I think. From there we found a subway (didn’t we? Getting foggy now) and rode it back to Times Square, from there, walked to just past 50th street to at least take a look at the Gershwin theatre where Kristin’s most favorite ever play “Wicked” is hosted. We bought something. Two of something actually, tickets actually, for the next night.
Somewhere in there we had some really good pizza at a parlor called Marielli’s and when it got dark we got on the subway again, and travelled downtown to battery park and the Ferry where we figured we could board and go to Ellis to watch the show.
Nope. They’d closed the Ferry, no rides to or from till after the fireworks. So we went out and waited (TWO HOURS!?) at the pier where everyone else waited. We sat at Dock 2. That’s us waiting in the photo below this post.
The fireworks started and she and I and the thousand or so people around us realized with sudden shock that we were in the absolute wrong place for watching fireworks. The show was all the way on the other side of this massive building… so everyone began to run in a mass pile towards the other side where the lights blazed, the booms thundered in the otherwise empty city streets, and it generally looked a lot like a mass panic and a late night full out attack on the city.
I asked Kristin for the camera. She asked why when we were still so far away from the fireworks. I said because I could film all the people running and yelling and all the explosion sounds and the bright fiery flashes of light from around the corners and could record us running while cuing in things like “They’re bombing the city! Oh! So much blood! Everybody run!!!”
Kristin refused to give me the camera.
She shoved our way through a couple of cynics to get to at least decent viewing range. I took one picture of that. One camera in a crowd up millions, and then we turned around. As awesome as the show was… fireworks are illegal in New York. Through the whole state. The novelty of it is lost a bit to those of us who are used to spending the fourth of July blowing up the same amount of firepower in our backyards. It was entertaining enough to have been there, and to be able to tell of it, and to hear the sound echoing through the vacant city streets like a giant cathedral hall.
The subway back was so heavy it had to chug up three times before it nudged far enough that there was any momentum. Standing room only, and no one got off until at least 42nd.
We made it back in enough time to catch the 11:16 train back to Long Island and rode it quietly. We returned to the hotel room. JOHN WE DID NOT HAVE SEX… and slept in till noon.
We went to Jones Beach. The weather was dreary, it started raining, and no one was even allowed on the beach due to the clearance of unexploded fireworks from the night before. So the whole thing was sectioned off for hours. After burying each other in the curtain of sand before the police tape we decided that we were well enough through with this beach and ready to find another. We did. It was far too cold to swim and there seemed to be a storm coming… it didn’t matter somehow. We ate there and talked a lot and just watched the waves and rain. Then we went back to the train station and rode the 4:16 to Jamaica, Jamaica to Penn, and began walking towards the theatre with our tickets tucked securely in my wallet. We arrived an hour early so after finding the nearest subway tunnel back to Penn (because the show lets out late and if we didn’t catch the 11:16 again we’d be there till well after 1am.) we found a nice little place called the Natsumi lounge just around the corner from the entrance and relaxed there, got some drinks… rested our feet… everything was calm… Everything was so good…
The show started at eight and in true Broadway tradition… it was fantastic. The play details the story of the Wizard of Oz BEFORE Dorothy shows up. Turns the entire tale on its head. Apparently there are actually three massive novels written by the same guy that originated the whole story. Kristin is an addict to the stories and alongside knowing every line of the play, was able to explain exactly what was done wrong, what was done right, what was overdone… and everything else that the play had to leave out for the sake of not being a seven hour show. I knew the wizard of Oz. That’s like scratching surface of Kristin’s understanding of the world of Oz.
Intermission came and she started digging through the playbill. I stood up to get a drink and wandered out into the foyer. The idea of getting a drink quickly evaporated. The line for the drinks was about half as long as the line for the men’s room which was about half as long as the line for the women’s room which, at a glance, was so long that I think there must STILL be people waiting there to use it. Far too long. And if I’d leapt over people to get there in time I’d still have to wait longer than the fifteen minute intermission to get some liquid. I went instead to the souvenir counter and eyed the T-shirts. Walking past this booth on the way in Kristin had remarked on one of the shirts. Bright green with the words “defy gravity” scrawled across the faded image of a tall witch hat. I bought it, it was small enough to fit with surprising comfort in my pocket. I took it back to the show, sat down. We watched the rest of the show.
Once it let out we rushed to the subway to get on the right train, it didn’t come for far too long but when it eventually did, we boarded, rode it, transferred, ride that one, transferred again, got back to Penn and slid into our seats on the train just in time to pull away for the long ride back to the station on Long Island.
We met up with Steve, now well after midnight and took a trip out to a Hookah lounge for some afterparty relaxation. We ended up at the wrong lounge. No idea how that happened because I’m only familiar with one… The music was loud, she and I were tired, she much more tired than me, but was amused at Steve’s attention to the music and vibe and laughed greatly at my whiteness bobbing my head to the music and did not completely wake up I think until Stevel Kineval stood up for just the right song and rocked the floor with an incredible airwalk around the room and some incredible dancing that floored everyone present. Someone from across the room stood up and walked over to shake his hand and tell him it was the most awesome thing he’d seen. My boy steve has got some moves…
Left the lounge, was immediately pulled over for almost plowing through a median in the dark. But I stopped in time. It was just a little hard to see. The right words and moves got us back on the road and both cops far away in just under four minutes. I never even pulled out my license. This blew Steve’s mind. I told steve that his dancing that night had blown my mind. So we were even. Justification enough to take Steve back home.
Kristin and I returned to the hotel. She LOVED the shirt…
The last day… we got up very late, started putting the luggage together and preparing to leave. Her flight was scheduled to leave at two. We made it to the Airport with plenty of time to spare, tried and failed to get a pizza because the Dunkin Donuts / Subway employees were dazed, confused, and had no idea who was actually at work and who wasn’t. We dropped off the luggage. Said goodbye…
And she walked through the gate to her plane.
… I keep watching people do that…
I’ve been to the airport move than… seven times this year alone and I’ve never boarded a single plane.
After many delays and a very long layover she landed safely at home in Fort Smith AK around ten that night. She called me when she got there.
… Greatest trip ever.
P.S. John left the sounds of his disappointment on my voicemail yesterday. I recorded it and posted it. You can find it in the Freemonster Radio tab above or just listen to it here.
If it sounds squeeky you need to update your codecs. Download the K-Lite Codec Pack.
Hollister Fug
Chose this picture today because I’ve been thinking about buying some new clothes lately. Not really because I found any that I liked but because I need some. I wearing out my current threads. You’ll recognize this pair from the Hollister Store in your local mall. Hollister revolutionized the traditional clothing store structure by completely ignoring the philosophy that mannequins should wear the shirts and associates should sell them and instead having the associates wear the shirts and the mannequins wear nothing of the sort. Here’s to you Hollister, destroyers of conventional capitalism.
I’ve been working a LOT this week, but it’s not enough to stop me form being on top of things. This week I was able to install a new sound card into Jack’s desktop computer, get myself a completely new laptop, get pulled over by the cops with no unregistered plates, no car insurance, and a week since my absense from court for a ticket regarding those expired plates and still get away completely uncuffed and unreprimanded.
I’ve also had time to consider selling cocaine in Queens. Not that I’ve got any cocaine mind you, but that I’ve heard people will buy it for a lot of money and that Creatine looks EXACTLY LIKE COCAINE. Little things, here and there. People might figure out that I’m not really selling cocaine but I figure half the people who do cocaine regularly are crazy enough not to have any idea what they’re snorting and I’d leave the rest to the placebo effect.
… I may become a fugitive in a short while. I may have to leave hear and head somewhere else. If I do, you’ll know when you call me and you can’t get to me. You’ll know when people start calling you asking if you’ve heard…
There was supposed to be more to this post, and there was, but I went to work. And I came back different.
Today is June 24th. This was an important day some time ago. It was going to be an important day… I’m spending it at work just as I spent the day before and just as I’ll spend the day after.
There are seven days between now and the time that Kristin Mullins lands in NY.
Two days ago Connie left again for South Dakotah, having arrived in Missouri less than a week before that.
Is a few days my understanding is that she plans to leave again.
Today is two days till payday. No… strike that… three.
It is one month from Ryan Boyer’s 21st birthday and four more days from my own.
Two days till Jack returns from Maine.
Because of scheduling I haven’t spoken to Jess in twelve.
Today is one day closer to Australia. Just like any other day.
One day farther from so many things and people I’ve begun to love. Something I’d not have mentioned before… But before I had less to mention.
Today is exactly one thousand five hundred and six days from May 8th, 2004.
I have been alive for seven thousand six hundred and thirty-four days.
I feel every single one of them today.
One hundred and eighty-three thousand two hundred and sixteen hours.
…almost eleven million minutes.
I remember a few of those individual minutes with powerful, gut-wrenching clarity. Others… I lost somewhere in the mess of it all. The monotony.
I remember Privilege…
Yeah I remember you. You thought I forgot all about it, and all about you since moving out here…
I wanted to. But I didn’t.
… (laughs) I remember… Andromeda…
:: She shrugs wordlessly, and you just stand there. How do you get inside her mind, when she obviously is afraid to let you in, and you don’t really know anything about her?
Ocean clouds fly like rain. They gather, to worship the coming storm.
“How about we just… take a walk?” Your eyes are hopeful, but she doesn’t seem to notice. You tell yourself, maybe this time, maybe this time…
She tosses dark hair over her shoulder, and puts a perfect hand on a perfect hip. “Maybe” is the only thing she says. You can’t help but hear the first hint of fear in her voice; but she doesn’t look at you.
The sun gives up suddenly, in a wave of cold. The air freezes in an instant. It’s absolute now.
There’s a heavy silence; the air is a silken rose petal shifting slowly on water. You close your eyes, vibrant violet vision, and take a deep breath. “Alright,” you say, and you start to turn away. “Then… I’ll just see you… whenever I see you.”
A sudden movement makes your heart stop, and she’s there in front of you again.
The sea boils in gray spirals, flooding the sky with fierce, salty blood. It’s so cold. It’s so cold.
“Tomorrow is the end of everything,” she whispers. Her eyes are small versions of the sea, deep green and brilliantly blue. Your heart clenches suddenly; this is what you’ve always wanted. Those eyes are turned upon you, finally, and there’s more than just intelligence in them, this time.
You nod. “I know.”
It’s so dark, after the sun’s eyes are closed. The sky and the sea are dark, too, but they’re far from asleep.
“Tomorrow you leave, and tomorrow I leave.”
You nod again. “I know.”
She turns her eyes away, and you feel a pang of loss; there’s suddenly a lack of color in your world. “I… I only wish it could be different.”
I only wish it could be different. Everything is deserted, and the ocean floor erupts violently upward in the sudden lack of sound. There can be no silence, under the waves.
Words such as these are treasures indeed; where have you heard them before?
You fall silent.
Her eyes turn back to you again, like beams of luminescence in a world of dark. There’s fear lurking in the bottomless depths of those eyes, and a coldness you cannot name. She shivers, but you dare not touch her. Moments like these are so fragile.
Storm dances in the waves, in the sand, in the blood. There’s blood everywhere; but somehow it has managed to contain itself, an impenetrable sphere of color, stark in this colorless world.
Desperation. There’s desperation now, and it’s threatening to break the sphere.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper instead. She flinches, as if your words have hit too hard upon her delicate soul. Suddenly afraid, you lift a hand, as if to lay it upon her shapely shoulders, but you let the hand fall after a moment of suspension in the air. Surely, that would be too much.
She touches her hand to her breast, her sweet, slender fingertips bloodless and still. She doesn’t look at you.
“Sometimes,” she breathes, covering the hand with her other, “Sometimes, I think that… maybe I should have said something before.”
The air is dusky, thick with the violet tears of the stars. Silvery, they cry slowly, one tear for each drop of blood contained in the stormy world below them. I’m sorry. Isn’t there something that can still change?
Struck by a sudden, bold chord of change, you step forward, carefully, your violet eyes wide and locked on hers. She doesn’t look at you.
“Nothing in the world matters,” you say. Her hands clench together, convulsively, and her eyes shut, as if against a light that is too bright, too suddenly.
Your hand comes up again, and this time you do rest it on her shoulder. Still, she does not look at you.
“You see?” you whisper, softer than before. She shakes her head, vigorously.
No. There is nothing you can change. The ocean waves are violent now, raking tenaciously against the small sphere. NO. The stars are sobbing now, in their slow, eternal way; this is nothing they haven’t seen before, and they know they can’t stop it now.
She steps back from you, away, out of your reach, and your hand falls gently down her arm.
She pulls her hands away from her breast, and now they are shaking.
They’re covered in blood.
Your heart goes cold, and she looks up at you, tearfully. “Don’t you see?” This ragged whisper is more like a gasp for the breath of life.
It won’t come.
“I see clearly enough,” you reply. Fear makes your face drain of color. I won’t lose you now.
“Not now,” she says. Slowly, the blood drips from her fingertips, falling, in the ageless span of a second.
Without a sound, in the midst of silence, the drop shatters on the floor. A thousand spirals of crimson fluctuate and dance in the cold air before coming to a reluctant halt.
It’s time to be still again. The stars are starting to fade away.
“I won’t leave until you say goodbye,” you whisper. You know it’s too late to stop your heart from breaking.
But it isn’t too late to save hers.
The storm is screaming wordless anguish to the stars. Not now! You’re too late. You’re always too late. The ocean rises up to meet the fury of the wind, breaking and surging against the blade of eternity. This is the kind of parting that not even the violet tears of compassion can touch.
Slowly, she looks up into your eyes. Hers are fading fast; the greens are a muted moss-gray, now, and the blue has faded to the palest lilac.
She takes a step towards you, and then another; you close the gap quickly, afraid to lose this moment forever. The timeless depth of forever can easily become obsolete and entrancing in its obscurity.
“Now is not the time for fear,” you whisper. She closes her eyes, and slowly, you put your arms around her shoulders, and draw her tightly into your chest.
In a last burst of love, the stars fall, one by one, into the dark void that the sea has become. No more wind, no more storm. There are only waves, and there are only tears.
Her hands clasp reluctantly against your back, but she finds her face buried in the warmth that is your strength.
“There, now,” you whisper. “Somehow, I’ll always remember you, and somehow, you’ll always remember me.”
You can feel her blood seeping into your own chest; it’s so cold…like the depths of the ocean, when there is no more sun.
She nods against your chest, and her arms melt against your body. Slowly, she stops shivering, and as her tremors fade away, she starts to weep.
“I only wish,” she mumbles, her words muffled against the rapid rhythm of your heartbeat, “I only wish that this wasn’t the end of everything.”
The storm is vacillating and bending and changing now; and still the stars continue to throw themselves into the deepest of deep voids. They will give and give, until there is nothing left to give.
You shake your head. “Remember? Tomorrow is the end of everything. We still have today.”
