The Girl From California

I met Kathryn in a chat room during the fall of 1994, some 21 years ago. We couldn’t text each other, because that technology didn’t exist. We couldn’t send each other a snapchat, cause that app hadn’t been invented yet. All we had was a 14400 bps dial up modem, a keyboard, a computer screen, 3000 miles in between us, and a little internet service we used called Prodigy.

I was 18 years old, I just finished graduating from high school, but I didn’t immediately go to college. I decided to stay at home for a year and explore my options. One of those options was sitting in my Mom’s basement at night and going on-line and talking to people from all over the country. When I started talking to Kathryn, I never knew it would take me all the way to Southern California, but it certainly did just that.

After a few weeks of chatting online, we mailed each other pictures of ourselves. One day I opened up a letter with the postmark from La Jolla and I saw for the first time what this girl I had been talking to for weeks actually looked like. I was stunned. She was gorgeous. She was so much not what I thought a southern California girl would look like, which was blonde hair and a surfer vibe.  She looked so much better. She had light eyes, and dark flowing black hair and she had an edge to her that manifested in every other girl I have been drawn to. She was the mold that created the standard of the type of girl I am attracted to. Mysterious, dark, and edgy. When I looked at the pictures of her for the first time, I knew I had to meet her.

Financially, I was well off back then and I was a good embellisher, therefore I could afford to tell my Mom and my friends that I was planning a trip to California to “look at colleges” when in reality, I was flying there to meet her. I hadn’t been to Cali since the summer of 1987 with my family, but I figured I could make my way around with a keen sense of direction, and a little help from strangers. I boarded a plane at Philadelphia International Airport that was headed for San Francisco, and I never looked back.

I spent the first two days in San Fran walking around the city, pretending to be someone famous while eating at the Hard Rock Cafe, and bumming a ride off of a 56 year old man who I sat next to on the plane ride out. I had never been this far away from home by myself, and I was loving every minute of it.

After a few days of hanging out and not checking out a single college in the Bay Area, I flew down to Los Angeles where I stayed in a motel in Burbank where the Americana shopping center now is. I took a cab to USC, and walked around the campus, but I couldn’t get very far because I wasn’t a student there, so I grabbed some pamphlets, and I had the cab driver take me down Hollywood boulevard to see the stars’ hand prints in the cement on the sidewalk that I live half from a block from now.

It was all kind of surreal for me. I was 18, all by myself in the third largest state in the nation and even though I looked at UCLA later that afternoon, I knew I didn’t have the grades to get into ANY of these schools at all. I didn’t really have a game plan as to what I was supposed to do, or what I was going to do once I got to San Diego where Kathryn lived, but when my flight left LAX for the short trip south, I felt this sudden rush of nervousness mixed with complete and total confidence.

I arrived in San Diego, and I had rented a car from a place that allowed 18 year olds to rent cars back then. I don’t know how that worked exactly, but for a few hundred dollars I jumped into a black Chrysler LeBaron convertible, and I found my way to La Jolla where I checked into my hotel room at the Holiday Inn.

I called Kathryn around 4pm and she answered and was really excited to hear from me. I told her I was in La Jolla and she told me that she had school tomorrow, but she couldn’t wait to see me. We devised a plan where I would show up at her high school the next morning (yes, she was in high school at the time) and she would sneak out during 2nd period and we could go anywhere as long as she was back by noon. I was going to meet her later that night at her parents house for dinner, but a secret rendezvous in the middle of the day where we would have some unadulterated time together was exactly what teenage boys and girls dream of doing if the situation ever arises, and that’s exactly what we did.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early, had some breakfast, and drove a few miles to Torrey Pines High School in San Diego, and I waited. About five minutes later, I see her. She’s a tall, attractive brunette wearing a jean jacket and she makes her way down the quad, onto the sidewalk, and into my convertible which was parked on a street right outside her school. It was the first time we had seen each other in person. I was enamoured at her smile, stunned that our plan was working, and overjoyed that we had the next few hours to ourselves. We took off and headed back to La Jolla via the I-5 freeway.

Some asshole cut me off at some point on the ride back to the hotel and I gave him the finger out the window.

“What are you doing? Don’t flip people off out here, they’ll shoot you.” Kathryn said to me as I changed lanes.

Apparently, it was true. A few months back someone was shot and killed on the freeway in California for doing exactly what I just did, giving someone the finger for doing something stupid while they were driving. Regardless, I kept my fingers to myself, turned off the freeway, and made our way back to my hotel room, which was the only place we could go to be alone.

We had talked about this a few weeks back. There was the obligatory sex conversation that occurred over the phone and in the private chat room we used to go to…….then back at the hotel room, the obligatory sex happened, for a full three seconds.

I wasn’t very good in bed that day, I realize this but it didn’t seem to matter. Kathryn was in high school, and I had just graduated, and neither one of us had a lot of sex beforehand to compare it to. Looking back now, I think the whole idea of this trip centered around the mystique of the two of us meeting each other in person, and not so much what happened when we met.

We put our clothes back on, talked for a little while, and then I dropped Kathryn back off at school, which DOES seem kind of weird now that I’m in my 30s and writing this. Still, I was going to see her later that night but I had some time to kill before dinner. So I did what anybody visiting Southern California would do in late 1994 when they had a few hours to kill would do. I drove to Mexico.

It was pretty easy getting across the border back then, it was slightly more difficult to get back, but still pretty easy. I remember driving into Tijuana, looking around at how impoverished the city was, and remarking at how every little Mexican person was trying to sell me a knock off Mighty Morphin Power Rangers doll. I wanted no part of it, because I hated the Power Rangers. They were campy, and I wasn’t into campy at that time. I was into flying across the country, lying to my Mom about my intentions, and aiding in the corruption of a sophomore in high school by coercing her to cut class and meet me for “lunch.”

As I made my way back to the United States, I gave a dollar to a little Mexican kid who cleaned my windshield, but in reality totally made it streaky and unable to see out of for the next 45 miles back to La Jolla. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any washer fluid in the car, but luckily, I had a convertible so I stuck my head out the side of the window and drove back to my hotel.

That night around 5pm I headed over to Kathryn’s house for dinner. She lived in a gated community somewhere on a hill in La Jolla. I drove up to the gate, hit a few buttons and made my way into the world of the white, rich and privileged.

I met her parents who were sweet enough to buy us some Chinese food for dinner, and then Kathryn and I went to the movies to see this new film every one was talking about called “Pulp Fiction.” I bought the tickets for me who was of legal age to see the movie and I handed one ticket off to Kathryn, who was NOT of legal age to see the movie. I was definitely racking up the unethical acts with her that day, but it didn’t seem to matter to either of us. I had to have her home by 10pm, which I did abide by. We went upstairs in her room and took a few pictures of me pretending to choke her which I now realize was a very strange thing to do, I know, but then we also took one of us making out while her cat laid on her bed in the background.  I stared into her eyes, and I ran my fingers through her hair, and I hoped and prayed that this wasn’t going to be the only time in my life that I would see her face to face.

I was leaving the next morning, headed back to NJ because as much as I loved being in California for a week, it costs a lot of money to stay in a hotel and rent a car. I said goodbye to Kathyrn that night, and we promised each other we would keep in touch and maybe, hopefully, I would find a college out there I wanted to go to. After all, she still had two years of high school, and I still had plenty of time to figure out what I was going to do with my life.

When I got back home, we talked almost every day online and we chatted on the phone twice a week. It was going really well, I mean as well as a 3000 mile long distance relationship could go. We talked about me moving out to California at some point, and we were planning to see each other again in a few months when the summer started and she would be out of school.

About a week or so later I logged on to Prodigy to talk to her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. People didn’t have e-mails back then, so all I could do was wait and see if she showed up in one of the chat rooms. A couple days after not seeing her online, I tried calling her and left a message. Then I tried calling her again, and left another message. I never got a phone call back. I didn’t know what to think.

I knew something must have happened, but I didn’t know what. Did she get a boyfriend? Did she change her phone number and not tell me? Did she move out of the country for legal reasons? We did break a lot of rules when I went out and saw her, but I don’t think we did anything unconstitutional that could have resulted in her being legally banned from talking to me.  A week later, I got a letter from her in the mail.

I read the letter three times before I totally could comprehend what it said. As it turns out, Kathryn and her Mom went to the doctor for her yearly check up a week before. At the appointment, the doctor asked her if she had been sexually active in the last few months, and Kathryn just couldn’t lie. She told the doctor about the sex we had, and she told the doctor right in front of her mother who was absolutely livid…. at both of us.

Her parents took away her computer, told her to cut off all contact with me, and she was never allowed to talk to me again. In a way, I understood that, being that we undermined their trust and also the fact that she cut school, I took to an R-rated movie, and I was a little bit older than her and they probably saw me as a threat and as a bad influence on their teenage daughter.

I wrote a letter to her parents shortly thereafter and I apologized for what had happened and I begged them to let me talk to her again, but I never got a response back. In fact, I haven’t heard from Kathryn since that letter arrived at my house in the Spring of 1995.

I was depressed for a little bit. I really liked this girl, and not only was she beautiful and cool and witty, but she represented something bigger to me than just a girl from California that I met on the internet. She represented hope. She was a belief that maybe I could get out of NJ once and for all. Being that this was the mid 90s and meeting people off the internet wasn’t a popular or safe thing to do, it felt right and it made me feel like there was something special between us because I’ve always wondered about her and here I am writing a blog about her 21 years later.

There is a part of me that knows I didn’t do anything wrong, even though I knew some of what I did WAS wrong in the eyes of a parent. I really cared for her, and I took a chance and went for it. I wasn’t a scumbag or a kiddie corruptor, I was 18 years old, my heart was on my sleeve, and there I was sitting in the basement of my townhouse spending night after night becoming infatuated with the idea of love and how it brought me all the way from Marlton, NJ to Southern California. There is a part of me that forgives myself for being such a weirdo creep to her parents, and there is a part of me that still thinks about her as I write this from my one bedroom apartment 80 miles from where I picked her up that Wednesday afternoon in November of 1994.

My memory is pretty good, but 21 ago years is a long time to recall without the details becoming too cloudy. I remember she was the first girl I met off the internet, but she wouldn’t be the last. I remember how much fun we had for those few hours we were together, and I remember the weeks and months leading up to us meeting in person when I had so much confidence and never let a doubt creep into my mind about anything. But most of all, I remember that moment when I was able to combine the words she wrote me and the voice I heard on the phone to a picture she sent me that I stared at for hours. The first time I saw this picture, I couldn’t get a word out. I was speechless. Dark hair, light eyes, incredibly beautiful and edgy as fuck.  It’s no wonder that every girl I’ve fallen for since then has looked somewhat if not at least a little like Kathryn did.

I wonder where she is today. 

The Roommate

I met Racquel in the summer of 2000. She was hired as a server at the Olive Garden in Lynnwood, a suburb of Seattle Washington when she was 17, then in August she turned 18. Three weeks earlier, I had been hired as a server at the same Olive Garden after I turned down a job at Claim Jumper in Redmond. I knew Claim Jumper was a better restaurant, but the OG was closer to the place I was living, and I kind of felt like I needed to be there at that time in my life because A. I didn’t have a car, and B. I knew nothing about a la carte restaurants.  Was it fate that I was meant to meet her? Yeah, I think it was. I remember the first time I saw her like it was yesterday.

There was a group of new servers in training that week, and Racquel was one of them. She had shoulder length black hair, striking green eyes, and she walked with a gait that commanded your immediate interest and  attention. I opened the two-way door to the kitchen and I watched her pick up a tray of food and carry it out past me into the dining room. I don’t know if anyone else took notice of her as quickly as I did, but hey, 15 years have gone by since the night I watched her wait tables in high heels and couldn’t wrap my head around that fact.  It seemed so odd to torture yourself while you’re constantly walking at work, but maybe she didn’t care. Maybe they made her more comfortable. It was her style and I liked that about her immediately.  She had grace and easily glided through the dining room while wearing  stilettos and serving soup, salad and breadsticks. Thought it was kind of cool.

I didn’t immediately talk to Racquel, but over the next few months we became  friends and I would see her from time to time during my shifts. It was right around  Christmas of 2000 when our paths would finally cross in a way that I think was a bit serendipitous. I was sleeping on a couch in the living room of a friend’s house in Edmonds, but obviously, I was looking for a way out. One night at work, Racquel must have overheard me complaining about my living situation and came up to me with an idea.

“You need a place to live?” She asked.

“Yeah, actually I do. You know of one?” I replied.

“I have a two bedroom and my roommate just moved out. She was crazy.” Racquel said with a laugh.

Now, I knew what the next thing she was going to say was, so I gave it a full four seconds of thought  before I decided that I’d love to move in with her. But, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think in that moment that a part of me wants to fall in love with her too.  I kept that latter part a secret for a little bit.   Eventually, both of those things DID happen, but let’s take it easy for now and just move in with her.

“You can come live with me if you want.” She said.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She said. “We’d be roommates.”

And that’s how the relationship, or “un” relationship began. First off, nothing about my friendship with Racquel was traditional in any way, shape or form. I had no idea what to expect as I had never roomed with a very attractive 18 year old girl before. I mean aside from the obvious, the two of us living together would make for a funny sitcom idea.  I knew that this was the right move because the way it worked out was effortless. When things are meant to be in my life, they happen very easily for me.  I slipped into this new fangled living situation with Racquel like putting on one of my favorite well fitting soft cotton t-shirts I’ve had for five years. It was there when I needed it, and I felt comfortable around her from the start. A few days after New Years I moved into N301 at Tamaron Ranch Apartments, Lynnwood Washington, 98087

Things were relatively normal when I moved in.  We got along fine and yeah, at times I walked in on her in the shower, and she would exercise in the living room and I swore there were some situations that might have created a little sexual tension, but Racquel was dating  someone else we worked with, and I was pining after a blonde haired server named Jill that week. Yet at the same time, I really couldn’t ignore that I was kind of catching feelings for her. She was really sweet, and we got along great plus, she was funny and understood me and did I mention that she is fucking gorgeous?

I remember the night I knew I had fallen in love with her. Our co-worker’s were having a party.  Not a real party, just one of those “let’s go back to our place to drink and smoke pot after work like they do in the movie “Waiting” type of parties.  Racquel noticed this bracelet I had been wearing on my wrist for the past year. She looked at it, asked what it meant to me, and I told her. I told her about my ex from Jersey, and I told her I felt like it needed to be on my wrist to remind me of the past and what I had gone through the last year which included my heart being broken by my ex-girlfriend AND my ex-guy friend, and uprooting myself to move to a city which I had never been to before in my entire life.  Speaking of that Jersey girl, I had to change people’s names to put them in the blog, but the truth is, in reality, I did find it kind of strange that the one girl I meet and fall in love with in Seattle would have had almost the exact same name as my ex girlfriend if you changed the first letter. Plus, she was also born a Leo like my ex, and like less than a week apart.  To answer you question, apparently I have a type,  but NO, I never called Racquel by ANY OTHER name than Racquel.

Regardless, before I even finished my story, and without giving it a second thought, Racquel reached down, and in the most carefee way, took off my bracelet for the first time in over a year.

“I’m breaking you of your past, or what’s left of it.”  She said in a very omnipotent tone.

Wow, I hadn’t taken that bracelet off in a long time. I don’t remember if my ex gave it to me, or if I bought it when I was with her, but  I kind I felt like a divorced man who didn’t want to admit his marriage is over and still wears his wedding ring, only instead of a ring I had a leather thing around my wrist.  Come to think of it, it might not even had been leather. Whatever it was made of, I chose Racquel to be the reason why what happened in the past didn’t really matter anymore. She just sat on my lap, said some encouraging words, and unclasped the bracelet like it was no big deal. In a way it wasn’t, but in another way, it was symbolic. I had a new life now and I needed to start living in the present and not think about who or what had happened in the past.

Racquel and I had a lot of fun the first few weeks we lived together. We bonded over coffee and Denny’s, I made fun of her for still having her baby blanket in the house, and she poked fun at my Jersey accent by butchering what most people think a New Jersey accent sounds like.  To Racquel, she thought it sounded like Barbara Walters saying the phrase “purple turkeys”  but pronouncing it like “poyple toik-ees, or a real thick Jewish/New York accent. Of course I had to inform her  that no one from Jersey talks like that. She made me sushi for the first time ever and she introduced me to Thai food. I tried to sell her on my new founded positive attitude and how someone getting me a journal for my 24th birthday last year really helped me to get in touch with my feelings and I haven’t stopped writing since.  We smoked pot together which was cool because my ex hated that I did it. We went to Target on multiple occasions to buy things for the apartment that we both knew we didn’t need, she read my journal even though I had never let anyone read it before her, and we talked about our past, our present, and how bright we wanted our future to be. We were like best friends. It was a perfect union of a male and a female coming together to live and work in a non-realtionship friendship where we shared some common interests and the  right amount of sexual tension.  It all made perfect sense,  until the night we drank a bottle of wine together.

I wasn’t a big drinker at all, meaning I had the lowest tolerance for alcohol that a 25 year old could have. So one night after work, Racquel brought home a bottle of Riunite Lambrusco. You remember that stuff, right? It was like carbonated grape juice, but with a high alcohol content. Of course, in my case ANY alcohol content was a high alcohol content. Regardless, that night we drank, we made out, and then we ended up in my bed where something happened that complicated everything else.

I remember waking up in the morning and putting my arms around her, falling back asleep, then waking up an hour later, alone in my bed. I didn’t know where she went. Did she leave town? Did she freak out? I mean she just had sex with her 25 year old roommate who she also works with almost every day so there was probably a lot of thoughts running around in her head right? I remembered wanting her to be there when I woke up because it had been so long since I slept in the same bed as a girl.

Now I definitely was falling for her, and I kept thinking to myself, how am I going to play this cool? How am I going to live, work and be with someone I think I’m in love with without scaring her away or sacrificing the obvious fact that I am her roommate How do I come on not too strong at this point?  I mean, we might have been a little tipsy that night, but do people really sleep with their roommates if they aren’t the least bit interested in them? Like, how the fuck do I “take it slow” from this point?

I knew what I wanted after that night. I wanted her. I wanted to be in a relationship with Racquel.  It just made sense to me. I didn’t know how it was going to happen and I didn’t know if it was meant to happen, but I wanted it to happen. Thing is though, her actions  the next few days were making me believe it was NOT something she wanted, at least, not right now.

Over the next few days I tried to get back to doing what I did best at that time in my life, which was working 5 to 10:30pm, then dropping ecstasy and going to raves at NAF Studios with my friends in downtown Seattle to dance and drink water until 4 in the morning. I would see Racquel almost every day, at least every day that she was at the apartment, but she was kind of a part time roommate at this point. I know on some level, that kind of upset me. Thing is, I didn’t have any reason to be upset. It’s not like we were boyfriend and girlfriend, and it wasn’t like we were even dating. We were roommates who slept together one time, and even though I know she cared about me, she was 18 years old, emancipated herself from her parents a few years back, had gotten out of a three year relationship where she was engaged less than a year ago, and I think it might have freaked her out that she was now living with a guy who she had sex with after less than one month of living together. I don’t think she wanted to be in a committed relationship.

Thing is, I had gotten out of a one that ended quite traumatically less than a year ago, as did she, and I guess  the whole time I just followed my heart (which was probably located on my sleeve) and I thought it would  be nice to be with somebody again and not feel shitty  and lonely.  But if you know me, you know I can count the relationships I’ve had since 2000 on one finger, maybe two.  We talked about all of this one night and she told me, we can’t live together, work together and be together. She made a good point, and I agreed with her.  So I quit the Olive Garden, the next week. Thing is though, before my two weeks were up, I got fired for using a $5.00 coupon, and pocketing the cash.

Now here I was 25 years old without a job and living in an apartment with a girl who I was in love with, but who I wasn’t in a relationship with, who may have loved me back, but not in the way that I wanted her to. It was a tough situation to be in.  I went back and forth in my own mind thinking that I was a failure because this is so close to the same thing that happened less than two years ago when I dated “Melissa.” I wanted things to be different this time. I wanted to make a comeback and not let life drag me down like it did before. I had to do something bigger than wait tables at an American Italian restaurant.

I remembered couple I waited on at the OG a few days before I got fired. They had been sitting at a table for about five minutes and no one had come up to them to take their order. So in a totally uncharacteristic move, I offered to pick them up.  It’s not like I didn’t like them or anything, it’s just when a guest waits 10 minutes without even a  drink order being taken, they are obviously not happy to begin with, and may turn into a problem table, but I said fuck it, I’m charm them and make them forget about what happened, and probably buy them a dessert for being patient.

Turns out, they owned a bar Mountlake Terrace about a mile down the road called Sharkey’s  Pub. I had just put my two weeks in, so I asked if they were looking for a bartender, and their response was, we might be. As it also turns out, I wanted to be a bartender more than a server but aside from a two week class in Jersey back in 1999 and two nights working at the Olde City Tavern in Philly before I got let go, I had no experience. Of course, when I went to Sharkey’s Pub a couple weeks after I waited on Wayne and Dawn, I didn’t tell them that. I bullshitted them…told them I have been tending bar for three years in Philly. They hired me on the spot and I went from living in financial purgatory  to living in a small, yet upscale room in the  lap of luxury.

That job was a God send. It was everything I ever wanted from a bar job, if that could be a thing to live for. I started working a couple nights a week, and I was balancing it out with a part time job at the Red Lobster, which ironically was located directly across the street from the Olive Garden where I was now an ex-employee..  It only took about a month before I was working only at Sharkey’s and no days at the Red Lobster. I didn’t need to. I was making a shit ton of money, and I was able  pay for things like I had never done before, and buy a car which I hadn’t had since I moved there. I would make my rent in two nights. The bar had these things called pull-tab games and I would get tipped every time the regulars won cash prizes.  There was something about me that was lucky because the bar never gave away so much money before I started there. One night I made over $400, which at the time was the single most amount of money I had ever made in one day.

Racquel used to come in and sit at the end of the bar and watch me work as she sipped a Sex on the Beach I made for her. Yeah, I know she wasn’t 21, but who the fuck was going to say anything about it? I ran that place and they loved me there.  All the regulars knew me by name and one of them nicknamed me “Hollywood” because one night I came in wearing a hundred dollar pair of shiny grey pants and a button down shirt that looked like I just got out of the club. . Life was looking really good for awhile, and then something tragic happened, followed by something euphoric.

Back at home, things between Racquel and I were just ok. She was the first person I had slept with since my ex that I truly cared for.  Don’t get wrong, I had plenty of opportunities in Seattle, and I was vocal about the idea that I wanted things to work between us, but she kept her emotional distance.  I couldn’t blame her. She had a lot of things going on in her life at that time and I didn’t want to make it more dramatic or difficult for her. Even now, 14 years later as I re-read some of my journal entries from April of 2001, they’re very cryptic, but I could tell that something just wasn’t vibing between us. Maybe it was the drama of her life, maybe it was the drama at home? I didn’t know what was holding this up because I thought that if she could just let go of the pain that was dragging her down maybe something better was in store for her. I thought maybe I was put in her life to help her remember the good times, the times when nothing else mattered but the moment we were living in.  I did for her, what I thought was the best thing to move us past this awkward phase and help her forget about her problems for a little bit, and maybe even put a smile on her face. On a damp night in early April of 2001, I introduced Racquel to a little pill called ecstasy.

Now look, before you go ahead and judge me, remember that this was 14 years ago, and that’s what kids did back then to chill out. A lot of people where taking X, but it was still relatively new on the scene.  I mean ephedra was totally legal at the time and I could get it as a shot in my coffee at Java Jitters. Me and my friends took pills, talked about our lives, smoked pot and mellowed out. That’s just what we did. I will never feel bad for taking ecstasy. It’s not like blowing a line of coke up your nose, and it’s not like jamming a needle full of heroin into your veins. It’s like taking a breath, and realizing how great it is to breathe. It’s like taking a sip of water and being amazed at how you’ve taken liquids for granted your whole life.   It’s like listening to a song you’ve heard 99 times before, but hearing something new in it the 100th time you listen to it.

For me and Racquel, doing X wasn’t necessarily about getting high and escaping life, it was about a different perspective and it was about looking at the world in a new way, and it was about seeing things for what they are, by seeing them for what they are not. It was about being happy and me putting on sunglasses and my favorite pants, and her putting on a feather boa and a red dinner dress and the two of us dancing around the apartment to EDM back when it was still called “Techno.” It was about healing ourselves from the past by breaking down the barriers in the present that kept us from knowing who we really could be in the future. We had a great time. We would babble on and on to each other about our beliefs and about life, and we would take tons of pictures with a film camera and then wait two weeks to see how totally awful they were when the film actually got developed. Some of them turned out really well, but for the most part, we just let go of our inhibitions and we opened ourselves up to the possibilities that maybe life wasn’t so bad after all.

I’ll never feel guilty or ashamed for taking ecstasy in my life. EVER. It’s not for everyone. It actually helped me a year and half before when my ex and my best friend got together, so I thought maybe it would help Racquel to work through some of her issues. I thought maybe it would help us become closer as friends and possibly as a couple, even though deep down inside I knew that wanting something like that out of this situation was selfish, irrational and maybe setting myself up for disappointment, but I didn’t care. I had only really taken X with my friends when we went out to clubs. Rolling at home felt comfortable with her.  I actually started to enjoy it more than going out.

However , it wasn’t all happy pills and dress-up sessions during that time. Sure, we were having some chemically induced fun, but in between the nights we’d chill out, there would be days that would go by when I wouldn’t see her, and there would be nights when I came home and she would have a boy over. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I mean yeah, some times I was out gallivanting myself with other birds, but I never found anyone who I cared about more than her, and I never took any of them seriously. I just thought I was killing time until something better came along. To be honest, I thought I had it all figured out. I thought all I needed to do was convince her she would be happy with me, show her the way and she would walk next to me, hand in hand forever. But as I would find out that summer, the more doors I tried to open up for her, the less likely it became that she was going to walk through them.

I tried to help Racquel with her issues as much as she tried to help me with mine. Nobody talked to me and made me understand and feel better about things after the fact then the way she did.  I liked that about her, and I hoped I did the same for her. I guess I wasn’t prepared for a lost soul to enter the picture that summer, and rely on Racquel in a way that I just didn’t have to.  She had met this guy who was a little bit older than her but didn’t have it all figure out. I think she took him under her wing, so to speak.  I guess she tried to help him figure out his life problems, while I was trying to help her figure out hers.  I’ll admit, I was a little bit jealous of him.  I was jealous because he took her away from me. I was jealous because I knew the potential her and I had as a couple and when we stopped hanging out as much that summer, I felt like maybe she didn’t need me in her life anymore.

It was an up and down battle the next two months. One day I would wake up to her climbing into bed with me, then the next night I would come home to read an angry letter she wrote in my journal after we fought and I slammed the door to my bedroom in her face. The great thing about us, was that even if we got into an argument, we would talk about it the next day and we would apologize to each other and then we would agree that nothing else mattered except for the fact that we were “homies” who had slept together twice, and knew we were friends, but there was always some level of that push-pull thing going on between us.

It had been like that for awhile now. She’d pull me in, then push me away. I’d do something nice, then judge her for something ridiculous. It wasn’t a very healthy situation, and it started to take it’s toll on the both of us. My cushy job at the bar was the first casualty.

I don’t remember how it happened, but one night six days after Racquel turned 19, I was accused of letting another customer play in a reserved pull-tab bowl of another regular. I know this doesn’t make much sense if you’ve never heard of pull-tabs, but some of the games had prizes in the thousands of dollars, and when people put more than $100 worth of cash into a bowl, they are allowed to reserve it for only themselves. I might have let one of my best regulars play in a bowl that was reserved by a guy who was NOT my best regular, and my guy hit for $500. He tipped me $100 that night, and it would turn out to be the last time I pulled a winner at Sharkey’s Pub.  The regular complained, and my boss didn’t like that. I denied it, but he had it on video, and I was fired. I was fired from my $1000 a week bartending gig that I had talked my way into without any prior experience, and Racquel had quit her shitty job serving in Mukilteo a few days prior to that. Before we knew it, we were both broke, unemployed, and pretty soon thereafter everything else in my life started to fall apart.

The news made Racquel upset, and she wondered how I was going to pay my rent and the bills that were do. I freaked out at her because how could she quit HER job and then get mad at me for being fired. I wasn’t very good at saving the money I made back then, but I sure knew how to spend it. I mean, in addition to the fact that the past month had been a trying time for the two of us, what was going on or NOT going on with her and that guy coupled with me getting fired AGAIN was the icing on the proverbial shit cake that became my life at the time. I remember her not coming home for about four days in row, then one night, I was in Capitol Hill getting my tarot cards read. I got the Devil and the Tower card. Basically that meant something bad, and something tumultuous on the horizon. I was advised that something was about to happen and that it was going to get worse before it got better. Naturally, I came home to an empty apartment that afternoon, but I noticed it was slightly more empty than before. The towels in the bathroom were gone. Fuck me… that was it. Racquel was on her way out of that apartment, and out of my life.

I moved about 50 yards away into a one bedroom apartment in the same complex. I was reminded of her every day I lived there, mainly because I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and I was taking care of her cat, Wonkie who lived with me, PLUS I literally could see the apartment where Racquel and I used to live from my new bachelor pad balcony. I would notice boxes being taken out of that apartment as I sat and smoked my cigarette one afternoon. It sucked, but we made sure our friendship didn’t have to suffer. For me, it was lonely those next few weeks, but Racquel and I knew it was for the best… at least that’s what we kept telling ourselves.

The truth of the matter is that I had no job, I had never lived alone before, and I didn’t even have enough stuff to furnish the place. The living room remained empty for months. All I had was a bed, a table, and a TV with no cable hook-up. Racquel was living in Everett with that guy, and I would hear from her from time to time and we would talk on the phone about how maybe we both acted a little irrationally and how we missed each other and maybe we should have tried to work things out, but then again, wasn’t that what we had been trying to do the whole summer?

It was a dark time in my life. I wasn’t taking x because it started to react differently in my body and make me sick, plus I couldn’t fucking afford it. I had my first “heart attack” which actually just turned  out to be a panic attack because when I got to the Emergency Room and the nurse told me I would have to pay $500 just to be seen by a doctor, suddenly I wasn’t feeling like I was dying anymore.  Anxiety was getting the best of me and as I pounded the proverbial pavement for a job, I kept noticing how distraught and confused I felt when I would come home with no leads, no plan to make things better, and another empty apartment, with no one to talk to.

With the exception of a year and a half ago when Melissa broke up with me, this was perhaps the saddest time in my life, and in some strange way I felt like I had put myself in that position to make myself stronger. I wrote a lot during these four months and at times, I could tell I was slightly out of my element, started questioning everything, was totally unprepared for the day to day, and yeah, maybe I was bit delusional.  I took a job at a Blockbuster Video store, (remember those?), then I quit two weeks later for a job at a bar called the Getaway Tavern. It wasn’t anything like Sharkey’s, but it was something. I wrote, I worked, and I smoked a lot of pot as I tried to understand why the hell life kept repeating itself. Two years earlier I had been fired, lost the girl, and then started doing drugs to kill the pain. It’s like life was on replay, but this time I was 3000 miles away from home, and even if I wanted to go crawling back to Jersey to center myself, I couldn’t even afford to do that last part.

There were times when I doubted myself and couldn’t comprehend how I fucked it all up by not being able to appreciate how much I had accomplished the last year. There were times when i wouldn’t get out of bed until 11am because I had no where to be.  And of course, there  were times when my undiagnosed depression used to get the best of me as I broke down into tears one day thinking of my ex girlfriend from New Jersey and my ex roommate from Seattle while listening to track 6 off the new Jimmy Eat World album, Bleed American.

The winter was coming, and between the two of us, our situations weren’t getting much better. I was working, but I hated it. Racquel was living, but not the way she wanted to. Then one night, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Racquel, me, and a group of our friends attended “Freak Night” which is a Halloween themed rave in downtown Seattle. God I had a great fucking time that night. We were kind of broke, but somehow still able to make it memorable. Even though it was a last minute decision on her part, and I was already at the event, but then decided to drive all the way back to Everett to get her and bring her there, it was the right decision to make. I pinned leaves on my pants and wife beater and went as the season of “Fall.” Racquel dressed as a butterfly and somehow, even though we didn’t coordinate our color scheme or our outfits, we matched. That night was legendary. We danced, we had some extra curricular activities going on, we ran into some people we hadn’t seen in months, and our friend Vanessa was able to capture the night in one click of the shutter on her camera. I still look at this one picture every now and then, and all I can do is smile.

After that night, things started to feel a little bit more like we were headed in the right direction. Racquel would come over to my empty place and listen to new music that reminded us of each other and we would talk about how maybe we should give this living situation another shot. I know what you’re thinking…we had our issues in the past, but doesn’t time heal all wounds? The last three months were some of the most depressing and unfamiliar days of my life, so when I left Seattle for a week to go back to Jersey for the holidays I put an offer on the table. Her and I again, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath.

Jersey was quite an interesting experience. I looked like absolute shit since the last time my friends and family had seen me, but I’m sure it had everything to do with the depression, the anxiety, and the drugs I did leading up to the day I left. I recouped for a few days and found myself in a Tower Records store when my ex- girlfriend Melissa called me to come have dinner with her and her Mom. Now, I hadn’t seen or spoken to Melissa since I left New Jersey 7 months ago. I didn’t know what to expect, but I went to dinner anyway and then we kind of caught up with each other over the next few days and maybe SHE put something on the table I hadn’t heard in awhile. An apology.

She was sorry. She was sorry for what had happened, she was sorry for making me move all the way across the country, and she was sorry for breaking my heart. I appreciated all of that, and I still cared about her,  but in the back of my mind and on the Motorola Star-Tac phone in my ear, I was hearing from Racquel that she was ready to accept my offer.

“Two bedroom one bath, right?” She said.

“Yeah. Two bedroom, just like before.” I replied.

“Ok, but I want to be on the ground floor this time. I’m sick of the stairs.” She said.

“You got it.” I said.

With a new take on an old idea, I headed back to Seattle in January of 2002, and Racquel and I moved into an apartment right across the street from the first place I lived with her one year before. I had quit working at the Getaway Tavern before I left because I didn’t like it there, and I was working part-time at the Eddie Bauer call center, but that job suddenly disappeared when I got back to Seattle. Fuck, I was jobless again, but at least this time I had my girl back with me. At least, so I thought….

I guess in my mind I figured this move was something she wanted and it would be like old times again, except this time she would actually be there in the apartment instead of somewhere else. Within a week us moving in together, I started seeing things for how they really were, which was me coming home to a vacant apartment, yet again. I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on. I didn’t know why on earth things seemed to be going so well for us when we were apart, then the week we move back in with each other, everything was chaotic and dysfunctional. At least, that’s how I saw it in my mind. Life was stagnant and I felt destitute and it was not how I wanted to live.

One of the reasons I wanted to move back in with her was so that we’d have something stable during a time when everything else was an unknown. It seemed like nothing had changed since the last time we were together except for our address, and the fact that all of our stuff was in one place. Well, my stuff anyway. At this point, I knew that even though I cared about her and loved her, there was never going to be relationship in the traditional sense for us. Something happened in her life to make her bear the cross of the emotional weight of so many people, and I think it was too much for her to handle.

She was still dealing with that boy from Everett, and I guess that situation was more involved than I knew, or cared to hear about. I tried to help her as much as I could, but I felt like with every word I spoke I was walking on eggshells because I didn’t want to say anything that would push her away. In the past, I had been guilty of appearing  very prophetic and maybe even holier than thou, and I acted as if I knew everything and I think that bothered her. This time, I tried to let her know that I was there for her, but I wasn’t going to force my beliefs onto her anymore or make her feel judged for being who she was. I accepted her as my friend and mentor because the one thing I realized when we weren’t living together was that I truly missed her, and I had learned from her as much as she had learned from me.

I decided to go my own way. I went out and tried to make new friends and find things to do that didn’t involve smoking pot and getting into trouble. I looked to find any bartending or serving job, but nothing seemed to come my way. January is the worst month for finding jobs in the food service industry, so I guess I was climbing the proverbial uphill battle. I was still relatively unemployed with the exception of a call-center job I got setting up appointments for people who owned homes and wanted to have new windows installed. Yeah, tons of fun. When I worked there, they used to call me “Jersey.” Perhaps that was a bit of foreshadowing.

I would occasionally see Racquel in the apartment, and we would chat every now and then, but there was something off between us. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and it made me kind of sad. I didn’t know what I was doing there anymore. I knew what I wanted, but I also knew she wasn’t going to be able to give it to me. I stayed in contact with Melissa who was living in Philly, and she would write me letters and we would talk on the phone and sometime around the month of March when I had exhausted every single avenue in Seattle, and I had admitted to myself that I wasn’t happy anymore, and when I had woken up to realize that perhaps Racquel wasn’t the girl I made her out to be in my mind, I had no choice but to face the uncomfortable truth that maybe it was time to leave the Pacific Northwest.

On a Sunday in early March of 2002, I packed up my white Mitsubishi Eclipse and I drove East, heading back to the place I had left not two years ago. I made the trip back in about four days and the whole time I kept saying to my friends and family and kept thinking to myself “This is the right move.” Everyone was convinced of that idea, except for me. I moved in with Melissa and her roommate and I think it took about ten days before I regretted what I had done, wrote a fuck you entry to myself for uprooting what I had in Washington, but by then it was too late to go back.

I thought to myself…. I wish I had tried just a little harder, or I wish I had put up with it just a little bit longer.  Maybe I would have found the key to the castle in the sky. I don’t say this about any other time in my life, but in that instance, I couldn’t help but wonder… what if?  Were things as bad as I made them out to be, or was I just being heavily manipulated by my own desire for something more and a broken heart? It’s probably the latter, I know myself pretty well.

I saw Racquel one more time after I left Seattle. I drove up from Vegas which was where I was living and we spent the next few days together. It was great to see her, but it’s been almost 13 years since then. I do text and talk to her from time to time.  She tends bar in Seattle near Everett, just had a huge birthday party for her 33rd with a deejay last week, is looking to buy a house, and she had a son back in 2005 or 2006.  I think it’s great. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy and I’m really proud of her and who she has become. I could probably take a few lessons from her now. Maybe I’d have my shit figured out too.

Lately, I’ve seriously been debating on whether or not I should stay living here in L.A. I haven’t been happy here in awhile. Things haven’t worked out quite the way I have been working for them to work out.  I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about “peacing out” of this shallow place and heading north for deeper waters and a little more rain. I mean honestly, all I do is write, tend bar, and I occasionally get a phone call from a  friend who wants to put me in one of their web series.  I mean, that last part is fun, but it don’t pay the bills.  I can write and I can tend bar anywhere in the country. Why do I still do it here?

This was one of the hardest blogs for me to write because my time in Seattle is so near to my heart that I wanted these words to be perfect. I loved it there, and I loved my time with Racquel, and I feel like this is a story that needed to be told the right way.

In my opinion, Racquel and I were soulmates. Not like the single soulmate philosophy idea, the multiple one. I believe I have a handful of people I was meant to meet in my life, or will meet for some reason or other, and for my time in the Emerald City, Racquel was one of them. I knew it from the beginning, but I didn’t know what that meant, or where it was going to take us, or how to understand or react to what I was feeling in all the moments that led me to and away from her. I know I might have been irrational during that time. I know I could have acted more like a friend, and less like a scorned lover, but I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m sometimes dramatic, plus, I was 25 and she was 7 years younger than me.

We were two kids with broken hearts who found a way to mend them back together through an unpredictable rendezvous with each other. She helped me understand the simple act of being a good listener to someone because maybe that’s all they want you to do. I’d like to think I helped her to have a little more fun and maybe think of things in a different and spiritual way and perhaps that gave her some level of enlightenment.  And I know now exactly why she came into my life at that moment.  We were there to give to each other the power to be able to love again.

Was it perfect? Sure.  It’s all perfect in some way.    I know we didn’t end up together, but maybe that’s not what was meant for us.  Or maybe that WAS our time together. It doesn’t matter because what I learned from my time in Seattle was that “perfect” doesn’t always mean it works out the way you want it to. Sometimes perfect means we made such an impact on someone else’s life in a short amount of time, that even 14 years later, I eat Sushi or Thai food every week, or I smile when I hear songs that remind me of her, whether it’s the song I posted below, or if it’s that Tim McGraw hit “Just To See You Smile” which was the first  country song I grew to appreciate.  Sometimes perfect means there is still a possibility of the fact that I might actually see her again soon, and wouldn’t it be great to catch up on everything we missed over the past decade and a half?

But sometimes, perfect is looking at a picture from one night in the summer of 2001, when the only things that mattered in that moment, was the music, the sunglasses, the feather boa, and the one thing you both believed in….each other.

The Flight Attendant: Part 2

I watched a few episodes of OITNB while Robyn and I went on to text each other back and forth for the rest of the day after I spent the night. Like I said before, I don’t really like spending the night at a girls place. Why? Well, first of all, I normally don’t have a change of clothes in the morning so not only is my hair all messed up from sleeping on it, I’m also still wearing the same wrinkled shirt and jeans from the night before. Second, I don’t know whether or not she has a drip coffee machine or one of those weird K-cup ones which I swear is slowly poisoning us as a race. What if she only has half and half instead of non dairy creamer, or sweet and low instead of equal? What if she doesn’t drink coffee at all? I can’t take those chances that early in the morning.

Truth is, with her I probably wouldn’t have cared and I would have stayed all morning over there if I didn’t have to feed my cat at 7am and I’m not just using that as an excuse to leave, it was just what I had to do. Having pets are like having children, but with less crying and no diaper changing. Besides, she was headed to the Gay Pride Parade that afternoon, and even though she kept begging me to meet up with her, I had absolutely no intention of going there. Not because I’m homophobic, but because the company I sometimes tend bar for was working the event and they had scheduled me, but I got out of it because I felt like there was something more important I had to do that day which ended up being going on a date the night before, and laying around the apartment watching Netflix with Robyn even though I didn’t know either of those things were an option a week before when I requested the days off. See, sometimes as a highly creative person like myself, I just go with my gut feeling, and my gut was telling me to stop at McDonald’s for a sausage egg and cheese McMuffin and hang around the apartment that Sunday with the A/C on.

Around 11am, Robyn sent me a selfie of her having a drink in the Hollywood Hills. Even though she pointed out how tired she thought her eyes looked, I still thought she was beautiful and I let her know that as well as the fact that there were a few other things I liked about her. I listed them in a text, and I even rhymed them like a Dr. Seuss poem. I got skills. I was feeling pretty good. I had just gotten laid unexpectedly, I felt like there was something new and cool happening, and I felt lucky for having met her being as though I wasn’t even supposed to be off the night I did. We went back and forth texting each other all afternoon, until I convincingly made her decide to come over around 5:30 to hang out with me before her red-eye flight back home to Florida at 9pm.

Can we eat something when I get there?

I have a cheese pizza waiting for us in the freezer.

You’re the best.

(Sent 5:01 6-14-15)

I know I am, and I don’t mean that in an egotistical, cocky kind of way, I mean that because I know I’m a good guy and I treat the girls I like with respect and honor. See, if I don’t like you, I just don’t make an effort at all. But if I do like you, I remember that you’re a vegetarian and I know to buy a pizza for us without any meat on it. Pretty simple really. I got her a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale and she came over and we hung out, ate some food, had a drink, and lougned around and watched the NBA Finals until she had to leave around 7pm. I so didn’t want her to go, but I know she has her own life and this whole thing was new to us both and I wasn’t quite sure where it was going, but I knew I’d see her again, so I walked her down to the car like I did a few days earlier, kissed her and sent her on her way. She text me 20 minutes after she left.

Do you miss me yet?

Nope. And I’m definitely not making you a mix CD right now.

🙂 🙂 🙂

(Sent 7:55pm 6-14-15)

I’m not going to tell her I miss her, because that would be too soon to admit that….. but I am going to indirectly tell her that I miss her by saying I don’t miss her and then adding the part where I mention that I’m thinking about her by making a playlist/mix CD. I feel like nowadays you got to do stuff like that. I know it sounds weird, but I think both girls and guys appreciate slightly sarcastic and somewhat non offensive backhanded compliments when made at the right time in the right tone.

The beginning of dating someone is the best. Discovering who they are, their idiosyncracies and just basically getting to know each other are the times I cherish the most. She had been gone less than a day but we had text each other a lot and she called me the next night on her way home from shooting pool when she was pissed because the Blackhawks had just beaten her Lightning in the Stanley Cup Finals and no one in south Florida seemed to care. Another selfie and a few random pictures of lunch with her parents later, we would continue to communicate with each other every day until she returned to L.A. on Thursday. I knew I had only known her for less than a week, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t falling for her a little.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I was in love with her or anything like that, but I was thinking about her a lot and I was trying to plan out things for us to do when she got back into town so she would know that it wasn’t just a random act of sex and alcohol we had experienced but that I was really into her. On Thursday morning, the day she was meant to come back, I let her know I wanted to see her when she landed. She told me her schedule that day and we agreed to meet later that night at Jones in Hollywood for a drink. That night would change everything I had going for me with the Flight Attendant up to that point and it wouldn’t necessarily turn out way I wanted it to. Even to this day, I still don’t know why or how it happened.

I had been at Pink Taco with my friend Scott getting hit on by gold digging drunk girls who just came back from Vegas and who told us they had sex with guys for airplane tickets. Now, Scott and I were in no position to entertain these birds, and I so wanted no part of the conversation they were trying to have with us but I got to be honest, sometimes it’s amusing listening to and watching a trainwreck in action. After a few drinks and as it was getting closer to when I was going to meet Robyn, I started feeling happy, mainly because I was going to see her, but also because it was a way out of the situation with the party girls sitting next to us, otherwise known as  Dumb and Dumber.

I got to Jones around 9:30, and went outside to answer her call.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m walking up behind you.” she replied.

I turned around and there she was, dressed in a black leather jacket, jeans and boots. It certainly didn’t look like she just came from ballet class at all. She looked really good, but there was something off about her. Was she a little apprehensive? Maybe. I couldn’t really tell what was going on yet, but I would soon find out. Albeit I was a little tipsy and in hindsight, maybe drinking since 6pm wasn’t such a great idea but regardless, I got us a round of whiskey and we took a seat across from the bar and stared at this guy who was apparently oblivious to the fact that his ass crack was hanging out.

“There it is.” She said as the guy leaned forward just enough to give us a birds-eye view of his butt.

She was being funny and sarcastic, but the overall tone of the night seemed kind of weird. Not weird in a good way like the night I met her and we both spent three hours cuddling which is something you obviously don’t do the night you meet someone, weird in a bad way like she was casting off and fishing for information that said to me I’m going to not like what is about to happen. She told me about how in the past she always screws up relationships and how she wanted to go to therapy and that she wanted to take things slow, and she wasn’t too keen on getting involved really quickly. Wait, what? Was she talking about me? Is this an extension of the convo we had for a second from last weekend where she told me that she didn’t want to talk about herself? Was she referring to another guy she recently met at a bar? Also, therapy? Would I have to go to with her or was she mentioning it as an option for her own self improvement? It seems a little too soon for us to meet with a mediator, and besides I had no health insurance. I couldn’t really comprehend what she was saying because yes, I was a little drunk and I couldn’t be sure, but all I kept hearing was things that sounded like that she didn’t want to see me anymore.

Backing tracking a bit…earlier in the night I had asked if she wanted to come by my place instead of going out. I only said this because I was already at home at 8:30pm, and maybe it was easier for her to come by my place but maybe, and I think possibly she might have misinterpreted that offer as me just wanting to have sex with her again.

“If we go to your place, we’re going to go upstairs for a drink and then the bedroom, and then you know what’s going to happen next….”

A part of me was baffled by what she was saying, that I didn’t know how to react. Did I want to sleep with her again? Of course I did, but it wasn’t the reason why I wanted her to come over. I mean if anything, I really liked her and wanted to be with her in a private setting to get to know her better and maybe we could play some darts or listen to some more music and maybe she would stay over and we would NOT have sex. Up until this point, I hadn’t seen her for like a week and every time I heard a text notification go off on my phone I got a little excited because within a few days we had sent something like 500 texts to each other and 250 times when I heard that sound go off, it was her texting me and my brain would release a little more dopamine. It’s true. Your mind enjoys the sound of a text or e-mail notification. Look it up.

Getting back to the night at hand, I feel like I’ve heard this song and dance before. When a girl starts pulling away and says to me “I’m not where you’re at,” I immediately turn on the defensive and I try my hardest to protect myself so I don’t get hurt. Look, I’m a highly creative person and I recently read an article that put things into perspective for me when dating a highly creative person like myself. (see article here)

What may not seem like a big deal to her, i.e. telling me she thinks we should take it slow, etc. etc. was kind of coming off to me as her pushing me away. It may not have been her aim to do this, but in my head it was kind of devastating. I might have been stand off-ish or asshole-ish, but that was really never my intention. To be honest, I don’t know what I said that rubbed her the wrong way and made things awkward between us. I don’t know how I acted that made her think twice about being there with me, and I can’t remember for the life of me why I didn’t just say “Yeah, that’s cool. Let’s take it slow.”

The one thing I do remember is how much of a blunder the last 15 minutes put us in. It wasn’t like an argument, and it was never even that dramatic, but all I remember was this horrible feeling in my stomach, walking her to her car and barely saying goodbye. I would take an Uber home where I would spend the next 48 hours physically and mentally destroying myself for acting like such a jerk and I didn’t even have to live out the next few days to know that whatever happened that night, fucked up whatever good thing I had going with her. It was a mess right now, and I hate mess so of course, I tried to fix it.

I would find myself looking at my phone, trying to replay the night over in my drunken head by trying to match the texts we sent each other with what events my brain could remember actually transpiring. She said she was sorry that night because it made me sad, & I apologized for acting like a drunk jerk the next day because I thought she didn’t want to see me again. She said that wasn’t the case at all, but the next day she also said that it caused her to take a step back and that she just felt weird about the whole situation. Great. Now I’m just a weirdo she slept with on the first date. Miscommunication is the death of me and the last relationship I had back in 2009. It is the worst, and I wanted so dearly to un-miscommunicate and explain myself, so I asked her if we could talk about what happened. This is the response I got back:

I’m working this weekend, but maybe next week we can chat. Although you know where I stand so I don’t know what there is to talk about.

Sent 8:55pm 6-20-15

Ouch. That hurt. I let it go for a few days. During that time I thought about her a lot, but moreover I thought about how I totally screwed myself by being drunk and disorderly that night, and the misconception of how I felt and what had happened vs. how she felt and what she was saying. I mean, was it just a big misunderstanding, or was there something else going on? Did she have five guys she was talking to on the side like a sailor has a girl at every port? She does fly around the country for a living, and I don’t pretend to know everything about her, but a part of me thinks that maybe she got a little freaked out. Maybe she doesn’t sleep with guys she meets three days earlier, or maybe she felt something for me and just wasn’t ready to admit it to herself. Maybe she just didn’t care. I knew I had to make an effort to talk to her, NOT text her anymore so I called her on a Tuesday morning, left a message and then she called me back twenty minutes later and I played it cool. I was all like, “Hey, I have this problem and I think you can help me.”

“Ok, what is it?” she asked

“I have this wedding coming up next month, and I could really use a smart, pretty girl like yourself with good fashion sense to help me pick out a matching shirt and tie.” I replied.

“Yeah, I’m pretty good at that.” She said. “I’m working all this week though.” (starting to wonder if this was an automatic response)

“Well, whenever you have time. I know it’s a lot of pressure” I said sarcastically.

I could tell she was smiling when she was talking to me by the tone of her voice, and I thought to myself… “alright cool, we’re never going to talk about what happened that night, but maybe we’ll go to Macy’s together and shop for dress clothes.” Ok, she called me back, so I’m not a total freak and there is still a chance, right? The thing about being in this predicament was that I didn’t want too much time to go by without seeing her again. I wanted to make another impression that wasn’t some uncomfortable 45 minutes at a bar where things were stranger than fiction.

I spent the next few days giving her space, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t in my head trying to figure out what went wrong. It was a mess, and like I said before, I fucking hate mess. I either want it to be cleaned up so we can start over, or I want to know it’s done so I can move on with my life. I don’t feel this way about everyone, in fact I don’t even know how I was feeling, but I can’t remember the last time I spent so much time thinking about someone I had only known for a week and a half. Obsessive compulsive disorder much you might be saying? No, that’s not really it. I just hate being left in the dark. I’m from the “Why” generation that asks questions and expresses themselves and sometimes doesn’t relate to the quirks of this Millennial generation who seem to lack the ability to actually feel a feeling, then turn those feelings into words that they will then use to create sentences to communicate to people what they really think and how they really feel.  Maybe try it some time.

Four days went by and I hadn’t heard from her at all. I was watching old episodes of The Office and I spotted that Indian actor Frank who was hitting on her the night we met and I sent her a pic, but I never got a reply back. Having no idea where I stood was driving me crazy. I talked with a few friends of mine that week, and got advice about what to do, and the only thing that made sense to me was just putting it all on the line and telling Robyn how I really felt. I mean, she’s either going to reply, or she’s not…but either way….. what did I really have to lose?

On Sunday the 28th, I shot a scene for a web series where I played the head of an talent agency. It was like my Ari Gold role, and I relished in it and I did a good fucking job and was complimented by the director and the writers. I had deleted all of Robyn’s texts the night before at work and I had written a text of my own that I was planning on sending that afternoon. I thought to myself, she’s a Capricorn like me, we have a lot of traits in common, and playing it cool and trying to be funny just wasn’t working. Maybe she wanted to hear exactly the way I felt because to be honest, that’s what I would want. Let’s cut the bullshit, and get to the heart of the matter. I got home from my shoot, and before I changed out of my Calvin Klein suit I sent her these words….

Ok, here’s the deal. I have not stopped thinking about you for the last week. You’re always on my mind and it’s driving me crazy the way we left things. I freaked out that night at the bar because the exact same thing happened to me a year and a half ago when this girl told me she wanted to take it slow, but then I never heard from her again. I panicked. I thought the same thing was going to happen. Look, I’m far from perfect and I know I have my own issues to work out, but you are really special to me, and I respect you and I felt a real connection which I haven’t felt in awhile and I wanted to take our time getting to know each other, but I realize that’s not up to me anymore. For what it’s worth, I just needed you to know.

Sent 11:11am, 6-28-15

I changed out of my suit, into some relaxing clothes, did a few shots of Don Julio, grabbed a beer and went down to the pool to relax and get some sun. An hour later I got a text back from her.

These texts are a bit excessive.

12:21 6-28-15

Ok, NOT what I was hoping for so I had to ask what she meant, even though I kind of already knew the answer. Was she referring to the content or the amount of texts?  This was her response:

Both. I appreciate what you’re saying, but that’s a bit much. And the exact reason I don’t want to get into anything.

12:26pm 6-28-15

Wow…how insensitive. You know, there is a nice way of saying what she said, but that wasn’t it. I get it, she’s not into me anymore, but I’m pretty sure she definitely was a week ago. How does somebody just turn on a dime like that?  Sure, it was a relatively new situation and things happened quickly, but I didn’t do it all on my own. I admit, I may be guilty of being a bit impassioned and romanticizing things in my head, but come on now….I didn’t make it all up. I know when someone feels a certain way about me, then changes their stance because they’re afraid of getting close. I know when someone likes me, then acts like they don’t to make me go away. Maybe it was never meant to be, maybe I dodged a bullet, or maybe she should renew that prescription for her bi-polar medication.

I know I’m a good guy, I just sometimes make stupid mistakes when I get drunk like that night. Sometimes your mind understands something exactly the way it was intended, while at the same time all your heart hears is “blah, blah, blah.” It was true, a similar thing happened to me a year and half ago when I met a girl and after two weeks I guess I made the mistake of telling her how I felt because she broke it off the next day. I wrote a blog about her too. It’s under Ok Stupid because that’s how I felt at the time and in some way, I guess history really does repeat itself.

What’s so wrong with telling someone how you feel about them? When did “I really care about you” turn into the scariest phrase a guy could say to a girl? I’m a big boy, I can handle taking it slow, as long as I know that you’re communicating with me and being honest and candid. I don’t really understand how I meet women who are attracted to me, laugh at my jokes, hold my hand and kiss me back, but then the second I say “I like you” it makes them run for the back door like an illegal working in a restaurant that was just raided by the INS. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it, and that doesn’t mean I condone it.

It’s been almost a month since I received that text, but I never wrote her back. Why would I at that point? I mean, who was I even talking to? That’s not the girl who admitted to me that she had her friend strike up a conversation with us that day at the bar so she could meet me. That wasn’t the girl who used to kiss me with her eyes open, and that definitely wasn’t the girl who tried to convince me that her dragon emoji looked more like a dinosaur than my camel emoji. That girl is gone, and I’ll probably never see her again…. unless of course I happen to be on a flight on her airline to Vegas and she is working, but what are the chances of that happening? It’s not entirely my fault, I know that. I tried to fix it, I really did, but I guess this was the way it was supposed to play out. I got to admit I ignored some of the red flags she raised in the beginning, but eventually they all show their true colors. I can’t be mad, and I’m not upset by what happened, just disappointed because I don’t want to be thought of as this guy she was into for a week that eventually made her feel weird and then wrote a blog about it. That would totally fucking suck. On the other hand, her thinking of me in that way is taking the easy way out, and maybe that’s what she wants to do.

When you listen to your heart, you sometimes get caught up in what you’re hearing.

I live life with no regrets, but if Doc Brown showed up outside my place in the DeLorean I probably would choose to take a ride back to Birds ten minutes before I met her and tell myself to take it slow and get to know this one, unless of course that would have caused a paradox in the space-time continuum. On the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t change anything. I may be out a pair of underwear and an extra set of T-Rex socks, but I took a shot and I do have a great song and a killer playlist I made that I never got a chance to give to her.

Look, it may not have worked out, but I was true to who I am, and I put myself out there even if it was only to come back with a few fleeting memories and a lesson learned. It’s not like I lost any sleep over it, and to this day I still love that one song even though every lyric reminds me of her. I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe that’s a good thing.

The Flight Attendant: Part 1

I met the flight attendant at Birds in Hollywood. I was there to have a few happy hour drinks with my friend, and I had been taken off the schedule from work that night, due to a totally unrelated issue with a liquor license at the club.

Birds is a local neighborhood bar on Franklin in Hollywood. I’ve been drunk, embarrassed myself, been kicked out of, sobered up, done blow in the bathroom, and felt right at home at this local watering hole. It’s my go to bar for when I feel like I want to be home drinking, but not at home. I’ve had a couple first or second dates there, but this night in particular was not a planned date. I got there early and took the last two seats at the back bar.

As soon as I got there, I noticed her. She had on white pants, a baby blue tank top, and these amazing eyes that caught my gaze immediately. I ordered a Stella from the bartender, sat down three seats away from her and stared….at my new smart phone while I waited for my friend to join me. About five minutes later, John arrived and we ordered another round of drinks and some food. It was great to catch up with John as I hadn’t seen the kid for three months, but in between conversations about work and what we’ve been up to, I kept looking over at this girl, and she kept looking over at me. At one point, I left to go to the bathroom and when I came back I saw John engaged in a conversation with her and her friend. Things progressed from there without a lot of effort, and I eventually bought her and her friend a round of shots, sat down next to her and got to know her name, her job, and the instantaneous attraction we had that neither of us could ignore.

What immediately freaked me out about her was this sudden sense of familiarity, followed by how she kind of looked like two of my ex girlfriends, peppered with a dash of Christen Press from the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team. I know I have a type, and Robyn had shoulder length dark hair, big features, hazel eyes, a great body, and her birthday was 18 days after mine. Capricorn on Capricorn could be good. Could also be disastrous, but I was willing to find out.

She loved dinosaurs, told me about her T-Rex tattoo that she couldn’t show me in public, and I told her how I wanted to take her to see Jurassic World and how I would even wear a button down shirt. Classy huh? Guess it worked because she agreed to our first date, and then right before John left for the night, I kissed her in the middle of the bar. Look, I normally hate public displays of affection, unless of course I’m involved in the PDA. Is it a double standard? Yeah, maybe it is, so feel free to call me a hypocrite because at this point in the night, I didn’t care and it was time for us, minus John to go to another bar.

At the end of the block lies the French wine bar La Poubelle. This is another cool hip hot spot in small town Hollywood. The two flight attendants and I walk in, and again I grab the last two seats at the bar. I order three glasses of wine from the bartender who I recently saw in that Jack In The Box “Sriracha” commercial. We chat for a bit more, then I excuse myself to the bathroom where I proceed to look at myself in the mirror and tell myself to play it cool, just like Travolta in Pulp Fiction.

“You’re gonna go out there, finish your drink, go home, jerk off, and that’s all you’re gonna do.”

Except when I returned from the bathroom, there were two guys talking to the flight attendants. One of them I recognized from TV. His name was Frank something, and he’s the token Indian guy in every sitcom or procedural drama on television that didn’t cast Kal Penn. His friend is some goofy Asian kid who was wearing sandals and probably just feeds off of Indian Frank’s leftovers, if there are any. After about thirty seconds of wanting to get rid of them without any luck, I pull out the big guns.

“I know you. You’re that dude on TV, right? You were on Entourage!  Agent Raj!” I say in a sarcastic “now it’s time to leave” tone.

“Yeah man, I’m Frank.” He replies

“Hey Frank, I’m Christian. How do you know my girlfriend?” I say as I put my arm around the flight attendant who I had met literally four hours ago.

And that’s really all it took. Frank and his Asian flip-flop friend disappeared into the night and the flight attendants and I finished our drinks and I walked them home. One of the girls lived right across the street from the bar, and it wasn’t the one that I was interested in. However, when we reached her apartment building, she turned to me and said…

“Can you take care of her?”

“Yeah, she’s in good hands.” I replied.

And with that, I got into Robyn’s car, and we headed back to my apartment a few blocks down the road. She parked her two door Honda coupe with tinted windows in front of my two door Honda coupe with tinted windows and we went upstairs. I turned on some EDM which she made fun of me for, we played some darts, and we made out for the rest of the night while she tried unsuccessfully to befriend my cat. My cat is kind of a bitch and she makes you work for her affection. It doesn’t come easy, but Robyn was willing to try for a bit.

“I have to be up at 4am for work” She tells me at midnight.

“We should probably go to sleep then.” I replied.

It has never been easier to get a hot 27 year old flight attendant into my bed before that night. However, I had never really met a hot late twenties flight attendant at a bar before that night either. I know what you’re thinking….but the thing is, we didn’t have sex and I didn’t even try to. Don’t get me wrong, she was beautiful, and I was VERY attracted to her and I wanted to sex her up, but there was something about her that made me so fucking comfortable that all we did that night was cuddle. I know, what a fucking loser right? Well, fuck you! I don’t cuddle AT ALL!  I NEVER do it. In fact, the last time I cuddled someone was 2008, and the last time I had gotten laid was 2014 so you can OBVIOUSLY tell that I take one much more seriously than the other. It was one of those moments where I knew what I was happening was unnatural because I had just met her, but it just felt instinctive.

“This is weird, huh?” I asked her.

“Yeah, this is kind of weird, but I’m ok with it.” She replied.

With me laying on my back, and Robyn laying on my chest, we dozed off into the night. At 4am, the jarring alarm went off on my brand new smartphone I had gotten the day before. I didn’t know how to adjust the tune it plays, so we awoke to some strange and random female voice singing “Good Moooorning.” It was still dark out, but Robyn had to leave for work, so she took off my Flyers pants that she was reluctant to wear the night before because she is a Lightning fan, put her clothes back on and I walked her down to the parking garage and sent her on her way.

I immediately liked her, even though there were a few things about her that I chose to ignore. She was vegetarian, and I have NEVER dated a vegetarian before, but we had just met and I wasn’t really thinking about long term things, so I didn’t care. Now if she were vegan, THAT would be a deal breaker. Over the next couple days we texted each other and made plans to go see Jurassic World on Saturday for which I bought tickets ahead of time, in her neighborhood, on a Saturday night. She was really excited to see this movie, and I was really excited to see her, and a little bit excited for the movie. When she asked if I wanted to come over her place for a drink before the flick, I absolutely said yes.

She lived close to Venice, but far enough away that I didn’t see any pot shops or homeless people on my way to her place. I was wearing a pair of T-Rex socks I had bought a couple years ago. They’re blue, and have an orange Tyrannosaurs on them which matched the Tyrannosaurus tattoo she had on her upper left thigh which she showed me the night I met her when we weren’t in public. Truth is, it was an awful tattoo, but then again I can’t say anything because I have an awful tattoo of a cat getting electrocuted on my left leg. Come to think of it, we had that in common too.

I arrived at her place and she came out to meet me. She looked hot. Like cheerleader hot. She was wearing a black skirt, a fitted grey top, and white Keds on her feet. Literally, like what teenagers wear, but she pulled it off because

A. She had a good fashion sense and style, and

B. It made her just short enough that I looked kind of tall walking next to her.

Of course she tells me she deliberately made that choice so she didn’t tower over me, but in reality I’m 5’10 and she’s 5’7, and I totally appreciated her sarcastic sense of humor. She asked me what I wanted a drink, so I asked her what she had and she opened a cabinet in the kitchen and revealed to me exactly what I thought the liquor cabinet of a flight attendant would look like. It was filled with tiny airplane bottles of booze that she had probably stolen from work.

“I’ll have vodka….no…. whiskey” I said.

I don’t know why I said that because up until that evening, I didn’t drink whiskey, at all. Occasionally I’ll have a shot of Jameson but I feel like a new experience with someone is the perfect opportunity to start drinking something I hadn’t before?  Maybe.

We chatted for a bit, watched her weird neighbor do push-ups on the lawn in front of her place  and then caught an Uber to the movie theater. We sat through a pretty awful movie that night. I know some people really liked Jurassic World, but we both kind of felt a little disappointed. Like, how the hell is that chick running in high heels throughout the whole movie, and why did they have to show so many Brontosaurus deaths, and don’t you think the Velociraptor trainer should know that the huge dinosaur they created in a lab that is terrorizing the park was mixed with Velociraptor DNA???

Luckily, that would be the only disappointment in the night.  After the movie, we took another Uber to a bar on Venice Blvd. called Bigfoot West. Our driver had mentioned there was a warehouse party down the street, and creepily almost dropped us off in some alley until we both stated we did NOT want to go to some shady warehouse party. He kept making uncomfortable statements which made us more eager to get out of the car and into the bar where I got us two shots of Bulleit Rye, her favorite, and two Bulleit and gingers because after that piece of shit movie, we both needed a stiff drink or two.

We talked, watched people at the bar and after our first drink, started getting a little more comfortable with each other in the booth. I noticed how after a drink, Robyn became a lot more sociable and let her guard down. It seemed like she was really into me. I mean, I thought she was anyway, and I noticed a difference in the way she presented herself to me after a shot of whiskey.

An ex of mine told me that when a woman points her knees towards you while she sits, she’s into you. If she’s NOT into you, her knees will point away. Well, Robyn’s body language was telling me everything I needed to know about how she felt. They were pointed in my direction, therefore…into me.  We started talking about our past relationships, and I could tell after a few questions I asked, she didn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore.

“I don’t like talking about me, let’s talk about you.” She said.

Now look, I’m no psychologist, but I could tell right then and there that there was something in her past that she didn’t want to divulge to me, which was totally fine. We had really just met.  I will tell you anything when we just met so I went on to tell her how I had gotten arrested in April of 2000, and how a few months ago I had to go back to Jersey for a court case that I thought was taken care of until I tried to renew my passport and it got denied. I told her stories about my drug days when I sold ecstasy in Philly for a week, and sold pot in Vegas to make my rent one month. Even though I was coming off as a bad-ass, I assured her that I wasn’t into that lifestyle anymore. I mean, that was like 15 years ago and I had gotten past that time in my life, but it still makes for good conversation.

She told me how she hates Vegas but has to fly there a lot for work, and how she doesn’t really like Los Angeles but just like me has a love/hate relationship with it. We had a lot in common. We were both born under the same star sign, the same Chinese zodiac sign, we looked really good together and we both drove almost the exact same kind of car. As I kissed her in the booth that night and we made a spectacle of ourselves in front of a bar packed with hipsters I felt like this was really starting out well.

“Wanna get out of here?” She asked.

“Yeah. Let’s do that.” I replied

We stood outside and she told me she had a great ass, so I had to see for myself. She was right. She had a great everything. I gotta say, I would have been sick to my stomach watching her and I with our arms around each other making out on the sidewalk of the bar that night with my hand occasionally checking in on her butt while we were waiting for our third Uber of the night, but luckily, I wasn’t an onlooker.

When we got back to her apartment, she led me into her bedroom, I took everything out of my pockets and got into bed with her where we continued to be that annoying couple who can’t take their hands off each other, but the thing is, I really COULDN’T keep my hands off of her. There was this innate sexual attraction between us that instantly needed no introduction. We were on auto-pilot and there wasn’t anything weird about it for me at all, until a few minutes later when I could tell what was about to happen, was going to happen.

“Umm, I didn’t bring a…”

Now, truth is, I did have one, but how presumptuous of me would it be to admit that I brought it?  Would she think less of me?  Would it be something like “Oh this scumbag thought I was easy and figured he was going to get laid tonight?”  By the way, I don’t like the word condom so I was having difficulty even writing this part of the blog, but in reality, the dome was in my car and I wasn’t about to break the mood and get up out of bed to go get it. Without another word, she reached over and took one out of the drawer and handed it to me. How presumptuous of her!  (kidding) Even though I was nervous and kind of excited and in total disbelief that this was happening, it happened. I didn’t expect any of this three days earlier when I met this girl at a bar in Hollywood and then spent the next 11 hours with her NOT having sex but tonight, things were a little different. A full ten to fifteen minutes later, it was time to go to sleep.

“You should probably throw that out.” She said.

“I think I’m gonna frame it.” I replied as we both laughed.

But of course, I didn’t. What kind of weirdo freak would even consider something like that? I got out of bed, threw it away, and then I fell asleep with my arms around her. I think I woke up at 4 in the morning, it was still dark out, but I couldn’t really tell what time it was. I laid there for a few minutes and I looked at Robyn as she slept next to me. She was stunning even when she was asleep. Then, she rolled over onto her back, and she started to…snuffle a bit. I remember thinking to myself  “Please don’t snore, please don’t snore.” There is nothing less attractive than a hot girl that saws wood when she sleeps.

But then, it stopped, and I breathed a snuffle of relief. I couldn’t get over how crazy this was. For one thing I had just met her, but everything about her seemed so familiar. Even though I hadn’t slept with anyone in 6 months, and even though I hadn’t slept over a girl’s place in 4 years, none of it really seemed to be awkward. I’m very cautious when it comes to dating someone I really like, and I know I have a tendency to wear my heart on my sleeve, which is quite obvious by the name of this blog. Normally, it takes me years to find someone I care to see more than twice, and rarely do I find someone who I knowingly allow to deliberately pull me out of my comfort zone. I don’t stay over girl’s houses, I don’t refrain from cigarettes if she doesn’t smoke, (yeah yeah yeah, I’m quitting soon) and I don’t sleep with someone on the first date, unless of course that’s what naturally happens. I did all of those things that night, and even though I know right from the beginning if I’m into someone or not, it still made me feel a little uncomfortable to admit it to myself. However, the way I look at it, I’d rather feel something than nothing at all.

I dozed off for another hour or so, and right around dusk I woke up, and I started getting my things together. I couldn’t find my underwear. I’m sure it was somewhere in the bed, but I wasn’t going to make her get up for a pair of Calvin Klein’s that are easily replaceable. I grabbed my phone, wallet, keys and clothes, kissed her on the lips and told her I’d talk to her later that day. I quietly left her apartment, walked out to my car commando style, and played “The Heart That I’m Hearing” by Galantis.

It’s funny how music comes into your life at a time when it perfectly describes the situation you are in, almost like it was meant to find you. Ever feel like that? Well, that happens to me a lot, and that’s how I felt that morning. I had just downloaded it the day before I met her, and when I listened to the lyrics that morning, I heard that track in a whole new way.

“I’m gonna let my heart decide if this is real. A thousand pictures can’t describe how I feel. It’s like the world doesn’t exist, but I can still see it. And when I focus on your eyes, it’s your heart that I’m hearing.”

I got back to my apartment around 6:30am, fed the cat and put on the third season of Orange Is The New Black. I wasn’t tired, and even if I was, I don’t think I could sleep. About an hour later I get a text message from Robyn.

When I woke up and you weren’t here this morning, it made me kind of sad.

sent 7:17 am

That is kind of a great text to receive. I don’t know if she really meant that, or if she was still drunk, but regardless I appreciated it. Come to think of it, we only had two drinks the night before, so no way she was still inebriated. I liked her. I knew that, and I was pretty sure she liked me. At that point things were at an all time high with the flight attendant and we were crusing at 30,000 feet. But as I would come to find out, it wasn’t all clear skies. We were in for a little turbulence in the week ahead….

Part 2: Next Thursday July 23rd