The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter

So, it's been determined that I am, in fact, insane, but to what extent hasn't yet been decided by my therapist.

While trudging through the Dark Night of the Soul this past month, I finally decided to go ahead and make a damn appointment. I hadn't seen my therapist in over a year. I called every day from this past Tuesday to this past Friday, trying to get the appointment. I was being persistent because I was being told that she (my therapist) would call me back, and each day I was falling deeper and deeper into a sort of depression that I'd forgotten could exist, and she wasn't calling me back. Thankfully, she did, finally, and was even able to have a phone session with me on Saturday. The session consisted of me talking for an hour, catching her up on the past year, and her talking for 15 minutes, suggesting a couple things for me to do, as well as setting up another appointment for Wednesday (yesterday). And yesterday she set up appointments for Mondays and Wednesdays, based on my apparently tragic condition, so she can see me twice a week and try to figure out what the hell is going on that makes me want to do absolutely nothing.

I've heard about people seeing the world in shades of gray. About not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, or do anything, or go anywhere, or talk to anyone. I missed four days of work and my world was the color of feces. I just didn't want to be in it any more. No matter where I was, it just wasn't where I wanted to be. Nothing in the world was good - not even being with my son, which is the thing that's saved me so many times before. I even freaking got baptized. But it only got worse.

Today's finally sort of a little okay. I'm missing work again (my boss is sick, so there isn't anything for me to do there any way since they took all my responsibilities away saying that I'm over-qualified and that now I need to train my boss so he knows how to do his own damn job since I'm going to be graduating from school at some point and will move onto bigger and "better" - not 20 hrs/week $10/hour - things). My work situation has contributed to my depression a lot, for sure. They just made me stop doing all the things I do because I'm so much better at doing them than my boss is, and instead of letting me do them, they want me to show him how to do them, because don'tcha know, I'm a "temporary" employee, and since they can't afford to really actually hire me, they're gonna keep paying me less than this guy who I'm training. Yeah, it's depressing, all right.

Of course, you know that's not the only thing getting me down. Ahh...what we're all here for...relationships. This blog began as a relationship inventory. Relationships just haven't gone too well for me, understatedly -- namely, relationships with my parents and their significant others, relationships with my other family members, work relationships, relationships with "friends", the relationship with my husband, relationships with all the men I've somehow managed not to be successful at not getting involved with...these have all driven me completely insane, apparently (and well, again, the therapist and my doctor are going to decide the level of my insanity).

When I last posted, I had gotten back into a relationship with the boyfriend I'd left my husband for (the boyfriend with whom I'd broken up over and over in order to be with other men who'd wanted to be with me, before going back to him over and over when it didn't work out with those men - for two years - until he took off to Canada in September for three months and I finally had to face these demons without him).

I like to rewind and recap: So this boyfriend's name is Evan (#1) (and not his real name, of course). Those other men I just talked about are #2 through #26 (DAMN). After Evan left to Canada in September, I went and dated and had sex with a guy I'd pined over for like a year, who, afterwards, told me he had herpes (#27). I considered that a good enough rock bottom to want to really be done with men (and what choice did I have, I thought, if I might have contracted an STD?). I told my friend Margaret about it and she started taking me to meetings for sex and love addicts. Margaret's boyfriend was cheating on her, she thought, and he didn't want to be with her any more; she was so torn up that she decided she might be a love addict and thought 12-step programs would help her. They didn't (she didn't really try, IMO). After Margaret committed suicide (I had completed 42 successful days of "no men" and was going for 90), I ran into a guy who'd composed music for a video about suicide. When I talked to him about my experience with Margaret, he asked for my number, asked me out on a date, and we had sex even though I didn't want to. He was #29 (I'm counting Jesus as #28).

So, I went back to "Day 0". I've still been going to meetings, but I just haven't been able to get back to the whole "no men" thing. I haven't been able to put even one day together without some kind of pursuit of them (or at least without responding to them favorably). Margaret's death flipped me completely upside down; she was the one who was helping me with this "guy stuff"...or maybe I should say her death just put me back where I was. It was helping me to write about it...but once she died, I didn't even have the desire to do that any more, and it's been hard to get back to this inventory stuff.

I managed to stop seeing the suicide video/satellite communications engineer guy, but then Evan came back from Canada in December and asked me to the movies. I accepted, because that's what I do. But after a couple weeks I remembered, again, that I don't like him that much, and, more importantly, I don't like how unmanageable my life gets in my "relationship addiction", so, I operated via the standardly oft-repeated modus, and I had sex with the suicide video guy again, just so that I could get out of the relationship with Evan again...because gee, don'tcha know, I can't just be all, "Oh, yeah, sorry, dude, I forgot, I'm too fucked up for all this, and I don't want to be with you - my bad."

That was on January 1, go figure. Way to start the New Year, eh? I totally avoided writing about it, too, until now. But I do feel a bit better, doing so.

Oh, but - there's more.

I had called #23 (refer to the inventory to the right, somewhere) back in November when Margaret died, and we started talking again. His story is, when his wife left him six years ago, he wanted to kill himself, but instead of pulling the trigger of the gun that he was holding to his head on the pier, he checked into a psych ward and then a rehab and got sober. I hadn't talked to him since April, besides a few tens of obsessive emails I'd sent him after I stopped dating him (and I had stopped dating him because I got painful withdrawals from being away from him, and I figured it would be better to just end it and let go completely than to keep enduring those withdrawals...they sucked a lot of ass and hurt really, really badly). When I called him in November I used him like a therapist and spilled my guts, and would do so about every couple weeks, until a couple Thursdays ago, when I asked if I could see him in person, because I was depressed and needed a friend.

When I spent the night with him, I told him that I didn't want to have sex. He actually respected me. I think that's the first time that's ever happened with a male. (That statement belongs in bold.) So, the following week I went and spent the night with him again (this was last Friday, the day before I finally talked to my therapist on the phone, which I did from his apartment). And this time he was sick, so, we didn't even hug. We just talked. He just...totally...cared...about me...both times. It was shocking.

My obsession for him was lifted back in May, so these days he really is more of a friend. And he just showed me what a friend actually looks like. But I have developed a new obsession.

Of course, we'll call this one #30. He's the real reason I got rid of the other two guys (the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and the Satellite Communications Engineer), in one fell swoop, 22 days ago, by the way. It wasn't just me not liking those other guys, or actually finally trying to change for real now. Nope - along came Jason.

I've "known" him since July, when I started singing at the church he works at as the sound engineer. I added him on facebook on Dec 29, he said hi in a facebook message, we messaged each other for hours, and he suggested we "jam" because he's also a musician (he sings w/piano). The jam invitation, over these past few weeks, turned into daily texting, which turned into sexting, which turned into us hanging out, which turned into us having sex, which turned into him becoming my boyfriend a few days ago (on Jan 19).

Okay, I can't write about this any more for now. I'm glad I've gotten this much out so far, though. I hope to get back into writing again, even though my classes have started - I have three of them. And two jobs. And meetings. And a four year-old. And a boyfriend. And now...therapy that I'm paying for and will probably end up taking some kind of medication because of -- oh, but, well, I guess I shouldn't say that I'll be taking meds because of the therapy, but because of whatever "disorders" my therapist and my doctor decide I have. General anxiety disorder has been mentioned. The depression may be situational, she says, but she's not sure yet, so we're gonna keep meeting twice a week to figure this all out.

But I'm really depressed about it the whole damn thing, if you want to know the truth (sorry, I do love Salinger's Holden).

More About the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and the Satellite Communications Engineer

The first of the new year is a time, I've noticed, for many writers, myself no exception, to ponder especially deeply about what it is they're writing about, and why they're writing. Ray Rhamey postulates at his writing blog, Flogging the Quill, "The start of the new year is often a time folks resolve to do things, sometimes differently, sometimes new, in the coming year. At the least, it's a time to reflect on where you are now and where you want to go." After my last post, I'd like to say that where I've been and where I'd like to go don't really matter - since the only Time there is is Now - but then I'd have absolutely no reason to write, whatsoever. I know I need to get off the existential soapbox and get back to writing stories. My stories are about relationships, "love", sex, and while not always true with a "capital T", they come from my own experiences and my own perspective. And writing about them is what's happening now, for me. 

I do want to make sure I watch my grammar - I think. At The Huffington Post's "Grammarly" blog, the Grammarly Editor shared 7 Grammar Mistakes we're all probably making, based on the errors found in the 300,000+ novels written this past November during National Novel Writing Month. But, from what I can tell, I don't have an issue with any of these: missing commas, run-on sentences, comma splices, comma misuse, and missing articles. But these, I'm not so sure about: definite vs indefinite article use (meticulous use of "a/an" vs "the") and redundant articles (repeating the article when unnecessary: "I want a car, a plane, a boat, a train"). I do know I use a lot of sentence fragments. Sometimes I just like to write the way I speak. I'd never use a sentence fragment in a formal paper. 

If you'd really like to see someone break the rules, read Goat by Brad Land. An author, "Matt," offers a "ruthless review" of the memoir...but it's on website called "Ruthless Reviews", so there ya go - it's their shtick. I was particularly fond of Goat. I appreciate breaking writing rules - as long as one knows he or she is breaking them. And when I break them, I do know, at least, for the most part - but I'm always worried about whether the reader knows that I know. But Brad Land gave me the permission say 'never mind - fuck you'. And I like that. Or do I? Okay - I still don't know.

However I'm writing, I still struggle a slight bit with what I'm writing about - I know what I'm writing about, and it's cool with me, but, does any body else care, and is any body even reading it? In literary agent Janet Reid's blog about writing, one of her latest posts included a question from a reader: "What the hell am I supposed to blog about?" Her answer summarily was this: Don't blog. Janet recommends facebook or twitter for aspiring writers to get their names out there. Well, I can't really do that. I can't have all my friends reading about my sex life. My friends include professors, bosses, church leaders, family, etc. So, I write under a pseudonym. It limits my audience for me to be writing memoir as it actually happens. I imagine it wouldn't matter if I were writing about childhood, or about my marriage that ended two years ago, but I'm writing about the guy I fucked yesterday (well, not today - maybe in the next post).

And why am I writing? Well, I'm not really trying to get my "name" out there; I just want my "writing" out there. I'm not interested in joining NaNoWriMo. If I were to write a novel, it wouldn't be over the course of just a month - I'm too much of a perfectionist for that. And if I do write a novel, I'll use my real name. I've considered that, actually. I've even thought of turning Adora Fallbrook into a character and writing about her in the third person, or maybe still in the first person and changing things enough so that she isn't too close to "me". I'm already doing that with my "characters", in a sense: when I write about the men I've been with, I'm not focusing so much on "who" they really "are", but on my perspective of them and the events that transpired between us. And that perspective changes all the time, so I might write something about one of them, and then my perspective changes, and so that writing is no longer "true", if it ever was, any way.

For example: I wrote about The Shakespeare Connoisseur under the assumption that he had had ulterior motives. He's an older man with money, so I called him a "sugar daddy" because he took me out to a Shakespeare play and frequently to brunch, and he had wanted to help me out with my poorly-running car. But I told him about what had happened between me and The Propane Truck Driver ("Sterling" and I had had sex and four days later he had told me he had herpes), and The Shakespeare Connoisseur, "Deniro", stopped contacting me. I therefore assumed, despite his assurances, that what he'd wanted from me wasn't just my company or to help me. I was resentful when I wrote the post about him.

But, then, I did hear from him some time later. He asked how I was doing, and I told him that I was short $1043.00 for next semester's tuition, so I was trying to decide whether or not I would continue school. Despite my fears about him, he was something of a mentor to me, and I decided to go ahead and ask him for a loan, and give him the benefit of the doubt - or ignore my prior assumption - and hope for the best. We had lunch together again, and I told him about my blog, and about my "problems" with men. He offered this as a provision for the loan: that I maintain no more than two relationships with men at any given time, and keep him abreast of my situation.

I had, prior to that, joined a group for "sex and love addicts", and it was suggested to me there to go through a "withdrawal" period and not be with any men. So that's what I was attempting to do. But, then, like a little girl from her dad, I got "permission" from Deniro to see not just one man but two. "Who will they be?" I thought. Well, that same day I was entreated by both #1, The Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and #29, The Satellite Communications Engineer/Composer, so there I had my two. I've spent most of my time with #1, with #29 waiting, asking me frequently when we might meet. And I'd planned on meeting with him today - but I have #1 in my house at the moment. And #1 watched my son for me yesterday while I took a friend to see her neurosurgeon, because she walks with a walker and doesn't drive, for 6 hours. So now my conscience is weighing heavily upon me, as it is wont to do.

Also, speaking of conscience - I hadn't the slightest inkling of it when I gave #25 my blog url. Interestingly enough, I've also given it to #1 and #29, in the interest of "honesty". I thought #25 might like to comment on my writing, and see more "in depth" the nature of what I thought to be my problem. Only, my mind somehow completely omitted the fact that I'd written about #25 in not the best light. In a terrible light, rather.

He was terribly offended, naturally. It brought the end of the relationship. I'm to mail him his check for repayment and his Ron Paul book (he was educating me in politics), and that's that.

So...back to the "why" of my writing - I had originally begun writing as a way to analyze my relationships and sex/love life, but chose a blog format so that I could share it with "the world". Of course, I'm writing from my own perspective. Perhaps, as an exercise both in creative writing and in humanitarianism, I should write from one of their perspectives soon.

Now that'll be interesting.

Oh, and PS: I remembered another guy to add to the list. He's The Christian Airplane Mechanic. I just went over to his house a few times and we went shopping at Home Depot together once. It was at another time when I was trying not to date, and so I maintained the relationship at the platonic level. But I definitely need to include him. I can't leave any one out. I just won't give him the url. I don't want to lose any more friends. But oh well. That's being a memoirist in real time for ya.

Happy New Year!

Ramblings on the Writing Process

It has been hard for me to get back into writing after I wrote my last post. I feel like my writing was sub-par. All over the place. Incoherent. Timeline unclear, jagged, going backward and forward with awkwardly long, frantic sentences. And the content itself was a bit...jarring. Overwhelming. Sickening. I couldn't find the wherewithal to keep going.

I've noticed that my writing wavers like a stick on an old-fashioned metronome, ticking back and forth between writing for catharsis and change -- and writing just to write. On the former side, my writing suffers with my own suffering: I'm charged with emotional recall; I don't care how the words fall off my fingertips and slap themselves onto the screen, just as long as they get out of me and onto it. On the other side, however, I couldn't "care" less "about" "what" I'm writing, so long as I'm writing -- but, even more importantly, writing well. Once in a long while, the ticker slows to stop for a moment, and I, suddenly aware, am suspended, poised in the middle between "meaning" and its signposts, between "content" and the characters that I'm using to represent it. Here is where I hope to find my writing identity.

The purpose of my blog is two-fold, and I find it difficult to stay in balance. One, I'm blogging things (or facts, events) that have "happened" in my life - focusing most intently on the past two years - as a means to prevent things similar from occurring. These things are ones that make me go "Ugh". But I'd much rather the things make me go "Ugh" than the writing itself (writing itself being the second half of the purpose of this blog, of course). My last post stopped my writing process in its tracks, because, that time, both the content and its form offended me terribly. I didn't like what I wrote or how I wrote it.

Here is a brief summary of my blog's "content", or the "what" of it: After watching my relationship with my husband crumble to the ground after ten years of steady erosion and a final heave-ho, I sifted through boyfriends, one-night stands...and before I knew it, was buried under a heaping, stinking pile of men. I enlisted myself in a program for "sex and 'love' addicts", thinking that my problem may be my "powerlessness" (i.e., my seeming inability to say "no" to any man who expresses any interest in me whatsoever). The founder of this program suggests, in his book written for one who identifies as a "sex and 'love' addict", to write a "relationship inventory". This inventory's purpose is to help one identify specific actions in order to discern patterns of behavior with the goal of unearthing motives (or seeing what one "gets" from people s/he has "used"...seeing what the "pay-off" is). Then, one should be able to see how selfish, dishonest, and afraid one has been and acknowledge how one has hurt others with his/her self-seeking motives and actions/patterns. This awareness, along with a surrender to a "power greater than oneself" and a willingness to "let" the behaviors and their propelling motives "go", is supposed to get one to make restitution/amends for harm done and aid other "suffering" "sex and 'love' addicts" which will, inherently, cause one to cease acting out in the patterns of behavior that created the events that made him/her go "Ugh" in the first place. And the inventory's purpose is fulfilled. Boom. Done.

When I found out I should write about all my relationships in order to "recover", I was pretty excited. I love writing! And a former writing professor of mine is writing a blog about his experience with cancer and its treatment (he also writes about bicycling across the U.S.). He also blogs about the writing process itself. It's very inspiring. So, I decided to turn my inventory into a blog so that I could use it both as my motivation to "change" as well as, perhaps one day, material for an actual memoir that I'll publish and have people maybe even read someday!

But...my very influential professor has helped me to see that how one writes is just as important as what one is writing about (along with the books I read in his autobiography-themed lit class in college). His writing appears to be in balance between its content and its characters of representation. It's not just a bunch of emotional rambling that pays no mind to the words being used...nor is it composed of meticulously placed words on a screen without any "real" content behind them.

In contrast, my metronomablog keeps ticking between the two. Here are a few insights I had gleaned about myself last night, before I started to care about how I was writing. I'm not going to do any editing, so you can see a true example of what my content is really like when I pay no mind to characters (as opposed to the above writing, which I've spent seven full hours editing!):



1. I get "high" from a man's attention. My heart beats fast. My body gets hot. My breathing is labored. It's a surge of adrenaline. I like it.

2. I get bored after the "high" is gone. I'm not actually interested in the hard "relationship" stuff. I tried that all ready, and it didn't work. Plus, I start to miss myself when I spend too much time with a guy. I never really got to find myself in the first place, I don't think. So I run to extremes and break it off instead of just try to slow things down.

3. I don't actually like the sex with the men all that much. Sex is just the thing I put up with after I get my "attention high". I do my best to pretend I enjoy it, so he still likes me and I can get "high" again the next time I see him, but then I don't get "high" again, or sometimes I do a couple more times, but soon enough, it goes away - and when that happens, so do I.

4. I still love the guy I ended up with after I left my husband over two years ago. I actually do enjoy sex with him, and, I still get "high" when I see him (or maybe it's not a "high" and is "real love"...who knows?). But it's hard as hell for me to accept him: he lives with his mom and stepdad and doesn't have a job and is about to have his car repossessed and his phone turned off and is more full of self-pity and devoid of motivation than anyone I know.

5. I want a guy to take care of me financially. But, when I find ones who are willing and able to do so, I don't want to be with them, after all. I fucked up by not getting my degree or starting a full-time career; I was being taken care of by my husband who received monthly money from his Indian tribe. Now I have to put my big girl pants on and go to night school and get a full-time job so I don't need a man to build a house on my grandparents' 20 acres (that's what James, the last guy, wanted to do, after knowing me for a week). No thanks, dude -- I can build my own damn house.

6. I'm so goddamn focused on the past and future that I don't actually do anything now to change my life situation. "Someday this will happen, and I'll be happy." "I can't believe all the shit I've done; I'm so disappointed in myself." You know what? Fuck that. I'll just be happy right now. 

Okay, this blog is taking a weird turn. But let's roll with it. Who fucking cares about the men I've been involved with over the past couple years? I don't even care any more. All I care about is what I'm doing right now. And right now I'm sitting merrily at my laptop, typing words - it's something I very much enjoy doing. But it's not making me any money, at the moment, which makes me revert back to insight number 5. Actually, I happen to be on a two-week unpaid forced vacation from my 20-hour-a-week 10-dollar-an-hour job.

So....it's time to get back into reading Mary Karr -- I need to finish her memoir, damnit...but every time I read it, I read like two pages and can't even keep going because I get all inspired and my fingers get itchy...which is cool, I guess. But it doesn't help me write any better if I don't keep reading actually good writing.

And as far as writing for change goes, well, guess what -- writing about the men I've been with over the past two years still hasn't stopped me from being with men. After the Propane Truck Driver, whom I considered to be my "rock bottom", there was the Satellite Communications Engineer, and now...well, you know that guy I talked about in insight number 4? The guy I wrote about me cheating on and leaving, over, and over, and over? Yep - the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and I are back together, again.

But it's all good. At least I still have writing for the sake for writing. :)

Ugh.

One More Letter from the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend: "The Dumpy Sad Ex-Boyfriend"

I'm going to write a post tonight or tomorrow about my ex-boyfriend, "Evan", who has been sending me sad emails. As a preview: he was hired as a delivery driver at Pizza Hut where I worked in 2011 as an assistant manager. Same age as me (at the time, 27-28). I left my husband of ten years (together ten years, but married at 7) to be with him in October. Told him I loved him two weeks later; he told me not to use those words. I broke up with him. He wanted me back. I cheated on him. He wanted me back. I broke up with him. He wanted me back. I cheated on him. He wanted me back. Ad infinitum, until December 2012 - I broke up with him and it didn't matter that he wanted me back. I didn't go back to him until July 2013 (in December I wanted to be alone and recover, but kept getting into relationships; finally I wanted him back because he was "better" than all the other guys I'd been with - I loved him more, and he was a better lover, I mean). Broke up with him again in August 2013 to be with someone else, again. Broke up with that guy and went back to Evan, who had planned a 3-month trip to Canada with his best friend/novelist John (Evan's an artist - he was gonna paint) while we were broken up the last time. I wanted him to stay; he wanted to go. He left. I realized it was for the best and I didn't want him any more and decided to be with someone else. That's all a bunch of crap but it catches you up.

That guy (#27: The Propane Truck Driver) had sex with me and told me he had herpes. I realized I didn't want to be with any one any more because I didn't like who/what I'd become, plus, I probably had herpes, for all I knew (have been tested lots since; don't have it). But I saw it as a gift from God (choirs of angels singing). Entered sex/love addiction recovery very seriously on October 16, 2013. Relapsed November 21 after the woman who brought me into recovery (Margaret) killed herself and a guy at a concert who'd scored a film he'd created about a guy committing suicide asked me for my number when I went up to talk to him about it. He asked me out on a date and we had sex even though I told him I didn't want to have sex until marriage after what I'd been through the last two years and that I might have herpes. I kept seeing him through December 9 even though I knew I needed to get back to recovery and being alone (me = selfish; he had a lot to offer).

Now it's December 11. I'm on Day 2 again of recovery (I had made it all the way to Day 42 the first time) after adding another name to the list (I'm sorry, "James"; I really am), and I'm going for no less than 90 this time. Ideally, I'd actually rather not date or get into a relationship until either my divorce is final (I filed two years ago now - waiting on him, though), or until I reconcile with my husband (not sure which will be the case - not even sure which one I want). (James didn't like the fact that I wasn't divorced, and it hit me - duh).

So right now, I'm just rooting for me - I get to recover now. Grow up. When most women are "bachelorettes" and "coming of age" between 18-24, I was with my husband. I never got that period of being alone and coming into my own Being. So now I am, at 30.

I'm also continuing on with my relationship inventory, which I'm posting here on this blog. It's part of my healing process. And I plan on using some of it, eventually, for a memoir that I'd like to publish in 2 to 5 years (probably closer to 5, so I can make it really, really good). For now, it's scattered, not continuous/congruous/cohesive/coherent (in many places). Leaving things out. Just gathering information, facts, thoughts, feelings. Focusing on relationships. Need to read more memoirs for examples (like Mary Karr's - I had stopped reading when Margaret died....time to get back on the horse).

I have posted a few of these emails from Evan as I prepare to write about him (he's #1: The Pizza Delivery Boyfriend). (I don't mean to dehumanize them with nick-names. Rather, one of the main points of this inventory is to see where I've hurt people. But their names - like Evan, James, Bruce, Ronnie - those are all made up any way, so the descriptors actually make it easier for me to remember who they were. Sad, I know.) So here's his latest email; he keeps reminding me how much I hurt him, and it's good, in a way (although after this one, I plan to block them, since I'm powerless not to respond and I keep making myself late for work, since he writes after 2:00 am I get them in the morning).

I had asked Evan to stop trying to suck me into his vortex - I'd heard that phrase somewhere and wanted to use it - so that's why he begins this way:

Sllllluuuuuurrrrrrrp!  I'm trying hard to be an un-vortex.  Part of me wants you to be happy, part of me wants to have you, and still another part wants you to feel the pain that I feel because you've shown what my love is worth.. and its embarrassing to have to realize it isn't much.  I wish I was a more lovable person and that I inspired loyalty, but I don't think I'm that kind of person and knowing thyself is part of transcendence.  I always wanted to have my own family to look after since I was young.  I thought loyalty and honesty were the things a family man had to have and I guess I just see that as silly now looking at ours and other past relationships.  I don't know who else to express these things too.  If they bring you down a little... good.  Filling your life with nothing but positive people and places is a fools errand.. not being affected by the negative I think is the secret. 

Anyhow I'm not always negative.  I don't think others would put up with me as long as they have if that were true.  I think because you've now lapped me in terms of dating that it puts me in a different class... Like I can't keep up.  I'm not good enough for you.  I know you say its the spiritual churchiness I lack and the income, but if I was a quiet churchgoer with a pad I still think you would think yourself in a different class because of how many men you've had at your fingertips over the past few years with no 500 pound gorilla in the room to scare them off.  We skinny boys can seduce a whole lot of women but its the strong scary ones that keep them more often than not.  I really think that is what rolls across your mind when you roll your eyes at my sad messages.  I'll stop bumming you out soon enough.  I don't keep too many friends, dove, and I keep the ones I have for a long time.  So when you just move on past me because I take off (for a damn good reason) I'm still wanting to talk about my problems with you... only YOU is the problem.

So anyway... I jut smoked a shit ton of weed and laughed with a couple Canucks for the past 5 hours... So I'm not getting great sex with someone utterly new and fascinating who is fascinated with me while working a dream job and hanging out with a cool kid... I still know how to have a good time.  If your dumpy sad ex-boyfriend sends you the occasional depressing email what's it to you.  Just don't respond or be a total asshole until I run off like in "White Fang" with Ethan Hawk and that wolf-dog.

A video from the Husband to Me and the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend: "Scars/To The New Boyfriend" by Rudy Francisco

If the video doesn't work, click here.

Another Letter from the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend: "The Fukmygirlfriend Disaster"

Click for soundtrack.

Here I go at 3:15.  I read more of course... and my stomach hurt of course.  Just bored and going a bit nuts I guess.  Jealous of your ability to find sex partners in part and disgusted in part, but mostly a feeling of obsoleteness and a kind of peace that maybe a terminally ill person could get knowing they must have HIV or some terrible exposure from the 'Fukishima Disaster' or the 'Fukmygirlfriend Disaster'. 

Knowing more and more what kind of men excite you I start to understand myself as just a filler, a step stone kind of like Bruce but a step up in the sack.  You are the best liar and flatterer I've known besides maybe my father (thank our lord and savior he's in Baltimore or you might have slept with him too... he's a man's man kind of type... just a bit old... and a nasty case of herpes). I think I learned a lot about what I need to change to have a woman to keep... to have and to hold and to bear my children... one with a suitable sex drive that won't fatten up so I have to divorce her anyway.

I need a job that doesn't require promotion for increased reward because men see me like you do as an unfortunate perma-boy toy not fit for responsibility.  Too old now for promotion anyway.  My God the most humiliating thing in your diatribes and ruminations is I'm barely mentioned except for as a side note... with all the time I spent with you while we were together.  That is how I am seen in the workforce.  You only had childcare duty for me while out looking for a more equipped tool.  Some instinct inside you must have known I was trustworthy and competent enough for the grunt work while you went out looking for real men who have important-big-dick activities to do like manage people instead of watching toddlers.  I need to own a place a bit off the grid so my special girl won't be socializing with other men while I'm off working to support her ass... no apartment complexes.  She doesn't laugh like a whore at other men's jokes... hopefully she works at a job with mostly other women and queers so she isn't being constantly chipped away by real men with more money and bigger cocks.  Maybe she works with kids and she definitely doesn't belong to groups with all kinds of fucked up narcissistic horny loud men that coach each other on how not to die from drinking... or other groups that I'm not a part of and never will be.   How about a book club or a guild instead of brainwashing factories and cheap therapy.    In fact she shouldn't be socializing with any men that earn more... (that's everyone) or have bigger biceps, stronger backs and of course fatter, harder hogs (just about everyone). 

I don't think you would have married Jesus before 30... Skinny.  Good talker and listener.  Compassionate. Probably a tender kisser because he's a bit feminine and delicate with artists hands.  A bit of a know-it-all and a philosopher (he is the son of God).  Witty and slender... stern and convicted.  A simple man.  A carpenter.  A rambler.  Average dick that he does his best with only when he's in love.  Loves his "Virgin" mother.  Not reaching his potential or ambitions until late in life... So boring that they don't even talk about him until he walks out of the wilderness at age 30 having conquered temptations of flesh and power, and yet still so easy to be around.  Laid back and forgiving.  Nearly free of ego.  Scared to death to leave his nepotism and face an unforgiving world only armed with truth and no unconditional love to fall back on... just love worn raw.  None of those things seem to match any of the men you write about.  Obsess about.  Men like me that are more Christ-like than the ones you get wet to.  You definitely would have at least tried to sleep with him when he started getting notorious, but he probably would have turned you down or not been as good a lay as the last guy you screwed who was the center of attention.  Oh-well maybe if you try them all you'll find the right one.  Anyway that's off track and a bit low for someone as Christ-like as myself.  I'm sure God will present me with a path to that reality before I melt away into dust... just do one thing and let me know if you caught anything nasty from these sexy men who spread their seed with such perfection.  Knowing what diseases I might carry from you makes my path more clear in a morbid sense.  And you certainly owe me that courtesy.

Okay so maybe I'm too petty to be Christ-like, but I definitely am more so than the 28 you've Loved.  At least Jesus [?] before age 30.  Even my hair and beard are becoming more Christ-like... I masturbate and watch porn less and less because its cold and all those sluts just remind me of you and the guys they fuck are just like the ones you forget me for.  Thank you for helping me quell that nasty habit before I developed arthritis in my painting hand.  Less attachment to worldly things unfortunately makes us less interested in being in this world... I think I always had you beat in that department, but it certainly can lead to destruction like it did Christ.  You're too materialistic to destroy yourself fully.  There's always a better human being around the corner to love you down or maybe you can fix others who don't know how badly you've hurt lesser people.  Like a meat market.  Just don't wind up a money-changer in his Church... He REALLY doesn't like that.  Christ is merely a man for whom truth became more important than life.  Simply know thyself and to thyself be true.   People saw that and sent shock waves throughout history.  It left a perfect scar in all of us so even the non-believers can't help but revere his sacrifice. 

If you test positive for anything let me know.  I'm too cowardly to check myself.

I'll be trying not to fantasize about you coming out in those shorts while I was shadow boxing with your son.  Fuck my brain.

The Hillcrest Prostitute

When I took Gary hostage, I didn't know he had Hepatitis C, or that he used to hook around Hillcrest for meth. He was three years sober when I met him. He was such a nice guy - slow, brain-damaged - but sweet.

I was pretty lonely after finally leaving #1 (what I thought was) for good and having sex with a couple of guys who'd choked me, scratched me, and slammed me into walls (#15 and #17).

I had also gone on a date with a guy (#18) who'd told me he was a sex addict while we were eating dinner at IHOP. I told him that I was a sex addict, too, but that I was in recovery and wanted to change. So I didn't see him again after that.

I didn't want to have sex with Gary, but I wanted him to come home with me after the recovery group's Christmas party that we were both at. My-then-sponsor/former-OC-model Jane had taken him hostage plenty of times, so I figured I would, too. Neither he or I liked her, so, it gave us a chance to vent our shared frustration over this woman who was verbally abusive, full of pride, and deep down, very, very damaged.

We played guitar and piano for awhile, and then we talked about Jane...all night long. We finally fell asleep around 4:30am, curled up on opposite ends of the bed.

The next day, I called Jane, and when she started cussing at me, I used the night before as a source of strength to drop her as my sponsor. I picked my son up from his dad's, and, after a long nap, drove us 600 miles north to visit my sister and her family for a week. I obsessed about Gary the whole time I was there. When I got back, I took him on a date to see The Hobbit and to dinner at Jack in the Box - my treat.

Then I took him to my house and kept him there a couple days/nights. He told me his story, in detail. I found that I genuinely cared for him, but at the same time, I realized that I was just using him to help me not feel lonely. So on the third day we talked about how we probably should stop what we were doing. He acknowledged that he was probably using me, too, and we didn't want to use each other any more.

But I still obsessed about him for almost a month after that - until I met #20.

A Letter from the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend: "Goodybe, Adora"

Wow... guess it serves me right for reading your blog.  He sounds great.  Marathons. Tall. Full bearded. Career.  7 orgasms... I've got none of those.  No wonder I haven't heard from you.

Well, goodbye, Adora.  Not sure why you sent the link in the first place if not to spell it out for me that I'm not good enough for you and my brand of love-making which you once thought amusing has been forgotten and eclipsed by all manner of climbers.  Twenty something er other.  It was good knowing you.  Hope I can move on like you always do and have your luck finding what you already have.  I have a bad feeling my ability to be the perfect guy for anyone has been permanently fucked.  I don't even want to do the family thing anymore I don't think.  It just isn't worth the pain when someone you love wants to be with other people all the time, and I haven't ever had any other experiences.  I don't want a kid to have to deal with me when that happens.  You aren't unique.  The first girl I was with left her boyfriend of 2 years for me and was cheating on me after six weeks. The other ones aren't worth mentioning, but its always the same.  It's enough to make a Scorpio take a cold swim.  If you believe in that sort of stuff.  Its funny the suicide in your life has gotten you the best sex and mate of your life and its just had me wondering what the purpose of living is.  Truth and beauty?  All we care for and nothing to do with each other.

I'm thinking of making and selling canvasses while I finish school...  It just seems fitting for a man with no purpose in life to make blank canvasses and the ones at Michael's are too expensive.  Do you think there are enough students to support that?  If I have to work a joke job that can't afford me a woman's love or at least my own survival I won't make it much longer.  Months I think.  Been not sleeping and sobbing quietly a lot.  Praying for a sign.  Not a good sign.  I should have finished school... shouldn't have given you my last two years.  I'm sure the feeling is mutual.  30 just feels too late to start and I feel so much older in my body.  Like there's something wrong with it.  The runt pathetically trying to be loved when it should just get it over with.  Mother, sister, two friends, nieces... my heart goes out to them, but I don't think I can fake it for too much longer for their sakes.  I don't have an angry God or Hell to fear.  I paint and sculpt so well and its so simple but who the fuck cares.  I don't care.  Women only pretend to care about that shit.  Being a boss. A doctor.  Engineer.  Famous.  That shit keeps a woman by your side.  Thinking of things to paint is as much a waste of time as painting them especially if you haven't found a purpose by 30.  I can see more and more everyone else has given up believing in me.  I think that is no more apparent than seeing your love for me wither and corrode at a comical pace so many times.  At least you have [your son], and beauty, and an audience, and people constantly falling in love with you.  I really have nothing other than people that have no choice but to be there.  I've always been only an amusement and I think I amuse less and less as time creeps on.  There isn't anything funny about a cute skinny little boy growing old.  I've got Michael J. Fox syndrome.  At least with you there was my delusion of being wanted.  I doubt you've even thought or fantasized about me a single time since I left.  You said so yourself.  I don't even have any interest in fixing my broken tooth.  It should rot with the rest of me in this cold bed, damp with night sweats.

Delusions can keep you going through a desert for a long time.  What then when the delusion fades away?  Who wants to live in the desert?  Sorry to blindside you with this shit while your high on love and Christian marathon cock... but fuck you anyway (you sent the link and you are a bitch for doing it).  And since I'm not worth the therapy you can deal with it some more.  You like hearing sad people's sad stories.  A wet pussy and crying eyes and Adora is at one with the universe.  Maybe now you've found some better lover for the first position that I used to hold so dear who can get your eyes red and soaking instead.  How many tears would I get?  How many tears did Margaret's man give?

My Dad and His Girlfriend Ida and my Crush from 4th to 12th Grade (1992 to 2001; March 2012)

My dad's girlfriend threw three kittens against my bedroom door when I was ten; two died, and one never walked straight after that. He'd take a few steps and fall down, take a few steps, fall down, step, fall, step, fall. I called him Spaz and held him up when he drank water so he wouldn't land in the bowl.

My seven year-old sister and I rode the bus ten miles to visit our dad every other weekend. We had a long walk from the bus stop to his house. We picked flowers from people's yards to give to Ida because we thought it might soften her up a little. We really just wanted her to like us and not be so mean. She'd smile and thank us and tell us how sweet it was, and later, she'd yell at us to stop climbing trees and to "go do the goddamn dishes, you little brats."

Ida had a lazy left eye that looked off to the side and hair that was a wild, frizzy nest of rust. She was lean and tall, her skin a tan shade of leather. She stomped around the house barefoot and seemed to hate every one and every thing. "Get me my goddamn cigarettes, you ugly asshole!" She threw a plate at Dad's nose and cut it. He bandaged it up and the three of us piled into the Ford Econoline 350 to go downtown.

We always tried to look into his wallet to see how much money he had. He said he didn't even have any, even when we saw some. He "only had enough to buy Ida's cigarettes"...and some dark chocolate, her favorite treat. Later, Dawn and I would rummage around the house for change and find some and walk down to the 7-11 for candy or to McDonald's for twenty-nine-cent hamburgers.

Almost every Saturday morning, Ida went dumpster diving and came home with a giant bag of donuts. I usually said, "No thanks," but sometimes I'd actually take one and just go throw it outside somewhere. She had lost her baby daughter in a fire, and I knew that's why she was the way she was. The donuts thing was nice. I felt sorry for her. Hated her, but felt sorry for her, for sure.

When Ida kicked Dad out, he shacked up in a burned-down house's garage on an avocado grove for a couple months. My brother, my brother's friend Rick, and I spent the night in sleeping bags. My brother and I were used to sleeping bags; we had "camped" for three months with Mom and Harry when we all left Dad a couple years prior. I used to fantasize about Ida and Harry meeting and falling in love and killing each other. It's ugly, I know.

I developed a huge crush on Rick. We held hands one night and said we'd be boyfriend and girlfriend. He told me in the morning, though, that he didn't want to be my boyfriend any more. I was heartbroken. My crush on him lasted all the way through 12th grade. I even included the words, "I love you, Rick Haskell," in the 50 words they allotted every one for our "Senior Memories" in the back of the yearbook.

When he asked me out to lunch, five months after I'd left my husband, I was super excited. I hadn't seen or heard from him much in ten years. I saw on facebook that he was married with children, so I thought we'd just hang out as friends and catch up. That was just as well, because I had just broken up with my boyfriend, too (the one I'd left my husband to be with, #1), for the umpteenth time that morning. I had cheated on him again (when I didn't want to, again) (#15). So, I was done with relationships for awhile. I was relieved when I saw that Rick was taken. It meant I was safe.

But when we were at lunch, he told me that his wife had left him and taken the kids, and that he had seen that I was "Separated" on facebook.

Fuck.

It was all too familiar (see #9). For some reason I found myself opening up to him, and I told him that yeah, I'd left my husband, I was an alcoholic, and I was probably a sex addict, because I left my husband for another man (#1) but then couldn't stop cheating on that man with other men (#2 - #15). Then, I even described my sexploits up to that point.

Oops.

I knew I had fucked up. After lunch I asked him to take me home, but he wanted to take me to a friend's house to "watch a movie". (Yeah right.) I didn't want to go, but he was persistent. I knew I shouldn't have told him that I thought I was a sex addict. After all, I was "trying to change". But I'm powerless when it comes to men, I now know -- I can't, and therefore don't, say, "No."

So, Rick and I went to his friend's, and we cuddled on the couch, and I pretended to fall asleep.

Finally, it was 6:30, so I had him take me to a meeting. Thank God I have an out, I thought. He wanted to come in with me, but it was a closed meeting, for alcoholics only. "Hey, I'll just say I'm an alcoholic. Actually, I do drink quite a bit," he tried. But this time, I did tell him, "No...you just can't do that...it's only for people who have a desire to stop drinking." It worked. Phew. I needed to get away from him, and this was my only chance.


After the meeting was over, I turned on my phone and there were a few texts from him. He wanted to say goodbye before he drove back to the city of San Diego. He'd take me to dinner, he said. I wanted either not to respond, or to say no.

Well, I am hungry, so...we'll go to dinner, and I'll just have him drop me off, end of story.

He picked me up and took me through a drive-thru.

We went to my house, and I said, "Well, okay, goodnight, thanks!" and got out and closed the door and was almost to my front door when...

I can't make him eat his food on the freeway, poor guy. I'll let him in...just to eat...and then he has to go.

Rick was grateful and promised he'd leave right after he ate.

But...I can't make him drive 60 miles on the freeway at this time of night...

As long as we don't have sex...it'll be okay...

I offered to let him spend the night. I told him, explicitly, that I didn't want to have sex with him, and he agreed we wouldn't.

So, I turned off the lights, except the TV, and got into bed. I was still wearing my jeans and T-shirt and bra -- I didn't want to take anything off. But, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take off all his clothes, except his boxer briefs, before getting into the bed right next to me. I could feel heat emanating from his muscular body. He was an army vet, he worked out, I knew that - but - oh, fuck, was he hot!

Not only did I have a hot, almost-naked man in my bed, I had Rick Haskell in my bed, the guy on whom I'd had a crush for eleven years of girlhood. I had longed for this moment to repeat itself ever since that night at the burned-down house-garage...

So, okay...

I was screwed.

I had a really hard time getting rid of him the next day. He wanted me to go with him to his place, but I told him I had to go to another (closed) meeting. He wanted me to come down to see him when I was done; I told him I'd text him when I got out. I blocked his number. I removed him on facebook. I didn't look back.

But I saw him at a meeting nine months later, the same one at which he'd dropped me off before. I suspected he went there to find me. I apologized for "losing" his number when I "changed phones," and he gave me his number again and asked me to text him. When I hugged him I felt his hard chest, and I remembered him holding me in the air with his strong arms...

So I threw his number away as soon as I got home.

I haven't seen him since.

Introduction

If I had known that, after leaving my husband of ten years, two years ago, I'd somehow become romantically/emotionally and/or sexually involved with 27 men in 24 months, I - perhaps - would have tried a different solution to my marital problems. I'd equate what-I've-done to hitting myself on the head with a hammer - 27 times - to get rid of a headache. You guessed right - it didn't work.

I find myself now completely demoralized and devoid of identity, wondering what the hell just happened. So, I'm going to write about each of these relationships to figure out just who I've been and where I've gone wrong (and who the hell I really am, and should be). Thankfully, I have stopped this insidious cycle, though by no temporary moment of sanity on my part -- I just happened to jump off the last horse on the carousel because riding it may have left me with something unpleasant between my legs. Thanks for telling me before I got on, jackass. (But I'll get back to this in #27: The Propane Truck Driver. I know, he sounds like a real winner.)

Someone said Einstein said something about insanity being something like "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Well, amen to that, with a few hallelujahs. What was I expecting? Prince Charming. What did I get? 27 bad apples. This one will be different. This one doesn't live with his parents. This one's not an alcoholic. This one's fully employed, and a father. This one's a spiritual guru...ad infinitum. Well, I mis-use the phrase, because there was finality, thank goodness; I should say, "...ad nauseum". I'm suffering from a nasty bout of indigestion right about now.

In my next post, I'll start with my very first relationships -- my relationships with my family -- because doing so will shed some light on how I got here. I suppose it's cliché to start with childhood -- or maybe it isn't, and J.D. Salinger isn't God. But don't tell that to guy #1: The Pizza Delivery Boyfriend. Holden Caulfield was his idol.