First name Jessica, last name Busch.
My ex-girlfriend. She was a ten. Perfect. Blonde, big strong white teeth, hips, boobs, hair, legs, everything. I still think about her on occasion. We broke up about a year ago, maybe a year and a half, and she's got this new boyfriend Dante, your classic alpha male. Good looking, protective, loud and everything that entails.
But hold on. This must sound like I'm pining. I'm not, I assure you. I broke up with her. That's right, I left the prettiest girl I'm ever likely to date, and I'm proud of it. I admit, it was nice being a beautiful couple. We'd walk into a place and the air would ripple, heads would turn and then look enviously back into their soup. We'd smile our blonde smiles, she'd touch the small of my back, she'd sit, I'd follow suit, she'd look around, I'd look around, but that was it. There was embarrassingly little conversation, and all the while, as we sat so numb, so pretty, the room would be more and more aware of the paltry thing I was doing. They must have been able to see the knowingness in my eyes, my intelligence, her beauty, her vacancy. She was an object, they knew, so I broke up with her. Many times, actually. I couldn't stay away for long. She was after all very pretty.
Not being able to stay alone long, she gets a new guy, shallow as her, dumbed down, not minding the minimalist conversation, but presentable, fun, active. Am I jealous? Possibly. I'm presentable, shit, but brooding. She couldn't understand that. Nor could I...
Strikingly beautiful girl though. Here's the kicker. She's with Dante for three months, I get a text message asking what I'm doing and of course, it's Busch. I know immediately what she wants and I give it to her. Out of spite, whatever. It was her birthday, I slept over, and in the morning she left for LA to visit her boyfriend. She called me a couple times after that but it's over now. I could never do it again. I've moved on, to the less beautiful, but multi-dimensional girl. Here's to you Busch, I'm over your ass (but miss you all the same. Comforting, isn't it, to be with someone beautiful?)
Monday, 17 March 2008
The Plan
If I write it, it will happen. I always go to sleep telling myself that in the morning I will begin a new life, one of discipline, action, movement. Instead, I sleep in.
I stagnate. This 'plan' will stir things up. Possibly. Probably not. I tend too strongly toward inactivity, and hate to leave my comfort zone, as my mother refers to it. But here goes, an exercise in futility, maybe, but a plan nonetheless:
I. Cultivate My Vessel: this means going to the gym at least five times a week, which I already do, praise Jesus, partially out of a sense of vanity and wanting to look good. But here comes the tough part: Get up at 8:00AM three times a week and run. I think cardio is important, not that it will make me look any better, I'm too skinny as it is, but I think it will increase energy, awareness, and give a reason for the mornings. As it stands, I sleep through them.
II. Study: I take the Kaplan LSAT prep course this summer and I want to do well on the test. I figure that if I set my mind to just one thing, one thing only, it should be this test. If I do well, which is entirely possible, I could go to a great law school. I mean a great one. Berkeley, Stanford, Duke, whatever. I've got a 3.9 GPA and I'm smart. I could go. Even if I fucked around for ten years after I graduate Law school I'll still have that great Degree. I can't fail too horribly if I have a degree in Law from Berkeley. So I'll say it again, I shall study. I want to devote myself to it and I have nothing else to do this summer, so let's see if I'm as much of a genius as I fear I am. No excuses this time. Study.
III. That's it: Some plan eh? Start small, fail small. That's my motto.
I stagnate. This 'plan' will stir things up. Possibly. Probably not. I tend too strongly toward inactivity, and hate to leave my comfort zone, as my mother refers to it. But here goes, an exercise in futility, maybe, but a plan nonetheless:
I. Cultivate My Vessel: this means going to the gym at least five times a week, which I already do, praise Jesus, partially out of a sense of vanity and wanting to look good. But here comes the tough part: Get up at 8:00AM three times a week and run. I think cardio is important, not that it will make me look any better, I'm too skinny as it is, but I think it will increase energy, awareness, and give a reason for the mornings. As it stands, I sleep through them.
II. Study: I take the Kaplan LSAT prep course this summer and I want to do well on the test. I figure that if I set my mind to just one thing, one thing only, it should be this test. If I do well, which is entirely possible, I could go to a great law school. I mean a great one. Berkeley, Stanford, Duke, whatever. I've got a 3.9 GPA and I'm smart. I could go. Even if I fucked around for ten years after I graduate Law school I'll still have that great Degree. I can't fail too horribly if I have a degree in Law from Berkeley. So I'll say it again, I shall study. I want to devote myself to it and I have nothing else to do this summer, so let's see if I'm as much of a genius as I fear I am. No excuses this time. Study.
III. That's it: Some plan eh? Start small, fail small. That's my motto.
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Clairtje
In Dutch, Little Claire.
She just left, and waits even now for the #4 tram back to her father's. We ate two pizzas, like hermits, tucked away in my bedroom seated on a mattress in front of this very computer watching the final twenty minutes of Superbad, simply because we don't like my roommates, and can't stand to see or be seen by them. It's become one of those domestic situations that ripens and sours until greetings become monosyllabic and barely civil, dishes pile up, and the air becomes thick. Funny how that happens, that air thickening. It's palpable. I know it sounds trite, "The tension was palpable", but seriously, the goddamn tension is palpable. I live with five Dutch sorority girls, each pretty and ugly at the same time. One has great breasts, but she's 6'1 and took a wicked spill in the living room from which she cannot, in my mind, recover the grace her breasts used to afford her. Another smells, still another has those great Dutch breasts, but has the legs of a second baseman, and a good one at that. Their pros are outweighed by their cons. However, if I didn't have Claire this house would be one large regretful pitfall of sexual episodes for drunken Pat, each girl being a prime candidate for that deceptive enemy of the inebriated: The girl that approaches, but doesn't attain, beauty. Of course her failings, be they birthmarks, crooked teeth, or missing appendages (worst case scenario), are only apparent in the daylight, giving their true, ugly forms that vampiric quality that one cannot help but associate with the nearly attractive girl.
Yet Claire, truly, is a beauty. I've woken up beside her many times and haven't been thrown off by a thing. But she has her shortcomings, as do I, namely the gift, nay, the curse, of being able to recognize another's shortcomings all too well. Too bad. Will I ever be able to be with a girl for a long period of time without being consumed by her flaws? Maybe. You're almost the one Clairtje, but not quite.
She just left, and waits even now for the #4 tram back to her father's. We ate two pizzas, like hermits, tucked away in my bedroom seated on a mattress in front of this very computer watching the final twenty minutes of Superbad, simply because we don't like my roommates, and can't stand to see or be seen by them. It's become one of those domestic situations that ripens and sours until greetings become monosyllabic and barely civil, dishes pile up, and the air becomes thick. Funny how that happens, that air thickening. It's palpable. I know it sounds trite, "The tension was palpable", but seriously, the goddamn tension is palpable. I live with five Dutch sorority girls, each pretty and ugly at the same time. One has great breasts, but she's 6'1 and took a wicked spill in the living room from which she cannot, in my mind, recover the grace her breasts used to afford her. Another smells, still another has those great Dutch breasts, but has the legs of a second baseman, and a good one at that. Their pros are outweighed by their cons. However, if I didn't have Claire this house would be one large regretful pitfall of sexual episodes for drunken Pat, each girl being a prime candidate for that deceptive enemy of the inebriated: The girl that approaches, but doesn't attain, beauty. Of course her failings, be they birthmarks, crooked teeth, or missing appendages (worst case scenario), are only apparent in the daylight, giving their true, ugly forms that vampiric quality that one cannot help but associate with the nearly attractive girl.
Yet Claire, truly, is a beauty. I've woken up beside her many times and haven't been thrown off by a thing. But she has her shortcomings, as do I, namely the gift, nay, the curse, of being able to recognize another's shortcomings all too well. Too bad. Will I ever be able to be with a girl for a long period of time without being consumed by her flaws? Maybe. You're almost the one Clairtje, but not quite.
Freud
A dream. I know no one wants to hear about someone else's dream, but unlike you the world revolves around me. So I told my dad about it. Haven't gotten a response yet.
Let me tell you about my dreams last night. They were truly haunting and you were in all of them. If dreams are, in fact, omens, these ones are bad.
First it's you and I driving a Volvo. You're in the driver's seat and we run out of gas as we're trying to get away from something. I say, "Dad, you didn't put gas in?" It was your fault and you just told me to run. So we run. As we turn the corner you come up to me-I can still see your face, pale, as you lean over the wall and throw up. You're sick, you say.
Flash forward, we're in the backyard: You, me and mom. You two are still together, and we're playing with a baby, my brother, your son. You're teaching me how to massage its back, telling me if the skin turns white I'm pressing too hard. And I'm smiling and being gentle. I love this baby. Mom's at the BBQ, and you and I are off by ourselves, doing dreamlike things. The baby sits near the grill. Mom comes over to us and the BBQ explodes, we all laugh and go ooooooooohh until I ask where the baby is and my dream turns panicky. The smoke clears and the baby still sits next to the grill, however, when I go over to it I find that it is just a doll with one big eye and one small eye, mismatched, a creepy effect. I throw it aside and find another doll, throw it aside, and look to you, resigned. "Where's the baby?" You point to the roof. I climb up there via tree branch and find its organs, exaggerated, intestinal shaped, pink, sad. We share a moment then, I look at you and you look back, blurred, the baby forgotten, the dream already past us.
I woke up and told Claire about it. It got to me for some reason.
-Pat
Let me tell you about my dreams last night. They were truly haunting and you were in all of them. If dreams are, in fact, omens, these ones are bad.
First it's you and I driving a Volvo. You're in the driver's seat and we run out of gas as we're trying to get away from something. I say, "Dad, you didn't put gas in?" It was your fault and you just told me to run. So we run. As we turn the corner you come up to me-I can still see your face, pale, as you lean over the wall and throw up. You're sick, you say.
Flash forward, we're in the backyard: You, me and mom. You two are still together, and we're playing with a baby, my brother, your son. You're teaching me how to massage its back, telling me if the skin turns white I'm pressing too hard. And I'm smiling and being gentle. I love this baby. Mom's at the BBQ, and you and I are off by ourselves, doing dreamlike things. The baby sits near the grill. Mom comes over to us and the BBQ explodes, we all laugh and go ooooooooohh until I ask where the baby is and my dream turns panicky. The smoke clears and the baby still sits next to the grill, however, when I go over to it I find that it is just a doll with one big eye and one small eye, mismatched, a creepy effect. I throw it aside and find another doll, throw it aside, and look to you, resigned. "Where's the baby?" You point to the roof. I climb up there via tree branch and find its organs, exaggerated, intestinal shaped, pink, sad. We share a moment then, I look at you and you look back, blurred, the baby forgotten, the dream already past us.
I woke up and told Claire about it. It got to me for some reason.
-Pat
The Plight of Middle Aged Women
Written by my father, Michael, to a female columnist at the Arizona Daily Star:
You know, evolution answers everything. I realized that when I was pretending to be a lawyer but instead read books on physics, the historical Jesus, and evolution. Richard Dawkins.
I'm generally referring to your column on the woman at the meat company that wouldn't give her the deal unless she had a man. I was mad, too. But it is the way of the world, the way we were designed. And say as much as you want to contradict stereotypes, they are most always true. Men do eat meat. Women don't, at least not as much.
But that's not the point here. If you start with the premise that our genes made it this far because they were the ones that imbued us with wanting to survive and reproduce them, it all falls into place. Take your indignant meat eater, for example.
She says women without husbands have less status in this society. Untrue. Unattractive women have less status. And it is they who usually have husbands. Because their genes told them to. So to speak.
Men have milliions of sperm; women very few eggs. And those they have are precious. When they use one, i.e., get pregnant, they can't use another one for a long time, not to mention the time and care it takes for them to raise the child they get from such pairing. But men can be spreading sperm all that time with as many women who will have them, with little or no investment, particularly if they don't give a damn about the babies they may be producing. It is to their genetic benefit to impregnate as many women as they can. As to women, it is to their genetic benefit to find a man with resources (i.e, a hard worker, smart, or talented) and one who has a heart. As another prerequisite, she'd like one with good genetic markers, i.e., handsome. But that can't be the first requirement. Not with a little baby to take care of for at least a few years.
But men have fewer, or different, restrictions. They basicially just want to find someone who will have sex with them. There are funny experiments on other animals and how the male of the species will have sex with anything that even resembles a female, whether it's made of cardboard or not. But at best, men only want someone with good genetic markers, i.e., pretty. Because those indicate a fertile, healthy sex partner.
Now to specifics. You're pretty. No matter how else that statement affects you, as an insult, that you're also a person with talents and an IQ, that I'm a pig, you still like to hear it. Because, like it or not, it's the source of a woman's power in this society. Not that the other stuff doesn't count. My son is sick of the beautiful airheads that go to ASU, god love him. He wants someone who will challenge him intellectually and question him as an equal. And any sane man wants to marry a girl like that, to cover his back, to be in the same foxhole with him through life hopefully. But she has to be good-looking. Just the way the genes made us.
And this is why most men want younger women, they're more fertile. And why younger women like older guys: they've proven they can make money, acquire resources, take care of them and their offspring.
I'm in the UA library right now. I have no job because the Citizen won't hire me. But I'm reminded of two things. I have no interest in these beautiful girls who are my daughters' age. They look eleven to me. But Meghan says she gets hit on by old men like me all the time. Fuckers. But I have to admit I'm different. Me and my long-suffering friend Sam Daniels. I want a girl my age. Most men don't.
The other thing is a movie my then wife made me see called Romy and Michelle. On the way to the reunion they got into a fight over who was the cute one. Jesus. Back then I thought it would be just the other way around. But that's genes for you.
And you, Anne, have spent your life having men let you cut in line in front of them or cops giving you warnings instead of tickets. It goes with the territory, even though these guys have no expectation of having sex with you. That one even Dawkins can't figure out I bet.
But the woman with the meat. She either was never very pretty or she'd already have a guy and just laugh at the phone call instead of calling the paper, or she wasn't that good-looking now. But that doesn't mean it's not sad. She's being a mom to the kids that no doubt were abandoned by the asshole who had them. Maybe not, but probably. Men are assholes. I'm one; I should know. It's like being one of the nice vampires. You still have this urge to suck somebody's blood and you hate yourself for feeling that way.
I doubt you read this so I won't proofread. But I love your columns. Only ones in either paper that aren't just expanded public service announcements. -Mike Morrison
You know, evolution answers everything. I realized that when I was pretending to be a lawyer but instead read books on physics, the historical Jesus, and evolution. Richard Dawkins.
I'm generally referring to your column on the woman at the meat company that wouldn't give her the deal unless she had a man. I was mad, too. But it is the way of the world, the way we were designed. And say as much as you want to contradict stereotypes, they are most always true. Men do eat meat. Women don't, at least not as much.
But that's not the point here. If you start with the premise that our genes made it this far because they were the ones that imbued us with wanting to survive and reproduce them, it all falls into place. Take your indignant meat eater, for example.
She says women without husbands have less status in this society. Untrue. Unattractive women have less status. And it is they who usually have husbands. Because their genes told them to. So to speak.
Men have milliions of sperm; women very few eggs. And those they have are precious. When they use one, i.e., get pregnant, they can't use another one for a long time, not to mention the time and care it takes for them to raise the child they get from such pairing. But men can be spreading sperm all that time with as many women who will have them, with little or no investment, particularly if they don't give a damn about the babies they may be producing. It is to their genetic benefit to impregnate as many women as they can. As to women, it is to their genetic benefit to find a man with resources (i.e, a hard worker, smart, or talented) and one who has a heart. As another prerequisite, she'd like one with good genetic markers, i.e., handsome. But that can't be the first requirement. Not with a little baby to take care of for at least a few years.
But men have fewer, or different, restrictions. They basicially just want to find someone who will have sex with them. There are funny experiments on other animals and how the male of the species will have sex with anything that even resembles a female, whether it's made of cardboard or not. But at best, men only want someone with good genetic markers, i.e., pretty. Because those indicate a fertile, healthy sex partner.
Now to specifics. You're pretty. No matter how else that statement affects you, as an insult, that you're also a person with talents and an IQ, that I'm a pig, you still like to hear it. Because, like it or not, it's the source of a woman's power in this society. Not that the other stuff doesn't count. My son is sick of the beautiful airheads that go to ASU, god love him. He wants someone who will challenge him intellectually and question him as an equal. And any sane man wants to marry a girl like that, to cover his back, to be in the same foxhole with him through life hopefully. But she has to be good-looking. Just the way the genes made us.
And this is why most men want younger women, they're more fertile. And why younger women like older guys: they've proven they can make money, acquire resources, take care of them and their offspring.
I'm in the UA library right now. I have no job because the Citizen won't hire me. But I'm reminded of two things. I have no interest in these beautiful girls who are my daughters' age. They look eleven to me. But Meghan says she gets hit on by old men like me all the time. Fuckers. But I have to admit I'm different. Me and my long-suffering friend Sam Daniels. I want a girl my age. Most men don't.
The other thing is a movie my then wife made me see called Romy and Michelle. On the way to the reunion they got into a fight over who was the cute one. Jesus. Back then I thought it would be just the other way around. But that's genes for you.
And you, Anne, have spent your life having men let you cut in line in front of them or cops giving you warnings instead of tickets. It goes with the territory, even though these guys have no expectation of having sex with you. That one even Dawkins can't figure out I bet.
But the woman with the meat. She either was never very pretty or she'd already have a guy and just laugh at the phone call instead of calling the paper, or she wasn't that good-looking now. But that doesn't mean it's not sad. She's being a mom to the kids that no doubt were abandoned by the asshole who had them. Maybe not, but probably. Men are assholes. I'm one; I should know. It's like being one of the nice vampires. You still have this urge to suck somebody's blood and you hate yourself for feeling that way.
I doubt you read this so I won't proofread. But I love your columns. Only ones in either paper that aren't just expanded public service announcements. -Mike Morrison
Sunday, 2 March 2008
Mr Bud Hears You
I'm his Nephew, and I've just left one of three flats owned by the man, this one in Bristol. The visit was just what I needed. Not only was it an excellent place to break a fever, on designer sheets no less, but it was just plain good to see the guy. Enthusiastic in that good-natured boyish manner that women find so appealing and that I've never seen replicated in anyone other than my Dad and myself.
And the literature, well, the guy's a machine. He reads what he likes, and generally speaking he likes what his good looking Nephew likes, he's just farther along the same literary road, having read more deeply, more elaborately into his tastes than that Nephew has had a chance to. But he's trying.
It's a pleasure watching him move. Hearing him converse in several languages with the kind folk of the restaurant industry, watching him drive a stick shift, interact with Brits, talk about the rising of the tide in the river of the lookout over a beer, whatever. Whatever he does, he does it with gusto and that's all the rest of us can hope for. Especially us Morrisons who have a notorious tendency towards idleness. His is a thirst not for knowledge, that would be too trite, but for doing things, living well and as much as possible, laughing, moving, going. Well done Paul. You've invented yourself, so will I. One day. Or maybe I am right now as you say, though I can't see it.
Thank you for having me. Say hello to Alex, Tris and that ridiculous creature Coco for me.
And the literature, well, the guy's a machine. He reads what he likes, and generally speaking he likes what his good looking Nephew likes, he's just farther along the same literary road, having read more deeply, more elaborately into his tastes than that Nephew has had a chance to. But he's trying.
It's a pleasure watching him move. Hearing him converse in several languages with the kind folk of the restaurant industry, watching him drive a stick shift, interact with Brits, talk about the rising of the tide in the river of the lookout over a beer, whatever. Whatever he does, he does it with gusto and that's all the rest of us can hope for. Especially us Morrisons who have a notorious tendency towards idleness. His is a thirst not for knowledge, that would be too trite, but for doing things, living well and as much as possible, laughing, moving, going. Well done Paul. You've invented yourself, so will I. One day. Or maybe I am right now as you say, though I can't see it.
Thank you for having me. Say hello to Alex, Tris and that ridiculous creature Coco for me.
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