so very alone…

The front door is locked, the sliding glass door is locked, and all the curtains are drawn. There must be a dozen messages on my phone. Sitting here in my dark bedroom, I’ve been thinking about something B. said to me last week. It bothered me at the time, but I was afraid that if I disagreed with B., she’d do that thing where she squints her eyes and wrinkles her nose, making the corners of her mouth rise up and bare her teeth. Since then, what she said has stuck in my head. My mind has taken to it like an oyster to a piece of sand. Here’s what she said:

“Courage is resistance to fear. You don’t resist fear.”

She was basically calling me a coward. I suppose if you define courage as someone who sends food back in restaurants and barges into strange condos without knocking, then I’m not courageous. But that’s not how I define it. Courage isn’t always a roar. Sometimes courage is the small voice at the end of the day that says try again tomorrow.

B. is basically claiming that courage is the opposite of fear. I don’t buy that. Fear is a healthy. Fear is necessary. Fearless people aren’t necessarily courageous. Sometimes they’re just stupid. Like the cat that isn’t afraid to run across the freeway. Bold and dead.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the notion that something else is more important than fear. Let’s take war as an example. Suppose it’s World War I, and you’re in the trenches 100 yards from the German front line. Both sides have machine guns pointed at each other. Your Colonel yells that it’s time to set aside your fear and attack! Attack, lads, attack! Courage! I suppose it’s brave in a way to run to your certain death, but it’s cowardly in another. I imagine a lot of the soldiers run from the trench not out of courage, but out of fear. They’re more afraid of being thought cowards than they are of dying.

Everyone has his own courage. It’s cowardly to try to live up to someone else’s idea of courage.

That’s my pearl of wisdom.

Isolation score: 9

24 Comments »

After my long night in the slammer (that phrase, as a way of starting a story, has a certain something, which the French call “I don’t know what,” that’s very appealing, doesn’t it?), which I know I painted in the worst possible terms, I soon came to realize that there are worse things: having to face the wrath of a very angry woman. Let’s just say that B. did not take kindly to having been stood up. I suppose I can’t blame her, in retrospect. But at the moment she barged into my apartment (note to self: you’ve got to start locking your front door!), as I was trying to get a little sleep, I wasn’t really in the mood. How would you react to someone shaking you awake and screaming at you, after not having gotten hardly any sleep? I should have just taken my lumps, I guess, but instead I kind of blew up at her.

I’m not even sure what she was saying when I first came to. The part that got through the fog was something about what was her name. Eventually I realized that B. thought I’d stood her up because I was with another woman. If I’d been in a better mood, this would have made me laugh. The other woman’s name? Are we talking about the same guy here? I mean, it’s me, Harlan, who has about as much chance of two-timing a woman as a one legged man has of winning a butt-kicking contest. I think my exact words though were, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“What the hell am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that you blew me off! That you didn’t even call! That now you’re asleep in the middle of the day, having spent all day not calling me to tell me what happened? I was worried sick! Until I realized you were probably cheating on me!”

What I said next kind of surprised even me: “Dammit, will you lay off already! I wasn’t with another woman. I just spent the entire fucking night in jail, okay? Are you satisfied?” So much for wondering how I was going to tell her.

B. Just stood there, with her mouth hanging open, kind of dumbstruck. It was a sight to behold. I know I haven’t said all that much about B., out of respect for her privacy, but if I had to choose one word to describe her, it would not be “speechless.” Maybe speechful, in fact, would be a decent choice. Seeing this made me bold. Normally I probably would have fallen apart, afraid that I’d just offended a woman, but seeing her like that gave me the courage to throw in, “And I’d like to get a little sleep if you don’t mind!”

I think she was so shocked by my assertiveness,that she just didn’t know what else to do but obey. You could see on her face that she wanted to ask more questions. Her forehead was bulging with veins, like all her questions were going to just burst right out of her head. Instead, without saying another word, she turned around and left, slamming my front door behind her. So I turned over and went back to sleep.

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After some very difficult soul searching, I’ve decided I need to come clean: I did not in fact consummate my relationship with B. (and what’s so wrong with the word consummate anyway?). In fact, I was no where near B. last night. I just said that to cover up a much worse experience, which I didn’t want to tell about. I didn’t want to even think about it, but it’s not the kind of experience I can just sweep under the rug. Though believe me, I’ve tried.

I’ll be the first to admit that not everything I’ve posted here has necessarily put me in the best possible light. But I figure it’s sort of like cheap therapy, since I assume that therapists cost more than internet connections. Anyway, today’s the first day that I’m hesitant to tell you about something that happened to me, because it’s so humiliating. I’m getting shaky even just remembering it, much less writing about it. But I think I need to, for me more than anything, because I need to start facing up to things.

So…deep breath. Last night I got busted. Not busted like telling someone you had a doctor’s appointment and then having them run into you at the mall. I mean busted like by cops and put in handcuffs and taken to the police station. Busted like one of those pathetic tards on that show Cops that I absolutely can’t stand to watch but practically have to, it’s so awful. There’s one thing for which I’ll always be eternally grateful: at least I wasn’t in my underwear at the time. Which I say now, but oh my god, it was horrible.

First off, even though shoplifting has gotten harder over the years, what with those stupid cameras in the black bubbles and theft prevention systems at the doorways and stuff, you’d be surprised how easy it is to get around all that. So says the guy who just spent the night in lock-up. Never having had any trouble for all those years, I guess I got cocky. I mean, of course I know that stores have security people. I’m not an idiot. Okay, I take it back. I am an idiot. I still can’t figure out who nabbed me, because I’m pretty sure I had all the cameras scoped out, and there wasn’t anyone I could see on my aisle. All I was after was some stupid fucking pens, too. I like the expensive kind, with the ink that flows nicely and writes even when the paper gets oily, because I have oily skin. Have you priced decent pens? It’s an outrage.

Anyway, as I left the store, some doofus security guy with a buzz cut came after me and told me to please come back into the store. My answer? “No thanks, I really gotta get home.” I think that’s what I said. I know for sure I said, “No thanks.” No thanks? He took out his little store security badge and flashed it all badass, and in his other hand, he had the ripped open pen packaging that I’d left in the Rubbermaid section. “I’m not asking, sir. I need you to come with me.”

For one split second, I honestly considered trying to make a run for it. I mean, Brad or Nathan or Scooter or whatever his name was wasn’t all that big, and at that point, he was solo (two bigger guys showed up about 30 seconds later). But then I saw that on his belt he had a taser. I nearly shit my pants. I caved like a cheap card table.

Man I wish I’d gone for it! Don’t you have times like that, when you wished you had been bold, even to the point of stupidity? I’ve always dreamed of being that kind of guy who’s just a crazy motherfucker, who’ll do anything, just because it seems like a good idea at the time. Because we all love people like that. How great would this blog entry be if I could have told you that I made a run for it, and was running all Crazy Legs Comanche across the parking lot, while Nate accidentally tasered some old lady? Even if I didn’t get away, it would be a great story. As it was, I just went quietly with Nazi Nate so I wouldn’t get tasered.

The two bigger guys showed up right away, like I said, as Nate was escorting me back to the store. They took me up a stairway near the front of the store and through a door with an Employees Only sign, and then back into a little empty room with a table. Are there enough shoplifting busts at a place like that that they actually have a shoplifting interrogation room built right into the floor plan? It seemed that way. One of the big guys stayed with me and told me that the police had been called, and would be arriving shortly. He put the opened pen package on the table between us, like it was supposed to make me sweat or something, and then asked, “Do you have something you’d like to explain?” “No,” I said. “We know you took these pens,” he said. It went on like this for a few minutes, until the cop came. She asked me to stand up and lift up my arms, and then she patted me down and found the pens in an inside pocket of my jacket.

The cop said, “Would you like to explain this?”

“There’s nothing to explain,” I said. “Those are mine.”

She made a really exaggerated scoffing sound. “Unfortunately, for you, we have a witness who can testify that you took those out of this package. So don’t make this any harder on yourself than you need to. If you cooperate now, it’ll go better for you,” she said. Or something like that.

But hey, I’ve watched enough Law & Order to know that it never goes better for you if you confess, so I just said I wanted to speak to my attorney. Haha. What a laugh. As if I have an attorney. But it seemed like the right thing to say. “Have it your way,” said the cop. That’s when she took the handcuffs off her belt and started reading me my rights.

“Hold it,” I said, is that absolutely necessary?”

“I’m afraid it is, without a signed confession,” she said, and then she cuffed me. Let me tell you, handcuffs aren’t just for show. They hurt, especially when the cop kind of yanks on your arms to get them on you. The worst part of it was when she took me back downstairs and I suddenly realized in a more visceral way that I was about to be paraded in front of every damn customer out of the store in cuffs. Who knew who was in that store? B. could be in that store, for all I knew. I knew for a fact that she shopped there sometimes. What did I do? I started fucking crying.

That’s right. I cried like a stupid little kid. It kind of caught me by surprise. The horrible thing is that sometimes when you cry, it stings like a motherfucker, which makes you cry even worse, and makes snot literally flow out of your nose. So off I went, Peter Perp, bodily fluids streaming down my face, paraded as an object lesson in front of all those customers. There have been a lot of awful moments in my life, but this walk of shame ranks way up there.

Once we got to the cop car, the cop pushed me down inside and I banged my head on the doorway. The backseats of cop cars are no picnic either. They don’t really leave any room for your knees, especially when you’re sitting awkwardly with your hands behind your back. And I’m not a very tall guy either. And then the siren woops woops and the lights are flashing and away you go, with everyone nearby giving that sad “what a shame” head shake in your direction.

The cop looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed I was crying.

“Oh, sweetie, just let it out,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. Just let it awwwwll out.”

I cried even harder, even though I knew she was probably mocking me. Once we got to the police station, the tears had pretty much stopped flowing, but my nose was still running. Then, they take you inside and bore you to death. Every last part of the tedious process, searching and fingerprinting and photos and filling out forms, took forever. I swear they must do that on purpose. Finally, after what seemed like it must be hours, some obviously bored detective took me to a little room and asked me, sort of like the first cop had done, to confess my crime, because it would go a lot easier on me. He gave me a form to write out my confession. I refused to cooperate. This guy didn’t even bother trying. “Whatever you say, Sport,” he said. He actually called me “Sport.” “We got a witness, so it doesn’t really matter what you say,” he said all smugly. Then he gave me information about bail and told me I could make my phone call.

I was stumped. Up until that point, I hadn’t really given any of this much thought. The whole attorney thing was a big lie, of course, so there was no attorney to call. Just who could I call? I wasn’t about to give my sister the satisfaction, and I just don’t know all that many people well enough to call them up and ask them to come down and post $400 in bail. I thought about calling Richard, but he hadn’t even been very nice the last time I talked to him. I wasn’t about to call B. I asked the detective, who was filling out paper work, if he had any suggestions.

“You’re asking me?” he said.

“Yeah, I’m asking you.”

“You don’t have a brother or something?”

“No,” I lied.

“I don’t know. Bail bonds, I guess, though they don’t usually do little stuff like this. But try it if you want.”

He gave me a card, a really terrible looking business card with a tacky logo that was a ripoff of the Bond 007 theme. Finally, I just decided what the hell, where do I have to be anyway? I’m unemployed. I mean, it would be one thing if I had to be at a job in the morning. So I didn’t call anyone, and by this time it was like 2:00 in the morning anyway, so they just put me back in that little cell.

Now, it’s not like I expect your sympathy, because I have a pretty good idea of what you think of me. You’ve been pretty up front in some of your rude comments about how you think my life is a train wreck. In truth, maybe my life is a train wreck, and maybe I deserve your contempt. Maybe I even want your contempt, in some weird, twisted way. Maybe that’s the real reason I keep this blog. I dunno. But that jail cell was horrible. Not just because it was small and cold, or because of the flickering cold neon light that made you feel like you’re in the Matrix, or because the thin little mattresses on the bunk beds are hard and lumpy. The thing that got to me the most was having to use that little metal toilet that just stuck out of the wall, without anything vaguely like privacy. It’s a horrible feeling to have to sit on that cold toilet and take a dump, in plain sight of anyone who might happen to walk by, even if no one did happen to walk by. I won’t even discuss the sandpaper consistency toilet paper.

This morning they took me to court for arraignment, which is a story in itself, but I’m way too tired to try to tell it now. Maybe later.

I don’t know what I’m going to tell B.

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Last night, B. and I consummated our love. I do not want to sully that sacred moment by recounting details. If I did that, it would seem less like a transcendent moment, and more like a letter to Hustler.

I will say that I stayed the night and that we slept in late and then we just hung around her apartment and talked (among other things) until late in the morning, and that’s why I am not posting until now.

Someone commented a week or two ago that I should stop writing this blog, since I’m no longer "So Very Alone." As of now, I think that’s a valid point.

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Good news – I sold the Mac for $5,500.

Bad news – I played online poker.

I had deleted my user account in a fit of self-loathing, but it’s not that hard to set up a new one. I was playing along fine, up a few dollars and not being too aggressive, and then I got into it with someone named TwizzleP. I was dealt a pair of 3s so I bet big trying to steal the blinds, which I thought would work since I’d had to show cards after a couple of good hands. Twizzle came over the top with a bigger bet. At this point, I should have folded since I was probably behind. I called. The flop came Ah, Kh, Qh. I didn’t have any hearts. Uh oh. Twizzle checked, so I bet big to scare him off, and he came over the top again with an even bigger raise. I called.

Everyone knows you’re not supposed to chase cards, but that’s exactly what I was doing. I was chasing cards with a low pair against someone who obviously had a big hand — certainly better than a pair of threes. The turn was a 3h, which gave me three of a kind but most likely gave Twizzle a flush. Big betting again. The river was another 3, giving me a four of a kind. Big bet, big raise, big re-raise, call. He just had two pair — Aces and Kings. I won.

Why is this bad news? Because I was playing a low stakes game and won only about hundred bucks. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

Better News - In the middle of writing this post, B. returned my call, and I apologized to her. I have no idea what I was apologizing for, but it seemed important. So we’re going out tonight. She made a point of saying that it was our fifth date. Time for some knee bends and jumping jacks.

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Today I have a story I’d like to tell you. It eventually ties in to my job search, but you’ll have to be patient.

Back at where I used to work, my direct line was only one digit difference from the front desk phone number for a hospital in town. I used to get phone calls meant for the hospital probably twice a month. At first I didn’t get what was going on. After a while, though, I figured out the number people meant to be calling and would tell them they had misdialed.

More often than not, though, this caused more problems. I think people who are calling the hospital aren’t thinking logically and aren’t prepared to hear that they need to hang up and dial again. What they are prepared for, though, is to argue about billing or demand to be transferred to a certain surgeon or to the emergency room.

I can’t even count the number of times I started saying, "You dialed the wrong number; you need to call…" only to be cut off by something like, "Don’t you dare tell me to call another number! You get the right person for me now!"

And then one day it came to me. It was easier to connect them to the right number than it was to convince them they dialed the wrong number. So, whenever I got a call from someone who wanted the hospital, I’d say, very tersely, "Hold while I connect you," and then I’d put them on hold, call the number they meant to dial, mute my phone, and then conference them in while the hospital phone was still ringing.

This did have one downside. I had to stay on the call for its duration; if I hung up, the connection would be broken. But neither the hospital nor the patient realized I was still on the phone, so it was like I wasn’t there.

I’ll tell you this much: I heard some angry, sad, funny, weird, scary and downright pathetic shit during those calls. I could write a very interesting topical blog about nothing but those calls, but I won’t because they were private.

Anyway, I noticed that one old man with a very distinct voice started calling often, probably every other week. He sounded like he had false teeth: sloppy fricatives. His voice warbled, like he was a sadder version of Jimmy Steward. He’d usually say about the same thing when I answered with my standard "Harlan here."

"Izh zhish zhe hoshpital?"

"Hold and I’ll connect you."

The thing is, he didn’t even need to be calling. Every time he called, it was to verify that an appointment he already had was still on. And yes, it always was.

One time, I tried to end it by saying, "You’re dialing the wrong number" when he called.

"Can’t be!" he replied, with sad confidence. "Itch on my shpeed dzial!"

Well, that explains it.

Sometimes I wonder who’s taking those calls now (assuming they’ve recycled my extension, which I’m assuming they have), and how that person’s handling them.

Now we’re to the part where I tie this back to what’s going on in my job hunt. Today, I got my first phone call from the company where I interviewed. It was a woman, not the HR guy I talked to when I was there. Maybe these reference checking things are outsourced? She was calling one of the personal references I had given. I gave my assurances that Harlan was a friendly fellow with a steady hand and a song in his heart.

After this call ended, my second personal references number came up. I answered, "Hello?"

But I didn’t answer in my voice. Instead, I used the one impression I’m good at: the old man who used to call, needing the hospital.

As far as I know, it went great.

On a related note, I have an interview set up with a different company for next Tuesday.

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B. came into my condo last night and wanted to talk. I don’t have much experience with women, but I do know it’s bad news when a woman wants to talk. My stomach was rumbling again. I was thinking that maybe some people are meant to be alone. If I didn’t care what other people thought, I’d go out of my way to avoid people. In fact, B. was telling me the other night that if I lived during Jane Austen’s time, I could have gotten a job as a hermit. That’s right. A rich person might have hired me to live in the little hermitage on their estate. I assume all I’d have to do is let my hair grow long and maybe roll around in the mud and thrash myself a couple times a day with a whip, and I’d get free room and board.

Anyway, B. wanted to talk last night about telling the truth. She laid out her philosophy of “radical honesty” for me. She said that people in relationships are afraid of hurting each other’s feelings, so they don’t tell the truth. This ends up hurting both people. If I understand B. correctly, the person who is withholding honesty actually ends up being hurt more because that person bottles up feelings, becomes stressed, and channels that stress into destructive outlets. If neither person in a relationship is being honest, both people end up repressing their emotions, and it’s all caused by fear and the lack of trust. And the foundation of any relationship should be trust and love.

I said this is all fine and good, but how does it relate to us?

She said she didn’t think I was being honest with her. She could sense that I was bottling up something. Of course she’s right. What choice do I have but to bottle up everything?

I told her that I wasn’t bottling anything up. I said I was perfectly happy with the way things were going, and I’ve never lied to her. I don’t think she believed me, but she said she did. You know why I don’t think she believed me? She stomped out without kissing me goodnight.

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Things have not been going so well for me on the financial front. If I wanted to be hard on myself, I might suggest that putting one’s head in the sand isn’t the best way for one to get out of financial trouble. Online bill paying is causing all sorts of crazy bank charges, and, well, I don’t want to get into it. Let’s just say that various collection agencies have taken an interest in my goings-on, and we’ll leave it at that.

Yes, I drink Maalox straight from the bottle.

There is no way I’m going to ask my sister for money. And I’ve re-learned my lesson about having any contact with my shithead brother. You know how you can picture exactly what a person is going to say about something and what he’s going to look like while saying it? Well, I know exactly what my brother would look like when he says, “compounded daily.” No. Thank. You.

I called Richard the other day to see if he wouldn’t mind lending me some money. He seemed strangely distant even before I asked him about the loan. He acted as if we were old friends from high school who hadn’t spoken to each other in ten years. Yeah, Harlan, sure. How are . . . things?

So far, B. is the only person who’s willing to help me in a time of need. She loaned me enough money last week to get me out of trouble with the bank. Since $500 wasn’t enough to help me for more than a week or two, I played online poker. I doubled my money a couple of times and then lost big in a bad beat. Fortunately, I didn’t lose it all like the time I cashed out of my 401(k). This time, I ended up breaking even, or maybe losing a few dollars. Still, that money is almost all gone now.

I’m tempted to ask B. to borrow some more money, but I don’t want to strain our relationship. Besides, I’ve got a couple other irons in the fire, including the Mac. I’ll ask B. for money again only if I’m desperate.

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I should state up front that this post may be offensive to some. It deals with matters of a sexual nature in frank language. If this kind of thing bothers you, you should stop reading immediately after the paragraph that ends with “Luckily, she loved the pizza place. Everybody does.”

You’ve been warned.

I was caught off-guard by B.’s assumption that I was in charge of what we’d be doing on Friday night. Since she had decided other times we’ve been out of what we’d do and where we’d eat, I expected I would be along for the ride this time, too.

I was wrong on that score. She picked me up around 6 and said, “Where are we going?”

“Wherever you want, I guess,” must have been what I said, because she made a point of saying something like “I want to do whatever you have planned for us. And what do you mean by ‘I guess?’”

To me, it seemed like she was spoiling for a fight, though in retrospect I think maybe she was just looking to see if I would take charge, which I’ve made a mental note to do. Anyway, with no time to plan and not a lot of money to spend, I made a brave decision. I told her what I really wanted to do. Which is, I wanted to go see No Country for Old Men (it’s still playing at a second-run theatre nearby, I’d seen it three times already), have a big tub of popcorn and a Coke while I watch it, and then go to a place I know of that makes the best pizza in the city. They bake inside a hardwood-fired oven, which gives the barbecue chicken pizza a smokey flavor that I could eat every day of the month.

A moment ago, I wrote the name of the pizza place, but then I Googled it and found out they have a website and that it’s strictly local (there’s one here, and one in an adjoining city), so I had to remove the name of the place. Which is too bad, because I would give these guys free advertising if I could.

To my surprise, B. had never been to the movie or to this pizza place, so while she teased me a little bit on my originality (”Movie and a pizza? Is there a more whitebread date in the whole world?”), she didn’t give me too much shit, because I had the courage of my convictions this time.

“No, not a movie and a pizza,” I said. “An extraordinary movie by the second best filmmakers of our generation, and the first best pizza in the whole world.”

“Oh, you really did put some thought into it!” she said. Which isn’t true, but I do stand by that claim. I really do wish I could tell you the name of this pizza place.

I’m not going to get into the movie experience except to say that it was like we went to different films. At the beginning, I was uncomfortable because we were holding hands, which seemed incredibly erotic to me: a woman, in a public place, unashamed to be showing me affection. I admit it gave me an erection.

But as any of you who have seen this movie know, as soon as you watch the first scene, you get sucked in. I can’t point to a moment, but before long I was carried away by the movie and forgot that anything else even exists. At some point we stopped holding hands, though I don’t know when, because I didn’t notice until the film was over.

As we were walking out, B. said, “Well, that was interesting.” And she put that little tweak on the word “interesting” that lets you know she’s being ironic.

I honestly didn’t know what to say. It’s a crushing moment to share something you love and find out someone doesn’t get it or like it.

All I could think of, as she drove us to the pizza place and talking about the movie with her wildly off-the-mark observations was, “I can never watch Lord of the Rings with you, because I would tear your eyes out if you snarked at that movie the way you are this one.”

Luckily, she loved the pizza place. Everybody does.

She drove me back to my home, where we made out. I honestly don’t know how far she was planning to go, but I started wondering whether this was it, and the thought made me ejaculate, even though I was still fully clothed.

I have never been so embarrassed in my entire life. No, that’s not true. It’s more accurate for me to say that I have not been so embarrassed in at least a month.

I excused myself, ran to the restroom, cleaned myself up, and returned. She wanted to go back to kissing, but my interest had waned. I am not sure whether this is due to the refractionary period, or to my lingering question, which must remain unasked, as to whether she had noticed what had occurred.

What if she had? Or (almost) worse, what if she had not?

Eventually she went home. At the time, I couldn’t have cared less whether she stayed or went. We haven’t talked at all today (Sunday), though, and I find myself missing her.

37 Comments »

B. and I are going out again tonight. I’m not sure whether it’s our third, fourth, or fifth date. I’m keeping some lead in the pencil just in case B. declares tonight to be the night. I’m pretty sure we’re going to a movie.

Some of you have written comments that make it sound like B. is a fat hairy hag with a pud. I don’t know whether you’re feeding off each other or if you’re basing it on whatever I’ve written about her. Let me assure you that if you are basing your wild notions on my descriptions, I haven’t adequately expressed myself. B. is a kind-hearted woman who is attractive in many ways. Yes, he is a bit overweight. If she lost 30 pounds, her ribs still wouldn’t be sticking out, but it’s not like she’d have to be buried in a piano case if she died. And yes, she does have some brown hair on her arms, but it’s not noticeable unless you’re looking at her arms. And she doesn’t have any facial hair.  As to her having male genitals, that’s just dumb.

I’m actually enjoying our relationship. I was thinking that having someone else in my life might be overwhelming after spending all of my adult life alone, but I’m getting used to it. As I work with her to develop my ability to unlearn fear and accept love, it’s only expected that I would prefer being alone than with her. I need to work on that. I need to learn to prefer being with B. than being alone. Anyone can give up. Holding it together when everyone else expects you to fall apart is the mark of true strength.

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