And One Year Later

August 8, 2010, is a day of celebration, and possible introspection, for me. On the one hand, it is my one-year wedding anniversary. On the other, it will mark one year since I have spoken to my father.

There was no fight, no big blow up between us. In fact, I’m not entirely sure why we’re not speaking. I believe we’re in the middle of some bizarre Mexican stand off, neither one of us willing to blink or show weakness. My silence comes from patience, and an ability to shut down emotionally and wait a situation out to its finish. I will not attempt to second-guess my father’s intentions or distance; speculation usually leads to incorrect assessments, and I hope to avoid that. I will simply stick to what I was witness to or told first-hand. Beyond that, all is left to the imagination.

Before I begin, I should point out two important parts to my father’s character: he is both generous, and pragmatic. For the wedding, his checkbook opened immediately, and his endowment was the largest Lydia and I received. That’s saying a lot, as every parent went above and beyond the call of charitable for our wedding expenses. Another example if his giving nature is: a few winters ago, he called out of the blue and told me to go pick out a snow thrower, his treat. Lydia and I had just purchased our first house, and with me being on the road all the time, he didn’t want her stuck shoveling a snowed-in driveway alone. Price was no matter; he wanted us to pick something big and powerful. Regarding my father’s no-nonsense side, I remember the first time I got drunk. The next day I was hung-over beyond decent description; my head was throbbing, my body ached, and my tongue weighed more than an Olson twin. My mother marched me downstairs to face a father’s wrath, expecting him to tear into me for my behavior. Instead, he took one look at me and asked, “So, how do you feel right now?” I’m not sure what answer I was able to muster up, but my dad nodded, said, “Well, that’s what drinking does to you,” and let it go. I didn’t drink again for years.

Those positives on the record, my wedding day unfolded as follows... actually, to be accurate, I should start before the wedding, to give a little back-story. Lydia was a trooper when it came to planning; she took the lion’s share of all responsibilities, and where possible, went homemade over mass-produced in order to save money. Lydia created the wedding-day program, which was the first inkling there could be friction ahead. When trying to decide who to list on the cover—typically the parents—Lydia asked me if I wanted just my biologicals listed, or my parents and their new spouses/girlfriends. Hoping to keep closed that can of worms, I responded, “Just my parents. Keep it simple.” Lydia thought it would hurt my fake dad, Joe, to be left out. Instead of listening to my advice, she called my mother for input. Joe wasn’t home, but my mom agreed: not listing Joe would make him a sad panda.

“Bullshit,” I countered. “Joe is a man, men don’t give a shit about that sort of thing.”

Lydia was un-swayed, and now in a tough position. If we honor Joe, did we list Alice, my dad’s girlfriend? Is there a fine line between listing a spouse vs. a partner, just because one wears a ring? She thought it best to call my dad and ask for his wishes; would he like to see Alice included on the program? My dad appreciated the call, and got bizarrely cryptic.

“If certain people,” he emphasized, meaning his ex-wife and my mother, “are uncomfortable seeing Alice’s name there, you can leave it off. I appreciate the call, because it means a lot to me you’re looking into such things, but I also understand if you have to cater to the emotions of certain people.”

My father’s ability to accentuate the absurd is an interesting one. In his mind, his ex-wife, a woman who rarely spoke of him unless pressed, was somehow going to be offended that: fifteen years after the divorce she had asked for and ten years after her remarriage, seeing my father’s girlfriend’s name on my wedding program would be offensive.

Naturally, my mother hadn’t given any thought to Alice, my dad, or anything else on the program; such worries were all my father’s invention.

Naturally, within moments of that frustrating conversation, my mother called with an update: Joe had gotten home, voiced his opinion, and he didn’t care one way or another if he was listed. Just as I predicted, he had a penis, and therefore shrugged away nonsense.

In Lydia’s mind a quandary now existed, a self-invented mess. The program looked cluttered with the multitude of names on it, but after all the phone calls, she felt obligated to include them all. Ever the caring fiancée, I washed my hands of it and walked away shrugging. Up front I had said to keep it simple, but such advice was unheeded. Neener.

Either way, that laid the foundation of my father’s mindset. He seemed preoccupied with his ex, where she had moved on.
The day before the wedding, my dad told me he was opting out of that evening’s rehearsal ceremony. I was fine with it; the full scope of his duties involved walking down the aisle and sitting in the front row with family, then walking directly to the reception line after all vows had been exchanged. Pretty simple stuff. He met up with everyone at the rehearsal dinner, and from everything I saw all was well there, but then again I was drunk and apparently missed his insulting the Matron of Honor for not being politically aware of her own state’s legislators.

The next phase of alienation took place directly before the wedding. Lydia and I wanted our guests to have as much fun as possible, so we planned a back-to-back wedding/reception; there would be no fucking around for several hours in between the events, where people had to kill time in a small, unknown to them, town. This meant we had to take all our pictures beforehand, and, like the rehearsal, this was something my father was uninterested in. He said he didn’t want to be a part of those proceedings, and would go straight to the ceremony. I’m sure had I pressed him, he would have begrudgingly participated, but if he didn’t want to be in the pictures, I wasn’t going to make an issue of it. Pictures were important to Lydia, not me. Thus, if you look through my wedding album, you will find one picture of my father. It is not a photo of him standing next to or with arms around his son and/or new daughter-in-law, nor is it a posed capture. In the photo, my father is in the background of a candid group-shot; his jaw is square, his eyes are stern. He is watching a slideshow of my childhood play across a screen, and he is apparently unhappy.

All our pictures taken, as the ceremony grew near and everyone made way to their seats, Dad decided against sitting in the front row with the families. When I walked down to take my position at the altar, I saw him sitting half way back, several rows deep among the guests, not up front as one or both ushers had requested he do. Lydia and I didn’t have preordained sides, bride and groom; people were free to sit where they wished. Because of this, Lydia’s therapist happened to end up directly behind my father. At their next session, she mentioned it to Lydia.

“When the couple sat down in front of me, the man said to his girlfriend, ‘I know they want me to sit up front, but I’m not going to play that game.’ I was shocked later when I found out it was Nathan’s dad!”

My father’s comment is important, given an altercation later in the evening.

As the ceremony progressed, there was a point where our minister (powered by the state of Iowa and the Internet, but not Jebus
or any other religious icon) began an introduction to the rose ceremony. Unlike those seen on The Bachelor, our moment was designed to honor our families; we were going to present a rose to those who raised us. Sadly, as the minister waxed philosophic on the meaning of the flower, Lydia looked at me in wide-eyed fear and whispered, “Ohmygod... we left the roses up in the refrigerator!” I did not find this to be that big a deal, and when the words, “And now, Nathan and Lydia will hand out the roses” were spoken, I turned to everyone gathered and shouted, “We forgot ‘em!”

Many people started giggling, until a voice rose above the din; “Maybe you’ll get it right at your next wedding!” My father let his wit get in front of his senses and shouted it over the titters.

I feel I should explain something here. While many people gasped in horror, I rolled my eyes. My father comes to all my comedy shows, and quite often heckles me. I bust his chops, and the audience gets off on our back and forth harassment of one another. So when he volleyed at the wedding, I returned, “Maybe I learned from your fuckups and won’t get divorced!” Everyone laughed again, but most people still seemed a bit uneasy.

The ceremony ended; the wedding party walked down the aisle and up to the reception hall to participate in the receiving line. Everyone save for my father, that is. He never discussed opting out of the receiving line, but at this point it was to be expected. In such a situation you can either make the decision to be angry, or let it go and enjoy your day. Lydia and I let it go. Too many generous friends and family members had made the trek to Iowa for us to be bothered by little things. I was meeting new people, and more importantly, saying hi to friends I didn’t and don’t get to see often enough.

Moving inside for the dinner, all was well. Dad found a table to sit at away from my mother, and I didn’t hear much about him until much later in the evening when the socializing began. At one point, the photographer said she was ready to leave, so Lydia and I made one last-ditch effort to corner my father for a picture, but he ran away in search of leftover pizza for our security guard. I told the photographer not to worry about it and to take off.

As the night wore on, I started hearing little stories about my dad, coming first from an aunt on my mother’s side.
“Your father just said ‘hi’ to me,” she began, laughingly. “He said, ‘Well, I know you’ve been ignoring me since the divorce, so I thought I’d be the bigger person and come over here and say hello.’ I said ‘hi’ back, but in my head couldn’t stop laughing, thinking, ‘Well of course I’ve been ignoring you! You’re not married to my sister anymore, I don’t have to talk to you!’”
I laughed, knowing full well my aunt could take care of herself.

Unfortunately, my dad didn’t limit this approach to those he knew. Lydia’s father, John, got the same speech. John was standing around, enjoying the evening, watching his daughter smile and enjoy what is labeled one of the most important days of a woman’s life, when a stranger walked up to him.

“Hello,” the man started. “I know you’ve been ignoring me, so I wanted to be the bigger person and come over and introduce myself: I’m Nathan’s father.”

John didn’t know what to say, stammered out an introduction, and like a ghost, my father was gone, leaving John stunned by the interaction.

My friend Keith, a professional videographer and editor who was putting together a tape as our wedding present, then pulled me aside.

“What’s up with your dad?” he asked, somewhat irritated.

I laughed, “You have to be more specific. So far today, he’s just been acting normal for him.”

Turns out Keith had been going around and asking people to tape little confessionals for Lydia and I. People were allowed to speak from either their heart, or funny bone, whichever they chose; touching, lighthearted, anything to express how they felt about the day. When approached, my dad met Keith’s query with a terse response and quick departure. I told him not to worry about it, and my uncle Tod stepped in as the father figure wishing the new couple well.

Dad wasn’t entirely negative, though. Towards the end of the night, he showed his amazing ability to sacrifice for the team. He asked if the rental company was going to collect the two hundred chairs from the wedding, or if they needed to be stacked and organized. Sadly, they needed to be stacked and organized, so without hesitation my dad went off to take care of it. I couldn’t allow that to happen alone, so I went with, and my sister’s boyfriend (now fiancée) joined us. In a miserable August heat, the hottest day of the summer, we pulled and stacked chairs until entirely drenched in sweat, as if we had just jumped into water
with our clothes on.

As we began piling up chairs, Dad explained that his comment during the wedding was supposed to be a joke, and that he meant we’d get it right when Lydia and I renewed our vows as a happily married couple. I told him the quip didn’t bother me, and it didn’t for two reasons: (1) it had only made him look bad, and (2) I was used to our exchanges. Unfortunately, after that initial salvo the conversation turned to lecture, and he used the time not to talk of the wedding or any positive aspect of it, but instead used the alone time to inform me of the many different ways my mother was being controlling. He described how she was exuding her power over Lydia, meddling in the wedding just like the Scooby Gang would at the scene of a murder. Considering I knew for a fact Lydia had planned the wedding almost entirely on her own, and actually stood her ground against my mother when my mother heard some of the ideas I was offering—pizza for the meal, saying “fuck” in my welcoming toast—I knew what my father was saying to be entirely untrue.

Yet he persisted.

In his mind, my mother was in control of the invitations, she was allocating money for things that were supposed to be outside her realm of control, like the rehearsal dinner, and many other accusations long gone from my memory. What could have been a nice moment became just another time to hear my dad rail against his ex. Being used to such speeches, I shrugged and stacked the chairs. Just another day with dad was all.

Our reception took place in a large central room, with a kitchen with a wide-open front in the back. When the dancing began, all the lights in the hall went down. This left the kitchen a bright eyesore, as the lights remained on there so the caterers could clean up. At some point several hours into our celebration, I looked up to see my father and fake dad, Joe, in said kitchen. Joe looked alternately exasperated, bored, frustrated, or a combination of all three. My father was rigid; his body posture suggested anger, and he had one arm out with a finger pointed at Joe, as if lecturing.

I rolled my eyes. At my sister’s wedding, I was present when my dad cornered my mom and demanded an apology from her for their marriage and divorce. It was a silly moment, and to my eyes looked like it was being repeated, only now with the “new” man in her life. Something had to be done, and I knew exactly what.

My whole life, I’ve searched out original, interesting people to befriend. Somewhere along my journey, a pudgy fella named Baxter and I bonded. Describing Baxter is difficult, so I'll do my best with one example: Baxter once stunned a physician by being the only person to answer honestly one question during the doctor’s fifteen year career. When asked on the intake form, “Have you ever been with a prostitute,” the doctor checked “no” as Baxter was answering “yes.” The doctor paused.

“Excuse me?” He asked.

“Yes, I’ve been with a prostitute,” Baxter shrugged.

The doctor was dumbfounded. He had to change the intake sheet, having already marred it by incorrectly pre-guessing the patient’s answer.

“Doc,” Baxter continued, “I have more tattoos on my body than women in my past.”

Baxter was an usher at my wedding, and as long as I’ve known him he has never worn pants. Even in the coldest Wisconsin January, Baxter would wear shorts. He even turned down a job offer once, as the position would require him to wear slacks. So when it came time to dress formal for the special occasion, he asked, “Can I wear a kilt?” I didn’t care, and said “sure.”

“It’s a dress kilt,” Baxter assured me.

Under that kilt, on that very day, Baxter declined to wear underwear. As any a man can tell you, a little oxygen up and under the taint feels good in summer, and that’s the path Bax wanted to walk. But he also wanted to go one step further. To make matters interesting, Baxter bought food dye, and before the blessed event took a sponge and gently dyed his penis and ball sac a dark green. This, he explained, would allow him to lift his kilt and say “HULK SMASH” when he was sufficiently drunk.
So, as my dad lectured Joe in the only illuminated area in the whole building, making the event not private but in fact the exact opposite, I decided action had to be taken. The word went out: Find Baxter.

Once he was located, my sister’s boyfriend, a man carrying a very expensive camera, was rustled up and given instructions.

The situation was explained to Bax, who then shook his head at the stupidity of anyone creating drama at a wedding, and set off
to put an end to it.

Baxter walked over to the kitchen, and when the two men didn’t halt their discussion, he shouted, “Hey guys!”
Heads turned, the kilt went up, and a picture was snapped.

Joe started laughing immediately, because how anyone can remain tense when a fat, kilted man is showing you his green penis is beyond me, but somehow my father managed to maintain his composure. Dad gave Baxter a quick “thumbs-up,” then turned right back to Joe and continued his speech.

Baxter waddled off, his best efforts defeated.

After it all ended, I asked Joe what had happened, and in good spirits he shook his head and said he was being lectured on “inappropriate behavior.” This included sitting among the family (Joe wasn’t my father, and shouldn’t have been in the front row), donating money to the cause (same reason), giving a toast at my sister’s wedding (same reason—he’s not her father), and other such silly things. Joe said he mostly let my dad vent, but did take one moment to turn things around. Joe asked my dad how he thought it made Lydia and I feel when they looked up at the ceremony, and he wasn’t sitting with the rest of the family. My dad’s response was, “No one told me I was supposed to sit there.” Sadly, given both ushers told me they tried to steer my dad to the front, combined with the comment Lydia’s therapist had overheard, this was a lie.

Fortunately, Joe has an easy-going attitude and didn’t let the moment ruin his day. Unfortunately, my sister is not always so casual and was tired of our father’s behavior. I was not witness to what happened, but a little while later Dad told me, “Well, your sister just said she hates me, you hate me, everyone hates me, and that she never wants to speak to me again.”

I laughed and shrugged. It was my wedding day, and I was having too good a time to get involved. In fact, of everything I’ve listed so far, not a single event bothered me. I’ve known my dad my whole life, and knew what to anticipate going in. Or so I thought.

One of my groomsmen, Barrett, found me for some alone time while others were dancing. He and my dad are friendly with one another, and Barrett said they had just shared a moment. My dad expressed a bit of sorrow to Barrett, information he was passing on to me to do with what I pleased. The slideshow of my childhood had wounded Dad. He told Barrett that he had many photos of me, and it would have been nice to have been asked to contribute.

I nodded my head, a bit upset with myself. Given his belief my mother was in control of the wedding, including him would have been the appropriate thing to do. I thanked Barrett, and continued celebrating.

The evening eventually ended. We had to be out of the rental space by midnight, so at 11:45 the lights went up and a few close friends and family set about straightening up, that we might avoid a huge cleaning fee. I cannot remember if my dad was there or not; no matter how hard I search my mind I cannot recall when he left, or if goodbyes were made.

Baxter, now nicely drunk, stood on a table and incoherently slurred his “Hulk Smash,” lifting the kilt and disgusting any women left present. A bar was chosen, and a precious few friends and family made their way over to it to finish out the night.
At bar time, Lydia and I waved farewell to our friends and hopped in my car to away to our hotel. As we drove, I told Lydia about my conversation with Barrett, and how even though my dad had acted pretty much as I figured he would, we still should have included him in the picture choosing process.

Lydia grew immediately livid.

“Goddammit!” she yelled. “I emailed him several times asking for pictures, I emailed Alice, and even talked to him once about it! When I asked him, he said we could talk about it later, and then he never responded to any of my emails or messages!”
I wasn’t angry like Lydia was, but I was disappointed in myself. It had been years since I let my dad get to or trick me, yet he had been able to do so that night.

Fortunately, a few minutes later, when we arrived at the hotel, we discovered a wonderful surprise. Lydia and I had Pricelined our room, and had paid $60 for a normally $150 a night stay. At the desk, we were given our key, then took the elevator up to discover we were staying in The Presidential Suite. A tenant at our rental property worked at the hotel, and when she saw our name on the register switched us to the un-reserved room. We entered to find wine, candy, roses, and hearts. It was a damn fine finish to a goddamn decent day.

And it really was a great day. I know it’s a horrible cliché to say so, but it was one of the best days of my life, easily. Having so many friends come out to visit with me was amazing. Old friends, current friends, Internet folk, and people I’ve met doing comedy; it was profoundly touching and great fun. I’ve had people tell me they felt they should have paid admission to attend, and I credit their fun to Lydia. Though a wedding is supposed to be about the bride, she turned that concept on its head and tried to make it about the guests. From having a short ceremony, to throwing the reception immediately following our vows and whatever else you can think of, she buckled down and pretty much planned it all. I could not have asked for a better, more beautiful bride, nor could I have asked for a better partner in the year since.

It’s odd how one day can be a juxtaposition of celebration and stupidity, how two diametrically opposed paths can be created from one event: towards one person, away from another. I didn’t end that day with the thought in my head to stop talking to my father, and we have exchanged a couple emails since then. It’s been maybe five at the most, all small talk with nothing relevant ever being written. He sent me a birthday card; Lydia and I invited he and Alice to our house for Christmas and didn’t hear back, so we sent gifts before the end of December. I think that’s when I finally noticed the fade, when our invitation was put on the back burner and no response to our gifts was given. I realized we hadn’t actually spoken, and somewhere in my mind I thought, “Well, let’s see how far this goes.”

And so it goes.




.

Q & A

I was recently emailed a question: “Do you feel your trips to Iraq and Afghanistan have changed you?”

Here is how I responded:

Regarding your question, wow, it's a tough one. The short answer is yes I do feel changed, the long answer... well, that I will do my best to make coherent, because right now the answer feels like an exploded jigsaw puzzle in my mind.

I think the most profound manner in which I feel different is that I am more calm. While in Afghanistan, I was unlucky enough to attend a ramp ceremony; a soldier was killed while on patrol, and I was allowed to watch his flag-draped casket being loaded onto a plane back to the states. I was witness to a comrade of his, a friend, board the plane next to the casket, and I knew that he was going to stay with the body all the way to its final destination, where he would fold and present the flag to the fallen soldier's family, be it his parents, wife, or the like. Returning to America after that, it's almost difficult to comprehend yelling at a waiter, or being angry by a long checkout line in a supermarket. Sadly, I see it happen almost every day, and I live in the relatively tranquil outpost of Iowa; I remember all too well what it was like when I lived in Los Angeles, and tension was as abundant as sunshine.

While I do feel changed, I do not wear my experiences like a cloak. What I mean by that statement is, I cannot ever bring myself to remind anyone acting inappropriately, "You are aware that as you yell at that driver and give them the finger, a soldier is far from home, his life on the line, right?" I'm not sure it's my place to, and would almost be more condescending than enlightening. I have been blessed by my experiences, and those are mine alone. I do not feel I can force them upon anyone, and trying to instill empathy into another human being is quite difficult unless deftly handled.

I also feel that by having been overseas, I am walking down a path best described by the axiom, "The more you learn, the less you know." I do not act like an expert on Iraq, Afghanistan, either war, or the military in general just because I have been lucky enough to spend time with them. Though the military is an institution, it is comprised of many unique individuals, and they have an immense variance of opinions, beliefs, and ideals. In 2004, I was stunned by the amount of anti-Bush vitriol exiting the mouths of soldiers. At home, I was being told "the military" supported President Bush, and thought Kerry a sissy they would never vote for. The reality of the situation was many soldiers were unhappy with their commander in chief, and had no intention whatsoever of voting for him. What I had been told as absolute truth was turning out to be anything but, and it made me more cautious whenever hearing a blanket statement.

(And hopefully, it also made me less willing to make a blanket statement, too)

To prevent myself from writing a book, I'll stop now. I could probably go on and on, but hopefully this helps answer your question.

If not, feel free to ask more questions, or for me to clarify or expand on anything I've said.

One last note: One day after attending the ramp ceremony mentioned above, I flew to the outpost he had been stationed at. I was scheduled to perform a 10:00 a.m. show, and arrived to find the soldiers had just returned from an overnight, twelve-hour patrol. They were exhausted, and headed to breakfast and bed, in that order. The base commander, however, issued a casual order, saying they really should assemble in the community room (a very tiny living room in a mud hut known as "base headquarters") and participate in the comedy show. I was beyond nervous, knowing I was going to face twenty exhausted eighteen-year old kids who were currently dealing with the loss off a friend, but damn if they didn't make the best audience I've ever performed for. Though they entered with dark circles under their near-shut eyes, after I greeted them and started telling a few jokes, their mouths started so crack smiles, and soon enough a sound known as laughter was emanating throughout the room.

That's something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I Have Too Much Time on My Hands

So, a few weeks ago, I wrote this blog:

Please Protect Me...

It's about censorship, fear, and my deciding to post my silly and stupid writings on newspapers that allow readers to do so.

I decided to check in on the newspaper that put my site "under review."

Here's what happened next...

(oh, and to explain: i wrote in to one general "help" email address; different people responded to me, but the chain was never broken. anyone there could have read the entire string and been caught up to speed, had they wanted to be)


Hi, My blog/profile has been "under review" for well over a month, and possibly even two months at this point.

Just wondering how long the process takes to review my profile, and, well, what exactly that means.

Thanks much,

Nathan



Dear Mr. Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

We apologize for any inconvenience or misunderstanding. We appreciate your business and would like to help any way we can.

However, we need additional information before we can process your request. If you would be so kind as to reply with your house number, street address and telephone number, it would be much appreciated. It is our goal to make sure we are meeting the needs of our subscribers.


Once I receive your account information, I can better determine what course of action we need to take.

We value your readership and will remain available to address all of your concerns and questions.

Sincerely,
Dawn
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle




Hey Dawn, Not sure why you're asking for the information you asked for given my request...

I have a blog/profile at the Democrat & Chronicle.

My log in is xxxxxxxxx

My password is xxxxxxxx

About six weeks ago, it went "under review by our editors," meaning if I posted a blog, no one could read it.

So... Just wondering how long this process is going to take.

Thanks!

:)

nathan




Dear Mr. Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

We apologize for any inconvenience or misunderstanding. I have tried entering your information and was able to access your profile. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to reply back to this e-mail.

We value your readership and will remain available to address all of your concerns and questions.

Sincerely,
Kristie
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle




Hi Kristie, Thanks much for the feedback.

I can access my profile, too.

The problem is, it's "under review," meaning I can access it and tool around, but it is NOT a public profile.

So, still wondering how long it will be "under review."

Thanks!

nathan




Dear Mr. Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

I apologize for the difficulty you experienced with our website. I have forward your concern to the appropriate department for review/correction.
Please allow us to take care of this matter promptly. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused you.

Sincerely,

Tresa
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle



(Another email arrives 10 minutes later)



Dear Mr. Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

I apologize for the inconvenience. It has been reported that your profile has been blocked for inappropriate material. If I can be of further assistance please respond to this email. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused you.

Sincerely,

Tresa
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle



Hey Tresa,
Thanks for the heads up.

Not really sure what you mean by "inappropriate material," as I never posted anything inappropriate.

Sure would be nice to have someone shoot me an email explaining where the censorship is coming from, why I'm being censored, and so on.

Simply blocking someone due to a random judgment call seems rather harsh, and, since the word is being tossed around, "inappropriate."

Since my site is listed as "under review," one would hope the editors would have contacted me with their concerns instead of simply blocking all access to the public, who the editors apparently don't feel are qualified to make their own decisions about what is and is not "inappropriate."

Could use some help here, thanks!

Nathan




Dear Nathan Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

We apologize for any inconvenience or misunderstanding. I have escalated this matter to the appropriate department for review. Once I receive the updated information regarding the restricted access of your account, I will be able to update you via e-mail. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we are researching this matter for a resolution.
We value your readership and will remain available to address all of your concerns and questions.

Sincerely,
Brandon
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle



(10 minutes later, another email arrives)


Dear Nathan Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

Here is the information that you requested regarding why your access has been restricted.

The Managing Editor/Content and Digital Platforms asked that he be blocked after this post:

The Democrat & Chronicle is run by ignorant children.

The site is visited by people of all ages, with links to recent blog posts automatically highlighted on various pages.


Please note that by registering on the site, users accept our Terms of Service. The following sections are pertinent to the blocking of content on the site:

Insert legal mumbo jumbo here, the same as on every site: "We're in charge, we do what we want. If we don't like you, we're going to delete you without warning. You're a stupid jerk for thinking you could ever be good enough for our website." And so on.

We value your readership and will remain available to address all of your concerns and questions.

Sincerely,
Brandon
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle





LoL, WOW.

Thanks Brandon!

I had no clue I was dealing with a tightly-wound hyper-Christian with no sense of decency, morals or humor. Now that I do, I can best monitor what I write to conform to those standards, ones that apparently set off no alarms anywhere else in the country. Does the content editor ever leave his/her house, or is the outside world too scary?

:p

Either way, thanks for the heads up.

If I delete that post, will my site go active again?

Nathan



Dear Nathan Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, access has been denied, the Managing Editor/Content and Digital Platform has asked that your profile be blocked after the post expressed below was posted. We are not authorized to reactivate your profile. If I can be of further assistance please respond to this email. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused you.
Sincerely,

Tresa
Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle




Thanks Tresa! So... as asked, if that post goes away, will my account be reactivated?

Thanks,

Nathan


Dear Nathan Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

We apologize for any inconvenience or misunderstanding. At this time your access has been denied. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate your access as you have requested.

Sincerely,
Brandon
Account Specialist



Lol, no misunderstanding here, that's all at your end.

Do you guys even read these emails, or do you just fire off standard but unhelpful stock responses?

It's like I ask question "A," and you respond to question "H," something not even asked.

Makes your tag about being Rochester's #1 source for news and information quite silly.

To Repeat: I have an "inappropriate" post on my blog. If that "inappropriate" post goes away, will my blog be reactivated, or is the Democrat & Chronicle run on a "one strike and you're off forever" business model, where that "one strike" is determined arbitrarily?

Thanks much,

Nathan




Dear Nathan Timmel,

Thank you for contacting The Democrat & Chronicle. Rochester's #1 source for news and information!

Since your access has been denied, regardless if the post goes away, your access is still denied.
Sincerely,
Diane

Account Specialist
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle




and there you have it.

oh, and for the record?

i still HAVE ACCESS to my blog.

it's just not available for anyone to see.

so, no matter how hard they try, they're still idiots.

:p

I was thirty-six years old the first time I saw my father smile.

The visual hit me so hard I was stunned; I was seeing my father happy. It wasn’t just that he was happy, I was shocked because of the realization I had never seen him that way before. From childhood through my adult years, I had adapted to the idea my father was at his best stoic, or at his worst, morose. Given the tumultuous relationship he had with my mother and the eleven years spent alone after their divorce, to see him interacting while smiling with his new girlfriend, or any woman for that matter, was unheard of.

With a quiet clarity, I understood that in my youth, my dad never looked at me with eyes of indifference, he watched me with a mix fear and caution. As he had been raised in an environment of physical abuse and contempt, he knew he wanted to succeed where his parents had “failed,” so to speak. My dad didn’t want to damage me, as he felt he had been damaged, but didn’t know how to be a father himself. He never learned about the process of parenting through familial absorption, and I had come along much too quickly for him to mentally prepare for the challenge of fatherhood. Instead of raising me hands on, my dad backed off and let me figure everything out on my own, stepping in when he thought necessary.

* * *

Living in Los Angeles kept me fairly unhappy.

At the time, I was pointing fingers and decrying a system I felt kept me down. Looking back, I understand the only thing holding me back, was me; I wasn’t ready to play the Hollywood game. I harbored a simple Midwest naiveté that believed that if you stood on stage and showed a modicum of talent, you’d be recognized; I never once considered any social aspect to the business.

Everything in Hollywood operates on the idea of “heat.” To manufacture heat you have to network, and from almost everything I discovered, networking involved a lot of late night drinking. I’ve always enjoyed being social, but when it comes to the constant wear and tear of hanging out until all hours in the morning just to maintain the “right connections,” I am an absolute failure. Without those connections, nothing happens in Los Angeles.

“Heat” is something that builds around you; it is nothing you can force. For example, were I to approach an agent, look him directly in the eye and say full of confidence, “Hi, I’m Nathan Timmel, and if you sign me on I will get the job done,” the agent would walk away, annoyed at having been disturbed. I was witness to several incidences like this and have given it a shot or two on my own, always with the same result. If that same agent, however, were to sit down at Starbucks and hear two strangers converse, one saying, “I saw this comic, Nathan Timmel, last night. He was pretty funny,” that agent would be all over his phone, screaming at assistants: “Who is this Nathan Timmel I’m hearing about?! Why don’t we have Nathan Timmel on our roster?? Nathan Timmel is the future!” Again, I have observed such interactions.

To keep my ego from being annihilated through rejection, I spent half the year working outside California. I would fly to Madison, Wisconsin, where my mother still lived, and use it as a staging point for comedy clubs scattered across the Midwest. One slow Saturday night on a sojourn through Iowa, only twelve people made comedy their entertainment choice of the evening. Being that Iowa and Wisconsin are neighbors, the instant I finished my set, I walked off the stage and out the door, pausing only to get paid. There was another comic on after me, and I figured it would be better to get a jump on the drive home over hanging out and mingling with the non-crowd of customers. That decision could have been disastrous, if not for the tenacity of one woman in the audience. On that particular Saturday in June an Iowan named Lydia Fine decided she needed to get out of the house and have a laugh. Though I had no way of knowing it at the time, when I left the club before the technical end of the show, she was watching from the audience, and was angered by my disinterest in socializing.

Several days later, I received a MySpace Friend Request. MySpace, for those that don’t know, was a social networking site that was “cool” after Friendster became “lame,” and was “lame” after Facebook became “cool.” Thought as a comedian I probably should have been collecting as many online “friends” as possible, I never blindly accepted requests. I found that too many people out there have their own agenda, and nine-point-nine times out of ten I am entirely uninterested in their marketing attempts. The friend request I received from Iowa, however, had two things going for it: the hometown listed on the woman’s profile was twenty minutes from where I had performed, and the woman herself, the aforementioned Lydia Fine, was stunningly attractive. Or, at least she was on line; I had already discovered that many people altered pictures for publication on the Internet, that they appear much more thin/attractive/desirable than they actually were in person. I fired off a quick note to Lydia, “Nice to meet you. Are you friending me because you were at a show this past weekend?” and that was that.

Until, that is, I received a reply in my mailbox. She had indeed been at a show, and enjoyed what she saw. I responded to her reply, and back and forth we started to sway, each exchange growing in length just a little. One evening I opened up a note to find ten digits awaiting me. Lydia had been to a concert, imbibed her brain with alcohol, and mustered up the courage to ask me to call her. Not wanting to disappoint a (supposedly) beautiful woman, I dialed her up. I didn’t hold on to the number for five days to “play cool,” or pretend I hadn’t received the email until the next day so I wouldn’t seem over eager; I wanted to call, so I did.

Over the course of five hours, we had the most bizarre, no-holds-barred conversation I’d ever had in my life. This wasn’t “So, what kind of movies do you like?” giggling, it was everything-on-the-table honesty. I had never in my life had a first conversation like it. Hell, sometimes I had been in mini-relationships of a few months to a year that never approached the depth to which Lydia was willing to descend. But the thing is, I loved it. She wasn’t trying to impress me, put on airs, or falsify who she was; neither was she laying out her cards in a brash, “take it or leave it” manner. I got the sense she was simply saying, “This is who I am; I am looking for someone to accept me as is.”∗ We finally said our goodnights somewhere in the neighborhood of four in the morning, and as I sat back in my hotel bed to take it all in I wondered, “Who the hell is this woman?”

Lydia was a person whose life was in unfortunate flux; she had recently: started a new job (one which left her in tears on the first day and proceeded to remain unsatisfying for several months), lost her “second-mother” aunt to ovarian cancer, was witness to her eighty-three year old grandfather undergoing surgery for an abdominal aneurysm, broke up with her boyfriend (an event that resulted in him shouting insults at her over the phone for the better part of an hour), started seeing a therapist, gone on depression medications and lost her entire network of after-hours social friends. The last statement is the most important, in terms of how she happened to arrive at the comedy club to see me.

Girls can be exceptionally cruel. In adolescence, they create social cliques that are impossible to breach and are generally lorded over by a single queen. Sometimes, if women do not graduate from the mentality they learned in Junior and Senior High, they will carry this thought process with them into adulthood. In Lydia’s case, she was a small cog in a gear that revolved around recreational volleyball; the controlling force of this social circle was a tiny woman who had a severe Napoleon Complex named Mindy. One frustrated day, Lydia butted heads with Mindy, and as if girls of fourteen and not young women, Mindy put the word out to the group: it’s Lydia or me, choose. Everyone but one friend chose Mindy. Lydia found herself isolated, and entirely alone every weekend.

Several weeks after her banishment from the “in crowd,” word reached Lydia that Mindy was having a gathering. Depression sank in. Everyone Lydia used to hang out with would be there, laughing and having fun, while she would be alone in her condo. Desperately needing to get out of the house and away from that situation, Lydia called Kristine, the one friend who had refused to choose sides in the immature display of behavior by Mindy. Kristine agreed to forgo the party and attend a comedy show with Lydia. So it came to pass, a series of unfortunate events brought Lydia to the comedy club, on the very week out of the year I happened to be in town.

After getting to know one another on line, Lydia and I chose to meet in person; we each wanted to see whether or not the spark we shared via the telephone would translate into in-person chemistry. I was constantly on tour in the Midwest, and was easily able to drive to her tiny town for our date. As I parked out front of her condo, I called to let her know I had arrived. Lydia made her way down three flights of stairs, and as she did so windows lining the front of her building allowed me quick glimpses of this woman I’d agreed to take to dinner. When she finally got to ground level and opened the front door, I thought, “Oh wow. This could be very good.” Lydia was, simply put, stunningly beautiful. Sandy-blonde hair rested gently below her shoulders, she was taller than many Hollywood leading men I had bumped into and she wore a wide, nervous smile. I was smitten almost immediately.

We retreated to her condo, where her new kitten Simon, a gender-confused little fluff of gray, ran in between my ankles as I walked in. During my entire visit, he howled for attention as if the most neglected kitty on the planet. In contrast, Lydia’s full-grown cat, Pandora, was an aloof and skittish creature with brown and black hair speckled with dandruff; she darted into hiding immediately upon my arrival.

While being given the grand tour of her three-bedroom condo, the bookshelf gave me pause. Though littered with much in the way of fiction and business management, the top row contained many offerings on romance and self-reliance. The titles were standard fare, and may as well have screamed, “So You Just Got Dumped,” “Why Your Friends All Left You,” “I’m Isolated and Cry Myself to Sleep,” and “You’re Going to Die Alone.” My brow furrowed slightly, but I wondered if these tomes were helping Lydia be as honest as she was with me. Instead of playing games, the death-knell of any union, she was communicating, openly and honestly. I liked this.

While we talked, Lydia couldn’t stop fidgeting; her nails were nonexistent and looked like they were attacked to the nub regularly. I did my best to put her at ease, but we quickly retreated to a bar so she could get a drink or two in her and relax.

Dinner took place at one of her favorite restaurants; she had the “gourmet” Mac & Cheese, which I thought was simply an excuse to charge $15 for a seventy-nine cent item, and I had a salad that left me less than thrilled. We conversed easily, but after our meal is where everything got interesting.

To explain what happened next, I must offer up some background on who I am as a person: when around most animals, especially little woodland creatures, I lose control of most of my mental functions, which are questionable at best to begin with. I cannot fully explain why I find these mammals so endearing, and it is best to give an example of my mental retardation rather than to try to explain it any further: though I am not proud the action, I once tried to pet a bear. A wild, bear. I was camping, and warned that the local black bears were used to humans and wandered into camp frequently. The Park Ranger told everyone sternly that should we come into contact with one, they were still wild animals and we should make loud noises to scare them off; under no circumstances was anyone to approach them. Naturally, one did come scrounging near my camp for scraps, and he was an adorable little Black Bear. Not a cub, which, given the protective nature of mother bears would have spelled immediate disaster, but a standard-size fluff-ball Black Bear. While most people in the camping area were curious, yet cautious, my first thought was to grab food and attempt to draw him close to me. Now, I say this in full awareness of what I was doing. Did I think the bear was tame, or would let me pet him? No. My mind was at war with itself; I was very calm, but had two internal voices speaking to me. On the one hand, my inner child was saying, “OMG, IT’S A BEAR! LOOK AT ITS LITTLE NUB-TAIL! I WANT TO GRAB HIS EARS AND GIVE HIS HEAD A BIG SCRUFF-SHAKE! WHO’S A BEAR? WHO’S A LITTLE BEAR WITH A LITTLE BEAR BLACK NOSE?” My quieter, more rational and therefore weaker responsible adult voice was calmly relaying the message: “You are a fucking moron. This thing will get near you, get startled, and rip your throat out. It’s a fucking bear, dipshit.” Fortunately for my well being, the bear, though somewhat interested in the idiot making kissy noises at him, eventually wandered off, leaving me to see another day. So, the point of the story is: if I lose my shit and attempt to hug bears, you can only imagine how I am when faced with non-threatening creatures. With that, I return to my first date with Lydia.

As it was a lovely spring day, we decided to take a sunset walk along the Iowa River and burn off a few of the calories we had just ingested. Many other couples were doing the like, and all the little animals living on the banks had crawled out from their homes. We watched squirrels skipping across the path in front of us, and everything was going swimmingly when Lydia nudged me.

“Look at the rabbits!” she whispered, pointing at a large green shrub with three bunnies happily munching clover underneath it.

I could describe what I did, but think an outsider’s perspective would serve best at this point and here turn things over to Lydia:

“Nathan stopped walking, and I turned to see what happened. I was mortified to find he’d dropped my hand and was running toward the rabbit bush, although I’m not sure I would call what he was doing “running,” per se. It was more of a gallop or a scamper, really, but with his arms thrown up loopily over his head. He was shouting, too. “BUNNIES! BUNNIES! LOOK AT THE BUNNIES!”

I stood there dumbfounded, stunned, and profoundly embarrassed. What the hell was he doing? People were looking at us.

“Nathan!” I hissed. “Stop! Get back here!”

He didn’t listen. The bunnies had started bounding away from him and he was giving chase, doing his best to zig as they zagged, and hustle as they bustled. I figured my only hope for saving my reputation was to pull the same trick my mother used to when I’d embarrassed her. She’d simply walk away and pretend she didn’t know me, so I did just that. A few seconds later I could hear him running up behind me, and felt him reach for my hand again. I was calming down a little, and underneath my still-fresh embarrassment, I was hiding a smile. A grown man who chased bunnies? Who was this guy?”

Like with the Black Bear, though an internal logic might tell me it would be best to simply let the bunnies be, quietly enjoying their floppy ears and ever-wiggling noses from afar, it’s all to much for me to process at times and I simply explode in excitement. Though I know it will never happen, I like to pretend that someday I might catch a bunny, and we will frisk through the meadow together, and be friends, and I will hug him and pet him and name him George. Yes, this from a man who tested so well in school he was advanced several grades several times. If that isn’t an indictment of our school system, I don’t know what is.

Thankfully, Lydia was quite forgiving of my idiot’s excursion, and our first date ended up extending from dusk into dawn. Eventually, she rose to leave (very late) for work, and I went my merry way back on the road. As our first date had gone well, it was decided we would have a second, and possibly even a third. I was still touring, so Lydia made plans to spend a getaway weekend with me while I performed in a small, Illinois town. If we were keeping in line with our “hold no secrets” approach to getting to know one another, this was a bold step. After telling her mother she had met someone, “a comedian,” the response had been a cool, “That’s nice, but what does he do for work?” The idea someone could make a living as a comedian hadn’t really crossed Lydia’s mind, but if she was wondering what kind of provider I would be, an eye-opening insight into the world of entertainment was about to take place.

Our weekend trip had me working a club I’d been to many times before, each time as the middle comedian of the show. I always did well there, and my ego told me it was my turn to move up, but I sadly had no fame to my name and wasn’t going to be allowed the top slot. That weekend, the headliner, on a name recognition scale of 0-10, was only a one, and that’s on a good day. As I was a zero, that made him more marketable than me. Unfortunately, he had better management than skills and had been performing for fewer years than I had. In an embarrassing move for the club, I got bigger laughs and more positive audience responses than he did. Every night, while I was on stage, he sat at the bar getting drunk. By the time he grabbed the microphone the man was a slurring, incoherent mess; instead of performing focused bits of comedy, he would meander off down verbal tangents. It was immediately proven he didn’t have enough material to fill his contracted time, because around the thirty minute mark of his set the club would play several tracks off his CD of phone pranks over the house PA system. I thought I had seen unprofessionalism in my time, but was still stunned by the spectacle of it all. I was actually watching people who had turned over their hard earned money to see comedy, watch a man sit on stage, drunk, while his CD played over the sound system.

Lydia was somewhat aghast. She lived and worked in the corporate world, where if you worked hard and built your resume, you were rewarded. Not so, in comedy, where personality and press trump ability almost every time; whether or not you are funny is always less important than whether or not you’ve been on TV.

It doesn’t mean anything to the narrative at hand, but I have yet to be re-booked at the club despite repeated attempts to play there, while I’ve seen the other comic’s name on the calendar several times. Good times.

* * *

Lydia and I dated long distance for the better part of a year. My schedule allowed us to never be separated for more than several weeks at a time, and Lydia was able to make her way to the West Coast a couple times. Cell phones, instant messaging and video chat kept us sane, but as we grew to enjoy one another’s company more and more it was well understood carrying on a long distance relationship wouldn’t work long term. Something had to give.
Being that I was already tired of Los Angeles, and Lydia had a job she (now) liked, was an Iowa girl at heart and uninterested in the grimy cement jungle of Hollywood, it was ultimately decided I would uproot myself and live among the cornfields of the Midwest. I’d like to pretend there was struggle involved in the decision making process, that I wondered whether leaving Hollywood to pursue an artistic dream was wise in the slightest, but I didn’t. I was really more interested in being personally happy than professionally successful, which, like my inability to play the social game in Los Angeles, probably helped stymie my growth there. Overall, I believed Iowa offered much greater opportunities to me.

I wasn’t moving to simply be closer to Lydia; we decided to go all out right away and move in together. I had never lived with a girlfriend before, and Lydia had never lived with a boyfriend, so the arrangement was going to be interesting, but hopefully not too trying. Unfortunately, one of the first situations I encountered was an examination of my own mortality. Growing old is something we rarely imagine happening while in our childhood or teenage years. As kids, we run around wildly, flail our arms like idiots, pick our nose and see adults as boring creatures that have no fun. By eighteen, we are invincible, standing on the hoods of cars tearing down the highway and drinking to blackout status at concerts, passing out in the port-a-potty, pants around our ankles for the duration of the show, waking only at the end of it as huge cannons blast the finale to "For Those About to Rock--*BOOM*--We Salute You," and adults are our enemy.∗

But at some point in our mid-to-late twenties, we start slowing down, looking around and realizing that our best years are probably behind us and that we might want to do something with our lives. If this revelation doesn't strike, it's even more depressing. Anyone above twenty-five still hanging out in a college bar, dressing like they did while in school, is sad in one of two ways: they're either pathetically wearing clothes like the kids of the day and failing miserably, or, possibly worse, still wearing their old outfits, five years out of style and a billion brain cells away from reality.

Being stuck in one phase of your life isn't limited to bars and acting how you did at twenty; you can get stuck in any age. For over fifteen years, my dad wore the same clothes repeatedly. It was as if he had gone shopping one day in his mid-thirties and bought everything he thought he would need for the rest of his existence. Dad would usually be wearing some awkward combination of a ten-year old, K-Mart-style shirt tucked into Sears-brand not-quite-dress, not-quite-casual pants of the same age. This ensemble was worn without a belt, naturally. My father’s lack of style was so humiliating my sister tried to pick his outfits before being seen in public with him.

After my parents divorced, I helped my dad move twice. Once the second time was completed, I vowed never to do so again unless he gave his overflowing closet of clothes and other mounds of junk—dad was a bit of a hoarder—to Goodwill. Thinking about it now, most of what he owned would most likely be rejected by the charitable institution due to age, wear and style anyway. I mean, sometimes beggars can be choosers.

In wardrobe, my dad was stuck somewhere in the late 1970's. Back then, large hair and mustaches were considered a good idea, which lets you know just how wrong that decade was; neither is ever a good idea. Seriously, show me one picture of a pedophile where the man doesn't have a mustache.∗ The point is, dad was considered an embarrassment. So it was to my chagrin that as my life took a turn for the better—in relocating to Iowa and in with Lydia—I found I had been living my own life of blissful incomprehension.

My awakening started simply enough, by packing my entire apartment into one car, and then finding out I was to fit that entire car's contents into approximately 37% of one closet. Not one whole closet, which is what I had been led to understand I’d be receiving, but a fraction of a closet; the remaining 63% was filled with Lydia’s belongings. Little did I know, the female definition of "Emptying a closet" is "Creating just enough space for you to keep a few trinkets, while allowing me to hold on to clothes I no longer fit into but just might once again someday in the future when I start going to the gym."

Luckily, as I unpacked all my belongings, Lydia was right there to help me organize. By "organize," I mean: Give every item of clothing the once over, making either a “someone-just-farted” face, or nonchalantly allowing me to continue to own it. For now.

Our exchanges during this sorting involved pouting, by me, and steadfast, schoolmarm discipline, by Lyds.

"But, I like that shirt," I'd protest.

"Honey," the gentle scolding would begin, "not only is it old and out of style, it's worn and stretched out."

"It's urban outfitters," I'd whine.

"Yes, and they update their clothes several times a year, not several times a century."

Then I would forlornly drop it into the charity pile. This process was repeated until a large hefty bag of clothes I'd just carted all the way across the goddamn country was sitting by the front door.

Fortunately, unlike my dad, while I did lament my lost treasures—and not everything went, I still have some "fine, you can keep that if you promise not to wear it in public" gems I refused to let go of—I have to admit a guilty pleasure at having someone provide a clue for me when it comes to dressing. After the purge came the binge, meaning we did a little "Welcome to the Modern Age" shopping. Though it started with me shooting down nearly everything in existence, such as Polo Shirts, whose collars I promised to wear popped up if forced to buy, eventually we found stylishly "fun" (her word) articles of clothing at a reasonable price.
Lyds was happy, and I was happy. She now had someone on her arm that looks normal until his mouth opened, and I knew I didn’t have to go shopping for at least five years. Heh.

* * *

If moving in with someone that I’d known for less than a year and only dated long-distance sounded like a recipe for disaster, I’d agree. But somehow, Lydia and I gelled. There were a few minor bumps in the road, but nothing that ever seemed overly disastrous.

One difference in our personalities was discovered via the casual nature two people have to have when sharing close quarters. I don't really think of myself as a prude person, nor am I a germophobe. That said, when it comes to stepping out the shower and drying my body, I stop at the crack at the bottom of my back and reach for toilet paper. This tp is for a quick, final dab at my delicate, between-the-cheeks pucker. This action makes Lydia laugh, as she says, "You know it's fresh-clean from the shower you just took, right?" Such things do not matter to me, as maybe it's a psychological quirk, but I still don't appreciate the idea of sticking a toweled finger up in there, then using that same cottony-spot to dry my face the next day.
On the subject of towels: I sometimes wonder if Lydia and I should take two of them to bed for our little liaisons. It would make more sense to clean up afterwards using a towel apiece; our current ritual involves duck-waddling to the bathroom, attached by a single piece of cloth and delicately trying to avoid spilling sputnik on the carpet. Our kitties, from what I’ve been able to tell, find this event quite confusing. Not the sex part, which they seem to watch with a casual disinterest, the look "Can I get fed soon?” across their faces, but the towel-attached shuffle afterwards; that they stare at with uncomprehending eyes. Lydia and I are aware we look quite silly, yet continue the act after each and every, well, act.

For the record, the kitties have their own interesting set of ceremonies that I don't entirely understand. Every morning, Lydia showers before work, and, and especially so in winter, every morning the kitties join her in the bathroom. They jump up onto the counter and enjoy a little steam-sauna to start the day. Upon completion of her cleaning, Lydia opens the curtain to see both staring at her naked body, each relaxed and hydrated. Meanwhile, neither joins me whenever I get around to showering. They could get the same little burst of moisture they seem to enjoy in the morning, but opt not to. Simon, however, always, always, always seems to come running when it's time for me to enjoy a relaxing constitutional. As I rest on the throne, I find a gray kitty rushing in to sit at my feet, stare up at me, and meow until I pet him. When I stand and flush, he then props his front two paws up on the toilet to peer down at the swirling water, his kitty curiosity asking, "Hey, what's going on in here?"

Another adjustment to communal living was in the department of sleeping arrangements. When living quarters combine, you go from having a nice, wide bed for your single whole self, to a space you have to share. Lydia likes to sprawl out, meaning I immediately became an invasive burden to her slumber. I often wake to find body parts littering my person.

At bedtime, I generally fall asleep while she reads whatever it is she's currently using to expand her mind: a book, Time or Fitness, Harlequin Romance Novels... What’s odd is, before co-habitation, I usually had to be completely exhausted in order to sleep. If I wasn’t, I’d just lay wherever I was, thoughts bouncing around my noggin. But something about laying in bed with Lyds makes me relaxed enough to drift off when I’m only nominally tired. I like that. A few months into our co-habitation, she asked, "Do you feel me rest my hand on you when I finally turn out the light?"

Surprised, I responded that I did not.

Lydia informed me that when she sets aside her book and settles in for bed, her first sleep position involved touching me in some way; a rested hand, an arm draped across me, or her head nuzzled into the back of my neck, depending on how I happened to be facing (usually turned away from her light).

Again, I was surprised. I’m usually a fairly light sleeper; for years the easiest way to wake me was to whisper my name. I don’t know why, but I respond to "Nathan" as well as an alarm clock. I found it strange that where a mere murmur usually woke me, manhandling did not. So a couple nights later, I lied. I rolled on to my side while she read, then gradually changed my breathing pattern. I deepened my breaths, slowed them to a most un-hurried pace, and feigned sleep. I’m not sure how long she read, but after the light went off, I felt a warm body nestle up behind me, throw an arm over my side, and let loose all tension from the day.

And I thought, "Goddamn."

And I mean that in the most amazing of ways.

Sleep and scent combine in ways we don’t always realize, and Lydia’s nuzzling ways provided new insight into how we were now relating to one another. When living with another, everything becomes as familiar to your senses as your eyes, sometimes even more so. During a week of performances at the Chicago Improv, I lodged at my friend and fellow comedian Joe Hamilton’s apartment. After the Sunday show I drove home to Iowa and crawled into bed somewhere around two in the morning. Lydia immediately curled up to me, then paused, then pushed back a little.

"You don't smell like you," she said unhappily.

I hadn't thought about it, but there is a certain security in the scent of your lover, a familiarity that you react to unconsciously, and positively. When I moved in, the condo smelled like Lydia; every time I returned to it her scent filled my nostrils and made me feel peace. Returning from Chicago, I smelled like Joe Hamilton’s apartment and guest bedding. It being dark and Lydia being half asleep, she was relying on senses other than sight to relate to me, and the fact I "wasn't me" set off confusion in her.

Thankfully, the situation was rectified the next morning after a shower in which I washed the stench of other off me, and after which I tore off several sheets of toilet paper for my final starfish of drying.

Lydia laughed at me for it and reminded me she herself dries 100% of her body with her towel.

And she wonders why I do the laundry so often.

* * *

As any grade school child can tell you, there is a natural progression to relationships. After you are discovered in a tree, “k-i-s-s-i-n-g,” first comes love, then comes… well, not marriage. The kids skipped a step.

Lydia’s friends had us engaged well before I did; our second Christmas together had them all bundled together and whispering invented gossip into her ear, “He’s going to pop the question! We just know it!” I could only imagine the chagrin they wore when this did not come to pass. “Oooh,” they then justified, “Valentine’s day is coming up!”

What her friends didn’t know was: I was saving up for an engagement ring, I just didn’t want to get engaged in such a cliché manner. Popping the question on a holiday seemed too trite; I wanted my approach to come out of the blue.

Around Valentine’s Day I dropped half the cash necessary to procure Lydia’s dream ring, but didn't tell a single soul. Not because I didn't feel I could trust anyone, it generally never crossed my mind. I wasn’t bursting to share my secret; I was approaching the next stage of my life, and was doing so contentedly.

Eventually, I shared the news with he would be my Best Man, Brian Jones. I told Brian about the ring for two reasons: One, we had been on the phone the better part of an hour and out of things to discuss when he asked, "So, anything else going on?" I started out naturally enough, "Not that I can think of," when it popped right in there: "Oh, wait. I put money down on a ring." It wasn't an announcement, it was an afterthought.

The second reason I told Brian is: he lived almost a thousand miles away in New Orleans. Though he and I carried a friendship all the way back to Jr. High, we rarely saw one another and Lydia had never met him; who the hell would Brain be able to tell that the words could somehow end up in Lydia's ears?

Oh, fate, you fickle, funny fuck.

Two days after I told Brian of my impending bending of the knee, Lydia came home from work, excited: "I’m going to a conference in New Orleans! I'm going to meet your best friend!"

Really?

I mean, really?

The jewelry store had informed me up front it would take four weeks from the order date to have the ring crafted and the stone set, yet somehow Lydia got asked to attend a conference before it would be ready. Suddenly, the one person in the world who Lydia would never meet before I had the chance to surprise her was the one person she would be hanging out with.
Brian had already informed his wife Chris I was gearing up to propose, so when Lydia visited they treaded lightly over certain topics. Apparently one dinner conversation became fairly amusing when Lydia herself brought up the lack of an engagement ring on her left hand, but, Brian and Chris held their tongues, and Lydia returned to Iowa as clueless as ever.

I said I wanted to pop the question in a surprising fashion, and easily decided the best manner of doing so: while she was sleeping. Lydia hates, hates, hates to wake up in the morning. And she hates to be woken up at any time. So, being the kind of fella that I am, a few days after her trip to New Orleans I woke up at three AM and silently stole out of the bedroom. I grabbed a handful of votive candles, fashioned them into a heart on the countertop and lit each one. I positioned the ring in the center of the flames, turned on the stereo, set the song "Open," by Peter Gabriel, on a continuous loop, then returned to the bedroom to nudge away.

"Sweetie," I whispered. "Get up, you have to come see something."

Lydia resisted. She was expectedly groggy, but eventually cracked her sleep-caked eyes just wide enough to see me staring at her with a shit-eating grin.

Normally, such a smile and request meant I wanted to show her something one of the kitties was doing, but not this time.

Not this time.

If it seems somewhat dismissive that I didn't excitedly tell anyone about the impending event, it's because I felt very little in the way of special about the whole thing.

If anything, I felt comfortable. There was no weight upon my shoulders, or worry in my eyes. In fact, it felt like the most natural thing I've ever done.

I’ve said it in the past, but it bears repeating: therapists, friends, family and psychologists will all ask you the wrong question: "Have you ever been in love?"

Of course. Everyone has. Who cares?

What should be asked is: "Have you ever felt loved?"

When you can answer yes, your life will begin to take shape.

And I felt loved.

* * *

I was thirty-six years old the first time I saw my father smile. There are natural milestones in life; we celebrate certain ages due to advancements we make. “I’m sixteen, I can drive!” “I’m eighteen, I can vote!” “I’m twenty-one, I can drink! Well, legally, that is. I’ve been drinking since I was sixteen.”

Thirty-six will be etched in my memory as the age my life finally started to make sense. I had the moment of awareness involving my father, I met Lydia, and somehow granted my mother absolution from sins she had never committed.

A few months after being exposed to my father’s happiness, I was visiting my mother. Out of the blue, she started sobbing. I don’t know what brought it on, but she sat at her kitchen table for several minutes, crying. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and a thick molasses of mucus ran from her nose. Invented guilt sent her into this state of mind, and the words she spoke were so odd I could barely comprehend them.

"I’m sorry," she choked. "I just want you to know I’m sorry. I did the best I could. Your father and I both did the best we could. We were young parents and Ned and I did the best we could in raising you and Amanda. We just didn't know what we were doing, but we tried; we did the best we could. We just did the best we could."

I let out an uncomfortable giggle, a defense mechanism acting as the nervous response to a situation I was ill prepared to witness and too immature to address. I’d long known I was an accident, the first child born to two people not ready for the shotgun's pump, but for the life of me, at that moment, trying to imagine blaming either of my parents for either my existence or life, I was coming up blank. I grew up in a household filled with secrets and cold emotions, affairs and hidden anger, and we moved so often I never learned what maintained friendship was. But I didn’t think any of that was done to punish me.

The self-help lobby of America has latched onto two tools to make people feel "better" about themselves: blame, and invented guilt. The former is for those who like to believe we are not responsible for our own actions, lives and dealings with others. People like that point fingers and invent enemies. Invented guilt is a trickier bit of mischief, and is for those who want to take the weight of the world upon their shoulders. Whether it be their responsibility or not, they believe their life fails to live up to the expectations of others, and thus usually feel the need to apologize for invented misbehaviors.

My mom, for the record, loves self-help books.

A multitude of these betterment books discuss forgiveness, the idea is you need to free others from their transgressions against you while simultaneously asking them to do the like. If you do not, you will remain stuck in your "Spiritual Journey." While I agree with the concept on certain levels, the problem comes when you are asked to forgive not deliberate action taken against you, but something the person created in their own mind. The process becomes a cop out, a tool to first invent blame, and then forgiveness for a transgressionless action. Forgiveness, in such a situation, becomes almost an attack.

While I’ve felt exceedingly unhappy from time to time, even for years on end, and though I’ve even questioned whether or not any of the waking moments ever endured are worth it when added up against either the day to day mundane of pain, I’ve never been so disconnected from reality as to blame others for my lot in life. In any situation, I am ultimately responsible for my own actions. I can be fucked by any relationship, business, romantic or otherwise, but at the end of it, I have to look at my actions, and how I entered into the position to get fucked in the first place. So I don't know that I’ve ever actually uttered the phrase "I forgive you" to anyone, because I’ve either not blamed them their actions, or the offense is one grievous enough not to be exonerated from.

Standing in front of my mother, her sobs weakening in strength and composure getting the best of her again, I may have simply smiled. Not out of tension or an inability to connect mind with mouth, but a smile of situational confusion, one arising from a moment that tickles the heart.

And I explained to mom that I couldn't forgive her.

After all, I’d nothing to blame her for.

The Importance of Being Organic

I remember when Guns N Roses released the albums Use Your Illusion 1 & 2 simultaneously. The first song used for promotion was “You Could Be Mine,” and Hollywood teamed up with the mega-group to make sure that single was prominently displayed in the sure-fire blockbuster summer release, Terminator 2. All the powers that be wanted to make sure album promotion was widespread: “You Could Be Mine” was pushed on radio, in movies, on MTV (back when they played music videos); the promotion machine was churning, and it wanted Guns to bank big for everyone involved. It worked; the song went huge, and both albums sold millions. This despite the fact they were each complete crap.

I didn’t like “You Could Be Mine” within seconds of first hearing it, but couldn’t explain why it struck me as so awful so quickly. Something just sounded off. Back then, I knew little of producers, engineers and recording studios. I couldn’t tell you what Mike Clink did to “Appetite for Destruction” that made it sound so amazing, nor could I verbalize what he then did wrong on both Illusion albums.

Many years later, I read the book, “Blink,” by Malcolm Gladwell. It explained, in detail, the phenomena of knowing something without understanding how we knew it. The idea was: we can instinctively feel something is either true or false; sometimes our senses are so in tune with truth, we can just “know” truth.

Not long after reading “Blink,” I read Slash’s self-titled autobiography. In tedious detail, he described his multi-year struggle with heroin addiction, but in between the lengthy and dull addiction diatribes were gems of stories involving Guns & Roses. Slash spoke of their inception, early success, and most importantly to me, their songwriting process and how it changed over the years. For example: the song “Paradise City” was grown out of a road trip. The group was in a van, having just played one of their first gigs ever, was driving back to Los Angeles and the song just sort of… appeared. They were shouting lyrics and melodies, and when time came to hit the studio, they already had a foundation for what would morph into one of their biggest hits. “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” another enormous success, came about while they jammed one day, everyone noting that something Slash was playing would make for a great opening riff to a song.

I enjoy reading about musicians, because I was in a band for several years. After high school, I first attended the Berklee College of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts, and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. It was in Milwaukee I joined with two other students, a singer/guitarist and a drummer, and went about the business of seeing what it would like to make music for a living. We never achieved a great deal of success, but were able to record several songs for a compilation CD, and I promoted those songs as hard as I could. We ended up getting played on several college radio stations across the U.S, charting in many of them.

Our best songs, in my opinion, were written while jamming. We may not have come up with a “Paradise City,” but when messing around at rehearsal, we came up with some pretty fun little progressions that the singer would then write melodies and lyrics around. I enjoyed this method of songwriting, and thought that’s what being in a band was all about. The singer/guitarist disagreed, and quietly yet forcefully eventually stated the case that he was interested in having the drummer and I play songs he had written. He liked the idea of being a singer-songwriter; he wanted to be the Sting or Curt Cobain of the group and teach his songs to the drummer and I, that we may play our parts. The problem in my mind was, and I will argue this until the day I die, is: though Sting may have the writing credit for “Every Breath You Take,” without the iconic Andy Summers guitar line, in no way would it have been a hit. I view music as a collaborative, and the idea of being dictated to did not sit well with me. After several months of frustration, I quit when presented with a song containing the lyric, “You don’t know about divorce; you’d rather ride a foundered horse.”

The singer explained, “A horse that founders has to be put down, so my analogy is that of two people who stay together even though it’s not a good relationship, plodding onward when they shouldn’t be.” I argued in response: “Great, but you still rhymed “divorce” with ‘horse.’”

Returning to Slash’s book: as is well documented today, as the band grew in fame, Axl became more recalcitrant. He was a self-admitted isolationist, and was so as much from the band as the outside world. During the recording sessions for the Use Your Illusion albums, Axl was rarely around; he would show up when the band wasn’t there, listen to what had been recorded and make changes and leave notes as to where the songs should go. In essence, Axl was dictating from afar, controlling the songs without being an active participant in the group process. With but the reading of a few sentences, I flashed back to the first time I heard “You Could Be Mine,” and finally understood why the song sounded wrong from the start; it wasn’t a creative creation, it was a studio construction. Therein lies the difference.

While some people might argue they like certain songs on either Illusion record, no one can say that any song on them matches “Appetite for Destruction.” Plus, everyone knows what happened next; every band member eventually quit, and Axl went off the deep end, spending over fifteen years nitpicking away at the album eventually released as “Chinese Democracy.” That record, as anyone will tell you, is absolutely unlistenable. It is an overproduced, over-thought mess.

Because Axl refused to allow things to simply flow.

And in art, flow is everything.

Go-Go American Education System

Go-Go American Education System

I spent many of my formative years, 7th-12th grade to be exact, in the tiny town of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I enjoyed the city so little, that after leaving, I rarely returned. I skipped my five, ten and fifteen year high school reunions, and only went to the twenty to see a friend that lives 934 miles from me.

While I had a good time at the reunion, I was more than a little shocked and surprised by the amount of people who had never left, had never even moved beyond fifty miles of the place they were born. They never traveled the world, or experienced other cultures or styles of thought. Trying my best to be non-judgmental, I found it sad that people could live so isolated. Especially so, considering that the more I interacted with these people post-reunion on Facebook, the more I saw they took physical isolation as an excuse to limit themselves mentally. More and more, I saw disturbing examples of why “small town values,” oft championed as something noble in any election cycle, can be amazingly detrimental when it comes to societal progress.

One case in point came via my friend, “Mary,” who still lives in Oconomowoc. She posted that she visited Milwaukee, and was a little frightened by the traffic. Another woman, “Jane,” responded that she was in Milwaukee once, and got scared when a black kid rode by her car on a bike. Jane also said she hated driving in “Brown Town” because of all the confusing, one-way streets. I do not know Jane, but from what I could see of her profile, she’s in her late 30s and also grew up in Oconomowoc.

My response to Jane’s post was, "Ah, racism and fear. Good times." Her cousin wrote, "Wow. BROWN TOWN? Just because you can't read the street signs doesn’t mean black people are bad.”

Jane responded to us with an overflow of emotion:

"NO I don't believe I said that black people are bad,I don't call Brown Down cuz of the colored,I am NOT a rascist at all[may not be able to spell it],My GPS tells me the st signs doesn't show me where my friend is though!I just dislike Milwaukee + Waukesha+Watertown because of all of their one way roads,I have a GPS to tell me where to go,but my friend was trying to wave to me+I was busy looking at the roads,and I can't see shit at night,and it was CRAZY BUSY so had my glasses on,I'd never survive Madtown too many people,and I NEVER drove to the Bradely Center or any place in Milwaukee by myself.It was Dan,Ashley,and myself+Ash was scared cuz we couldn't find our friend and it took me 15 minutes Yeah I don’t like being lost w/a scared 10 year old in the back seat,I do not know Milwaukee at all.I’d be able to get to a Brewer Game though,I guess when it comes to directions I’m like my Mom-No mean intention’s at all,I figured that would happen,just don’t know the town well,I LOVED the Riverside though.Just can’t drive out there by myself+have to know where my friend is the parking structure doesn’t start+end in the same place..I am not afraid of anybody either!Just said afraid of Milwaukee because I got lost.I’d be scared if I were lost anwhere,and I just panicked. I used to say downtown browntown a LONG time ago,and alot of people say it.I guess I have to watch what I say.I call every down different,I’m sure O-town has it’s bad names as well.GEEZ LAWEEZ people.I am human I had a great time at the Riverside so I am no where near a rascist.”

After navigating my way through that mess of grammatical incoherency, my first response was to rub my eyes, shake my head, and pray the education system of today is better than the one that put a diploma into her unworthy hand. That aside, I do believe the post has a lot of hidden information, and I’m not sure Jane even understood her racist ways. The way she wrote, “I used to say downtown browntown a LONG time ago,” means I think her behavior is something learned in childhood. She honestly might have just been parroting a phrase she heard about Milwaukee, and as she grew up no one ever explained to her, “Yeah, not cool.”

I also don’t think she grasps the influence parents have on their children. Her sentence, "I don't like being lost w/a scared 10 year old in the back seat” exposes this lack of comprehension. Kids are like animals; they sense fear. A ten-year old in the back seat of a car is going to be looking around at the world with wide eyes and curiosity, especially if that kid is from a small town and is now surrounded by big cool buildings. The only way he would be frightened is if the parents were freaking out, and in turn, spreading that fear around. If mom is hysterical because, “OMG I’M ON A ONE WAY STREET, WHAT DO I DO? THERE’S A BLACK KID ON A BIKE!! WHERE’S MY FRIEND???” of course a child is going to pick up on that and grow scared, too. And living in a small town, surrounded by similar thoughts and actions, as he grows older and receives no outside stimulus or a different way of viewing the world… so as you see, so as you become.

Jane eventually posted several more backtracks, and in the end I believed she’s probably not overtly hateful, just unconsciously prejudiced. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it is better than the alternative, as others from my hometown outright frighten me. More often than not, their posts are as poorly written as Jane’s, only filled with anger and paranoia. They forcefully proclaim Obama is a socialist, Fox news is the only true source for information, and that the United Nations controls all the federal parks (Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, etc.) we have within the U.S.

Sometimes, but not too often, I challenge their wing nut and non-factual assertions. When I do, their response is generally two lovely words: “Your ignorant.”

Indeed.

I Was a White Knight, Once

Liz Phair is a divorced woman.

I remember searching for her debut album in 1993. Few stores had ever heard of her, so to obtain “Exile in Guyville” I had to go to an overpriced indie shop and hand over a decent chunk of change. It was worth it. The album contained the voice of an intelligent, opinionated woman whose integrity seemed overshadowed only by her honesty. Naturally, I was somewhat smitten.

It was to my dismay, then, when a few years later I read an interview with Ms. Phair. She spoke of her boyfriend, the man that would shortly be her husband. I do not recall direct quotes, but the content was: "He played me just right. I was interested in him from the moment I saw him, but instead of pursuing me, he made me wait it out. He knew I was hot for him, so he toyed with me until I was about to burst. Had he just approached me outright, I probably would have lost interest."

I nodded my head in acceptance and placed the magazine back on the shelf; never learn too much about your heroes, for they will always disappoint you. Gone was the independent, intelligent woman I admired. In her place was someone that did the thing I always despised in a relationship: played games.

* * *

I believe in cellular memory. I believe experiences we have do not leave us, they become ingrained in our DNA in ways we don’t always understand. From time to time, our emotions remind us the events that exist as recollections, were once all too real. A particular song can raise gooseflesh across the skin’s surface; a specific geographical location causes chills down the spine. Personally, every time I attempt to write about my twenties, I grow tense. My muscles tighten, and my jaw hardens. Though long removed from everything that happened, I still grow quite cautious concerning six specific years of stupidity I lived. No one likes admitting to their failures or shortcomings, and after so many years of silence on my part I worry that if I attempt to spill my story, meticulous thought in examination will give way to an incoherent mess of emotions instead.

I shouldn’t be embarrassed by my past; logically, I understand I have nothing to be either proud or ashamed of. You live life by trial and error. Mostly error. You make as many mistakes as possible, that you may learn not to do so again later on. These mistakes most often involve romance. When you gain perspective in later years, you look back upon your biggest errors and feel like Roy Hobbes, saying, “I should have seen it coming.”

My twenties were wasted, tossed aside like a trifle.

In retrospect, the only way we actually understand anything, I now realize all too well what I was doing. Though I never publicly acknowledged it, my parent’s marriage was a disaster. I was raised in a household where my parents slept in separate rooms for most of my teenage years, and the word “love” was never uttered under any circumstance. That said, I have never believed the past determines the future. Just because someone has been integrated in a situation doesn’t mean they have to follow the same certain paradigms; statistics say children of an alcoholic are more prone to becoming the like. I grew up surrounded by infidelity and icy emotions; I became a romantic to actively counter that upbringing.

I put women on a pedestal in response to what I saw at home. I opened doors, kissed tenderly, whispered “I love you” when I meant it, caressed, cuddled, massaged, made love, asked about a woman’s day and listened to the answer, held hands in public and gave gifts randomly. The problem is, quite often I chose the wrong women to approach with my attitude. Instead of wooing women with healthy egos and self-confidence, I approached those who looked upon romance as weakness, placing myself perfectly for failure and thus perpetuating my belief all relationships were doomed to fail. My biggest mistake, and therefore most liberating and educating relationship, took place across my third decade of life.

When I was twenty-two I made my way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After three irritating semesters at The Berklee College of Music, I felt that instead of walking down a path that created unrest in me, I should forge a new one. Unfortunately, I didn’t yet know what trail to take and I ended up in the refuge so many unfocused wanderers do, college. My high school grades had been sub-par, but grades weren’t as important to Berkelee as a deposited check, and they admitted me into their program. Once there, I improved my GPA ever so slightly enough to transfer to the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. (Motto: “We’re like high school, with tuition!”)

I did what many a college student does for money, I entered into the industry involving food service and began tending bar. When a restaurant on the shores of Lake Michigan opened a patio and expanded their staff, I was hired on to cater to customers wearing khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts. A beautiful young cocktail waitress named Julie had already worked there several months by the time of my arrival. Though a trite, overused cliché, I was smitten at first sight. Julie was a petite blond; her head existed at just the right height for my chin to rest upon when we embraced. She had what a childhood nemesis of hers branded a snaggletooth, an incisor that was a little off kilter from the surrounding enamels that gave her smile an imperfection I found adorable.

I could attempt to create an embarrassing litany of other reasons why I was attracted to her, but such lists are both overused and unappealing; describing inner feelings to an outside party is both troublesome to write and tedious to read. Suffice to say, there are three ways men think of a woman at first glance. The simplest way is as a friend. We get an immediate sense there is something worth knowing, but it is not of a physical nature. The second reaction involves carnality. A stirring in our loins creates a fire in us that demands we ravage the woman in the most passionate of ways. We are unconcerned with her name or personality, there is only want. Then there is the third manner of eyesight, where with but a fleeting look a longing is created. We desire to trace the whole of the female form with our fingertips, gently caress skin, run a light thumb across an eyebrow, and brush hair back over the ear and cup the neck at the base of the skull. We imagine pulling her towards us that we may brush lips across lips and nuzzle our nose in her hair, breathing in the scent unique to her. It was with this third style of seeing I first observed Julie. From moment one, I wanted nothing more than to orbit her.

As Murphy’s Law would have it, Julie had a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend, her first boyfriend; Julie lived with her high school sweetheart, Jim. Together they had overcome his multiple infidelities, physical abuse and sideline employment of selling (and sampling) drugs. In other words, they worked through all their problems thanks to her tolerance and acceptance, and Jim doing as he damned well pleased. So while my first instinct was that I wanted to be with Julie, the more I got to know her, the more I wanted to save her. I wanted to let her know she was worth better than she had, that she deserved more and I would show her what love could be. In reality, I probably wished to save my mother from her marriage; psychologists will have to determine that one.

Luckily, or unluckily, Julie looked at me sideways, also. Sometimes there is too much guesswork involved in getting to know someone; other times intentions are crystal clear. I could read easily the intent in Julie’s eyes. We became immediate friends, first spending time together within the safe walls of a group of co-workers, then gradually and with more and more frequency, were alone together.

I was immensely attracted to her, but couldn’t muster up the courage to brooch the subject of our mutual fascination. I both feared rejection and didn’t know how to approach the boyfriend angle. My childhood and all the negative influences I had endured instilled in me a perfect insecurity I didn’t know how to overcome. Plus, on the surface of things, our friendship seemed solid. Given my parents relationship, the appearance of “peachy keen” was all I understood. That people were supposed to communicate their feelings was outside my realm of comprehension. I was both happy enough I was around her, and passive enough to remain silently in longing. After six or so months of ignoring the issue, however, Julie was strong enough to push everything into the light of day. She told me flat out she knew I cared for her, and she demanded I admit to it.

Admit I did, and Julie grew silent and said she had a lot to think about. She did not respond with emotional confessions of her own, and I was left dangling for several weeks. There are many awkward and hilarious moments in movies when one character says “I love you” and the other responds incorrectly or not at all. In reality, such a situation leaves he who has confessed pained and confused.

Fortunately for my self-preservation, Julie eventually decided she did indeed like me, too. Sadly, her emotional interest in me was nowhere near enough for her to leave Jim. Instead, we began an odd, years-long and damaging sexual affair. We hid everything from our friends, families and co-workers. We were so good at it, that years later when everything became public knowledge, their shock was overwhelmingly genuine.

Julie was attracted to me, but didn’t know how to respond to being in a relationship while wanting another person. To deal with her confusion, she kept very strict rules when we intertwined. Like a prostitute, she wouldn’t kiss me during our liaisons; that would constitute emotional involvement and be considered “cheating.” Julie would come to my apartment, have me undress her, then lay back and make statements like, “I’m just going to pretend this isn’t happening” and allow me to have sex with her. A very romantic phrase to hear, and a great boost to my self-esteem.

For four long years we carried on in this fashion; she refused to leave Jim, I refused to give up on her. We would capture an evening together, and then I would watch her rush back to him. Knowledge the woman that just shared my bed was returning to another man created immense frustration and anguish in me, but I could never walk away from the situation entirely. I attempted to end the affair repeatedly over the course of our awkward waltz, but failed miserably each time in an embarrassing pattern of abject idiocy. Every few months the anguish of being with Julie, while not having her, would grow to the point I would break it off. I would tell Julie I couldn’t see her anymore; not as her friend, not outside of work, not at all. I even performed this action once immediately following sex, as I was going soft inside her. Before my climax, I had nothing but love for her. Immediately following it, the reality she was about to leave me hit like a ton of bricks.

No matter how often I was able to apply the brakes, however, like an alcoholic craving just another drink or an addict searching for one final fix, I would soon capitulate and call her. I kept convincing myself there was one more gesture I could make that would allow Julie see the light, or that this time I would be able to hold my emotions in check and achieve her level of indifference. Perhaps it was simple tenacity, like a dog with a Frisbee in clenched jaws, refusing to let go. Maybe it was a simple inability to accept loss. At the time it felt like something nobler.

In response to my pain and anger, I began throwing my cock into any warm hole it could find. As Julie considered her “real” relationship more important than me, I didn’t consider it cheating. I flattered whomever I could and fucked them ten ways from Friday, in their favorite positions and shot my orgasm wherever they let me, in mouths or on faces, between tits and on or in the ass. I tugged hair and screwed women while standing against a wall. But I also kissed my conquest after she spit or swallowed, and did so passionately. I honored the gift of their bodies, and cuddled afterwards and listened when they talked. I may not have loved, but I cared, and I tried to use care as an excuse to justify my actions.

My favorite partner during this time was a hostess at the restaurant, a lovely woman named Paula. Paula was an olive-skinned stunner, with curly black locks atop her head. She was a unique blend from mixed parents, but my ignorance and poor memory prevent me from remembering which part of the Asian Pacific Rim her ancestors hailed from. Paula was a good friend whose company I enjoyed, who also happened to be an extremely sexual woman. Paula and I had almost the same relationship as I did with Julie, only without the pain or confusion. Like Julie, Paula had several semi-serious boyfriends during our moments of intermingling. Oddly enough, however, whenever Paula was between relationships, she and I never became exclusive. Paula would be single a little while, eventually find a new boyfriend, all the while keeping me on the side around for extracurricular fun.

We also never had sex; Paula would only perform orally on me. I tried to enter her on a couple of occasions, but she always smiled coyly, closed her legs and opened her mouth instead. Once, we were even both entirely naked in my bed; I finally had convinced her sex would be a fun change of pace for us. I got up for a half a second to grab a condom, and by the time I turned around she had changed her mind and instead went down on me yet again. This twist was in conflict with how Julie acted; Julie would only allow me to have sex with her. While she was dating Jim, I was allowed to perform oral pleasures on her, but the favor was never returned. To Julie, oral sex was too intimate an action, and therefore the greater of two infidelity evils. To Paula, penetrative sex was too intimate, and therefore the worse manner of cheating. One trait they did share was that neither kissed me, or let me kiss them on the lips. Julie because while she was being physically unfaithful to Jim, she refused to betray him emotionally. Paula I believe liked to feel a certain amount of control over the situation.

Paula and I had a bizarre system for hooking up while at work. At the end of the night when it was time to clean up, I would grab the recyclables or garbage and head out the back door to dispose of it. Paula and I would make eye contact, and she would then leave out the front. Paula would loop around to the back, and under cover of darkness go at me on the side of the restaurant, outside of prying eyes. Sometimes she would come over for lunch when at her other job and I was between classes; sometimes I would visit her. On occasion, I would simply pick her up and we would drive around for a little while she did the deed, me dropping her off after finishing. More than once she performed her magic on me in the restaurant’s coatroom during business hours. That was always... interesting.

Maybe Paula did what she did because she liked the power she had over me, the control, knowing I enjoyed the actions of her mouth. Maybe she just enjoyed oral sex, and I was an outlet for her. I was safe, allowing her to work her magic and then return to the security of whatever relationship she was in. Either way, she was a kind and caring soul, and I always enjoyed her company regardless of whether or not we were being “naughty.” Julie knew Paula liked me, so Paula and I were very cautious and never seen alone together. In spite of our vigilance, Paula still became Julie’s internal nemesis; she once told me that if she ever found out Paula and I had fooled around, she would never speak to me again. A strange threat, I thought, considering that every time we were together she went back to Jim’s bed without so much as a single consideration as to how that made me feel.

Despite my dalliances, only Julie held my heart. Though I tried to find solace in the arms and beds of other women, I always returned to her. The worst moment for my emotional well being happened when I finally bore witness to the physical abuse Jim’s hand delivered. He was working one evening, so Julie invited me over to play. It had been several days since we had been together, and I was giddy in anticipation of the forthcoming physical interaction. When Julie answered my knock at her door, however, my excitement turned to horror, and my face showed nothing but shock. The most odd part of the moment was, it took Julie several seconds to realize why I was standing with my mouth agape before covering her purple and swollen eye; she had actually forgotten he hit her a few days prior. By the time I arrived, she was used to how she looked.

I was entirely unsure how to act; I was angry, hurt, and confused. That Julie treated the situation as if absolutely normal created immeasurable frustration in me. Seeing her so wounded made long for her all the more, and I desired to protect her and keep her safe from harm. Despite my anger and pleading, she still wouldn’t leave him. As was the basis for our relationship, as I could not tend to her emotionally, I did my best to treat her wounds physically. Defying all logical responses to seeing her abused, her touch still brought out an erection in me and we had sex in a reclining chair that night.

Everything came to an end when Jim lived up to his personality flaws and read Julie’s diary. She left it out; he picked it up and paged through it, growing angrier by the moment. Inside were all the sordid details of our liaisons, with active accounts of positions they never attempted and descriptive details of the two orifices below her waistline that I had entered, one of which he had not.

Jim exited the relationship immediately. He read the diary while Julie was at the restaurant, packed up many of his things, and left that night. Though she had forgiven him for several past infidelities, he was unwilling to forgive her but one. In a note or angry phone call, he told her he had been planning to leave for months, and everything in his actions suggested it to be true. They had been fighting more and more often; she was spending more and more time with me, leaving work, coming to my house, and returning to him sometimes as late as four or five in the morning. When she would ignore my beckons and go straight home after work, he wouldn’t even be there, he himself staying out until all hours of the night. It was a relationship in tatters. Yet a year later, in a random verbal altercation, Jim re-broke Julie’s heart by telling her he was hurt by her betrayal because he had been preparing to propose to her. Though nothing in that statement rings true, she believed it above all else, and became re-morose over her loss. I thought it a cheap shot, taken from a point of fanciful memory of their history, not the reality of what I saw.

One thing always bothered me about the spark that sent Jim running was Julie having left her diary out. That Jim would read it is merely another chink in his already pockmarked armor. Julie said she trusted him and claimed shock by his action, but for her to write out all the sordid details of our exchanges and then place it in public gives me pause. Though she said she loved him, and no doubt she did, sometimes people know they have to exit a damaging situation. By having an affair with me, journaling the details and not concealing the evidence would be a very passive-aggressive way of quitting the relationship without having to take responsibility for her actions. A pathetic sort of win-win, if you will.

With the thought she had consciously left the diary out for him to read, I believed it would be our time to shine. I was wrong. We continued on as we always had, physically engaged in private, emotionally entangled overall; Julie didn’t want to be seen by our friends as someone that jumped from one relationship to the next. Plus, no matter how much I made myself available for her, Julie was convinced Jim would return. After all, they were “perfect for one another.”

How we finally ended up together involved games and manipulation on my part. Though I’m not proud of it, I was willing to do whatever it took to finally hold Julie’s hand with all the world watching. While I had always been quite private regarding any female friends I might have bedded while waiting for Julie, I felt it was time to take one pursuit public. There was a waitress I believed I could bed, and I told Julie that if she wasn’t willing to be with me, then I was going to chase this new doe. The waitress was just out of a relationship and only required casual fun, so I made myself available, and we spent an evening together.

Gossip runs rampant in any restaurant, and within a week the waitress hung out with Julie and Paula. Paula told me about the powwow first, and it was surreal, like something out of a soap opera. Here were three women I had been with in one manner or another sitting in conversation, each thinking they were the only person to taste me. Eventually, the waitress got around to describing me, and our night together. Paula didn’t mind, and in fact laughed it off inside her mind while remaining cool, calm and collected on the outside. When Julie described the gathering, however, she said hearing of me with another woman made her physically ill. It was the straw that snapped the camel’s spine, just as I had hoped. Though for years I had had to endure her return to Jim’s bed, my straying ways hurt her self-esteem and she said it was time for us to be both exclusive, and visibly so. I was overjoyed, because I was ignorant. I didn’t realize the difference between her ego wanting to remain un-bruised and her heart making an active decision to be with me. In the end, I see that she never did actually choose my side; she just didn’t want to lose.

Julie, though always at odds with Paula, moved in with her, and found great power in having sex with me in Paula’s bed. Later, when Paula moved out, I suggested we have sex in the new roommate’s bed. We did, but Julie didn’t like it. There were no emotions involved, no empowerment, and thus we remained away from then on.

Though we were now dating, I was not allowed to meet her family. They despised me, so our union was kept secret from them. That I didn't meet them in our initial years makes sense; we were carrying on illicitly, so to have me in the same room with blood relations was too confusing. After their relationship ended, Jim, the ten-year favorite and heir apparent to the son-in-law throne, ran immediately to her parents and cried "betrayal!" He told all who would listen how her affair ruined everything, neglecting all the while to mention his own straying ways or pugilistic poundings. Julie never edited this tale; so eager was she to wear her scarlet letter and allow Jim his sordid affairs and swinging fist, that I was deemed the unwelcome outcast. That I never forced her to tell her family the truth was a sign of my own weak self-esteem.

(Only in one moment of honesty did she tell her brother Kerry she was seeing me. In ways I will always be grateful for, instead of judging, berating or condemning her, Kerry thoughtfully told Julie she had to follow her heart. If I was good to her, then that was all that mattered. I was never able to meet, or thank, Kerry for that kindness.)

Despite all my complaints, I still enjoyed our time together. As we had been best friends while she was with Jim, when we became public lovers all of our friends said it was a union that made nothing but sense. The easiest way to explain our relationship is to say that we just gelled well together. There were no fights; there was no drama. I was now completely loyal to Julie, so much so she actually inspired probably my greatest prank to date.

The restaurant Julie and I worked at was an oddity in Milwaukee; it was a business with a great location, but Roxanne reputation. True money ate elsewhere, while white trash making their one special trip a year would pop in and believe they were dining like a Rockefeller. During my entire tenure I poured one type of red wine; customers would enter and order a merlot, cabernet, "your driest red wine," "your top shelf red wine," and I would reach for the same bottle every time. In four years, I never had a glass returned or received a single complaint. I don't know that I went in with a lack of respect for the public, but working there surely challenged the idea we’re all good at our core. I’ve long since thought that everyone in America should spend a year in the service industry; civility and politeness would skyrocket if people got the flavor of humility on their own taste buds occasionally.

The eatery was corporately owned, and it had, I forget specifics, between thirty and fifty restaurants nationwide. The Milwaukee location is gone now; mismanagement from both above and at the local level saw to that. One man who helped drive things into the ground was a new general manager, someone sent in to "turn things around." He entered with big ideas and bigger attitude. He also arrived with a wife, a woman with a taste for alcohol, as chance would happen.

Within his first week of employment, the wife showed up at the restaurant pie-eyed and stumbling. Though obviously intoxicated beyond the point of service, she sat in the lounge and demand drinks from the cocktail waitress on duty, Julie. It was their first meeting, and Julie questioned whether or not she should serve someone so smashed.

(That was six, count ‘em, six “s’s” in a row. Boo-yah)

It was bad move by Julie. The wife threw a fit, her GM hubby got involved, and Julie was fired.

Just like that.

I was both furious, and immediately inspired.

I quickly made my way to the office and obtained several items: a box of corporate stationary. A box of corporate envelopes. A list of every single restaurant owned by the company. Most importantly, the corporate home office location.

My scavenger hunt complete, I drafted a letter, the lyrics of which I do not remember but overall was a little ditty sung in the key of revenge: "Due to recent events at our Wisconsin location, spouses of general managers are not allowed to drink on company property, and are furthermore not to be on company property while inebriated for any reason." No names were mentioned, but the gist did exist; something happened in the city of breweries involving the new GM and his wife.

I had a friend who lived in the same California city as the corporate office, so I made up my thirty (to fifty) letters, sent a package to mi amigo, and she plopped them into a mailbox. Within days, every restaurant in the chain started receiving said memo, on corporate letterhead, in a corporate envelope, from the corporate zip code.

That it was a fake was no doubt determined rather quickly. But for the few hours or days between reception and double-checking, it had to have been believed true. Regardless of the eventual reality coming to light, everyone in upper management all across the country knew the wife in Wisconsin was a boozehound who needed to have tracks covered by her husband.

I quit a few days after the letter was mailed.

I believe the GM was fired within the year.

Julie took her newfound unemployment as an opportunity to go back to school. She enrolled for classes, then decided to study abroad for a part of one semester. For several weeks, she traveled through France and Italy, drawing, sculpting, and unfortunately for me, meeting men with exotic accents.

When she returned from the trip, Julie was different. She was on edge constantly, easily agitated. She was less affectionate and somewhat distant; many of my physical advances were met with a brush off rather than mutual embrace. Had I been intelligent, I would have understood the signs of guilt and confusion for what they were, but it wasn’t even on my radar. Even when she started communicating with a Frenchman she said was “just a friend,” even when she told me she sent him money to help pay his phone bill because their cross-continental conversations were so expensive, at no point did I want to even begin to open my eyes to the truth: she had been unfaithful.

Julie’s behavior changed so much that when Milwaukee hosted its annual Harley festival, she acted a wild child. She began drinking more and then began exposing her breasts to strangers as payment to sit on the back of their bikes. I was working when she told me of her girls-gone-wild ways; her voice was aglow and I could picture her smiling as she spoke. I grew silent. I remember sitting with the phone to my ear for several long seconds, wondering how to respond. The words that came out of my mouth surprised even me.

“Are you trying to get me to break up with you?” I asked quietly.

I didn’t know where the question came from, but it was all that made sense. She was drinking more, constantly lamenting her return to the states, and now flashing her breasts in public. Meanwhile, every little thing I did was far from magic; in fact, Julie lashed out at me in anger with surprising frequency, something she had never done before.

“I don’t know,” Julie answered.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, she explained to me that she jumped into our relationship too quickly, that she needed to be alone to get her head together, and that she wasn’t going to date anyone for the next two years.

“I need to be completely independent,” she said.

All I could muster up in response was, “I love you.”

I felt those words should be enough, that like in many a Hollywood movie, love would emerge victorious over all evil. With but the uttering of the phrase, she was supposed to see the error of her ways and change her mind.

She demurred to do so.

And like that, we went back to square one. When you watch a horror movie, you know where the killer is; you scream, “Don’t go in that room,” but the characters on the screen do not listen. Much like one of those doomed actors, I was trapped by my emotions and allowed myself to reside in the background of Julie’s life once again. We began our old pattern of not dating openly, while still having sex on the sidelines. I convinced myself this was just another stage to the game, and thought all would eventually be well again; hell, we had acted out the majority of our relationship in this fashion. It was par for the course, the two of us, intractably circling around one another, unable to escape.

I lavished whatever gifts upon her I could that final summer. A computer, a TV, a radio, and when fall reared its colorful head and she needed it, a loan for her college tuition.

At the same time, unknown to me, she carried on her friendship with the Frenchman. After hearing she was now single, he decided that what they had wasn’t enough and gave Julie an ultimatum: either date him, or never speak to him again. Julie came to a conclusion quickly; when she told me of it she was giddy with excitement. Julie decided to date him.

I have no words to explain my emotions at that moment. Not just because of what I was being told, but the manner in which the information was presented to me remains insensitively shocking to this day. Not only was she animated and happy, she was surprised by my shocked reaction. I wasn’t happy for her, I was actively upset. Heartbroken, as the sensation is known.

Julie grew angry with me; wasn’t I her friend? Wasn’t I overjoyed she found someone? I should be high-fiving her and hugging her in all our platonic glory! I reminded her that she was supposed to be single for two years, and she looked at me as if I was crazy. Like a window-licker, I had assumed we would spend those two years dancing our silly dance of together/apart, and then end up entwined again.

I remember very well what happened after that, and if I thought I grew tense when first attempting to write out this tale, the hesitancy in me now is murderous. Every fiber for my being calls for me to lie, to make up a fanciful ending where I stoically accepted my fate and walked away like a man, but that’s not what happened. Instead, I chose the embarrassing and pathetic path of holding on. Describing what took place will make no sense to someone who has never had such an experience, but I will do my best.

The next day, I was taking a shower. I wasn’t so much washing myself off as standing under flowing water, dazed by the previous day’s information and wondering if it was all a sick dream I would soon wake up from. Without warning, a power washed over me. My entire body tingled, and a force from outside me spoke inside my head, saying, “Tell her, now. Tell her everything, and win her over.” I did not so much walk, but something influenced my body for me, moving me from the shower to the dining room to retrieve my phone. Naked, dripping wet and energized by an unfocused electricity running riot through my body, I called Julie at work and vomited up my emotions. I told her how I felt, how I had always felt, how I wanted to meet her family and charm the resentment they felt for me out of them, to show them how much I cared about her and could use that to win them over... Most likely, I babbled unintelligibly for several minutes before Julie got a word in edgewise.

“I have to go,” she whispered, her voice a mix of cautious and indifferent. “We can talk about this later. Pick me up after my shift.”

I was slightly humbled, but not defeated. I immediately dressed my best, went out and gathered up a dozen roses, and navigated my way to her workplace. Julie came out, gave the roses a resigned look, and we drove to her house in near silence.

At her house, we went into her room and she told me to have a seat, she would be right back. She turned to leave, then paused. Julie turned back, reached down and scooped up a pile of hand-written letters sitting on her coffee table, and bundled them up.

“I don’t want you reading these,” she explained.

I was confused, and felt defensive. While I understood Jim had betrayed her trust, I never had, and never would.

Julie asked her roommate for some privacy; was there somewhere she could go for a little while, so we could sit in the living room? Julie’s bedroom was a place for intimacy and privacy; to me, it was a room we made love in. To Julie, it was an area I was no longer welcome. Little did I realize this at the time.

We retreated into the living room, where she told me it was over. We could be friends again in a few months, if I wanted to be, but we would no longer be lovers. She had moved on.

I kneeled in front of her, and begged. I put forth the same demand as the Frenchman, saying that was unacceptable; I couldn’t be just her friend, I wanted us together. Julie shrugged, at a loss for words.

I laid my head in her lap and cried. Not movie tears, where everything is touching and people look beautiful as a single wistful tear rolls down one cheek, but sloppy, mucus-inducing, body wrenching sobs.

Julie stoically stroked my hair, and when I was finished, showed me to the door. She told me to call her again when I was ready to talk; I told her, not in anger but anguish, that that moment would never come. I didn’t have it in me to be friends with her. She reiterated to call her when ready.

And that was that.

Five days later, I turned twenty-nine.

Happy birthday to me.

* * *

For the first two post-Julie weeks, I didn’t sleep or eat. I lost thirty-five pounds and on four occasions cried so hard that I threw up stomach acid. Over the course of the next few months, through our mutual friends, I discovered that not only had the Frenchman come to visit, he had done so over Christmas. He got to both meet and spend the holiday with her family, people I had never been allowed to meet or interact with. They began talking marriage almost immediately; Julie wanted to move to France.

My first step towards healing, then, was to carve myself out of the lives of our Venn diagram friends. Given I had lost friends through geographical displacement my whole life, I departed the clique quite casually. To this day, I do not regret or feel even the slightest bit of bad about it. I told everyone it wasn’t enough to ask them not to talk about Julie, seeing them reminded me of her. I have to admit, part of me was confused by the continued loyalty they threw her way. Given her infidelity and theft—repayment of the tuition loan was something that happened in several small installments, then stopped abruptly, leaving my bank account slighted—it seemed to me they shouldn’t want to be around a person like that. But, we all live our own lives, and rarely do we decide our friends based on their actions towards others, we see in them how they treat us. Since I didn’t want to make demands or place anyone in “the middle” of anything, I opted out. I couldn’t live my life with the ghost of Julie around every corner, her image in every friend we shared, ready to draw memories out of me and set back the healing process every time I inched forward.

I also started seeing a therapist, Roberta, who was beyond helpful and informative. She rightly realized that my torment over the loss of Julie was rooted in something much deeper, and we worked to find it the best we could. For the first time in my life, she got me talking to my family. Like most people, when I entered my teen years, I did so surly. I took resenting my family to unheard of levels and by the time I got into my twenties, ignoring my mother, father, and sister felt as natural to me as breathing. When I was twenty-five, my parents mixed it up in an enormous release of the problems they had been neglecting for years. It was Christmas, which was an especially nice touch, and my mother was in the kitchen, screaming and smashing dishes. My father was either throwing her clothes out on to the lawn, or around the house, details are sketchy. I was in my room, wondering why the hell I had even bothered coming home to visit, when one of them finally shouted out the “D” word. My mother was already living in Madison part-time—she had gotten a job there and came home on random weekends—and with both kids out of the house, there was no need to put on appearances anymore. Freedom was a William Wallace reality my mom felt was within reach, and after serving a quarter-century sentence of unhappy, she went for it. Whether or not either of them looked to me for approval or emotional support during that time I do not know; I was as neglectful a son as I could be when they might have needed me. So as you are trained, so as you become. But, with the prodding of Roberta, I finally talked to my parents. I discussed our always moving, my always losing friends, the icy chill surrounding their marriage, their infidelities, anything and everything I could think of.

During one conversation, my mother mentioned something in passing, a sentence almost an afterthought to whatever her focus had been. She said that other than the one instance when I was six, my “abduction,” she could not recall a single time where anything other than extreme physical pain caused me to cry. That moment aside, no amount of emotional duress seemed to create any stirring in me; in moments of stress or emotional hurt, I was even keeled to almost the point of stoicism. To Roberta, this gift of information was a godsend. It explained much about my current state of mind, and fueled her approach in helping me. It meant everything I was going through wasn’t entirely about Julie; she just happened to be the catalyst for a release of twenty-nine years of pent up emotions. Julie represented every friend I had ever lost, every bedroom I had to abandon.

With this development, I discovered that losing Julie was simply my way of proving exactly what everyone feels about themselves at some point in time: no one will ever love me. It wasn’t enough for me to believe such silliness, I had to verify it and in Julie found a woman willing to help me down the path to certainty. Roberta then helped explain situations I was too wrapped up in to understand clearly, such as why Julie didn’t remain with me a while after Jim left her. At the time, I saw his departure as my opening; now it’s all too obvious how myopic that vision was. Julie turned to me not out of want, but desperation. I was her rebound; the fact we had been together for years before the opportunity to use me didn’t matter a whit. The hardest thing for me to accept when Julie eventually left was: she never chose me, she fell on me. I was more than willing to brace her descent, and she was all too happy to have a warm body to cushion the collapse. Once she dusted herself off and was able to stand upright again, she walked off; that she did it by shifting into the arms of another while we were together was a nice twist in karma's favor. I may have thought I was justified in being the other man while she was with Jim, but in the cosmic scheme of things cheating, is cheating. I was a part of a betrayal regardless of circumstance, and it came back to haunt me when Julie was ready to escape our relationship. To her, it was only natural to find someone new before releasing someone old; she never had to be alone, she never had to feel unloved.

About eight months after our final night together, while driving down Prospect Avenue on Milwaukee’s East Side, I passed Julie. She was walking along the sidewalk, holding hands with a man I did not recognize. Though I had been making considerable progress with Roberta, not only the sight of Julie, but the sight of her with yet another lover, brought home all the pain I had been working so hard to escape. On an emotional bender, I called Julie and asked her if she would attend a therapy session with me, that we might talk in a neutral environment. She was agreeable, so I picked her up before my next meeting and had an eye-opening experience. Julie spent the entire hour alternately angry—upset with me for still being hung up on her—and being silently defensive. She was so negative, the following week Roberta asked me as gently as she could, “What did you ever see in her?”

I asked Julie only one question the entire hour; why did she leave? Her two-word reply and the only explanation I’ve ever received was, “We’re incompatible.” She expanded nothing beyond that, and on the ride home admitted to attending the session for two reasons; to hear what lies I was telling my therapist, and to tell her side of the story. Considering she said precious little when given the opportunity, to this day I have yet to understand why she joined me that day. I did discover, however, that the Frenchman had broken up with her after only several months; apparently a cross-continental relationship wasn’t going to work for him. Instead of re-considering her once-wonderful plan of being alone and independent for two years, she leapt right into the arms of yet one more man. I silently hoped he was wiser than I, and that he knew what he was getting into.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but it is a niggling little memory that always fires across my synapses when my mind wanders to Julie. On January 26th, 1997, the New England Patriots met the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl thirty-one. U2 had just announced a world tour in advance of their album “Pop,” and when halftime came around, I made mention that they would have made for a fantastic mid-game show. Julie was offended. Though neither xenophobic nor a right-wing conservative in any way, shape or form, Julie stated the idea of an Irish band playing at the Super Bowl was absurd.

“The Super Bowl is an American ritual,” she stated. “It needs to be a celebration of American music and traditions.”

We actually got in a mini-argument over the idea, which I found entirely confusing for two reasons: one, Julie wasn’t into football, and two, Julie really liked U2; we actually attended their PopMart concert at Camp Randal several months later. I couldn’t understand why allowing the biggest band in the world to play at the biggest sporting event in America could be a bad thing. In fact, I thought it made nothing but sense. Julie adamantly argued otherwise, and we left the situation at a stalemate.

Turns out, I was right. In 2002, U2 was asked to play the Super Bowl halftime show, and not only was it the most watched halftime ever—ratings normally dip during the game break—in 2009 Sports Illustrated rated it the best halftime show of all time. So maybe Julie and I actually were incompatible; I was ahead of the curve, and she behind it.

Either way, my final manner of healing back then was comedy; the stage was my only escape for about two years. “Fifteen minutes minus pain,” is what I called it. Wherever or whenever I could take to the stage and work on the craft that had just captured my attention, I did. The stage was a sort of drug back then; the high would allow my mind momentary respite from the damaging thoughts racing around at near NASCAR speeds, and then they would all come crashing together full force the instant I waved by goodbye to the audience.

My largest short-term problem was coming to grips with the fact the one person I used to talk to daily was the one person I was no longer allowed to call, period. I once read stories of war veterans, men who had lost limbs and awoke at night to phantom pains, scratching at limbs long since dust. It made me wonder how long I would itch for an empty bed and missing person. My long-term challenge was trying to understand the force I felt while showering the day after being dumped. Up to that point, I had not sensed much in the way of religion, but when the energy overtook control of my body and mind, I took note. Something had done that, some other power, and I threw all my faith into the idea that all would be well with Julie because of it. When all did not work out, not only was I destroyed by the breakup, I felt betrayed by God. I held a bitterness in my heart that something so commanding and encouraging could have been so wrong and betrayed me so easily.

What I came to understand is the “God Moment” was both honest, and a necessary part to healing. When Julie and I parted ways, the Internet was still in its infancy. As it grew into an untamed beast in the new millennium, people discovered they could trace their lives all the way back to childhood friendships. They also found they were able to re-discover old lovers. This can be tricky, as anytime the heart is introduced to nostalgia, the “What If” game might be played. “What if we had stayed together?” “What if we still have that spark we once did?” The questions are asked by single people, those within stagnant relationships and even occurs among the happily married; they look at profiles of former flames and see if an attraction still exists. In 2009, with Facebook at its zenith of popularity and social networking on line exceedingly popular, the term “retromance” was coined to describe this phenomena.

I have been fortunate enough to never have any curiosity for this game; there is no need for it. I have no lingering loyalties to Julie, and I believe the “God Moment” is to thank for that. The phone call, our evening conversation and my sobbing into her lap were a purging; I had emotions inside me that needed to be released from my system. With them gone, I have never had to look back and wonder, “What if?”

(I have, once or twice, Googled Paula, but was never able to find her. Such is life.)

When I told Julie I would never be able to be her friend again, I meant it. Back then I was broken hearted; today, I just don’t believe I would have anything to say to her. The pain is gone, but the memory of her indifference and anger remains; to this day, the fact she was actually upset for loving her remains somewhat offensive to me. I also don’t blame Julie for anything, as I may have once; I understand all too well the decision to pursue her was always mine. I made myself available, and though she never chose to be with me, she also didn’t want me to be with anyone else while she was alone. I fully believe that she did like me for a while, but she loved Jim, and that made all the difference.

Sometimes I wonder if she ever learned what it’s like to be used and tossed aside, but maybe it wasn’t her role in life to feel pain. Maybe she was born blessed with the ability to weave in and out of the lives of others, allowing them to learn about themselves. I don’t write that to attack Julie, or to say, “Look how mean she was to me.” The fact of the matter is, someone like Julie is all I was ready for at that stage of my life and immaturity. I fully believed I was second best and deserved to wait for her, which proved futile.

Part of the problem in any failed relationship is that willingness to wait. By giving yourself up to waiting, you are giving up power. Power above all else is one thing that should be shared equally between any two people interested in eyeing the horizon together. If you are ever the stand-by friend, the best friend that does and says all the right things to the person you want, the one you’ve seen win in so many a Hollywood movie, you’re wasting your time. Your heart can convince you otherwise, but you're wrong. You’ll always be wrong, as you've already lost by treating yourself as second best.

A weak foundation holds no house. If a relationship begins, even if only for a mere moment a merger is sparked by power and games, then no matter how much truth you pour into the union you will always be sailing towards disaster.

Just ask Liz Phair.