Friday, October 16, 2009

I Loathe Christopher Columbus (And Some Other Random People I've Never Met)

This past Monday apparently was Columbus Day. Who knew? My mom did but that is only because she has a government job and is one of the few people who had this day off. Every year she looks forward to this holiday and every year I give her a lecture about how dumb it is and why we shouldn’t celebrate it. She stopped listening to me a long time ago.

When I was a kid I used to get sort of excited about Columbus Day, if it meant we didn’t have school. When I became an adult who had to start buying her own stuff, I liked the day a little bit because it meant sales, sales, sales at many of my favorite stores. The thing is, ever since I can remember learning about Columbus, I’ve hated, I mean HATED, even loathed the man and I have no idea why. I can’t tell you any sort of rationale reason why I would despise someone I’ve never met, but if I tried to have a conversation about this person, the hatred in my voice would probably cause you to wonder what the hell was wrong with me.

Even though I can’t explain why I loathe this man, I can tell you that I was thrilled, when, as a kid my mom told me a story about Colombus’s death. Even though I was no older than 10, I distinctly remember her telling me that Columbus was likely buried alive (although I can’t find anything to prove this statement). I think he was in a coma and the people who thought he was dead were merely unable to detect a very weak heartbeat, so the bastard got tossed in a tomb. My mom told me that when they (whoever they are) exhumed his body (I don’t know why this was done) there were claw marks inside the coffin. I guess he woke up and realized he was in a very bad place and tried desperately to get out.

I remember being filled with horror at the thought of being buried alive and also being filled with a sense of glee, yes, I mean joy, happiness, even elation, that Columbus was supposedly buried alive. Now, I am a relatively stable minded person who can be malicious but isn’t usually sadistic and I cannot rationally explain why the thought of some ancient moron who got credit for “discovering America” when he really thought he found India (and we celebrate this because why, exactly?) thrills me.

The compassionate side of me imagines that it must have sucked to wake up from a coma or whatever he was in, and realize that it was very dark and cold where he was. I imagine what it must have been like to try to figure out where he was and why couldn’t he move and then trying desperately to claw his way out of whatever he was in. It’s sick. I know. I really shouldn’t find satisfaction in this, even if I do despise the man.

My Aunt, who believes very deeply in past lives told me that if I feel this strongly about Christopher Columbus maybe it is because we had some sort of connection in a past life. I don’t really like to think about that sort of stuff, but if it is true, then I imagine whatever connection we had, it wasn’t a very good one!

I also have great disdain for other people I’ve never met and likely never will meet, despite the fact that they have done nothing to me. Among these people are Bill Clinton and Rachael Ray.

I know it is almost sacrilegious to say you hate Bill Clinton, but I haven’t really toned down my feelings towards the man over the years. I still loathe the no-good, lying, sleepy-eyed-basset hound and I never understood why anyone would find him attractive, never mind want to suck his dick! As far as that goes, I’d almost rather never have sex again than even think about fellating that pompous windbag! Having said that, I don’t really get my intense disdain for him either. I mean, I did vote for him at least once (I’ve chosen to “forget” if I voted for him the second time or not) and he hasn’t done much worse than so many arrogant little pricks in positions of power have, but still, when I passed by his book, “My Pathetic Life” or whatever it is called, at the library today, I wanted to heave my guts out all over his lecherous face. I have that reaction whenever I see his face, which fortunately isn’t very often!

My loathing of Rachel Ray is about the only one I can somewhat rationally explain. It began when I learned that my lover thought she was hot. For me, it was immediate. She was competition. She was a threat to our sanctuary, our relationship. Until I managed to shame my lover into no longer openly admitted that Rachael Ray is hot and has great tits, I was tormented with nightmares of her. Of course it didn’t help that my lover once admitted that she was on the” Celebrity Top Five People To Fuck If The Opportunity Ever Presented Itself” list.

“Ah ha!” You say, “So there’s the problem. You feel threatened.” Well, yes, in a way I do but it is not because my beloved wants to bang someone else, but because that someone else is Rachael-Fucking-I-Can-Make-Dog-Shit-Taste-Good- And-Smile-While-Children-Die-Of-Malnutrition-Ray! I don’t feel intimidated by Kathy Ireland, who has held the number one “Celebrity Fuck” spot since my lover was in high school. At least Kathy is hot, hot, hot, has red hair and is, or at least portrays herself as a highly intelligent, business savvy, I-Can-Conquer-The-World-In-My-Sleep kind of woman.

I feel threatened by Rachel-fucking-Ray because she is so much that I am not and never freaking will be! She is petite and perky, rich and friendly, can out cook me any day and is so goddamn optimistic I just want to grate her expensive plastic surgery smile off her face while simultaneously deep frying her airhead laugh and roasting her eye balls over an open fire (which was created with all of Bill Clinton’s books!). Besides, what the hell does Rachael Ray offer the world besides stupidly named dog food, more useless cookbooks and monthly magazine covers where her tits are the main feature?

My loathing of her is perfectly rational and it makes far more sense than my visceral loathing of Columbus. In my defense, at least I don’t want to bury her alive or vomit on the cover of her books!

Really, there might be something wrong with me for how strongly impassioned I can become about these people I will never meet, but before you write me off as a callous, threatened lover, a snarky bitch (well, I might like that one) or just plain insane, maybe you could take an afternoon or two to think of people you loath that you’ve never met. Brittney Spears…Paris Hilton…George Bush…Dick Cheney…Mother Theresa…? I’ll bet you have at least one or two people you loath that you’ve never met…so come on...‘fess up!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Mr. Can't Get It Up, Part One

(The following is another excerpt from a book I am working on, currently entitled, "Dabbling with Dating Disasters" which I might some day get up the courage to submit for publication. The first excerpt, if you haven't been reading along, is entitled, My First Childhood Love.)

Mr. Can’t Get It Up remains one of my biggest regrets, and not, by the way, because of his unfortunate nickname.

I met Mr. Up when I was working at Kohl’s Department store in a town not too far from where I grew up. I had just moved back, temporarily, into my mom’s house and I was trying to get a job, a real job, doing something using my degree that I spend so much money for, as my mom liked to frequently remind me.

Since I wanted to use my degree and I was tired of waitressing, I naturally decided I would apply for a job at Kohl’s (or just about anywhere that would allow me to keep my clothes on and not have to serve food to people). Although I really couldn’t justify how a job there was using my degree, it was a paycheck while I was waiting to land the job of my dreams helping those less fortunate than me. (Really, I’m not that altruistic, but I really did want to find a job where I needed to have a bachelor’s degree, since it was long past time to start paying the loans back!) I was hired to convince people to sign up for credit cards and to run credit application checks on those people who were silly enough to actually sign up for them. It wasn’t a bad job. Interminably boring towards the end but I worked with some cool people and our supervisor was laid back.

I don’t recall meeting Mr. Can’t Get it Up at the new employee orientation meeting, where we were herded like sheep into a tiny room to learn about the benefits we would never be getting and watching movies about the proper way to lift boxes we would never move. If I had seen him there, that probably would have made the event far more memorable.

Mr. Up was unlike any guy I had ever been attracted to in so many ways. First of all, he was much shorter than me and while I’ve never been a stickler for a guy’s height, I still cringe when I think about my sisters dancing around with the family dog on it's hind legs, mocking the fact that my prom date was almost a foot shorter than me…before I put on shoes! In addition to being shorter than me, Mr. Up had (probably still has) the brightest red hair I’ve ever seen on someone and an explosion of freckles everywhere, or at least everywhere that I could see, and believe me, I wanted to see much, much more! In short, he looked like a little leprechaun and reminded me, with great longing, of the time I spent living in Ireland, and by default I guess, of a man I loved very deeply when I lived on the Emerald Isle and hadn’t heard from in ages. He (Mr. Up) even had an authentic Irish name to boot! I was smitten. Not instantly, of course, because I had been working really hard to ensure that kind of crap never happened again, but I was smitten nevertheless.

Mr. Up and I did not spend a lot of time working together at first. It was the store’s policy (or someone’s policy) that there had to be two greeters at each entrance trying to get people to apply for a credit card while the rest of the group stayed in the back and processed the applications. In the beginning, we were too busy smiling, pivoting, soliciting and processing credit card offers to have much of a chance to talk to one another. Sometimes though, especially as the weeks wore on and it became obvious who was better at what job, Mr. Up and I would get to sit next to each other and flirt shamelessly as we worked diligently to approve all the credit applications. It was somewhere amidst the piles of paperwork that I became aware of my attraction to him.

I don’t know what the clues were, maybe it was my embarrassing inability to put together coherent sentences when talking to him. Maybe it was my aching clitoris or the panties which constantly felt like they needed to be changed when he was around. Maybe it was the fantasies I had about being back in Ireland that made me attracted to him. I don’t know and I don’t really care. I just knew that I wanted to fuck him.

That was it really.

In the time we spent getting to know each other, both at work and hanging out with co-workers outside of work, I had gleaned enough information about him to know that dating him was a terrible idea. It would have been catapulting myself down the same dangerous road of all those other disastrous relationships…the ones that I tried to heal, to patch back up, to love ‘em ‘til they’re perfect, all the while forgetting about my own needs. Although I was lusting heartily for him (a lust which was made far stronger by the knowledge that I should not, could not, date him) I was also terrified that I would not be able to simply fuck him and walk away, even though I had more or less done this routine before. Mr. Up, I still believe, has a really big heart and he seemed like he was looking for more of a relationship than I was.

Nevertheless, the day came when I finally told him how I felt about him and it went something like this:

Me: “I think you’re kinda hot.”

Him: “Uh, thanks.”

Me: “I’d like to have sex with you.”

Him: “Uh, what?”

Me: “I would like to have sex with you and that’s it. I like you but I don’t want a relationship. I just want to fuck you and see what it is like.”

Him: (Long, very long period of silence. I begin to regret what I have just said) “Uh, isn’t that what the guy is supposed to say?”

Me: (Very long period of silence. Wondering why I thought I should share this with him.) “Well, that’s how I feel.”

Him: “Huh.”

End of conversation.

That may or may not be verbatim, but it sure is how the conversation felt! I was sitting there, all lusty in my loins and telling him that I wanted to have sex with him, which, by this point, I thought was obvious. No matter what I did though, I was feeling like I was about to get shot down. It was humiliating!

Turns out it really bothered him that all I wanted was sex, not a meaningful relationship.

Christ!

I thought I was supposed to be the one who, stereotypically, gets upset that someone just wants to fuck me. And here he is all questioning himself and me and my motives! It would have been a better idea to go home and masturbate for all the work this was becoming!

Mr. Can't Get It Up, Part Two

Sometime after I stopped working at Kohl’s and landed the job of my dreams (wow, did I ever actually feel that way about that hellacious place?) Mr. Up called and asked me if I wanted to go out for some drinks or something. I, sensing this was my chance to get some, or at least get the hell out of my mom’s house, said, “Hell yes!”…maybe a little too enthusiastically. After meeting up in the local Wendy’s parking lot, we ended up going to a country-western bar where I once worked for two and a half days (that is a story for another time).

That night was one of the most painfully awkward dates of my life.

Somehow, even though we had tons to talk about before my “I want to fuck you” disclosure, and even though we still managed to have a few good phone calls since I left Kohl’s, on this occasion, we had nothing to talk about. Nothing. Silence was the theme of the evening. It even overtook the awful, blaring country music and the piercing shattering of beer bottles as the surly waitresses prepared to serve another drunken customer.

We barely even touched each other as we sat side by side, nursing our respective beers and looking as pathetic as the rest of the hopeless crowd there. I think every time my bare leg brushed against his, he about jumped off the bar stool. At first I thought it was funny, that maybe he was nervous or something, but it quickly got on my nerves. I mean, I’m an attractive person, do you have to jump like I have leprosy every time I touch you? Jesus! I’ll find someone else in this dump to fuck!

After a lifetime, or several agonizing hours, or at least two beers and painfully limited conversation, we left the bar. As he drove me back to Wendy’s where I left my car, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness that I had ever bothered to tell him how I felt in the first place. It felt like rejection and looked like rejection and I just couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. I mean, I was taught at a very early age that all guys wanted was sex, so why the fuck wasn’t this guy interested in me? Was he really serious about wanting a freaking relationship?

Ok. If it had to be that way, it had been such a long time since I got laid, at this point I would have gone back in time and undone my honest conversation and pretend I wanted to date him, if, and only if, after a short period of time it meant I could finally get to see the rest of those freckles and satisfy my curiosity about the real color of his pubic hair! Christ! Why did I have to fuck things up so badly by being honest?

He said nary a word to me in the short drive back, or none that I recall anyway. However, it turned out that the ambiance of an empty Wendy’s parking lot, or the effects of a few beers, finally managed to loosen his lips. I believe he finally made the first move and leaned in and kissed me around the same time that I finally figured out that he was probably waiting for me to make the first move all night; after all, I was the one looking to jump his bones whereas he apparently didn’t know what he wanted to do with me!

The kiss was pretty good. A little slobbery, tasting like beer and nervous saliva and very awkward, but still, a good kiss. It really had been a very, very long time for me! He pulled away almost as quickly as a race car driver and again we sat there in awkward silence. I guess this was the part where I was supposed to invite myself back to his place, but I didn’t. I was a lot more talk than action at this point. In my fantasies, everything went so much more smoothly than this and I had no idea what to do with this reality!

Finally, in a small, but trying to sound gruff and non-committal, voice, he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place and make good on my offer to, you know, um, have sex. I, trying to sound suave, said sure.

Perhaps it was a delayed response to the alcohol, or endorphins surging through my body, or the sight of a cowboy hat on his wall, whatever it was, once we finally got to his place, I was just about ready to go. I found a reduced inhibition and began making out with him furiously. Or trying to anyway. He still seemed to have reservations or concerns or something other than a raging desire to throw me on the bed and fuck like crazy. I, in my clear head, thought it would be a good idea to push him up against the wall, press my eager breasts upon him and make out even more passionately while simultaneously trying to untuck his shirt. That didn’t work so well either.

So, since he wasn’t being very co-operative, I thought I’d try and live out a fantasy of mine. I pried myself off him, took his cowboy hat off the wall, placed it upon his head and told him how hot I thought he looked. Certainly this would help things move along…right?

Um, not so much.

He just stood there looking a little confused. However, my sluttish eyes did notice a bulge, a small bulge, but a bulge nevertheless, in his pants. So again I took matters into my own hands and tried to guide him to the bed while unbuckling his pants. Perhaps somewhere along the way I should have stopped to ask him what he wanted, but I thought I already knew. I mean, we were here, weren’t we? For the purpose of having sex, right?

I flung myself on his bed and tried to pull him on top of me as he wrangled his jeans off. It was all very hot in my eyes (except for the part where he was not as enthusiastic as I was and the part where he certainly was not riding me like the hot cowboy I was pretending he was!). I closed my eyes and waited for things to move along, to get better. They never did. Turns out my little leprechaun (who really was rather endowed) couldn’t get an erection.

Now, this was the first time this had ever happened and I sure as shit didn’t know what to do. I thought that they were always supposed to rise in my presence! And while this one was making an attempt, it wasn’t getting very far, or very hard.

I did what seemed reasonable in the moment. I pulled him down next to me and held him in my arms and said it was cool, we could take our time, maybe even have some foreplay. I thought maybe that would help things. I tried to be understanding. I tried to be supportive. I tried not to be disappointed and I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. That is when he decided to enlighten me a little bit.

Mr. Up got really upset about not getting an erection, which I have since learned is a normal reaction, and told me that he was on some medicines, some anti-depressants and that must be the problem. It wasn’t me. It was the pills and the beer. The drinking and the expectation that he just had to perform for me. That and the fact that this was all moving so quickly, there was no time to get used to things, to get used to screwing around without the expectation of having sex. I think he almost started crying.

I was stunned.

It never occurred to me that he might have wanted to take things slower or that he would feel like he had to perform for me since all I wanted was is cock, not him as a person. I tried to console him, to tell him that I knew what it was like to be on anti-depressants and how that affected your sex life. I tried to tell him that we could take a break, or try again later or get together some other time, or do it his way and try messing around slowly, over many dates. In the end though, he was inconsolable and gave me the boot.

Since we took separate cars to his place, it was a short awkward walk to my car and a disappointing good-bye.

I never heard from him again despite my sincere voicemail message that I’d really like to see him again and we could even keep our clothes on this time. I only saw him once more and that was just outside the new Kohl’s he presumably worked at which was much closer to where I was currently living. The last time I last saw him I had just finished telling my agonizing story to my friend, who tried to help me figure out how to undo what I had done. We decided shopping would be a great distraction, and it was, until I saw him ambling through mall with his friend. He walked right by me like I never had my hand on his junk a few nights ago. Like I never existed. I knew I would never get a chance to see if my little leprechaun could get it up.

I wanted to melt into the floor and cry.

Sunday, October 4, 2009