white barracuda

in case you hadn't noticed, there was a flurry of flaming blow-out postings attached to my last blog entry. if you're looking for action, i'll furnish the spot; even when the heat is on, its never too hot. its good for a laugh, its a good time, and vicious writing is fun to read. so read it; its me at my meanest, in case you're interested in what that looks like.

my gutless, faceless, nameless friend raises this point: i should either be proud of my self-absorbed singleness, or do something about it [instead of whining].

ok. yes, agreed, the one or the other is an ultimate end. but do i really need to qualify the difficulty of achieving that ultimate end? it mystifies me, that i should have to.

i'm not going to actually; for people who've never felt a tug of indecision, there is no explanation that will make sense. for those who have never felt divided over anything, there is no sufficient reasoning that they can follow. how do you explain the desire for what you know you should not have? how do you explain the conflict with one's own self?
you can't, really.
you get it or you don't.
so i'm not going to try.
but here is a story:
i had a dream last night, about my highschool crush, and i don't know why. and with dreams, there is always and only the "why." at its edges, the dream is scrubbed out and faded. i remember running into her, meeting her again -- my presently charming self fending off the darkness of awkward conversation like a road flare -- all the brightness of smiles were between us, and there was none of the discomfort of the last time i had seen her in person: a group of Amherst grads collected themselves at the Cozumel, and though it would have never happened in school, the way things change after time, i found myself insinuated into a shared social circle. i felt my face go white when i saw her there; it took a half hour and a few bourbons before i could work up the courage to face my fear of her. i managed to wrangle her attention for an awkward ten minutes of clunky conversation. i didn't handle it well, but i made it out the other side. i tried to look normal, to be normal. i felt bad that she had to talk to me, that i had used her awakwardly to face my own demons, that i had attached demons to her in the first place. she'd never done anything to me except look beautiful. i should not have really spoken to her, but it was one of those things you just had to do. medicine, you know. tastes like shit; you have to drink it. afterwards, drunkenly, i was proud of myself. if nothing else, i got to make her a little more human.

last night i met her again, in a hallway, and there was no dark cloud of pubescent clumsiness. it was a school hallway, and i saw her and she saw me and did not dread my approach. there was only smiling, and lightheartedness, and she was wearing an iPod and a backpack. i talked to her about music, and she told me about fake obscure bands with dream names that played music i didn't think a jazz saxophonist would be interested in, in real life. she asked me if i had heard of any of them and i smiled, as we crouched at the seam of the wall and the floor, between two doorways, and i told her that i would check them out. she asked me if i had ever heard of White Barracuda, and i shook my head no. and later, our conversation was done and we parted happily and the only sadness was the wish that real life could be something like this.

she is engaged, now. and would be horrified to know that i still (or ever have) thought, dreamt, or wrote about her; i wouldn't blame her, really.

you can't make an Idol of someone; it isn't fair. but i have made one of her, and the ultimate proof is that i still dream about her. she is a symbol, and not a person -- a symbol of unrequited affection, of unfulfilled desire -- a symbol, ultimately, of my own shortcomings. i was not socially adept in highschool; i was not cool, i was not athletic, i was not attractive. i was a loner. part of that was my own fear of entering the bizarre social world of highschool -- i did not try to make friends or attempt to join in. i excluded myself. but i also never felt good enough -- i did not merit the attention of my crush; thus, i never had the attention of my crush.

i never had a girlfriend, or a first kiss, until i was eighteen. i never really had anything mutual with any girl until then. unless you count the girl down the street when i was three.

this is how women become notches in a man's bedpost -- to be able to "have" with ease something that you were never before considered worthy of having -- it is a rush of power, of pride. there is a world of women at my feet; marriagable, datable. fuckable. a complete spectrum, ultra-violet to infra-red, whose interest in me only goes to illumine my ego, to feed it; to prop the crumbling edifice of my self-esteem.

it is natural, to want to be with somebody, to want a someone to belong to. it is a beautiful thing to see someone find it.

it is also natural to use people to feel better about yourself...but it is also wrong. and its a terrible basis for a relationship. you can't build your self esteem on a relationship, however deep or shallow, and you can't build a relationship on your own self esteem. you can't use people to massage your ego. you can't get anyone else to untie the knots of your own heart. its a disservice to their love. its a disservice to yourself. and i want to stop ruining the people who love me, and try to figure out how to be better.

i am better when i'm single. i can handle being single. but i am not proud of being single, i am not proud of my self-absorption.

there is a girl that i want to be mine, but i know i should not be allowed to have her. not until something in me changes -- changes for good, for me and no one else. i can do something about it then.

until then, i'm going to keep denying myself, trying to convince myself. i am going to keep finding reasons not to have a girlfriend.

i am going to keep whining.
deal with it.