the signs were all there...

I suspected that behind his sharp hawk-like stare there was nothing more than scrutiny. I wondered if it was just a matter that each time I arrived at the bar I said hello to all but him and her. Also, was it that I knew so many people, his people, at his bar?

Last night I heard him ask, "Why is Walter a chick magnet?"

It's true, Walter was surrounded by four beautiful girls, each one different in their beauty, but all hanging on his every word. The bar was full and it was late and Walter was in his prime. His friendship with each of us is more than an assumption, it has to be asserted constantly, but it will always be just a friendship. Walter is one of those sad unfortunate men to know how to charm women, but he finds they only want to be his friend in the end.

And how does he do it, this man, who at a glance seems boring and lame, the kind of guy who isn't even vanilla ice cream, he looks more like a vanilla flavored frozen yogurt. Does he have magic? Does he hypnotize? Does he really have a magnetic field around him that attracts chicks?

To him I would say that Walter is non-threatening. For myself I would say that Walter is an excellent conversationalist, and he gets better when he is drunk and loses a little of the politeness that makes him seem fro-yo.

All this time I thought that he was such a cool dude, such a wild beast, sulking about the bar, protecting his territory and friends, eyes constantly scanning the room for trouble, but it turns out that he is nothing more than a lame-o. For him to be jealous of a guy like Walter and to ask why when it is plain as day what he does, well, that is pretty sad. And like a deflating balloon, his power faded, and I was left to wonder what it was about him that interested me in the first place.

denouement

My eyes followed him all night. He was everywhere, he was the hero; and yet, he hardly acknowledges me. Is that why I find it so hard to resist him? It can't be anything else, for he is fairly average and seemingly lacking the verbal skills to satisfy me, which is hard to know for sure since we haven't had a conversation and only exchanged gestures.

He is nothing special.

And yet, he manages to capture my attention completely each time, and I cringe as I remember how obvious I must have been, my scrutinizing eyes trying to find his staring at me, but each time he was not there, and everyone around me knew it was him I wanted to talk to. She figured me out because she feels the same, we all do, panting and languishing in his presence, fiery, older, wanton, brazen, and it is just how all women are around him.

I don't understand the why; maybe it is biological, innate, something we cannot know. It must be, because he is so lackluster in the usual ways.

He seems too cool for school, so above it all, so disinterested, and that veneer is a shiny prettier version of what I hear about him, that he's actually very excited by things, he's baffled by things, that I know everyone but him is why he is so aloof. He skulks about like a panther, but he's really just a chimpanzee with poor posture.

When he is out of sight, he is out of my mind.

He greeted my friend, who he has explored, and I half expected him to go on ignoring me, fanning the flames of my frustration, but he said hello after all. It was lackluster, of course. He was already turned around and going back, but right then I wasn't paying attention and walked into the beaded curtain, which caught my face and hugged me. I yelped and spun around and bumped into the wall. Giggling, I ran into the bathroom with my friend and wondered how a chimpanzee could turn me into a goof with nothing more than a hello.

helium head

maybe I just needed a day off. maybe it was last night's drinking combined with no dinner and four hours of sleep; no coffee consumed til four in the afternoon. useless, I was.

the only sense of accomplishment I feel is that I started reading a book today and it's nearly done. happened to me the other day too. usually that kind of consumption is something I regard with some suspicion, wondering if it means that I am holing up again, fighting off the urges to do the shit I've absolutely got to do.

It feels okay because one of the things I've absolutely got to do is write my manuscript, and I can't write when I'm not reading something. It's an odd phenomenon, but my writing feels forced or trite when there's nothing I've been reading.

I can tell it's about time to begin my manuscript; I've been wanting to write here more often, I've been writing super duper eloquent text messages that I save with some sense of pride and I've been having dreams.

I'm sure I dream all the time, but I hardly remember them. Every so often I have transcribed the details of some dreams I remember online. I find it interesting that when I go into this kind of period, it is usually fall, which used to mean school, reading lots, I also tend to dream in a vividness that gives it some concreteness so that when I wake, I have strong recollections of what I was dreaming about.

Also, I have become agitated. I find the dullness I encounter from living day to day almost painful. I am bitter and bitter is bad.

this is what I know from watching others: do what you want and you will get what you deserve. wasting time not doing what you want is mind-numbing. doing what you want actually changes people from morose Eeyores to vibrant people who make a difference.

fuck. what am I doing here? my friend dan the man is thrilled that I want to go into the peace corps. maybe it's the right time to give myself away to a cause that's worth my time, my exhaustion, my sore feet, my cracked hands, my smiles, my tears, my heart.

we are all dorks trying to be cool pt. 334

raven's. "the dirty bird." life is in the way. drink until it doesn't hurt.

if life manages to remind you that it sucks, take a shot.

when you remember someone who's done you wrong, delete their number.

when you've had too many, have some more.

when you get home, eat things you would never eat when sober. chew til your jaw hurts. eat more.

live in excess until it somehow feels better.

extend the life boat to others who feel like they are drowning. no use being alone at a time like this.

when your friend's "troubles" seem silly, watch the crap on tv. even if it is the bachelor. be glad that the guy is hot, even if he is a stupid fuck that makes you wish you had a shotgun.

remember how tv is something that you miss until you see a commercial that makes no sense and the guy who is cooler than you because he's sober and a know it all bartender who doesn't think you're hot enough to give cheap beer to (or maybe he doesn't want to demean you, but you can't tell) and then he tries to tell you that it's the commercial's way of "arting it up."

said bartender pretends to be a nerd by searching for star trek on the tv, but when you ask him if he prefers TOS to TNG and he doesn't understand,

you suddenly understand that he's just a fuckwad who thinks liking star trek somehow makes him cooler than you.

feel like an ass when your favorite band is on his ipod and you can't tell just by the first thirty seconds because you didn't have that album, but at least you don't have a fucking ipod.

hate hate hate life. drink some more.

"what?!"

in a drunken rage I broke my cell phone. not enough to deem a new one necessary, but enough to render my communications via text message useless. I don't know why I did this. I also broke a small mirror in my purse. instead of seven years bad luck, I had seven days bad luck and went through the week like a coma refugee.

[today is the end of day seven.]

I haven't wanted to write in a while, long since before the week of bad luck. I don't know why. I tried to figure a reason, but even that would not come.

Sometimes I hate my life. Everything is a series of dominoes so complicated and precarious that even one breath can alter and affect the next. it becomes so frustrating to try and retrace my steps, discover the origin of this mistake and that issue, and to what end? for justification of what? the withdrawal of my love.

as it always was. but now, not always, just a habit now.

to approach myself from what makes me happy, feel good, and fuck the rest, it's really different. to see my life through the words of an eight year old (who knows more than you'd imagine) is startling. and yet, why is it that I am constantly surprised by just how very amazing I am?

She smiled and in her grin was a significance I did not understand. I said hello. I met her bemused smile, with its reaching cloying mirth and asked what she would like. She said in the most joyful way, that she would like one of my delicious cappuccinos. Then I knew her. A week ago I made her a cappuccino, and she presented me with the order that I love best of all, one that makes the most sense to me, one that shows that she is someone who really understands coffee.

She ordered a small cappuccino with three shots of espresso. that the cup is twelve ounces means she has created the perfect and correct ratio of coffee to milk to foam. No one else could ever appreciate such a thing except for me and I relish in the opportunity to make this drink. When I present it to her, I say, "Making cappuccinos is my specialty." She seems unimpressed by my boastfulness, but today she says that I was right, that later that night she had gone to starbucks and they had made her a terrible cappuccino which she requested the same way and she even told her husband that the little shop down the street has a better cappuccino made by this woman. and I was that woman.

my new job is great. not only do I get to hang out with a sarcastic kid who loves video games and cartoons and the disney channel and eating all the things I like to eat and doing all the things I like to do (so far we have seen a movie, gone to a ballgame, searched the zoo for dippin dots and gone to millennium park), I don't work as much at the coffeeshop and that is good.

I just completed my taxes about two weeks ago. I am playing an endless round of catch-up and the carousel only stops periodically, at which point I would much rather find my breath and stop the spins than clean my bathroom. I am always constantly regaining ground: reading the book, fixing the old problems which clears the way for new ones, doing laundry, finding time to shower and tweeze my eyebrows, go to therapy, dye my hair, paint my toes, shave my legs, wash the dishes, check the mail, read that pile of magazines, call those people, email my friends, it is always the same list I find each week/month, waiting for me, a continual agony of things I must do and lately there has been nothing to stop that turnstile; for a while there was school, then drinking, then him and then the love of my lifetime and now, nothing but the constant juggle of things I must do.

I am reading Light in August by William Faulkner. The writing is dense and gritty, layered, subtle; it makes me ashamed to even desire to write. and yet, there is something familiar there, like a chilly goosebumpy feeling of recognition, and this is only the second book of his I've read, but I feel like my tangle of words will be best compared to his someday and there is something eerie and scary about that feeling.

I am waiting again, a series of successive climbs, plateaus, all abstract: the application is due in November, I will hear back in March (happy fucking birthday), I will prepare to leave by July, I will be in school again next September. That is all I know, the rest are just empty blanks that I have to fill in but I have neither the time nor gumption nor desire to do any of it, except that I want so desperately to escape this husk of a life that I will fill in those blanks as best I can.

I don't remember anymore which truths are lies and what I convinced myself was true. I don't know where I'm going. I have no faith in anything except the magic of children and their ability to stop time and enjoy what is right in front of their faces. When I am with them, they teach me that lesson/over and over again I am surprised at how easy it is to let go and just be.

In all of this, there is the love of my lifetime, like flame, and each time I try to resist on the grounds of logic and doubts, I succumb and I feel no shame, just confusion, just worry that I must've gotten it all wrong at some point, but I don't know how to get back to what feels right.

goodbye Amos

Not again...

unnecessary roughness

Six dollars will buy you happiness.

God bless jumbo margarita night.

almost every girl is sweetie.

but in his hands I melted,

my hair pushed away by his fingers,

and I could feel his hesitation when he reached my earlobes,

the sacred space that is so very intimate

he compensated by travelling down my back

while I pushed myself against the bar

when his hands left me there was no more pain or tightness

just the imprints of his fingertips

and an appreciation for a man I had never wondered about previously.

[oh David!]

funny how one thing can turn you,

and funnier what that one thing wil be.

[a backrub?]

I lingered there in hopes of enticing him to me once more

and I got what I wanted, which made me glad.

solution/cause

queer

the best parts of my day were all fragments, tiny slivers of time that don't mean anything on their own to anyone but me:

drew saying he bet I didn't think he'd call.

kevin's hudsucker proxy quote.

michael calling me sexy.

annie's eyebrows communicating so much.

walter's eyes shrinking.

pretty much everything about dustin, but specifically, dustin's turquoise polo with dark blue sweater vest.

putnam's anonymous yelling of my name; our random encounter.

that I didn't smoke again.

my gracious texts.

the surprise of natalia's words.

val's realization that I was joking.

the return of my "normal."

death to debauchery

I'm not sure how I'm gonna swing it, but I gotta take a huge step back from these innocent nights of drinking that turn into ridiculous marathon drink fests that leave me ruined for the next day. as fun as they are--and they are fun--they are costly, damaging, and altogether too frequent for my tastes.

Thing is, it's not like I've been overdoing it for very long...it's been about five months of serious and consistent drinking, but I do know you could compile all the other times I've gotten drunk before this period and it would hardly be a list worth bothering over. I was never much of a drinker; then I met Eric. He stoked some appreciation for alcohol in me, and truth be told, it wasn't hard for me to say yes. Addictive personality always reigns. Yet, I was in school full time for the duration of our relationship and I made my fair share of passes on life's social outlets. I tried to honor the ever important birthdays and other such would-be offenses had I skipped out, but I felt like I was saying no a lot more than I was saying yes.

There's no reason to pass on a good time other than the getting up early for work reason, so I've been going along with a lot of drinking nights. Sometimes two or three a week. Usually at least six hours a night. Drinking as much as we can. Smoking as much as we can. Trying to forget. Trying to pass the time. The other day Barb told me to enjoy myself and not make myself feel bad about it. Easier said than done. She also managed to point out: that my life is pretty responsibility free right now and this is the perfect time for this kind of stuff. I'm single, childless, largely debtless (except of course, for the student loans), and I have a dumb job I can sleepwalk through.

The cloves signified to me that I've reached some kind of calamitous summit that has breached the idea that this whole venture was ever considered "fun." Whenever the urge to smoke cloves hits me, I know I am in some serious self-infliction pattern and I am reaching my capacity. Usually what happens is I take the hint and pick up the pieces.

I haven't smoked all day today. And my resolve to quit cigarettes seems as strong as it ought to be to try it cold turkey again. The other part will be a lot harder. I love my friends, my new boozy friends, but I just can't go out the night before I have to work in the morning.

I was a mess today. I literally--not exaggerating--could barely function. I could hardly form words. I didn't drink that much, but I only slept about three hours. And when the alarm went off I groaned--that felt like no time at all. I then proceeded to trudge through a six hour shift at the coffeeshop and seven hours with the world's cutest but hyper conversational two year old. And it wasn't til I got home and took a shower that some semblance of normality returned to me.

But the worst thing these last five months is facing the knowing glances and comments from some of the fucking customers at the coffeeshop who mean well but send their judgmental bullshit in my direction. It makes me want to drink more, seeing their tsking-know-it-all stares, because it always seems so futile to fend off other people's opinions.

there's nothing better

than a night of head to toe grooming. I'm not sure if this is a girl thing or what, but I have been looking forward all day to going home, dying my hair, tweezing my eyebrows, trimming my nails, etc, etc. Last night, I took a shower while a little bit drunk because I'd been out at a smoky bar and I really needed a shower before the smoky bar and it was practically euphoric. Every drop of water felt amazing. Every rivulet of water was bliss. I wondered how I could have waited so long to shower and didn't care because part of waiting was what made it feel so damn good.

and, supposedly, I'm due to receive "Breathless" the french version from netflix tonight. !

the lowest of the low

the hardwood floor, the open window, and me: splayed out, cell phone trembling in my hand, fully clothed and bundled in wintry wear, leaning against a stuffed ottoman, dizzy with drink, leaden limbs and weak will force me to lie there, just lay there, propped up, but splayed out,

and in this state for an hour or more, I exchanged text messages with the lover I don't have to love, and in between, I text him, the real love of my life, the man who makes me feel complete even though I know better than that, that I don't need a man to make me feel complete, but time stops and the world glows and I feel content in a way that is beyond me,

but it's what we don't have that I am sharing with the lover I don't have to love. it's what we lack that I need. it's the part that we've already covered and moved past, and like anyone who's in love with being in love, I want that new heady rush of pursuit and attention, I crave it, and like a monster, I was splayed out on the floor of my friend's bedroom, unable to move, but unable to stop receiving and feeding that exchange.

some time passed where I relinquished my control and leaned over and curled into the fetal position on the floor. I awoke with a groan and climbed into my friend's bed, fully clothed, fully winter proofed, my cell phone clutched. my friend had long since gone to sleep, and her face was just under the light she'd turned on and the television flickers cast shadows across her face, and I was glad she'd let me stay there, for I knew the next day was going to be a terrible experience, but it would have been worse if I'd had to trek all the way home and trek all the way back to work.

the morning came and with it, my three alarms to wake up and go to work, and I left her place in a stumble and swayed down the street until I reached the door of the coffeeshop. I worked through the throb of what had been.

and I want to laugh at how I was, splayed out, unable to move, drunk, drunk, drunk,

but really, how do I reconcile my words?

I simply pretend they don't matter anyway.

a timeline:

8:34 a.m. I awake, groggy. lots of drinking the night before at ranalli's. there was a drinking game with the show 24. slept about six and a half hours. the first things I think of make me groan.

9:17 a.m. running to catch the train that is crawling overheard on the tracks. I make the train, but am out of breath. I try to read Madame Bovary, but my head spins and I feel a wave of nausea so strong, I consider getting off the train and standing over a garbage bin for a while. But I am late, and have no time for possibly vomiting on cta property.

9:57 a.m. I become one of those customers at Starbucks that I have always hated: I ask for a piece of marble loaf "that isn't exposed to the air."

10:05 a.m. I arrive at Diane's out of breath, laden with sbux and not really ready to work, but oh well, such is life.

11:59 a.m. I leave Diane's slightly annoyed, late for Siena. We have accomplished a lot, but there is a crick in my neck, a migraine is threatening to surface, and whenever I point out things that Diane's done wrong, she somehow finds a way to blame it on me. such is my lot in life.

12:05 p.m. Kim sighs when I arrive. she seems to finally be getting used to my being late, at least, you'd think so.

105-2:35 p.m. Walter arrives and we debrief about the previous evening's racous events. I make possibly the best sandwich on the planet and eat it into extinction with satisfying noises and praises.

3:34 p.m. A man seems to find the idea of pulling the change game on me a sure thing, but unfortunately for him, even though I am hungover, my ability to work on auto-pilot and my peripheral observational skills are still functioning at optimum capacity, so he leaves after a yelling match with no extra money and calls me a bitch.

3:40 p.m. I count the drawer and it is neither over nor under, which means that guy was a total asshole.

4:42 p.m. Rob comes in and distracts me from my work in the best way possible: stories told and shared brownie and doughnut. I sit in the front and put my feet up on a stool.

6:37 p.m. Kim calls to check in and I am still way behind on the closing tasks, as usual. She's opening tomorrow so everything has to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t.

7: 15 p.m. I am late for meeting Kim. of course. one of our customers has comped us tickets to his neo-classical concert. Even though it is cold, we go. Even though Kim is mad at me for a dozen things I've done wrong lately, we go. Even though the idea of spending two hours with someone whose business I just closed with the utmost anxiety via perfectionism that makes me want to wither and die, we go.

9:23 p.m. the concert was fantastic. Mr. Burns led the group in the bears fighting song as a suprise. the reception in the lobby is decent, we half hug and say our greetings. Kim eats a lot of desserts. I people watch. When I realize what time it is, I panic. I'm supposed to be at school, meeting my new friend dustin, and typing a journal entry for this site. instead I'm nibbling on mushroom and onion quesidillas made by fox & obel and watching my boss eat her third mini puff pastry with powdered sugar on top that floats in the air and lands on her five hundred dollar cashmere sweater, looking like lint or worse yet, dandruff.

9:48 p.m. I meet dustin in the depaul center. He is accompanied by a classmate whose presence irks me somewhat, but not enough to make me ignore him. he's not coming with us, which is good.

10:22 p.m. dustin and I stop off at dunkin' donuts at clark and division for a "pick-me-up" in the form of a donut called "glazed stick." I love words and descriptions of things. we are instant friends and we dissolve together.

11:04 p.m. we enter our destination: neo. dustin wants to get to know the place, and I seem to know about it, since it's down the street from siena.

11:05p.m. -1:36 a.m. after a couple drinks, dustin's ready for the dance floor. it takes one more and some encouragement from a weirdo named elvis for me to join him. I actually dance and don't care how I must look to people. but I cannot stop people watching. of course.

1:37 a.m. after elvis leaves our table and goes back out to the dance floor, we make a hasty exit, but not before writing him a note on a napkin, "it was nice to meet you. thanks for the stories. d + c." not sure if dustin finds this odd or cool, but he assesses this and then we depart.

1:46 a.m. dustin and I are walking to the train and he is letting me lavish him with words and laughing heartily at my wisdom and humor. it is fun to talk to him.

2:07 a.m. the dominick's is closed. the train beckons. we stand on the platform and talk about whether or not life is purely destiny or free will or some combination of the two. my brain, which is buzzed and still operating as high speed peripheral observatory realizes that the only other person standing two feet away from us on the platform was just dancing at neo with us. weird.

2:23 a.m. dustin has disembarked at belmont. after he leaves, the man who was also at neo comes over and begins to strike up an awkward conversation with me in which he introduces himself and then asks what sort of music gets played at neo on wednesday. I don't know the answer.

2:37 a.m. a man sitting on the train car stands to exit at granville. my telescope turns to view this movement and he nods at me and then gestures towards the doors of the train as if to say, join me. I smile and turn my head to the window. I am a little freaked. what the fuck?!

2:40 a.m. I get off the train and wave goodbye to edward, the fellow neo dancer. he waves back.

2:40:09 a.m. dustin texts me, "hit that shit."

2:40:14 a.m. I literally, actually: lol.

2:45 a.m. I enter my apartment to find it slightly rearranged: a carbon monoxide detector was installed in my apartment today. someone came into my apartment to plug a carbon monoxide detector into an outlet on the wall.

3:13 a.m. I want to collapse into sleep, but my promise to write lures me to my laptop. I begin typing this here entry.

4:01 a.m. I am turning off the light. good night.

when I can't bear being myself

[walter doesn’t trust me. no surprise. I can see below the surface, despite the muck, and it is cold and dark. paranoia is an apt term for me, and yet, largely, it has slowly seeped out of my system, to be replaced by some sort of self assurance. people are weird. and most people suck. I finally figured out that--for the most part--their oddness has little to do with me. and I can read most people like a book. especially now. especially when there’s no me involved, when we’ve just met, when our connections have nothing to do with me. I used to wonder why everyone looked at me so much until someone simply answered that maybe it was because I was looking at them so much.]

they eye me but do not greet me. they sit next to me but say nothing. I try laughing at all of their jokes, but it doesn't even work. their dislike of me emanates from them. I wonder if it is him they do not like, because it seems like they tolerate him, and perhaps I am just not around enough, not regular enough to be trusted. And like the curious eyes that meet mine, I stare at them without a word of greeting, waiting for them to acknowledge me, wondering if they even remember me, for it is a given that I know them, I know them intimately and we have never even had a conversation, I know their last names, I know their livelihoods, I know the stories about them. So I sit and stare at their cold eyes, wondering why they do not say hello, wondering if it is because I do not say hello.

I see the fibers tangled in the relationships far beyond what walter sees. I see every movement, hear every word, I am constantly filtering the information, even when I don’t want to be constantly observing, even when I wish I could turn it off, make it stop, I still see her finger trace the tattoo on his arm, and a hush falls over the bar while time stands still for that finger and the tattoo, just out of sight of his girlfriend, who sits stoically on his other side, for she has won him but it is tenuous and she knows it, and she feels that finger and knows its presence intimately and wonders how she ever let it become such an issue, but it’s too late to pretend that it doesn’t matter and now they live together (the finger and the tattoo), and she lives alone, wondering if she’s really won.

I want to believe walter that it is just my paranoia, I want to believe him, drew, that I cause my world, but I know the truth, I see the stories, they fit like blocks in my mind, so perfectly that I cannot listen to anything but what I know is true. schaffer hates me. I ridiculed his sleeping habits once and he has never forgiven me for it. I apologized and he waved it off. I have been branded as un-fun. haughty. un-cool. schaffer has heard about other things from billy, perhaps, things that make me seem weird. and now I am there, in their space, with their friend. it is too much. schaffer looks at me and says, oh, walter! and then, to cover his tracks, he says, the patriots are gonna lose (or something equally lame). this does not match his look. I’ve seen that look before. I’ll see it again.

[the diminishing paranoia whispers that I ought to learn how to read lips. for then I would really have the proof. and just in case, when I speak of them I cover my mouth with my glass of beer. just in case.]

the other things I see are well below the surface: erin posseses billy. billy loves megan. megan loves billy. tracy loves billy. billy is bound to erin. erin doesn’t know who I am but I’m one girl too many at the bar. I’m a girl she doesn’t know. so she saunters over to figure me out. walter and I tell her that megan keeps calling me laura. at the first lull, erin tells megan. megan is embarassed. erin has found a crack in the veneer of the beautiful girl that billy is in love with. erin doesn’t know it, but I will hate her forever for doing that. I will always love megan more because she is beautiful and kind and erin is fat, and ugly and mean.

every other time I go there, I have a good time because this mix of unhappy souls is absent. when they are present, I wish to never return until I am coaxed back by walter, who swears that they are simply not what I believe they are. he doesn’t trust my instincts for stories and I don’t believe him.

somehow this settles me

a text, one that I knew would come, even hours before I said, you know, it's just been too quiet on his end, and I've been quiet on my end, so I just have a feeling something's going to happen over there, with him [unnecessary accessory guy].

and wouldn't you know it, there he was. not on his knees, but not in top form. And lucky for him, I was watching the Bears game and drinking my liver dry, and I hadn't had dinner and my head was a sea of beer, and I texted and called him and told him my true feelings (which I didn't even know I had; amazing how booze causes a reaction similar to truth serum in me).

the result of which he admitted (after some questioning from me) that he thinks about our time together.

for some reason, this makes me happy, if there was anyone in the world it would be hard to entertain and keep the boredom at bay with, it was him,

and somehow that he's bored enough with the rest of his life and feels the need to make contact with me again (despite my efforts to remain passive and uninterested and writing him a eulogy in the flog blog!) makes me feel glad.

and yet, the truth is, I know he simply wants to poke and provoke me and get a rise out of me. I have no thoughts of any other motive, and wouldn't believe him if he tried to object to that assessment.

so the good news is I get to know him, without having to be in a real, intimate relationship with him, which would be as damaging to me as eating glass for breakfast.

and I get to use all the metaphors and similes and write the way I like.