Ecuador
In Puertoviejo Marie went to see a doctor (gynecologist) about a pain that she's had in her 'nether regions' since about the time we met five months or so ago, and the doctor told her something to the effect that I had fucked her duck. And apparently since I'd fucked her duck we were both immediately put on a strict regimen of antibiotics and were told that we could not have sex for two weeks - I guess as punishment for me being a bestialist. Now, I've been accused of many things in my life - most of which are untrue - but never have I been accused of fucking animals. This tops the list of accusations - duck fucker. I'm afraid to turn on the television for fear of seeing my face and the headline: "Gringo duck fucker". Marie said that I misinterpreted what the doctor'd said... but I saw the way she'd looked at me. I told Marie that the woman was probably a witch doctor. But Marie was adamant that we follow the doctors orders and refrain from sex for two weeks and take our pills, that in fact the doctor was talking about a "duct" problem. But I informed Marie that I doubted that she had any "ducts" and that I didn't like my good name being slandered in South America. And this no sex thing couldn't have come at a worse time. It's like the Gods are conspiring against us. I mean, we are fresh into a relationship traveling through a foreign country trying to get to know each other and figure out each others personal quirks, ticks and personality defects (and I admit that I've got a lot, but fucking animals is not one of them), and consequently we have our arguments, fights and relationship meltdowns. And sex happens to be one of our best make up tools. So the no sex for two weeks was a bit of wrench in the working parts of our relationship.
Two days into it we were put to the test, and nearly crumpled under the pressure - we nearly aborted ship without our life preserver of sex to keep us afloat on the turbulent seas of our new relationship...
We'd been taking the bus for the two days previous through some of the most outrageous and treacherous terrain on the planet. We were climbing the Andes along dirt switchback roads through downpours, over makeshift roads - where the old roads only a few days before had slid down the side of the mountain. The ride was like being thrown around a bus by Andre The Giant in a fight to the death. Our bladders were about to explode - as the buses never stop for hours on end for more than a brief moment to load and unload people until the bus reaches the terminal. We were starving. And when we reached about fifteen thousand feet, suffering from altitude sickness, delirium, hunger and exploding bladders we stopped for a brief moment so that we could load a group of indigenous folks on the bus and the driver could buy something from a roadside stand. And I took the opportunity to jump off the bus and try to scrounge us up some food. All I could find was bread before the bus began to take off and I ran to jump back on as it bus pulled away. When I made it back to my seat Marie asked me if I was stupid, or really fucking stupid, or something, when all I could produce for sustenance were four small loafs of bread.
I refused to talk to her the rest of the bus trip - fuck her - and pounded her for an explanation when we finally reached wherever the hell the bus dropped us off (some mountain town) on our way to Banos, as to why she thought she could talk to me like that.
She didn't want to talk about it on our way to dinner, or at dinner. So I left the restaurant and went back to the hotel and got myself my own room. I didn't get very far, as the room that the guy at the desk gave me was right next door to Marie's. And when she got back from dinner she found me, and we argued, and we talked, and we threatened each other with breaking up, and we tried to find alternative ways to have sex and make up. And we went and cuddled in her bed next door and paid for two rooms - $21. And in the morning we talked, and told each other how disappointed and let down we were by the other and we decided to just keep on going.
Fuck it...
We're in this thing together.
And we finally made it to our destination of Banos through another jarring, cramped and nausea inducing bus ride through the Andes. And along the way we made up and laughed and saw smoke billowing thousands of meters into the sky out of an active volcano that we are currently resting at the bottom of.
We made it just in time for the start of Carnival yesterday. The resort town is jumping with activity and is gorgeous and reminds me of being in the Rockies or Tetons or the Alps.
We got a place at a German/Ecuadorian owned place that is amazing. We found a book today at an American owned restaurant called something like "Traveling Together; How to Make it Work" which we rented for the week for a twenty dollar deposit and a $1 rental fee. We are going to be fine. We are amazing. And we'll be lucky if we make it out of here sane.
Love
Sunday 22 February 2009
Foof...
Helotes, Texas
Once again we were all shooed away as the wedding party was likely to spill over at any moment into the courtyard where we had posted up. So we took our drinks and headed out back behind the catering tent where the workers party was still going strong around my car. And at some point during our backwoods party as we continued to get drunk Marie ended up with a full bottle of Tequila in her hand and one of my amigos prompted me to express to Marie how I felt about her. I told her that I loved her and that I wanted to marry her. To which she stood up, indignant, and said in a French accented fury “Oh! You shut up! You are crazy!” then opened the bottle of Tequila and began to pour it over my head, telling me to shut up as everyone howled with fits of laughter at the scene.
But I wasn’t deterred or to be outdone. And as I took my Tequila soaked t-shirt off I remembered the handcuffs that I had stashed away in my car from my days as a Corrections Officer and went to get them as I threw my Tequila drenched shirt over a tree limb to dry out. I’d show her who was the fucking boss, I thought, as I pulled the cuffs out of the middle console and latched one end on to my left wrist and walked back over to sit down next to her on the ground as the music blasted and the commotion of conversation distracted everyone from me. As I sat back down on the ground I immediately slapped the other cuff on Marie’s right wrist to which she jumped up screaming “Oh! You did not! Oh! You did not! What are you doing?! You get this off of me right now!” And everyone screamed with laughter.
I wasn’t going to stop.
I loved her.
And I told her that I did. I told her that she wasn’t getting away, that I was going to marry her, and that the cuffs weren’t going to come off until she said that she would marry me and that she loved me too! To which she finally consented after much protesting and shrieking in French.
As I took the cuffs off of her as my Asa pronounced us man and wife.
We all continued to drink and get stoned as the wedding party wound itself down and Marie and I decided to go and take a look at what remained. There wasn’t much left. A weeks worth of work was abandoned and forgotten in a few hours. There was impermanence to it all that I despised.
And as Marie and I walked backed towards my car under the full moon, past the catering tent we stumbled and fell into a tarp that was laying next to the industrial sized dumpster that had collected the trash of the week. We began laughing as we tried to free ourselves only to get more and more tangled up as we rolled around on the ground and finally began kissing. She kissed me like no one had ever kissed me before, long kisses pressing her mouth against mine, threatening to suffocate me. She kissed me with an intensity that bordered on desperation. And as I tried to figure out how to get her clothes off and had my hand up her shirt Asa and his girl pulled the tarp back to see what was going on. They laughed as I told them to go away and pulled the tarp back over our heads.
And that was it.
The next morning as I left her Motel room I told her that I’d love her forever to which she shrugged her shoulders and said “Foof…”
Love
Once again we were all shooed away as the wedding party was likely to spill over at any moment into the courtyard where we had posted up. So we took our drinks and headed out back behind the catering tent where the workers party was still going strong around my car. And at some point during our backwoods party as we continued to get drunk Marie ended up with a full bottle of Tequila in her hand and one of my amigos prompted me to express to Marie how I felt about her. I told her that I loved her and that I wanted to marry her. To which she stood up, indignant, and said in a French accented fury “Oh! You shut up! You are crazy!” then opened the bottle of Tequila and began to pour it over my head, telling me to shut up as everyone howled with fits of laughter at the scene.
But I wasn’t deterred or to be outdone. And as I took my Tequila soaked t-shirt off I remembered the handcuffs that I had stashed away in my car from my days as a Corrections Officer and went to get them as I threw my Tequila drenched shirt over a tree limb to dry out. I’d show her who was the fucking boss, I thought, as I pulled the cuffs out of the middle console and latched one end on to my left wrist and walked back over to sit down next to her on the ground as the music blasted and the commotion of conversation distracted everyone from me. As I sat back down on the ground I immediately slapped the other cuff on Marie’s right wrist to which she jumped up screaming “Oh! You did not! Oh! You did not! What are you doing?! You get this off of me right now!” And everyone screamed with laughter.
I wasn’t going to stop.
I loved her.
And I told her that I did. I told her that she wasn’t getting away, that I was going to marry her, and that the cuffs weren’t going to come off until she said that she would marry me and that she loved me too! To which she finally consented after much protesting and shrieking in French.
As I took the cuffs off of her as my Asa pronounced us man and wife.
We all continued to drink and get stoned as the wedding party wound itself down and Marie and I decided to go and take a look at what remained. There wasn’t much left. A weeks worth of work was abandoned and forgotten in a few hours. There was impermanence to it all that I despised.
And as Marie and I walked backed towards my car under the full moon, past the catering tent we stumbled and fell into a tarp that was laying next to the industrial sized dumpster that had collected the trash of the week. We began laughing as we tried to free ourselves only to get more and more tangled up as we rolled around on the ground and finally began kissing. She kissed me like no one had ever kissed me before, long kisses pressing her mouth against mine, threatening to suffocate me. She kissed me with an intensity that bordered on desperation. And as I tried to figure out how to get her clothes off and had my hand up her shirt Asa and his girl pulled the tarp back to see what was going on. They laughed as I told them to go away and pulled the tarp back over our heads.
And that was it.
The next morning as I left her Motel room I told her that I’d love her forever to which she shrugged her shoulders and said “Foof…”
Love
Wednesday 18 February 2009
We Came To A Third World Country To Watch Television And Get Health Care
Ecuador
We came to a third world country to watch television and get health care. That´s what´s happening. Neither Time Warner Cable nor Direct TV, nor access to some of the best health care professionals on the planet were enough to keep us in the States. No, we decided that Ecuador would be the place to hole up and watch endless hours of shitty American television in a hotel room that has a certain penitentiary feel and aesthetic sensibility to it, while tracking down dentists, x-ray, sonogram clinics and doctors through a series of hand gestures, grunts and chicken scratch Spanish, which at certain points throughout our search for third world class health care has probably given more than one confused Ecuadorian the impression that the teeth in Marie´s pussy hurt... It´s been like that. Needless to say that once again a certain indefinable stress has been put on our fledgling relationship that one doesn´t quite invision in ones head before leaving the country for a supposed two months of South American sun, surf and pina coladas. No, instead of all that picturesque relaxation we´re in a shitty stinky town hiding away in a cell at night to escape the roving gangs of bandits and thieves who want to steal our computers (they´re a hot commodity down here) watching mind numbing television. And God forbid that I might want a Valium in the midst of all this, which I thought sounded like a half decent idea last night after eight hours of subtitled television when I went to get us some street corner chicken and a beer, as the pharmacies are self serve and open 24-7 (It´s a genius system), to which Marie declared that she didn´t want to be with a pill head. I told her that if four Valium in the two days that she wouldn´t talk to me after one of my blogs and thought that I was going to be broke and stranded in Ecuador, one of the pain killers she´d been given for her tooth that I took yesterday at the start of our four and half hour bus trip after she cussed me out for saying that she might be pregnant when she said her tits hurt and the guy standing in the isle next to my seat decided to rest his ass on my shoulder, and a couple of different hard-on pills that I´ve been testing out for the pure science of it since we got here two and a half weeks ago made me a pill head, well then, I was fucked. And if that were the case then I couldn´t abide being with a woman won´t drink water without wine in it. And I told her that alcohol was in fact a drug. And she shut it. I still haven´t gotten that Valium, but there´s a pharmacy around the corner - one on every corner in fact - and there´s a shit load of television to watch as she ditched me for the day not long ago after I had the nerve to suggest that she might not want to carry around the biggest purse on the planet in one of the poorer countries on the planet, and that she might want to find out for sure if she had recently gotten a sonogram done by her gynecologist before we left before she shelled out for another one here, or that she might want to see a doctor first and see if he thinks that she even needs one before she makes an appointment for one. So I´ve been banished for the day for my insolence. At least the TV works, and the pharmacy´s open...
Love
We came to a third world country to watch television and get health care. That´s what´s happening. Neither Time Warner Cable nor Direct TV, nor access to some of the best health care professionals on the planet were enough to keep us in the States. No, we decided that Ecuador would be the place to hole up and watch endless hours of shitty American television in a hotel room that has a certain penitentiary feel and aesthetic sensibility to it, while tracking down dentists, x-ray, sonogram clinics and doctors through a series of hand gestures, grunts and chicken scratch Spanish, which at certain points throughout our search for third world class health care has probably given more than one confused Ecuadorian the impression that the teeth in Marie´s pussy hurt... It´s been like that. Needless to say that once again a certain indefinable stress has been put on our fledgling relationship that one doesn´t quite invision in ones head before leaving the country for a supposed two months of South American sun, surf and pina coladas. No, instead of all that picturesque relaxation we´re in a shitty stinky town hiding away in a cell at night to escape the roving gangs of bandits and thieves who want to steal our computers (they´re a hot commodity down here) watching mind numbing television. And God forbid that I might want a Valium in the midst of all this, which I thought sounded like a half decent idea last night after eight hours of subtitled television when I went to get us some street corner chicken and a beer, as the pharmacies are self serve and open 24-7 (It´s a genius system), to which Marie declared that she didn´t want to be with a pill head. I told her that if four Valium in the two days that she wouldn´t talk to me after one of my blogs and thought that I was going to be broke and stranded in Ecuador, one of the pain killers she´d been given for her tooth that I took yesterday at the start of our four and half hour bus trip after she cussed me out for saying that she might be pregnant when she said her tits hurt and the guy standing in the isle next to my seat decided to rest his ass on my shoulder, and a couple of different hard-on pills that I´ve been testing out for the pure science of it since we got here two and a half weeks ago made me a pill head, well then, I was fucked. And if that were the case then I couldn´t abide being with a woman won´t drink water without wine in it. And I told her that alcohol was in fact a drug. And she shut it. I still haven´t gotten that Valium, but there´s a pharmacy around the corner - one on every corner in fact - and there´s a shit load of television to watch as she ditched me for the day not long ago after I had the nerve to suggest that she might not want to carry around the biggest purse on the planet in one of the poorer countries on the planet, and that she might want to find out for sure if she had recently gotten a sonogram done by her gynecologist before we left before she shelled out for another one here, or that she might want to see a doctor first and see if he thinks that she even needs one before she makes an appointment for one. So I´ve been banished for the day for my insolence. At least the TV works, and the pharmacy´s open...
Love
Sunday 15 February 2009
Happy Valentines Day Las Tunas
Ecuador
Time drifts slowly here. Dogs lie in the street under small palm trees and waste the day away asleep in the shade out of the heat. The main street of Las Tunas is about the length of a football field with street lamps. Nothing much of notice lines the street, La Cabanas la mirada a la mar (where we rent a room for $15 a night), a small restaraunt with a few tables in some gravel where you order directly into the kitchen, a few baby palm trees, a few more small buildings and cabanas that are private residences and a community center where a married couple who we've made friends with, named Chun and Fanny volunteer, is all. A sea wall that holds a white concrete railing with posts missing like broken teeth, separates the street from the beach. There is a store around the corner that sells a few things like water, pineapples, chocolate, eggs, margarine, beer and the local liquor (a cane liquor), and serves as a makeshift bar on their patio on the weekends where the men will sometimes drink straight through the night and offer me a shot of their sugar cane liquor when I go to the store to get coffee and juice in the morning. I accept. It´s good for the comradery. The older locals eye me with curiosity. The young guys give me the hang loose sign. But for the most part the people ignore me, which is nice. Tattoos don´t seem to carry much connotation down here like they do in the States. Throughout the day the locals congregate along the sea wall and mingle, kids play in the surf and the sand throughout the day. And when the waves come the surfers head out into the water. On the weekend, familiy´s, lovers, and packs of surfers come to town, and music plays loudly from car stereos. Marie and I read and write on our second story deck from our cabana, drink coffee and beer and eat at the restaurant down the street, at another restaurant on the beach called D Jimmy's, at the Hosteria that has the giant wooden boat with the internet, or a local woman´s house who brings us whatever she has made that day for $2.50 each. I eat a lot of fish. Marie eats a lot of shrimp and squid. Most dishes are around $4, and beers are around a $1. When we get bored we walk out to the main road and take the bus to either Puerto Lopez close by to the North of us, or to Mantanita - the party surf town to the South of us - like we did last night, both of us forgetting that it was Valentines day. The place was packed and full of young people walking the dirt streets that began to turn to mud as the rain trickled down. The place was full of bars and hostels catering to stoners, partiers and surfers. It's a party town, but all we really wanted was to rent a cheap room for the night with a television and watch a movie. We had a couple of pina coladas and wandered the streets in the trickling rain through the throngs of people, fire dancers, hippies, rastas and young kids fruitlessly looking for a room, realizing that we´d have to take a taxi back to Las Tunas as the buses had stopped running at nine - a couple of hours earlier. So we ate chicken at a couple of different street vendor stands and bought a few burned dvd´s from a stand for $1.50 each and took a cab back to our place for $20 for the forty five minute ride along the coast, through jungle, along the way me telling Marie about the Chupacabra scaring her as we drove into the night.
Love
Time drifts slowly here. Dogs lie in the street under small palm trees and waste the day away asleep in the shade out of the heat. The main street of Las Tunas is about the length of a football field with street lamps. Nothing much of notice lines the street, La Cabanas la mirada a la mar (where we rent a room for $15 a night), a small restaraunt with a few tables in some gravel where you order directly into the kitchen, a few baby palm trees, a few more small buildings and cabanas that are private residences and a community center where a married couple who we've made friends with, named Chun and Fanny volunteer, is all. A sea wall that holds a white concrete railing with posts missing like broken teeth, separates the street from the beach. There is a store around the corner that sells a few things like water, pineapples, chocolate, eggs, margarine, beer and the local liquor (a cane liquor), and serves as a makeshift bar on their patio on the weekends where the men will sometimes drink straight through the night and offer me a shot of their sugar cane liquor when I go to the store to get coffee and juice in the morning. I accept. It´s good for the comradery. The older locals eye me with curiosity. The young guys give me the hang loose sign. But for the most part the people ignore me, which is nice. Tattoos don´t seem to carry much connotation down here like they do in the States. Throughout the day the locals congregate along the sea wall and mingle, kids play in the surf and the sand throughout the day. And when the waves come the surfers head out into the water. On the weekend, familiy´s, lovers, and packs of surfers come to town, and music plays loudly from car stereos. Marie and I read and write on our second story deck from our cabana, drink coffee and beer and eat at the restaurant down the street, at another restaurant on the beach called D Jimmy's, at the Hosteria that has the giant wooden boat with the internet, or a local woman´s house who brings us whatever she has made that day for $2.50 each. I eat a lot of fish. Marie eats a lot of shrimp and squid. Most dishes are around $4, and beers are around a $1. When we get bored we walk out to the main road and take the bus to either Puerto Lopez close by to the North of us, or to Mantanita - the party surf town to the South of us - like we did last night, both of us forgetting that it was Valentines day. The place was packed and full of young people walking the dirt streets that began to turn to mud as the rain trickled down. The place was full of bars and hostels catering to stoners, partiers and surfers. It's a party town, but all we really wanted was to rent a cheap room for the night with a television and watch a movie. We had a couple of pina coladas and wandered the streets in the trickling rain through the throngs of people, fire dancers, hippies, rastas and young kids fruitlessly looking for a room, realizing that we´d have to take a taxi back to Las Tunas as the buses had stopped running at nine - a couple of hours earlier. So we ate chicken at a couple of different street vendor stands and bought a few burned dvd´s from a stand for $1.50 each and took a cab back to our place for $20 for the forty five minute ride along the coast, through jungle, along the way me telling Marie about the Chupacabra scaring her as we drove into the night.
Love
Wednesday 11 February 2009
Don´t Go
Ecuador
I walked the dark beach back to our little room to find her sitting up in bed drinking a beer and reading her book. Not much was said as I undressed and took a shower. When I dried and came out of the shower I told her that I was going to sleep in the bed in the corner of the room where the criss crossed wooden slats let a slight breeze in (for some reason we have four beds in our two person room - a bunk bed, a twin, and a double which we sleep on). I told her that I was still feeling pretty sick and that I didn´t want to soak the sheets and toss and turn all night long like I had the night before and keep her up again. What I said was true, but only half true. The other half of the truth was that I was still upset and didn´t want to sleep with her. She told me that she felt sick too, sick about us. I hugged her and she kissed my head. She was sweet. And I was still being an ass. And I went to bed. I wanted her to admit that I might have a point about the night before. She hadn´t. And I didn´t want to have to beg her for it. I tossed and turned all night and had nightmares of being stranded in different parts of the world. I woke to the sun and the sound of her voice calling my name to find that I'd sweated through the sheets again. She called me over to bed where we lay together until I fell asleep again and she went downstairs to boil water for coffee on the small gas stove in the back of the small store and private area of the place we are staying. She went to the tiny corner store around down the street and got us a pineapple.
She can be sweet.
As we sat on the porch looking out over the waves she asked me when I was leaving. She called my bluff. I didn´t want to go anywhere. I just wanted a simple acknowledgment that I might have a point about our argument in relation each of us talking about the opposite sex, and that it might not all be in my head. She wasn´t going concede. She told me that I could take her debit card to Puero Lopez a half an hour away and get some money out of her account and that I could pay her back. As I got my pack ready to go to leave she asked me what it was all about - what we were fighting about? I tried to explain it to her again. There was no point. She didn´t get it. And I got up to go. She said to wait, not to go, that we could work it out, that I might have a point.
Love
I walked the dark beach back to our little room to find her sitting up in bed drinking a beer and reading her book. Not much was said as I undressed and took a shower. When I dried and came out of the shower I told her that I was going to sleep in the bed in the corner of the room where the criss crossed wooden slats let a slight breeze in (for some reason we have four beds in our two person room - a bunk bed, a twin, and a double which we sleep on). I told her that I was still feeling pretty sick and that I didn´t want to soak the sheets and toss and turn all night long like I had the night before and keep her up again. What I said was true, but only half true. The other half of the truth was that I was still upset and didn´t want to sleep with her. She told me that she felt sick too, sick about us. I hugged her and she kissed my head. She was sweet. And I was still being an ass. And I went to bed. I wanted her to admit that I might have a point about the night before. She hadn´t. And I didn´t want to have to beg her for it. I tossed and turned all night and had nightmares of being stranded in different parts of the world. I woke to the sun and the sound of her voice calling my name to find that I'd sweated through the sheets again. She called me over to bed where we lay together until I fell asleep again and she went downstairs to boil water for coffee on the small gas stove in the back of the small store and private area of the place we are staying. She went to the tiny corner store around down the street and got us a pineapple.
She can be sweet.
As we sat on the porch looking out over the waves she asked me when I was leaving. She called my bluff. I didn´t want to go anywhere. I just wanted a simple acknowledgment that I might have a point about our argument in relation each of us talking about the opposite sex, and that it might not all be in my head. She wasn´t going concede. She told me that I could take her debit card to Puero Lopez a half an hour away and get some money out of her account and that I could pay her back. As I got my pack ready to go to leave she asked me what it was all about - what we were fighting about? I tried to explain it to her again. There was no point. She didn´t get it. And I got up to go. She said to wait, not to go, that we could work it out, that I might have a point.
Love
Monday 9 February 2009
Ecuador: We Have a Problem!
Ecuador
Here we are four months later in Ecuador, somewhere along what the locals call the ¨Playa del Sol¨. I´ve got another post that I`ve been meaning to put up for the last couple of days but there´s no wireless where we are and I didn´t bring my computer with me today to the only spot along the beach that has internet. The post that I have on my computer will finish up the courtship in Texas and the rose colored glasses that I´d been looking through. And after I´d posted that I had planned on jumping into the real time - today - and the piss and shit of the relationship, but necessity brought me to the computer unprepared. So I´ll jump right in.
Fuck it...
The courtship is over, and possibly the romance as well. Who knows? She´s tired of dealing with my quirks and demands, and I´m tired of dealing with hers. She can be sweet as hell and amazingly generous, but she can be a real pain in the ass as well - I´m sure I can too. We each have our issues - that´s become evident. Shit, even the tarot card reader who she saw in L.A. a few weeks before we came here knew that I had trust issues, and that she had freedom issues that have affected relationships in her past (she said she didn´t know what the tarot reader was talking about in that respect...). So here we are in the middle of nowhere, knee deep in it - the shit. She says she doesn`t want to fight until after her birthday on the 12th of Feb., which also means that she doesn´t want to talk about anything either, which would be fine if there weren´t ever things in a relationship that needed to be talked about. I´ve tried to adhere to this wish since she made it a little over two weeks ago, just before I moved to New York to live with her. It´s been difficult, but I´ve tried. It´s been especially difficult since she feels the overwhelmingly powerful need to say anything that she wants to, whenever she wants to, without the slightest protest or reproach from anyone - especially me - as she feels that any sort of protest or reproach or request for clarification infringe on her personal freedoms and are viewed as ¨confining¨. So I´ve bitten my tongue the best I could, which is difficult for me, as I want to talk about everything, always. Who´d of guessed that we´d come to an impasse with this arrangement?
Things did come to a head one night in New York after we´d been drinking and she dragged me to an all black club to dance - which meant that she danced and flirted with whomever she wanted all night (she doesn´t like to dance with people she´s with in a romantic sense for some reason she said later - she probably feels that's confining as well?) while I tried not to get fucked up by the three big brothers behind me who´d been eying my neck tattoos all night long. On top of that I got the nod of disrespect - like the: I got your girl white boy! kinda nod - from the guy she`d been dancing with and flirting with most of the night. Needless to say I wanted to leave. And when I told her so (a little upset) she felt like she was being "confined and controlled". So I left her there and walked to a friends bar, got shit faced and slept outside near a stoop until she called my phone in the afternoon telling me to come home.
So there was that.
I can´t say that I did see something like that coming as the night before I was to leave to New York she called me drunk at 5:30 in the morning saying that she was in a cab on the way home from that same black club and that a couple of "beautiful black guys" (her words) had pulled up in front of her in a beautiful car while she smoked a cigarette on the sidewalk in Manhattan, and that she´d gone with them to the club and that she lost them inside, but that she got hit on all night long, that guys had tried to kiss her, and that it was the first time that she´d ever declined or resisted those sorts of advances while she was in a relationship with someone. And she asked me if I had a problem with that? She hoped I didn´t... I don´t know if she wanted me to feel flattered that I'd been the cause of her response, but either way, I can´t say that the call was reassuring on the night before moving half way across the country. But what the fuck was I supposed to do? I´d already sold everything that I owned, had my bags packed on the floor with the clothes that I didn´t give or throw away; I´d notified my apartment people that I was leaving; and I´d signed a contract to sell my car to a guy over the next year. I wasn´t exactly standing on solid ground. So I kept my mouth shut and went for it with a whole lot of faith and a shit load of nerves in my stomach.
And here I am in a third world country with $27.00 in my bank account (I still haven´t received any funds on my car - besides the initial $160 that the guy forked over that got me to New York - that was supposed to get me through down here). So I´ve been living off the kindness and generosity of Marie since we got here, feeling a bit like a parasite, and not really feeling like I´m in a position to voice an opinion about anything, which I made the mistake of doing last night. And all I said was that I didn´t want to hear about other guys anymore. For some reason she likes to tell me how she finds other men attractive - black men (I had to hear about that subject three or four times while we were in New York in the week before we got here (specifically how she had slept with them, referring to a question of whether or not she had sex with black men that a gay friend of hers had asked her in reference to her wooden phallic pieces on her bookshelf); movie stars that haunted bars that she took me to in Manhattan that she´d like to make out with; Sam Shepherd over and over again, about how he liked her ass in a club one night; men around the neighborhood where she lived that she´d made out with; and references to men that she´d slept with. None of this did I make a peep to, except for the day after the black night club incident when I tried to explain to her that I had a bit of sore spot with women I cared about sleeping with black guys as my first wife had had her fair share of infidelities with black men while we were married (possibly the entire Wu-Tang Clan - excluding Ol´Dirty Bastard (RIP lil' baby jesus) and The Rza - as they didn´t make the trip)). To which she responded that I was insecure. That is probably partially true, but I think I´ve held up fairly well under the circumstances.
And so it was nice when we first got here to Ecuador and it was just the two of us and there were no men for her to ogle as most of the men that we came across in Ecuador our first week were very indigenous looking (not attracted to indigenous looking) and not much sexual competition, until two nights ago when we got invited out to a house party on the coast and she informed me that she thought every man there was good looking. And I thought about that for a day or so and had pretty much decided that I didn´t want to hear about other guys anymore - similar to what she'd said to me just before I left Austin when I mentioned that a girl had invited me out drinking one night (an attractive girl that was throwing me the vibe) and that I´d declined because I´d rather be with her, Marie. In response to that she told me that she didn´t want to hear about other girls anymore.
So last night when I was awaken from a dream by her and she asked me what I was dreaming about and I mentioned something about the actress Chloe Sevigny in my dream, and I´d forgotten that I´d mentioned Chloe's name the week before telling Marie about a guy I knew who claimed he got hit on by her at a bar in New York City one night. Marie asked me if I had a crush on Chloe, and I thought about it for a second and said that it was possible. And I said that she could have all of her man crushes and that I´d have my one - Chloe. She said that I was insecure again. She said that no other man that she´d ever been with had ever had a problem with her talking about other men. That I was the only one. I guess I am insecure. And I told her in that case that I didn´t want to hear anymore about other men.
And that set it off.
She says I´m insecure and jealous and that she feels "confined". I say that she can fuck off... now, if I could just figure out how to get out of here.
LOve
Here we are four months later in Ecuador, somewhere along what the locals call the ¨Playa del Sol¨. I´ve got another post that I`ve been meaning to put up for the last couple of days but there´s no wireless where we are and I didn´t bring my computer with me today to the only spot along the beach that has internet. The post that I have on my computer will finish up the courtship in Texas and the rose colored glasses that I´d been looking through. And after I´d posted that I had planned on jumping into the real time - today - and the piss and shit of the relationship, but necessity brought me to the computer unprepared. So I´ll jump right in.
Fuck it...
The courtship is over, and possibly the romance as well. Who knows? She´s tired of dealing with my quirks and demands, and I´m tired of dealing with hers. She can be sweet as hell and amazingly generous, but she can be a real pain in the ass as well - I´m sure I can too. We each have our issues - that´s become evident. Shit, even the tarot card reader who she saw in L.A. a few weeks before we came here knew that I had trust issues, and that she had freedom issues that have affected relationships in her past (she said she didn´t know what the tarot reader was talking about in that respect...). So here we are in the middle of nowhere, knee deep in it - the shit. She says she doesn`t want to fight until after her birthday on the 12th of Feb., which also means that she doesn´t want to talk about anything either, which would be fine if there weren´t ever things in a relationship that needed to be talked about. I´ve tried to adhere to this wish since she made it a little over two weeks ago, just before I moved to New York to live with her. It´s been difficult, but I´ve tried. It´s been especially difficult since she feels the overwhelmingly powerful need to say anything that she wants to, whenever she wants to, without the slightest protest or reproach from anyone - especially me - as she feels that any sort of protest or reproach or request for clarification infringe on her personal freedoms and are viewed as ¨confining¨. So I´ve bitten my tongue the best I could, which is difficult for me, as I want to talk about everything, always. Who´d of guessed that we´d come to an impasse with this arrangement?
Things did come to a head one night in New York after we´d been drinking and she dragged me to an all black club to dance - which meant that she danced and flirted with whomever she wanted all night (she doesn´t like to dance with people she´s with in a romantic sense for some reason she said later - she probably feels that's confining as well?) while I tried not to get fucked up by the three big brothers behind me who´d been eying my neck tattoos all night long. On top of that I got the nod of disrespect - like the: I got your girl white boy! kinda nod - from the guy she`d been dancing with and flirting with most of the night. Needless to say I wanted to leave. And when I told her so (a little upset) she felt like she was being "confined and controlled". So I left her there and walked to a friends bar, got shit faced and slept outside near a stoop until she called my phone in the afternoon telling me to come home.
So there was that.
I can´t say that I did see something like that coming as the night before I was to leave to New York she called me drunk at 5:30 in the morning saying that she was in a cab on the way home from that same black club and that a couple of "beautiful black guys" (her words) had pulled up in front of her in a beautiful car while she smoked a cigarette on the sidewalk in Manhattan, and that she´d gone with them to the club and that she lost them inside, but that she got hit on all night long, that guys had tried to kiss her, and that it was the first time that she´d ever declined or resisted those sorts of advances while she was in a relationship with someone. And she asked me if I had a problem with that? She hoped I didn´t... I don´t know if she wanted me to feel flattered that I'd been the cause of her response, but either way, I can´t say that the call was reassuring on the night before moving half way across the country. But what the fuck was I supposed to do? I´d already sold everything that I owned, had my bags packed on the floor with the clothes that I didn´t give or throw away; I´d notified my apartment people that I was leaving; and I´d signed a contract to sell my car to a guy over the next year. I wasn´t exactly standing on solid ground. So I kept my mouth shut and went for it with a whole lot of faith and a shit load of nerves in my stomach.
And here I am in a third world country with $27.00 in my bank account (I still haven´t received any funds on my car - besides the initial $160 that the guy forked over that got me to New York - that was supposed to get me through down here). So I´ve been living off the kindness and generosity of Marie since we got here, feeling a bit like a parasite, and not really feeling like I´m in a position to voice an opinion about anything, which I made the mistake of doing last night. And all I said was that I didn´t want to hear about other guys anymore. For some reason she likes to tell me how she finds other men attractive - black men (I had to hear about that subject three or four times while we were in New York in the week before we got here (specifically how she had slept with them, referring to a question of whether or not she had sex with black men that a gay friend of hers had asked her in reference to her wooden phallic pieces on her bookshelf); movie stars that haunted bars that she took me to in Manhattan that she´d like to make out with; Sam Shepherd over and over again, about how he liked her ass in a club one night; men around the neighborhood where she lived that she´d made out with; and references to men that she´d slept with. None of this did I make a peep to, except for the day after the black night club incident when I tried to explain to her that I had a bit of sore spot with women I cared about sleeping with black guys as my first wife had had her fair share of infidelities with black men while we were married (possibly the entire Wu-Tang Clan - excluding Ol´Dirty Bastard (RIP lil' baby jesus) and The Rza - as they didn´t make the trip)). To which she responded that I was insecure. That is probably partially true, but I think I´ve held up fairly well under the circumstances.
And so it was nice when we first got here to Ecuador and it was just the two of us and there were no men for her to ogle as most of the men that we came across in Ecuador our first week were very indigenous looking (not attracted to indigenous looking) and not much sexual competition, until two nights ago when we got invited out to a house party on the coast and she informed me that she thought every man there was good looking. And I thought about that for a day or so and had pretty much decided that I didn´t want to hear about other guys anymore - similar to what she'd said to me just before I left Austin when I mentioned that a girl had invited me out drinking one night (an attractive girl that was throwing me the vibe) and that I´d declined because I´d rather be with her, Marie. In response to that she told me that she didn´t want to hear about other girls anymore.
So last night when I was awaken from a dream by her and she asked me what I was dreaming about and I mentioned something about the actress Chloe Sevigny in my dream, and I´d forgotten that I´d mentioned Chloe's name the week before telling Marie about a guy I knew who claimed he got hit on by her at a bar in New York City one night. Marie asked me if I had a crush on Chloe, and I thought about it for a second and said that it was possible. And I said that she could have all of her man crushes and that I´d have my one - Chloe. She said that I was insecure again. She said that no other man that she´d ever been with had ever had a problem with her talking about other men. That I was the only one. I guess I am insecure. And I told her in that case that I didn´t want to hear anymore about other men.
And that set it off.
She says I´m insecure and jealous and that she feels "confined". I say that she can fuck off... now, if I could just figure out how to get out of here.
LOve
Saturday 7 February 2009
Ray Of Hope
Helotes, Texas
The day of the big Jewish wedding reception came quickly. The bands were pulling in and shuttle bus loads of Jewish wedding goers began rolling up. And by the time we'd put our finishing lighting touches on the event and'd been shooed out of sight by the party planners, Asa and I were ready to get drunk. Jimmy, our truck driver Mike, and Nick our fearlessly stoned leader were going to stay on call for the event in case of trouble. Asa and I, however, were going to get drunk and hopefully cause trouble.
So we got in my car sped towards the nearest liquor store a half an hour away in a barren wasteland of strip malls on the outskirts of San Antonio where we stocked up on “Sippin’ Sauce” for Jimmy – Johnny Walker Black Label; cheap beer for Asa, Nick, and Mike, while I stocked up on Blue Moon beer. My body was so wrecked from the week of 12-16 hour days and I had such a thirst that by the time Asa and I'd made it back to the site I'd dipped into Jimmy’s sippin’ sauce and'd finished off more than a few of my Blue Moons.
It was a full moon out. And it was going to be one of those nights. It was in the air.
By the time the wedding party was in full effect we were having our own party out in the woods behind the catering tent and band dressing rooms. The doors to my car were open with the music blasting and most of the people from the different crews that'd worked on putting the event together were gathered in a semi-circle on the ground like we were at a keg party in high school passing bottles and joints.
In the midst of this Asa and I decided to go and scout out the party and get a look at the wealthy and bored crowd. After deciding that we weren’t missing anything by not having any money we walked the grounds stumbling upon Marie and some of her co-workers ensconced in a corner of a courtyard in an outdoor sitting area under strands of string lights. Marie's tanned skin gleamed in the slight haze of my alcohol buzz and I threw myself down beside her on the love seat that she was reclining languidly on. And by the time that I'd told her gay co-worker that I'd marry him if I were gay too Marie'd gone to get us a couple drinks from the bar. And I saw my opening. There was a ray of hope as she sauntered back with our whiskey on the rocks.
I was going to get laid.
LOve
The day of the big Jewish wedding reception came quickly. The bands were pulling in and shuttle bus loads of Jewish wedding goers began rolling up. And by the time we'd put our finishing lighting touches on the event and'd been shooed out of sight by the party planners, Asa and I were ready to get drunk. Jimmy, our truck driver Mike, and Nick our fearlessly stoned leader were going to stay on call for the event in case of trouble. Asa and I, however, were going to get drunk and hopefully cause trouble.
So we got in my car sped towards the nearest liquor store a half an hour away in a barren wasteland of strip malls on the outskirts of San Antonio where we stocked up on “Sippin’ Sauce” for Jimmy – Johnny Walker Black Label; cheap beer for Asa, Nick, and Mike, while I stocked up on Blue Moon beer. My body was so wrecked from the week of 12-16 hour days and I had such a thirst that by the time Asa and I'd made it back to the site I'd dipped into Jimmy’s sippin’ sauce and'd finished off more than a few of my Blue Moons.
It was a full moon out. And it was going to be one of those nights. It was in the air.
By the time the wedding party was in full effect we were having our own party out in the woods behind the catering tent and band dressing rooms. The doors to my car were open with the music blasting and most of the people from the different crews that'd worked on putting the event together were gathered in a semi-circle on the ground like we were at a keg party in high school passing bottles and joints.
In the midst of this Asa and I decided to go and scout out the party and get a look at the wealthy and bored crowd. After deciding that we weren’t missing anything by not having any money we walked the grounds stumbling upon Marie and some of her co-workers ensconced in a corner of a courtyard in an outdoor sitting area under strands of string lights. Marie's tanned skin gleamed in the slight haze of my alcohol buzz and I threw myself down beside her on the love seat that she was reclining languidly on. And by the time that I'd told her gay co-worker that I'd marry him if I were gay too Marie'd gone to get us a couple drinks from the bar. And I saw my opening. There was a ray of hope as she sauntered back with our whiskey on the rocks.
I was going to get laid.
LOve
On Her Scent!
Helotes, Texas
The rest of the week that we spent on the job at the old haunted military fort I tried to seduce Marie without even the slightest response or acknowledgment from her. As far as I could tell, to her, I didn’t exist. Asa'd made better inroads than me, which was surprising, considering he is a beast of a man without a conscience or a soul. Nonetheless he'd managed through his powers of talk, his comedic skills and his ample stash of opiates to wrangle one of cutest girls from the fancy design firm into our room nightly for a few beers, a few pills and a little making out. It was disgusting to behold. The first time they made out in front of me in the other bed I thought that I would hurl. No man should have to witness Asa Tom manhandling a woman. And despite the fact that the girl was able to coax Marie to our room for some of Jimmy’s stash of herb I still wasn’t making out. I threw everything at her, my whole arsenal of charm, wit, comedy, verbal wrangling, seductive looks and poses, my 10th grade French and even a few thinly veiled threats to simply fuck her. None of it was working. The best I could seem to do was to simply get her to laugh now and then. Asa, on the other hand was a magician, and is probably one of the funniest people on the face of the earth. He managed to make the girls snort with laughter on more than one occasion. Without him I would have been dead in the water. And between the three of us: Jimmy “The Kid”, Asa “The Indian”, and me, we managed to keep them entertained and stoned enough to keep coming around long enough for Asa to touch tit and for me to seem like a fairly harmless guy. But in fact, the only harmless guy in the room was our fearlessly stoned, middle aged, married crew leader who got so high that he sat in the corner and giggled like one of the girls. And although I don’t think that Marie even knew my name at that point, I wasn’t deterred. I had her scent.
LOve
The rest of the week that we spent on the job at the old haunted military fort I tried to seduce Marie without even the slightest response or acknowledgment from her. As far as I could tell, to her, I didn’t exist. Asa'd made better inroads than me, which was surprising, considering he is a beast of a man without a conscience or a soul. Nonetheless he'd managed through his powers of talk, his comedic skills and his ample stash of opiates to wrangle one of cutest girls from the fancy design firm into our room nightly for a few beers, a few pills and a little making out. It was disgusting to behold. The first time they made out in front of me in the other bed I thought that I would hurl. No man should have to witness Asa Tom manhandling a woman. And despite the fact that the girl was able to coax Marie to our room for some of Jimmy’s stash of herb I still wasn’t making out. I threw everything at her, my whole arsenal of charm, wit, comedy, verbal wrangling, seductive looks and poses, my 10th grade French and even a few thinly veiled threats to simply fuck her. None of it was working. The best I could seem to do was to simply get her to laugh now and then. Asa, on the other hand was a magician, and is probably one of the funniest people on the face of the earth. He managed to make the girls snort with laughter on more than one occasion. Without him I would have been dead in the water. And between the three of us: Jimmy “The Kid”, Asa “The Indian”, and me, we managed to keep them entertained and stoned enough to keep coming around long enough for Asa to touch tit and for me to seem like a fairly harmless guy. But in fact, the only harmless guy in the room was our fearlessly stoned, middle aged, married crew leader who got so high that he sat in the corner and giggled like one of the girls. And although I don’t think that Marie even knew my name at that point, I wasn’t deterred. I had her scent.
LOve
Friday 6 February 2009
How I Met Marie
Helotes, Texas
I met Marie at a job for a fancy New York Jewish wedding reception in Helotes, Texas. I was working for the lighting company for the event. She was working for the design company.
Helotes is just outside of San Antonio and the event was at an old Spanish military fort where Grace Kelley had honeymooned. More recently Ava Longoria and Tony Parker'd their wedding reception there that was featured in all the gossip rags that dominate the grocery checkout line. Supposedly the place was haunted. It had a history, a history that we'd add to in our own derelict way.
A friend of mine'd gotten me and another friend on the job. The hours were going to be long, the money was going to be under the table and the room and board were going to be provided for.
It was a dream job for us.
We’d decided in my car on the way down from Austin to Helotes during the hour and a half ride at 6 o’ clock in the fucking morning after loading up the box truck full of our shit that it was going to be the best week of our lives.
We all hated the work. But we were all broke. We needed the money. We needed the job. And we were going to make the best of it.
It was me Asa and Jimmy in the car on the way down - the three fucking deranged amigos.
We’d just finished working Austin City Limits less than five days before.
The job was going to be long hours and grueling work but we needed the money. We’d each spent all of our money that we’d made from the ACL on past due bills, opiate habits, alcohol and weed, collectively and respectively. We’d all gotten caught up and back to zero in our lives and the Helotes job would put us into the black.
When we arrived at the job site the sun was just coming up, there was dew on the ground and dread in the car about starting the work. Fortunately breakfast was being made for us which would buy us a little time before we had to start lifting shit. Unfortunately the old woman who was cooking for us camp style was completely incompetent. She was a mess and so was our breakfast. But it gave us some time to bitch and whine and stuff our faces before our fearlessly stoned crew leader started telling us what to do.
Once the sun was up and hot enough to kill the dew we were told to go to work. Which was fine. We’d gone prepared. We’d bought dozens and dozens of Redline energy drinks. They were like drinking liquid crystal methamphetamine. And, besides that, we had The Great Buffalo on our side. The Great Buffalo was our great spirit in the sky. Asa, who was half Cherokee Indian had introduced us to The Great Buffalo during the Austin City Limits festival. He'd gotten us through with flying colors. And we were sure He would not fail us again.
We'd been working for a day and a half before Marie rolled onto the scene. Jimmy and I were standing in the sun trying to figure out how to do something or other when a white van pulled up at ninety miles an hour blaring hip hop and blowing a dust cloud over the both of us. She stepped out with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth like a fucking desperado, wearing shining blue pants that were tucked into her big black boots riding boots. When she spoke I had no idea what in the fuck she said or where she was from. When I asked her she looked at me as though I was the most retarded person on the planet as she blew smoke from her nose and said – France – with as little enthusiasm as someone could possibly muster for a response. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked like a Picasso, round but angular, soft but with an edge. She glanced at me briefly. There was a slight buzzing in my ears as I stood transfixed by her under the hot Texas sun. The air around her took on a crystalline appearance. Time seemed to slow in the blazing heat. And I knew that I was in trouble. She had one hand on her hip and the other pulling incessantly on the cigarette lounging in the corner of her mouth as the sun glinted off of her brown hair. Her eyes were pools of endless blue. She was bewitching. She had me fucked up.
As she and the other girl left in the big white van leaving us in a dust cloud of blaring hip hop I told Jimmy that I was in love, and that I was going to marry and fuck that woman.
“Good luck Corey. I hope that happens for you.”
LOve
I met Marie at a job for a fancy New York Jewish wedding reception in Helotes, Texas. I was working for the lighting company for the event. She was working for the design company.
Helotes is just outside of San Antonio and the event was at an old Spanish military fort where Grace Kelley had honeymooned. More recently Ava Longoria and Tony Parker'd their wedding reception there that was featured in all the gossip rags that dominate the grocery checkout line. Supposedly the place was haunted. It had a history, a history that we'd add to in our own derelict way.
A friend of mine'd gotten me and another friend on the job. The hours were going to be long, the money was going to be under the table and the room and board were going to be provided for.
It was a dream job for us.
We’d decided in my car on the way down from Austin to Helotes during the hour and a half ride at 6 o’ clock in the fucking morning after loading up the box truck full of our shit that it was going to be the best week of our lives.
We all hated the work. But we were all broke. We needed the money. We needed the job. And we were going to make the best of it.
It was me Asa and Jimmy in the car on the way down - the three fucking deranged amigos.
We’d just finished working Austin City Limits less than five days before.
The job was going to be long hours and grueling work but we needed the money. We’d each spent all of our money that we’d made from the ACL on past due bills, opiate habits, alcohol and weed, collectively and respectively. We’d all gotten caught up and back to zero in our lives and the Helotes job would put us into the black.
When we arrived at the job site the sun was just coming up, there was dew on the ground and dread in the car about starting the work. Fortunately breakfast was being made for us which would buy us a little time before we had to start lifting shit. Unfortunately the old woman who was cooking for us camp style was completely incompetent. She was a mess and so was our breakfast. But it gave us some time to bitch and whine and stuff our faces before our fearlessly stoned crew leader started telling us what to do.
Once the sun was up and hot enough to kill the dew we were told to go to work. Which was fine. We’d gone prepared. We’d bought dozens and dozens of Redline energy drinks. They were like drinking liquid crystal methamphetamine. And, besides that, we had The Great Buffalo on our side. The Great Buffalo was our great spirit in the sky. Asa, who was half Cherokee Indian had introduced us to The Great Buffalo during the Austin City Limits festival. He'd gotten us through with flying colors. And we were sure He would not fail us again.
We'd been working for a day and a half before Marie rolled onto the scene. Jimmy and I were standing in the sun trying to figure out how to do something or other when a white van pulled up at ninety miles an hour blaring hip hop and blowing a dust cloud over the both of us. She stepped out with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth like a fucking desperado, wearing shining blue pants that were tucked into her big black boots riding boots. When she spoke I had no idea what in the fuck she said or where she was from. When I asked her she looked at me as though I was the most retarded person on the planet as she blew smoke from her nose and said – France – with as little enthusiasm as someone could possibly muster for a response. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked like a Picasso, round but angular, soft but with an edge. She glanced at me briefly. There was a slight buzzing in my ears as I stood transfixed by her under the hot Texas sun. The air around her took on a crystalline appearance. Time seemed to slow in the blazing heat. And I knew that I was in trouble. She had one hand on her hip and the other pulling incessantly on the cigarette lounging in the corner of her mouth as the sun glinted off of her brown hair. Her eyes were pools of endless blue. She was bewitching. She had me fucked up.
As she and the other girl left in the big white van leaving us in a dust cloud of blaring hip hop I told Jimmy that I was in love, and that I was going to marry and fuck that woman.
“Good luck Corey. I hope that happens for you.”
LOve
How The Name Of This Blog Came About
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
It was on my second trip to New York to visit Marie that the name for this blog came about. It was my last night in town before I flew back to Austin the next morning. Marie came home to find me on the couch in the dark. She asked me if I was okay. I was fine I said, just a little hungover from the night before, sweating the spirits out, not wanting to go back home.
I'd missed my flight the night before as we'd gotten drunk in Manhattan at The Gramercy Park Hotel drinking Bohemian Sidecars that I'd ordered like Tequilla shots in Mexico not bothering to check the price of each one that turned out to be $15 a pop. I'd learned my lesson about ordering drinks in Manhattan - I shouldn't do it.
I was feeling sad about leaving her again. I was in love. I knew that for sure. And when I'd come back to the apartment the night before after missing my flight to find her in the kitchen cooking me dinner and crying I knew that she was in love too.
She said to get up that she had a friend who she hadn't seen in years who was having a going away dinner around the corner and that we were going, that she'd treat.
The guy's name was Francoise. He was from South Africa. He was friend's with Marie's second ex-husband (not technically ex as they still weren't divorced after 7 years, but close enough for me), and he and Marie were born on the same day. There were around ten to twelve people that'd showed up at a low lit place only a few blocks from Marie's apartment. After introductions were made we ordered food and drinks and joined in on some conversation that revolved mainly around film making, as Francoise was a filmmaker, and so were some of the others. The setting and the conversation were all very New York to me and seemed a long way from the usual absurd and over the top drug and alcohol stories that seemed to dominate my life and conversations in Austin.
At some point during the night when people started to clear out her friend Francoise came over to us and gave us his undivided attention as a few of the others that were left talked on the other side of the table. After a few minutes of talking he looked at me then looked at Marie and said that it was obvious that we were in love. He looked at us again then asked Marie how long we'd been dating or seeing each other, or what it was were doing? And I laughed as I knew what was coming - Marie did not like "us" and whatever the fuck it was that we were doing to be classified in any way. He looked at me as I laughed. I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't going to touch it. It was a sore spot with Marie. I'd been through it in our short time together. I'd often made the mistake, out of habit, of referring to her as my "girlfriend" to which she would turn on me scornfully and say in her French huff, "Oh, I am not you're girlfriend." So I shut up and looked at Francoise and shrugged my shoulders again and smiled, looking at Marie. I liked putting her on the spot with Francoise. I wanted to see her squirm a little. She blushed, and slightly annoyed by it all said, "We'll I'm doing it. Whatever it is. I'm doing it..." And I said triumphantly that it was settled. She was the girl that I was doing in New York. Francoise and I laughed. Marie rolled her eyes as usual. And it was settled.
LOve
It was on my second trip to New York to visit Marie that the name for this blog came about. It was my last night in town before I flew back to Austin the next morning. Marie came home to find me on the couch in the dark. She asked me if I was okay. I was fine I said, just a little hungover from the night before, sweating the spirits out, not wanting to go back home.
I'd missed my flight the night before as we'd gotten drunk in Manhattan at The Gramercy Park Hotel drinking Bohemian Sidecars that I'd ordered like Tequilla shots in Mexico not bothering to check the price of each one that turned out to be $15 a pop. I'd learned my lesson about ordering drinks in Manhattan - I shouldn't do it.
I was feeling sad about leaving her again. I was in love. I knew that for sure. And when I'd come back to the apartment the night before after missing my flight to find her in the kitchen cooking me dinner and crying I knew that she was in love too.
She said to get up that she had a friend who she hadn't seen in years who was having a going away dinner around the corner and that we were going, that she'd treat.
The guy's name was Francoise. He was from South Africa. He was friend's with Marie's second ex-husband (not technically ex as they still weren't divorced after 7 years, but close enough for me), and he and Marie were born on the same day. There were around ten to twelve people that'd showed up at a low lit place only a few blocks from Marie's apartment. After introductions were made we ordered food and drinks and joined in on some conversation that revolved mainly around film making, as Francoise was a filmmaker, and so were some of the others. The setting and the conversation were all very New York to me and seemed a long way from the usual absurd and over the top drug and alcohol stories that seemed to dominate my life and conversations in Austin.
At some point during the night when people started to clear out her friend Francoise came over to us and gave us his undivided attention as a few of the others that were left talked on the other side of the table. After a few minutes of talking he looked at me then looked at Marie and said that it was obvious that we were in love. He looked at us again then asked Marie how long we'd been dating or seeing each other, or what it was were doing? And I laughed as I knew what was coming - Marie did not like "us" and whatever the fuck it was that we were doing to be classified in any way. He looked at me as I laughed. I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't going to touch it. It was a sore spot with Marie. I'd been through it in our short time together. I'd often made the mistake, out of habit, of referring to her as my "girlfriend" to which she would turn on me scornfully and say in her French huff, "Oh, I am not you're girlfriend." So I shut up and looked at Francoise and shrugged my shoulders again and smiled, looking at Marie. I liked putting her on the spot with Francoise. I wanted to see her squirm a little. She blushed, and slightly annoyed by it all said, "We'll I'm doing it. Whatever it is. I'm doing it..." And I said triumphantly that it was settled. She was the girl that I was doing in New York. Francoise and I laughed. Marie rolled her eyes as usual. And it was settled.
LOve
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