ONLY WOMEN BLEED (AND OTHER LIES ALICE COOPER TOLD ME):Sometimes, Image is, Indeed, Everything. But What's Really Being Communicated, Well...

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson,
from Self-Reliance, 1841

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- He told her, bluntly, that he'd slept with her first-year roommate as well as her best friend, two women mere days apart back in November, because she'd got kind of fat. He didn't care what she thought, didn't care that she loved him, he was going to spend his last semester in college sowing his oats and seeing women who wouldn't damage his rep.

I read the email, aloud, and tell her that, yes, obviously, her ex-boyfriend is one of those goddamn collar-popping, limp-dicked, pieces of motherfucking catshit chachballs I've often written about here in Oxford Fucking Ohio.

I declined her offer to show me his picture. Frankly, the guy's email turned my stomach to the point where I was ready to quite literally beat the living shit out of him.

I hand the very pretty, healthy-looking sophomore another wad of toilet tissue. She points out that she did, in fact, gain eight and a half pounds during a rather rough Fall Semester. When he quit calling her at home over Winter Break, she knew their relationship was in trouble. The strain of it all pushed her weight up a bit farther - she gained another ghastly, obscene pound and a quarter.

The poor woman's been sobbing for a week, off and on, depressed not only over a failed relationship, but over the fact that she'd ballooned to a beastly 126 pounds.

She goes on to explain that she hasn't been able to eat, sleep, or think clearly for seven days - she's terrified that, well, maybe every guy's noticed how much weight she's gained. She's been taking so much Adderall that one of her professors actually pulled her aside after class to inquire about her emotional and physical well-being.

She took her first shower in more than three days moments after I'd confirmed our "appointment" an hour earlier. She apologized profusely for not shaving her legs, for not drying her hair, or for putting on much makeup. She barely remembered to pull on her lucky track pants and Uggs boots when she exited her room for the first time all day, just long enough to sneak me into her residence hall.

For ten minutes, she tells me about all about how she managed her weight like a sadistic nutritional accountant, how she'd counted every single gram of fat and every single calorie for most of her high school career. But no matter how hard she tried...

* * * *

She jumped up off of the corner of her bottom bunk, bent over, and pointed at why, exactly, she thought she'd been dumped by a rather-worthless sounding prick.

"Look. My ass is fucking HUGE! I got cellulite every-WHERE! Who would want that?"

I looked. I saw nothing but a very nice ass attached to rather attractive girl, a very pretty face staring back at me from over a shoulder. She tugged down one side of her track pants, pulled up the leg of her boxers, showed me the four dimples at the crease between her ass and thigh.

Here is this emotionally wrecked, tired, angry woman, with quite possibly one of the greatest asses in the history of college sophomoredom here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, and she's telling a 29-year-old single librarian about how gaining less than ten pounds has ruined her, driven her rather wretched-sounding boyfriend into the arms of other women, and how this one electronic voice in the wilderness just must agree with her thigh-cheese-equals-troll assessment.

"Chica, I probably shouldn't say this, but I think you know you're not fat, know this cat was a cocksucker, and that this Ms. Perfect shit just makes you look like a dumbass."

There is no way to describe the looks some very pretty sophomores can give a guy when they know, deep down, that that guy may have a point.

"Huh?"

"Well... this ain't really about getting dumped by a douche. Sounds to me like this is about how you see yourself as a person..."

It's amazing, sometimes, the sheer maturity and wisdom I'm able to demonstrate, even with a nice ass in my face.

* * * *

She sat back down on the bed.

I waited for her to call me what blog readers who've mistaken me for some College Girl Crusader or Small Town Defamer often call me - a fraud, a huckster, or, usually, a fucking creepy asshole. Worse, there are some folks who are just appalled - downright DISGUSTED - to learn that, well, being a blogger makes one more of a village idiot than any sort of role model.

When I display the same sort of honesty offline as I often display online, many folks are taken aback, shocked. Yes, I swear like a drunken sailor, say completely inappropriate, insensitive, very un-PC things.

What one reads is what one gets - and if a reader asks a certain blogger to make a housecall to talk, that reader isn't in for any sort of bullshit Blogebrity routine. In all honesty, I don't have time for that ego-stroking, narcissistic horseshit - I work too hard at my day job and know too many good people in this town to behave so, well, stupidly.

She didn't say a word.

Instead, she sat cross-legged, picked at the lint and blackened dust bunnies that had defiled the fur tops of her Uggs. She stared down towards the hornet's nest of sports bras, crumpled jeans, coats, comforters, and sheets that we were both sitting on - she mumbled an apology for not tidying up before I'd stopped by.

I figured that was my cue. I said I'd leave her alone, thanked her for, well, keeping me entertained via her intoxicated late-night instant messages, and reminded her that, well, my office door at the library, is almost always open.

Without looking up, she reached up and grabbed my arm, squeezed. I sat back down, put my hand on her shoulder. She asked me to stay. So I did.

And, once the emotional hysterics that go along with being jilted were well out of sight, we had a nice, brutally honest conversation about why one doesn't take time off from college because of a douchebag, how one sucks up that rage and turns it into scholarly fuel, and the importance of never, ever letting something as trivial as a temporary low self-image get in the way of making good, emotion-free decisions.

I even recommended that she start a blog about her experiences under a pseudonym, document her struggles so that maybe, sometime in the future, some other sophomore in her position might find it and go, Holy fucking shit! This girl really knows what I'm feeling!

Hell, blogging has done wonders for my own concept of self-worth and self-esteem issues - why not pass on that experience to others? College women need to get online, need to share not just their musical tastes or fashion tips or bullshit political ideologies but personal experiences as well. Venting does a body good - and sometimes it's equally rewarding to simply read about an experience that let's a random stranger know that they're not alone in this world.

As we talked, she held onto my arm for dear life. I was the first person not a mutual friend or family member she'd spilled her guts to in a long, long time. She told me why she reads this silly web site has more to do with how I handle certain information more like a priest taking confession than a blogger - I don't use names and carefully conceal identities, so, therefore, spilling one's guts is less of a risk than, say, posting something to a MySpace or Facebook account.

That's why she asked me to stop by, made an afternoon appointment. She needed to confess her sins - and my openness about my own, batshit insane personal life made me sound like the perfect holy man.

In all honesty, I showed up only because I was terrified that I may be asked to administer Last Rites.

* * * *

Suddenly, mid-sentence, she asked me if I was hungry. I lied and said that, well, a nice hot toasted roll - one of the Local U.'s signature culinary treats - sounded abso-fucking-lutely scrumptious. Actually, the very smell of those things makes me nauseous, but, well, I was just on my game enough to realize the question about hunger was more self-directed.

Getting a Local U. girl who's been starving herself for a week may, in fact, be the single-most important contribution I've made to the Oxford community, professionally or as an everyday citizen, in more than a year.

As we hiked down towards the student union - she was craving a slice of pizza - she stopped me with an Ugh! Hold on. That's so annoying..., turned me on my heels like a wayward toddler, and started adjusting my cockeyed stocking cap and tangled mess the hood on my sweatshirt had become. She went so maternal on me, this woman barely out of her teens, that she even licked her thumb before she slicked down my disheveled eyebrows.

"You know, you have gorgeous eyelashes. There was this girl in my history class last semester who told me that she had a crush on this guy who worked at King..."

Suddenly, she stopped cold, pulled herself into me. The first-year roommate, one of the two boyfriend-fucking Jezebels, was on her cell phone, pacing, right in front of the student union doors, a mere thirty feet away. I started to turn and look, but, well, serving as a human shield left me with only the risk of sweatshirt strangulation as the very pretty, image-conscious sophomore clung onto my collar for dear life.

"Ohmygodohmygod... if she sees us together she's gonna think... she's gonna tell everybody... fucking whore!...God, she's s'posed to be in Cincinnati ... don't DON'T look... she's looking... FUCK!"

It took me, in my so not an undergrad mindset, a good thirty seconds to figure out what, exactly, that ferret-faced Ms. Thang, clad in her trendy North Face jacket and skintight black pants, guarding the entrance to a student union food court could possibly assume, or who the everybody was she'd possibly tell.

I laughed. Hard.

You know, the sight of a cute girl ducking into the chest of a 29-year-old librarian with supposedly gorgeous eyelashes probably is something to gossip about - if you're a catty, rodent-looking Cincinnati rich girl with nothing better to do than to fuck my blog readers' boyfriends because you were, like, soooooo wasted at beer pong parties, like, two or three times, accidentally.

I thought about it for a moment, pondered and weighed the potential risks to both my professional credibility and, well, my fine, upstanding reputation (go ahead and laugh, dammit!) as an online writer. I then strategically twisted in such a way as to position my mouth at the ear of the very pretty, way-too-young sophomore, twisted in such a way that Ms. Rodent Face would have a clear view of both her former roommate's face and my constantly graying stubble.

I whispered, slowly, into my chestwarmer's ear that she had nothing to worry about, said sweet nothings about how learning to tune out gossip comes with maturity, and told her, well, that she shouldn't give a flying fuck what others may think.

She giggled at my use of the phrase flying fuck (she didn't believe anybody actually spoke such things so casually) and whispered something back about not wanting people to ask questions. Again, she played right into my not-so-sinister plan of attack.

I could feel the stare. Just the type of stare I'd counted on, one of those soul-rupturing glares that catty gossipwhores tend to give people when they think certain things, when they assume that they are now entitled to do whatever they want with certain information, regardless of courtesy or consequences.

So, like clockwork, I pushed the very pretty sophomore back into an upright, chin-up position, told her that the time had come to say Fuck it and to march right past Jezebel No. 1. She sighed, agreed, and we double-timed it past the loose-lipped (in more ways than one, apparently) sentry. My blog reader, the trooper that she was, shoved her hands into her pockets and stared at the ground.

I just grinned a very stupid-looking grin. My plan was working.

I stood as straight as I could, puffed out my chest, and did my best Dirty Old Man impression, acknowledged the gawker with a well-timed, jaw-shattering S'up.

And how that other woman stared. She even had the beady little brown eyes of a ferret.

* * * *

Over a quick bite, I let my very pretty, supposedly hefty, 126-pound dinner date in on the intricacies of my, well, strategically placed movements, mannerisms, and whispers, on the use of a quick and controlled burn to manage someone else's need to perpetuate rumor and disinformation.

It took her a bit of time to grasp the concept. After she'd pondered it over the remainder of her very bad cappuccino...

* * * *

"So what you're saying is that she's gonna tell him and his ego's gonna be smashed?"

"Yup."

"That's weird."

"Okay, lemme put it this way: how do you think most guys react when they're hearing rumors that their ex is potentially fucking an older guy?"

"I'd be fucking pissed."

"How would you feel, in his shoes, if one of your gossipy mutual acquaintances was spreading rumors ..."

Silence. And then, the wondrous Eureka! moment.

"Oh shit. So he's gonna look like a total ass and I'm the mature one, right?"

"Yup."

"Really?"

As I walked her back to her dorm, we discussed all sorts of things, ranging from other forms of data manipulation in interpersonal relationships to her new-found obsession with G.I. Joe comic books and online poker.

A guy she knew, too, grad student, had invited her over to hang out, watch a couple of old 1980s movies. She wasn't sure about his motives, but, well... she wasn't ready ... she didn't really like him that way...

"Well, sounds like you're getting ready to upgrade to business-class there, chica."

She didn't seem to get what I was getting at. I let it drop, wished her a great weekend, and promised I'd have something new for her to read sometime Saturday afternoon.

She reminded me that I don't use real names and that she'd be really mad if I slipped up. I reminded her that, well, I really didn't need to be reminded of anything.

* * * *

I'm supposed to mention, somewhere, that Mr. Super-Prep was born blessed - I am sorta like a priest, after all - with a really, really tiny...

Er.

Would anybody believe me if I swore she asked me to include something about how his imagination resembles a Vienna Sausage?

Length and width, apparently. That's a serious lack of imagination.

And to think...

There are people who ask me how, exactly, my not-so-secret life as a blogger has helped build up my own self-confidence and sense of personal image.

I'm completely comfortable with my imagination, actually. Way overactive at times, but, well, I'm working on that...

Seriously.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: Of Mean-Ass, Downright Evil, High School Dictators, Fortresses of Suckitude, and Notes on a Wildshield

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

- 1 Corinthians 13:11,
King James Version

This is a dude who, 700 years ago, totally ravaged China, and who we were told, two hours ago, like totally ravaged Ashman's Sporting Goods.

- Of Genghis Khan,
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I was fidgeting with my truck keys when I noticed the bright pink paper tucked into the windshield wipers.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that it wasn't a parking ticket. Instead, something slightly more disconcerting had been left by someone other than Oxford's dreaded Meter Nazis.

Someone had left me a note, complete with purple ink, smiley faces, and very girlie-girl handwriting. More appropriately, someone left a note that began with Dear Mr. _______ or Zenfo Pro and ended with Sincerely, Anon. - P.S. Don't get mad but I don't like email.

I'm used to getting emails and IMs from just about every social demographic in Southwestern Ohio. Since 2005, I've gotten notes - 97 percent electronically - from students, alumni and staff at most of the Tri-State's colleges and universities, various area residents, two social services folks, and even a few members of the armed forces serving overseas.

But notes from Local High School students are indeed rare.

Especially notes left on my windshield at nine o'clock in the evening, on a school night.

* * * *

Buried within the simple note, intertwined with the compliments and admonishments over my smoking, the reader had a request.

There is apparently a demonic, authoritative menace stalking the local teenage wasteland, a terror undocumented and neglected by my Hypertext record, one who crushes youthful dreams like soda cans and shatters mischievous hope like a cheap wine glass.

And she (I'm going to go out on a limb here and call the reader a she) wanted me to write something about it, to provide some sort of warning to future Local High School students, to cry out into the World Wide Web about injustice and intolerable cruelty.

A Local High School administrator, from what I'm told, apparently sucks. And given the fact that something about this administrator drove a kid to leave a note on a blogger's windshield, the educator - at least from the student perspective - must suck something fierce.

Sadly, without anything more to go on, besides the cry of suckitude, I cannot condemn a school official for sucking, no matter how much or how great the level of sucky-ness.

And, even if I could, I wouldn't use the sucker's real name, because, well, this sort of sucking isn't exactly outside of a skilled secondary educator's job description, has never been a crime or a misdemeanor.

* * * *

These sorts of things can't exactly be documented by a 29-year-old blogger, really - one who last dealt with sucky high school teachers in the Year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-Six.

By high school standards, I'm, well, ancient, a relic of that Gen-X Paleolithic Era, a fossil from a time when Dinosaur Jr. walked the earth, flannel was the trendiest of trendy loin cloth, back when Nirvana was achieved by smelling the air for teen spirit.

Yes, I come from a late 1990s Ice Age, one filled with cop-killing, O.G. pimp pterodactyls and Amerikkka's Most Wanted reptiles, a barbaric time when we all sipped on Gin and Juice and did it Doggystyle while smoking a time-wasting herb nicknamed, appropriately enough, The Chronic.

And, for the record, 99.7 percent of my high school's administrators sucked some serious, deep, unwashed ass. The three-tenths of a percentage point? Well, those were the ones who managed to drill something into my juvenile delinquent, often booze- and narcotic- filled, skull.

I can't even remember the exact number of days I logged in detention or solitary in- and out-of-school suspension, but I do know that I spent a few weeks, easily, trapped in various crusty, vomit colored rooms, surrounded by my fellow inmates.

I'm fairly certain - to this day - that my high school's senior disciplinarians became sexually aroused by the amount of senseless, sucky-ass punishment they doled out like vengeful dominatrices. Yes, they were mean and evil and wretched, human bird shit splashed atop the forehead of youth.

Despite their best efforts and in spite of myself, I survived. In some ways, it made me a stronger, better person. And in other ways, I became more stubborn, more devious and snide and sarcastic.

Not that I'd ever thank my own mean, sucking teachers. Some are dead; most I'll never see ever again. But I did, over time, learn to appreciate their place within the American teenage wasteland. Without those who are intolerable, without those totalitarian educators who make lives hell sometimes, the whole individual high school experience would be, well, boring as fucking shit.

And, hell, I think I turned out okay...

Sorta.

* * * *

"I'll be in front of the movie theater, k?

"The... no ... the MOVIE THEATER, okay? God... Yeah... I will ... Yeah... K, bye."

A Local High School kid stared at me as if I were some ancient, alien menace.

I'd been, well, just holding up a city trashcan, smoking a cigarette outside of a coffee shop when she crossed the street, furiously texting and then chattering into her cell phone.

Two days removed from reading - and then shredding - my mystery correspondent's note, I decided to go hang out at the same place, guarding the same lonely trashcan, that the reader claimed she'd witnessed me doing all summer. Maybe she'd spot me again, stop and say hi, or offer some insight into the terror that apparently is the Local High School's administration?

Maybe this was my mystery tipster?

And this one teen stopped, for no obvious reason, less than five feet from me, just stared. So I did what every mature adult does in such situations - I stared back, made a face.

For a split second, I thought she may, indeed, be my victim of Local High School suckitude.

Another Local High School kid ran up and tugged at Miss Cell Phone's jacket.

"Oh my God," her friend whispered. "That guy... is like... so, like, creepy. Seriously."

Wow. Now that's embarrassing.

I stopped trying to figure out what, exactly, was creepy about me, because, well, the only scenarios I could think of, with my adult mind, were creeping me out. I went back to staring off into space, and the two girls went back to their conversation.

" C'mon! ____'s over there and he's not with her anymore! OH MY Gaaawd! Now's... your ... chance!"

The pair scurried back across the street, towards the long line outside of the theater's box office. Dozens of Local High School kids were waiting there, chatting on cell phones and whispering and staring and giggling at unknown fart jokes...

And for some reason, I suddenly remembered what that was like, what it felt like to be just a devious, pubescent pirate, coasting towards the eventual thrill-killing oblivion of adulthood, without so much as a care beyond the next weekend kegger, the next exam or the next smoked joint in the bathroom.

I stared at my cigarette and remembered what it was like to have mean-ass teachers step in front of my own youthfully awkward, too-damned-fun, train wreck.

And suddenly I wanted to write about how much, well, some educators...

How much...

... Some educators, including myself, just...like ...

... Like, totally suck some seriously mean ass, like, sometimes, like, when you're young and stuff...

Like, you know?

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Of Jean Bulges, Liberated Boobs, Technicolor Leporid Deities, & Televangelists Near Nukes

You fucking walk out here, we're having a conversation, and you shove your cock in our faces. Jeez!

- Two Young Women, to the fully
clothed crotch of yours truly.

Normal Saturday night, really. And yup, they both said it to my crotch, not me. Didn't make eye contact, either.

Call it Jägerbomb Feminism.

I felt so dirty, so used, so sexually exploited...

They were sitting on the steps when I opened the door, to step outside for a quick cigarette.

No clue why they went on and on about it for five minutes.

But I teased one of the women for, oh, a good three hours about it afterwards.

* * * *

See, this is why no woman takes you seriously. My tits fall out and you look away to tell me about it. You can look. See. BOOBS. Low-cut shirt. I have fucking boobs and I LOVE them! SEE!

- San Luis Obispo, from the Afternoon
That Shall Not Be Blogged, Dec. 2007.

Hey, it's the called the Afternoon That Shall Not Be Blogged for a reason.

Don't ask, don't tell.

Some women - particularly bloggers and readers - are just sneaky enough to make such a request before hanging out for a day.

* * * *

Thanks for the powerful stories. Your writing's going to spring you from Oxford Fucking Ohio.

- From The Zenformation Mail, Nov. 30,
Concerning a post about, well, being different.
Thanks, dude.

* * * *

Your blog is an embarrassment to _____ University and the citizens of Oxford. Please quit making this community into your own personal lampoon of reality. I get nauseous every time my roommate talks about you.

- From the Zenformation Mail, also Nov. 30,
Concerning a post about, well, my squash fetish.
Nauseous?

* * * *

Even on the net it's possible to anger someone, in fact, sometimes it's easier because tone and intention often get lost in translation. The simplest of comments on a message board or blog can be taken in the wrong way and before you know it you're embroiled in a flame war and saying hateful things to someone you don't even know.

- Steph, "The Anger Bubble Generation"
Much Ado About Sumthin!,
Australia, Jan. 11

This is so true, regardless of which time zone, country or city a blogger calls home.

* * * *

Our resident beer-swiller was drinking coffee for once... The narcoleptic didn't fall asleep in the washroom... FakeTits was wearing a bra... Even the Overly White Gangsta got into the spirit with a gold Star of David necklace and cross-shaped earrings. (I neglected to explain the paradox to him - I didn't want to ruin his holiday by making him have to think.)

Yeah, all in all a great day.

- G., The Library Bitch, "A Blue Moon Christmas"
On life in a library the day before Christmas

* * * *

You! Have you accepted the Pink Bunny as your personal lord and master?

- Brother Jumpin' Jehosaphat Johnson,
The Slightly Blaspheming Church of the Pink Bunny,
Oxford, Ohio Jan. 10

The Slightly Blaspheming Church of the Pink Bunny is a bit of a cult. The Kool-Aid's just grand, as is the Holy Tequila Eucharist.

This blog post was indeed foretold by the Pink Bunny in the Book of St. Trix, 1:22-2:1, and in the Gospel of Captain Carrot, 6:66-12:1, and again in 1987 during a secret meeting between Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell, Yoko Ono, and Tom Selleck.

Um...

Have I ever mentioned how damned weird conversations can get here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, especially during the winter?

Seriously.

* * * *

I think men and women evolved differently, you know? I mean, why don't we all have vaginas?

- Local U. Student, Female, Sunday,
Overheard at the grocery store.

* * * *

The End is upon us, friends. Israelites shall be unified and the Antichrist will soon be running organizations like the United Nations.

- Religious Nut, on television,
who for some reason believes,
Through some witchcraft
Called "Biblical Prophesy,"
That Ban Ki-moon is really the Devil.

If there is to be an Antichrist, well, more than likely, he'll be born in some place like Colorado Springs, Colorado - a city so wrapped up in condescending Bible-thumping that it once earned the nickname, Evangelical Vatican.

The city, coincidentally, is also home to NORAD, the United States Air Force Academy, USNORTHCOM, and Peterson Air Force Base - you know, the folks who control one of the world's two largest nuclear arsenals...

Wait.

End Times doom-sayers who fear globalization, change and diversity, surrounded by the very keys to the ICBM-fueled, Nuclear Winter Kingdom...

Oh, that's just great.

I've scared the living shit outta myself.

- # # # -

FOUR STATES, THREE THOUSAND MILES, TWO LITERS OF COFFEE, ONE DAY: Of Airport Love, Divorce, and Big College Football

PHOENIX (ZP) -- I was in love.

Instantly.

The Oh my dear God! Those eyes could melt titanium! kinda love that one finds in places like airports, retail stores and gas stations. The sort of youthful, downright childish lust that perpetually reminds all human beings that, well, our bodies were meant to respond to stimuli beyond the realm of the rational mind.

She handed me my coffee, smiled, and asked if I could wait a few seconds. She was about to take her break and asked if I had time to talk, split a muffin.

Of the tens of thousands of weary, caffeine-deprived travelers who'd passed through that Sky Harbor terminal Monday morning, I was the only one who'd pointed out that she had the most enchanting eyes.

Nobody had ever, EVER just randomly said that to her, and, well, my compliment made her smile more than the pushy New Yorker who, moments before, had insisted that her iced mocha was too cold and who wanted to complain to the corporate office...

Most guys, you see, don't use words like enchanting, to airport baristas or to any other woman, for that matter. Hell, I rarely use the damned word in casual conversation. Fucking hot is usually the most a guy - any guy - can muster from behind the veil of instantaneous libido.

I don't know why I said it, actually. The phrasing just spilled over my teeth and past my lips, into the air and through her hair, into her ears and brain.

And no, I wasn't the first guy to compliment her. I was, however, the first male under the age of 65, completely sober, to compliment her on something other than tits or ass - very few male customers had ever so much as talked to her face as she served up their lattes and cappuccinos.

I was in love, instantly, for a whopping 15 minutes. Knowing it wouldn't last, I tried to make the most of it, to cram the whole ritualistic courtship bullshit down into a lusty affair of casual conversation. We chatted, split a low-fat blueberry muffin, and then, like that, she took her enchanting eyes back behind the counter and went back to work.

C'est la vie, my friends. C'est la motherfucking vie.

Somehow, even though I live all the way on the other side of the continent, I ended up with a phone number and an email address scribbled onto a dirty napkin - in case, she said, I want to hang out or something next time I fly through Phoenix.

Go fucking me.

I spent the remainder of my hour-and-a-half layover wandering around the terminal, feeling like, well, a complete stud, shooting complete strangers the How you doin', baby?, the look so many guys tend to give off at times of personal satisfaction.

I made a complete ass of myself, I'm sure.

Pays to give a woman a compliment, though.

I've been digging through every crevice and crease in my laptop case since I flew out of Sky Harbor, hoping beyond all hope I didn't throw away that goddamn napkin.

I fly through Phoenix often, actually. And I've been known to accidentally miss connecting flights, simply to hang out or something.

- MORE -

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ZP) -- He fidgeted with his boarding pass and passport as she explained the situation.

They'd taken one final holiday together, a trip to Florida and Georgia to visit friends. They broke up, officially, in Atlanta on New Year's Day, an amicable and supposedly mutual split after ten years of dating. It wasn't working for either of them and, well, they both knew it.

She took a drag off of her cigarette as we chatted, just outside of Douglas International Airport, hunkered down for our long layovers with cups of three-dollar coffee and our smuggled fire and tobacco. And he stood there, listening, hardly saying a word.

She added that she'd already moved into her own flat back in London, where they both worked, and that, well, she held know animosity towards the fact that he'd been sleeping with an Ethiopian/Briton colleague - she'd been seeing someone else, too.

Stereotypical Frenchwoman - cold and blunt in casual conversation like a German, nonchalant and whimsical like an Italian. Her English was more Canadian than British or American, a fact that she attributed to her years as a college student in Montreal.

The ex-boyfriend, a perfectly bronze Duala, originally from Cameroon, added that he, too, had studied in Montreal, that they had started dating in college and that, yes, it was a mutual breakup. He rolled his eyes and dug through his pockets for chewing gum - he was, he said, trying to quit smoking.

He seemed more than a little annoyed by the fact that she'd brought up his relationship with the Ethio-British coworker, that they'd broken up while on holiday, and that, well, everything was just peachy now that they were just good friends.

She and I talked for a good hour, until the time came for the pair to board their next flight - they were heading to up to New England to visit his brother, who she had also once dated...

And people say my love life is strange.

- MORE -

DAYTON, Ohio (ZP) -- For some Americans, college football is a religion.

And for some, that religion reaches well beyond the frontiers of faith, well into the realm of puritanical insanity.

"OH MY GOD! WHAT'S THE SCORE?!? ANYBODY KNOW THE SCORE?!? ARE THE BUCKS STILL LEADIN'?"

There is nothing quite like watching a very large man sprint across an airport terminal, sprinting for dear life and risking a massive coronary, the cold steel blue industrial carpeting slowing down every step with its damned gravitational friction.

And, no, by the time our plane had landed, the Buckeyes weren't still leadin'. They were headed, in fact, to that wretched little place, to where every overrated football team ends up, where the hype and fanaticism ends and the gridiron starts - a solid, painfully embarrassing loss.

A mere five minutes behind the Ohio State football maniac, a certain Louisiana State University alum, tired as he was, stopped to ask a lone custodian about the score of a certain national championship game.

And that LSU-educated librarian sighed when he heard the score, 24-10 at halftime. He really didn't give a shit about a silly football game. He was tired, still had an hour drive back to his Oxford Fucking Ohio apartment, and wasn't sure, exactly, where he'd left his pickup. When he got back into town, he planned on swinging by a pub to catch the last few minutes - if he wasn't too tired.

For those unfamiliar with the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) or American football, just think - Big Brother meets World Cup. It's less about true competition than your average pie-eating contest, a live-action role-playing game for the benefit of an army of obsessed fanboys and fangirls, a handful of overzealous boosters, and a few university financial planners.

Big Time College Football's "national championship" is nothing more than two teams playing in a game because several supercomputers and less-than-objective polls declared them worthy of a shot at a championship. One shouldn't put too much stock in a system designed around making sure the popular, well-funded schools get to sell more merchandise or to earn millions in television revenue.

Or, to put it another way, the BCS National Championship Game is nothing more than one big, sick joke, a disgrace to the spirit of athletic competition. And, well, the LSU Tigers would go on to wallop THE Ohio State University Buckeyes 38-24, becoming the first two-time big, sick joke BCS champion of the new century.

Yay. Geaux Tigers. Too bad there's not a playoff system beyond a few polls and a couple of statistical algorithms to back up that championship.

As the tired librarian made his way towards the baggage claim, he wondered aloud if the man realized how downright strange he looked, with his laptop case slapping against his girth, sweat pouring off his brow, as he raced towards an update and into the realm of hype addiction.

The woman next to the librarian laughed.

The fat man who'd just set a new Dayton International land-speed record was her husband.

She didn't see what the big deal was - her alma mater, Michigan, had won its bowl game the previous week - she liked football, sure, but forgot to watch her team's 41-35 win over the University of Florida. Instead, she'd spent New Year's Day shopping for new clothes for their grandchildren.

And for those who don't know, or who don't care, his Ohio State and her Michigan football squads have been duking it out since 1897, making the now annual meeting one of the oldest and most storied rivalries in North American sports history.

"Oh, this is mild. You should see him when Wolverines are in it. We don't speak for weeks. I can't even watch the game with him anymore..."

The librarian laughed nervously, grabbed his leather bag from the turnstile.

For some reason, as he drove home, he couldn't help but feel sorry for that poor woman.

- # # # -

CALIFORNIA CONFIDENTIAL: Ex-Cons and Killer Sea Creatures, Creeping Jeeper Moments, and Far Left Bourgeois of the American Fourth Estate

ALONG THE PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY, Calif. (ZP) -- He stared off into the immense waves as if he were studying something, as if waiting for one of the world's most vicious killers to end his life.

He'd been explaining how, exactly, he'd come to live in his rusted late 1970s Buick, how he'd lost his first two wives but gained a dog and a kid. He'd spent 15 years in places like Soledad, Folsom, and Chino - five for his crime outside and another decade for his mutilation of a black inmate in a prison riot.

He stopped, mid-sentence, and went back to staring off into the tidal surge.

At first, I thought the old man was simply observing the water's edge, had noticed the emergence of the elephant seal bull from the ocean and the movement within the bull's harem a few hundred yards away. An elephant seal bull, you see, is much more dangerous than a older ex-con, even one who once sliced up someone in a prison war. Unlike a human being, an elephant seal will kill a human being simply out of territorial instinct, without so much as a rational thought or emotional response.

Every few years or so, some idiot gets too close, gets maimed or otherwise butchered along California's Central Coast...

No, he said, he was just staring at the Pacific, out into the Estero Bay, thinking about the past. The waves were hypnotic, rhythmic, beautiful - the perfect orchestral accompaniment. The killer elephant seals be damned! Three decades ago, he could've cared less about standing beside the sea again. A decade and a half's worth of jail time taught him to miss it.

"Man, life's too short to worry about which rich motherfucker's gonna be president. Fuck that political shit."

Typical rebellious San Diego kid, caught up in the world of 1960s counterculture hypocrisy. Spent the Peace, Love, and Happiness Decade selling dope to the rich hippie tourist wannabes. That beget selling junk and running coke to Golden State yuppies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Then, one day, he threw his old lady through a plate glass window during a fight. Cops showed up, found a few kilos of felony possession on the coffee table, and ended up choosing Aryan Brotherhood protection over being some Crip's vanilla bitch or some Norteno's turned-out chola.

Can't blame a guy for being nostalgic. Or for not being afraid of an elephant seal bull, either. Animals may kill, but they rarely do it because of race or out of obligation - even in zoos.

"But this country's fuckin' beautiful sometimes, that's for sure."

I stared out at the ocean, too, ignored the killer beasts along the shore.

"Yeah. Dangerous and beautiful."

I'd never met the old man before in my life. I'll probably never see him again.

But, hell, living on the beach, even out of an old Buick with a mangy old dog, sure sounds a whole hell of a lot better than life behind bars.

Murderous, blubber-filled wildlife and all.

- MORE -

NEAR POZO, Calif. (ZP) -- The jeep crawled up into the southern Santa Lucia Range, up towards the gap between Garcia and Hi mountains, at a retarded snail's pace.

One of the great automotive engineering travesties of the late 20th century?

The automatic-transmission, four-wheel drive vehicle. What a waste of power and skill, of fuel and time. The damned things virtually drive themselves.

As we drove through the trickle that, further downstream, evolves into the Salinas River, I suddenly realized how, well, boring off-roading can be in 21st Century America. Less than a century before, this particular pass had been only accessible by horse or mule, or by foot. And now the 23 mile trek down the back road takes less than three hours.

Sure, so few folks know how to actually drive an automobile anymore, beyond simply sitting in a seat, turning a wheel, stepping on a pedal. And sure, ease and comfort are more important than skill and knowledge in the Western World these days.

Why learn to drive stick? Manual transmissions are so... manual. Or why learn to read a map in the 2000s? Doesn't, like, everybody have some built-in GPS system now?

And speaking of GPS systems, those oh-so-wondrous little devices that can supposedly track a person anywhere on the planet and can supposedly make directional decisions better than most humans ...

The one we were using on our journey, well, sorta went haywire further on up the pass. For some reason, as we weaved our way, slowly, around the backside of a mountain, the device kept demanding left turns...

... Right off the side of the range, to a certain painful death.

Joys of fucking 21st century living. At least a pack mule never said things like Turn left... in ... one mile every five damned minutes.

- MORE -

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (ZP) -- The moment I voiced my support for a local resident's longtime fight to turn a pristine ranch into a drug rehabilitation work farm, I knew I'd hit a nerve.

"Quite frankly, we don't need that kind of service here, Jason. You know why, too."

Sure, I know why. It's called NIMBYism. In good ol' SLO, the important things in life are determined by one's neighbors, by their sense of aesthetics, decency, and righteousness. In one of the 10 most expensive cities to call home in North America, who really wants to, well, help the downtrodden, those from lower economic backgrounds? They may just move here with their poor, working class selves, right?

In San Luis Obispo, the image of a perfect community is more important than the smart and responsible development and care of a community. Preserving the investment value of overpriced real estate, preserving the supposed right to a nice view off the living room or to go jogging without worry while the rest of California burns, starves, and, yes, fights to survive, is more important than preserving people.

Period.

"It's not that simple."

Yes it is. It's also class warfare, too. I'm good at ending these sorts of arguments.

"So why don't you just shoot them?"

"Wha... What?"

"You know, shoot the addicts. Final solution. Like Hitler. That's what you really want, isn't it?"

"That's ... That's insane!"

Yes, it is. But so is ignoring certain cultural pandemics, like substance abuse.

"Why? Because they're still people? Because it makes you look fucking hypocritical? Stop bombing Iraq so you can get back to keeping my rich little ass safe from the poor people??"

The rich little ass thing was meant to hurt, to end a pointless debate. Amazing how so many folks from upper-class backgrounds, who've never owned a car older than three years old, who've never had to choose between rent or food, don't know how well off they really are.

Or that nobody really gives a shit, at the end of the day, what those rich little asses want to keep in or out of their own backyards. A community's wants and needs are rarely the same thing - tough shit, get over it.

"This conversation is over. You're still an arrogant self-righteous asshole, just so you know."

Aw shucks. Well, thanks, chica. And you're still the same ol' frigid, fake ass, Trustafarian Peacenik cuntbag I remember, too. Glad to see you can still afford to do nothing for a living, other than live off inheritance and jump behind just about every cause celebre on the Left.

Sure, let's end poverty, hunger, international crises, and the like - so long as it doesn't let the poor and hungry into the benefactor's kingdom.

Oh, I'm sorry. Queendom. She read a book or two, calls herself a womyn's activist these days. Goes to protests and rallies here on the Central Coast, in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Wouldn't be caught dead, however, actually volunteering in one of the many local, impromptu homeless shelters - too many battered womyn who might, well, one day decide to settle in the area. Might drop the value of her home to under a million bucks.

And I'm not a supporter, really, of any one particular solution to drug rehabilitation. Just a former addict and former resident, who thinks that, yes, this service is needed.

While the city, county, and state wrangle over a government solution, one rancher invested his own time, money, and fortitude to help meet that need.

Some battles just need to be fought. And it's just as simple as realizing that battlefields sometimes look like quaint little cities, surrounded by wineries and mansions on rolling hills.

- # # # -