Friday, March 14, 2008

Rubbed The Wrong Way

Thursday was one of those days where I'm amazed that I don't turn to coffee or endless amounts of caffeine to get by. I had two midterm exams, the first one starting at 9:30A, so my day started when I woke up about 7:30A. I had a two-hour class that my supervisor enrolled me in once I got to work (and what do you think that was about--yup, increasing speed of production), and I got off at 10:30P like I do every night. I then came home and played a video game before crashing into my bed about 2A. Now, that's not to say that I went caffeine-free the whole day. Several people, including my girlfriend, have had to convince me that harmless, heavily-sugared iced tea actually contains some caffeine too, and I had a 44-oz. cup of that at 1P with my chicken-strip lunch. I don't know if it really affects me, though. At least I don't think I'm more wired than usual. I just like the taste of heavily-sugared raspberry iced tea. I think I did well on both midterms, though. Now we have spring break, and after that's over, there's seven weeks left in this semester. I don't believe that I will be able to go to Columbia College this fall, however, because I've been too lax in starting the application process, as well as searching for scholarships, and I think I would be too late if I started now. That's okay. I still have one more class to take in order to graduate from Harold Washington College, and I'd have to shove that in this summer if I were to go to Columbia in the fall. It's probably for the best if I chill and try Columbia next spring.

I wanted to talk about the New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, who had to resign this week after his predilection to pay upwards of $4,500 for call girls was revealed. I don't think I've ever had reason to reveal my stance on prostitution in America, but I'm about to get on my soapbox now. Why the fuck is hooking illegal? If I want to pay my money for a grown human being to do something that's in no way illegal if money didn't transfer, I should be able to. I will never understand why I can pay for someone to massage my feet, my legs, my shoulders, my temples, my glutes, my hands, and my biceps, but not my cock. What's the difference? And don't say it's because you can orgasm from a dick massage, because I can introduce you to some ex-girlfriends who could cum very easily from a good neck rub. And, truthfully, everyone has a set of erogenous zones on their bodies, so there's some people getting off from shoulder rubs and leg rubs every damn day. I'm too lazy to research the countries where prostitution is legal, but I'm sure that their STD and HIV rates are lower because their workers, being legally governed, have to be medically cleared to work. But I've always had a problem with anyone telling me what I can and cannot hire someone to do to my body. And the funniest part is how the governor had to be forced out of his job for this. How many politicians have women on the side, paid for or not? But Spitzer is evil and must go? Please. Someone didn't get paid enough or had a vendetta against him, that's all. And at this moment, the other call girls are raising their fees because they have leverage, and their clientele knows that if they don't keep the ladies happy, the whistle can be blown. I tell you, there's just no accounting for what we accept and don't accept in America. I'm off my soapbox now.

Monday, March 10, 2008

So Close, Yet So Far

Well, "Jacob" is back in the house, sleeping on my couch, but he brought an offering of gratitude with him--a new(er) computer for me. And boy howdy, does this thing run better than my 8-year-old Dell. I'm amazed at how fast everything comes up when I request it. It's the same damn internet that I've had with the old computer, just much, much faster processing. I wish that I had more time to play around with it, but I hooked it up Sunday morning and promptly went to work, and I'm on here briefly right now before I go to class and then to work. Go, go, go.

The only thing interesting to happen in the last few weeks is that my girlfriend and I had very informal chats concerning marriage and living together. She is ready to leave the company she's worked for because of incompetence and corruption (her bosses, not hers). But to pick up her life and move here to Chicago with me, she's insisting that we first be married, lest we live in sin, or else she would move here and get her own place. At some point she posed the very direct question of whether I felt like it was the right time for us to get married. To my surprise, I hemmed and hawed before stammering out a very unconvincing "yes." Why the hesitation? I've been thinking a lot about that, and I think that I'm very scared of what I feel for her, what we have, and how I've felt in the past about other women I dated. Basically, I'm afraid that if I feel good enough about our relationship to marry her, at that moment I'll panic and feel like I have to find another lover to hedge my bet, or I'll panic worrying about whether I'm being stupid fully committing to a woman 1,000 miles away who could be doing anyone and anything she wants, even though she's given me zero reason to believe she's unfaithful. It's all about my past and my feelings whenever I've felt like I'm exposing myself or putting myself in a vulnerable position. Marriage is the ultimate vulnerable position, letting the world know before God that you are completely off the market and that you're going to hell if you can't resist the normal temptations that most humans encounter daily. And I guess I'm wondering, if I'm always, for the rest of my days, going to be a little afraid of temptation, then when do I get to the point where I'm still secure enough to get married? If we wait until I'm to the point where I don't want to look at other women, we'll be waiting forever, because I'm always going to have my head turned by a hottie. That doesn't mean I don't love my girlfriend and want her in my life permanently. But what the hell does it mean? Am I still at risk of one day cheating, despite having cheated on two girlfriends and not being able to sleep while doing so? Am I really that big of a turd? I'd like to answer that there's no way I'd hurt my girlfriend like that, but cheating isn't so much about hurting others as it is a measure of how secure you are in yourself, and I've never had a lot of self-respect in reserve. See, if you think you're all that, you can look at a hot woman and say, "I've got a good woman at home, and she would never stray from me because I'm all that, and I'm not going to stray from her because I don't have to take advantage of every single sexual opportunity." But I've been keyed in to trying to take advantage of every sexual opportunity since I was 13 because I didn't know how many I'd ever get, you know, being fat and ugly and weird. It's a lot more difficult to shut that off than I ever thought it would be. Am I more confident in myself in general than at any other point in my life? Yep--performing relatively well in my job, kicking ass in school, paying my bills and my rent on time, and being a generally good person. Am I so confident that a thin Filipina with full lips and a great rack (I work with one of these, and she's a flirt, too) could come on strong, theoretically slipping her hand down my pants in the break room, and I could flat shoot her down despite my carnal desires? I think I would, but I'm not 100% sure, and it scares the shit out of me. I suppose until I can answer that with no hesitation, I shouldn't be getting married, but that's my concern: Will I ever answer that with no hesitation, and if not, where's the threshold where I should be committing to someone in an act of marriage?

At least it's a lot cheaper to see my girlfriend now. Megabus.com has been running discount bus service between various Midwestern cities for a few years now, and after the end of March, they will start a Chicago to Memphis line. How discount, you say? If you pre-order a ticket early enough, you can get it for $1. It's a 10-hour ride, so neither of us will be popping in unexpectedly, but if we can get our schedules in sync, we should see each other a lot more than usual this year. That can only be a good thing, because for better or for worse, the more time we spend with each other, the closer we can get to deciding if we really want to commit to each other as man and wife.