memento mori

Round One

2012-01-28T11:06:00.002-05:00

We packed our bags and drove across town to the rapid detox center. People come from hundreds of miles away to go through the process here. It was a cold day, a virtual rarity this winter. Billy used heroin up till that morning. The actual procedure was not scheduled until the following day.

We were called into the examination room. We passed the time with idea talk while waiting for the results of her urine test. The technicians broke the news gently but it did not prevent Billy from breaking down in tears. There was cocaine in her system, through no fault of her own. They could not do the procedure.

Billy cried for several minutes in the exam room. I comforted her the best I could. We asked the technician what we could do. If she needed to maintain and her source was not pure. The put her on Oxycontin, an astronomical amount, to maintain her from withdrawals and to keep her from getting heroin on the street. Something they should have done last week.

The Oxycontin is working. She has not gone out and purchased any heroin. She seems to be whining herself off the Oxycontin also. The pills make her stomach upset. It has been a bit hard for her to eat. Billy and I been getting along well. I did not go back to work once the procedure was cancelled. We spent the time together.

Kevin the friend/ former customer with the crush has worn out his welcome. His continuous text messages finally drove Billy away. She blocked him. I did the same on my phone. He is severely needy and dishonest with himself.

This week is going bye quickly. Tuesday she will try again. I will be drug testing her in advance on Sunday. I don't want to be blind-sided again. Billy got her nose pierced yesterday. My friend at the tattoo shop said Twin B came in to get his snake bit removed. The Ex took him to the shop but did not have the balls to come inside. My friend said Andrew as almost in tears. It is sad how much The Ex needs to control him.

There Is No One Type

2012-01-22T19:03:00.001-05:00

She was a fall baby, mid September. She started school early. In high school, she was a member of the marching band, played soccer, was a cheerleader and took classes at the nearby college for extra credit. She graduated at seventeen. She likes to show off her pictures from senior year. Her first real job was working at Tim Hortons, she still knows her donuts.

By eighteen she was a heroin addict. There was no gateway drug. Her boyfriend didn't tell her what she was taking to ease the pain of a broken collar bone until it was too late. Still living at home, she hid her addiction. She became a stripper to pay for her habit. Her weight decreased. Before her nineteenth birthday she entered a rehab facility for the first time. She relapsed almost as soon as she hit the streets.

She acquired customers that would pay for her habit for little in return, stringing them along with promises of love and sad tales of car troubles. She manipulated everyone. No one was safe from her lies. Desperately she tried to maintain her habit, till she couldn't anymore and wand up overdosing on Seroquel while depressed. She didn't die, and though she cleaned up it didn't last. The desire to use is strong in her.

Now she will be going in for rapid detox and take naltrexone to reduce the cravings and eliminate the ability to get high from the drug. Sometimes you see that bright young girl appear from within the sleepy nodding that comes from using. There is no one type of drug user.

Maintaining

2012-01-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

"Did you leave me any money for gas?"

"No."

"I have got to go out, I might run out of gas."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know."

"I think you should stay home."

Later, after that short text exchange I get another from Billy, "I ran out of gas." I find my truck stalled in the middle of the street on the East side of Detroit. Billy is inside. We have been exchanging words by phone, it isn't pretty. I know she was coming back from buying heroin. My insults, my anger shatter against her Cherise grin. I don't bother looking for the drugs. I don't have time to play those games. I have to buy a gas can, pour enough gas into the tank to get it to a gas station.

"Why do you keep asking me question if you know I am going to lie anyway?" She says. "What do you want me to say, I'll say it to you."

"You don't care about anyone do you?" I say from outside the car door. "You know I love you but I hate you," I continue. I give her a kiss and threaten to smack her. It is a hopeless battle. "Drive straight home. I am going to call Max and make sure you are there."

"Nice have the 8 year old watch me (for the record he is 12)."

She peels out of the gas station leaving me behind. I drive back to work and try to think of alternatives. I come across a local Quick Detox Program. One that includes the opium blocking shot as part of the treatment. The shot will suppress her desire to use and block the effects of the drug if she does. That is what she has been asking for. The start the detox every Tuesday. It takes three days. I put her on the waiting list for tomorrow after consulting her.

"They put me under? I am already getting sick."

When I get home I find Billy on the couch in withdrawal. She seems in bad shape but I am not sure, I don't trust anything at face value, then she gets sick and throws-up in a bucket. She didn't fake that. It could take up to two weeks for her to get into the the detox program. I am forced to make a decision. I have to allow her to maintain. I can't talk to her this way. I am not taking her to the detox center if she doesn't want it. There is no getting high on the shot and she gets it right away. The shot blocks all opiates. This might give her a clean start, a direction to move forward. I know that a standard rehab program did not.

There will have to be therapists involved, anti- depressants (though I don't like the thought) and her will to change. This is the last time I can intervene, maintaining is going to make for a long week.

Old Habits

2012-01-13T18:20:00.000-05:00

Old habits are hard to break. Reinventing yourself can be hard, reveiling yourself can be even harder. Billy is trying to do both. Most strippers view customers are seen as walking ATM machines. The object is to do as little as possible while pushing their buttons so that money falls out. I don't want Billy to return to the strip club. She would like to I think but doesn't know how to win that battle. I feel the environment is bad for her and I don't feel like sharing my girlfriend, in anymore with so other guy. I don't care if it is only in their minds.

Billy still has a couple of customers she would hang out with outside of the club. These "friends", I'm told are platonic yet they will give her money in exchange for having dinner or seeing a movie with them. I don't want her to see these customers either. I made the mistake of agreeing she could see one yesterday. The only reason I did was because I know she still owes people money and she doesn't feel like she can take anymore from me. Honestly she can't, her debts are staggering.

It builds a wall of mistrust and resentment between us. She compares herself to Tinkerbell. She feels Tink's actions while we lived together have filled me with the mistrust. It is not true, I never had the same relationship with Tinkerbell that Billy and I share. Spending so much time around strippers and liars in general however, has filled me with trust issues.

You can take the stripper out of the club but it takes time to take the stripper mentality out of the girl. Billy wants to get a regular job, progress on that front has been slow. Meanwhile these links to the past are hard to break. It is hard to get rid of someone willing to take you on a shopping spree, especially when money is tight for your boyfriend.

I don't want to make it sound like everything is gloomy here. Billy does seem to be holding up to her side of the bargain when it comes to staying clean. We enjoy living together and the sex- I could write steamy volumes about the sex, but I will settle for saying it just keeps getting better. The problem is I am in a relationship, for the first time in many years and it is scary. I don't want it to end.

She Is More

2012-01-09T13:00:00.001-05:00

She is not your average girl. Her mouth opens wider than humanly possible when she yawns. Her face and her long slender frame are more expressive than average. She is like a cartoon character personified, complete with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Just watching her move makes me smile.

She scratches her belly like Al Bundy, and isn't afraid to burp but there is no mistaking her for one of the guys. She is smart, funny, manipulative, cute and cuddly, with a stubbornness to match my own. Her perfect teeth never show in pictures, she has making duck lips down to a science.

She is everything I could want in a girl. Her newness will never wear off. For me, she is the type of girl worth waiting for, the type worth loosing sleep over, the one that makes you forget about the past and think about the future.

"So how long is it going to last?" Jay asks me, inquiring about my relationship with Billy.

"I don't know," I answer with a shrug. "But, it can last as long as she wants."

The Details

2012-01-07T17:47:00.000-05:00

Darkness comes early in the winter, it is easy to loose track of time. I worked long hours all last week. I had no choice. After finding the crack and drug paraphernalia Billy stayed home without access to a cell phone or a car. A friend named Kevin came to see her on Wednesday, he took her out and occupied her time on Thursday. She convinced him to give her some Vicodines or else she was going to use.

Thursday night the house was filled with people. Twin B was on the computer in the loft. Evie had returned with her boyfriend to get her things. She is staying with her boyfriend and his mom now. She could not be around Billy while she was not clean. Billy was smoking a cigarette in the garage when Ron, Evie's boyfriend told me Billy showed Evie the Vicodines.

Billy's purse was next to me on the table, I searched it and found a pill in the outside pocket. I have taken enough Vicodines to know the markings. Once Evie and Ron left I had confronted Kevin and Billy about their day.

"Is she supposed to have these?" I shouted at Kevin, holding the Vicodine in my hand.

"I thought it was the lesser of two evils," he replies.

"You sit her talking about getting her a job as a bank teller and her having to pass a drug test and you give her these?"

I turned to Billy, "You can't stay here. You broke our agreement and I am having your mother turn off your phone."

We exchange a few loud words before Billy heads upstairs to pack. I tell Kevin he is not helping, he should leave. He doesn't he has a thing for Billy, she is using it to control him. Billy comes down stairs, "Did you take my phone?"

"I don't have too." I call her mother and tell her to have it disconnected.

Billy takes my phone from me and starts trying to manipulate her mother, "Mom, if you take my phone away you will not be able to contact me." Her mother stands firm.

Billy leaves the house with her suitcase rolling behind her. I don't know how far she got or if she just waited nearby for Kevin. Kevin wanted to make sure she had somewhere to go. I gave him the address of the Rehab clinic but he took her home instead.

Kevin promised me he would not enable her in anyway and he did spend the next day taking her around to doctors, finally getting her to see an addictionologist. She has been with him for two days now. It seems to be a good place for her right now. Kevin's feeling for her seem to keep him in check. Billy seems to trust him enough to allow him to help her.

She wants to come home. I'm not sure if she's ready. She has an appointment with a therapist and has agreed to start meetings. Rehab does not seem to work for her, getting clean is not the problem. Wanting to stay clean seems to be. I do not know what goes on inside her head. She is more silent than I.

Both Worlds

2012-01-06T01:10:00.001-05:00

I found out Billy was using again Monday night. She was acting weird. Complaining about diarrhea that seemed more like constipation (a side effect of heroin use). That night she fell asleep on the couch, dead to the world. I found a needle, a crack pipe and a small rock hidden in the bathroom.

I woke her to move her upstairs. It was like a vampire being suddenly exposed to sunlight. It was frightening the way she screamed and thrashed before she composed herself. I took away the car keys the cell phones and left for work Tuesday morning. By the time she woke up, I had sorted through everyone she called using my phones into four groups; drug dealers, customers, addicts and family.

She wasn't happy to learn I was calling the customers and politely warning them not to give her money because she was on drugs. One she had been using a long time and felt like he was nice, didn't have very good things to say about her. He is lucky we were not talking in person.

Billy stayed on lock down for two days, taking her medication and staying clean. On the third day she got a hold of four vicodine from a friend by threatening to use. She wanted to use and she was calling customers again.

When I found out it was 11:30 at night. I confronted her and told her she had to leave. I called her mother and told her to shut Billy's phone off and to not let her home. I tore the friend a new asshole. We watched her pack a bag and walk out into the cold January night. I told the friend, I have to call her bluff.

The friend promised not to allow her to come to his home. She tried guilting her mother and explaining to me but I would not listen. The friend said he was taking her to the rehab clinic I had given him the address for. That is the last I heard tonight.

The thing is Billy wants to be here. She wants to be a part of the family. I told her, "There is a whole world of things out there for her and I but she can't, can't have it both ways.

Move Forward, Entwined

2012-01-01T16:10:00.000-05:00

I have skipped over a lot of the mundane activities around Christmas, there really isn't much to tell. The most compelling story involves what is going on with Billy and I. I'd be lying if I said everything has gone easy. There has been times of stress for both of us, every time she leaves on her own, when drug dealers need to be paid off or when medications don't seem to be being taken but it seems to be working.

Billy is trying so hard. Her honesty is returning, and I question everything with a fine tooth comb, slow asking her compassionately, "Make me feel comfortable about this." She understands, she is happy; we are happy. And she loves me.

Twin B and Max have adapted well to the new living situation. They know Billy will be with me long term and that Evie is only staying short term. The boys already adore Billy. She has patience and an over abundance of attention to listen to Twin B. The first night when I came into his room to say goodnight to Max he gave me his unasked for approval of Billy. I know it is because of the natural kindness in she treats them.

Evie stay out of the way. She has a boyfriend. He lives with his parents and works for one of the big three auto companies. She hasn't been any trouble. Billy watches her closely, and is very cautious with my generosity. We are in lock step where Evie is concerned and though we want the best for her, we won't let her jeopardize either Billy's recovery or our relationship.

I know it all sounds too good to be true. Believe me I watch things closely but I want things to work. It will be worth all it took to get here if things continue to work. I don't think we would have gotten here any other way. I love the way Billy's big toes curl upward on each foot like a cartoon character when she is getting ready. I love the way we lie in bed all night like two wrestles flopping all over, always entwined in each others arms and legs. She can be wonderful.

Everyone says I deserve better, Billy says I deserve better. I won't deserve the woman she will be.

It Only Happens In My World

2011-12-30T13:56:00.000-05:00

Chapter 13: ~~They Found Her Dead~~ It Only Happens In My World

It was raining again. I most live in the fucking Settle of the Rust belt. I had spoken with Billy earlier in the evening by phone. She was agitated. She wanted me to come visit on Saturday, two days away. Three hours later I got a call from Billy's mother. Billy and her roommate had check themselves out of rehab and where picked up by a friend.

We feared the worst. Billy was going to score heroin. I was mad. Through conversations with her and her mom I had learned that Billy had indeed hit rock bottom. She had overdosed on Seriquel. She nearly died, for days she was delirious. She had sold her home computer, the sound system from her car, all for drugs. She weight 78 pounds when she entered the hospital-- an anorexics wet dream. Now she was leaving rehab.

I was on the phone with a friend discuss the situation and how lost I felt when someone knocked on the door. Billy was standing there bag in tow. I drew here in close. I was happy to see her, it was the first time in weeks but I was confused and worried. She was clean with a story for why she need to be out of rehab and her room mate was with her.

So 9:30 at night not one, but two ex strippers in there early twenties straight from rehab have come to stay here for a time as yet undetermined. I am official running a drug halfway house for ex-strippers.
Billy IS looking better. I am in lock step with her mom as much as I can be. I am making sure she continues with meetings and therapy.

Evie, we shall call the other girl is still getting sick from her suboxone. Her insurance was done. She had to leave rehab and did not have a safe place to go. She was working a regular job and going to college before starting to use heroin to control pain from an injury to her shoulder.

And I thought 2012 was going to be boring...

Transition

2011-12-27T21:24:00.002-05:00

The rain turned to snow but the temperature was not cold enough for it to stick. The foggy skies and big clumsy flakes combined to make visibility near impossible. I was driving across town. Billy was moving from the hospital directly to the rehab center; she asked if I could bring some things to her.

"I've already gained 9 lbs," she tells me. She could of said 20 and I wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

She will be in this rehab center for 30 days. I've been there. She is there. I have to take a back seat while her parents and family deal with her addiction. To them I am a stranger. She is getting good help though, and I will see her soon.

2011-12-23T12:44:00.000-05:00

Billy is in the hospital. She doesn't want me to see her. From there, she is supposed to go back to rehap. There is a lot not being said. I don't think she is ready to change...It is hard for me to care.

A Message From Billy

2011-12-22T03:07:00.002-05:00

I received a message from Billy Wednesday night around 6:30 pm, it was on Facebook, not our usually way of communicating but her phone is still going straight to voice mail.

"hey send me your number... I overdosed on Seroquel been in hospital. just got moved to "9thfloor" should be getting the fuck outta here soon miss u and love u message me back ill have a personal phone tomorrow i miss u so much."

I believe she overdosed on something. A friend who lives in the same area as Billy tell me Seroquel is the new drug to abuse there. Hopefully I will know more tomorrow.

Your Answers

2011-12-20T18:49:00.000-05:00

I tell my long time friend Mari, "I've got to go to Toronto for work. I think they are giving us bonus checks. I think I'll spend mine there on strippers and whores to forget about all the issues I'm having with my current stripper/whore."

That is not how it goes though. My Christmas bonus is enough time make up for the money I gave Billy with cash to spare for Christmas. There really is a Santa Claus. Twisted though he my be. I sat inside my hotel room reading the comments from the last post. I decided they needed a post of their own.

I appreciate everyone who comments. No one should be afraid to publish their name or state their opinion.

Ellie "OMG..has she any idea what she's doing to you?"

The simple answer is no, not right now. There was a time she did. When she was clean and fresh out of rehab, when she was flooded with emotions she didn't know how to deal with, when she cried with her head on my shoulder and warned me not to go out with her say, "Nothing good will come out of it," then she knew, then I loved her.

Now she doesn't know. I have had worse. I am insulated from the pain. It still doesn't make it right.

Phoenix "This is so frustrating to read. I'm sorry I've been away, life has once again been overwhelming (but in a good way), and I was hoping when I came back and visited your blog it would be to read good news about how Billy has her act together."

I am sorry this is so frustrating for you to read. I have really missed your comments. It gives me strength to have you looking over my shoulder. I still have hope that Billy is in a rehab right now. Her phone is still going straight to voice mail. That is a good sign. She hasn't shown up in any obituaries yet.

Lucy- "Oh, I was somewhat expecting that too. Which is quite sad. I really hope she cleans up her act, you deserve happiness."

Everyone deserves happiness, me, you and Billy. We don't always get it. We don't always choose it. Really, I'm alright though.

Me-"You called it in a previous post. You knew this was going to happen, yet you expose yourself to the pain anyway, the disappointment...."

I know you want the best for me but try to understand this, there wasn't much pain or disappointment. I was ready for what I would find but I can say, "I was there for you, (for her)." I kept my word, my promise. THAT is important. to me.

Danielle- Sometimes you have to search out the truth, be it painfully or not. She has proven again untrustworthy. You deserve better.

You can not judge her by normal standards. She is struggling with a lot of difficult forces. If she came back to me tomorrow straight from some rehab asking to let her start the life we talked about, should I turn my back on her? No one deserves anything they have got to want it, they have got to work for it. I don't do either.

Anonymous- Why do you feel like you have to be the savior of this woman? I am not asking this to be mean, I really want to know why. You can not save any one that does not want to be saved. She is so addicted. That is how she operates. It does not mean she is bad. She is driven by one thing, one thing only.

Your question was the most difficult to answer, mostly because of who you are. I like her. She makes me happy. I have seen who she can be. She didn't always lie to me. When she was about to go into rehab for the first time, she told me the truth even though she was afraid I would never speak to her again. I'm doing it for selfish reasons, I like being with her and if there is a chance that we can both enjoy being with each other then I am willing to try.

Sunday's Journey

2011-12-19T11:16:00.000-05:00

Thirty minutes north of me the main roads shrink into rural routes. The suburban shopping malls fade way to open fields. The rehab center is tucked away down two miles of dirt roads. These roads would be hell to travel in February, when the snow falls and the winds drift it high. The center is a cluster of three brown brick buildings surrounded by paved parking areas, then trees and fields. There is no sign at the entrance, just the address in large numbers.

I go inside the guest visiting area, several people are already there waiting to see loved ones. Two nurses are checking name, bags and handing out name tags. They ask me who I am there to see. I tell them, Billy. I glance at the list of names on their clipboard. Billy isn't on it. One of the nurses goes back to check with the counselors but I pretty much already have my answer.

By the time a counselor comes forward the other visitors have been taken back in a group. The counselor tells me, "Due to Hippocratic laws I can not tell you if a patient is here or not, but you need to leave."

I kept my word. Billy had not. Her phone has gone straight to voice-mail since Friday. It is not unusual for it to do that once in awhile, it doesn't charge very well and she refuses to get it fixed but four days is unusual. Maybe she is blocking my calls, maybe she is in rehab somewhere or maybe she is dead-- we may never know.

How I Know

2011-12-16T21:36:00.000-05:00

Waitress: "What did you get your girlfriend for Christmas?'

'One step closer to the grave,' I think to myself.

These are the things I have a hard time saying even here. These are the things that extinguish hope. They make me look foolish. The paint Billy into a corner of evil intent no editing can produce a path to escape.

How do I know she is lying? I received a text from Billy's phone the night she went into rehab. The message was sign Billy's mom but the vernacular suspiciously like Billy's.

Thursday when I heard from Billy it wasn't from a restricted number or a number from the rehab center. I was butt dialed again, from Billy's phone. It didn't last 36 minutes this time. All I heard was Billy saying, "just follow me." Then saying, "Oh shit," when she realized her phone had dialed me.

I text her saying, "You certainly are getting around for someone supposed to be in rehab."

She replies, "They were on a group outing to Wal-mart for Christmas shopping." When I asked her about her phone she said she never gave it to them. She then went on to say everything else I reported in this post.

Thursday she text me again asking if I could Western Union her $150, saying they have an office at the rehab center and that she wanted to get her mother a vacuum for Christmas on another Wal-mart outing. I told her I couldn't.

They don't get their phones in rehab. They don't go on group outing to Wal-Mart. The only possible way she will be in rehab on Sunday is if her mom put her in today and I doubt she would be accepting visitors on Sunday.

I will play along, till I see her again. She will probably tell me Saturday she is getting out. That will be ten days and the minimum they usually stay. If not I will contact the Rehab center on Sunday before I make the trip. It isn't far from my house. (it is far from her house).

These are the things I don't want to print, because when you print the any hope, any chance that somehow something will workout, that something was really crumples away and I am left with the way things are.

Lies and Truth and the Line Between

2011-12-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

Are you better off when you can tell a lie from the truth? If you say that black is white and blue is blue does that make them both false? How do I know? What is blue to you might be cyan to me, or what you say is blue might be green to you all along. I cannot tell, but I know black is not white, even if I want blue to be blue between us. All this and we haven't even discussed the reasons why you said black is white, was it because you know I hate white and you planned on removing it anyway:

I talked to Billy last night. She said, she is doing well || She said, it sucks there but she needs it so we can be happy || She said I could visit here Sunday || She said, she missed The Walking Dead. || She said, she missed me || She said, she loved me

Before fore you praise her you must know, I think she is lying. I don't think she is doing well. I don't think she is in rehab. I don't think I will visit here there on Sunday and I don't know where to draw the line between the truth and the lies. I am waiting for Sunday and hoping for the best. The shortest days of the year just got longer.

Well I guess it's time for me
Tell me what I'm left to believe in?
'Cause I don't know the concept of the pain
I don't want the fate I'm just losing
I can't prove it,
Watch me bleed!....Screaming Bloody Murder, Sum41

I have been surrounded by lairs for so long it seems like the whole word just naturally runs that way.

"The truth? What is the truth, I don't know anymore." Sophie's Choice

A Moment in December

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

In homage to Sarah H. at Death Wears Diamond Jewelery who is no longer blogging but is missed.

Listening… A Day To Remember

Reading… Old blog posts and a blog chronicling Persephone's battle with mental illness.

Watching… Lie To Me (Ironic I know, I am pretty good at telling when someone is lying, just not at telling why or listening to my own intuition).

Playing/Creating … With Legos still, Max has me making building for his castle village (click on the picture to enlarge).

The Large tower is an original creation

Here you can see the tree house


Several of these building are just pieced together from odd thing

The center gate is an original design the models on either side are Lego designs

This is my original design for a inn

The back opens so it can be played with

Hoping… Against hope, that I didn't make a mistake and Billy returns clean.

Buying… More Legos, we always buy more Legos at Christmas.

Loving/Hating... Loving the up coming time off, Hating the holidays.

Planning… To write a post divorce auto biography, working title, "In Love With A Stripper"

Missing… The Strip club

Feeling… Out of place

The Past

2011-12-12T11:47:00.000-05:00

Originally published September 26, 2009

The Wrong Words, The Bookstore And The T-Rex

While driving down the road, I tap out quick messages to Persephone on the qwerty keypad. I ask her why she loves me. A valid question, I feel. I am hoping her answers will be superficial but they aren't. But are they the ones that bind people over time?

The fall night is quickly sinking toward dusk. Persephone shifts from texting to calling. I pull into the parking lot of Barnes & Noble and park next to Tinkerbell's familiar pastel green Focus. The lot is mostly empty. Our conversation is stunted. I am unsure what to say to her. I have my phone in my hand, the long black cord from my ear piece dangles along beside me, as I walk into the store.

"Can you call me back later?" I ask. "I am about to meet up with Tink for dinner."

It was the wrong thing to say; a time when a white lie would have been better. She already has a deep resentment of my relationship with Tink. I wasn't thinking. I feel her disappointment in me in the silence before we say goodbye. Persephone hasn't contacted me since.

Inside a flash of green cuts across the main aisle, a miniature dinosaur complete with soft felt talons, a three foot tail and a toothy grin. The T-Rex turns my way. Recognizing me he stops in the middle of his mischief. The child within the costume smiles then takes off as he hears his mom calling his name.

I catch up to them at the information desk. Tinkerbell is dressed in a short denim skirt and a blue long sleeve top. She looks slightly flustered. The T-Rex bounces around her knees. She's looking for the latest Stephanie Meyers novel. No not one of the Twilight books; it's called The Host, the first book of her new series.

I volunteer to continue the search and she takes off toward the front of the store with her little monster in tow. The old lady behind the information counter is methodical-- which is a polite way of me saying she is slow. I ask her where I can find the book. I have time to tap out, "old people should not be allowed to work," on my phone while she consults her computer screen. After what seemed like enough time for me to reach retirement, she sends me off to the Science Fiction and Fantasy section.

I bring the thick hardcover novel back to Tink. She regards it briefly, changes her mind about it and tosses it onto the shelf in front of her. If it was anyone else, I'd be surprised but not with her. She is onto another mission already and is searching for a book on tattoos.

The T-Rex wants to play. I take him over to the children's section where he sinks his teeth into the toy train table. His mom continues on her search.

"Play with me!" He insists.

"Okay, okay!"

I pick up a train and push it along the track. The little T-Rex attracts smiles from the passing adults. He doesn't notice, so intent is he on the trains. When it is time to leave, he pouts.

"Pick him up," Tinketbell insists, afraid he will break out in screams.

"What do T-Rex like to eat?" I ask to distract him. "Hamburgers? Hotdogs?"

The train table is quickly forgotten as we get into a debate concerning the diet of a dinosaur. The little monster begins chanting, "hungry hungry" as we drive to get food.

"He is his mother's child."

He continues to attract attention from strangers at the restaurant. The little boy in the Halloween costume eating his meal—or not as was the case. Garnishing attention unrealized just like his mom.

My Struggle

2011-12-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

"I hate my life, I have got to change," she told me. "I have no other choice."

Billy and I had been making plans, for a few weeks. Talking about getting her a job close to my place and having her move in. We skirted around the elephant in the room, her addiction, but we both know resolving that too was part of the plan. At first she was going to move in right after Christmas, during my holiday break. I knew she had a prescription for Suboxone, I thought she was going to try detoxing with me over that time period. She kept moving the date up.

She told me she needed $1100 for rehab. The price her mothers insurance would not cover. She had her bags packed and was ready to go. I got the money without hesitation. I told Billy I would hand it to her mom. She agreed but her mother was not there when I got to her house.

Billy was wearing I fluffy pink bathrobe over her clothes when I got to her home. Her mother had their home already decorated for Christmas. A tree was in the front room. Painted Santa figurines were on a shelf above the stove.

I told Billy I would wait for her mother to return. I was not going to give the money to her. She got mad at me for not trusting her. I knew something else was going on. I was not sure what. I took Billy to McDonalds to get something to eat. When we returned her mother was still not there. Heroin is much like anti-depressants, it seems to shut down every emotion but anger.
Billy started getting loud. I pushed back but did not raise my voice to match hers. I tried to keep her calm.

Lies were being mixed in with the truth, again. One thing was clear her mother didn't know about the money, perhaps the whole rehab adventure. She got pissed and told me to leave. So I did. I told her, "when you are ready to tell me the truth, I'll be in the area." We continued the conversation through phone calls and text messages.

I always felt it was the drugs keeping us apart, everyone else said it was the drugs keeping us together. Maybe they were right, a part of me didn't want to find out. The money wasn't the object here, it was the truth, my feelings and her health at stake.

I had no doubt she was going to rehab, a clinic or to somehow try to clean herself up. She had no choice. The money could be for back doubt to her drug dealer. They don't stop collecting when you go to rehab. The debt just keeps gaining interest. The question really was where will she go when she was done and who would she be with?

In the end I relented, I drove back to her house with tears in my eyes. Every part of my was screaming this is wrong--but not for her, for me. Which means everything is wrong and I should never be cornered in this position to begin with but if I really loved her how could I deny her this. She was dress and ready to go when I returned. "I will come straight to your house when I am out", she tells me, "In fact, you can pick me up."

Later that night I get a text. "Billy told me to tell you she is in rehab. She said she would call. This is her mom."

Entwined

2011-12-08T21:45:00.000-05:00

The thermostat is set at 69 degrees. It is the late afternoon. Billy and I sit snuggled next to each other on the couch beneath a red quilted blanket. She has her legs curled up on my lap and I am rubbing her feet. Billy is eating cookie dough ice cream from the cartoon and I have a bowl of vanilla-fudge swirl on the light stand next to me.

We are watching The Walking Dead, she has never seen it. "Does he make it?" She asks.

"I don't know," I lie, smiling at her and pausing from my work on her feet long enough to take a bite of my ice cream.

Billy hands me her empty cartoon and I place it on the floor next to the couch. There is no room for it on the coffee table, which is full of Max's Legos. She starts mousing her spoon into my bowl. I don't mind, she needs the calories, I don't.

By the beginning of the third episode she is getting tired. She shifts positions, placing a pillow in my lap and resting her head upon it. Soon, her eyes close. I lay myself torso down beside her folded up legs. We lay entwined together for a few moments like two coy fish before she has to leave.

* * *

It is Thursday morning, my phone jingles while I am preparing for work. It is a text message from Billy.

Billy: "I need help."

Bathwater: "Where are you? What's wrong?"

Billy: "I need treatment..."

Explorer

2011-12-05T21:32:00.002-05:00

When things go silent, you know that is not a good sign. It seems like it has been raining every day here. Thursday the parking lots were ice. Billy slide here Ford Explorer into a support beam for one of those apartment complex cartports-- smack in the center.

Was she high at the time? Maybe. The airbags did not go off but she added some major damage to the front end. She showed up at my house in tears, Friday. She calmed down after a few episodes of The Walking Dead. She borrowed my truck (my spare vehicle) later. It never showed back up as planned that day.

A few hours with my truck turned into 2 days with little communication. I was panicked at first. Visions of Billy trading it for heroin flashed through my head. I drive the hour out to her parents house to see if it was there Saturday afternoon. It was sitting in the driveway. Billy was inside, sleeping the sleep of the dead, that drug uses do. She slept about 18 hours.

Sunday I pulled Billy's truck into the garage and began to assess the damage. I wanted my truck back. I removed the front bumper, which was bent beyond repair and replaced it with a 2 x 4, which I under coated black. It sounds ghetto but most of it is hidden by the plastic outer bumper.

The plastic outer bumper, which was hanging on by one screw and cracked and dented in the middle got several strategic layers of duct tape on the inside. I screwed everything together to keep it from flapping in the breeze. It is a temporary fix, and I warned her so but the Explorer is road worthy and looks better than when it arrived.

I can get parts for it from a junk yard and put it together better later if it ever stops raining, if things progress between us. My truck came back in one piece. Billy was satisfied with the repairs.

I have her drug habit pattern down now. She will get high, usually at night, after work. Sleep through the next day, then skip a day or use less. I think she is using more than when she was working everyday, and getting high every night. She is still denying it. We are coming to a blowup this week, next time she appears.

My emotions are in turmoil, anger, sadness none of them stick around long enough to control me. When she is here...well those times I want to continue. She is dragging me down, though. I don't know what she really wants. She talks about the future but whether it is something she is willing to fight for is the question.

Sour Girl

2011-12-02T09:54:00.003-05:00

She turned away what was she looking at?
She was a sour girl the day that she met me
Hey! What are you looking at?
She was a happy girl when she left me

What would you do?
What would you do if I followed you?
What would you do if I follow?

Don't turn away, what are you looking at?
He was so happy on the day that he met her
Say, what are you looking at?
I was a superman, but looks are deceiving

The roller coaster rides a lonely one
I paid a ransom note to stop it from steaming
Hey! What are you looking at?
She was a teenage girl when she met me...

It is a warm afternoon, Tinkerbell and I are sitting side by side on the curb outside of Sam's hair salon. Tink is smoking a cigarette. Her hair is coated in a thick creamy stripping solution, she is determined to go from dark to blond. Tink's hand is laced in mine and she squeezes tight against the pain of the acidic chemicals burning her scalp. She shivers. Sam is afraid her hair will fall out.

I never liked her blond, then was not the time to remind her. She wasn't making the change for me anyway. Fools would tell her she looked better blond and she believed. It isn't true. Her hair didn't fall out, she remained blond-- for a while. Today is Tinkerbell's birthday. She has probably got plans for tonight that include a tight little outfit and a lot of alcohol and though she will probably not respond to my text wishing her a happy birthday, I still remember.

The girl got reasons, they all got reasons... Sour Girl, Stone Temple Pilots

Faith

2011-12-01T10:46:00.000-05:00

Everything's so blurry and everyone's so fake
and everybody's empty and everything is so messed up. Preoccupied without you, I cannot live at all.
My whole world surrounds you I stumble then I crawl.
You could be my someone you could be my scene.
You know that I'll protect you from all of the obscene.
I wonder what you're doing imagine where you are.There's oceans in between us but that's not very far...Blurry, Puddle of Mudd

Billy (early morning text): "Are you awake? Are you working today?"

I am at Starbucks working, sort off. Pondering Billy's early morning text. By the time I replied, an hour an a half later she was silent. I am not used to getting text and calls at odd hours anymore, Tinkerbell was the one notorious for doing that.

Is it starting to happen, are things starting to unravel for her? The cycles get shorter and shorter. Her body, finances, those around her, they can only take so much. My door is always open to you I've told her and it was a literal statement. I leave my front door unlocked, it is easier then giving my kids a key. Last night was cold, we had our first snow fall of the season and I wonder where she spent the night.

Sometimes I feel guilty. Billy does not have the hold on me that Tinkerbell had. Billy is full of potential that was never there with Tinkerbell, but her addiction keeps getting in the way. Two further text messages later in the afternoon fail to shed any light on what she is doing, then silence returns. I restrain myself and don't continue texting in search of a reply.

When Tinkerbell lived with me and even after she moved out, I knew all of her secrets. I knew all of the things she could never tell her boyfriend Shakes. All the things, "he would not understand". I am not sure why she told me everything, maybe she needed a confidant, maybe she knew I would never think less of her. The point is she would never tell Shakes because she felt HE would not react the same.

I like to think maybe Billy is acting the same way, that like Tink she does have a plan, and will wants to keep to our plan. I am a fool, a dreamer, a hopeless romantic with his head in the sand.

Today, before I left, I double locked the front door. I can be blinded by faith, but not so blind as to invite desperation and temptation in unsupervised.

Wrong Way

2011-11-29T11:31:00.002-05:00

Annie is 12 years old in two more she'll be a whore,
Nobody ever told her, it's the wrong way.
Don't be afraid with the quickness you get laid,
For your family get paid, it's the wrong way.

I gave her all that I got to give
I'm gonna make it hard to live
Salty tears running down her chin
And it ruins up her make up, I never wanted.

A cigarette, pressed between her lips,
while I'm staring at her tits, it's the wrong way.
Strong if I can but I am only a man,
so I take her to the can, it's the wrong way....

People have been leaving me a lot of comments asking me how I am cooping and offering advice. Thank you. It is like I have always said and what Danielle reminded me, her actions, not her words will determine what will happen. Right now I am backing off, I am not fighting the lies but I don't paint the truth otherwise.

She is unhealthy thin, possibly kicked out of her mother's house, work for strippers is slow this time of year, weather makes it inconsistent. Hopefully she will want to try again.

I gave her all that I had to give
But she still wouldn't take it, oh no
Her two brown eyes are leaking like a sieve
And it still ruins her make-up, I never wanted. Wrong Way, Sublime

Over Due

2011-11-28T11:23:00.001-05:00

Last Week (Pulled From Drafts)

Saturday night a nicked myself shaving. It was a tiny cut right beneath a nostril. It look more like a bloody nose than a shaving accident. It would not stop bleeding. After an hour battling with it, I shoved a wad of gauze up my nose and taped it in place with white surgical tape.

"What happened to you?" Billy asks, when she enters and see me.

"Ever see Jack Nicholson in Chinatown?"

"No."

I shrug, "Never mind, I was going for that look."

Sunday we are lying together in a half spoon position. Billy is on her back and I am next to her on my side. She asks questions concerning the current and past women in my life, while I trace circles on the soft skin of her midriff with my fingers.

"So you had a large wedding?"

"Not too large," I assure her, "about 125 people."

"I can't picture you doing that."

"Don't worry, I won't be marrying you. If it is any consolation, it was before you were born" (roughly).

"How can you stop talking to someone you've known so long? Someone you had kids with?"

So I told her the tale. It was a bit easier to understand after that. Billy asked about Elle, Alexis and Sam whose pictures she'd seen around my condo--then she asked about Tink. I admitted Tinkerbell had called me the other day. I said it came to nothing.

"Tinkerbell and I were never intimate in the same way you and I are," I told her. "She was always more my best friend or fourth child. There was a time I wanted more, but it never happened."

Last Night

I did not let on that I had been listening for those thirty-six minutes. I avoided the conversation, knowing it would probably be the end of the beginning of our evening. Billy's dish water blond hair hung straight along her face, the way I like it. I held her close. "I know you are using again," I started.

She denied it all and what she didn't deny she avoided. I pleaded my case, "I don't want to come home one day and find you dead in the bed."

"What are you talking about?"

"We both know those things happen."

The force of Billy's denial was like a physical wall. "If you don't trust me then there is no reason we should be together."

I didn't want her to run, I didn't want her to leave. I held her face in my hands. "Look, I will do what it takes to help you. I will be with you, everyday but I can't stand by and watch you kill yourself."

"Sometimes I think you care so much you see things that aren't there."

I wanted to argue but I knew it would get me no where. "Do you trust me?" She asks.

"Follow through with the plans we talked about," I tell her. We had been talking about her getting a job at one of the many stores around my area. We talked about her staying with me. Billy wanted to be with me the week over Christmas, want me to be with her. I assumed to go through withdraws.

But as we parted I knew the lies had already begun again and I had to shut myself off inside. I have to become numb, like she does when she gets high.

Thirty-Six Minutes

2011-11-27T15:31:00.003-05:00

If I could have one power it would be to make they words spoken to me be true. Words are like clouds, they create pretty illusions in the sky but they are ever changing and they are filled with nothing except maybe tears.

Lies make the world go round. Lies we are told, lies we tell ourselves. Thirty-six minutes of truth shatters even the most carefully layered framework of lies.

I was butt dialed by Billy this morning. I had not heard from her since Friday, I had not seen her since Thursday when she was over. Once I realized she did no know she was calling me, I sat back and listened. It was like Trainspotting without the picture. She was with her friend Ray, two heroin addicts, sleeping in their car and on the hunt for their next fix.

I sat in silence listening. The broken snatches of their conversation was riveting. She is hacking and coughing. Her words haunt me now.

She is not to blame alone. I was also lying to myself. I thought we had a plan, I though things would work out. I thought we would never have to face this again, because-- where do we go from here?

What do I say to her now? How do I ever trust her? What do I do?

"F'k my phone has been calling someone for thirty-six minutes. Hello who's there? F'k the worst possible person...*beep*"

A Moment In November

2011-11-21T09:02:00.000-05:00

In homage to Sarah H. at Death Wears Diamond Jewelery who is no longer blogging but missed.

Listening… Pearl Jam, Fall Out Boy and Hollywood Undead (that DJ was on to something Tink)

Reading…

Hope Dies Last
by Eleni Zoe
(Eleni is a fellow blogger and her book sucks you in just like her blog)

The Sillmarillion
by J. R. R. Tolkien

Twin B reading the Hobbit sent me back to Tolkien's epic work.

Watching… A Knight's Tale and The Walking Dead (AMC's zombie apocalypse series)

Playing… Life Is Crime on my phone, a Mob Wars style game that allows you to fight for and control real life locations. Bathwater is on his way to becoming a minor Kingpin of the Metro-Detroit area.

Wanting… The end of this year to come.

Buying… Double Stuffed Oreo cookies

Loving/Hating... a throaty voice, purring and laughing into my ear, to my words and my movements

Planning… What's planning?

Creating… A Lego Tree house for Max and his friend to play with (sorry I meant to take a picture)

Inspired by… Music and Lose

An Interuption Cuts Through Life

2011-11-17T08:54:00.006-05:00

When I wake up,
I'm willing to take my chances on
The hope I forget
That you hate him more than you notice
I wrote this for you (for you, so)

You need him
I could be him
I could be an accident but I'm still trying
That's more than I can say for HIM... Grand Theft Autumn, Fall Out Boy

Last night I was playing games on my phone, the house was quiet and I was alone. I was intensely staring at the little screen of my android trying to decide which move to make next when Tinkerbell's face appeared on the screen and her familiar ring tune began to play.

"Hello," I answered, unsure what else to say.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she asks, as if the last six months of distancing herself from me never happened.

"Nothing," was all I could manage to reply. The hundreds of questions and accusations in my head remained bottle up inside.

She asked me a question in a fast mumbled voice. I didn't understand it, "What?"

"I...said...are...you...home?" She said again, announcing each word, the familiar impatient irritation in her voice.

"Yes, why?"

"Good," Was all she answered before hanging up.

Six months ago I would have assumed she was to come over, last night I was confused.

Twenty minutes went by with no other word from her so I texted, "Are you coming over?"

Then a few minutes later, "Why did you call?"

Billy texted me while I was waiting for some word from Tink, "What are you doing?"

"Reading," I lied. "Are you on your way home?" Thoughts of Billy and Tinkerbell being at my place at the same time briefly went through my head, causing silent terror.

"I didn't make any money tonight."

"So what else is new, why do you keep going back to that place expecting things to change?"

Billy and I have been talking about her trying one of the other clubs further on the east-side of the city, closer to my place. So far she hasn't made a move toward auditioning.

My calls to Tinkerbell went unanswered or were met with a busy signal. Finally I got a reply, "Stop texting me please. I didn't mean to call you. I meant to call Dom. You were by him in my contacts. I didn't realize it was your voice till the end."

...But I still don't miss you yet,
Only when I stop to think about it,
I hate everything about you
Why do I love you
I hate everything about you,
Why do I love you.. I Hate Everything About You, Three Days Grace

I don't know if that was true. You never know what the truth is when it comes to Tinkerbell. I've always relied on her actions over her words.

Her casual bush-off set me off. "Why do I have to stop texting you? For god sake you were my best friend and you just cut me out of your life. You are the one that opened the wound then I am the one that is supposed to just stop texting?

Yeh, I'm fine thanks for asking."

...I don't know if I've ever been really loved,
By a hand that's touched me,
And I feel like something's gonna give,
And I'm a little bit angry.
Well, this ain't over, no, not here,
Not while I still need you around.
You don't owe me, we might change...Push, Matchbox 20
Cocaine Princess says, "follow your heart". My heart is stuffed in a plastic bottle made from empty pill capsules and seal with a string that is tied to the stopper of the sink holding my brain. They float above a marble floor. When I unleash them, they splatter on the tiles they make pretty patterns-- passion, pain, lust and life's fire come alive in the mural of gore before it slips through the cracks in the mortar. I slip through the cracks.

Love hurts, love scars, love wounds
And mars, any heart
Not tough or strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain
Love hurts......ooh,ooh love hurts... Love Hurts, Nazareth

Hearts and Thoughts

2011-11-14T16:31:00.004-05:00

It is opening day of hunting season, naturally the UAW is off. So are the auto manufacturers that still rely on them. The suppliers that fill the pipeline with parts that the workers assemble, are not. It is a melancholy day, steel grey and down pouring. The refrain from Pearl Jam's, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter in a Small Town, is stuck in my head.

Hearts and thoughts they fade,
Fade away.

So much so, I download the song to my phone on the drive in and play it. It brought me to tears. I add the tune to my playlist of loosely veiled memories. Once upon a time I thought about burning Billy a CD of acoustic covers and other rare songs. I scraped the idea when I realized that most of them already referenced others-- better to leave alone. It doesn't matter now.

Hearts and thoughts they fade,
Fade away.

I feel like I am loosing touch with the world around me, "of this world but not a part." I'm even inept at self destruction. I just slowly crumple. What do you do, what do you do, I exist, I assist-- I kill time. The only sure death that can be laid at my feet.

I just want to scream hello,
My god its been so long, never dreamed you'd return
Now here you are, and here I am

I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I don't know what I see in the past, what the present lacks. Perhaps it was better when my mind was dancing on the razors edge. I only cut my finger tips. I'm luck, never bust but always rolling six the hard way, in for the long hull.

Only you can call me Davie again.

Hearts and thoughts they fade,
Fade away.

To Close To Call

2011-11-09T13:49:00.004-05:00

Billy's blond hair was pulled back from her face with a head band. She was dressed casually in jeans and a grey long sleeve shirt with a MSU spartans tee over it. I was on the couch and Billy was on my lap sitting sideways, talking to me. I alternated kissing her neck, lips and forehead while she spoke.

She is having issues at home. Her mother is sharing burdens on her that she has no business with. I understand the families problems but I still put Billy on top of the priority list. We are becoming closer, at a snails pace. She is spending more time over my place and talking about future plans. I am still inwardly approaching the idea that we have a relationship with leaden feet.

I am not false about my intentions, I just have a hard time believing hers. Elle and Alexis perch on my shoulder like imaginary devils. Their words echo in my ears, "there is no way a girl her age would want to go out with a man your age", I partially agree, I remember Tinkerbell and her need to be around people her own age-- yet here Billy is.

I take it one day at a time, I want more but enjoy the moments. She wants to meet Max and the Twins. She is curious about these boys she hears so much about. I'm not sure when that will happen.

And Now It Will Continue

2011-11-08T12:09:00.002-05:00

You must read the post, This Is How They Start, to appreciate this post.

Last night I sat at the kitchen table posting, eating and listening to the neighbors bratty kids screaming and banging around. It was close to 9:30 when I finished surfing blogs. I keep the condo cold, (65 degrees) because I am usually gone or sleeping, so I was anxious to get up stairs and beneath the covers with a book.

I didn't read long. I was tired from working with a prototype shop all day. I finished up a few moves on the Android game I've been playing, Life Is Crime, and set my phone on the corner of my mattress.

At 3:30 am, the room was dark and I was sleeping soundly, when my phone woke me up blaring music. The music playing was not on and the song wasn't one of my own. I couldn't figure out why or how it was playing. I frantically started pressing buttons and it stopped.

It freaked me out. I didn't go right back to bed. I didn't want to turn the light off. I remembered some of the words of the refrain, "Since you been gone," was said several times then the singing started using a more heavy metal throaty scream, (Think Chester from Linkin Park). I didn't know the song. I used sound hound to try to identify it from the words but all I got was the old Rainbow's tune, Since You Been Gone.

If I was a superstitious type I'd say the ghost from next door was getting back at me for talking about him. After a trip to the kitchen and a few rounds of Word Feud I did go back to sleep-- but I left the door open.

Neighbors

2011-11-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

Twin B will not be living with me yet. When I texted The Ex wife and told her I was going to file a motion to stop paying support for him because he was living with me, she decide he could return.

Thursday Billy came over, we were supposed to hang out again on Saturday but she disappeared. I can not reach her. Her phone seems to be off. It doesn't surprise me. I worry that one of these time something serious has happened.

Twin B stayed over Friday night. He spent the time drinking Mountain Dew and staying up till 4:00 am on Facebook. Studiously avoiding his home work, which was to read and answer questions concerning the book, The Hobbit.

I was the summer after my freshmen year in high school when I discovered, The Hobbit, on my own while browsing the small bookstore that was along my paper route through the small town of Newtown, Pennsylvania. I loved the book and went on to read everything I could find by J.R.R. Tolkien. Twin B is not a fan of reading or the book. Such a shame. I am sure I will die with a real book by my side and not a Kindle.

Billy reappeared late Saturday night, then disappeared again. It is mostly due to her crappy cell phone which she refuses to replace.

I have new neighbors living in the haunted condo next to me. A single mother and her three children. At first I was intrigued. A single woman living right next door, perhaps there will be some sparks. Not anymore though. Her kids have broken the peace quiet of my home. I can here them screaming and banging ever night. I have had to restrain myself from knocking on her door and telling her to control her kids.

Instead I think I will ask her if the ghost has bothered her yet and inform her and the kids that the man who originally owned the condo killed himself in it. Maybe I can scare them out. I'll just make some loud thuds and moaning noises every night in the bedroom above them.

Damn neighbors!

Will You

2011-11-05T23:30:00.000-04:00

Autumn leaves dance down the road like little brown gremlins. I take a moment to look at the colors of the trees. Usually, they go unnoticed during my busy day. The colors are brilliant, it is as if I'm seeing fall for the first time.

I feel lost in time. My life as I know it began eight years ago, when I got divorced. Even the tempering of my birthing process is shrouded now. The memories lay repressed and dormant.

If there is good in this world, it is on the loosing side. Life is more like Melrose Place, everyone has their wicked little scheme. No one is what you think they are. They show you who they want to be. When honesty soaks through, the system breaks down. We don't know how to deal with reality.

My reality is as pathetic as the rest. We are in this world but don't really know what to do with it. We grow, we learn, we take jobs and form relationships. Few of us make a mark. Our existence is washed away in a few generations. There are eight billion people now in the world, yet we only nurture bonds closely with five at a time.

Eight billion, yet many of us feel alone. I feel alone, out of place, out of time-- without purpose. Yet I still struggle to live on. Will you remember me?

III November

2011-11-03T10:34:00.002-04:00

Last night I got a phone call from Max, my twelve year old. He was upset because Twin B stole The Ex's credit card and charge up $1000 worth of clothes online. "Mom doesn't have the money to pay for them," he sobbed.

"Max don't worry about it. It isn't your problem it is her problem."

Why she puts Max in the middle I don't really know.

I don't blame Twin B in a way. The Ex does not buy the kid anything, nor does she help him look for a job. Those things do not give him the right to steal. I have tried for a few years to convince the twins they would be better off living with me. Now Twin B doesn't have a choice. Which is actually better for him. I am not easier on him. I do try to treat him more like an adult but I expect him to follow the rules too.

I do not look forward to having him around all the time. I like living on my own. I don't like the idea of Billy coming over while Twin B is around. She won't either and Twin B will always be around. He doesn't have a job. Community service (for School) is the only thing he does and that is only on Sundays. He doesn't have his drivers license or a job (I've been working with him on both).

The Ex has threatened to kick him out before but she always takes him back. She doesn't want to loose the income. I pay her enough in tax free child support to have them living above the poverty level. I don't know if she is working. She hasn't for most of the eight years we have been divorced. She was living off her inheritance and the money I was forced to provide. I have no sympathy for her predicament. Her house is falling apart and probably in an upside down mortgage. She got what she wanted. Funny how what we get isn't always what we imagine it to be.

The real losers are the kids. They see their friends with cars, phones, toys and clothes and they go without. I do spend extra money on them, but the more I spend the more she expects. If she doesn't take Twin B back, or if he refuses to live with her. I will finish out the basement for him. He will need a place he can call his own. I pray the other twin doesn't move in also. Neither will ever leave.

Back Ache

2011-10-31T14:39:00.003-04:00

Sunday I could not get up from bed. My lower back was an agony. I had to crawl into the shower. I had Max get me 2 of every pain relieve in the cabinet. None of it helped. I eventually stumbled to the car by hanging on to everything in my path. I went to Alexis' house.

"How are you going to get to the door?" Max asked.

"I haven't figured that out yet." I ended up crawling to the front door on my hands and knees. Alexis was not home but her mother let Max and I in. Their house is like a pharmacy. They have every type of pain reliever and muscle relaxer known to man.

Alexis' mother is a sweet 71 year old grand mother. She loaded up baggies with various pills, like a drug dealer. I took a couple and waited for the effects to start. After a half hour I was able to walk out of the house.

Today I don't feel the pain but I know it is there. I went to work. I didn't want to take another day off work so soon. I had to crawl all over and under pick trucks. I'm not sure it was doing me any good.

He Said, She Said

2011-10-31T14:14:00.003-04:00

He said...

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head
They crawl in like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
Dropping little reels of tape to remind me that I'm alone
Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home
There's a burning in my pride, a nervous bleeding in my brain
An ounce of peace is all I want for you. Will you never call again?

She said...

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you

Hate me in ways
Yeah ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what's good for you...Hate Me, Blue October

And It All Comes Down To This

2011-10-27T15:39:00.000-04:00

The Past

"You will always be alone," her text read. It wasn't a prediction, it was a statement--like, the sun will rise tomorrow. It cut to the heart of my insecurities, because I knew the truth of the words.

close your eyes just settle, settle
close your eyes just settle, settle... A Decade Under The Influence, Taking Back Sunday

The Present

Sam, Jay, Alexis and I went to El Charros for dinner. The excuse being to celebrate our birthdays, all of which fall in September or October. We sat around the table drink beers and swapping stories, most having to do with sex or relationships. Sam recounted a story of having been woken up by her boyfriend clipping Boxtops and the evil attitude she gave him over it. Alexis was complaining about having to buy condoms for a change (because she is sleeping with multiple partners that are sleeping with multiple partners). The sentiment of the evening conveyed in different forms by them all was, 'sex in a relationship becomes boring and routine'.

I didn't comment. When asked about my sex life I side stepped the question, "You are not going to like anything you hear, so suffice it to say I'm fine."

Sam agreed, Alexis wanted to put her two cents in but it didn't take long for her to steer the conversation back to being about her. Jay already knows who I am seeing, so didn't comment.

Sam and Alexis tired to convince me I should drink more beer. I'm a social drinker, I seldom drink at home or alone I tell them. "Technically we are not drinking alone either", Alexis declares. "Sam is on her pouch drinking and I am in my garage, we are talking on the phone to each other, so we are not alone." Her blue eyes sparkle with her wit.

I can't help thinking they drink too much. Jay suggests Alexis start drinking liquor.

* * *

Billy lies beneath me. The flesh of her leg ripples with goose-bumps. We kiss. My mouth drifts down along her neck and around to tease her ear with my tongue. Her ear is small and soft. Billy's eyes are closed, her mouth is slightly. Her expression is one of bliss. As if she is floating on a cloud and she has given her body over to the feeling.

I gaze at her and wonder if she is floating, if she is in a drug induced haze. It is hard to tell. My gut tells me she is still using, though she denies it. I'm not helping her. I don't know if I can. We are an f'd up pair. The reality of the situation is not lost on me. I feel guilty for staying yet I'd feel guilty for leaving. I keep hoping the more I expose her to a normal life, the more she will want it for herself.

Some Days..

2011-10-24T22:00:00.001-04:00

Some days, the lyrics from ever song I listen to lead me back to you.

Some days, when I drive through your part of town, I have to restrain myself from heading passed your house. I would never stop, I couldn't, maybe I just need to know you are there.

Some days I look back at old blog posts and remember the way things used to be.

Some days I think about the last words you wrote to me, and I wonder if you are out there checking in.

Some days I lie in bed at night and listen to your voice mail, the one I saved, just hear your voice. Just to hear you say you love me, before I fall asleep.

Some days I look back at pictures I have of you and your son and wonder why none of them seem to capture the unique amazing girl that is you.

Some days I will hear your ring tune song on the radio and my heart will skip a beat.

Some days missing you brings a tear to my eye.

And I do it to myself, when I'm feeling all alone. I remember the good but haven't forgotten the bad. I can't help feeling these days would be better with you still around but you are not here. And I don't know why I have to move on.

Someday I'll appreciate in value
Get off my ass and call you
But in the meantime I'll sport my brand new fashion
Of waking up with pants on at 4:00 in the afternoon...Grand Theft Autumn, Fall Out Boys

Sugar We're Going Down

2011-10-24T00:10:00.004-04:00

Am I more than you bargained for yet
I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear
Cause that's just who I am this week

Friday Billy was fired from the strip club for reasons she wouldn't go into except to call them stupid. It could have been anything from her weight to not being able to pay tip-out. She wouldn't say. Saturday we were supposed to go out. She blow me off to work the night shift at Hustlers. I told her, "your old club was a whorehouse but Hustles is damn brothel. You don't want to work there."

She ignored me. Billy wanted me to come with her because she was nervous. I refused. Later Saturday night, I started getting text messages from her. She wasn't making any money and she was getting frustrated. I told her she would have been better off keeping her promise and hanging out with me, which started an angry volley of text messages.

Her desperate need for money means she has probably been using again. I've noticed she tends to have a short fuse when she has gone without from awhile. She isn't talking to me right now but I have a feeling that won't last. She seems to think we have this deeper relationship, that just doesn't exist and she doesn't like to be reminded of the fact.

Lie in the grass, next to the mausoleum

I'm just a notch in your bedpost

But you're just a line in a song

Nothing can exist while she keeps chasing her tale. Its sad, and its frustrating. The moments we spend together are tarnished by her thinly hidden reality.

Drop a heart, break a name

We're always sleeping in, and sleeping for the wrong team

She's wearing thin on me. I am used to bailing girls out of trouble or fixing their problems. Billy is determined to fix her own problems but generally seems to do a bad job of it. I will give her a few days to cool off and check in on her. Part of me keeps hoping something will change.

We're going down, down in an earlier round

And Sugar, we're going down swinging

I'll be your number one with a bullet

A loaded god complex, cock it and pull it...Sugar we're Going Down, Fall Out Boys

(I've got an acoustic studio version of this song that I think sounds the best. It always reminds me of Billy.)

Sorrow Itself

2011-10-20T13:06:00.005-04:00

LOREM IPSVM

I added a new tattoo piece to my sleeve yesterday. I'm almost done with what I want to do.

This was my initial sketch.

Here is the final result.

It took John about an hour and a half to ink it. The front of the banner says "Lorem Ipsvm", sorrow itself or less literally, "pain for its own sake". In the back the words are a crumpled portion of "Stat Sva Cviqve Dies", there is a day for everybody.

Nell and I have still been exchanging phone calls and text. She has a cool phone voice. We have rescheduled our date for Tuesday. I saw Billy yesterday, she was quiet. She says she is doing okay but she is still very thin and honestly I could not really tell if she was straight. I told her she should go to a haunted house with me and maybe we will. I hope we do.

A Moment In October

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

In homage to Sarah H. at Death Wears Diamond Jewelery who is no longer blogging but missed.
Believe it or not some of these are hard to fill out.

Listening…Elton John, Aimee Mann and Silverstein

Reading…

Heroes of Olympus, The, Book Two: The Son of Neptune

Rick Riordan

I know these are kids books but they are such easy reads!

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

Richard Dawkins, Dave McKean

Watching… Tron Legacy, (boy was that colorfully sucky) and Paranormal Activity (I thought it was scary).

Buying… I bought two Affliction, one Buffalo shirt and a pair of Buffalo jeans all for less than $100 at Lord and Taylor, it was a good deal!

Wanting… To kiss Billy again.

Trying… To find twin B a job, he started doing volunteer work at the Salvation Army Store, that is a start.

Loving… Brown rice, spinach, snow peas and been sprouts all mixed together with some salt and pepper, Max and I eat it every weekend.

Planning… My next tattoo for my sleeve this Wednesday

Creating… A dwarf custom for Max for Halloween.

Inspired by… Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters

Buzz Kill

2011-10-17T13:09:00.002-04:00

"Do you want a water?" Paris asks me. She gives me that know look of an experienced bartender that says, you are drunk.

"No I'm primed and ready to go," I reply, drumming my hands on the bar.

I left Hooters and proceeded to the Stripclub. I had promised Billy I'd see her. She has been distancing herself from me, but not so far as to refuse to see me in the club.

I was determined to catch a buzz, I had a strong shot and a beer before Billy appeared. Billy was wearing the white fish net top and skirt with a flowery half skirt attachment over her pink bikini. She tries telling me her bikini bottoms are stretching out from guys pulling on them but I it has more to do with her weight. She is still almost unattractively skinny.

We head back to a booth. I pull her in close and kiss her when we get inside. "At least let me get my shoes off," she says. "You don't want me to fall."

"You won't fall. I've got you."

Billy pushes me back onto the couch and we continue to make out. She calls me greedy because I won't give her a chance to explore my neck and ears without reciprocating. The alcohol hit me all at once. I tilted my head back and allowed her to kiss me. Her lips wondered from my neck to my ear. I tried to let my mind float with the buzz but my stomach was threatening to revolt.

"What do you want from me?" I ask.

She repeats the question before replying, "a little patience would be good."

The music and the heat inside the room was becoming oppressive. My head was spinning. I don't usually get such a strong buzz. I lost track of time. Later she would say it had been a half hour. Billy did not realize how much I had to drink. "I got to get out of here," I tell her, "I drank to much. I think I am going to be sick."

I apologized and let the room ahead of her. I went into the bath room, collected myself but didn't get sick. I met her back at the upstairs bar. I ordered a water. The worst had passed but my head was still thick. She stood beside me while we talked. I wrapped my arm around her waist and let me hand roam along her middle. Her stomach is flat and lean,

"You should have something to eat," she tells me.

I assured her I would be alight. Billy went on stage and I cashed out with the bar. I tipped her on the way out. "There is a Subway across the street, go get something to eat."

"Don't worry, I'll be okay."

"So you can worry about me but I can't worry about you, is that how it is?"

"Pretty much."

The music was still oppressive, there was no way I could continue to remain. It was rush hour outside. It would be easier for me to blend into traffic.

"Text me later," I tell her. She never did.

No Where To Run

2011-10-14T10:23:00.000-04:00

Traffic is light for a Thursday rush hour. I'm darting home in my Charger, dodging rain drops. Plans for the evening are set and confirmed. My phone vibrates, it is a text from Nell. "Bath, I really don't think it's a good idea for me to go out. So sorry, just feel icky."

How many times have I been here? I assure her I understand and tell her we can get together when she gets back from Texas (yes Danielle the trip to Texas is only for the weekend, and yes I know that falls in place with my theory).

Nell's cancellation is a blow to my self esteem. Instinctively my mind starts thinking of alternatives, who to call, where to go, but there is no place to run. Billy's phone is not charging and I have no spare change for the false intimacy of the strip club.

Danielle's comment comes back to mind. It takes me back to a different time with someone else. The condo is mostly dark. We had been talking, perhaps arguing. She stands by the closed front door. "Who is going to want to date a whore?" She says, full of sorrow.

I don't remember the details, it wasn't a day I recorded anywhere but I remember the brief glimpse of the thoughts behind her facade of perpetual nonchalance. "I would," I remember thinking. To me she was any thing but.

We don't often consciously contemplate our self esteem. Are actions are usually a better indicator of our implicit self esteem. Phoenix said in a comment to me, "We all need to fit into other people's lives - but we also can't define ourselves by where we fit." She knows I have an intrinsic need to be the savior, that my self worth is tied to being needed by others. Regardless of what I say, how I feel about myself comes through in my actions and inaction.

I think people with low self esteem have a radar that allows them to identify others. We cling to each other like bubbles floating on the surface of a pond. We see in these others what they can't see for themselves, what we refuse to see in ourselves.

Searches And Celebrity Crushes

2011-10-13T11:39:00.001-04:00

Lately I have been getting a lot of traffic from people searching for Rosie Huntington-Whiteley because of this post. I am perturbed by all the traffic, because frankly even though I declared I was switching my celebrity crush from Miranda Kerr to Rosie, in reality I just can't.

I saw Rosie in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I was not impressed. I can't explain why. Miranda on the other hand, bounced right back after having her baby. Oh sure, Miranda is married to that tool Orlando Bloom but honestly how long can we expect THAT to last? Even a celebrity crush makes for a better story with a little angst and drama. I'm sure Miranda is just going through a phase and will wind up on my doorstep any day now.

I have made more posts about Miranda, where are all the people that should be searching for her on the web. Are they blind, or are they just not ending up here?

This is Hotter

Than This

Miranda can even make pregnant look sexy...Did I just type that?

Amends

2011-10-12T19:56:00.002-04:00

I was disappointed in today's post. Usually I have many things to say but struggle with formulating them into an interesting read. This morning I sat in front of the computer and my mind was blank.

I was feeling sorry for myself this morning-- a brief wave of melancholy. The hospital bills getting to me. I'm not worried about paying them. They will get paid...eventually. Financially I am always paying someone it seems. I am one of those people who will never be rich, even is I did become suddenly rich it would not change my lifestyle completely.

I spoke too soon about Nell, she texted me today. She was sick with the flu last week. She made an effort to make dinner plans with me tomorrow night before an up coming trip to Texas (not sure what the trip is about), which really is promising when you think about it.

Billy is feeling like a "depressed mess" now that she is clean. She has trouble handling her emotions when she is clean. She tries to handle things on her own. I keep reminding her that she isn't alone, I am here to listen.

Phoenix (who is very wise and very kind) reminded me in an email that Billy might not be "in a place right now where she can differentiate between real and false," and that "it certainly isn't her fault." Phoenix is right about that and I do see Billy struggle with her own issues. Mine are nothing compared to hers and I have learned to coupe with my issues. Stress does not overwhelm me. I believe somehow, I will always get bye. I always do. Still, I feel helpless watching and hoping for her.

Thumbs Up

2011-10-11T12:40:00.004-04:00

I took off a slice of my thumb with the table saw yesterday. No stitches were required. It throbbed for a while but there was a distinctive lack of pain, no wonder I didn't know my appendix was rotting inside me. My left thumb no longer has a rounded appearance, one side is flat and angled.

My medical bills have begun to trickle in from the appendectomy . They will be putting a damper on my social life way into the next year. Not that I have much of a social life. Billy's return from rehab has not improved her elusive behavior. Her and I will be coming to a dead end soon. Which leaves me back to square one since Nell has disappeared (which adds credence to my theory concerning her).

I think it will be a very quiet winter.

Into The Ocean...End It All

2011-10-09T20:15:00.000-04:00

I'm just a normal boy
That sank when I fell overboard
My ship would leave the country
But I'd rather swim ashore

Without a life vest I'd be stuck again
Wish I was much more masculine
Maybe then I could learn to swim
Like 'fourteen miles away...

Starvation drives me to false hopes, passion eclipses reason, true love escapes me and I am being pulled under. Apathy does not make for a reliable life jacket. Shame barely keeps my head above water.

Billy has returned from rehab, thin still but more colorful. Her lips still taste sweet, yet her words and actions still don't align. I can not continue to fool myself no matter how much I continue to desire her body next to mine, the delusion is pulling me under.

I don't understand her motives, what she's feeling or if a part of her really cares, but I do know how it ends. I have not illusions to how it will end. I've been there before.

Now floating up and down
I spin, colliding into sound
Like whales beneath me diving down
I'm sinking to the bottom of my
Everything that freaks me out
The lighthouse beam has just run out
I'm cold as cold as cold as can be
Be...

Tinkerbell introduced me to this song right before our trip to Myrtle Beach. Like many times I tried to create an experience to remember, that trip was disappointing. She had a knack for ruining things. Still I wanted to be with no one else but her for the longest time.

I want to swim away but don't know how
Sometimes it feels just like I'm fallin' in the ocean
Let the waves up take me down
Let the hurricane set in motion, yeah
Let the rain of what I feel right now, come down
Let the rain come down...

Sarah, from He Loves Me Not, wrote in a reply email to me, "I'm so sad that Tinkerbell isn't in your life anymore. I read people's blogs and their characters and some are supposed to stay with you forever. I thought she was that person for you. She was your constant...Billy is fulfilling some sort of need for you. I don't think she's your constant.

Sarah is right on both accounts, Tinkerbell will always be my lost "adopted Prodigal Daughter". I have no room to hate her, she taught me too much. In part she is responsible for who I am today, though the parts she is most responsible for are the same ones she probably abhors. Billy gave me something else, something Tinkerbell never could. Neither can be what I need.

I survive now because despair can't gain a foothold upon the shores of my anti-depressant fueled clam. It washes off me. Eminent disaster or ruin holds no fear, my focus strays. I silently long to throw myself into emotional chaos but I don't have the will to open the door. I switched habits to elongate a life I seldom enjoy.

There is no one that got away. There is no one yet to come. Passion's fire stays beneath the waves, nothing breaths beneath the water. I don't shed a tear for myself. There are buckets somewhere, with the pain and the despair. Perhaps they are the ocean around me.

Into the ocean, end it all
Into the ocean, end it all
Into the ocean, end it all
Into the ocean... end it all ...Into The Ocean, Blue October

This Is How It Goes

2011-10-06T10:14:00.002-04:00

This is how it goes
One more failure to connect
With so many how could I object
And you, what on earth did you expect
Well I can't tell you baby
When this is how it goes

Cause it's all about drugs, it's all about shame
And whatever they want, don't tell them your name

So I try to hold on
While you try to let go
You won't tell me it's gone
But baby I'll know
Baby I'll know...This Is How It Goes, Aimee Mann

Sometimes my words only weaken the potency of the lyrics.

Waiting-- In Silent Lucidity

2011-10-03T11:55:00.004-04:00

The blood is rushing to my head
This room is spinning 'round the bed
A flashing image perforates
Tarnish this memory's embrace
A bursting fiery fortune to misshape...

I feel this overwhelming need to communicate this week. Billy is back in rehab and I am cut off from her, for now. A few lyrics from every song on my playlist seem to fit with what I want to say to her and about her.

I'm not sure what her return will mean for her and I. Inside my body screams with a desire to see her and to keep her safe. My mind tempers my instincts. I'm not expecting her to come back to me. She needs to make some underlying changes in her life, I'm not sure she is ready for that.

In a perfect world we would never have met. She would be off at community college, not suffering from nightmares from an alcoholic father's abuse and an inherited genetic predisposition to addiction. I would still be married and never exposed to the seedier side of life, ignorant in my "keeping up with the Joneses" existence.

I just can't get a hold of
Why we always hurt the ones we love
Can burning hearts still keep us strong?

I don't think Billy even knows where I fit into her life. We didn't talk much last time we saw each other, her fragile limbs said getting her back into rehab was more important than anything else. I miss her though. There is always some obstacle. Life insists I will not win until I give up on these foolish dreams. I just can't seem to fit in with life's plan.

And if my body makes it out
Unscathed and safe from broken vows
A promise broken leaves me holding on... Burning Hearts, Silverstien

Nell, And How My Mind Works

2011-10-03T08:43:00.005-04:00

I haven't spoken much about Nell yet. There isn't much too tell. I met her first on this night, she is the shot girl who was going to accompany me to the Foo Fighters concert, before my sudden attack of appendicitis. Nell and I have keep in touch through text messages since. Our plan is to go out one night this week.

Nell quit the Strip Club. She found serving shots there degrading and the girls bitches, I agreed with her. She is way to smart for such work. Her idea was to make some quick under the table money to help her out with bills after a bankruptcy.

Nell came to the Detroit area in search of work. Her kids (who are teenagers) live with their father in Grand Rapids. She changed phone numbers recently. Gave me the new number through the old. The new number doesn't have a working voice mailbox. She doesn't answer if I call but usually responds to text.

My mind adds up all these little pieces to mean Nell is probably working as a Call Girl. I could be wrong (I'm usually not), it isn't that she looks or acts the type, I'm sure most don't. I have just been exposed to too much, maybe I'm jaded.

The facts weigh on my side though. She is from Grand Rapids looking for work here, she is comfortable in the strip club environment, she is trying to make money under the table, she has a second cell without a voice mailbox. Am I correct? What does she have in mind for me?

She is a thinker. Nell is probably NOT the women for me. Then again I could just be paranoid. I wish I was just paranoid-- of course I need to find out the truth.

Passion, Pain and Fear

2011-10-01T17:55:00.007-04:00

Today I woke up and you were gone
The whole day wondering what I did wrong
It's like I'm falling from a mountaintop
My heart keeps pounding and it won't stop

Can you see this hell I'm living
I'm not giving up

Will you crawl to me
Will you fall with me
I'll never crawl to you
I've done it all for you

Well don't deny
The hand that feeds you needs you
Oh god I'd die to try to
Finally please you ... Deny, Default

"You still feel the need to ignore me? I miss you," I texted Billy on Friday as I traveled from my Southfield office toward my customer office.

"Come in." Is all see replied.

"You going to talk to me if I do?"

She replied, "Yea.." then "Yes". So I came to see her.

Billy looked haggard and thinner than when I'd seen he last. She has no weight to spare on a good day. I watched her talking to a customer from the upstairs balcony. The other day I realized Billy looks like a very young Gwyneth Paltrow. When she received my text that I had arrived, she got up and headed my way. She was limping bad, I thought her long white dress was hiding a broken foot or toe.

She showed me an infected blister on the side of her foot. "You need that taken care of," I told her. "You need antibiotics."

"I am going away, again. I just need to make enough money today to break clean."

They would take care of her foot in rehab.

I took her into the back so she could sit down in some comfort and we could talk. I watched as she slowly pealled down her gown and gingerly removed it from around her legs. She was weak, and I steadied her with gentle hands. I was afraid she would fall, as she wobbled atop her 6 inch heals. The process, for her to unwrap her foot and undress took a whole song itself. She had no business being at work.

Billy sat side saddle in my lap, buried her face in the crock of my neck and covered herself with her gown like a blanket. She was all goose flesh and as pale as the white material of her dress. I could feel the wetness of her tears on my skin. I held her tight and rubbed her back. Her condition brought a lump to my throat. I pushed the hair from her face, kissed her check and ear. "it's okay hon, I'm here," I whispered to her. "I'm here."

We sat that way in silence a long time, then I began to tell her the story of my recent hospitalization. She looked up at me, it was the first time she made eye contact with me. I held her face in my hands and we kissed. I gave her the three hundred dollars I had with me.

She had one more regular who got a few dances off her. She could not make stage rounds. She was in no condition to be walking. The blister pained her greatly.

We met up at our "ghetto place" after she got off work. Neither of us ate the cheap Chinese food.

"Don't shut me out when you get back, " I told her. "I don't expect you to be perfect, I love you for who you are now."

"I'm was going in tonight, even before I saw you," she assured me. "If I don't I will be in the hole again." Which meant she would have to go see her dealer.

I kissed her goodbye but I was reluctant to leave her vehicle. I was afraid to let her leave my sight. I wanted to stay with her. I wanted to make sure she would be safe, but she already had it all planned. I watched her pull out in front of me, feeling the weight of each yard of distance within every part of my body, sinking me.

"There she goes and I'm on the ground, I'm on the ground, I'm on the ground..." Deny, Default

Spin

2011-09-29T14:38:00.002-04:00

The erotic dreams keep happening. Different girls, no one I recognize-- not the one I want. Is there one I want?

The year is only three-fourths of the way over and I have already manage to survive several major life events. In April, my then best friend Tinkerbell and I stopped talking to each other. Many would say this is a good thing. It never feels like a good thing, it feels like loosing a child. I'll admit with Tinkerbell gone it was easier for me to meet, Billy, Tipsy and now Nell (who I haven't spoken of yet). The empty feeling hasn't gone away. Few are the days when she doesn't cross my mind at least once. It is hard letting good. It is hard understanding why.

June saw me get laid off from my comfortable job with the Chinese Company. It allowed me to get a new job, with a better company, for more money-- and the workload is the same.

In July the twins turned eighteen. They decided they were no longer going to particapate in coming over every other weekend like the divorce decree stipulates. Even though they still have one more year of high school. Twin B still comes over occasionally. Twin A hasn't been back since. Why go to my house were they are forced to grow up when they can do nothing at the Ex's house.

My forty-seventh birthday saw the removal of my appendix. An unexpected wake up call telling me I have been letting myself go inside. The outside might be looking relatively good still but the inside was rotting. I have adjusted my eating habits since I have been released from the hospital and I will have to return to the gym. I am loosing muscle.

It is all in the spin you put on things I guess. Lauren my friendly Hooter's waitress always has a way of making it sound positive. Why shouldn't they. I'm still here. Nothing has beaten me yet, still I feel like I am treading water, not advancing. Perhaps a weaker person would have been washed away, I don't know. I never consider myself as strong. At my best I just do what needs to be done.

Future Tense

2011-09-28T13:41:00.002-04:00

The twins are eighteen and finishing their final year of high school-- hopefully. I worry what the future hold for them. They are not prepared for adulthood. The Ex has not helped, their situation. I have tired but I do not get much opportunity.

I try emphasizing the fact they need to get a job, start working for a living. It is like pulling teeth. It has been a struggle getting Twin B to get his drivers license. Twin A hasn't even started the process.

The Ex is passive. "And they need to start doing community service on the weekends, send me that list," I tell her. They need so many hours of community service to graduate high school. It is part of a stupid state law.

"I know that! I've been telling them. They are 18 I can't make them go."

"Yes you can, tell them they are going or you will kick their ass out. Get some balls. Send them to me I will make them go!"

"Thanks for the support, now I remember why I can't ask you for any help...thanks.. I'll figure it out."

"Obviously you are not figuring it out. They are kids they don't get choices. They do what they are told. You keep giving Twin A choices and you will never get him off your couch."

I find it hard to feel sorry for The Ex. She has made her own predicaments. This is what she wanted, I'm sure it is not what she dreamed when she filed for divorce. An act which I still think was selfish and did nothing to improve the lives of herself or her family.

She will send it back my way, when the child support drys up next summer, when there is no money in keeping the twins with her. The twins are the ones who lost out.

Times Like These

2011-09-27T09:00:00.002-04:00

It is always a residence of the past, the first condo or the first house, during that period of my life I should perhaps consider good times and look back on with fondness but those times are locked away deep in my subconscious.

She is often there, The Ex, but never in a staring role, never the love interest.

The condo is always bigger, filled with white painted rooms and a maze of secret passages much like the movie Inception suggested dreamscapes look.

It's times like these you learn to live again,
It's times like these you give and give again,

There are familiar scenes, traveling the roads of the metro area, I have spent so much of my life traveling the highways and roadways of this area it is ingrained in my sleep. In my dreams I don't just drive I walk or ride a bicycle. Sometimes I take futuristic subways.

Tonight there is a girl, her name is Billy but that is where the resemblance stops. We are flirting and she is willing but circumstance keeps us apart until we find ourselves alone in the first condo.

I come up from behind her, wrap my arms around her and start to rub myself against her soft round ass. Consciousness floods my brain, I know I'm dreaming but it seems so real. It try to shake the dream but get pulled back into it and inside her. Two more times I fight to wake before I finally can throw the covers off.

I'm shaken, frustrated and edgy. I don't know whether to return to sleep and finish or get up and take care of things. I don't get wet dreams every night. I got to stop abusing the painkillers.

It's times like these you learn to love again,
It's times like these time and time again...Times Like These, Foo Fighters

Get Up

2011-09-26T15:41:00.004-04:00

I Am Clearly Broken And No One Knows What To Do
Pieces Of The Puzzle Don't Fit So I Pound Them Into You
Itching Is The Pulse Inside Creeping Out To Come Alive
It's Just Doing What It's Gonna Do

Times Are Looking Grim These Days
Holding Onto Everything
It's Hard To Draw The Line.

Shut The F'k Up, Get Up
Shut The F'k Up, Get Up
Shut The F'k Up, Get Up

I Can't Wait To Rip My Eyes Out And Look At You
Peace Through Pain Is Pleasure Especially When It's Done By You
Itching Is The Pulse Inside Creeping Out To Come Alive
It's Just Doing What It's Gonna Do

Times Are Looking Grim These Days
Holding Onto Everything
It's Hard To Draw The Line
And I'm, I'm Hiding In This Empty Space
Tortured By My Memories of what I Left Behind...Get Up, Korn (Featuring Skrillex).

Down the hall a phone endlessly rings but it is not really a phone, it is the nonstop calls from patients. You catch bits and pieces of the conversation that pass by your doorway but seldom enough to make any sense. Mostly you detect mood and tone between the speakers. Are they friends, are the flirting, do they know each other at all. Usually I can tell from their voices. The nurses will usually whisper, unless they are working. You are never invited into their conversations even when ease dropping.

Recovery was not going as expected. You have surgery, they kick you out, you go home. That was the plan. They doctors have their hurdles, pee first, than you can drink fluids. Have a bowel movement and solids foods soon fellow. Get up, it will get things moving, walk around.

I walked the halls of 3 west. I was the lone patient walking the floors with any regularity but I wasn't feeling better and they weren't talking about me going home. There was little pain but the discomfort was hard to bare. I was blowing up like a beached whale on my hospital bed. Each time I would start to feel better, another round of IV antibiotics would come. The doctors didn't seem to care that I was filling up with fluid.

By Thursday, by scrotum was 4 times normal size. My penis had disappeared inside a roll of fluid. They were seriously killing me in an attempt to prevent infection. I was loosing my mind and my patients. Thursday night the nurse came in with sodium pills, my potassium was a little low. "No shit that is because they are filling me up with fluid."

I refused any further IV fluids after that. I told them to give me oral antibiotics. Friday I told them I was going home. They wanted me to stay but had no good reason and they weren't fixing my great discomfort, the fluid overloaded whale I was becoming. I told the intern, "either discharge me or I'm walking on my own. So get with the program."

They let me go, disingenuously. Friday night at home was a nightmare. I was overworked from the days events, still huge and afraid I made a mistake. I took some laxatives, got things moving by 4:00 am and things finally started getting better.

My stomach is still bloated, but it goes down each day. I feel better. My endurance is returning. I will be heading back to work this week. My schedule is fixable and I can ease into it. I still have more thoughts on my adventure but I will save those for later.

Hospital

2011-09-21T19:28:00.002-04:00

I am still at the hospital. I will not get to go home until at least tomorrow evening or Friday. This sucks. It is just what I pictured old age to be like. My high tolerance for pain is couple wth a high adversion to experience any pain. We are still waiting for the golden bowel movement. My stomach is distended like I am Sanata Clause.

I have been telling everyone not to come vist me because I do not feel cheerie. Answering their phone calls is a choir. How many times can I say, I don't know when! I miss my home and my bed and my stomach.

Monday

2011-09-20T16:23:00.001-04:00

Hospitals always have a way of making you look bad. Maybe it is those stupid gowns or the fact you never seem to shave before entering and always need to shave by the time you leave. No matter why I am in a hospital, I worry about my appearance more than my illness.

"On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the worst pain you ever felt how does this feel?"

" Well the worst pain I ever felt was having my skin burned from my body with hot grease, this doesn't compare. So let's say 5?"

I turned 47 this weekend. Max was on hand to celebrate. He made me a card. We went to Hooters for lunch and to see our favorite waitress Lauren. It was very low key. I kept telling him, I just didn't feel right.

"When is the last time you've eaten?"

"This morning around 6, I had 2 saltines. I am ready for surgery."

The Foo Fighters concert is to night. The new girl and I won't be there. Instead Alexis and her boyfriend Disco Dan will be and she isn't even a fan.

"Do you drink?"

"Casually, about once a week" (Sometimes to extremes).

The general stomach nausea I had been feeling since Friday kept increasing. Food did not help. This morning my abdomen was a sea of vague pain with one sharp area on the right lower side. I packed a bag, fearing the worst and head for the doctor. They did a CAT scan and confirmed my home diagnosis. I head an appendicitis. They sent me to the hospital.

So here I lay, waiting for the surgery team to tell me it is a go. I say I have bad luck. Lauren just thinks it's a bad day. She hasn't read these posts of mine.

"I want you to start counting backwards from 100"

Alien Abductions Are Alcohol Induced

2011-09-16T14:52:00.003-04:00

I think that the over imbibing of alcohol is the reason behind many false alien abduction reports. Last night the last thing I remember was texting someone from bed at roughly 3:00 a.m. This morning at 6:15 a.m. I work up with the lights on, my cell phone lost in the covers, two pulled muscles in my calves and feeling like I had been anally probed.

Last night, after a day of running all over town, I got to the strip club 45 minutes before shift change. Billy avoided me. We haven't spoken since Saturday, Yesterday she had herself skipped, so she wouldn't have to go on stage, just to avoid talking to me-- harsh. So it answers nothing, except she no longer wants anything to do with me and that's fine.

I was not lacking for company or for people willing to curse Billy along with me, but I didn't dwell on her for long. I will never get an answer, so I'll move on. It doesn't matter anyway. I did make Rose promise to give her shit next time she works the same shift, "Tell that Billy the Kid she really treated Bathwater cruelly." Because well, someone should.

As the night wore on, I loosened up and things got a bit strange. Tipsy was my waitress. She started in a decent mood that soured as she began drinking (she was dealing with the death of a close friend) and ended up leaving early, mad and talking about quitting. I had been upstairs with Rose, Tipsy was already changed and looking for me to cash out when I returned. I tried to talk her down but her boyfriend was there to take her home and she did not want him seeing her talking so close with any guys from the club.

The most interesting part of the evening happened earlier though. A new shot girl came to my table and sat down. She was pretty. With dark hair and those fashionable thick framed glasses girls are wearing theses days. I wasn't in the mood to talk to someone new but somehow she wormed her way passed my defenses and I warmed up to her quickly.

"Another new shot girl. Did they teach you anything? Or just tell you to hit the ground and run?" I asked.

She shook her head negatively, in response. "You know I am the unofficial shot girl trainer."

"You are? I've been here for three weeks, how come I have not seen you here before?"

"I've been slumming on days."

"Well lets have a shot," she continues.

I open my mouth to protest but laugh instead, and decide to take her up on the offer. "I guess you don't need training after all. Okay first of all, are you old enough to drink shots?"

"Do I look old enough to drink?"

"I've met a lot of shot girls who aren't." To my surprise she is in her low thirties. I would have never guessed that. We continue talking and she reveals more about herself. She is divorced and has three kids, two are close to my kids ages. Tipsy comes back to the table. I try to get her to go to the Foo Fighters concert I have tickets for. The one that Billy won't be go to.

When Tipsy leaves the Shot Girl says to me, "She likes you."

"I don't think so, we've never gone out. We've always been in different places. Besides she has a boyfriend now."

"Guys don't see what girls usually pick up on," she assured me.

Early on in our conversation the shot girl said she found me refreshing honest and that she felt like I was the savior type. I did not tell her any stories that gave myself away yet she seemed to read me. I ended up asking HER if she wanted to go with me to see the Foo Fighters. She said yes right away. I over heard her ask the manager if she could have Monday off and she text me when she got home...right before I passed out.

Fog

2011-09-14T11:38:00.002-04:00

We sat at a table next to the two story Plexiglas windows with a view toward the court yard. My new co-worker told me a story about his kids while we both ate a bowl of soup from the cafeteria. He is a larger man in his mid thirties, with a goatee that does nothing to define his chin from the layers of fat around it.

He cuts his story short when he notices me drifting off, makes a comment about knowing kid stories can be boring, then steers the subject back towards work. I think about apologizing and telling him I am having girlfriend issues as an excuse, but I decide against it. I'd rather not get into the details of that story with him.

Truth is I don't connect with many people these days. Those I do connect with are like beacons in the fog. The rest I'll drift past without much engagement. I am among this world, but not a part of it. I work, I go home and I avoid others, preferring the cold comfort of a familiar book or my bed to anything else.

My feelings, once the initial anger has dissipated, concerning Billie's sudden silence, are more akin to a void of any real feeling. Her presence was a disturbance to the static norm of balanced indifference. The strongest mental pull is fixation. I can become fixated on a person or idea.

I am depressed, I am crazy, I am wild, I am creativity chained, humanity prolonged, violence silenced-- I am trapped.

Relapse

2011-09-12T08:44:00.004-04:00

Tear me open
I believe
God will send you all to bleed!
And no one can deceive
What is meant to be
And "Bloody Murder"
We will scream! Screaming Bloody Murder, Sum 41

Thursday's proclamations left me smiling and anticipating the weekend. Friday Billy made it to work late. She did not mention anything about our weekend plans. I stopped by after my work to remind her. "I'm her to kidnap you once you get off."

"My mom's not going to like that."

"You should have already told her you had plans."

"Look, I don't mean to sound like a bitch but to night just isn't good. I'm waiting for a call from a customer, I'll be over tomorrow at one or after work if he decides to come in tomorrow. I'll call you as soon as I know," she tells me. I leave dejected but understanding.

Saturday comes and my text and phone calls are ignored. They range in scale from humors to irritated. 'Yep our communication is so much better now that your phone is fixed' to 'damnit Billy what the fuck is going on with you?'

By four I give up and go where I know I will probably find her. Saturday afternoon's at the strip club is slow. The upstairs bar isn't open. There aren't very many girls working. I see Billy's truck in the parking lot. I say hello to the bouncer and take a seat at the downstairs bar.

Billy comes at me with put on anger. She is wearing a whit fishnet top and bottom over a pink bikini top and thong. "Right now I am really pissed..." she starts.

I cut her off, "You have no right to be pissed, maybe if you would answer a persons calls..."

"I'm not doing this here." She turns to walk away and I grab her arm. That sets her off, she and pulls away and sits at a couch where she is wanting for a customer to return.

Text messages start flying. "Please let's not do this now. I will meet you after work. I do not want to say what I will right now. " Then "I guess I will have to FUCKING swear at you to give me space...FUCK. How do you like it when someone PISSES you the FUCK of my job is to be happy not mad."

I tell her, "You have not right to be made at me, you are the one not communicating. Do I have to swear at you to find out what is going on? The only time you text me is when you need something. The place I can find you is at work!"

In a few songs she is called on stage. I pull out a dollar and walk up to the edge of the stage and stand in front of her. She can't ignore me without making a scene. She knees down next to me. Speaks to me through a fake smile of clenched teeth. "Thanks for making my work uncomfortable."

"You think I want to be here? This is your doing." I turn and take my seat at the bar. My back is to the stage. I ignore Billy and start talking to a different dancer I know. Her and I decide it would be a good idea to get drunk. I'm on my third beer when I notice I have more messages.

'Thanks for keeping me nice and uncomfortable at my job. Not a good place.'

'Why didn't you text me today?'

'PLEASE let me call you after work. I'm so uncomfortable. This sucks let me talk to you when I'm not here please, please.'

'Just please. I don't want to make it worse... please just let me finish till 7 here I can't focus if ur here..please 715 I'll call promise on everything.'

'I will leave you alone till after work'

'Thanks. I'll call'

There was more of the same. I paid my tab, left the bar while Billy was on stage without looking over my shoulder and waited outside for a bit for my head to clear. I greeted the night shift waitresses as they entered. Then took off and waited for Billy's call. It never came. When I texted her I got a short reply. "Driving."

My response was vulgar. I haven't heard from her since. I get why she needs to and why she wouldn't want me around, trust me I don't want to be there. I don't like her there. We talk about her quitting all the time. The avoidance is the real issue. It is her addiction again, like before but she won't admit it. She seems set to push me away instead of admitting the truth.

The Past Intrudes On Trust

2011-09-09T08:44:00.005-04:00

Billy and I are sitting diagonally next to each other at a high-top table in her hometown, eating desserts. The people around us all sit across from each other. The restaurant is crowded and a din of cacophony fills the air but we are focused on each other.

I take a break from my ice cream cookie to look at her. Her chin is resting in her palm and she is staring back at me, our postures are symmetrical. "Sometimes if you knew what I was thinking when you weren't around, the thoughts that go 'round inside my head, I'd have to apologize before even speaking them. I have seen to much. I have been hurt to often, " I say.

"What about me? I'm might be young but I am not used to a guy treating me good."

* * *

The past leaves it's scares. The worms of paranoia still slither in my head during the lonely hours of the night, questioning. Shadows linger...

Memories.

Tinkerbell and I lay close to each other in bed. It has been two months since she has moved in with me. I am reading a book by the light on the night stand. Tink was furiously texting a boy from her phone. She has caught him in a lie. It doesn't matter that everything she has been telling him was a lie. He thinks she is a dancer, living with the T-Rex at a sister's house. In reality she was living with me and paying her bills by doing tricks on Craigslist.

I put down my book and suggest she ditch the liar. Boyfriends and girlfriends were against the rules of the house. Monogamy was out of the question, Tink was like a guy, she couldn't keep her dick in her pants. Tink crosses her naked thigh over mine to pacify me. Her skin was soft and warm. It was a calculated move on her part, all her moves were calculated but it appeases my need to be close to someone.

Months went by. The boy gained importance in her life and soon I was the one being fed the lies. Tinkerbell started dancing again. She switched visitation times with the T-Rex's dad so she could spend more time away from my home. I felt the change, so I asked her to leave. She says she was ready to go anyway. Still I think it was a surprise. I always thought we would be together in the end. I always believed the lies. The lies made it impossible to know if I really ever meant anything to her.

* * *

Later Billy pulls up to the pumps of the gas station. She is driving-- again and I am looking at the girl, not the road. A strand of blond hair has fallen into her eyes. "What is this?" What is going on between us?" I ask her, waving my hand between us.

She understands what I mean. "When I talk about you, I say my boyfriend, Bathwater."

"You do? " I smile in surprise and motion for her to come with me. I walk around to her door before she gets out and lean in the window. "I talk about you all the time, you know. I want to be your boyfriend. I want you to be my girlfriend."

One Step Away...

2011-09-08T11:42:00.000-04:00

Where have I been? One step away from contentment, oh how I know this place. When Billy and I are together things are great but something is wrong-- of course it is. Something is always wrong. Nothing goes 100% right for me. What it is, what it means and how it fits with us are the questions. I've got my suspicions, she denies anything I suggest so to this point I haven't pressed. I figured she was putting her house in order. We all do that. We all have a past. But, things aren't progressing anymore and I am wondering why.

I am not sure how to approach her. I really like her. I think her feelings for me are genuine. I just don't like being fooled.

Kiss Me

2011-09-01T13:44:00.002-04:00

Bathwater: Me and Billy kiss all the time.

Pinky: Ahh, like teenage puppy love.

Bathwater: Yeh, I suppose you are right. I haven't enjoyed kissing someone this much in a long time. I want too enjoy it.

Twilight. Billy and I are walking back to where are cars are parked in downtown Royal Oak. We both have Starbucks drinks in hand and we place them on the trunk of my Charger as we come to rest. I lean against the car and Billy leans into me. "You know," I say, "Alec Baldwin has a 27 year old girlfriend and they are still closer in age than we are."

"Who is he?"

"He is on 30 Rock." He still doesn't ring a bell. No bother, I don't watch 30 Rock either. " The point is he is famous" (though not as good-looking as me).

She professes it doesn't matter, we get along with each other. That's good enough for me. We kiss, her mouth is soft and wet. We linger there for minutes.

Non Compos Mentis

2011-08-29T11:44:00.003-04:00

People say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It sounds like perseverance or determination to me, then again I don't really think of myself as sane.

Insanity is not knowing what is reality. The thoughts inside your head tell you how things should be, how they are, how you feel. People all around you tell you how things are, how they should be, how they feel. Which is right? Which is true? Which is real?

Truth is, we each shape our own reality and we send it out into the masses to struggle for a place within the skein. Right and wrong, truth and lies, hard and soft, they all start from within. When we are well, when we are healthy and strong.

My personal reality is shored by anti-depressants, colored by loneliness, mired by my past. People keep asking me to believe them. I want to believe but their words ring false, yet I want them to be true. I want them to be true, but everybody lies. Actions not words.

I question my own thoughts. "Trust your instincts", I tell everyone-- until your heart gets in the way and your reality implodes. I'm tired. My mind is anchored to the world by the chains of these little pills I take each day and I resent it. We shape our own reality. Mine is cold, harsh, cruel and lonely. There is no escaping it. Powerful claws pierce my chest and pull me back when I try. Anything else is just illusion-- where I don't belong.

The Juggler

2011-08-26T17:15:00.001-04:00

I am juggling. I figure which ever ball falls to the ground it was meant that way. Though some balls, the sparkly ones, the ones with a cat's eye in the center that catches your attention everytime it spins, seem to defy gravity.

Summer is almost gone, figures things would just start getting interesting but things move slower then time. The balls twirl in the air without my help as if in slow motion. I feel more like the Fool than the Magician, staring in wonder just like the crowd.

Perfect wonder. The slightest touch, like spinning silk. Mesmerizing, when I fall, they will still be spinning.

Just Saying

2011-08-25T10:21:00.003-04:00

I stole this topic from Reni's blog this morning because I have a hangover and I'm feeling belligerent.

Things You Want To Say To Five (Six) Different People

1- Tinkerbell you are an idiot. I hope one day you realize that, even if it is too late.

2- Billy, if not now when?

3-Rose you don't deserve to have a person like me in your life.

4-6 Max, Twin A (Alex), and Twin B (Andrew), don't do drugs, or follow in my footsteps.

Cheap Chinese

2011-08-21T20:09:00.002-04:00

"We have to stop, so I can go pee," she says.

I point out a convenient White Castle up ahead, "go there."

"Was that the entrance?" She asks as we pass the driveway.

"That's okay just pull into the exist like you usually do," I tell her.

"My driving doesn't scare you does it? You wouldn't be sitting in the car if it did."

"I don't pay attention, I keep my eyes focused on the pretty girl sitting next to me." Billy always looks pretty to me.

After the pit stop, we get back into her Explorer and she pulls out into traffic. We swoop up on the tail of another car. "Look at the girl, not at the traffic. Look at the girl, not at the traffic," I start repeating like a mantra and she laughs.

She doesn't like spicy food, she says it makes her sweat, but that doesn't seem to stop her from ordering it. We share a meal of glazed chicken and fried rice. The food is in a carry out tray on the console between us. We share the fork and pick at the broccoli with our fingers, occasionally feeding each other pieces of chicken.

These nights are special to us. The brief moments, the minutes that change the course of the whole day. When I get home I get a text message, "I am exhausted but my insides are still smiling." It refers to how good spending time with me makes her feel.

The Other Side Of The Room

2011-08-18T11:41:00.003-04:00

She was seeing red, making faces and flipping me off from the upstairs railing when I wasn't looking. Had she mean that little to me?

I was oblivious to Billy's anger on Friday night. It was not my intention to make her mad. I did want to prove a point. I was not going to be her customer. The revolving group of girls that came over to my table was not planned to make her jealous. I don't think that way. She was jealous apparently. One this occasion I don't really mind, I think it opened her eyes.

I wasn't totally immune to her either. Billy looked good. It was her image I took home in my mind that night. It was Billy I texted at 3.00 am. I went to dinner with her Tuesday. It was wonderful. Cheap Chinese. We want to make things work. She is still tangled within a set of obligations both real and imagined, struggling with emotions and family. There is a light though.

I'm not sure where it will go yet. I can't turn away though, I won't, I promised. In for a nickle...

I Miss Them

2011-08-16T09:29:00.002-04:00

I miss them. I can't lie. Perhaps there is no rationale behind it. I refuse to stop trying to contact Tink. She hasn't replied. I haven't forgotten the pain and the frustration she brings me but I read through old posts, How The Days Go, Tomorrow Doesn't Get Here Until I Say and Every Days Adventure and I miss those times.

It isn't right. They are like part of my family.
And I miss them.

Shift Change (edited)

2011-08-15T20:42:00.006-04:00

She comes with her own nickname and its cute. By the end of the second night we met, I'd already labeled her with another. I use them interchangeably now. She has pale mixed features, long black hair and a scattering of tattoos that aren't over powering. Does the description ring any bells?

I had come into the strip club a while back one afternoon to visit Billy. It was near shift change and we had already said our goodbyes. I was wondering around aimlessly with a beer in hand when I saw a booth with three waitress sitting down eating and chatting before the even crowd came in. I know two of the three girls so I invited myself to sit. No one objected.

Tipsy was the third girl. She attracted my attention right away. " New trainee?" I asked one of the other girls.

"Yes, Trish is training her. When did you get here?"

"Around 4:30," I replied sheepishly.

"Are you planning on staying?"

"I hadn't planned on it but Caylee (the upstairs bartender) just feed me two free shots, so I think I'll be here a spell."

I started quizzing Tipsy on the meaning behind her tattoos. She became nervous. I pulled up the sleeve of my blue dress shirt to reveal my own tattoos. I'll share one of my stories for one of yours. That made it easier for her. I told her the meaning behind my tattoos and she smiled, knowingly. I caught the other two waitresses exchanging glances. They could tell we were connecting.

I decided to stay in the booth and eat dinner. The evening crowd started to arrive. Tipsy would check her tables and come back to chat till the even got rolling.

Friday was the owners birthday. The club was throwing him a party. Tipsy and I have been exchanging text and talking on the phone for a couple weeks now. My plan was to come in and seal a time to see her outside of the club. The tables were all on reserve but my reputation allowed me to get a booth in Tipsie's section while it was early.

My table was grand central station. Every waitress, shot girl and dancer stopped bye. I spoke to Billy, god did she look good. She looked happy and healthy. She agreed to disagree when I spoke to her while she was on stage but otherwise she kept her distance. She is so pretty.

I felt too popular for my own good, but it is a false popular, everyone after their piece of the pie. On a regular night, it isn't quite that bad but for the owners birthday the bar was over staffed in every area and the bar was full of deadbeat patrons. I assured Tipsy, "honestly I'm not this popular."

"I know you are a nice guy." She tells me. I'm not sure how they figure that out or what scale they measure nice on, or if nice even get you anywhere.

The Connection

2011-08-11T18:25:00.001-04:00

Silence fills my blog feed. There is a writing drought. Words have dried up. The streams of conscious thought have shrilled to a trickle. Bounds once formed through rich black type face wither in the barren dryness of summer.

I am as much to blame as anyone. I have allowed life to go on without recording. Still I search the pages of those I know for any news. I comb the comments of others with a thirst for new emotional writers. I wonder, will fall bring us back together?

Write something, comment. Put your thoughts into words so that I might connect with someone else beyond the glow of my computer screen. Remember how it feels. We love the words, their sounds, the shapes, the distinctive meanings. The connection.

Intervention

2011-08-10T10:44:00.004-04:00

"You are addicted to the porn-like atmosphere," Alexis says to me. We sit in my car, in front of her house. Her blue eyes are glassy from to many beers. "Wouldn't you rather find a normal person to hang out with, a better role model for your children."

"My children already have a mother." I reply, refraining from fighting back. It would be more like lashing out.

I went out for drinks with Elle and Alexis Friday. They pried some of Billy's details out of me after enough beers. Their heart felt intervention started at the third bar and continued on the ride home. Neither is qualified to sell me the, "wouldn't you rather have a happy normal relationship" speech.

Alexis longs for a married man and has had encounters with him several times even though she has a steady boyfriend and she is seeing a third guy also. Who has the time for such crap? And she wonders why she has so much stress in her life. Elle has had her indiscretions also. Her biggest lament about her current boyfriend is that he doesn't make good money.

I wouldn't want either for a girlfriend. I'll admit, I don't really trust women my own age. I endow them with many evil notions. One of which is, they are not honest with themselves about their motivations. Younger girls have different issues. What motivates them to hang around me is more cut and dry. And they are pretty.

Do I want a normal relationship? Not really. I have a comfortable life carved out for myself. I live simply, I don't bring work home. I take care of my responsibilities but shirk the idea of adding more. I'm not changing to please or impress anyone. I'm not convinced I'm missing out on something and I know I am not hurting anyone.

Do I have a real problem? Of course, but it isn't that I like to hang out at the strip club.

I like to step on cracks
I go against the odds
You think my world is flat
Do I turn you on?
Maybe, yeah I'm wrong
But I like where I'm going
I leave when others stay
I never re-decide
I don't mind if you wait
But I don't waste my time
Crazy is just fine
'Cause I like where I'm going

I, I won't justify
The way I live my life
'Cause I'm the one livin' it
Feelin' it, tastin' it
And you're just wasting your time
Trying to throw me a line
When you're the one drowning
I like where I'm at on my back
Floating down in my own riptide
The water is fine... Riptide, Sick Puppies

1000th Post

2011-08-08T09:01:00.003-04:00

It crept up on me. I tired to put it off but there is no stopping time...apparently. With the recent changes in my life, I haven't felt much like putting the effort I once imagined into the coming of this post. Still it is a landmark worth noting.

All I Want

I'm always screaming my lungs out
till my head starts spinning.
Playing my songs is the way
I cope with life. Won't keep my voice down.
Know the words I speak are the thoughts
I think out loud.

Music has always played an important part with me telling my story. The right song always seems to come along at the right. The lyrics, often saying what I want to express better than I. If you are not reading them, if you don't know the song-- sometimes it is like you are only feeling half the post. I say feel because I think well written words can make us feel. Sometimes, not as often as I like, I think my own words actually inspire feeling. Right now I am listening to an acoustic version of the song, All I Want by A Day To Remember. It goes perfectly with this post.

I like to keep things honest.
I'm a safe bet like your life's
staked on it. For real.
I'd hate to keep you all wondering.
I'm constant like the seasons,
and I will never be forgotten man.

My earlier posts, much like my personality, relied on my sense of humor. I didn't delve deeply into my feeling but occasionally glimpses of the vulnerable writer inside would appear.

I was still finding my voice. What I learned was it was often my voice-- or more accurately my conversations with others that people enjoyed and the honestly behind them. Then there are the friends I would meet through the blog. Meeting people from the inside out, often only through their words. Some would fade away, others through the links modern technology provide are never far away.

If I regret anything it is not capturing enough of the good times. I've written 135 post that mention Tinkerbell in one way or another. From her earliest, appearances as the girl I would call #1 until our last conversation. Not all of them flattering, but still memories I will hold on too.

I haven't done Billy justice. Though her time here is probably coming to a close. I've been accused of painting people and situations in my life through a rose colored lens. I do it more often for the sake of those around me then myself. When you love someone your eyes tend to accentuate the good and minimize the bad. I think it is important for the reader to see those around me through my eyes in order to gain some sort of empathy with me.

Let's leave no words unspoken
and save regrets for the broken.
Will you even look back when you think of me?
All I want is a place to call my own,
to mend the hearts of everyone
who feels alone (whoa)
You know to keep your hopes up high
and your head down low.
I write for purely selfish reasons-- to connect with others. There are many silent reads that return again and again. I don't mind. I can't really understand what they find so captivating. What are they thinking? What do they hope to hear? I don't want to have thousands of readers. It is the quality, I appreciate.

I have no plans to stop blogging any time soon. I hope there will still be a place for blogs five or ten years from now. This is my space. This is me.

So let's get back to when
everything seemed perfect.
Not a worry in the world,
so tell me was this all worth it?
I get what I want,
so everyone's always judging me.
I'm not afraid of anything,
and I've got the whole world in front of me. All I Want, A Day To Remember

Music

2011-08-03T10:40:00.000-04:00

I'm a flea bit peanut monkey
All my friends are junkies
That's not really true

I'm a cold Italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
What you do?

But I've been bit and I've been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you, babe?

Well, I am just a monkey man
I'm glad you are a monkey woman too

I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged and I was gored
But I pulled on through

Yes, I'm a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don't you?

Well, I hope were not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
We love to play the blues

Well I am just a monkey man
I'm glad you are a monkey, monkey woman too, babe...Monkey Man, The Rolling Stones

I've shifted my music buying and storage from iTunes to Amazon. Amazon is the superior choice. No only do they allow me to save for free all my purchase music on their cloud to be easily accessed on any device I choose. I can also upload my library unto the cloud which is the future of all media, software, images, documents etc. Five years or less from now, digital storage space will be a common utility bill.

The advantage, you will never loose a CD, DVD, picture or tax return again. Plus you will be able to access the media or information from anywhere on the planet from a phone or pad. I saw this coming four years ago. I documented it in a post somewhere.

Energy

2011-08-02T09:26:00.001-04:00

I appreciate your worries but I've been thinking, I'm doing fine. I've been surrounded by positive adoration lately. It's been good for the ego. I take it all modestly. I know some of it is false flattery but not all of it and it feels good. There is a lack of negative thoughts around me. Sadly, I know why. Despite my love for her, I know Tinkerbell seldom had a nice word to say.

I have decided to put my faith in Billy. She has asked for it and I know she deserves it. If Tinkerbell were around I doubt it would happen. Her comments would go beyond caution and a friends concern to ridicule and I would have been drawn into it. Billy does not deserve any of that.

Finite Moves

2011-07-29T12:18:00.001-04:00

The space between Billy and I is like a Jenga tower and I am playing blind, but my senses are tuned from years at the game. Each statement I poke regardless of whether it is a truth or a lie threatens to bring the tower crashing to the ground. I watched her work the other other day from the upstairs bar at the club. Billy weaved her way between the long black curtains, customers in tow, back into the most private rooms, where more goes on. I cringed inside.

My thoughts drifted back to Tinkerbell and the time we lived together. Had I done enough for her back then? How could I have professed to have loved her and not protested more over her working? Tinkerbell was stubborn though, she did what she wanted to do and I did love her. I loved her more than anyone since my divorce. Still, watching Billy bothered me in ways I hadn't felt in a long time.

My instincts tell me she is killing herself again and she has chosen a slow ugly death. I get it, how many times have I been there? Except I don't think she really wants too. She is in a hole and feels like she can't get out and I bet she feels alone. Billy isn't alone. I want her to want more for herself. I want her to trust me.

I'm developing feelings for her. They are clouding my judgement, making me vulnerable, tearing at my heart. I do not want to aid her abuse. My heart is the block at the bottom of the stack that keeps the rest in balance. The moments when we are alone, when the world has stopped and we are holding each other close, those are real. Those are my drug, I know what need is. Those make it hard for me to stay away, I am cold inside except for those moments.

I have opened the door, offered a future. She needs to want it. Pray she does.

Honesty

2011-07-25T19:50:00.004-04:00

I have lost sight of honesty. Everybody lies. Our world is shattered when we figure out this simple truth and we spend our days searching for the motives for each lie, because not all lies are created equal.

And what makes a person a liar? Is it volume? Or intent? Someone who speaks 1000 white lies a day is a flatterer. While someone who accidentally spreads a false rumor is vicious.

Billy asks for my trust, while everything or any part of what she says could be a lie. At night I have lucid dreams and my mind plays back events like some smooth tongue Lucifer showing me her deceit. By morning I'm convinced, any one of her truths could be a lie. Her reason varying from dishonesty, to shame or guilt. How am I to know. Maybe I am just crazy.

The problem is I can't trust my own instincts, when the truth and lies are stacked together like a house of cards and I am afraid to pull on one because the whole house will collapse. I believe her when she says I make her happy, when I'm holding her close and she is kissing me.

I've spent to much time around people that judge you by the color of your money, not your actions or your words. Lies don't mean a thing, they expect to hear them, expect to spill them off their silver tongues and they will show you their truths to get what they need because they think nothing of you. They don't care what you think of them, at least that is what they tell themselves.

Honesty like most things in life seem to happen in the moment. When you take the time to listen, you can discern those moments before our intentions, fears, desires and needs get in the way. If they had substance, I'd dry those moments and press them between pages of a book. So I could relive them in times like these.

Three Song Day

2011-07-22T10:14:00.003-04:00

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
Well that's alright because I like the way it hurts

Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
Well, that's alright because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie... Love The Way You Lie, Eminem

Billy is using again and she is pushing me away-- harshly, which I suppose is better than trying to suck me in. At least, better for me. Doesn't make it easier to watch, doesn't make it easier to let go.

I hate this town, it's so washed up
And all my friends don't give a fuck
Don't tell me that it's just bad luck
When will I find where I fit in?

Remember when I tried?
I never strayed too far from you
Forever by your side
No matter what I was going through
But now I never know those things to say to you
That help me prove that I'm still on your side
I never show just what you do to me
Guess, I was always wrong...All Signs Point To Lauderdale, A Day To Remember

I could have taken that long term assignment in Shanghai. If I would have waited a few more weeks, I would have gotten the offer. I get tired of these stories. This blog has become a testament to epic failure, personal indifference and my emptiness. I don't know if I'm going to make it to the thousandth post. Maybe it is time to reinvent this thing again.

I was down at the New Amsterdam
Staring at this yellow-haired girl
Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation
With a black-haired flamenco dancer
You know, she dances while his father plays guitar
She's suddenly beautiful
We all want something beautiful
Man, I wish I was beautiful... Mr. Jones, Counting Crows

There are moments when I still feel, selfish personal pains. Petty. Mostly I'm white washed, rhetorical empathy. I knew how to feel, deeply for others it is just buried, suppressed for the greater...good. I really hate going through life most days.

Billy-- Part II

2011-07-20T21:04:00.002-04:00

I've seen plenty of girls f'd up on drugs or alcohol, Billy didn't fit the usual bill, not from what I had seen. Either she was good at hiding it or she was telling the truth that she was only using enough at that point to keep the withdrawals at bay.

She snorted the heroin. A common practice in the Detroit area I'm told where the drug is relatively pure and cheap. So at least there was no fear of dirty needles. Billy had been using for about a year. She was turned on to it by a dirt bag ex-boyfriend who gave it to her for pain when she broke her collar bone. An incident he was somehow involved in.

She only told close family members; mom, older brother, cousin and I about going into rehab. None of her friends. We talked a lot those few days before she left, she was scared. My encouragement gave her confidence to hold back her tears.

I was worried about her and worried about what I was getting myself into. I would not abandon her while she was away but in the long run I knew I would not let her demon pull me down-- I have my own. So I hoped for the best.

Billy was gone for 15 days. We had no contact during that time. She was only allowed two phone calls a week, those she saved for her mother. Toward the end of the second week I was preparing to visit her when she finally text me. We met up the next day.

She said rehab went well for her. She was able to withdrawal with only mild drug intervention. She is still on medications though. They make her wobbly and tired. She looks more wasted now than she did on heroin, but she is clean and determined to take care of herself. Although a bit too anxious, she needs to be home for another week. She is worried about her bills. I told her the collectors would rather she be alive.

I'm happy she is back. I am optimistic about the future. Not to say we don't have some issues to overcome. She lives with her mom on the other side of town, an hour from me and she is not great at communicating. I live tied to my phone. She can't even keep hers charged let alone bother using it.

She is so pretty though and so fun to watch. She says some of the funniest things, its cute. I like her. I want to really like her.

Billy- Part I

2011-07-20T12:16:00.004-04:00

In the spirit of full disclosure it is time for Billy's story. Outside business dealings brought me to the strip club during the afternoon just before Memorial weekend. The club can be depressing during the day, it leans toward older crowds, older girls and jaded personalities. Then there is Billy, prettier than most of the girls, she has shoulder length blond hair and a slight rasp to her voice that makes it unique and a fresh petite set of curves she doesn't understand the attraction of.

My disarming charming had her spilling truths out right away. I'm not sure what it is about me. Most girls will spare me their usual lies and game I get what they are willing to share right away age, name-- if I want to know. Billy knew the brand name of the shirt I was wearing and it wasn't obvious, plus wear I bought it. I was infatuated before she left my lap. We were sitting talking about mundane and normal things like dish washing soap and families that day. We were exchanging numbers and arranging to see each other outside the club soon after.

I had my reservations at first, outside the club Billy didn't look nineteen going on twenty-four, she looked young, but we took to each other quickly, and she never ceased to impress me and keep me laughing. She's not afraid to kiss me in public, but like, me couches her words, holding
back a little protecting a scarred heart.

Before the fourth of July weekend Billy told me she was going away for ten days with her cousin to visit family up north. I knew of the cousin and the fact that she lived up north. I had been following Billie's stories closely and doing what checking up on her I could with friends. I've learned to believe in few simple rules. Beautiful girls always have some boy around them. Strippers always lie and I'm drawn to pathological liars. Parts of Billie's life didn't add up. She lived alone. She always had places to be after work. So I kept poking at her humorously, looking for holes. For some reason I believed her when she told me she didn't have a boyfriend, still what was she hiding?

I met her after work for dinner at a rundown coney island on 8 Mile. I wasn't pleased. I didn't want to eat in the ghetto but Billy never seemed to have much time after work (part of the mystery). She was a bit drunk, and placated me through drunken determination and kisses. Billy ordered breakfast, one egg scrambled one egg sunny side up. I had two coneys chili only. I got her talking about her family. She admitted her father was abusive and not a part of her life. When it came to her trip she still hedged around the truth. I assured her that I had dealt with it all but she was sure that if I new the actual reason she was going away I wouldn't want to speak to her anymore.

"You really don't know me." I told her.

The meal and our time at the restaurant sobered her. I walked her to her Explorer. It was raining and I leaned driver side door. "Are you doing time?"

She shook her head no, grabbing my drink and taking a sip. "Are you drinking diet?"

"Yes I'm fat remember?"

"You are not," She said, pulling a white pint size bottle of Ensure from the map pocket of the door. "Try drinking one of these twice a day."

"Is that it? Are you anorexic?"

"No, I told you it is worse. You are getting all wet. You should get in your car. I'll tell you on the way home."

I gave Billy her way. We said goodbye and drove off in opposite directions.

My phone lit up right away with a text message. "I'm going to rehab".

Oh shit, I text back everything I could think of from alcohol to meth and asked for which. Her answer was heroin. I have friends who's kids went to rehab because of heroin. I began to wander what I just signed up for.

what I just signed up for.

Looking For Answers

2011-07-16T09:46:00.002-04:00

I have been obsessing over Tinkerbell's disappears lately. Looking for answers, wanting her back, missing her. I don't believe in "closure" or living in the past. Her legend will never become greater than the reality and the reality is she turned her back on me. It is that fact that, I have the hardest time cooping with.

I’m feeling overwhelmed, overwhelmed
It’s getting out of line, line, line
I know I’m not alone
Just adolescents, you and I
It doesn’t make me feel any better

Out of sight, out of mind
Out of sight, out of mind
We’re out of time
We’re out of mind... Adolescents, Incubus

I wrote her a message on Facebook the other day. Just to say the usual, miss you guys, got a new job where are you. I got no reply. The same as the text messages I've sent over the last month.

I became a little more childish, a little more desperate. I tried calling her from my new work phone. Tink wouldn't know the number. I guess I just wanted to know she was there. I wanted to hear her voice. She wouldn't answer and when she called back neither would I. She ended up texting the number asking who it was. I didn't say. In the end she said she had just gotten the number and couldn't help me but we both knew who we were talking too.

We all have a weakness
But some of ours are easier to identify. Look me in the eye
And ask for forgiveness;
We'll make a pact to never speak that word again
Yes you are my friend.
We all have something that digs at us,
At least we dig each other
So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday
If I turn into another
Dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me
Sing this song
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone....Dig, Incubus

I was sitting with Billy. We were talking about voices. "I can't make mine go high and squeaky," she says, laughing through a failed attempt.

Immediately I think of Tinkerbell and how she used to use this high squeaky dumb blond phone voice. I keep the thought to myself and push it out of mind.

Everyone says Tinkerbell will come back when she needs something, even though I keep insisting this time is different. The problem is strolling back and asking for help does not ease the pain of her disappearance. So I am looking for answers. How do I hold on to her memory?
How do you spin something positive from the tale?

Conversation With A Pimp

2011-07-12T22:28:00.003-04:00

I texted Rose yesterday and got into this conversation instead. After a poorly spelt text concerning a traffic ticket, I know who I was talking too. I continued the conversation to see where it would go.

Bathwater: Who is this?

Pimp: The name that is on her back. (Pimps mark their girls with tattoos, Rose has one her left shoulder. She is not proud of it, hides it with her thick hair which is very long and won't let me look at it.)

Bathwater: Must make you proud.

Pimp: I no I saved her from her motha cuz her motha was do n way moe thangs2her way younga her motha gave me her when she was young so its was4her motha drugs.

And I saved her.

So I am proud.

Bathwater: Two wrongs don't make a right. Who is going to save her from you?

Pimp: Cuz she was go n down da same road as her motha I got her off drugs and all her motha wanted2do is feed her moe but she clean becuz I am clean.

if u care u would help her not wit fish but show n her how2catch sum fish.

Now she can cum she can go but wats best4her if she been around me since she was15.

Bathwater: A do care about her. I never treat her like a whore. I would never want her to whore. I want to see her get an education and a good job.

Pimp: We read books we been across da map da only thang she need save n from is people try n2tell her wats rite or wats wrong cuz it mess n wit her.

U want me

Cuz she act just like me

Dat gurl aint no whore she is an acttress

Bathwater: Since When do actresses need pimps?

Pimp: Dats a title

She dont need dat

Im nobody pimp its P.I.M.P. (I'm not sure what the distinction is).

Bathwater: I think she is ready to grow past all of it.

Pimp: I know dat

Bathwater: Would you let her?

Pimp: Cuz she young and stupid but I neva wanted it2b like dat it just hapn

Im not her pimp

Bathwater: She just needs the right chance. What are you then?

Pimp: If she like u I cant b mad bout it ima man

Bathwater: I don't know what Rose likes but I like her, and I look out for her when I can.

Pimp: Salesman marketeer advertiser (From what I've seen on Facebook it is ex-con, with no job and a baby from a different woman).

Bathwater: And how is that workin' out for you my guess is you are not livin' large yet.

You never did explain why you have her phone and are checking up on her business, seems kinda invasive if you ask me.

Pimp: The cedic score aint where tha money at but I could hav a650 if my score was 650 (Illegal money is hard to claim)

Cuz im sick of her moms (I'm not sure if he takes the phone to make sure she returns to him or if she leaves the phone because she is afraid her mom will steal it and sell it. She has been without a phone for over two weeks. I lean toward him keeping the phone from her but then again I just don't like the guy.)

Bathwater: I ain't on her mom's side either but I am not convinced about your side. I think she needs a clean slate.

Pimp: Her mom just mess up her score put n things n her name I dont trust dat so if u wanna help her start dare wit her traffic tickets. (It sounds like her mom just gave Rose a car, which is good because I've never seen this guy driving Rose anywhere. I have no idea what these tickets are about or why she couldn't work a few nights and have enough money to pay them off.)

I put her on top she know how2play chess now she read this one book called the Secret and I put on how2b street and u cant buy dat so u can like me or not but if u like Rose den u love me like it or not cuz I trained her

Bathwater: I know, I've seen The Art Of War, The Secret they are both on my shelf too. But there are things about Rose I don't like. She's a pathological liar. She doesn't let anyone in. It has taken me a year and a lot of hard work to learn as much about her as I do know and to gain what little trust she's given me.

Pimp: Mayb you can save her but u got2save da family like I did

And her motha dont cum cheap dats y I been dunn

Bathwater: I know she is attached to her family, and it would be a package but she needs to step back from her Mom. That is a no win situation. (Her mom is manipulative and crazy)

Pimp: Her motha do u so wrong da first time u say no so hey go ahead u may hav a good credic score but six figures came2my door

I had her 4about 5 year now and she look da same I should had messed her up den u wouldnt want her thank bout dat (Rose is twenty-one, this guy looks close to thirty.)

Bathwater: She ain't asking me to get involved like that. I wouldn't get involved with the mom anyway. Yeh but then you would be just a thug and not the savior you claim.

You got a daughter too, is that how you would want someone treating her if you were gone?

Pimp: She neva buy socks shoe thongs I buy it all anything u c u like I buy it all4her I told her how2talk. I buy it all its sumbody esle turn

Bathwater: I watch her work, she is good but we don't play those games. She mostly just herself around me. What does she do with the money she makes?

Pimp: Give it to her mom

Bathwater: She did say that before, that isn't right either. But she has potential to be what ever she wants still.

Pimp: I know but dat credic score hold her back I dont give her fish I teach her how2fish

Bathwater: What she needs is a place where she don't need to worry about the basics like a roof, food or a car then she can worry about gaining different jobs or education.

Pimp: U should had told her motha dat when she was ten, But her motha sold her for drugs

Bathwater: Her mother can't do that for herself, but it isn't to late for Rose to find it now.

Pimp: So who is u2if im do n a good job or not
and u want her but I trained her

U want wat I maid

Bathwater: I don't "want" her she is not property. I like her. She has a mind of her own. I want her to be happy and free.

Pimp: Dat was nothang dat I turned n2a star

Bathwater: She is a person and she would shine whenever given the chance and you have to start to think you might be holding her back?

Pimp: U rite but I may not cuz I dont trust her

Bathwater: I don't trust any woman. Rose would be a hard one to ever trust reality is mixed with a lot of lies inside that girl. But she isn't a bad person.

(The conversation drags for a few more lines. He tells me he comes from a good family and I ask him then why he tries so hard to define himself by his street creds. I tell him I don't let any one thing define me.)

Pimp: ...But she is a good gurl and I hope you ain't mad at her but she wit her moms and I got her fone on4her so she will hav it soon

But I do feel u need 2step it up if u care.

(I care about Rose but I will not get sucked into a whirlpool for her.)

The Fun Ends

2011-07-07T21:59:00.003-04:00

Alright for those of you who have been wondering, (there most be one or two still out there) I am gainfully employed again. I got the offer yesterday and signed the papers today. I made out on the deal. So my five week (boring) paid vacation is over. I got a 6.25% raise, a third week of paid vacation, and a 401K plan and better benefits out of the deal.

The new job is much like the old job. I will be a "middle man" between my new company and the automotive companies. My new company is headquartered in Canada, so I will get to travel to Toronto occasionally. It all works for me. I start Monday.

I do need the structure of a work day in my life, just not a very hard one. I had one other offer supposed to come on Monday and a second interview with a good company next week but I think this company and I are a good fit. Let's hope this job is just what I ordered.

A Letter

2011-07-02T11:41:00.005-04:00

I come home and lie in bed at night. As darkness falls I hear the booming of distant fireworks pressing against the clouds. They sound like impending rain. I wish it would rain but there is no smell of ozone in the air. The evening breeze slowly cools the room and I think of you.

It is day two since you have been gone and I wonder how you are. I picture you on a bed of white sheets, curled into a fetal position against the pain and I wish I were there holding you. Soon you will be well, I know it won't be easy. They say nothing worthwhile ever is easy. I believe some things do happen for a reason. We crossed paths, our threads became entangled. Let's make the most of it.

On the third night the rain does come, with high winds and bite size hail. I know the storms are over you too. I wonder if you are frightened. I loose power power and sit out in the drizzle reading till dark. I fall asleep by candlelight. Still the sound of fireworks scream and explode in the night.

It has been seven days now. I check the mailbox daily. I know there will be a letter soon, giving me a clue to what you are thinking, but all I receive are bills. It all seems like a dream. Like another false reality that I want to be real.

Evolution Of A Blog- Countdown To 1000

2011-06-30T23:13:00.012-04:00

Post 988

It all started with this scan. The back cover of the first season of the Dead Like Me DVD set. I modified it to match my colors and stuck the picture in the corner of my first blog. I don't know why, I was short of interesting images and I liked messing with HTML.

The reaper quickly become my avatar and I redesigned the site several times around images from the opening credits of the series.

The old blog became stagnant back in 2009. I found myself writing less and less. True readers were gone replaced by acquaintances more interested in what I was doing than in my work. It is archived here, A Dramatic Pause.

I moved to this new site and chose a new avatar and blog title without much planning. I really need to thing about these things more. Bathwater suggest the bad that should be thrown out while the baby remains. Memento Mori is Tinkerbell's tramp stamp and the beginning of my infatuation with Latin tattoo phrases.

I've moved from the blue to the current grey because I've always felt the planner the page the more professional the look. Change will continue- here at least.

Save Yourself

2011-06-27T20:45:00.000-04:00

I feel so traumatized

Doped up and televised

Life can be cruel and insane

Yeah

But we've got these ugly scars

On our infected hearts

Maybe it's time for a change

Yeah

Things are about to change, I can feel it. Tomorrow will be the day. Both sides of my life will be on new paths. I am saying this out of faith because I have no firm confirmations from anyone-- but I believe. Patience has never been my strong suit, the time off was beginning to ware at my confidence but it am not afraid anymore soon everything will come together.

And if you think real beauty's on the outside

Well that's a far cry

From the truth

Maybe all the information you received

Well you should not believe

There's no proof

Summer is pulling us in different directions. It will all work out, in time. I don't get to see enough of Billy. I think that it will get worse in the coming weeks before it will get better. There is much about her I still want to share. Patience.

Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people

It's time to run from the lies of the beautiful people...Lies Of The Beautiful People, Sixx A.M.

Shinedown

2011-06-24T15:13:00.000-04:00

I created the sound of madness,
Wrote the book on pain,
Somehow I'm still here to explain.
That the darkest hour doesn't come in the night.
You can sleep with a gun,
When you gonna wake up and fight for yourself... Sound Of Madness, Shinedown

Friends all ask the same question at some point when they see me, Have you heard from Tinkerbell?
The answer is no. They usually follow up the question with, she'll be back. I don't share their confidence.

I watch Billy closely for signs of untruth. I wake up at night, from dreams where her stories are twisting in my subconscious. Something doesn't add up, facta non verba, but she is not out right lying to me. She is hiding what she is embarrassed about. Don't we all.

Thursday I meet her for dinner. I don't give up my leading questions. I need to know who I'm dealing with. She bares all, reveals secrets to me that no one else knows so I understand. Because I need to understand, or she'll loose me and she feels that. There is no guy waiting at home. It is not something I've dealt with before, but finding me just might be the thing she needs. She is heart-scared though, this I know about. Billy has her demons, but so do I.

And she likes me.

Update- Job Front

2011-06-23T12:10:00.002-04:00

My nervousness seemed under control. Interviews don't bother me. They ushered me into a typical office. An Indian gentlemen sat behind a wooden desk. I sat a round table packed closely in front of the desk with the Design Manager and the female Program Manager.

I walked them through me resume. Sometimes it feels like I have had a lot of jobs. At my age I don't think it is unusal. I have done a lot of things but all in the same vane.

I won over the Design Manager we were cut from the same mold. I watched the Program Managers eyes light up as I answered question. She exchanged glances with the Indian as if sharing a sudden secret treasure.

I came away with a positive feel from the interview but they passed on me. They told the recruiter the interview went well but something personal I mentioned concerned them. I am not sure what though. My guess is the traveling to Mexico involved with the job. I did not express a reluctance but I did mention Mexico was not my favorite. I never feel comfortable there.

Unless it was something they can't talk about like my age or martial status. Three people, the indian was the only one asking the curverball question. How do you handle a difficult customer? Where do you see yourself in the future?

I have interviewed with three companies. I was too expensive for the first, that I could feel. The second likes me and had me in for a second interview. This I think will be the job. The third I just described and I have a fourth today. I am sitting here in Starbucks updating you between interviews.

I still want to celebrate my 1000th blog post week coming soon, this job search just has me occupied.

What You Say Without A Word

2011-06-20T19:11:00.000-04:00

"You have an amazing mouth," I tell Billy, "I can tell exactly what you are thinking by watching your lips."

"And my eyes." She reminds me.

"Your eyes are beautiful, but I can't take my eyes off your lips," which is probably why I spend such an inordinate amount of time kissing them. Billy is still refreshing. If she is playing me, she is doing it exactly the way I want her too. Trisha, one of the waitresses I trust, briefly spoke to Billy in the bathroom and confirmed she really likes me. I believe that too. I can see it in her actions.

Billy worked Sunday night. She never worked a night before. She asked me to come down and keep her company. I thought it would be interesting. No only have I missed her but nights are different from days. I was interested to see if some of the girls would give her a hard time when they saw her sitting with me. Rose and most the regulars weren't there though, so I didn't find out.

So I'm continuing down this road to perdition, Billy and I are spending the day together Wednesday...It won't be dull.

Selling Myself

2011-06-17T19:19:00.000-04:00

I struggled to get out of bed this morning. I had my second interview today. They don't bother me. Still, I was in a bit of a malaise as I got prepared. I checked my text messages. Tinkerbell's Cheshire cat smile and smoky eyes stared up at me from the screen, but it was not a new message. I have not deleted our last conversation. It has been months since we have spoken. I still get that sinking feeling in my chest when I think about her.

I texted her. I couldn't help it. I still miss them so much. I wonder how they are; why they aren't missing me. I got no reply. I took my meds and headed off to the interview. I couldn't afford to let my emotions get the better of me. By the time I got to the site of the interview, a not so upscale building in Southfield, I was ready.

I have a good feeling about this job. It is very similar to what I was doing for the Chinese. This company is Canadian, so a few trips to Toronto will be in the schedule if I get the job. I can handle that, I love Canadian girls. They called me to set up a second interview a few hours after I left the first. So now I have two interview next Thursday so far.

Later after the interview I told my friend Lauren the bartender at Hooters, " I need to find a job so I can relax and stop working so hard." She is surprised at my diligent pursuit of new work. It would be nice to have two offers to choose from.

The Work Front

2011-06-15T20:28:00.021-04:00

I used to pride myself on not having to work too hard. Somehow I managed to occupy my time. These days reluctant to spend money and therefore have no reason to leave the house. Life has become pretty boring. I had my first interview Monday. I think I did okay until the question about money came up. The company was just returning from a down turn. I'm not sure he was willing to pay me what I was asking.

I have a second interview Friday and a third company is interested in interviewing me next week. So I am not too worried about finding a decent job. I wanted to find a long term assignment in China. I have applied for a couple of those positions. I think a two year assignment in Shanghai would be fun. Besides there is nothing here holding me. Sure new girls are cropping up lately, but I'm sure they will progress the same as others.

I have Netflixed my way through all of Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles and the new Battle Star Galactica TV series. Bored is the only way to describe the days between interviews.

Hell's Handbasket Part II - Billy

2011-06-14T08:58:00.097-04:00

I met Billy (as in Billy-the -Kid), on this day, she works day shift at the strip club. Billy has thin fair hair just past her shoulders. She wears it straight, almost slick down the sides of her young face. She doesn't smile much, there is usually a seriously look in her eye, but she has a pretty smile. She is young, The Twins should be bringing her home but she has a good head on her shoulders. Billy is always aware of her surroundings. She has that petite hourglass figure that god giveth then sadly takes away. The one I can't resist. Tinkerbell once described the look as wasp wasted.

She opened up quickly to me. She was a good conversationalist. Billy reminds me a lot of Tinkerbell when she first started dancing. What little time I spent with her I enjoyed so much, I decide to go back and see her again. I switched up my routine, came in early. We have become fast friends and exchanged numbers.

She met me in Royal Oak yesterday. I was a little worried, some girls will look even younger on the outside with their clothes on. Billy looks the same which is still quite young. We walked the streets of the town going through all the unique shops, our conversation never faltering.

Later we ended up in Ferndale at Comos for dinner. We were talking about tattoos. Billy wants to get her first. She likes the "Facta Non Verba" phase I have tattooed as part of my sleeve. I should her some more feminine fonts she could get it in. At one point I noticed she had stopped paying attention. Our waitress had caught her attention. She thought she was high and pointed out the way she talked and bumped into things.

I noticed what she had once I started looking . Our waitress was frazzled with only three tables on a slow night. She only got worse as the night moved on, making mistakes on salads she herself prepared for a different table for instance.

I told Billy she was a pleasant surprise. She is not afraid to speak up, but she polite. Mature with the ability to be childish. I walked her back to her car and we kissed, parting to discuss getting together again, then she laced her fingers behind my neck and we kissed some more. I'm sure we made an odd pair out on the town but neither of us seemed to mind. I actually hope to see her again.

Handbaskets

2011-06-10T11:20:00.002-04:00

The world if full of glass houses, yet we all throw stones because we all deserve to go to hell sometimes.

Elle and I sit on the patio at the Lodge, a local drink establishment near her home. The day is beginning to get cool but we are at a little table at the corner of the building and the late evening sun is shinning down on us.

Elle is making sure my sanity is intact during this time of turmoil. Tink missing and losing my job are the kinds of things that have sent me into erratic behavior in the past. Not this time though, instead we talk about Alexis and her recent erratic behavior.

Our waitress comes and takes our order. She's a young blond with a cute round face. Her hair is pulled back in a half ponytail. I notice she has a dove-of-peace tattooed on her left wrist. When she leaves Elle makes a comment about her being pretty. I agree saying I had noticed her and I thought she was really hot.

"That's just gross Bath, she is probably only eighteen," Elle chides.

"I peg her for about twenty, it doesn't make a difference how old I am she is still hot."

Later during dinner, the waitress comes around to see if we need anything else. She starts asking about my tattoos, which turns into how she got hers. Elle was always the perfect wing woman, though I don't think this time, she released the mild flirtation going on.

The night became too cold once the sun went down. Elle and I moved inside to sit at the bar after dinner. The waitress made a point of stopping over. "Oh I see how its," she joked.

I grab her arm and run fingers over the dove on her wrist. "What are you going to get next?"

"I don't know, it will have to be something meaningful."

"You'll have to let me draw it for you."

"You'll have to come back."

Clean Slate

2011-06-08T22:29:00.052-04:00

D at Why Won't He Say What You Want To Hear asked, "What are we missing that we can't lead with our hearts and go after what we want to be content with what we have and are?"

In my case I don't think I am missing anything. My best friend has vanished without a trace. My job has laid me off. Those I've helped have disappointed me. I should be in the pit of despair but am I? Not really. I had next to nothing with them; I have next to nothing without them.

Phoenix says, "...have fun and keep your heart safe."

My heart has grown cold. Every little bead from each capsule I take sees to it. Perhaps it is time to wipe the white board clean, pick up what I've learned and move on, become a colder, cunning, more calculating me on the other side.

Wipe it clean.

A Swift Conversation

2011-06-06T15:55:00.051-04:00

There are jobs out there. That being said, I am still unemployed. I have decided not to settle for a step backwards although my friend Jay has suggested such. I do not want to go backwards. It would bore me-- that isn't good.

I am a bit panicked though inside. Change will do that. I know what I would like to do. I have mentioned it to a few of you. When things get more concrete I will reveal more. Sorry you'll just have to wait. My plans might not be popular with everyone.

I have been uninitiated with compliments lately. I am almost beginning to believe that people can read more than I reveal. If I say, there is nothing to keep me here, 100 obstacles will crop up to challenge that notion.

I was in the strip club last week. The fruits of a side project I started before I got laid off with bathroom attendant there have started to payoff. It pays for my cover and my drinks. I didn't see Rose. Rose has gone missing much like Tinkerbell. I sat in a booth with Shot Girl #1, a young Britney Spears look-a-like.

"What is the deal Taylor?" I ask, Shot Girl. I'm referring to my waitress. A Taylor Swift look-a-like with bigger boobs.

"What do you mean?"

"In one breath she suggests we should hang out sometime outside the club and get to know each other and in the next she admits to having a boyfriend."

"Oh, I don't know, tonight is the first time I've ever heard her mention this boyfriend. She said they have been on again off again for like ten years."

"She scares me." Shot Girl looks at me confused. "She's a bit intimidating; she's got her shit together. I'm used to girls who don't. I don't think of myself as having MY shit together. I know the game, they ask you out so you'll continue to come in and be their customer. When I mentioned that to her she shut that conversation down. Should I bother asking her out?"

I should mention that about a month ago Taylor and I were playing some heavy staring game when she was not my waitress. I hadn't known her before that night. She wanted to be noticed and I did. Since then I has been flirty be she is hard to figure out. She is pretty and doesn't need to sell herself.

"Ask her out once as friends and see what happens, Taylor likes to have fun."

I haven't decided what I am going to do yet.

Thinking Of You

2011-06-03T12:39:00.001-04:00

I change by not changing at all...

Perhaps that is what no one wants to see.

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away.

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away....

Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In a Small Town, Pearl Jam

Untethered-- Day II

2011-06-01T23:19:00.000-04:00

It is day two of my being untethered from the chains of employment. Of course I have been on a spending spree. What else does one do when unemployed? I bought a new computer. My old home computer has been gone for some time and I was living on the work computer. I had to give that back. I also added a bit more to my tattoo. I already had the appointment scheduled and I didn't want to cancel on my artist.

I've started getting into the job hunting mode. I updated my resume and applied for two jobs today. There are jobs out there. I am just not sure which direction I will go yet. I also notified the courts I was laid off. They like to know this right away when you pay child support. They like to keep taking your money. So they pull their share from your unemployment check too.

I went to the twins school today for school evaluations. Twin B is doing good and is on track to graduate next year. Twin A is slacking and needs to take two credits over the summer. I do not know what to do about that boy. He has got to start taking care of himself.

I also got to spend time next to the Ex-wife. That is always a joy. I like the way she roles her eyes when she looks at the tattoos on my arm. In fact it was fun to watch the teachers all giving my tattoos furtive glances. It is nice not to be able to be pigeon holed.

Someone asked me why I was so calm about things. They said they would be freaking out. I told her it was because I am medicated and apathetic. Things will work out and if the don't, it doesn't make any difference anyway. So for now I am doing what I am supposed to do; almost instinctively.

I broke down and text Tinkerbell yesterday, "Where are you :(" . She didn't reply. I wish she were around.

Thorns

2011-05-30T23:56:00.001-04:00

I have a drawer full of discarded bobbie-pins in the bathroom downstairs. There is a golden plastic coin on my dresser. Inside the dresser there is a box with two rings decorated with skulls in it. These things remind me.

Last week, before I was laid off, before the first 88 degree day of summer, I did some more snooping about Rose. Facebook is a wonderful tool. She is back with an old boyfriend. Some black punk ass from the city that types in broken english and treats her like a possession. He seems more like a pimp than a boyfriend and could be for all I know. He has hit her in the past from what I gathered as true. Rose's mom is not afraid to speak her mind on Facebook.

I haven't seen Rose in about two weeks but I did send her a message. I told her she was better than that, she deserved someone that would take her away from dancing and give her a chance to be what she wanted to be. It is frustrating when you see someone you care about in trouble and there is nothing you can do to help.

Being a good guy doesn't get you anywhere though. I used to tell Tinkerbell, the day you start going out with someone better than me is the day I will shut up. But then, maybe I am not better all. The ex-wife doesn't think so.

Sometimes I wonder what I leave behind. Do those things stir up memories? Will they ever be reclaimed.

Here We Go Again

2011-05-27T14:43:00.001-04:00

Things are occurring faster than I can write them down. Some things will be out of sequence but in order of importance. Today I got laid off. An occurrence that seems to happen on holidays. It wasn't really surprised. The work I was hoping for feel through. I do have feelers out on that other job.

I have a feeling the current job with be asking me to come back on occasional consulting basis. I might. If the money is right and there is no conflict of interest.

I suppose I should feel like this is really bad, but I don't. I have been laid off once before it isn't the end of the world. A new job that sucks will depress me far more than not having a job.

Tear Me Open, I Believe

2011-05-24T13:05:00.001-04:00

I’m not quiet myself these days
Guess we all come undone
time to time in different ways well,
I have myself to blame.
Guess I don’t understand, I need help anyways...Screaming Bloody Murder, Sum 41

Friday worked ended early. The boss dangled a new carrot in front of me before he left, an assignment that would leave me secure for a good year and a half. It would give me the chance to return to China for some extended visits too-- if they play things straight with me.

I went to Hooters for a late lunch. Lauren was behind the bar. I ordered a sandwich and a tall mug of beer. There was a familiar customer seated a few chairs to my right. The last time I was in he sat next to me too, mechanically eating a salad, his face inches from the plate, eyes almost closed.

After he left, I asked Lauren about the strange man. "I think he had a breakdown after his wife filed for divorce," she told me.

"He should be happy," I quibbled. My comment didn't amuse her. She is married.

I finished my second mug and Lauren asked if I was ready for a third. Draft beer still gets to me, I was already feeling a bit of a buzz. One more and I would end up planted for hours or passed out at home. I didn't want to waste the evening but I didn't have anywhere to go. I took off and headed for the strip club. I know I could get drunk there and hang out for hours and no one would bother me. Plus, I would probably know at least a few people.

Day shift was just switching over to nights. I chatted up a few of the morning girls and continued drinking. I texted a few of the girls from nights to see who was working. I tell one of the waitress from nights just to scrape my drunk ass into her section when she arrives. That didn't take much effort, I was already in the same section.

I didn't expect Rose to be working and she didn't, I was glad. I want to put a bit of distance between her and I. Maybe somethings are better left unknown, that way you are not disappointed. The waitress makes a comment and it sticks in my head, "It doesn't matter what you do, they will fall back on how they were raised." and I know what she means.

A new shot girl sit down with me. She is pretty, with black shoulder length hair and tan skin. I tell her I already have open tabs with two other shot girls and its true but we start talking. It is her first week. No one has taught her the tricks of her trade. So I start teaching her who and how to approach the tables. She comes back several times during the night for more suggestion.

I never reach a state of intoxication, I try. My buzz never better than when I started out. One of the other shot girls takes a break and splits an order of chicken strips with me. She agrees with me about Rose. "You should start hanging out with someone else," she says.

I glance at the stages, the dancers have gone ignored by me all night. "But who?" I ask. She has no answer for me.