FIVE (MORE) THINGS YOU PROBABLY DON'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ME: Of Text Chimp Reference, The "Missing" Flings, and Some Damn Fine Boots

Thanks to Jessica for the tag. And sorry it's taken me so long to get around to answering it.

- Jason

- FIVE (5) -

You know, I get a lot of criticism, in-person and online, regarding my openness about relationships and/or flings. But I'll bet most people don't know that there are five relationship-type things that DID NOT appear on the Zenformation Professional last year.

I ended two of them, one ended it when her boyfriend returned from Europe, and the other was a draw (better off as just friends.) One I promised I'd never talk about online - or off - because of the impact it could have in her personal and professional life.

The No. 1 reason for not appearing? Well, I thought they might lead somewhere.

One of my New Year's resolutions this year is to not blog about anything that could amount to anything more than a fling.

Several close female friends have informed me that, well, the idea that I write about damned near everything on this here Blogger Homestead probably scares the living shit out of a lot of women, the kind of women I've been told - even by flings - that I should actually date.

Me? In a long-term, real, honest-to-God boyfriend role? Something other than the Perpetual Other Man, Escape Hatch Fling, Commitment Panic-Attack Guy? Please. I think I've given up on that pipe dream.

Aside from the California Fling, I think I'm back to my swearing off women thing for at least a few months. I guess there are some things I just need to sort out for myself.

- FOUR (4) -

I am no longer a proponent of text-message reference. Other forms of electronic and virtual reference services? Sure. But no more of this "just text me the answer" shit for me, thank you very much.

One of "Britney's" former roommates asked me for after-hours assistance with one of her last-semester projects earlier this week. As we were chatting online about her paper, she and I were simultaneously texting back and forth. I've been trying to get the hang of this whole texting thing, since several friends of mine communicate almost exclusively via text messaging.

I'm just not very good at it. Makes me feel like a circus chimp with a graphing calculator.

A few minutes after the online, off-the-clock reference session ended, I received three calls from exes, two from relatives, and one from the high school kid I used to tutor.

All of them had received texts from me by mistake, all containing the normal "too personal/profane/intense" content that distinguishes the "ZenFo Pro" reference sessions from the "Librarian Jason" patron help.

Er...yeah. Rather embarrassing.

Circus chimp. With a TI-86.

- THREE (3) -

Since November, I've probably eaten enough Alaskan salmon to qualify as a threat to that state's ecosystem.

Hey, don't ask me. I go through phases. Notoriously strange eater.

Smoked salmon with soy cream cheese and sliced Anaheim peppers?

Makes for one hell of a breakfast. Not a bad hangover cure, either.

- TWO (2) -

The best gift I received this Christmas?

A pair of new Ariat boots from my dad.

It should be illegal for western-cut cowboy boots to be so comfortable, right out of the box.

He made a point of telling me that the boots were on sale, the soles were better suited for Yankee Ohio, and that I should be able to get four or five years' wear out of the suckers.

Didn't even notice the color. Didn't care. Durable. That's all that mattered.

You know, that's what I love about my dad. Practical. Efficient. Conscious of the sheer amount of pointless consumerism that's destroying America one wasted dollar at a time.

Always wondered who taught me how to shop...

Hell, I still wear his father's cowboy hat. Who the hell would throw out a perfectly good hat?

- ONE (1) -

The funniest things I've heard/read since I've returned to Oxford Fucking Ohio:


I don't know what's more pathetic - the fact that you actually admit to having a blog, or the fact that I've read it.

- One of the "bowling buddies," while shooting a late night game of pool.

"Dude, did you just hit on my mom?"

- Not one of the "bowling buddies."

"Here's your motherfucking X-mas gift. Robot Chicken Season 1. Had [publicist] send you a copy since you haven't returned one fucking call in two months. Move to L.A. Kisses asshole :) ~ Vicky Stagina."

[When I picked the package up at the post office, the clerk pronounced the name "Stuh-JEAN-ah." It wasn't until a few days afterward that I actually got the joke. While at work. In the middle of a rather boring meeting. I almost choked to death on my coffee.]


"Nothing like raw sewage to make ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

- Custodian, at work, referencing a recent plumbing malfunction.

"I think we should Facebook him. Asshole. Wait until he ends up on Facebook."

- Two female students in the ZenFo Library,
upset by the fact that I was running a drill this afternoon.

* * * *

There's a Special Needs gentleman here in Oxford who has told me, at least once a week for the past two years, that I remind him of Jon Voight's character in Midnight Cowboy.

He mentioned it again, five minutes ago, on his way out of a local coffee shop.

It always seems to make my day, for some reason.

- ### -

As always with these meme things, consider this an "Open Source" tag. If you feel it, steal it and make it your bitch.

IF THE ZENFO PRO HAD A BLOOPER REEL...Of Personal Moral Failings, The Unspeakable Blogged, and Bowling (Yes, Bowling)

MOOD MUSIC:
Everything in Its Right Place/Radiohead - DJ Technics Remix [MP3]
Hey, I'm a lifelong Orioles fan and one of the city's biggest fans ...gotta represent the Baltimore Boom.

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Late Tuesday night, I accomplished something wonderful.

Through numerous adjustments in posture and under the direction of those more experienced, good coaches all, I learned that I completely suck at bowling.

When I say I suck, I mean that I stink worse than a dead rat in an oven, worse than a port-a-potty on Fat Tuesday in New Orleans. I'm as directionally challenged as a Duke lacrosse player in a Women's Studies course. My poor ball spent more time cruising the gutter than most politicians.

I rolled an 102. Over two games. Finished dead last, out of six people.

There's no use in making excuses. Sure, I haven't bowled a single frame in seven years. I'm still babying my shoulder a bit, I'd been up since five that morning, etc. Any which way one looks at my score, a laughable 51 average, I still, at the end of it all, sucked rather large monkey balls.

So, ah, Jason, I think you'd better put that up on your blog there, one friend said, sending the rest of the group into snickering and general good-natured mockery.

Why wouldn't I blog about it? Hell, the whole scene was pretty damned funny.

Me, struggling to maintain even a tiny bit of dignity in a tiny, run-down bowling alley, way out in the middle of fucking nowhere, in Oxford Fucking Ohio. Even the "team" mascot, one of those creepy-ass Burger King bobbleheads, seemed to be laughing at how much I sucked.

There is so much from that evening I could write about, so many experiences I could document, so much fun and merriment.

But, well, I'm not. It's not because of bad behavior, any need for discretion, any request that I specifically not write about certain personal discussions or events.

There are some things I just don't put on the ol' blog. As much as I'd love to share, well, I just don't think it would be appropriate. Some things are private - yes, there are indeed things I don't discuss on the blog.

Earlier this week, I accomplished something, something wonderful.

I made it through another day alive, and I had a good time with some good people along the way.

Go me.

* * * *

I knew I was in for trouble the moment I decided to post about my less-than-innocent California fling. I knew that there'd be repercussions for both this ZenFo Pro character and in my offline life.

I knew I'd get scolding IMs late into the night, knew I'd get the "How dare you write such smut!" criticisms, even knew I'd probably lose a few friends, in Cyberspace and in the real world, if I wrote about this one particular experience.

One of the things that generally pisses off every critic, every amateur blog analyst, every cyber-preacher and other morality dictator, is the fact that even in the midst of an embarrassing faux pas, I still try to find the humor in almost every situation.

Well, I can make fun of myself or my situation, at least.

One example:

XXXXXX(1/18/2007 12:17:53 PM): just wanted to let u know i dont read your blog anymore
XXXXXX(1/18/2007 12:17:57 PM): ur so not who i thought you were. i thought u were different from other guys here in oxford.
XXXXXX(1/18/2007 12:18:04 PM): just another overgrown boy with a hardon
ZENFO PRO(1/18/2007 12:18:19 PM): sorry to disappoint you. thanks for reading anyway :)
ZENFO PRO(1/18/2007 12:18:37 PM): my hardon thanks you too. right now though both my hardon and i have to get back to work.
ZENFO PRO(1/18/2007 12:19:06 PM): Doing five things at once. and that's just my hardon. think it just applied for a teaching position. its the part with the brain. think it earned a doctorate last year.
XXXXXX(1/18/2007 12:19:11 PM): fuck u. you think ur so funny dont u everythings a joke. this is stupid.
ZENFO PRO(1/18/2007 12:19:15PM): completely agree. feel free to delete my no. already blocked yours ;) later :)

One of the most important skills I've learned is to never take anything too seriously.

Life. Death. Criticism. Praise. Sex. Love. Hate. Everything is fleeting when weighed against the whole of eternity.

* * * *

Since I've had a lot of folks decide that, well, it's okay to forget that behind every blog is a real, honest-to-God human being, that every single one of us human beings will never achieve any sort of perfection, will all continue to be hypocrites about something, will live certain moments of our lives as if the world were as serious as clown shoes and fart machines, I thought I'd clarify a few things.

"Tonya" and I were, well, both consenting adults. She took responsibility for her actions, told her spouse. Ya know, given the amount of bruises, cuts and scrapes we each left with, well, there's no hiding it. I decided to take responsibility for mine by confessing my sins on a very public online journal.

I'd hate to be blunt here, but, well, I blog for myself. This ain't American Idol. There's no voting on how I live my life, no panel of judges to tell me what's appropriate to write or not write.

The Zenformation Professional ain't a blogocracy. It's a blogtatorship.

The only person, at the end of the day, who takes responsibility for what goes into this damned thing is me. And I'm very careful with how I edit, the aliases I use, the identities and privacy I protect. I weigh each and every post carefully before I hit that "Publish" button - if I find out that I weighed wrong, that I somehow overlooked something or offended someone I care about offending, I pay whatever the price is.

Simply put...my blog, my rules. If you don't like 'em, well, nobody's holding a gun to your head. Close the browser window. Navigate away from the page. Find something that fits into your perception of the world.

* * * *

It was a cold Friday afternoon in Oxford Fucking Ohio. The ZenFo Pro, in the midst of a workday meltdown over unfinished compact shelving, missing furniture, and strange smells emanating from a company vehicle, hurried across the newly-renovated ground floor of the ZenFo Pro Library towards the elevator.

He really should've taken the stairs. He could've taken two or three risers at a time, could've avoided a potentially awkward situation, could've dodged a potentially humiliating conversation with a blog reader.

Instead, the ZenFo Pro played it cool. He was, after all, an information professional, on the job. At an ancient 28, in a community where the median age always hovers around the legal drinking age, he was also an old man who could always pull the more mature "I don't discuss the blog at work" rabbit out of his hat.

Instead, a busy librarian stood there, staring at the elevator doors, praying to all that was Holy, that some 21-year-old patron who'd once flashed him on a rather depressing Halloween night hadn't seen him hurrying down the gray tile.

He knew she was standing there beside him. He recognized the perfume. He didn't have to look to know that she was grinning from ear to ear.

The elevator door opened about 30 seconds too late. The Librarian and one of the Boob Girls boarded the car. He avoided eye contact when he asked her, in his most authoritative, librarian-esque voice, which floor she needed.

"Hey. Were you at P______ Tuesday night? I thought I saw you."

"Um, yeah. Floor?"

The ZenFo Pro continued to avoid eye contact. He could feel himself doing that eye-rolling, squinty thing, that thing "Tonya" had reminded him that he did often, that slow turn of the head and stupid grin, the first sign that he was about to begin rambling if he wasn't careful.

Head like a slingshot, he remembered. The adult performer ex had said once that one line was indeed the best way to describe him. She'd stolen it from one of his high school poetry notebooks, stolen it while reading his poems aloud one afternoon in a coffee shop. He started to remember how she'd gone commando that day wearing a skirt; she also had this nasty tendency to open and close her legs while seated and in the midst of a discussion.

Four male faculty that he knew personally had walked by them, had caught a view of his girlfriend's vagina that day. He'd caught one of them staring. Awkward. For some reason, standing in that elevator, squinting and eyes a-rolling, he thought about that.

And Britney Spears. He felt sorry for Britney Spears for some reason.

Head like a slingshot, indeed.

"Do you remember me? We met Halloween."

She stretched out her hand for a formal, less drunken introduction.

"I read your blog a lot."

Oh for fuck's sake, the ZenFo Pro thought. The elevator didn't seem to be moving as quickly as usual. Time froze as his heart raced. The librarian braced himself. He thought he was about to experience his first on-the-job patron bitchslap for his outside-of-work activities, for his online self.

"I really like your writing. Helps me think. Wish I could write about what you write about. But my roommates would kill me if people knew what goes on in our house."

The librarian, the old man in a young person's town, began to relax his tense frame as the woman continued. The elevator doors opened onto his floor, but he didn't exit.

"I just thought you'd like to know that. Must be a bitch sometimes."

The ZenFo Pro shook his head, certain he looked like a complete fucking idiot. The woman told him she hoped he'd continue writing, how she'd like to see more things about the "good" sororities, the ones not full of "skanks," and maybe something about how there are very few things for college students to do in Oxford after dark - besides drink, fuck, and gossip.

"Hey, I've got to get to class. See you around, okay?"

And the woman got off the car, on the same floor they'd just left. As the doors shut, the ZenFo Pro pushed the button for his floor, leaned against the back of the car, and finally allowed himself to breathe.

When he entered his office, his office mate smiled and said hi. He started to say something, something coherent and professional. But he felt his face starting to scrunch up, his eyes starting to roll.

He exclaimed to his office mate that his week had just gotten a whole hell of a lot better. He didn't know why, but it had. The ZenFo Pro sat down at his cluttered desk in the ZenFo Pro Library and read an afternoon's worth of email. He stared down at his arm and noticed a continuously shrinking scab staring up at him through his shirt sleeve.

Teeth marks, he thought to himself.

A few weeks earlier, a woman had accidentally, playfully chewed on his arm. He'd been too close to the edge of the bed and had slipped off while she'd been biting. The woman laughed her ass off as the old man from the young person's town fell to the floor, wedged between a cheap boxspring and a cheaper nightstand.

He composed email after quick, terse email. He remembered grabbing Tonya's ankles while she laughed, pulling her down to the floor on top of him. And he remembered how he did some biting of his own, how he'd enjoyed every damned minute of a fleeting moment.

And then, when he was finished reading and responding, he got up and headed back out of the office. He had to run across town to run errands. He was back into the hustle of a Friday, back in Oxford Fucking Ohio.

But he no longer felt like an old man at 28, stuck in a young person's town. As he drove around Oxford, around the Local U., he started composing a blog post in his head, NPR blaring over the company vehicle's speakers.

And then he remembered a friend, nights before, making fun of his horrible bowling skills...

* * * *

So I suck at bowling. But if I'm invited to roll a game or two in the future, I'll gladly expose the world to my suck-itude once more.

Maybe I'll bowl an 103. In a single game. Wouldn't that be something?

Sometimes, it's good to suck at something. Reminds you that you're still breathing, that there's always room for learning to un-suck, always room for change and personal growth and...

And, well, moving on through life.

And I might blog about it. Or I might not. Either way, it's my blog.

In fact, it's my life.

Wouldn't that be something?

- ### -

CALIFORNIA CONFESSIONS, PART III: Affairs and Other Dogs of War

- PART I HERE -

- PART II HERE-

MILES ABOVE THE EARTH'S SURFACE, N. America (ZP) -- It's amazing the things one thinks about at 40,000 feet.

I stared at the p. 40 of Bukowski's Hot Water Music, one of his short stories collections.

I was reading the same goddamned lines over and over again. One of the things I've come to appreciate about Hank's stories (especially after I met his widow at a cocktail party a few years back) was how he painted vivid portraits of the obscene in the most mundane manner.

The hippies loved him, those fucking Bay Area bards who, I've always imagined, sat in coffee shops and called him a genius simply because it made them feel better about being lazy and middle class. While they sat on college campuses, while they protested and marched and boycotted away the Sixties and Seventies, somebody - some misogynistic good-natured drunk was working the post office, sucking in now-forbidden nicotine at the races, made famous by working for the U.S. Fucking Postal Service.

Lilly was at home looking at an old Marlon Brando movie on television. She was alone. She'd always been in love with Marlon. She farted gently. She lifted her robe and began to play with herself.

For some reason, the ending to that story made me laugh. The woman sitting next to me on the plane told me it was great to see a young man enjoying a good book. I was terrified she'd start rambling again, that she'd put down her goddamned Left Behind serial and want to talk about literature.

Retired librarian. What are the odds?

More appropriately, retired children's librarian, stereotypically dressed and still stereotypically upset that librarianship, as a whole, is ceasing to be a refugee camp for wallflower bibliophiles and hide-from-the-modern-world bookcart jockeys. The Internet had ruined the world, patrons loved surfing for porn and playing video games, and her director had - Gasp! - lifted the food and drink ban right before she'd retired.

I was pleasantly surprised when she just went back to her God is a Mean Bastard who Hates the United Nations tripe.

* * * *

I looked up. She was still staring at me, this kid afew rows up from my seat. She waved, ducked down and slowly peaked back over the seat. I'd waved back the first few times, until I'd realized that I probably shouldn't - I was encouraging her.

Her father finally pulled her back down in the seat, turned my direction, and said something along the lines of "sorry about that - she really likes your cowboy hat."

I don't think it was my hat, really. And, come to think of it, the little girl's father was actually her adoptive father.

What are the odds? Do you realize the kind of mathematical impossibility that is? Of all the days to fly the friendly skies, of all the airlines, of all the tens of thousands flying at that moment...

I looked back at the father and daughter. There was an empty seat right in the middle. On a full flight, one empty seat.

I used to think I was merely one of those people who was born under some bad sign, one of those poor bastards that had been marked with invisible metaphysical ink by Fate, a living, breathing practical joke of the gods, the guy some angel had outfitted with some gigantic "Kick Me" sign at birth.

Nope. I'm worse. I'm the Pale Rider atop the Horse of Statistical Anomaly.

What are the odds?

I went back to reading the same lines over and over again. More than two hours of torture lay ahead for me.

Fate hates my sorry ass.

* * * *

I'd started to put my clothes back on while "Tonya" was in the bathroom, talking to her husband. I looked at my cell quickly - still a few hours until Mom's Birthday Dinner. I turned on the television, trying to tune out the sound of an argument.

I lit yet another cigarette. I was on my second pack of the day, the second pack in four hours.

Four hours? A half-a-workday? That's it? It seemed like years had passed, eternities.

I stood there, pondering the obvious disruption in the Time-Space Continuum I must've fallen into, chainsmoking and watching some reality-television garbage. I didn't hear Tonya leave the bathroom.

I did, however, see the phone go flying across the room and hear it slam against the far wall. For some reason, it didn't shatter.

I knew what was coming. I was waiting, patiently, for Tonya to get all weepy, to start to painfully admit that she a) just lied to her husband, b) had to go back to her Mom's house to figure out how to lie to her husband, or c) was feeling so guilty about our actions and had to leave immediately.

I wasn't expecting for her to run and jump back into bed, to shove her face into a pillow, and to start screaming into it.

THIS IS FUCKING RETARDED!

* * * *

I asked her what was wrong. I figured, having done this sort of thing before with, er, less matrimonially-bound women, that she'd either tell me that she didn't want to talk about it, or would, well, get all weepy.

I don't know what I was thinking. Part of the reason I did what I did, the big reason aside from physical attraction, was the fact that Tonya remains one of the most confusing - intriguing - women I've ever met. Never, ever been able to figure her out, to even begin to understand what goes on in her mind.

I've had women tell me that I'm like that, too, apparently a big part of my supposed attractiveness. Hell, Tonya even told me that.

"Tonya" just shook her head, face still buried in the pillow. All of these completely disconnected, chaotic thoughts filled my mind as I stood there, staring at a naked woman's back.

Did she tell him? Did she lie to him? Did I really want to know?

Finally, Tonya sat up. I sat down beside her, pants still unbuttoned and my tee shirt hanging around my neck. Apparently, I'm funnier looking half-dressed than completely naked - Tonya just laughed.

And then she sighed.

Jason, I don't want you to feel guilty. I don't feel guilty. I think we both needed that.

I didn't really know what to say. So I didn't say anything.

If he wants to fuck Sally Suckyfucky, then you and I can fuck.

I started to say something finally, but I lost the words. I wanted to say something, something deep and meaningful.

"Tonya" had confessed everything to her husband. However, before she'd said a word, he'd apparently confessed to being too shitfaced to drive back up the coast...and to say that he'd hooked up with some woman the night before, a woman with possibly the worst nickname for an Asian-American female of all time.

Wait. Sally Suckyfucky?

Yup. That was it. Brain completely locked up on me.

* * * *

Sally Suckyfucky is, according to Tonya, the rather unfortunate nickname of one of her husband's college drinking buddies. Apparently, Sally had had lots of male college drinking buddies in college - Tonya had learned of her reputation right after she and her husband bought their first house together, right next to hers.

Sally had earned her collegiate nickname, according to what Tonya had learned, by being that girl who always seemed to want to drink until she felt obliged to go home with a different guy. According to legend, she once went home from a party with a faculty member, three girls from her academic discipline, and her husband. Pictures of the whole thing turned up at her husband's fraternity and are supposedly still passed around by current Greek members at her husband's alma mater.

Sally had been the only one of her hubby's college friends that she'd ever met, and living in the same city and both being small-business owners, they became good friends. Sally Suckyfucky was even a bridesmaid in their wedding.

They remained friends until Tonya came home from a business trip to find her best friend sitting on her husband's face. They were both drunk; rather than stop, they'd asked her to join in on the fun.

Instead, she left the house she'd made, threw up, went to her daughter's daycare, and the two went to live in a motel for three weeks. The only time in her life she's ever contemplated suicide was during those three weeks.

For her daughter's sake, she sucked it up, went back, and confronted both her husband and Sally Suckyfucky. Sally called her a prude, and the friendship ended; she and her husband reconciled into a marriage held together by joint holdings, investment properties, and shared business interests.

"Tonya" explained the whole thing in such a distant, almost third-person manner. She said she'd forgiven him, but didn't think she'd ever fall back into love again.

* * * *

I'm not in love with you. I just couldn't deal right now.

I thought about it for a second. I could've possibly fallen for "Tonya." In many ways, she's been a benchmark for me in terms of how I measure women. As shallow as it may seem, as downright disturbing as it may be to some, I still judge women on how they kiss - and there are way too few women on this soggy dirtball of a planet that have ever kissed me as she did back on the boat, back in 2001, even in 2006.

There are very few women I've ever kissed, ever done anything with, ever been involved with, who have ever kissed me so hard, with so much uncontrolled passion and tenderness.

But I didn't love her. I couldn't. I hadn't gone to that motel room with any expectations, with any emotional attachment, with any longing for the forbidden or to, well, fuck until I had to pop my shoulder back into place.

I was there, I'm sure, as the ghost of a 21-year-old who'd once had a hardcore crush on the ghost of a 16-year-old, a guy who'd once had to use every ounce of moral fiber to push that 16-year-old phantom off of him, who'd long ago sacrificed any chance of a meaningful relationship in order to maintain himself, to not get lost in someone again.

Chica, it's all good. Don't sweat it. Just sex.

So we're cool?

Yep. Are you cool, chica?

No, but I haven't had this much fun in forever. I needed this.

No regrets then, hon?

Nope.

* * * *

After that, "Tonya" and I, well, just kept doing what came natural. We finished the fling off with Lucky Seven, the number of completion, checked out of the room.

I've never been so sore or so bruised in my life. As I write this, weeks later, I still have a few scabs on my arms from fingernails, my hips are still sore, and I think I may've cracked a rib.

She drove me back to the parking garage in SLO and we said our goodbyes.

And it was, well, goodbye for good. I made that clear. While she may be in a fucked-as-hell marriage, I told her that, well, I've never been in a relationship where I've cheated and that, should I decide to one day return to the world of dating and enter into another of the damned things, I wouldn't want to ever put a girlfriend, fiance, or wife through what she'd been put through with Sally Suckyfucky.

She seemed sad, but I think she understood. Maybe, I told her, we could just do coffee or something, in another life.

And that's how it ended, with an ending.

* * * *

I didn't even have it in me to cry as I drove back up the Cuesta Grade. I was too focused on trying to put my game face on for the family, to plan my first clandestine, discreet entrance into my parent's house in, well, probably a decade.

I snuck through the front door without anyone really noticing. I had that smell on me, that sex smell. I almost made it into my room and into the shower without either of my parents noticing.

I felt like I was, Christ, a fucking teenager sneaking back from a kegger after some fucking Homecoming Dance.

My mother's birthday dinner went off without a hitch. Great restaurant with some of the best fish tacos I've had in a long time. The tiramisu wasn't half bad, either.

Afterwards, my sister and I rode back together, taking the long way back so we could each smoke a few cigarettes and chat a bit.

My sister, who's only a few years younger than I am, is going through one nasty divorce. Her soon-to-be ex has been pulling all sorts of tricks, including trying to "bill" her for money he borrowed from his parents right after they were married.

The guy's not a bad guy, but he really didn't see the divorce coming. The divorce blindsided him, so he went into defensive mode. He thought my sister was happy, that their marriage was perfect. She wasn't - and didn't.

I wanted to tell the ZenFo Sis all about the day, to apologize for lying to her on the phone, to confess my sins. But I couldn't. I only see my little sister twice a year, if that. And she has her own problems, more than enough to keep her busy.

At one point, we were talking about why her marriage went south. She made a comment about how people had judged her, how she'd felt pushed into her marriage, that she knew it was wrong the whole time.

_______, just find happiness in yourself. Fuck guys. Nobody has a right to keep that from you, not you or (her ex-husband.)

I think that might be the single best piece of advice I've ever given my sister, in terms of relationships.

Trust me folks, for a fuck-up like me, that's pretty impressive.

* * * *

I finished rereading most of the stories in Hot Water Music by the time the pilot announced our descent into _______International Airport.

I pulled my hat down, closed my eyes.

I don't know why, but I wasn't looking forward to getting off of that plane.

Maybe, just maybe, I was afraid that that little girl in front of me, the kid with her mom's gorgeous eyes, would wave at me as we left the plane. Maybe Daddy would ask why she was so interested in the Strange Man in the Cowboy Hat?

Or maybe, just maybe, Mommy would be there at the airport, just as shocked as I was to be on the same flight with her husband?

Not incidents, really. The girl waved goodbye and smiled. I waved back. And "Tonya's" husband, a guy I'd only seen one photo of in my entire life, smiled and waved at me, too.

And Tonya wasn't out in the terminal, waiting to play the role of happy, loveless, housewife to her cheating, Sally-Suckyfucky-fucking husband.

* * * *

Really, the only person I feel sorry for in the whole thing is that little girl. That's why I waved back. "Tonya" chooses her life, her husband chooses his, Sally Suckyfucky and I chose ours.

She doesn't have a choice. This is the world in which she will live in, a world where her parents sleep in separate rooms, friends but not lovers, with lovers other than each other. One day, her parents will split up, she could end up bitter and hurt, end up hating everybody who made her what she could become.

In the week following that flight, I tried to force myself to feel guilty about my actions. But if I can't. In all honesty, I don't feel guilty about a damned thing, given the circumstances.

I thought that guilt was what was keeping me from sleeping well since I returned to nice, boring, conservative, gossip-filled, Oxford Fucking Ohio, but it's not something as simple as feeling guilty over breaking one of those Big Fucking Commandments.

Writing this, this whole saga, has made me realize why I've been losing sleep, why I'm feeling more and more at peace as I write.

I feel sorry for Tonya's daughter. One day, if this blog is still here, if Blogger and its Google masters haven't gone belly-up, she'll find out about her mother's lousy relationship with her stepdad. And one day, against all sorts of odds against it, she'll find this series of entries, and remember that nice man from the bookstore, Mommy's friend, that guy in the hat from the flight.

And she'll read this and, well, not hate me.

Hell, if Destiny's willing to fuck with me this much, who's to say that the Old Lady won't one day choose to cut me some slack?

* * * *

I swear, the next time I fly cross-country, I'm half-expecting to see Bill Shatner go apeshit on the flight, shooting out the windows, trying to kill the evil gremlins attacking the wings of the plane.

I started to laugh.

And I laughed louder when I thought, for some reason, about that annoying old children's librarian sitting next to me, sharing a seat next to Captain Kirk, farting gently and masturbating while reading Charles Bukowski.

Man, you're one strange dude, Jason. Seriously.

I sat in the smoker-friendly airport bar, thinking, puffing away, drinking Jameson's and sucking on limes.

It's funny the kind of things one thinks about when one is traveling the friendly skies.

-# # #-

CALIFORNIA CONFESSIONS, PART II: Crossing The Lake of Fire and Sailing The Rivers of No Return

- PART I HERE -

- PART III HERE -

SOMEWHERE ON THE CENTRAL COAST, Calif. (ZP) -- Passion. The lust for life, that wondrous thing upon which dreams are built and shattered, that destroyer of cold logic and harbinger of ambivalent moral crosshairs, that true maestro behind every great work of art, war, and everything in between.

It is as warm and welcoming as a hot potbellied stove on a cold night - and just as potentially dangerous and ravaging, once the door is set loose and the hot coals begin enveloping everything left susceptible to flame.

* * * *

I was half-daydreaming when "Tonya" knocked.

She had the room key; not sure why, exactly, she didn't just let herself in. Probably for the same reason I was only half daydreaming - she probably wasn't sure if I'd still be there, in the room, still ready to, well...

I was almost certain that I'd be hitchhiking back to my car.

When I opened the door, I immediately remembered why we'd gotten a room to begin with. It was the forbidden, the lost nights, the forgotten night on the boat, the broken friendship, the avoidance, the missing, unfulfilled past.

"Tonya" just stood at the door, plastic bag in hand.

I felt like an awkward sixth-grader peaking into some girl's locker room after gym class. I'm pretty sure I said something - not sure if it was coherent or not. The only thing I remember is admiring the scenery, the way "Tonya" stood there, leaning back on one foot, right hip cocked slightly, glancing at that tiny sliver of skin poking out from where her shirt and her jeans met...

My eyes wandered to her face, her lips, and down to her chest. It was cold on the Central Coast, and "Tonya" happens to be one of those women who refuses to wear a bra.

As soon as "Tonya" realized I was "checking out" her chest, she covered herself, for some reason embarrassed.

Don't make fun of me. I have hella monkey boobs, dude.

Chica, you have perfect boobs.

Yeah, but I breastfed. I gots monkey boobs now.

Look, chica. Take a fucking compliment. Perfect. Boobs.

She laughed. She didn't believe me.

"Tonya" looked exactly like she did years ago, save for a few highlights in her hair and the lip ring. Her eyes still pierced through human flesh. She still dressed the same way, talked the same way - she was still a tomboyish girl, looking naked and fragile without a skateboard or an oversized belt covered in cheap tin skulls.

She started to rattle off just about every damned imperfection she had - her c-section scar, the pimple on her shoulder, her unwashed hair, the fact that the hadn't shaved her legs (or anything else) in a week...

At that point, I guess I'd had all I could take. I guess I just figured that, well, if she started rattling off her imperfections, I'd start rattling off mine. We'd use up our window holding a pity party instead of...

Instead of committing adultery.

I remember how the Big A-Word clung to the back of my mind like the cheap striped wallpaper clung to the room. For me, there was no point in not calling a spade a spade, for hiding from responsibility, for hiding behind euphemism and bullshit.

I grabbed Tonya by her Le Tigre tee shirt, pulled her close, kissed her as if the world was to end in the next few hours, before our personal deadlines drove us back into the real world.

Sorry, Kathleen Hanna, but I ruined one of your band's shirts. Came right off in my hand, tore right in half. Last I saw of it, the ruined garment was floating down towards a parking lot, headed for the roof of somebody's SUV.

I can't even remember the last time I ripped a perfectly good shirt off a woman's body without even thinking, without worrying about appropriateness, without fretting over going too fast or too slow, without even thinking about thinking about anything.

And I was right, by the way. I found no monkey boobs beneath that shirt...

* * * *

With "Tonya," (for those in Oxford who felt the need to contact me to say they know a Tonya here, well, wrong part of the country and, well, the quotation marks indicate an alias) I knew where things were leading the moment we sat down at the bar. She ordered two shots of Irish whiskey with slices of lime - just the way I used to drink that kind of whiskey, just the way she remembered me drinking that night on the boat.

She put down her first shot quickly and moved to her second before I'd finished my chaser. With every laugh or sigh or hand movement, she scooted her barstool closer, she leaned in a bit more, her eyes aglow as she told me about her adventures, her body language less than subtle as she asked about mine.

The kicker, the big - fucking - red - flag here, was how every element of our conversation seemed to move towards sex, no matter what the topic (at one point, a conversation about the myth of Old Saint Nick sliding down the chimney turned into an X-rated discussion about masturbation), how way too eager she seemed to be to volunteer certain personal information that most women - under platonic circumstances - usually don't volunteer without some ulterior motive.

C'mon...how many women sporting a pair of rings on their hand would ever openly discuss certain sex acts with someone other than their spouse, especially if the other party in that discussion just happened to be a guy they once tried to seduce in the cabin of a fucking boat?

At one point, while I was explaining why I'd sworn off women for a while, the events that led up to Halloween Night, the Jack Nicholson thing, and just about every fucked-up element of life in Oxford Fucking Ohio, she put her hands on my shoulders, ran them up to my cheeks.

I stopped mid-sentence and asked her what she was doing.

She shot right up and said she had to go to the bathroom. When she returned, she seemed to scan the near-empty bar, as if she were verifying that she indeed did not know anybody there - other than me, of course.

I'd already been doing that myself for a half an hour. I'd started doing that about thirty seconds after I realized that I'd started to notice how she had this tendency to play with her earrings when I talked, how she chewed on her lip, how I was starting to get the smell of her perfume in my nose.

Not good.

Oh, fuck, so not good.

* * * *

"Tonya" started to tell me, too, about how she remembered me doing and saying things that I didn't remember. Little things, those common everyday events that most people forget even before they happen.

Like that night on the boat, when the tide started to head towards the beach and the sea air pushed something foul up her nose, I apparently offered my shirt sleeve for use as a snot rag. And I'd let her doodle on my arm that night while I talked with the skipper about the difficulty of quitting hard drugs.

She'd taken her first-ever shot of Irish whiskey that night and I'd coached her through it - the breathing, the expectation of burning, the lime's tartness as a counterbalance to the whiskey's robust sting. She also remembered that I'd wiped the excess booze off her chin, the first time I ever touched her face. She'd assumed that that meant, back then, that I was attracted to her, based solely on the fact that I used my fingers instead of the back of my hand or palm.

That was the only reason she'd decided to lure me below deck to, well...

Fuck, this ain't good. Not good at all.

* * * *

Her own trip down amnesia lane was interrupted by the sounds of Gnarls Barkley pouring from her purse. She reached in, looked at the caller I.D., and excused herself to step outside to take the call and smoke one of my cigarettes.

When she returned, I noticed instantly how her mood had changed, her demeanor serious and rigid, her face stuck halfway between regret and responsibility.

I knew what was coming. She didn't have to say anything, really.

I shouldn't be here with you...I need to go right now.

One of the nasty little side effects of being the perpetual Ex-Other Man is the fact that one tends to hear this same line repeated by many different women over the course of many years. It's never a pleasant thing to hear.

Nobody likes to be the one to drop the other shoe, no matter how much they enjoy the pairing.

* * * *

She went on to explain, in detail, just about every damned reason she shouldn't be there, in the bar with me, shouldn't be talking to me, even near me.

Her husband had just called from SoCal to tell her what a great time he was having with his friends and to apologize for choosing not to spend the holidays with her family. She was happy, really, honestly, seriously, and was in a stable place, financially secure for the first time in her life.

She owned a car, yes, a car that wasn't older than she was. In two years of marriage, he'd never once hit her - a first in her life. He liked how she folded his laundry and never asked her to explain anything. And, unlike previous beaus, he was trying to at least learn how to be a father to a kid that wasn't even his, her beautiful little girl.

And if he never said that he loved her, if he didn't like her touching him, if they hadn't slept together since he'd cheated on her with their old neighbor, well, so be it.

Tonya put her hand over her face, again informed me that she had to go, wished me a good life, and made a beeline for the door.

* * * *

I dropped some cash on the bar and followed Tonya outside. As much as I knew I should just let her go, for some reason, I just couldn't keep from following.

I hadn't thought about Tonya in any sort of real romantic way, any sort of sexual way, while we were talking in the bookstore or while we were chatting over coffee. Sure, my mind would wander a bit in the middle of conversation. I was still attracted to her. Very cute girl, naturally cute, that makeup - would - just -ruin - God's - creation kinda cute.

But, well, I didn't think it was going anywhere, certainly didn't think it mutual or as dangerous as it apparently was.

I dunno. Guys are stupid sometimes.

Even when we're not thinking with our smaller brains, there's always some other damned thing to trip us up.

* * * *

She hadn't gotten very far. She was leaning against a wall, no more than half a block from the bar. She seemed to be staring at the sidewalk, almost as if she were counting the cracks in the concrete.

She started to walk away the moment she saw me.

I knew I should stop, just let her go, call it good before somebody got really hurt, before I passed the last exit and there would be no turning back.

But I couldn't. And I don't know why.

I hollered at her once, twice...I don't know. No matter what I said, she kept walking.

Chica, hold on a minute.

Hey, stop for a minute.

What the fuck, _____?

In hindsight, the responsible, rational, ethical adult in me - the information professional, the highly educated, logic-driven organizer of knowledge that I'm supposed to be - should've stopped me, should've commanded that other, lustful, coveting-another-man's - wife part to halt.

But it didn't.

* * * *

I kept following Tonya while she kept on a-truckin', ignoring my calls to stop and talk, looking over her shoulder every once and a while, hollering at me to go back to fucking Ohio and to leave her alone.

I felt like a goddamned stalker, a psychopath, a lunatic. Part of me just wanted to apologize, part of me was trying to figure out what I was going to say, and yet another part was trying to rationalize the whole situation, to find some way to achieve some sort of happy ending.

When "Tonya" finally stopped, in one of SLO-Town's parking garages, I realized that we'd managed to cover almost six blocks, and I didn't remember crossing one crosswalk, crossing one street, or seeing one person along the way.

She turned and stared me down.

And she didn't make a sound. Just stared, anger in her eyes and cheeks. For a moment or three, I was afraid she was going to take a swing at me.

I felt like the most rancid pile of dogshit on Earth.

* * * *

What happened next remains a bit hazy in terms of how things went down. Honestly, I'm not sure how much I trust my judgment or my memory. I can close my eyes and recall everything, out of order yet crystal clear.

But for some reason, like that silly talking egg from the old nursery rhyme, that critter that fell from that wall, the one all the king's men couldn't put back together again, none of the pieces seem to fit together nicely. We just stood there in the parking structure, staring at each other, ten feet apart, this strange canyon filling quickly with pent-up emotion.

And then she let me have it, the canyon long past flooding, its polite dams shattered on the rocks.

She called me all sorts of things that cut straight to the bone.

I was a frigid bastard who'd led her on once and had subsequently demonstrated that I was indeed the cold-hearted, manipulating fuck her mom had said I was years before. I was the Devil himself, a crush from her past that had come back to lead her astray from her peaceful - if loveless - marriage.

I'd run away and hid when she'd finally worked up the guts to hit on a guy who wasn't a drug dealer and/or didn't have a criminal record, the first guy she'd ever chosen to have non-stoned, consensual sex with. I was the guy she'd given up trying to get, the guy who was just good enough to be her friend but not brave enough to be her lover.

And now it was too fucking late, the attraction there but poorly timed, the truth still lost inside of lust, lust dragging her in two directions, ripping her apart inside.

Aapparently, my admitting that I'd really wanted to take things farther that night out on the boat, that I really was concerned about, well, the legality of the age difference, didn't help matters. She would've rather heard me say that I only thought of her as some silly kid - easier that way.

She didn't love me, didn't want to know me, hadn't ever wanted to see me again. And when we ran into each other at that bookstore, she'd started questioning all of the pent-up rage...

And she couldn't deal with it.

Just leave or I'll call the cops or something. Stay the fuck away from me.

I turned and started to walk. I was too ashamed to say anything. In almost 30 years on this planet, through countless fucked-up situations involving countless women in my life, I've never once had a woman threaten to call the cops on me.

In all honesty, I wanted to step right out of that parking structure and into traffic. It felt as if a part of me, the last innocent part, died.

I'd lost control of a situation. And it had hurt someone so much that I almost completely lost the will to live in the span of an hour. Worst of all, I crossed boundaries that shouldn't have ever been crossed, naively expected things to be all forgiven and forgotten after only a few fleeting years.

For the first time in more than a decade, I'd done something so internally insulting that I wanted to crawl inside a bottle of Everclear and never leave.

I thought about getting back to Oxford, digging through boxes of shit from my old apartment in Baton Rouge. Maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to find the number of that European I'd met in New Orleans, the one who thought I had the "attitude" it took to be a hired gun for one of his clients, out in some infernal desert country where they hang their ex-dictators and share it via YouTube.

To say I was crushed would be the understatement of 2006, possibly 2007.

* * * *

It's been, needless to say, many years since I last trashed a motel room.

While the room was paid for in cash, I had to give the clerk my credit card for "security purposes." If I don't have an additional $300-400 charge show up on my statement next month, it'll be a miracle.

After "Tonya's" wardrobe malfunction, it was damned near impossible to remember that these sorts of encounters best occur inside of rented rooms, not on the walkways outside, for all to see.

Tonya didn't seem to notice or care, even though we were a mere ten minutes from her parents' house and her mother could drive by at any moment. After all, she was the one with the most to lose - and the one topless and facing the highway.

The first go-round, I'm almost ashamed to admit, was a bit, err, anticlimactic. I was just too damned excited and, well, a bit rusty. Practice does indeed make perfect, and when a guy forgets things like form, function, and rhythm because there hasn't been a need for such things in a while, well, it can take a few moments to regain one's composure.

I think the fact that I kept staring at the cars whizzing by, kept worrying about the possibility of some kid or vacationing grandmother or tourist walking out of the adjacent rooms, kept trying not to laugh as the lone Mexican housekeeper below pretended not to notice what was going on above her, kept me out of tune with the situation at hand. Sometimes, distractions just ruin perfectly good moments.

The whole emotional rollercoaster had taken a toll that my body just couldn't pay. Embarrassing, yes, but, well, there's something to be said for not being as old as I sometimes feel.

Only about a four-minute recovery time for the second go-round, just long enough to get out of the shearing wind and back into the room - even managed to get my boots off in one kick.

After the third go-round we took a medical break. Both Tonya and I have bum shoulders that occasionally pop out of place. Somehow, we'd managed to both dislocate our shoulders simultaneously.

Wouldn't you, dear reader, like to know.

I will, however, suggest that it is best to remember that beneath the cheap, commercial-grade carpeting in most motel rooms, they rarely waste any money putting padding between any potential falling bodies and the concrete below.

Took power naps after the fourth (broke a lamp somehow), cuddled for a while after five in a pile of pillow foam (pillow fight...long story).

But six...

Six was the unlucky number. Just before we were about to hit that tally, our brains finally caught up with our libidos, logic started creeping back in, the real world intruding.

Both of our phones went off within minutes of each other. My call was from my sister, asking me how I was spending my day and reminding me that the family had a birthday dinner in a few hours.

Tonya didn't have an easy out for her call. As soon as she picked up the phone and looked at the caller I.D., as soon as she jumped up and hurried to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, I knew who was on the other end.

I've been the Other Man before. But nothing, nothing ever, like this.

* * * *

The A-Word crept back into my thoughts.

Dude, she's not cheating on some boyfriend. That's her husband. Look at the rings on the nightstand. This is adultery, one of the big sins, a Ten Commandments level infraction.

Angry boyfriends take swings at you, get pissed. They talk shit, get drunk, want to fight, and then go cry it off, let their egos heal. But remember M., that woman's fiance down in Louisiana?

He told you, point-blank, that he'd been planning on shooting you when he came to your door.

Think about what you're doing, dude. Something's not right. You cut this kinda danger out of your life years ago. This kinda shit can get you killed.

Stupid fucking conscience.

* * * *

Back in SLO-Town, two hours before, I'd been wandering about in an excruciating haze, trying to find my car. First, I couldn't seem to remember that my own little white Ford Pickup was back in Cincinnati at the airport; I seemed to have forgotten that I'd borrowed my mom's Mustang for the day.

And then, standing on the top deck of SLO's other downtown parking garage, I remembered that the car was parking way atop the other one, the structure I'd just left, near the scene I'd just left.

Well, I remember thinking, at least there'd been some practical reason for me following "Tonya" back there, beyond the confusion.

I wandered around downtown a bit more, giving her enough time to clear out. Didn't feel like finding out if she'd been bluffing about the cops, didn't want to see her ever again, in fact.

After enough time had passed, I made my way back to the parking garage, sulking my way gingerly up the stairwell, taking the long way around to avoid the level where I thought Tonya's car had been parked, where the whole damned scene had taken place.

By the time I finally reached the top deck, I was again calm enough to drive. No desire to drink myself into oblivion, no burning need to find out in they still needed mercenaries in a fucking war zone.

I popped the trunk, dropped in my day's purchases - a pair of shirts that I really didn't want or need, but bought simply out of distraction.

By the time I figured out what was going on, I didn't have enough energy - emotional or otherwise - to spend on anything beyond reflex.

As soon as I realized someone had snuck up behind me, had noticed the faint silhouette of a person approaching fast behind me in the car's shimmering paint, I went straight on instinct. I could make out what looked like a blunt weapon in the right hand.

Whoever the dumbass was, I'd be damned if I were about to be mugged peacefully.

* * * *

My fist stopped about half a foot from a young woman's throat.

If I hadn't controlled myself, hadn't stopped mid-swing to evaluate my own personal threat level, I'm fairly certain I'd be sitting in jail right now, probably for murder.

The last time I was that frazzled, I was in fucking high school, high as a kite and on my 36th hour without sleep.

Tonya flinched and dropped to the ground anyway.

As she got back up, she made some lame joke about deserving that and wishing that I'd actually hit her.

I didn't laugh.

I did, however, snap back with a snide comment about hoping she was going to call the cops, because I was tired of this shit.

She just stared at the ground, shaking and nodding. She had goosebumps all over her arms, her neck, her...

She had taken off her hoodie and had it wrapped around her hand. She was almost catatonic, shivering. When I offered to help her put on her sweater and reached for the damned thing, she pulled back.

I gingerly coaxed the garment from her hand. As I unwrapped it, a set of car keys fell from her fist. The keys were covered in blood, the hoodie covered.

I asked her what had happened. She said she hadn't noticed that she was bleeding until she'd seen me walking back to the parking garage. She'd squeezed the keys so tightly in her fist that she'd broken the skin. I quickly - calmly - examined the wound. Superficial cut, already clotted, but she'd have one nasty bruise.

But still, why?

I couldn't leave.

She started sobbing again. So I took off my button-up shirt and used it as a snot rag.

Talk about deja vu all over again. I guess I do have a tendency to offer women my shirts up as Kleenex.

She leaned in, closer and closer; before I realized what was going on, she'd wrapped her arms around me. And I'd wrapped my arms around her.

I felt her fingernails cut through my tee shirt, dig into my skin. My fingers started wandering up and down her spine, pausing at each vertebrae, pausing at each rib, feeling each pound of flesh. As her grip tightened, so did mine.

I started to say something, something tangible and rational, but instead I simply mumbled into her hair as I leaned down to kiss her forehead. She tilted her head up from my chest, eyes closed, lips open.

The last thing I remember seeing before my eyes closed was my own hand reaching up through the back of that damned Le Tigre tee-shirt.

I gave up trying to contain the hot coals, willfully flung the door of the potbellied stove open and unleashed the fires. One cannot fight two demons, Fate and Lust, simultaneously.

Two people lost control in a parking garage, and the flames consumed the world around them. And there would be no chance to take anything back, nothing left to second-guess.

- TO BE CONCLUDED -

CALIFORNIA CONFESSIONS, PART I: The Untold Legend of Fucknut and Jailbait

- PART II HERE -
- PART III HERE -

SOMEWHERE ON THE CENTRAL COAST, Calif. (ZP) -- The last time "Tonya" and I were alone in a room together, she'd just turned 16 and had successfully passed her GED exam.

I was 21 at the time, and, well, I'd managed to pull off the hat trick that day. As "Tonya's" tutor, I was utterly proud that, in the span of a month, one of the kids I'd worked hard to mentor now had her emancipation papers in hand, her high school equivalency complete, and she'd managed to stay narcotic-free for six months.

Against better judgment, she somehow talked me into going out with a few of her friends to celebrate. One of our mutual acquaintances lived on this beat-up, barely-afloat boat, and the plan called for six of us to head out into the Estero Bay darkness for an evening of drunken mayhem.

During the sail, she had to go down below to take a piss in the five-gallon bucket that was serving as an impromptu women's urinal (guys, well, just pissed astern into the fog and the boat toilet hadn't worked in months). For some reason, she asked me to go down below with her to stand guard by the hatch door.

I thought this strange for two reasons. First, there were only two guys on the boat - the Old Salt owner and myself. The rest of the part consisted of women. Secondly, the hatch door had a lock. She locked the door as she closed it, actually.

SoI just stood there, facing the door, standing guard, humming, waiting for her to finish her business. A few minutes went by before I realized what she, well, really didn't have to pee.

I felt her hand on my neck and turned around. I honestly thought, at the time, she just wanted to talk or to ask my opinion on something or to, I dunno, give me a gift or something.

I did not expect to have a kid I'd volunteered to tutor put her arms around me, smile and tell me how glad she was that I'd decided to come along for the ride, and kiss me.

We're not talking a friendly kiss here. I figure that's self-evident, but one can never be too sure...

* * * *

We'd run into each other at a bookstore. She was shopping for marked-down children's books for her four-year-old. I was simply looking to buy myself a copy of The Wonga Coup, a book I purchased for my mother for Christmas and would finally have time to read myself on my way back to Oxford Fucking Ohio.

By the time I realized who she was, that strangely hot woman in the saggy, baggy camouflage pants and Vans who kept poking her head around the aisle staring at me, her four-year-old had already figured a few things out for herself. "Tonya's" little girl simply walked up, stared at me with her mom's big brown eyes, and asked, in that head-cocked-to-the-side curious, preschool way, why her mommy kept staring at me.

After exchanging some embarrassingly awkward reintroductions and greetings, followed by a series of even more awkward long pauses and false starts, I asked her if she'd like o grab some coffee across the street and play catch up.

After a quick call to her mom to arrange for Grandma to babysit for a few hours, she agreed to meet me there in an hour. (She had to drive her daughter to her parents house, out on the coast.) I told her I'd meet her there; I still had some After-Christmas shopping to do anyway and, well, I was on vacation.

She smiled and said she'd see me then. As she walked away, she looked over her shoulder and said something I hadn't heard in four years.

Later, Fucknut.

She stuck her tongue out, took her daughter's hand, and started to walk away.

Later, Jailbait.

She paused for a second and, without skipping a beat, gave me the finger as she headed out the door. Two old ladies - stereotypical SLO-Town NIMBY retirees - looked at her in disgust.

Rather than continue shopping, I wandered round the downtown in a daze for the next 30 minutes. My palms were sweaty, my knees a bit uncertain, and my mind filled with a billion lost thoughts.

* * * *

The last time we'd seen each other was in 2002, right before I headed off to grad school in Louisiana. I swung by her job to say goodbye and to wish her well in life, just in case our paths never crossed again. At that time, we hadn't spoken more than ten words to one another since the night on the boat.

Actually, I hadn't said more than ten words to her in that six months. I ignored her calls. I deleted her voicemails at work, without even listening to them. I avoided her like the the Plague.

Every time I was in the town where she lived, I tried to ignore any spot where I knew she'd be. Somehow, she'd find me; she'd ride by on her skateboard and wave, kick up the board and want to talk about anything but that night. And I'd make excuses to get out of the conversation.

Part of me was embarrassed, part of me was afraid - downright terrified - that one of my former station's advertisers would see us together and would somehow know what had happened out on that boat, that one of those old ladies who always seemed to want to pester me to mention their grandchildren in my sportscasts would walk up and blow the lid off my shame.

"Tanya," after all, was the same age - or younger - than most of the high school athletes I'd covered daily before I left my journalism career behind.

Guilt is a powerful drug, addicting and simultaneously revolting. It drove me to finally suck it up and track "Tanya" down at work, if only to say goodbye.

She barely spoke as she stood behind the counter as I explained my situation, my moving to Baton Rouge to get a master's degree in some bizarre alchemy called Library and Information Science, my wanting to say goodbye.

As I turned to walk away, she came from behind the counter and gave me a hug.

Later fucknut.

Later jailbait. You take care of yourself and stay out of trouble.

Send me a postcard or something from Mardi Gras.

I will.

I never sent that damned postcard.

* * * *

As we chatted away over coffee in SLO's downtown, she reminded me that, well, it was I who'd pushed her away that night; I was the bastard who'd, well, refused to risk breaking the time-tested rule of Under 18 Equals Ten to Twenty and who'd crushed her with my excuses.

At one point, she asked me, point-blank, if that had been the only thing that had held me back, if I hadn't really rejected her because I unattracted to her.

Without even thinking, I blurted out that attraction wasn't the problem and that I was fairly certain that she was one of the most attractive, seductive women I'd ever met. In fact, I added , I dreamt about that kiss for months afterwards and had second-guessed my actions that night about a billion times.

As soon as I said that, I regretted admitting it aloud. "Tonya" just stared down into her Americano, stirring it slowly. I thought I'd brought up some painful memories for her.

Then, without looking up, she asked a simple - but obviously very difficult - question.

So you liked it?

I couldn't answer. I just bobbed my head up and down like an idiot.

She looked up and grinned.

I liked it, too. You were the first boy I ever kissed like that.

I wanted to say something, something about how, years ago, I'd done the right thing, about how I had to be an adult, be mature, professional. I was a reporter who was, simultaneously, a year away from finishing his undergrad, an adult of legal age who was oh-too-aware of what could've happened to my then-career, my life, had anything happened. Emancipated or not, she was still just 16 back then; her brother hadn't paid me whatever money he could panhandle to be her boyfriend.

Instead, I stared down into my black coffee like some emo kid coming down off the Xanax after a My Chemical Romance concert.

* * * *

The last time "Tonya" and I were alone in a room together, thins happened, things beyond our control, passions exposed that couldn't be put back into their proper place in a clean, tidy box.

It was Dec. 28. Mom's birthday. I'd promised my parents that I'd make it home in time to go to dinner to celebrate. My sister had already picked out a gift for her from me. My only deadline in San Luis Obispo County Fucking California was to make it home by six that night, to make it home in time to spend an evening with the fam.

I stretched out on the bed in the motel room. Not a bad for 30 bucks, I thought. The motel had changed owners since the last time I was here, during my undergrad days, for what my then-friends and I called our "Wild Bunch Man Retreats," our irregular three-day poetry/prose writing orgies of ink and booze where we channeled our the ghosts of Bukowski and Steinbeck and Kerouac into typewriters and laptops and empty bottles of Southern Comfort.

Somehow, though, even nostalgia couldn't save me from fate, couldn't pull me back from the thresholds of a destiny I could no longer fight, a retreat into that kind of reckless decadence.

"Tanya" made the trip to the drugstore for certain necessities; I'd left the car I was driving in the parking garage back in SLO. When we'd left McCarthy's, a former hangout of mine, I was buzzing from the two shots of Jamesons and the Irish Car Bomb.

I'd intentionally chosen not to get drunk - without even consciously planning out my choices, my actions, I knew this is where we'd end up for the afternoon.

I looked over at the nightstand. There, in a plastic cup next to a bottle of water, rested a diamond ring.

And a wedding band.

And they weren't mine.

To be quite honest, I couldn't have cared less.

I knew I was about to make a mistake, a mistake that couldn't be simply swept from memory by four years of distance, a conversation over coffee, and a few drinks at a bar.

Some mistakes you just know you're going to make. Some choices you know you're not going to be able to take back, to change any which way you choose to take them.

I turned on the TV, flipped through the channels as if I didn't have a care in the world.

Sometimes, one cannot change the inevitable, no matter how hard one tries.

- CALIFORNIA CONFESSIONS PART II -