Well, here it is. These are the first words I’ve written in Cathedral City CA. Like I mentioned in the last blog it isn’t as if I haven’t been on my own before, living in random places in random cities in Southern California, an occasional dorm room on the other side of the country, etc., but it still feels strange that it actually happened. Or that it’s happening.
I wouldn’t say there was any hardcore-type stress involved at any point, but a sense of being overwhelmed came in waves in the week or so before it was time to go. My best friend Emin volunteered to help me move — and if truth be told there wasn’t that much that needed moving, because the plan all along was to just buy everything once I ultimately arrived — but then the week before Moving Day when I asked him if he was still ‘down,’ so to say, he told me he had to go to Arizona that weekend to visit his brother who just had surgery for an appendectomy that came about while he was flying back from Serbia. So his brother straight up flew for like 30 hours, according to Emin, with a gnarly pain in his stomach and when he came home and got the emergency surgery the doctor told him his was lucky to be alive. So it goes.
My backup plan to having Emin help me move was more or less nonexistent, so I ran the scramble drill a few days before while I was dealing blackjack on a Friday and kinda just threw it out there to one of my bosses — named Shannon (male) — and was like ‘Yo Shan, do you wanna help me move on Monday?’ And to my surprise he said sure, sounds like fun, almost like he was excited about it.
So I woke up at 9:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time on April 1st (a Monday) and went over to the U-Haul place right down the street to get a U-Haul. The guy who was working at the desk was this rough-looking older type of short and husky light-skinned dude who wore sunglasses indoors and a hat and had like a seatbelt-looking strap around his waist that was probably used to protect his back. He was helping someone in front of me while I waited in line and then all of a sudden he started talking in Spanish and kept making the Hispanic customer laugh, like over and over again. And while I was anxious for the day that was in front of me — I kinda just wanted to get going — for a second I paused and sort of Woke Up and thought about how cool it was that this light-skinned husky U-Haul worker was firing bars in Spanish and making the Hispanic customer laugh. He was just so unassuming, the U-Haul worker. He looked like a regular ass white guy (who wore sunglasses indoors).
In the five or ten minutes I waited in line not understanding a word that was being said (even though it must’ve been really fucking funny) I kind of made up the entire life story of this husky U-Haul worker. I pictured him going home every night around 5:00 P.M. PST and heading straight for his garage to start working on his car (or, more likely, his truck) even though it didn’t require any actual work. He would turn on like Fox News, once he got in his garage, and get really riled up while he was working on his car (or truck). And then his wife would come out at some point and hand-deliver him a Coors Light along with a sandwich of some kind and he would give her a peck on the lips or cheek and then she would go back in the house and start on the dishes or finish the laundry — something incredibly domestic.
And then the next day the husky U-Haul worker would go into work at the local U-Haul and tell Roger or fucking Billy (or whomever) about what he saw on Fox the night before, probably how Joe Biden wants to raise taxes again, and that taxes are already high enough — especially in California. And then Roger or Billy would tell the husky U-Haul guy about how they are planning to move to Arizona as soon as they can because It’s So Much Nicer Out There, I Hear, even though Roger or Billy have been saying that ever since they started working at the U-Haul place back in 2017. The husky U-Haul guy would then take off his sunglasses and look down at them as he sort of like wiped them off onto the base of his charcoal grey U-Haul polo shirt to clean off all the dust that was blowing that morning in Cathedral City CA while he proclaimed that he only has a few years left before he retires and goes out to live in fucking Denton TX or whatever so he can be closer to his mom and brother.
Then at family get-togethers and shit the husky U-Haul guy would be sitting at the head of the table while he tells his nieces and nephews to take their cars over to his place to work on them, noting that if they take them to Pep Boys or fucking Midas that they will only get taken advantage of. Then while he’s slugging down his like sixth Coors Light (though he still can’t feel a goddamn thing) he just has one of his nieces or nephews wheel out the ice chest (one with the pull-out handle and two wheels) so he won’t have to get up anymore if he wants another one. Then when there is a pause in the action he tells a story about how someone rented out a U-Haul the other day and ended up getting pulled over by the police like four-hundred miles away from the U-Haul pickup location and when the police searched the back of the truck they ended up finding sixty pounds of cocaine inside the drawers of like ten different dressers, which begged the question to the husky U-Haul driver while he was telling the story: Why would someone need ten different dressers in the first place if they weren’t committing some sort of crime? Are they fucking furniture movers? And if they are, why would they need to rent a U-Haul to move that much furniture?
And it reminded his wife, the wife of the husky U-Haul guy, of a few years back, when one of the customers got into a fight with her husband because he (the customer) ended up being charged an additional $40 USD because the little zip-tie thing outside the bags that they carry inside the U-Haul trucks was undone and missing a rug that was used to like set on the floor to move furniture with, even though the customer claimed he didn’t open the bag in the first place, and didn’t use any of the furniture-moving rugs, and that he ended up calling him, according to the husky U-Haul guy, a quote mutherfucking son-of-a-bitch, and that he, the customer, said he wanted to talk to corporate about getting charged an extra forty dollars and that he didn’t care about the money but it was ‘out of principle,’ he said, and then that night when they closed shop the husky U-Haul guy was leaving and that same customer he was in a verbal sparring match earlier was waiting for him in the parking lot, and then they reached fisticuffs. But as the husky U-Haul guy cracked open his seventh Coors Light (now out of the ice chest sitting right next to him) he laughed and said he took one slug at this puny little customer’s face and eliminated his fucking map, and that when the customer’s knees buckled beneath him and he fell that he hit his head so hard on the parking lot concrete that it sounded like a fucking anvil got dropped on some kind of hard surface.
One of his nephews, of the husky U-Haul guy, that is, wondered along the way why or how such a story reminded her, the wife of the husky U-Haul guy, of all the cocaine in the dressers. But immediately when that thought enters into his brain he feels a vibration in his pocket and even though his own personal mother says it’s rude to take out his phone at the dinner table — especially when the Grownups are talking — he has this like crush on a girl he goes to high school with and it’s Her who just texted him so he sort of like sneaks in a text back to her and by the time he comes to and he isn’t distracted anymore it’s towards the end of the story (that he has already heard multiple times), the part where his uncle, the husky U-Haul driver, throws a haymaker and knocks this pathetic customer the fuck out, and by now his mind is on the girl that he likes and he doesn’t care so much to ponder anymore why his aunt is teeing up her husband for another moment of glory and so he just laughs along with the other six or seven people who are at the table.
So what I’m saying is, this husky U-Haul worker wasn’t at all impressed by me at the moment he could no longer crack jokes and be funny in Spanish to the Hispanic customer who was in front of me at circa 9:30 A.M. PST. I was filled with nothing but Yes Sir’s when he asked me if I was there to rent a truck, if I had made a reservation, if I had a credit card on file, if he could please see my Driver’s License, etc. And then when all that got squared away he took me outside and told me I had the Big One that was wedged between the two Little Ones and instantaneously I regretted getting the 15-footer because it seemed so unnecessary compared to the two 10′ trucks on either side of it.
And then he wheeled me out a dolly which I had to put in the back for when I started driving, but on the back of the truck was this gigantic fucking padlock and the key that opened it was this teeny-weeny little thing and when I was trying to jimmy the fucking thing loose, to open it, it felt as all get out like the eyes of the world were descending upon me because I was anxious and hungover and had this sense of embarrassment, almost, because I am not Mr. U-Haul Guy. I do not like to move. I always — and I use ‘always’ in the 100-percent-of-the-time sort of way — pay other people to do my dirty work. It took everything I had just get that big 15-foot sumbitch out of the U-Haul parking lot without backing it into something that was behind me that I couldn’t see because everything was so cramped. And why in the world are we allowing irresponsible people like me the ability to drive big ass fucking trucks?
The real issue I had was that it took a lot of power just to get the thing to like move. It felt as if I was flooring that stupid goddamn machine and it would only get up to 65 or 70 mph on the freeway, so what I did was drive in the slow lane with a bunch of semi-trucks (who I ended up making really good friends with most of them) for most of the trip back to Riverside CA while I listened to country music on the radio. When I finally got comfortable with it, the 15-foot rig, I went the complete opposite direction, internally. I imagined myself as a truck driver. I could do this for a living, I kept telling myself. This ain’t so bad. It’s almost like I was living the whole experience in retrospect while it was happening.
That’s kinda what I meant earlier on in this article when I mentioned being ‘overwhelmed.’ That isn’t a word I use to describe myself, since it’s actually a pretty rare sensation I feel. Under most circumstances — and this has been true ever since I felt any sort of pressure growing up playing sports or being disciplined by teachers and I had to like try to talk my way out of a potential punishment on the spot — I enjoy moments of consequence. I was born with a weird kind of power where I can feel it and comprehend it, the pressure, while it’s happening. Everything sort of slows down and I can focus on breathing, and thinking, because the only athletes and sports heroes I ever admired or respected were the ones who possessed the so-called ‘clutch’ gene, who were at their best in the most crucial situations. I’m not saying I’m an athlete (because I’m not), just that it’s the same thing.
But here, in being overwhelmed, it was really all about the buildup of knowing I had to move, knowing two and three weeks out that this particular day was coming eventually. Of knowing I had to rent a U-Haul, drive an hour-plus back home to Riverside CA, load up the truck, drive all the way back to Cathedral City CA, unload the truck, and then once I got back (to C.C. CA) I’d have to unpack everything and build all the new furniture I bought, and so on. While I was making the initial drive back to Riverside with the U-Haul truck the only real thing I looked forward to was sitting at a bar afterwards, after the day’s work was over, having a few brews, and eating a cheeseburger. That was all that mattered to me. That cheeseburger.
I eventually made it back to Riverside and both of my brothers were there to help me load up the truck. There were maybe a dozen boxes and a dresser and the big, heavy item, the One Big Thing that every move involves, the thing that all roads lead to, was my treadmill. It weighs like 200+ pounds because it’s really good quality. I think it was like a thousand dollars but when I bought it it was during a Black Friday sale on Amazon so I got it for like six hundred bucks. But that thing was a real bitch, both to load and later on to unload.
It only took us, my brothers and I, like 15 or 20 minutes to load everything up. Before I left I had a beer with them in the backyard while I smoked a cigarette, and then when it was time to Go I hugged both of them and told them I loved them. Individually, of course. And they both said they would come out to visit me, but I know it was one of those things that it probably won’t happen anytime soon, if ever. That’s just not how they roll. The truth is I’ll still have dentist appointments that are like literally right around the corner from where they live, so I assume it’ll make more sense that I stop by to see them rather than the other way around.
So, yes, I was overwhelmed by the theory of it all. The idea of all the things that necessarily needed to get taken care of. But once the day got going and the driving to and fro took place I ended up reverting to the good ol’ cliches of taking it One Thing At A Time and Crossing That Bridge Once We Get There, and so on. It really wasn’t that bad.
Shannon and I unloaded the truck around 1:30 in the afternoon and were at Burgers and Beer c. 3:00 P.M PST. Caitlin Clark and Iowa were playing LSU. We had some beers and then he had to leave to have dinner with his family, and I stuck around and ordered their classic cheeseburger with all the fixin’s, and got some french fries because that’s how I roll. It was everything I thought it would be. I inhaled the thing and then went home.
More than anything what I think I learned about myself throughout the entire process was just how little I like receiving help from people. Like I think it’s a legitimate flaw of mine. From the very beginning I wanted to put the least possible amount of stress on all the people around me, even though almost everyone was excited and enthusiastic about making it a positive experience for me, the move I mean. I probably could have gotten a solid 15 people to help me unload the truck once I made it back to the desert but I chose Shannon (male) after Emin had prior engagements. I didn’t want to make my brothers have to drive all the way out here and then all the way back to Riverside CA. Even my WiFi was frustrating to set up and Sarah (written about previously in the February 2024 article, the girl with the hair) wanted to help but I wouldn’t let her. Feeling like I am being a burden is one of the worst things in the world, according to me.
I am sure it all — as does everything else — revolves around pride and ego, and a certain selfishness of mine, that asking for help is akin to showing some kind of vulnerability. And I hate that from both ends. I hate that I have a hard time taking or receiving help, and I hate the presumed weakness it entails whenever I do. I’m sure I will get over that eventually. I’m sure one day I will get over myself. But not today, baby.
From an intrapersonal perspective 2023 was a very fucked up year, specifically due to the fact that I did exhibit vulnerability. It’s one of those things where whenever I do ultimately, or inevitably, end up opening that door — of vulnerability, exuding weakness, etc. — it has (historically speaking) been very difficult for me to close it. But one of the major themes of last year’s 2023 Year In Review was realizing that such unremitting discomfort, over such a prolonged period of time, generally always gets the most, or the best, out of me in the days (or months, or years) to come. Adversity creates strength. There is simply no way around that. William Shakespeare’s whole ‘To be or not to be’ from Hamlet was truly just an existential exercise into making the choice of living, or succumbing to the alternative. Not to take it all the way there, but you know what I’m saying. Adversity can be a good thing.
Every challenge I have ever faced, every problem I have ever solved, every moment of adversity I have ever overcome, was simply another mountaintop that I reached before realizing I was merely at the base of another mountain that needed to be scaled. And it’s in those moments of comfort, of perceived happiness, when one is blinded by the heights that are still right there in front of them. That lie ahead. Generally always they can be seen by others — especially those closest to you — before they decide to show themselves to you, personally. But they are there. Reality doesn’t ever hide itself, it just waits for you to catch up.
By moving to Cathedral City I have climbed another mountain, even though the peak is a pretty mundanely-sized one. I will remain motivated by the year 2023 for as long as it takes until I am humbled again, which if history is any indication only comes around once every decade or so. Alas. Nonetheless. The fruits that it bears brought me to this point, on this patio, in Cathedral City CA. And hopefully by this time next year I will be making plans to move into my first house. A stepping stone is what I called this. It is not my destination. Rather it’s just another mountain before the next one arises.
It’s funny, because I have no perspective on where I am even living. I was outside recently on the smoke patio at work talking to one of the managers from the hotel and one of the valet drivers, and they were both telling me that where I live in Cathedral City is in ‘the hood.’ But what I can’t get beyond is just how quiet everything is. Like, the community I live in is gated, and I never hear a peep. From anyone. There is no noise coming from anywhere. I almost don’t know how to handle it.
It goes without saying that I, the humble author of these stupid blogs, was born and raised in San Bernardino CA — objectively speaking one of the worst cities in the entire United States. There, everything is hood. Everything is The Hood. Even where I lived right before this in Riverside CA was in a very workingclass neighborhood and it was not at all uncommon to hear a gunshot every now and again, for the neighbors to throw parties and make noise until the early hours of the morning, for homeless people to be fucking chillin’ on like every block in the surrounding area, etc. The local streets that surround me, here, currently, certainly give me workingclass — i.e. poor — vibes, but specifically where I am located feels like an oasis, or sanctuary within it. As someone who is fluent in understanding what is and what is not ‘hood,’ this doesn’t feel like it.
More than anything, I’m of the opinion that The Hood is a mindset. I spent virtually my entire upbringing learning and finding ways to be absolutely unimpeachable to the circumstances that were around me (even before I knew how ‘bad’ San Bernardino was). Many of my friends — even me (twice), if I am being honest — have seen the inside of a jail cell. Some of them aren’t here anymore. And some of my other friends came from reputable families and never really had to understand what it was like to live on EBT, to sell drugs to make ends meet, who lived a life of so-called privilege. All I can say about myself, personally, is that I feel more comfortable saying I am ‘doing well’ instead of ‘doing good,’ but I can speak both languages, if you know what I’m saying. I can live and operate in both worlds. I can relate to the workingclass and the privileged all the same. Nothing really surprises me anymore, and nothing ever feels all that weird to me. I love that about myself. It might be my favorite thing.
I guess what I’m trying to communicate is that I mind my own fucking business. I stand on business. Everybody can relate to that, regardless of who they are or where they come from. All that bullshit from years and years ago about being a white boy walking down the street in a bad neighborhood and running into a group of Black guys, or Hispanic guys, the oh-my-they-are-so-scary-looking-what-am-I-to-do folks, really comes down to one’s ability to not fuck around and find out. And I’ll tell you, since this is my blog, after all, that I have been confronted by that specific scenario on multiple occasions, more than I can count, in the undesirable city of San Bernardino CA, on the nights I had to take walks to let off some steam or however you want to call it, and whenever it was that I happened upon a group of hardcore-looking/seeming mutherfuckers and I was all by myself, all I would do was give them the head-nod, or say ‘what’s up?’ or something of the like, and they would see me in return walking the streets and either give me the head-nod back or ask me how I’m doing. Again, game recognize game. Minding your business is minding your business. This stuff is not complicated.
With that as an aside (and being apropos of nothing, really), I think I like it here. It’s been a week and I don’t think I’ve even started adjusting to it yet — now that my hour-long drive to work only takes ten minutes, shopping for my own groceries, being very fucking close to the temptation of like five different casinos, etc. — but it feels like where I belong right now. Every other time I have moved out of one place and into a new one I had certain brief and quiet moments to myself where I got really sentimental, like a sharp and sudden sadness came over me, all at once, but this time around I never really experienced that. When I packed up my room and said goodbye to my brothers and my mom it just felt so necessary.
Now that I’m here, I won’t lie: a part of me misses the noise of the workingclass neighborhoods of San Bernardino and Riverside CA. That’s true irony. Adapting to the slower-paced desert life of Southern California is a transition that has been in the works ever since I began being a table games dealer in January of 2014. I think I knew from the very start that this was one day going to be where I lived. Maybe not right here, specifically, but in this general region. Having lived and made the hour-plus-long drive for more than a decade, it felt like I was a world away. Now that I’m here everything feels like it’s right around the corner, even if it’s 30 minutes or some shit.
Anyway, long story short: I went to U-Haul and got a truck, I moved, and I finally got my cheeseburger.
* * * * *
I can’t predict the future or anything, but I have a strong feeling like one day I will look back on this particular stage or era of my life as the absolute dumbest regarding my relations with the opposite sex. And that’s saying something if you know me, or if you have known me, because I’ve been pretty terrible with women and have already been through multiple incredibly dumb stages.
Where I’m at now is that place where I have more or less traveled down every road with the bundle of participants or suitors who have occupied my time over the last, I don’t know, let’s call it 12 months or something. I have seen what’s out there, in other words. I have exhausted any meaningful potentialities with everyone — which is only like a handful, it’s not some crazy number — and I have arrived back in the familiar place where my preference, or choice, is having nothing over having something. Where it is more beneficial to spend time with myself than try someone out simply for the sake of saying I did it.
But in every era, with every collection of individuals, the time is marked by that One Special Someone, she who stands out above all the rest.
And I used to think she was really somebody, you know? I’ve referenced her before, probably back in the January blog. Whichever one featured ‘Ocean Drive’ by Duke Dumont. The long and short is that her and I probably met like three or four years ago but she was married at the time, and in the subsequent months that followed the two of us, her and I, went on this Dr. Zhivago-like cat-and-mouse odyssey where we were both aware of each other, where we probably each thought the other was a prospect, but with the conflict of interest at our place of work nothing ever materialized. Then back in December of last year, 2023, that is, I shot my shot, so to say, we started spending time with one another, she got me out of my comfort zone, and for a while it was pretty cool.
Yet after those initial couple of months I think I knew, intrinsically, that she was not, in fact, The One. It was just a feeling that crept up on me, one of those where I think if her and I hadn’t had such a long windup, if we didn’t have such an exaggerated and drawn out history-without-really-having-history, I wouldn’t have made such strides to make it ‘work’ as actively as I did. There were all sorts of warning signs — from a disguised style of jealousy on her end that she playfully tried to couch as being ‘territorial,’ to being well beyond the normal astrology/crystal bitch into a straight up conspiratorial-type, to blaming me for miscommunications that stemmed from English being her second language, etc. — but as I rationalized everything to my friend Sarah (who is virtually the only female I really talk about this stuff with), and told her, Sarah, that is, that I planned to find a way to get out of it, the next day or whatever I would see this Special One who wasn’t really The One and she’d be looking all hot and shit and I would continue to prolong the inevitable. Because I’m like that.
I think the biggest problem I had with her was actually the same problem I had with the 23 year-old stripper I dated last year: Getting blamed for ‘triggering’ her without having any previous knowledge about whatever particular trigger I happened to ignite.
Back in the old days — let’s call it the nice broad range between 2010-2020 — I rarely had problems pinpointing whenever I was at fault with females I either cared about or was in a relationship with. And I’m not like the standard-bearer or poster-child for good and healthy behavior, but my forte was never to gaslight and make the other party feel like they were the crazy one. I actually think I do a pretty good job of apologizing when I am at fault. I take accountability for my actions, which has to count for something.
So when last year I would get into the absolute dumbest arguments of my life, with this 23 year-old, over things relating to using particular words she didn’t like, or referencing an ex-girlfriend (when she was, in fact, already in a relationship with somebody, and had no problems talking about her ‘significant other’ to me) it would sometimes take like an hour before I could calm her, the stripper, that is, down, and finally be able to convince her that I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know, and therefore I Should Not Be Blamed For Triggering You Over Something I Don’t Know Is A Trigger. But everything was a one-way street with her. All my good deeds got me was being labeled a ‘narcissist’ by her, which I can’t help but think was a word she learned like a week before she met me.
The stripper was the only reasonable example of this phenomenon that I have ever experienced. And due specifically to the fact that she was 23, I allowed her a much longer leash, given that she was a full decade younger than I am. It didn’t feel, like, healthy, while I was ‘with’ her, but at the same time I was, in a sense, fighting against, or in a battle with, my own mortality, my own age, and the idea that, despite being ‘young’ in some circles, I was clearly not youthful like the stripper happened to be. So I was more or less running a vague kind of experiment where I really wanted to understand if this, her, she, was the new normal. If girls like her were what I needed to adapt to. And I really made an honest effort to learn from her.
At a certain point, however, being a crazy bitch is not sensitive to being 23, or 33, or 43, or any age. It is indiscriminate: being a crazy bitch. You either are one or you aren’t. That is ultimately what I had to find out for myself, that I wasn’t being like insensitive or belittling or the one at fault. That under most circumstances she, the stripper, was just looking for a reason to pick a fight with me, because she had issues that predated my inclusion into her life, and while the makeup sex was always great and hard and rough and passionate and all that, I’ll get sick of pretty much anything after enough time passes.
Like I said, that was my only other reference point for what went down with this current woman. (She was not 23, for the record. She turns 29 next month.) I remember one night — somewhat early on in our friendship/whatever-you-want-to-call it — and she was driving home from work or something, and I had just gotten done smoking some weed, and she asked me what I was doing. I told her I was playing a video game, which really doesn’t mean anything. In a given day I probably spend anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour playing them (video games). It’s something I do to pass some time, but it doesn’t have any bearing on my lifestyle. If you took my PS4 out of my life I wouldn’t really give a shit.
But somehow saying I was playing a video game was the wrong answer, because she just went silent on me. And I was really high but still like plenty functional and aware enough to realize that something was wrong on the other end of the line. So I did the thing where I wanted to make sure everything was cool, or okay, with this girl, and then finally when she started talking again she went on a 15-minute diatribe about how her ex-husband was like super into playing video games, and it was all he did in his free time, and that whenever she entered the room and like distracted him that he would yell at her, and so on.
It was stressing me out, listening to this story. Because I know of people who are like that — who play video games. But it was bumming me out, too. It was killing my buzz. Listening to her go on and on. It all seemed so dumb to me, given that (1) the way her ex-husband played/consumed video games was completely different than me, and, more importantly, (2) why in the fuck would you be mad at me for playing a video game when I didn’t even know that about her and her ex-husband? Again: I don’t know what I don’t know. I can’t be blamed for triggering someone when I have no idea what triggers them in the first place.
The more egregious example occurred a few weeks ago, in my waning days of living in Riverside CA en route to moving to Cathedral City CA, when for whatever reason the two of us, this girl and I, were talking about family — because I guess she is currently going through a pretty rocky relationship with either one, or both, of her sisters. I don’t fucking know.
And so when it became my turn to talk (which took some time), I kinda just gave the obligatory or like rudimentary explanation of my own family dynamic, insofar as my parents were concerned, and I explained how my dad had all the gifts of brains and natural abilities but possessed very little work ethic, and how my mom possessed all sorts of near-valedictorian-level work ethic but not so much in terms of ‘smarts,’ and how happy, or satisfied, I was, or am, that I was the one son (of the three my parents had) who was able to like marry the best of both worlds together. That I take after both of them. And that they were each, my parents, that is, thrilled for me and excited that I was venturing off into the great unknown of being self-reliant and living by myself again. That was the gist of what I said.
Again, silence. I could tell something was awry. And given my prowess of being like empathetic and caring about the disposition of this woman, I asked her if something was wrong. She didn’t want to talk at first. Then she opened her mouth and began a dialogue and told me that she was triggered because she never knew her dad and has this fucked-up sort of relationship with her mother and siblings at current press time, which is when I decided to reference the girl I was dating last year (though I withheld that she was a stripper, because I’m semi-aware of the negative connotations that such an occupation would say about me, perhaps rightfully so), and I basically told her that I can’t know what I don’t know. I can’t give a trigger warning if I don’t know what the triggers are.
And it has to be the dumbest way to go through life, walking on eggshells just to have normal, common conversation. I mean, what is the logical conclusion to all of this? That if her and I were dating that I wouldn’t be able to play video games anymore? That, henceforth, I would no longer have the option of mentioning my parents, in any sort of wow-they-actually-care-about-their-son sort of capacity?
It’s fucking stupid, this sort of mindset. The truth is, I can occasionally be a fucking asshole. But I don’t go out of my way to be one. If I know someone is insecure about something, I don’t make it a point to screw around with them about it. I live in the modern world where I know everybody is going through something, even if it’s something I think means very little, because I am certain that many people would look at my own personal something(s) (whatever they happen to be at any given time) and think it/they mean(s) very little, too. Perspective matters. Everything is relative. But I think it’s fucked up that I actually care, yet for some reason I am still on the wrong end of the blame for no other reason that I have not yet developed the capacity to read minds.
And I am working on that, reading minds. Getting better at being more compassionate and empathetic. I promise you that. I care about those younger than me, especially females, not only for the fact that one day the overwhelming likelihood is that I will end up with one of them and live happily ever after, but because young people are much more in tune with the ways of the world than all the older heads who are so set in their ways. I have always tried to maintain a balance between living a certain type of life that shows my experience, that gives the necessary perspective to those who need it based off of everything I have learned and everything I know, while never shitting on or turning a blind eye towards those who have learned far less or who haven’t yet learned. I call it keeping my ears to the ground. Eyes open. Ten fingers. Ten toes. I am here.
So I consider myself the perfect kind of candidate to hearing these people out, those younger than I am, even if it so happens that days or weeks or months after the fact I feel the same way about them, and their trials and tribulations, that I feel in the moment. The moment that comes when I feel as if I am being blamed for no reason. Where I try to empathize with their youthfulness and vigor while keeping my own perspective, the one that tells me this is all fucking bullshit and that they need to grow up.
But it was a lot of things, those that make her and I incompatible. I think when everything was new and fresh it was a lot easier to let petty annoyances slide and turn the other cheek. Because, again, I try to keep an open mind and I don’t want to shut people out. I also probably got off a little bit about the smalltime danger aspect of it all, where her and I like weren’t necessarily supposed to be doing whatever it was we were doing.
It just got so weird, sometimes. She would call me some nights because she said she missed me and wanted to talk to me, but then once I got on the line she would just do the dishes or go fuck off and take a shower, expecting me to stay on the phone the whole time even though we weren’t even talking that much. I’m still unaware if it was some power move on her end, where she wanted to make sure I was present with her, rather than doing something else (even though I’m rarely doing anything other than writing or playing video games during those hours), or if she was just lonely, and needed someone to be There, for her, or with her, in the moments she wasn’t really doing anything.
It required several of these types of calls before I realized what was happening, which is around the time I stopped answering unless it was convenient for me. I’d make up excuses and tell her I was talking to my mom or that I was hanging out with my brothers, because I knew she would have to respect that. Usually I’d just be in my backyard writing. That’s generally always what I would rather be doing, anyway.
It was kind of illuminating, though, when I finally understood what it was all about. In maybe late February or early March or somewhere around then. Maybe it was sooner, I don’t know. Maybe it was immediately.
And what I realized — or, ‘understood’ is I guess the word that I used — was that when you really like someone, it is during the moments where nothing is happening, when there isn’t anything to ‘talk about,’ per se, the ‘Quiet Times,’ as Dido wrote, that make one know: nothing else matters. That just being around is enough. And when it feels like some kind of chore or like drag whenever you are talking to another person, it can only mean that that person is wasting your time. Because there are certainly instances worthy of being goofy, and there are other instances worthy of being serious. But the best moments always occur when it’s simply a free exchange, when life is just happening in realtime, and nothing needs to be said, and nothing needs to be done, and when you find a person like that is how you are capable of understanding what it means to be truly alone. When they aren’t there anymore.
So when I felt these things, these chores, these drags, these phone calls that were incumbent upon me to make excuses over, to avoid, I should have known. Yet I let it drag on. And then sometimes when we did talk we would get on these absurd tangents where she would ask me if I believed in time travel, and I would say no. And then she would say that time travel has actually been proven, and I would say, no, no it hasn’t, and then she would tell me I needed to open my mind, and do my research, because those are the two things — needing an ‘open mind’ and doing ‘research’ — that these whacko conspiracy-types always accuse the non-believers of lacking. And I would always retort with some vague and lazy explanation involving logic, of how You Can’t Possibly Know Things That I Don’t Know, but it was never in a way where I was calling her stupid. Because obviously she knows plenty of things that I don’t know. I was more saying that something like time travel, some supernatural phenomenon, can’t be known by a select few who possess an ‘open mind’ and who ‘do their research,’ and not be known by, like, literally everyone on the planet.
It’s the same religious bullshit the True Believers say, where they claim God has like ‘spoken’ to them, or whatever, and that they know it all, for a fact, to be true, and if anyone says otherwise they (ironically) have a closed mind, or that they’ve been brainwashed by the public schools, or the liberal media, and so on. And the common misconception about Atheism — which isn’t necessarily the big-picture subject matter here, but it’s relatable to the time travel — is and never has been some statement of fact that God Does Not Exist. It’s merely saying that there isn’t any evidence to say that God Does Exist. And there is a massive difference between those two statements. That’s essentially the counter I was making: That I’m not saying Time Travel Doesn’t Exist, only that there isn’t any evidence to say it Does. Why am I wasting so much time writing about this? Long/short is this bitch crazy.
Last thing, because I’m not done yet! What I’ve always hated about the people on the attack with their crazy beliefs is their accusation that I, Eric, don’t have an open mind, or the insinuation that I haven’t already done my research. Every single person who exists has a Bullshit Meter, or threshold, they must prescribe to and/or abide by. And there are those who believe the earth is flat, or that lizard people (whatever those are) run the American government, or that time travel exists, and those people clearly have a very low or minimal ability to parse between reality and whatever happens to tickle their fancy. I hate to be so boring, and logical, but I really can’t fucking help it. Math makes sense to me. A priori knowledge makes sense to me. I simply don’t get that much of a bang out of believing in things that may or may not be true, but that cannot be proven to be true. That’s a waste of my time as well.
If the last several paragraphs are any indication, it just got so stupid, over time, between her and I. Even the first time she came to visit my condo around the first of this month, I told her the gate code, to just take a left at the roundabout, and then another left, and that I would be there waiting (because I was standing there on the phone) at the end of the road.
Upon entry she asked what section of units I was located in. And me, having lived here for literally, like, a day, was like huh? Section? And she was like are you A? B? C? And so on. And standing out there I guess I looked up and saw the letter ‘H’ on my building, so I told her ‘H,’ and she started giving me the business about How Do You Not Know What Section You Live In? Again, it was all so fucking stupid. I told her, yo, I gave you the exact directions of where to go, but she was fixated on how You Should Know What Block You Are On.
I don’t know what it is. Something about possessing a Y Chromosome and being heterosexual and seeing a woman with a nice body turns off all the logic and red flags and dealbreakers, for brief moments, anyway. It’s funny because I am so hell-bent on being One Of The Good Guys, and not hitting women, and not raping or assaulting women, and always doing my damnedest to make them comfortable, to take care of all matters financial, doing a decent job on the emotional/communicative stuff, the spiritual stuff (even if I don’t agree with them on it), and fight the good fight on not taking advantage of situations, etc., yet at the end of the day I’m wired genetically to be the dog and the womanizer that everybody more or less thinks I am or expects me to be, so a lot of the time none of the good I have to offer matters, and it’s impossible to differentiate me from every other straight male on the planet. Onward.
As time went on it became harder and harder to pick up the pieces after our latest low-magnitude spat, or whatever you want to call it. We would get into trivial fights over nonsense, we would make up, and then the cycle would repeat itself. I would talk briefly about it to Sarah some nights and she would implore me to stop playing games and just get it over with, break it off, and I don’t know if it’s some defect I possess but I’m kind of under the impression that I can control everything, and so it’s always my intention (in matters such as these, where I’m the one who gets to decide when it’s over and done with) to let her, the Special One who was/is not The One, down as easily as possible. Where I could be gentle on her. Where I could give her a nice soft landing spot in her experience with the one and only Eric Reining, which always has an expiration date.
Again, every scenario plays out a lot better and a lot more amicably in my mind than it does in reality — which has been proven. I can swear until I’m blue in the face that my intentions are not only pure but correct, as in we don’t always have to go bombs away whenever we want to find a way to the ultimate conclusion on matters relating to the heart. I care enough about people — even the ones I fall out of favor with — to not be my honest selfish self, and so I try my mightiest to walk the thin line where I can get what I want out of the situation while simultaneously making it seem like it is the best thing for both parties.
But that ain’t what happened. I was out last night at the local Palm Springs Lanes to support one of my buddies who is in a pool league, shooting spheric balls into pockets on a pool table, and so on, and this dude is really fucking good. I mean he invited me to play with him like a month ago and I thought, sure, I am down to shoot some pool. I have always been decent at shooting pool. I’d say whenever my friends back home and I ended up at a dive bar back when I lived in San Bernardino that I was better than most of them. Like I would win more often than not. And then I played my buddy and he’s one of those guys where if you don’t like make all the shots in a given round that he would just erase every ball that’s left on the table. He’s so good that after I played him I wanted to kill myself. Or at the very least never play pool ever again.
Then this woman who this section of the blog is about texted me and asked what I was doing, that night, so I told her. And then she asked if it was okay that she came, too, and I said sure it’s cool with me but just so you know there are a couple people from table games (my department) here, and I didn’t want her to like get in trouble and shit. But she said she didn’t mind, so she came, we all drank, and then afterwards the two of us went to one of the local casinos.
I went back to my condo and took two thousand dollars in cash out of one of my shoeboxes and her and I drove out to the casino. And I remember while I was driving and she was in the passenger seat next to me and we were listening to The Killers play at high volume while the two of us screamed our lungs out during the song ‘Caution’ off Imploding The Mirage — pitch perfect album title for the dynamic her and I share(d) — the thought entered my brain that I have never smoked a cigarette in front of her. That I respected her so much over the previous four or five months that I did not subject her to being my true cigarette-smoking self, for I knew she would judge me on these sorts of things, and I respected her enough not to do it.
As an aside, in retrospect that’s sort of a red flag in itself: the fact that I couldn’t really be myself in front of her. I’m not saying I have to smoke cigarettes — that doesn’t qualify as an important part of my character — I’m just arguing that I cared enough about her, that I cared enough about what she thought of me, to be willing to withhold this certainly turnoff-able aspect of myself with the idea that if I did like this person enough, if I liked her as much as I once thought, I would give up smoking altogether. For her. And it’s crazy how many nights we ended up having sleepovers and I would go all night without even thinking about smoking. It is something I do, but it is not something I have to do.
But alas, I lit up a fucking cigarette. I did. Then when we went to the casino I was at a table with a guy I actually deal to at work, at my own personal dealing job at a different casino, and he’s a high-limit player, and he smokes cigarettes, too. So the two of us were firing a few hundred dollars a hand playing blackjack and we were smoking virtually the whole time — which didn’t last very long: it was only like 15 or 20 minutes. Enough to put a couple down. The woman I was with left almost immediately because she said the smoke was bothering her, but I won’t lie I was more focused in that moment on the $500 double down I had just lost. So it goes.
I already knew there was friction. Like I knew my original sort-of-fucked-up thought to light up in front of her on the freeway was a test. And I think I knew the answer I was going to get. The answer I was going to get was what happened to be unfolding in front of me in that moment, where I went to meet up with her after losing all my money and she was being standoffish the whole time. If truth be told I was kinda dealing with her attitude and kinda focused on trying to find my I.D., because for the life of me I really needed it so I could use some of my food comps to get a cheeseburger. Why does everything always come back to cheeseburgers with me? I really wanted one. But I lost my I.D. (And now I have to go to the fucking DMV this week to get another one.)
So as the two of us left the casino I was going through the Charlie Brown shit where the parents are talking and it’s just noises being made on her end, coming out of her mouth, some blah blah blah about smoking, and how I left her inside the casino, and how she wanted this and wanted that but I was too busy gambling, etc., and I was going after the situation through the lens of losing my I.D. I have in the past experienced some very Long Rides home with females, but this one was like thirty-five minutes and it was total and complete silence the whole ride back. Like dead quiet. There were a couple instances I sort of let out a smile, knowing that I had pretty much accomplished what I set out to accomplish. Pulling the strings. Manipulating circumstances for my benefit. It might come across as kind of fucked up, but I didn’t want her to come join me that night at the bowling alley/pool hall in the first place. I tried to keep her away, just as I had been during the last month where I didn’t really want to see her but she found her way to come see me anyway on a couple occasions.
Then when I used the transponder, the one that opens the gate to the community of villas/condos that I just moved into, I broke the silence and asked her: ‘So, what’s up?’ And I don’t know what it was about her juvenile, unoriginal, borderline petulant-child-ass response, when she said ‘Umm, the sky? The clouds? The stars…’ but it just rubbed me the wrong goddamn fucking way. So I went catatonic for a bit and parked the car and then she gave me the whole runaround from everything she had already been saying, and I didn’t have much to add to it. ‘So this is all surface-level about me smoking?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve never wronged you. This is about me smoking?’
But she likes to litigate and re-litigate matters, and when she was done droning on and tiring me out and boring me she finally said something along the lines of ‘Next time we go out it isn’t going to be like this,’ probably referencing the fighting, which has grown to be commonplace over our last handful of talks/hangout sessions, but what she didn’t know in that instant was that I happened to be in that perfect type of drunk stage where I was feeling pretty sharp and my true id was speaking and I no longer had any time for the bullshit, so I kept it as absolutely real and straight-the-fuck-up as I could possibly be, and I told her point-blank that ‘You and I are never going to see each other again.’ And it felt really, really fucking good.
She kept talking, and I’m not exactly proud of myself but I must’ve told this woman that I used to really care about to Get The Fuck Out on like four separate occasions. And when she finally did exit she slammed the passenger-side door and got in her car and left. I was really hungry. I wanted a cheeseburger. But I did not eat a cheeseburger. Instead I boiled some water and made some spicy noodles. I slept like a baby that night.
Perhaps the second-craziest aspect in all this is that the following day — a Wednesday, which is my Monday at work — I was happy and full of life despite only getting like five hours of sleep and having consumed several beers and a couple shots of tequila the night before. Under most circumstances I would be like a zombie all day at work and not have any energy to entertain America at my very public occupation of dealing cards to people gambling.
The number-one craziest aspect in all this is at like 12:30 P.M. PST the next day, this woman, the one in question, The Special One who wasn’t/isn’t really The One, actually texted me and fucking apologized to me for ‘being harsh last night.’ I was dumbfounded, for obvious reasons, thinking it was actually me who was being an asshole, whether by design or not, with the intention of getting what I desired, which is to say that I have been looking for a reason for like two months to figure this one out, the end game that was coming whether she liked it or not, where I wanted to make it easy on her, or myself, or both of us, and instead opted for the scenario where I poked the bear, so to say, and forced her hand, in a manner of speaking, all in the harmless yet completely abrasive act of pulling an American Spirit out of a light blue pack of cigarettes and lighting it up with a Bic. I did that. That is all I had to do. That is what it took.
I am going to remember her, of course. The struggle it took me to procure her phone number. The knowing-her-without-really-knowing-her buildup that eventually led to the mysterious nature of things that brought us together. The original conversation on the craps table in front of my friends back in like 2020. The thinking that she was out of my league but as time went on, knowing, for a fact, that I was out of hers. League, that is. The first date. The first sleepover. The slight and at the same time solid feeling of accomplishment of knowing that I used to like her, and that I really did, for a time, like her, that is, and that I lived and fulfilled that dream, transient as it was. The ridiculous notion that this, she, her, the Special One of this era that wasn’t/isn’t really The One, could have been the one to have my children and allow me to be a certain type of guy who is in the power position all the time. Everything was on the table, because I could have let everything be on the table. If only I didn’t keep to my own impossible standards of what is and what is not Good Enough. For me. Maybe she could have been that. Maybe in another life. But definitely not this one.
* * * * *
I had a dream last night, that I had a baby. I’ve never fucking dreamed of having a child before. I didn’t, like, birth it or anything. I’m super progressive and if you want to transition into being who you want to be, then have at it. I am all for you. That isn’t what this dream was about.
It was a really simple dream, actually. There was a baby lying on its side, kind of with a fat face and chubby cheeks. It was a fucking baby, in other words. And there was some chatter going on in the background, like female-type chatter. Where I knew there was this like baby right in front of me but I knew it was my baby. On some like Donnie Darko shit where it’s the end of the movie and there’s this like tunnel-esque portal coming out of him where he, Donnie, has to move towards it. Whatever direction it is going in, he has to go there. It’s his destiny. The one that goes to the refrigerator, then it leads him up to his room, and he just like accepts that he is going to arrive in his bed and that the plane engine or whatever the fuck it is is going to crash-land on his bed and totally kill him.
And I’ve never had a baby before. I mean I’ve never like impregnated a woman to where she would have my baby. But in this dream it all felt so real. It was so natural. Like yes, this is my baby right here. I think it was a boy but I can’t be certain. That might just be projection because in my head and in my heart I’d prefer to have a boy (in lieu of the alternative), even though I have always been under the impression that I will get the opposite of what I want — which is why my destiny is probably going to involve having all girls. If I ever have kids in the first place. It’s an open question at this point. (If truth be told as long as the baby has all its toes and all its fingers and is healthy, I don’t really care. All will be well with the world at that point. But I’m allowed to have my preferences, aren’t I?)
But I see this baby. And he looks so happy. Like he has no teeth but he’s smiling while I’m like playing with his belly button and shit. And he is lying on his side with his fat face and his chubby cheeks. Women are chattering in the background, but I don’t know who the mother is. I never see the face of the mother. I don’t know who she is. I never really turn my head to look to see who exactly is talking in the background, because I am so focused and so overjoyed about the baby that is in front of me. This is my baby, I keep thinking to myself. It’s white. The baby, that is. But I don’t generally like white girls, so who knows.
I just remember lying next to the baby, pinching his little cheeks or poking him on the belly button or whatever. Anything it required to make him laugh. To make him happy. And I was like talking to him. That was weird, too, but it’s what I was doing. I was telling him (presumably it’s a boy) how much I love him. That he will always be loved. That I will do anything for him. That’s what I was telling this baby, even though he didn’t have a fucking clue about what I was saying. I love you. I’ll do anything for you. Why were these my instincts? Why were these the feelings I had towards someone who does not exist, who may never exist?
It was the strangest dream.
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