part fiction, part real.

PART ONE: Sweet Kentucky Ham

Rosemary Clooney covered a song written by David Frishberg on her album "Girl Singer" called "Sweet Kentucky Ham."

Personally, I hate ham. I can tolerate the real stuff i suppose, but just the same, gimme some roast beef. Pastrami even. Still, the first time I heard this song, it really touched me. While the message was simple enough, it was articulated so well that i could really feel her on the song: certainly i have felt that kind of longing for something, and yes, some-ONE, not in my reach.

please take a moment to download it and listen before going back to the rest of this blog...

PART TWO: Cooler Than the Other Side of the Pillow

i grew up looking up to my older sister, Dolores. she was two years older than me, and i would follow her around everywhere, even when she would try to shoo me away so she could hang out with her cool friends. even when we fought and did shady shit to each other i still thought she was the cooler than the other side of the pillow. even as we grew apart i still admired and respected her.

well, 90% of the time i did. there was one thing that i wholeheartedly disagreed with and wanted so badly to distance myself from, tho, that she did, and it pertained to her romantic life. when it came to her boyfriend/s, Dolores was a real bitch. at least, from where i was standing she was. i would hear her on the phone, not knowing the whole story maybe, but enough to know that she was chewing out the person on the other end, pointing out all the things that they were doing wrong in the relationship.

and the ghost of a memory would come back. echoes of my mom's shrill alto berating my father (who i have finally come to realize deserved it, but that's another story) for his shortcomings. so maybe it does go further back, but nothing hits home like repetition.

i dreaded ever being like that. i still do. and it was hard not to see growing up. i was the only boy in the household most of the time. i lived in a studio apartment with my mom and two sisters. there was very little privacy. sometimes not even the bathroom was private. and so i resolved at a young age never to be that way with the one i'm with. i didn't want to complain, bitch, or berate. i knew i didn't like it when other people tried to change me, so i was loathe to do it to anybody else.

so where does that leave me when I'M unhappy with the one i'm with? especially when i am still disgustingly in love with him? and yes, for all the right reasons. i even love the things that frustrate me about him.

PART THREE: Strike Three..?

sunday night, we lay in bed together, after having sex. you ain't came. again. and i felt guilty. like, maybe i wasn't doing the right things to please you, or maybe not doing it enough. i thought maybe i could get inside your head about what you think about during sex, speculating on what aspects of it came into play for you leading up to.... just before... and during... that moment when you would achieve orgasm. i wanted to know because i wanted to figure out if there was anything i could do to help facilitate it... in short: please you. still i was frontin', tryin' to play it cool and maybe a little too casually asked you what it was about sex that got you off... if it was the intimacy, the closeness, being with somebody that you have feelings for... or was it the power? the interplay and dynamic between two physical beings--

"it's just SEX!"

you cut me off...

"it ain't about power or intimacy. i ain't about no head games," you said. "I enjoy the sensation... it's JUST SEX!" you repeated emphatically, then brusquely got up to shower.

emphatically. brusquely.

the SENSATION? the FEELING of it? JUST the sex? anybody with any cognitive ability would have come to the same conclusion: if it was JUST sex, then it could have been with just ANY body. i may as well have not been in the room. i was stunned. i couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. it really hurt. but i lied about it because i didn't want confirmation. i still wanted to believe that it meant something. that it still did.

mutely i lay in the dark, staring at some fixed point just outside the window, trying to breathe quietly, calmly, doin' everything to suppress the shuddering sighs that herald tears slowly welling up, over and down... i front like i'm just droolin on the pillow, as usual. *shakes head*

i should have gone home the next morning, but Miscommunication reared her ugly head again, and just because i wanted to , i let myself become a latchkey kid for the day, so i could spend one more night with you. all the while conflicted. angsting all day monday till we met up. i was trying to distance myself. trying not to care so much. i couldn't make eye contact, coz i knew i'd give it all away. i wished i was colder. wished i didn't care. i had all this time on my hands while you were at work, still stinging from last nights dismissal coupled with all the other things you said before, but in the same vein. that it wasn't anything, but at the same time that it was. but how can it be both? how do you manage to be so affectionate and inconsiderate at the same time? how can you hold my hand in public, but callously call whatever it is that we have "a situation" should friends inquire?

i couldn't tell you if it was my heart that was hurting, because it felt lower... in my gut, but off to the side... occasionally spreading to the nerve endings in alternating waves of tingly discomfort and emptiness... i just wanted to numb it a little bit... so i swung by the liquor store on the way to meeting you... i don't remember what happened after you started watching the Heroes episodes upstairs. courtesy of my signature Blackouts. but if my state of mind up to that point was any indication, not to mention your behavior the next day, it couldn't have been any good.

it would be a conceit to say that i would do anything for you, because surely taking a bullet for you, walking through fire, working 3 jobs to get you that hypothetical-maybe-metaphorical "ring," all those things are so much easier than just BEING A BETTER PERSON.

changing my way of thinking so that maybe i stop taking the YARD after the INCH.

thinking that maybe all my stupid human tricks will charm you into becoming more for me than you are willing to be.

why can't i take you for YOU? but no, i do, i really do. it's why i'd rather beat MYSELF up. short-change myself and saying that i'm the one that's not good enough. better than thinking that YOU aren't good enough for me, because then there'd be nothing i could do about it to make it better. it would mean acknowledging that i can't control something, and leave it in your hands to fix if you want to. i dread that you don't want to.

i can't decide if i would be stronger for leaving or staying.

EPILOGUE:

Dolores is married now, with a daughter i adore, with and by the same man she bullied and badgered all those years ago. and he seems happy too.

so maybe i SHOULD be more demanding..?