10.18.2002

 

Ugh, too much to blog about at once.

Last night was interview night. I had two scheduled, because Thursday is generally the only evening of the week that allows me to escape the evil clutches of the library at a reasonable hour. Following up on Meesh's interview with me last week, I chatted with her for a while last night. I'm still working on cleaning that up for your enjoyment. Check back with me soon.

But earlier that evening, I had the pleasure of rapping with one of the coolest people I don't know.

Do you care at all about me as a person, or just about the writing I throw out on this site? Either way, I don't care. I'd kiss your toes just for coming here, giving a read and occasionally dropping me a comment or two.

Sarah cares about me beyond the writing. And if you're at all interested in me, or some of the things in which I believe and some of the reasons I do the things I do, well then take a look at her interview of me from last night.

---

Writing this blog exposes me to some really interesting people who are offering up their talents to anyone with a web browser and a few minutes. It absolutely makes my day when one of them says hey, drops me a comment or even sends me an email to compliment me on or criticize the blog. Especially when the words come from someone who I've never met, talked to, what have you.

Tyler sent me an email today just to say hey. It made the weekend start perfectly. Anyway, I have not had a chance to really delve into his blog, but some of the photography he has up on his site is outstanding. I may feature some of it here in the coming weeks if he gives me the okay.

It's Friday everyone. Have a great weekend, drink lots of alcohol, have lots of sex, and leave me a comment or send me an email if I have no idea who you are.

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10.17.2002

 

"Tell me something," she said.

"I'm thinking about you naked."

"But I am naked silly. Right next to you."

"That's why I'm thinking about it."

"Tell me something else," she whispered into my ear right before softly licking my earlobe.

A pair of headlights penetrating the blinds drawn to shut out the world and the street below drew twin lines across the ceiling. The night had descended a particular cold upon my bedroom, and while the down comforter offered our naked bodies plenty of warmth and protection underneath it, any protruding limbs immediately found their way back under the covers. We were two naked bugs wrapped up in a cocoon, preserving body heat and slumbering away through the winter months.

"I want it to rain again tonight. Really rain. Noah's Ark rain. Maybe not for forty days and forty nights, but a rain that floods the streets and rides its way through the sky backed up by pyrotechnics and choruses of thunderclaps that rattle the window panes and make want to turn down the stereo and listen to the concert outside. A vengeful rain, one that drives you inside and reminds you to stare up at the ceiling and hope that the builders had provided for a downpour with a nasty side. I want to feel that even if I had some responsibilities to think about, that I would have no problem staying in bed with you (not that I would have any problem doing that anyway; it would be worth missing three days of work to lie in bed with you until we ran the danger of developing bedsores) because everything about the world would already be telling me that my rightful place is in bed with you and I should not move more than three feet away from you. A rhythmic rain that makes me want to draw my two index fingers up your back and between your shoulder blades in narrow parallel lines before splitting them and running them back down your concave sides before returning them again to the small of your back, starting the slow circles over. A rain that slowly beads up on the small of your back as your body slowly grows warm under the covers, one that teaches me to trace the drops of sweat across your back, mimicking the rivulets of rain as they draw patterns down the window. I want that vengeful rain, a flood from the sky that washes away the oil off the road and the dirt and grime that builds up on all of us as the days sit upon us one on top of the other dares us to pretend that we can compete with Atlas. A rain that makes us hyrdoplane out of control and into each other and forces us to cling to each other's wet forearms and intertwine our fingers to keep from drifting off and down the gutter. I want it to rain like that and I want it to keep raining while we sleep for two days straight, and when I wake up, I want to see a small rainbow to materialize outside my window when I open the blinds, revealing below a small man with an inflatable raft and an offer to row me to the grocery store and five bucks for a couple of muffins and some juice for breakfast, then row me back home and wish me good day with a grunt and a smile."

"Mmph. Sounds nice."

"Yes it does."

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10.16.2002

 

The fall always reminds me of one of my favorite pranks I have ever pulled.

Many years ago, when I was a senior in high school (our school name started with an H), I got really into our school's football team and going to the games. Our team was in the midst of an insane string of league championships (I think it's up to 15 straight and still going), so being a fan at the game was always fun because we almost always won. But the one school that consistently challenged us (though never beating us), was our crosstown rival, C High.

The rivalry was a good one on a multitude of levels. They had these awful yellow and green uniforms, and all their girls were trashy. Meanwhile, we were the preppy, red and black-wearing cooler kids of the town. We were better at football and basketball, they at soccer and volleyball. Baseball was a toss-up every year. The mutual hate was evident.

Our senior year, the annual football game was at C. All that week, we'd come to class and see our campus covered with toilet paper, the trees painted yellow and green, the "H sucks, C rules" banners placed strategically on the tops of buildings. By Wednesday I had had enough. So I hatched a plot.

Thursday night, the night before the big game, I dug through my closet to find my oldest black clothes. Then I slipped into the garage and found my father's garden sprayer and a can of black spray paint and stashed them in the bushes in the front yard. And then I waited. Finally, at the appointed time, I snuck out of the house, grabbed the sprayer and the paint and met my buddy, with whom I had conspired to launch our prank. We took a quick drive to the Shell station, filled up the sprayer and another little spray bottle with a few bucks worth of 87 octane gas. Listened to Pearl Jam during the ten minute ride over to the C campus, pumping ourselves up.

The field was dark. We hopped the fence surrounding the field, keeping to the shadows until we were out of direct view from the street. Out onto the field, right to the 50 yard line, dead center. I pulled out my spray paint and roughly painted an H on the center of the field. It was enormous, probably about 15 yards tall. I couldn't begin to estimate how wide, but it was proportional. Just a quick outline you see, to make sure that my buddy and I were working within the same parameters.

Then we sprayed.

We probably bought a lot more gas than we needed. I know we covered the whole of the inside of the H a couple times each with layers of gas. We were at it for a good twenty minutes, making sure we got every drop onto the field. All the while my buddy and I are telling jokes and imagining ourselves as anonymous heroes the next night at the game.

When we finally exhausted our supply of gas, what, dear reader, do you think we did? Drop a match on it? Nope. Just left.

Did we wuss out, you ask? Not a chance. A little horticulture lesson for you. Gas is extremely toxic to grass. Kills it practically on absorption. However, most of the time, if you spill a little gas from your mower on your lawn or something like that, the grass does not absorb the gasoline in high enough concentrations do to any serious damages. But when those concentrations are high enough, the grass turns yellow and dies within a few hours. So we left, knowing full well that the next night we, and a few thousand other fans, would walking into the C High football field and find a giant H dominating the middle of their field.

All day Friday my buddy and I could barely contain our excitement. We couldn't wait to see our handiwork and watch everyone else in the stands look at it and cheer. It took everything we had to not reveal our secret. But we kept silent.

That night he was a little late in picking me up for the game, but it was cool. The anticipation just built up a little more. By the time we got to the field, I was practically jumping trying to get a bird's eye view of the field.

And then I saw it.

Nothing.

The field looked healthy and green. The center of the field looked especially great. We were crushed. For the whole first quarter, we looked crestfallen, devastated that our great plan had failed so miserably.

But as the second quarter rolled around, and I kept looking longingly at the middle of the field, noticing the healthy green of the grass, I started to realize that the rest of the field didn't look as healthy as the center. It had strands of yellow in it, like a normal football field would in the late months of fall as winter slowly approaches. Meanwhile the center of the field was bright green.

In fact, it was too green. I was puzzled.

Then I started to notice the green streaks on the yellow football pants of the opposing team. The random shocks of green on our black football helmets. And it hit me. The groundskeepers had painted the middle of the field green to cover our work.

Personally, I was pretty impressed. Great improvisation, I thought. And the C football team seemed to respond, playing down for down with our team. But as the second half moved toward half time, the disparity in the teams started to become apparent. We went up a field goal. Then picked off a pass, and punched it into the end zone three plays later. As the opposition started to falter, so did the performance of the groundskeeper's paint. The middle of the field started to transform.

Half time was especially bittersweet. The C High band did their big field show, and while they sounded great, their white marching shoes had a healthy green hue by the end of the performance, and the H was becoming clearly visible. As the band left the field, the home stands slowly fell silent. I watched with delight from across the field as a number of C fans kept pointing the the center of the field and raising their arms in anger.

Our team owned the second half in every respect. I think they ran up something like 35 points that half and only gave up a field goal. And by the middle of the third quarter, the H on the field might as well have been glowing pink. It was that visible. From my vantage point, I could see our entire bench laughing it up and enjoying themselves. I even saw the coaching staff getting a few chuckles as they pointed at the field and smiled, knowing they had clinched yet another league championship and had done so at a hostile field that had lost all hostility and had become a fountain of levity.

I think it's safe to say that we won the prank war that year.

The following week at class, my buddy and I heard people talking about the mysterious H all over the place, singing its praises and wondering alound who had done such a terrific thing. The temptation to spill was rough, but neither of us said a thing. It was much more fun to just listen to everyone else and surreptiously slap high fives.

In later weeks we heard that the C football team had made a pact that if any of them ever found out who had defiled their field, they would collective go beat the shit out of them. So while I've had an entire football field out for my ass for some time, to this day, I'm still sitting pretty and sipping drinks with little parasols in them. And in the spring, I heard that they had to re-sod the entire field because of the damage caused by the enormous H some assholes had burned into the middle of the field. Oops, we didn't mean it to go that far. But oh well -- fuck with us and you'll get it back twice over.

Certainly the greatest prank I've ever pulled, and one of my most anonymous successes. Until now. And just in case you couldn't tell, I'm pretty proud of that one.

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I really stressed myself out over last night’s failure of a post relating to Airport Song. Looking at it a little more than twelve hours later, I think the stress of work and the other changes that have started affected my life over the last few months have finally started to catch up with me, and last night’s inability to write about something so important probably exacerbated matters to the point where I wandered around my kitchen staring aimlessly at the counter and wondering what to do with myself. But after not giving myself enough time to sleep last night and a delightfully hot shower this morning, I think I have a little more perspective.

I think a lot of people tend to blog on the fly and adopt something of a stream of consciousness approach to their craft. Two of my favorite blogs use this approach commonly, and ten times out of ten they put together something great because of it.

I think I am very anal about my writing, and even though I hate editing and revising, I nonetheless tend to take more than a cursory amount of time with posts. If a post is not going so well, I’ll save it for later. I’ll put it on my list of topics to address at a later time. Usually this is no big deal: sometimes the writing simply does not come to me when I want it to do so, and sometimes I have to get out of bed at 3 in the morning to write something down that will not go away.

I didn’t even think about doing this with the Airport Song post last night. I realized right away that I could try to write that ongoing chapter of my life 100 other times, or give it months to develop, or whatever writing strategies you would wish me to employ, and it still would have come out as a miserable failure.

Last night this really upset me. Today I feel somewhat glad that I cannot write it.

I think my inability to write about something can speak volumes about the importance of the topic matter. I’m not one to frequently be at a loss for words, or sit and try and formulate the right way to say something. So when I do struggle to describe or sit trying to craft a sentence, you should realize that I am either extremely angry and trying not to snap at you or I am so overwhelmed by the moment or the emotion that any words cheaply thrown down with no previous thought will constitute a simple waste of breath and listening effort.

So what am I saying? I think I want to convey that my inability to write about Airport Song says infinitely more than anything I ever could have written. This sounds, and feels, like a complete cop out, and if that’s how you want to understand it, I will not protest. But for the rest of you: take it on faith that my failure at writing something very important speaks volumes. As I said yesterday, Airport Song and I have way too much history, emotion, change, anger and devotion to even try to adequately address it. And so while I could tell the procedural history of my relationship et. al. with Airport Song, the important stuff is what underlies all that history, those nights spent rollerblading down the Venice boardwalk at 11 at night, the afternoons strolling around the waterpark and the evenings spent rolling around in bed.

I can hint at all that. But I cannot get it right.

But I hope you understand how much this limitation says about Airport Song. So much that I don’t even have a single self-deprecating joke this morning.

Back to my silly blogging starting now,
Chris

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Moxie finally got her new site design up, and she's right. It does load a hell of a lot faster. Good thing too: that old one took forever sometimes.

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The really funny thing is that I have agonized over this same question for years.

By the way, I still don't have an answer for this one.

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10.15.2002

 

OCTOBER IS SELF-INDULGENCE MONTH AT THE HOSE MONSTER BLOG!

• Depends
  
• The Six-Day Special
  

Airport Song was one of the two girlfriends that really had some deep significance for me. I remember every girlfriend I have ever had, and they all have some special part of my memory, but my relationship with Airport Song might have been the most important one I have ever had. Either her or Rubber Ducky, but I couldn't make that decision if I had to. So I won't.

She was my first ... well, she was my first pretty much everything. My first real girlfriend. First girl I kissed (disputed). First girl with whom I did more than kiss. I could not even begin to try and make a list of all the firsts I had with her. I would end up hurting myself just trying to remember them all.

I met Airport Song was I was barely 17, right after finishing my junior year of high school. She was but six months older than I, and yet had just finished her freshman year of college. We met under the most casual of circumstances: teammates on a competition team. We became partners in an event. I was fascinated by her within minutes.

We developed a friendship quickly, but from the beginning it had emotional underpinings. She talked a lot about a guy she knew at school, about other things, about how different her life was nine months out of the year. I didn't care at the time. It was summer, and I was completely enamored of her. We could talk about anything.

I kissed her one night that summer. I'm sure of it. It was my first real kiss, and how could I honestly forget that? As I've said before, she still swears it never happened, but I wouldn't forget this sort of thing, trust me. It's kind of disappointing to have your first real kiss under dispute, but hey, if that was the price I had to pay to call myself her boyfriend, albeit many mile down the road, I'd do it again in a second.

Shortly thereafter, she told me that guy she always talked about was actually her boyfriend. I suppose I was disappointed, but not really all that surprised. I figured that someone like her would never want to be with a high school loser like me anyway, so I felt privileged as it was that we even hung out at all.

When school started up after that summer, we started seeing each other once every two weeks or so. I'd drive down to visit her at school, and inevitably we'd walk around campus for a while before finding our way back to her dorm room, where we would lay on the bed together, listen to music and talk. I always thought it amusing that she could not stand to listen to a CD for more than about five minutes; she was ever getting up from the bed, switching the discs, grabbing things from her desk, moving around. Just goes to show you how dumb I am: I had no idea that if she had stayed in bed there with me, she would have ended up doing something her boyfriend probably would not have been all that happy about. Chris Ward: oblivious man.

This continued on for six months or so, and we started drifting apart a little bit as I started getting ready to leave for college myself and starting my job up again, this time with her not around. At some point around her, she and her boyfriend of the time broke up, but I was getting ready to move on, so that was that. This of course did not stop us from randomly hooking up one night in my bedroom (apparently I was really bad at making out then, but I have since redeemed myself, she says, so I think all is well). But really, the summer was kind of a cooling off period for both of us.

Then I left for college.

We had a turbulent email relationship for a while there, but it was a good thing in many ways. Got a lot of feelings out. Set us up to start dating that summer. I'd see her every time I came home, we'd stay out way too late, I'd kiss her and wonder what the hell she was thinking hanging with my, loser freshman. She became my very first lover one spring break evening, and I drove home that night knowing I would have a real girlfriend for the first time that coming summer. And I did.

I remember our relationship that summer being great. We never fought. We just enjoyed each other and tried to forget that I would be going back to school in 2.5 months.

We decided to break it off when I went back to school. Neither of us really wanted to try the long-distance thing. That was the only break-up I've had that was truly difficult for me, but I knew it was going to happen from the outset of the relationship, so I accepted it and went on from there.

Since that time, Airport Song and I have gone through periods where we've hated each other, where we've relied on each other as much as possible, where we tried to forget that we live 2,000 miles away from each other and where we've been glad that those 2,000 miles meant we would only see each other a few times a year. We were sleeping together off and on for over three years. God, I'm glossing over so much, but there's just no way to even start on all of this.

In fact, I'm realizing that I cannot write about this anymore. I have too much that I think I should say and no good way to say it. I started this point thinking it might be great. I'm realizing now that it's so great that I cannot even adequately write about it. Sorry.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is probably the most disappointing post that has ever appeared on this blog. The topic and everything related to it is simply too much to try and tackle here. It's a novel or two. And because I hold Airport Song in such high esteem, I cannot consciously condone a continuation of the topic, because it will suck, and our friendship/relationship/affairs/etc. deserve much better than that. Nearly seven years of up and down history deserve better, and I frankly just cannot do it. I think it's important to recognize your limitations and be okay with that. I'm realizing that my limitation is not being to get this one right. But I'm okay with that. But dear reader, let me please seek your forgiveness today for the incompleteness of this writing. I simply am not up to the task. I shall try harder next time, when we talk about the following girlfriend, Going Away Present.

Why Airport Song, you ask? The vast majority of the time that she and I have known each other, we've lived apart. Even when we met and lived relatively close to each other, she didn't have a car, so many times our seeing each other was contingent on me. So we've really had a email and phone relationship for a long time. And the only times I see her, there is usually an airport involved somehow. It's also the song title of one of my favorite tunes by my favorite band. But the connection ends there.

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My new friend xfoo sums up better in in three sentences what I've been implying in this blog for five months.

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10.14.2002

 

This past weekend was Dad's Weekend in the cornfield. Picture in your head, if you will, images of fathers doing the macarena and twirling rhythm gymnastic streamers around and showing off a twirling routine that one dutiful father had clearly practiced with his daughter. Sounds awful, but it was actually really great to see. Dads are wonderful things, and when they willingly make asses of themselves to provoke a smile on the face of their kid, and 10,000 other kids who happen to see the same thing, they elevate themselves in the present time to that lofty position they may only otherwise occupy in memory and eulogy.

Saturday night, as I walked down the street holding hands with a beautiful girl, which just happens to be one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday night, I saw a number of fathers out with their kiddies doing their best to have a little fun, cornfield style.

Could you imagine walking into a bar with your father, ordering a double and glancing around the bar to find which hot girl you were going to talk about first? I can.

I miss my father all the time. I miss him a little more when I watch other guys tossing footballs around with their dads, when I see them throwing back a few beers as they stand around the grill watching the burgers cook or even running out into the end zone to do push-ups together to celebrate their team's most recent touchdown.

More than five years have past since I could do these things with my dad. Not that these actions happened everyday when we did live in the same geography, but that potential always sat latently somewhere. I never knew when he was going to look up and say, "hey, let's go shoot some pool" or "you mind helping shock the pool and wash the car this afternoon?" Such simple statements and actions always seemed like the most simple of affirmations of the father-son relationship and its importance to both of us. Dad always managed to convey that to me so effortlessly.

I realized this weekend that any more, I see my family maybe three to four times a year. Always over the winter holidays, usually once in the summer, sometimes around Thanksgiving, and occasionally one other random visit, death in the family or whatever other opportunity comes up. Far too little, but as much as practicality honestly permits, given constraints on time, money and distance. I understand this and accept it at face value: I know leaving California and my family was a decision I consciously made, and I know the separation I feel from them sometimes has come about because of my own actions and ongoing decisions. I usually try to parlay this feeling of separation and awareness that I am the prime maker of that separation into a deeper appreciation of the time I do get with my father, my mother and my sister.

But I still feel very jealous that I couldn't knock back a few beers this weekendwith my dad and see who could eat more burgers in a ten-minute span.

This post has no direction. I think I just miss my dad, and I didn't realize how much until a few days ago. But that's okay. I had a great weekend anyway.

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10.13.2002

 

She calls me up this morning not long after I had finally gotten out of bed.

Whatcha doing?

"Watching old episodes of American Gladiators."

I'm horny. Come over and let's make out.

Hmm. Tempting. The promise of booty or watching Turbo pull yet another sorry ass spandex-clad boy off the wall. Very tempting.

"But you live more than 100 miles away. It would take me at least two hours to get there."

I'm worth it. You've heard things, haven't you? Come on, I'll give you a blow job.

Tempting. On the other hand, I think I've seen this episode before, and Nitro and Gemini man the medicine balls for the Eliminator in this one. I think I remember one of them cracked this guy upside the head and knocked him clear off the balance beam. His sorry ass never even made it to the cargo net by the time his opponent finished. Blow job or seeing that again. Tough decision, to be sure.

"I dunno babe. Wouldn't it be weird? I mean, we've never even groped each other or anything."

Only because you never tried anything. We've known each other for way too long for you to have never tried anything, don't you think?

"Maybe, but still..."

Come on, I'm horny. And it's been way too long since you got any booty.

How did she know that? Hmm, it's not exactly a huge secret that I am a big loser and that girls don't really like me, but who's to say I haven't found some nerdy little girl who had a sexual animal inside just waited to escape? And there was that girl who told me I was pretty last week. I didn't quite know how to take that, so I decided it was a compliment.

"But it's over 100 miles. Two hours in the car!"

When you get back home tonight you can add a check to your purity test results for fulfilling the "Have you ever gone more than 100 miles for a booty call?" category.

Another tempting argument. I need a little more scandal in my life.

"What are you going to do if I don't come?"

Sit at home and masturbate.

"With the four-inch friend?"

Maybe. Maybe not. Does the thought of that make you horny?

"Yeah right. And besides, if I don't come, you'll just call up some other - wait, hold on." Phew, I almost missed it. Gemini plunked that sorry guy straight in the head. Looked like he got plunked with a gunshot in one of those crappy ass John Wayne movies. He went flying to the right, arms flailing all over the place.

I realized I wasn't going to top that moment today.

"I think I'm going to pass hun. It's just a long way to go."

You suck. Oh well, I wasn't going to give you a blow job anyway.

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Hose Monster: blog god to xfoo. He seems to think about women a lot. I like him already.

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