Why I Will Always Be Alone

Below is an e-mail in its entirety that I just received from "Torrie."

"I absolutly can hardly believe your nerve. I am so mad at you. I have been sitting here all night trying to come up with the words to say how i feel and there just are not enough! I have two words for you and that should explain everytrhing. ..."BLOG" "TORRIE". I was cleaning out my PC, because I had a virus. And found the link you sent me around this time last year, when you wanted me to read about the Wisconsin chick. I cannot believe i fell for your sincerity, and your lies. So i am not even goiung to begin to tell you how pissed off and hurt I am. I think you have the basic skills to figure that out for yourself. So if you think even for a second that this weekend is going to happen. You are out of your damned mind!!!!!! You know someone commented on your blog about you and karen deserving each other, and after all of this i agree. You DO get what you DESERVE!!!! I am not going to waste another minute of my time on you, and just end this email now."

I had arranged a trip to Minnesota for this weekend to see Torrie again. I missed her. I realized that after I put my trust in women who didn't like me and only wanted to use me, I had ran off the one woman who never asked me for money, never tried to use me for anything, and I always enjoyed myself with her, and after everything else is factored in, the major reason anyone should spend time with anyone is because it is an enjoyable experience. The funny part is, the blog is public, and as she pointed out, I had sent her a link to it long ago, so I wasn't trying to hide anything. The plain truth is right there: This summer, after professing my love to Torrie and not receiving it back, I decided that other avenues would be better for me to pursue. And because I had no good reason to dump her, I decided to give her a cold shoulder until she got sick of it and dumped me. That's the story. There's an ugly aside to it--that I chose to pursue "Laurie" because I wanted to date a slim, blonde woman as a change of pace--but if I wasn't attracted to Torrie, I never would have agreed to come back up there to see her again. It was never about Torrie's attractiveness. She is very attractive, the most attractive woman I've ever dated in fact. I just flew off the handle once I gave her my love and didn't get it back, and I decided that I might have better luck going after this thin blonde telling me that she felt strongly for me. But that didn't work out, because Laurie and I still have never met, and even if we had, I don't know if I would have had nearly as much fun as I did seeing Torrie.

So after this summer, and after my adventures in dating recently, I contacted Torrie just as a friend, and we talked about how much we missed each other, and soon it was like I never stopped thinking about her, which, really, I haven't. She's all I've been thinking about this week, as I prepared to fly to Minneapolis Friday. I couldn't believe that I stopped seeing someone I cared about and liked being around simply because she wouldn't tell me she loved me the 3rd time she ever met me and because she wasn't slim. I was going to tell her all of that this weekend. I wasn't going to push things too fast and tell her I loved her again or anything like that, just that I really missed her and I wanted to see her again. But unless she has a major change of heart, that won't happen.

And now I'm sitting here wondering, what has happened to me? The thing is, I always grew up thinking that I would never cheat on any girlfriend I had, and let's face it, I was dumping Torrie because I wanted to cheat on her with Laurie. That would have been the 3rd time I cheated, after hooking up with "Sarah" while seeing Karen, and then spending a night with The Co-Worker Who Shall Remain Unnamed while seeing Sarah. I have absolutely no rationalizations for cheating that would make sense. With Karen, the sex was bad, but the solution to that is to talk about it with her, not to get better sex elsewhere. With Sarah, the sex wasn't bad, but she was fooling around with her regulars back home in Springfield, and my self-esteem was so low at the time, I felt that I had to take advantage of being with a slut because I couldn't get anything else. But the solution to that is to not screw anyone until I get my shit together mentally, not to just screw anything to make myself feel better. And with Torrie, the sex wasn't bad and I felt as good about myself as I had in a long time. I'm getting straight As in the college classes I'm taking, I can see a future for myself, I'm starting to stand up and be a man for the first time in my life. But it was so weird. When I told her I loved her and got nothing back, it was like all the old feelings started flooding back. I'm not good enough. No one understands me or gives a fuck about me. I will always be alone, which I should get tattooed on me somwhere as much as I say it. Laurie was an outlet for my frustration, but the point is, I shouldn't have been so frustrated. Yes, no one likes to spill their guts or put their cards on the table and get no response. But there's no excuse for me feeling like Torrie was abandoning me. I'm so afraid of being abandoned that when I feel the slightest chance of it happening, I either cling on helplessly (like when Torrie dumped me the first time in March) or I wander away looking to be consoled somewhere else. And that's why I will always be alone--because I still don't understand that no one can forget about everything else to make me feel loved, and when the moment comes where she has to hesitate before she gives me her love or has to tend to something else in her life, I start feeling abandoned. So I guess I'm not standing up and being a man like I thought I was. A man deals with the people in his life straight up, as they are, and accepts things as they are. I keep running around like a chicken with its head cut off, desperately searching for someone to love me. But if I loved myself, I wouldn't have to put that pressure on everyone else.

Manic Monday

Well, tomorrow is going to wind up being a much busier day than I figured a few days ago. First, I made the deadline decision to sign up for a couple of classes at Harold Washington College for the fall semester, which starts tomorrow. I did not go to the school and sign up, because I didn't feel like going there unless Whitney Young High School had sent my transcript to them, and I found out over the phone that they haven't yet received my transcript. My application for financial aid will not be processed until Harold Washington receives my transcript. So how did I sign up for classes? Online. Anyone who had a Harold Washington I.D. last semester can use it to log on to their computer system and register for classes in that manner, and you can even pay for them online if you have a few grand on your credit card and you trust the security of the server. I had to do it by Saturday at 6P though. If I didn't sign up by then, I would have to wait until Monday for late registration, and there's an extra fee for late registration. It gets more interesting: There's a 48-hour grace period for paying for the classes, so I decided not to pay for the classes with my credit card yet in case they receive my transcript tomorrow and they can process my financial aid. But if they don't receive my transcript, I'm going to have to pay for the classes now and have them reimburse me later after they determine how much financial aid I will receive. Boy, I just can't do things like normal people, can I? It's funny how much this past week standing in line at the school and running around trying to get proper documentation reminds me of last year at this exact same time. Still stinging from being dumped over the phone by "Sarah," and desperate for some kind of purpose for my pathetic life, I decided to sign up for classes on the last day of open registration, hobbling along the way due to a gout attack I was having at the same time. A year and 22 credits later (and hell fucking yeah I'm proud of those 22 credits, even though it takes about 120 to receive a bachelor's degree), here I am again, rushing and trying to beat the deadline and not completely sure that I know what I'm doing. I think I get off on doing things spontaneously like that. If I planned things out in advance, I'd have all that extra time to be afraid and convince myself that I'm a loser and I'm not going to do well and I'm never going to amount to anything. This way, I don't have time to think about it. Just do it, like Nike.

So tomorrow would be hectic anyway, what with me intending to go up to the school early before my literature class starts at 5:30P in order to find out the status of my financial aid. (My second class follows immediately afterwards, social science 102 at 7:05P, and both classes are Mondays and Wednesdays.) But I received a phone call today that made tomorrow downright apocalyptic. It's a job interview! It's just a temp job, but I'm still excited because I haven't been able to get anyone to even acknowledge receiving my resume when I apply to all these jobs I see online. And finally, someone called me back. I applied in an e-mail around 5:00P, and they called me a couple of hours later. It's a data entry deal on Madison and LaSalle, four blocks from where I used to work for ten years, as well as five blocks from school. I don't know much about it except it's a temp job that will end around the holidays and it's $10 per hour. The person who called initially told me that the hours were M-F 8:30A to 5:30P, but when I explained that my classes start at 5:30P, he assured me that I would be able to get out of there around 5P and get to class on time. So they seem friendly and not hardcore, but of course I won't know until I meet the gang. A potential problem is that he told me to dress professional for the interview, and my best clothes aren't what one would call professional. I don't own a suit, so it's going to be the same slacks and tie and painful suede bucks that I wore to that sports marketing interview way back on January 24. In addition, I had already charged my electric shaver for eight hours in order to shave my head today, before I even knew I had a job interview. So I start the preliminary trimming process, and the battery sounds like it's ready to die immediately, so obviously I need a new battery. So I'll have a nice furry head for this interview, but I'm used to having a clean-shaved head to go with the clean-shaved face, so I'm going to be self-conscious and hope that the hair isn't a bad impression even though there's nothing weird-looking about my hair, it's very normal looking black man hair, still very short, now complete with slightly receding hairline as a reminder that I turn 30 in December. The 839 pimples on my face are something that I can't take care of before tomorrow, so I'm not going to think about them.

It's been a weird week as far as my dealings with women. I've suddenly become popular in the MSN online group that I met "Torrie" on, and I do mean suddenly, out of nowhere. A 40-year-old New Jersey blonde e-mailed me out of the clear blue. At first she was commenting on a message I had posted, but at the end of the e-mail she informed me that if I ever found myself in Jersey, I would be "a mountain she would love to climb." Um, okay. One of the managers of the group, a 30-year-old Texan BBW, all of a sudden started flirting me on the message boards, one of the messages being simply "Will you marry me?" I'm as honest and straightforward on those message boards as I am in my blog, so I must have said something that made her take an interest in me. I think I mentioned a dominatrix whip called cat-o-nine tails in a post as an aside, and she perked up to that because she fancies herself a fictional mistress. I've played along with her because it's harmless fun, and because I'm flattered by the attention, although I don't find her attractive. "Laurie" is in the same group, however, and I don't think she likes it that much, but with the amount of flirting she does there, I don't think she has a leg to stand on. She's going to Florida in October, and she has told a member who lives down there that she would want to see him. She claims that she doesn't do hook-ups, and I tend to believe her because she's been celibate for two years, so she could have already hooked up if she wanted. But she made me promise that I would tell her if I hooked up with a Boston Latina who posted the message to me that she would be coming to Chicago this weekend and wanted to meet me (not for a hook up, and I haven't heard from her so we didn't meet anyway). I promised, then I made her promise the same thing. A different woman privately e-mailed me and told me that she would be in Chicago next weekend and wanted to meet me. She's 35, Seattle BBW and a redhead, and I've never had a red, so I admit that when I told her okay it was with the intent of hooking up. I've since decided that it wouldn't be worth lying to Laurie, or worse, telling her to her face that I couldn't wait two lousy weeks for her to come to Chicago and fuck me. The redhead woman and I talked for forty minutes Saturday morning, and she seems cool, so if nothing else, I'll make a new friend. To top things off, Torrie stunned me by sending me a text message Friday morning saying she missed me. I told her that I missed her too, and for no other reason than I didn't know what else to say to her, I told her if she needed anything let me know. Her response: "What I want from you I can't have, you're too far away." I told her that I wished I could help her. What I didn't tell her is that I could help her by flying up there and fucking her brains out right this second, but I won't do that because I'm holding out for a shot at a hotter, non-smoking, not-a-bisexual-slut woman, and losing myself in the great sex and good times we always had could ruin that shot at the hotter, non-smoking, not-a-bisexual-slut woman. It's incredible, that may have been the most popular week I've ever had with women...and save Torrie, I've never met any of them. Wondrous invention, that internet.

Anyway, gotta run, I have to spend an hour or so screwing around with fantasy baseball stuff before I get some sleep and get ready for my big day tomorrow. To think, I signed up for classes so that I wouldn't have too much spare time on my hands. Tomorrow might be the beginning of a crazy couple of months where I have no spare time on my hands. Wish me luck.

It's Over

Where one door closes, I have heard that another one opens. There may be many important doors that open as a result of today's conversation; time will tell.

"Torrie" and I have decided to end our relationship. We had a talk a few nights ago where she basically kept asking me if I wanted to continue our long-distance romance, and I kept saying, "I don't know." I wasn't man enough to straight-up dump her, but I planted seeds in her mind that I wasn't really excited about our relationship. I was hoping that she would take the hint and call me back and tell me that she doesn't want to go on, and today she did exactly that. We agreed to remain friends, but I know that will become a problem when A) she finds a new lover and I become jealous, and B) if we ever were to meet up as "just friends," because we did have a lot of physical chemistry and the urge to have sex would be tremendous. Hooking up and having sex wouldn't be such a bad thing--hell, it's the reason we got together in the first place--but the point of me dumping her is that I want more out of life than meeting a woman and fucking her and leaving. If I didn't make Torrie believe that I wanted out, we could have gone around and around in that circle for an endless amount of time. And it wouldn't be horrible, it would be two adults having great, consensual sex, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that there's a next step after that if one of us wants more out of a relationship than just fucking, and for me to take that next step, Torrie would have to be someone that I would want to potentially be with on a long-term basis, and by that, I mean eventually marriage. And the truth is, I would never want to marry Torrie. There are many reasons, but the most important is that I don't feel like she and I are a lifelong match. We're so different. I feel like she's still a stranger to me in some respects, and that's no surprise considering we've only met three times in our lives. But I have always figured that my future wife would be someone who I felt such a connection to physically, emotionally, and spiritually, that I would feel a magnetic force between us, drawing me towards her no matter how much I want to pull away. I've felt that before, with "Yasmine" and with a girl in eighth grade, although neither of them felt the same about me. I didn't feel that way about Torrie. And after all these years of taking whatever pussy I can get, for the first time ever I feel like I don't want to settle for just any chick that will fuck me. I want more. I want someone who I desire to be with and learn about on a possible lifetime basis, and she would want to be with and learn about me for a lifetime. I don't intend to settle for less ever again.

How much "Laurie" has to do with the way I feel is something that I cannot ignore. I have to be honest. The thought of an attractive, blonde woman insisting that she would be interested in getting together with me and that we could be soulmates makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world. I feel like something is on the horizon when I think about Laurie, something special, something that I've never felt before, something that will finally put an end to my search for someone who understands me and will love me unconditionally. Because as much as we don't want to admit it, we all want to be loved and understood, and I'm neither right now. And even when I was in previous relationships, I didn't feel loved or understood, and that's because I wasn't in those relationships because I was interested in the person, it was because the person indicated that she was desperate enough to fuck me. Now, Laurie has indicated that as well, but unlike my past lovers, she is attractive and could choose anyone to fuck, but she has not had sex in two years because she has been waiting for just the right person to become intimate with again, and she thinks that I might be that person. That makes me feel incredible. I am trying to imagine a life without Laurie simply because I needed to dump Torrie for reasons other than getting together with Laurie, but I can't help it. I want to see Laurie badly. I want to find out if we are what the other has been looking for. But hey, I could have held on to Torrie and lied to Laurie and hooked up with her while keeping Torrie on the side. I did not do that. It's important that I give myself credit for cutting Torrie loose instead of clinging onto her like she's my last hope of ever dating again, like I did when "Sarah" dumped me around this time last year. And Sarah was four million times worse than Torrie as far as qualities that I wouldn't want in a potential wife--both are loose and bisexual, but Sarah was actively fucking other women and not considering it cheating, as well as staying in the houses of "masters" overnight being a BDSM slave and getting off on it. It's unbelievable where I am mentally now compared to where I was just a year ago, or even a few months ago. I'm not all the way confident as far as walking around thinking in my head, "I know I'm going to find the woman I'm looking for because I'm the shit!" But I do not ever intend again to become intimate with a woman who I don't find attractive or morally upstanding simply because she is willing to fuck me. When I think of all the pain I could have avoided in the last couple of years from "Karen," Sarah, "Jane," and the co-worker who shall remain nameless if I would have just been honest with myself and admitted that I didn't want to be with any of them because of their looks or personality but because and only because I flirted with them and they returned the interest and I thought, "Hey! Maybe they're crazy enough to fuck me!!"...well, all I can do is shake my head and move on to the next chapter of my life a little wiser and with higher standards for myself.

Speaking of confidence, I put a beatdown on my fear of rejection and went to two different places to apply for work after Torrie and I broke up today. This is a big step for me because I haven't been on the street looking for work since I became unemployed simply because I always thought to myself, "Why would anyone want to hire me? I'm not college age and I'm uneducated." I'm starting to see things a little differently. Not a lot of confidence still, but enough to know that whatever job I go for I have ten years of work experience to testify on my behalf that I am a hard worker who gets the job done when given the opportunity, and maybe someone will see that, but only if I put my ass out there and apply for jobs. The alternative? These past nine years I've been sitting in my apartment by myself afraid to go out in the world and go for anything. Can't keep doing that. Laurie in her blog said that she tries to find five things to wake up to every day, because the alternative is turning on her car in the garage with the doors closed. That's what I've been doing. I've been sitting here separated from the world, waiting to die slowly. I don't want to die anymore. And for that, even if she and I never get together, I owe Laurie unlimited thanks. But it's up to me to take it from here and live my life without fear. A daunting task for sure, but now more than ever, I feel like I'm ready to give it a shot.

And notice, no updates on Karen. She can be getting gangbanged by 400 niggers right now. I just don't give a fuck anymore. What a great feeling.

Premonition?

My friend Cassandra tells me that the dream I had last night is a premonition that "Karen's" lifestyle of taking men's hearts and breaking them is about to catch up to her. I don't see how even if Karen is about to go down (not by my hand) I would find out about it, but I guess we'll see. The dream shook me so that I had to call Cassandra when I woke up even though she was in the middle of getting ready to go to work. I had Karen on my mind because Sunday night she updated her Yahoo profile with the notice that she "got a new tattoo...pics to come later in the week." My current dilemma makes it more pathetic than ever that I'm checking up on Karen, but I'll talk about that shortly.

In the dream, I'm still working at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which gave me the opportunity to read the newspaper every day because I didn't have to pay for it. I don't read the paper now. But I was reading the paper in the dream, and I read one day about a murder in Milwaukee. Didn't think anything of the person arrested for it because I had never heard of her. Then the next day, I read that a second person has been arrested in the murder: Karen. I was shocked. That night, a phone call came at 3A, but it was a co-worker that I had fooled around with before. I figured she maybe wanted to talk about Karen, but true to her real-life nature, the co-worker wanted to talk about herself and some problem she was having. I hung up. The next day I knew I wanted to find Access Hollywood or some tabloid show so that I could make some cash from this. "Yeah, the Milwaukee killers...I know one of them, very intimately. I'll talk for $20,000, take it or leave it." But before I left home, I saw the film of the arrest of Karen on the news. She didn't look like herself. She had lost a considerable amount of weight, and she had straight black hair, which may have been a wig because Karen once told me about getting drunk on a cruise and putting on a wig as part of the drinking. But she was harried and didn't look like the Karen I had been with. I remember getting so close to the TV to check the area codes on the phone numbers on the signs of the surrounding businesses because I couldn't believe they were in Milwaukee arresting Karen because it didn't look like her at all. And then I got too close, and all of a sudden I was part of the arrest. Yes, I became one of the arresting officers. And I got off a zinger worthy of Law & Order before I woke up. I was putting the cuffs on her, and she said that I was hurting her wrists, to which I responded: "Come on baby, you and I both know that this ain't the first time you've been in handcuffs, so just relax like you do with your other niggers, and it won't hurt so much." Then while I read her her Miranda rights, I woke up with chills.

Cassandra says that I became part of the arrest because I was so eager to be a part of the downfall of Karen that I put myself on the scene, "like Fat Albert going into the TV in the movie," she said. I don't know how I'm going to see this supposed fall from grace of Karen, but boy, if it does happen anything like I dreamed, then I will never doubt spirituality or karma again. I hate dreaming about people that I want to see but I can't. And I don't even want to see Karen to be with her again, just to see her, just to see that she's still alive so that I don't happen to miss her eventual demise, which would be one of the best days of my life. Apparently I'll see her new tattoo soon, so that will have to do. When I was dating her, she mentioned wanting to get something Chinese to signify sisterhood as a tribute to her sister. Since I found out about her lies, I've vowed to someday get something in Chinese that says the equivalent of "Karen sucks dick" or, if they don't have a translation of Karen, just "K sucks" or "K is bad." Scar my body with the memory of a whore? Why not? She scarred my heart forever.

And yet I am getting better. Doesn't seem like it I know, but I am. For one, I am now about 95% sure that I'm going to be a mouse and never go up to Milwaukee or Brown Deer or Lake Geneva or wherever this bitch lives and get my revenge. I've discovered that most of my hurt from what happened does not come from Karen herself betraying me. It comes from being betrayed by my first white lover, which is what Karen was; I met "Sarah" a few weeks after I first slept with Karen. You see, after not dating at all for six years after breaking up with "Giselle," my high school girlfriend and the first and so far last black woman I've ever had sex with, when I got up the guts to meet Karen I thought that she was the exact woman that I was looking for when I decided to date a white woman. She didn't give me any lip, she didn't have an attitude, she was loving, caring, and she seemed to think that I was the shit. Yes, the lack of communication and sometimes distant behavior from Karen were red flags, as was the DUI. But those I ignored in order to keep my fantasy alive. And when she asked me to move up there with her after I told her that I was soon losing my job, I was in heaven. I thought this woman was going to take care of me, welcome me into her family (she said she was gonig to introduce me to her parents several times, but never did), show me a peaceful, serene way of living, and most of all, would never hurt me or belittle me like Giselle and just about all other black females in my past did. I mean, for God's sakes, I gave Karen a cheesy poem I had written, and she acted like it was the most profound piece of literature she had ever received. She kept telling me every time I did something small, like bring her roses or a birthday present or a poem, that she wasn't used to being treated so well, or that no one had ever done that for her before. So I thought that I was going to be the big black man in her life, her king, not ruling over her but the object of her innermost desires and wishes, and she my white queen, the center of my world. And when I found out that it was all a mirage and everything she had ever told me was a fucking lie, I lost it. Not just my sanity, but my hopes and dreams and, most importantly, my ability to trust. It's not Karen that I miss. It's the first white woman to treat me like a king that I miss. But realizing that made me see that I can't make Karen pay for doing that to me. It's not her fault that I picked her as the first white woman I loved and trusted. It's my fault. Karen is not attractive. Karen does not have a great personality. Losing Karen was not a great loss to me. Losing that dream was.

I said that my relationship issues highlight how little Karen means to me currently, because she has nothing to do with the decisions I am going to have to make. The "white queen" in my life right now is "Torrie." Why? Um, I don't know, because she doesn't go running when I approach like everyone else does? Seriously, I've known for the duration of our "relationship" that Torrie and I aren't very alike. She's a smoking, drinking, bisexual freak who happened to flirt with me in an online group, and after being screwed by "Jane," I called her flirt and, without knowing what her deal was, raised her and dared her to meet me for a weekend of no-strings sex. And because we haven't had any friction between us, despite her attempt to dump me once because she didn't know if she could commit the time to me, we've stayed together, despite never once actually committing ourselves exclusively to each other. I stepped up the intensity by inserting love into the equation, but did I do that because I really felt it for her or because my insecurities made me believe that I had to do so in order to keep her interested? Or maybe it was to keep myself interested? So anyway, that's where I stand, in a long-distance relationship not because I sincerely want forever with Torrie, but because I don't want to be alone, even though I am alone, waiting for her call every other day or so, talking about nothing because we don't have anything to talk about. Even when we talk for two hours like we did Saturday, I come away feeling like she's just trying to justify herself to me so that she doesn't look like the desperate, lonely woman that she is. And still no love back to me, even as a friend.

Enter "Laurie."

Laurie is a lady on the very same site where I met Torrie that I have been chatting with for a few weeks. She has been trying to convince me that I am a "damn good man" and that I should want the world for myself because I deserve it. She also has insisted that she will make the trip to Chicago to spend time with me when she gets the free time and the money. And she thinks I am attractive, and she says that she needs a "teddy bear" to make her feel safe and comfortable, and she wants to get physical with me. I have a hard time believing in her and trusting her. Why? It's simple: She's slender, blonde, and attractive. In what alternative universe would a slender, blonde, attractive woman have any desire to fly to Chicago to meet a fat black dude with no money? But she says that she feels like we could be soulmates, based on our similar histories dealing with the loss of our parents, and our similar histories dealing with lack of self-esteem, and our similar histories dealing with lying, backstabbing ex-lovers. (At least I don't have to work with mine; Laurie had an affair with her married black supervisor, and despite the affair being over she's still at the same job, fueling her desire to go away somewhere when she can afford to, somewhere like Chicago, for instance.) We chat every day, and every time we chat I feel something pulling me toward her, as if she possesses that love and caring and nurturing that I have been looking for all my life. Personality-wise, I can't remember feeling so strongly about someone. She has such a strong spirit, and she's such an optimist. It couldn't help but rub off on me if we were to spend time together, and goodness knows I need a positive person in my life. But it's too much to spend time with her and not become physical; I just can't imagine seeing someone so attractive sitting across from me, and she thinks that I am special, and I can't take it to the next level. I bet we would be great lovers too. My dilemma is that Torrie hasn't done anything to deserve me cheating on her and lying to her, but she hasn't done anything to deserve being dumped either. If I look at the raw situation and take out my feelings of a deeper connection between me and Laurie, what I would be doing is taking what Torrie and I have, a great sex life but a lot of distance, and trading it for what might be a great sex life but might not, and a lot of distance. Doesn't seem to make much sense. My deeper dilemma is that fate has not been on my side for the first 30 years of my life. I haven't been very lucky with my decisions. Simply put, it's a "seems to good to be true" situation. Without doing anything to improve myself, except going to school but I didn't meet Laurie in school, I have met the woman that can take on the task of making me feel good about myself, nurturing me, building me up, making love to me and not just having sex with me, thinks that I will be the man that she wants in her life, and she's attractive, and she's not over 200 lbs, and she's not already married or a parent, and she can actually have kids, which Torrie cannot. Oh, and she loves the same smooth jazz artists that I do, and she wants to start a fantasy football league with me. Come on. If I start seeing Laurie and let Torrie go, all I can see in the future is a line of excuses sometime next year as to why she can't see me, work, money, etc, while she starts spending more and more time up there in Detroit, where she lives, with someone else, someone more like a real man than me, someone actually in shape, someone with, you know, a job. And finally, a big break-up as she explains to me how fate simply said that she and I weren't meant to me, but she just knows I will recover from this to see my real potential and never settle in a relationship again. Meanwhile, she's off to be with her new soulmate, and I'm all alone. Again.

The funny part is, there is nothing she can say to guarantee that it won't shake down that way. All the spiritual feelings she has, all the good feelings she has about me and how I can be the man that I want to be, all of that doesn't guarantee that she won't someday wake up and look at my love handles and my pot belly and my breasts and think, "Wow, I can do much better than this." Hell, she might say that the first time we sleep together. And what I have now with Torrie may not seem like much, but at least she accepts me in her life and in her bed, and that's better than what I have with Laurie right now. I have nothing with Laurie right now. But I do fear that I could be passing up something with Laurie that would be more special than Torrie, or Sarah, or Giselle, or obviously Karen, or anyone else that I could ever hope to convince to be with me romantically. Basically, if I let Torrie go to give Laurie a shot, I will be unleashing the love and trust that I have held back ever since I let it go onto Karen and got burned for it. Can Laurie handle that? What if she can't? Then what do I do? Why do I almost come to tears every time I chat with Laurie, as if I have never chatted with someone who knows me so well? What if I never meet anyone as special as Laurie again? If I stay loyal to Torrie, what if Torrie lets me go after a while because she finds her soulmate? Hell, what if I'm just a man-ho and I get with Laurie and meet someone else that thinks I'm a damn good man? What if I can't trust anyone deep enough to commit to her monogamously? I haven't been sleeping well lately with all these questions swirling in my already mixed-up mind. I'm going to have to step up and be a man and make some hard decisions real soon, and whether they are the right decisions or not I'm afraid I won't know until it's too late to do anything about it.

Lost

I'm sitting here at my computer on a day off from school, and I feel completely lost. I'm trying to see a side of my life where things are going okay, and I don't see one. I already know my personal life is shit. "Karen" keeps updating her Yahoo profile with meaningless stuff like "I got extensions...lol," teasing me as if to indicate that I have no business still checking her profile, which I don't. "Torrie" and I are about to have The Talk, because a long-distance relationship where only one person makes the effort to see the other can't continue without The Talk to see where everyone stands exactly. And considering my past luck with dating, I don't expect The Talk to have a happy ending. And where will that leave me? Checking Torrie and Karen's profiles until the day I die?

The academic side of my life I suppose is going okay, but it's going very slowly and it has no future for now because I don't have the money to take any classes this fall. My friend Cassandra explained to me how much she's paying in student loans and how long she has to pay it, and fuck, there's no way I'd be able to pay off that kind of money. She tries to make it sound okay by telling me that she would never have her $41,000 per year job if not for her degree, so it's paying for itself. I remind her that this is me we're talking about, so a job paying that much ain't in my future no matter what degree I have. And as further proof, I present my dad, proud owner of a business degree for over 30 years and still living like a homeless person. Success just isn't part of my makeup, unfortunately. That's part of why what Karen did still hurts after 16 months. Stupid me finally thought that I had succeeded in finding a good quality woman that loved me and found me attractive. I should have known better.

My unemployment benefits are about to run out, so I attempted to bring in some income with online gambling. No surprise that didn't turn out well. I deposited $1,000 into my sports betting account from my credit card over the past month, and I won a few bets and built my account up briefly, but soon enough my usual bad luck caught up to me and wiped me out. Even worse was my poker luck. I finished ninth in a 700-person tournament online a few weeks ago, and that turned my $5 entry fee for that tournament into about $110. There's nothing in that account now either. All the tournaments that I've entered since I've been bounced early from them, even the ten-man single table events that theoretically would be much easier to win than a 700-person marathon. I mean I have been knocked out with some great fucking hands too. For instance, and this will sound like a foreign language for non-poker fans, but in one tournament my two down cards were a pair of 7s and of the four community cards out there, one was a 7 and one was an 8, and the other two were lower cards. That means that I have three of a kind. So when I go all-in, putting all 1,200 of my chips on the line, and two different people with more chips than me also go all-in, I figure I'm screwed because to go all-in, these people must have good hands, and if either of them have a pair of 8s, then they have a better hand than me. They both had the same two down cards, a 5 and a 6. That means that they went all-in not because they already had a good hand--they actually had nothing--but because they hoped that the last card in the community would connect their 5 and 6 to the 7 and 8, giving them a straight, which beats my three of a kind. The 4 or the 10 would do it, but if neither came, then they would both have lost all of their chips and been knocked out of the tournament by betting on a straight draw that didn't come. That's insane, to put all your chips on the line even though you don't have so much as a pair! Of course, they were playing against me, so the last card was indeed a 10.

So, here I am, still trudging along but completely lost as to where I'm going to end up. Even those who aren't where they want to be at least have a sense of direction. I feel like I have nothing right now. I spent the last year with a doctor trying to find a way out of the maze that is my mind. The only thing I found was my money missing after every session. So fuck that. But I'm feeling more and more desperate for something to change as I approach 30 years old. I feel like I should have something to show for making it that far. But I won't have a wife, I won't have a family, and unless I knock off a bank, I won't have anything of substance. I might not even have a job or a place of my own. And every night I go to bed, I'm wondering: When does it get better? Or does it ever?

Puter Problems

My 5-year-old Dell finally went kaplowie. I was getting tired of pop-ups coming even when I wasn't online, so I tried to remove some programs that I didn't recognize thinking they were spyware. But once I rebooted, my computer went all the way back to its infancy, asking me to reinstall Windows and whatnot. I don't have that software, so right now "Drew" is looking at it and trying to figure out if it's something he can fix or do I need to rush it to the hospital. So I'm on a public computer right now, meaning this won't be a long post. My trip to Minneapolis went fine, with one exception. I really do feel love towards "Torrie" and I didn't think anything bad would come to me by telling her this, so I did as we were getting ready to check out of the hotel. Her response: "I suck at goodbyes, so let's just get going." Thanks honey. I thought we had progressed to this natural point where I could tell her that I loved her as I explained that if there was anything she needed I would be there for her. You know, kinda wrap it in friendship so that it's not so hard to accept and give back. Wrong again, Dre. Oh well. At least that helped me realize that I need to keep my ass in Chicago for the time being no matter how much I hate this city. Going to Minnesota, even if Torrie and I don't live together initially, is not something I should be doing until I get a clearer picture of exactly where I stand in Torrie's mind. Am I a genuine boyfriend and someone she really cares for and values? Or am I a fuckbuddy that's starting to get too creepy with this love and caring shit? If only I were a mindreader. Well, enough blabbering from me, as "Karen" used to tell me at the end of her e-mails. Time to get some all you can eat crab legs with "Ronnie" and another friend. When people fail me, as they always do, food is always there for me. Sad but true.

Grade A Product

Much to my surprise, it appears that I am going to swing an A out of each of the four classes I took this semester, which just ended this past Thursday. The general math was a breeze, and the social science was no problem once I made up the data for my research paper and wound up getting a perfect score for that. I still needed to get 22 questions right out of 50 on my final to get an A based on raw percentage, but since I showed up every class and participated, I'm sure the teacher would have given it to me even if I had fallen short on the final. But I got a 44 on the final, so I didn't have to beg. But the English grade and the humanities grade were up for grabs. I was averaging a B+ in humanities before the final, which was all about architecture. We were shown twelve slides and we had to identify the landmark, where it was, and the creator and style. But the teacher was nice enough to make the test where the creator and style were extra credit points instead of mandatory, and as a result, my score on the final pushed my final grade just barely into the A range. The English 102 was the most nail-biting. The teacher was a French-Haitian man who was the epitome of arrogance the whole semester. Our first paper was back in February, and he actually told the class that out of the close to 30 papers, only five were passing quality, meaning D or better. My B was the best, according to him, but I refuse to believe that only four other people in that room could write a passing paper. Needless to say, there were less than half of the original students left by the time this final paper was due Thursday. I was averaging an A- on the three papers we were assigned before this final, so I needed to get a great score to secure the A. It was an eight- to ten-page research/argument paper, and mine was nine pages and tight enough to get an A, in my opinion. But this teacher couldn't bear to give me an A on this final paper because he thought it would be such a bear that it would break even the best writers in the class. It didn't break me. I even turned it in Tuesday so that he could grade it by Thursday so that I could pick it up and walk out of his office and never see him again. 90-100 is an A. My paper's grade? 89. He just couldn't stand to give me an A on the final paper. But it's okay, because that 89 wasn't low enough to drag my overall average under 90, so he's going to have to give me an A for the course whether he wants to or not. The rat bastard.

I'm celebrating by flying back to Minneapolis next Thursday and spending two days and nights with "Torrie." I'm still giving serious consideration to moving up there this summer, despite the loud protests of my aunt, and the rest of my family and friends when/if I ever tell them. I may just run up there and not tell anybody just to avoid the yelling and drama. It would not be a situation of moving in with Torrie and trying to get married to her anytime soon, like I intended to do with "Karen" in Wisconsin. I would not accept moving in with anyone unless something happened where I wound up unemployed. There's not exactly a job waiting for me there, but Torrie's job is taking calls at a call center for a company that's expanding, so they have been hiring at a good clip, and it's over $12/hr. to start. Not Sunshyn money, but not bad. ;) So I'd go up there for that job, I'd go to school next fall during the hours that I wouldn't be working, day or night, and if things go great between me and Torrie, fine, but if they didn't work out, if these different internet groups are any indication, there are many more women in Minnesota wanting a big black man in their lives. And I'm willing to gamble that they aren't nearly as stuck-up and arrogant as the Chicago women, so I might actually have a chance with them. BTW, I'm even less optimistic about me and Torrie having a future because she just informed me yesterday that she's pulling a "Sarah" on me and making out with girls, but it's not a cheating situation because "playing with girls" has nothing to do with me. She didn't volunteer this information. She asked me if I had fucked anyone since I last saw her because she wanted to protect herself from my potential promiscuity, but when I told her I had not done anything and asked her if she had, this woman that's so concerned about protecting herself and being responsible told me that she sucked face with a total stranger at a gay bar, but it was okay since no bodily fluids were swapped besides saliva. Yep, I sure can pick em.

I'll spend some time with my family this holiday weekend before I spend time with Torrie next week. I'll be able to determine which scenario is more desirable for me: Living with my family, living near Torrie, or continuing to live alone, hiding from the world. Or, since my decision making has sucked dick the last few years, maybe I'll draw an option out of a hat.

R.I.P. Part 2

"Torrie" will not be going to the Kentucky Derby with me. The half-sister that died earlier this year had two sons with heart conditions, and one of them went into cardiac arrest and died. I am speechless at the streak of bad luck that Torrie and her family have endured this year, and my condolences go out to them.

I was about to give in and go to the Derby with my friend "Ronnie" and his girlfriend and share my hotel room with them, but apparently my good friend Cassandra is going to go with me. She's had a lot of drama lately, a breakup with a long-time boyfriend, a situation in Florida that she had to personally attend to this past weekend, but she still insists that we will rent a car and go together. I think she needs the break from her current surroundings, and I also think that she got sick of hearing me complain about having no one to go with me and is taking pity on me. I don' t think it's a hook-up situation. She has told me how "attractive" I am and how she loves my intelligence, but she had a boyfriend the entire time I knew her, two years now, so she could tell me those things without worrying about me taking her seriously and making a move. And since we have gone out together before and I haven't done anything inappropriate, I think she trusts me enough to know that I'm not going to force myself on her and she can enjoy the trip and relax. I expected her to reconsider when I told her that the time spent between races at Churchill Downs during the Derby is used by drunk coeds to show their tits for beads like it's Mardi Gras, but she says she will enjoy herself regardless. It's ironic that Cassandra is one of the few women I know that is not bisexual and would not enjoy that aspect of the Derby, but she will be going anyway. "Sarah" is very bi, and she couldn't get enough of the topless women last year. Hell, she got more pics of them than I did. And I would love to be going with Sarah again, because we had an absolute blast last year, but alas, Sarah and I haven't spoken to each other since New Year's, and I have a feeling that we may never see each other again.

I was part of the group of Chicago bloggers invited by Sunshyn to attend a get-together at Dave and Buster's last Friday, but I backed out at the last minute because I thought that Sunshyn would be the only person I knew, and I don't deal with meeting new people very well, which is why I will never have another date outside of the internet again. But it turns out that I would have recognized someone else that was there: Keisha, who I went to high school with. I was pleasantly surprised to see her pic when I looked at Sunshyn's album of the event. I distinctly remember Keisha. There were a lot of bitches in high school that thought they were better than everyone else, especially me, being fat and unattractive. But Keisha was very very cool with me and everyone else. What a small world, now she's writing a blog, just like me, and we are connected through Sunshyn, who did not go to school with either of us. Go figure. But now I can make the next bloggers meeting and actually know a couple of people there instead of standing in a group of strangers and shining my social ineptitude on the masses.

Thinking about high school reminds me of my very first girlfriend, the first and last black woman I had sex with, "Giselle," and how many high school classmates probably only remember me because of the large, homely girl with one eye that I was walking around school holding hands with my entire senior year. Now that sounds like a story for the "My History" file. I'll tell you about that when I come back from the Derby.

Speaking of the Derby, I haven't looked at the official program yet, but my unofficial pick before I look at all the data is Afleet Alex. Just wanted to post that so if he wins and I claim it when I come back, there won't be calls of "BULLSHIT!" Afleet Alex won a top Derby prep race, the Arkansas Derby, by eight lengths, and he was a highly regarded horse before some recent bad races, so I'm hoping to get a good price by picking him. I'm not the best person to go to concerning horse racing, but I know a little about it. And I picked Smarty Jones last year. I was very proud of that. In fact, Sarah bought a plush toy horse at a Wal-Mart the day before the Derby last year in Edinburgh, IN (where we were staying because as I have mentioned before it is absolutely impossible to get a room for Derby weekend in Louisville unless you have an extra grand or two lying around or you reserve the room a year in advance like I did this year), and after Smarty Jones won and we got back to the hotel she named the toy horse Smarty Ed, after Edinburgh. *sigh* Sometimes I miss that crazy old woman so much. The Derby is for the best 3-year-old horses overall. The Friday before the Derby at Churchill Downs is the Kentucky Oaks, which is for the best 3-year-old girl horses. I wanted to get to Louisville early this year and go to the Oaks, because I've never been, and bet a horse named Summerly. But she didn't do so well in her last prep race before the Oaks, and on top of that, it looks like Cassandra will not be able to get Friday off work, so I wouldn't be able to attend unless I pulled a "Runaway Bride" (can you believe that shit?? I'm not for beating women, but sometimes...) and abandoned Cass and went on my own. And I'm not doing that, not after all the bitching and moaning I've been doing about not having anyone to go with.

Unless there's other last-minute news, this will be it for me until after the Derby. Wish me luck!

Reprieve?

"Torrie" and I have chatted a couple of times this weekend. According to her, she dumped me only because she assumed that I wouldn't want to wait for her to get her life straightened out once she told me that she wouldn't be coming to Chicago anytime soon. She apologized for assuming that I would be like other men in her past and abandon her when she wasn't able to devote her time to them. I apologized for assuming that she was looking for an excuse to dump me because she had found a warm body in her town and didn't need this long-distance thing anymore. The sons of her deceased stepsister have developed a blood disorder, and they are flying to California next weekend to try to find alternative treatments because they haven't been able to help the boys there in Minnesota. She had been spending a lot of time with the boys and that situation, but had never explained that to me; it answers the question I had when I read her kiss-off letter of what kind of "family matters" she had that she thought would stand in the way of us spending time together. We agreed that I once again would come up there to visit during my spring break next week if she got good news in California this weekend. I also dropped the hint that I may want to move up there permanently to avoid this scenario, since nothing, no work, no woman, no purpose, is keeping me in Chicago other than laziness. She seemed in favor of that. So perhaps this was all an instance of miscommunication and Torrie and I are going to seriously work on being there for each other despite the distance. One can only hope. Stay tuned.

Alone Again...Naturally

"Torrie" dumped me. She sent me an e-mail yesterday expressing frustration that our schedules would not allow us to see each other anytime soon and therefore it was "better to just end it." Two days ago everything was fine. My spring break from classes starts at the end of next week, and I offered to fly to Minneapolis again, but she insisted that she would get the time off from her job and come to see me here instead because she had not done so yet and I had already come there twice. But in the letter yesterday she told me that she had been rejected for that request for the time off because she had not been on the job long enough. How the hell she jumped from there to dumping me I don't know, but she cited family demands on her time as another factor even though we don't meet often enough for me to take time away from her family. My guess is she met someone else locally and didn't feel like giving any more effort to something that was so long-distance. In that sense I guess I can't blame her. It still sucks to get dumped though, especially when in my mind she was about to spend time here in my apartment with me and really start becoming a big part of my life. Silly me. When will I learn that no one wants to be a big part of my life?

Torrie spent the last part of her e-mail telling me how great of a guy I am, and how lucky some woman is going to be to have me because I have such a big heart. Can anybody tell me why my big heart keeps getting trampled every time I offer it to someone? Can anyone explain why I have treated every woman I've been with over the last two years like a queen, doing anything I can to please them and show them how much they mean to me, yet my bed is empty every single night? What does it take? I talked to three different people since yesterday, and they all had different versions of the same theme: I have to be happy with myself and not be worried about having someone else. My response: Isn't that pathetic? The notion that I have to be satisfied with myself because I'm so pathetic that I can't get anyone else to be satisfied with me? I'm sorry, but that's just sad. The thought of me walking around saying to myself, "La la la, I don't care if no one wants to be with me cause I'm okay with myself, happy happy joy joy," makes me want to cry. All I keep thinking is: I have a big heart, I'm a good guy, nothing makes me happier than to make the woman I'm with happy, and yet eventually they all lie to me or get sick of being treated well and leave. Pathetic. Oh, and I can't forget the theme of all these recent disappointments coming from women I met over the internet. Okay, I can definitely see the point of maybe the women I meet online aren't looking for what I'm looking for. But my response is, I went without a date for six years prior to "Karen," the first woman I ever dated from the internet. As crazy as these online women have turned out to be, if it wasn't for the internet, my last girlfriend would have been in high school eleven years ago. So I can't give up the internet as an option; I can't get a date otherwise.

Well, I'm off to school, where dozens of attractive women walk all around me as if I don't exist. I'm not about to disturb one of those women by begging for a date, and besides, my confidence ain't exactly high, and I don't need any more rejection. I've had about enough for this lifetime.

Valentine's Day Thoughts

I won't even pretend to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day. I'm usually all alone on this holiday celebrating the ability of everyone else in the whole fucking world to find a mate, and today was no exception. Sure, I sent a card to "Torrie" and received a virtual card from her (but only after I told her I was mailing her a card), but I didn't get to spend the day with her or anyone else. My bed as usual will be empty tonight. Selfish? Goddamn right. If I don't feel for me, who the fuck will?

I did kiss a woman on the cheek, a woman whom I fell in love with years ago when we both worked at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. This woman, "Yasmine," happens to be taking classes at the same school I am, and I saw her a couple of weeks ago when I was buying books across the street from the school. I almost fainted. I had not seen her in three years, and I did not expect to ever see her again. This was not a romantic rekindling of a prior affair, however. My love for Yasmine was always gently rebuked and never returned, the proverbial banging my head against a wall. She was too nice to tell me that she wasn't interested in me, but the truth is, she wasn't interested in me. Five years of chasing her should have told me that, but again, I was in love. In a way I never have felt as strongly about a woman as I did about Yasmine, and it was just so ironic that after five years of giving her roses and cigars and cards on Valentine's Day and getting nothing in return that I finally let go of her in my heart so that I could make room for the women that would use and abuse me over the last couple of years, and now that I've been mentally beaten down, here she is, on Valentine's Day, back in my life, if only for a four-minute conversation about nothing. But at least I no longer think that I'm going to convince her to give me a chance. I know damn well that nothing will ever happen between us, and I've accepted that. I'll have the entire pathetic Yasmine story in my next post.

I did not sleep all weekend, and I think it was because I knew Valentine's Day was coming, and at this time last year I was in that great cosmopolitan town of Mukwonago, WI, giving jewelry and poems and flowers to "Karen" and watching her respond not with glee or gratification but with the statement "Oh no, please, no more gifts!" Wow, honey, I'm glad you appreciate all I'm doing for you. I was talking to a friend about my lack of rest concerning this anxiety, and she responded, "I can tell you still love her." I've thought a lot about that, not just recently, but last year when all the drama happened. I've come to the conclusion that I never loved Karen. I am not feeling anxious because I was in love with Karen. I'm feeling anxious because I was in love with the concept of Karen. The concept was that she was a nice, sweet, quiet, demure, intelligent white woman who accepted my advances, thought I was attractive, and wanted me to be a part of her life. I should have known that was too good to be true. But that was my mindset at this time last year. As I laid down to sleep with Karen in her bed in Mukwonago, WI, on Valentine's Day night, I was thinking to myself, I'm moving up here soon to start a new life with Karen, one that will result in marriage and children in the future. And I couldn't have been happier, even if I wasn't really attracted to her, even if she was lousy in bed, even with the gaps in logic that made me suspect her before I ever found out what kind of pond scum she was. She was my dream personified, and I thought that my personal life was finally settled.

That's why I can't sleep. A year ago, everything was perfect on Planet Dre. Then the 10.0 quake tore up my world. Maybe five years from now I won't feel so bad when this time of year rolls around. Right now, I feel like someone ripped up my stomach from the inside. Happy Valentine's Day indeed.

Serving A Purpose

I wanted to serve some kind of purpose this weekend in Minnesota. I wanted to go visit "Torrie" and actually have a reason to be there besides just being there for her. Whether it was a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, or just someone to talk to, I wanted to spend those two days there with her doing something to make her feel better.

Making love served the purpose.

We spent Friday evening in my hotel room together, and that was more time with Torrie than I thought I was going to have. She was shaky, driving somewhat erratically and babbling at times, but it was understandable. There was other drama going on besides her stepsister Jody dying: The father of Jody's children was in town and wanted immediate custody of the kids. Those same kids wouldn't have a final visitation with their mother because her current husband for some unknown reason had her remains cremated without anyone in her family having a say over this. And to top it all off, Torrie's ex-husband, who she had not seen since 1997, paid an unexpected visit as well. So I think that I came to town at the perfect time, so that Torrie would have somewhere to go to escape the situation. In my uneducated opinion, the sex and togetherness that we had was a great stress release for her. She even said at one point afterwards, "You don't know how bad I needed that." The funeral was Saturday at three o'clock, and the hours before were spent intensely. She came back around seven, to my surprise. She was supposed to join her family on a 45-minute trip to a prison to see a brother who was unable to attend the funeral. But since it would only be a five-minute visit due to the rules of the prison, and because it had already been a long day and longer week, Torrie skipped that meeting. Instead, we ate dinner and went to bed. Sunday morning was spent physically draining every drop out of the remaining time we had together, as my flight back was at 1:50P. I felt very good about things when I left. I felt that I had done the right thing and supported Torrie in a time of need, and I felt that she appreciated my efforts.

I don't know when the next time will be that I will see Torrie, but I do know that we have become very close, and that our first night togther on New Year's appears to be a springboard to a long companionship, as unlikely as that would have seemed. I care very much for her, and I think that I have a special place in her heart, as well as on her body. I've never been complemented so much in bed before. She makes me feel very wanted, and she knows how much I want her, so we'll see how things go. But everything looks great so far.

I have started my semester from hell--four classes, all at night, after attending school last semester for the first time since high school ten years ago. What the hell was I thinking? I wrote down all the dates for papers and tests from all four classes, and now my datebook is littered with nothing but little notes about this research paper due and that test taking place on that date, with the hotel information for Kentucky Derby weekend May 7 thrown in. I'll be very busy, so if I ignore anyone or don't contact anyone, don't worry, I haven't become an underground hermit that shuns the rest of the world.

I'll let Michael Jackson keep that spot in society to himself.

R.I.P.

That was quick. It's not even the end of January, and already my intention to make this year the year that I controlled everything and did things my way has been destroyed.

"Torrie" had told me about her sister when I met her. She said that despite being only about 280 lbs, she decided to get the stomach-stapling surgery mainly because her husband thought that she was too fat. She said that she was in the hospital due to complications from the surgery, but that she was coming out of it. Then over a week ago she went into cardiac arrest. Torrie reported that she was recovering from that very well, and doctors said that she would be out of the woods soon if she continued to progress.

This past Monday night, Torrie's sister went into cardiac arrest a second time. This time she succumbed.

Literally minutes before Torrie found out Monday night, we were online together hammering out details and arranging my second visit to Minneapolis this coming weekend. Everything is in place if I still make the trip--the airfare, the hotel, the times that I arrive and depart. Torrie has all that information in her posession. We had it all figured out.

It is all so meaningless right now.

The decision to still make the trip is all on me. I asked Torrie how she felt about me coming up there. She said that if I still wanted to visit, it was fine. I may not have decided to even consider coming if not for something small Torrie said through her tears. She said that she still wanted to see me. That means a lot to me, that she would want to convey that through such a tough time. It would still be an awkward situation, considering that she can't possibly spend that much time with me this weekend (especially considering arrangements are this weekend as well), and any time she does spend is time I am taking away from her grieving with her family. She really should be with her family at this time, not worrying about some guy she's only met once. But I am leaning towards going because I want to be there for Torrie in this time of need. I feel that if I back out now, I would send a message that I only want to be around her when I can get some tail, and as selfish as I have been vowing to be from now on, that is not true at all. I enjoyed every second with Torrie New Year's weekend, not just the time in bed. So I think that if I fly up there only to hug her for a few minutes as I arrive and again as I leave, at least I was able to comfort her for a little while. She possibly may want to spend more time with me, just as an escape from the circumstances. And that would make me feel so good, to be there for her to focus on something else for a spell. Basically, I feel that there is no right or wrong decision I can make. The very first thing I did was put it on Torrie whether she still wanted me there, and if she didn't, I would have easily respected her wishes. But I haven't received any indication from her that she doesn't want me to come. So I probably will.

I won't even comment on what Torrie's sister's husband must be thinking right about now. Okay, maybe I will. I just can't imagine deciding to walk down the aisle with someone and decide later on that there is something about that person that is so offensive to you that you would want them to surgically change it. If it was that bad, why did you marry her? And if her weight wasn't that bad but got out of control over the years, again, why did you marry her if your opinion of her could go so low because of a few extra pounds? To be honest, I shouldn't be speaking on this, because I don't know either person and I probably don't know anything close to the whole story. But if the details I have are correct, I'm disgusted for him, I'm angry as a man who wouldn't think of altering the appearance of a woman I claim to love for better or for worse, I'm stunned trying to imagine what Torrie must be going through, losing a sibling because of this, and I feel a little sorry for the guy because if he has a heart at all he's going through absolute hell in his mind right now and always will.

In other more personal news, my job interview Monday went about as bad as humanly possible because the place was five blocks away from the bus stop and I had to stomp through inches upon inches of snow in dress pants and shoes (and those of you in Chicago know about the snow we got last weekend), and as a result I was a physical and basically emotional mess when I finally arrived ten minutes late. I was told by the man interviewing me that he would call me that evening if he wanted me to come back for a second day. I'm still waiting for the call. A learning experience, I guess.

Next week begins the semester from hell, where the man who waited ten years to go back to school for fear of failure takes on four classes at once. All together now: What the hell was I thinking?!? I know it will be a lot of hard work, and that was why I planned to go to Minneapolis this weekend, because I didn't know when the next time would be when I would have the chance. My timing stinks. But it doesn't matter now. There are way more important things to think about right now.

My next post will be after my trip to Minneapolis.

"I Have The Dick, So I Make The Rules"

What a New Year's weekend.

What a crazy past year.

What a crazy life.

What the fuck?!?

I still can't believe what happened this weekend. "Jane" and I had been having great conversations leading up to what was supposed to be the first of many good times spent together New Year's Eve in Lexington, KY. Before Christmas, the last time I spoke to her was Christmas Eve, and everything was going well. I wasn't able to call her over the Christmas weekend because I was spending time with my folks. But she was on my mind the whole time, and when I came back home Monday, I was getting more and more excited knowing that only five days remained until I traveled to see her.

But this is me, and this was still 2004, the worst year of my life. That Monday Jane sent me an e-mail saying that she was pulling out of the meeting, and not for some legitimate reason, like her daughter was sick, or she was sick, or her mom was sick. No, she was pulling out because she just had "a bad feeling" that something bad would happen if she came to meet me. I spent the next few days talking to Jane on the phone and begging her to see my side of things, how bad I wanted to meet her, how nothing bad was going to happen, how I had already put out for the airfare and hotel for no other reason than to come see her. No dice. She just had a bad feeling. She tried to tie her daughter into this "bad feeling" shit, saying that it would be two whole nights that her 18-month-old would be staying with her father, and she was just so worried because it would be the longest she had ever been separated from her that long. I tried to come up with all kinds of solutions. I told her that I would get another room just for them and she would never be out of her sight. I had my friend Cassandra speak to her for 15 minutes basically serving as a character witness for me. I begged her to just come meet me, out in public at the airport so that I wouldn't have the chance to do anything bad to her, not that I wanted to. I told her that she wouldn't have to go to the hotel with me, much less stay with me overnight. Just come meet me and somehow justify the money I was throwing out to come meet her. The best I could get was "I'll reconsider." But by Thursday night, she still gave no indication that she was going to make the trip.

What was I to do? This was the last thing I was expecting, and it was such a shitty end to a shitty year. This year 2004 started with me standing all alone at Buckingham Fountain in very chilly weather watching fireworks ring in the new year while couples and groups of friends huddled with each other all around me. Meanwhile I was standing there with my hands in my pockets like Michael Jackson at Disneyland. That was because my girlfriend, "Karen," was nowhere to be found, not answering my attempts to contact her. Two months later the image of my girlfriend wearing almost nothing and posing next to her female best friend for an internet swingers group would pop up on my computer and send me into a mental tailspin. My fuckbuddy "Sarah" would rescue me from that pain and invite me to give my love and trust to her, only to tell me near the end of the summer that she was rescinding her offer because she needed her space when she wasn't being beaten and dominated as a form of sexual pleasure by men she hardly knew. Autumn brought two nights of sex with a co-worker, who thought so highly of me that she talked freely about giving her boyfriend a blow job and swallowing but refused to put her mouth on me even when I asked. So just when I couldn't feel any lower about myself, here's Jane saying that I sounded like the perfect man for her and telling me how flattered she was that I would come all the way down to Kentucky to meet her and oh, how much fun and great sex we were going to have. And she knew all about the year I had and how horrible I felt about being all alone last New Year's after thinking that I was going to have someone there with me. So what, her actions were saying to me. I still don't care enough about you to consider keeping my end of the deal.

After a year of having my eager-to-please personality returned to me covered in shit, I finally decided to do something for me. Fuck everybody else, I was going to find company for New Year's Eve this year. It would hurt Jane when I told her, I knew this. But as far as I'm concerned, she had her chance. She had me spending money that I really don't have to meet her ass, only to decide way after the fact that she was uncomfortable. How fair was that to me? So I was going to do what I wanted to do, whether it was fair to Jane or not.

Enter "Torrie."

Torrie had been flirting with me on another group for a couple of weeks. She was a new member, and one of the first posts she wrote once she joined was to me, to tell me that she liked a big black man with a shaved head, that she was in Minneapolis but had visited Chicago and loved it, and that she wanted to chat sometime. Showing a maturity level that I normally wouldn't, but I really was being faithful to Jane, I told Torrie the 100% truth: that I thought she was hot, that I was flattered by her attention, and that I loved her tattoos, but that I was meeting a young lady on New Year's Eve for the first time and I was focusing on her and making sure everything worked out with her. Torrie said fine, but if she "didn't satisfy my hunger...I'll be here for ya." And I left it at that...until Jane canceled on me for no good reason. I wrote Torrie and let her know that I was now free for New Year's and that I would come see her if she was still interested, or she could come see me. She said she was interested but short on money, so coming to Chicago was not an option. Wouldn't you know that the eager-to-please me invited her to come down anyway and I would handle her financials? She declined, then warned me that there are a lot of golddiggers that would take advantage of that, so I should be more careful. And she is right. Putting out and doing all I can to accommodate a woman got me nowhere all year long.

Torrie and I first spoke to each other over the phone on Thursday, Dec. 30. I waited that long to call her because I was giving Jane every opportunity to change her mind. And I would have told Torrie if Jane gave me the green light, because Jane was first. But once I spoke to Torrie and heard the things she wanted to do with me and to me, Jane lost her opportunity. Actually, she would have lost it even if I had not made other plans because it would've been impossible for me to get the ok from her Friday, go home after work, get my bags, and make the 5:50P flight. (By the way, Jane did try to do just that, calling me Friday afternoon to inform me that she was reconsidering. I flatly told her to not worry about it, I had other plans. She hung up, stunned.) So Thursday night I canceled my United flight to Lexington, made a NWA flight reservation for 5:00P to Minneapolis, booked a room for two nights at the Hampton Inn in a nearby suburb, and hoped and wished as hard as I could that Torrie would be there when my plane touched down Friday.

She was.

She looked just like her picture, short reddish-brown hair, big full lips, and a deep voice to match her larger-than-life but still sexy features. She was 30 years old, 5'8", 220 lbs, and knew exactly what to do in the bedroom. We met after a half-hour of looking for each other once I arrived in Minneapolis. It's a big airport. And waiting outside wasn't pleasant: Temp in Chicago when I took off from Midway--about 45...temp when I landed in Minneapolis eighty minutes later--19! But the weather was the only bad thing about the weekend. The Happy New Year countdown and kiss was great, the blow job before I fell asleep was great, the sex the next morning was great, her pussy tasted great, the loud sounds we made as we came over and over may not have been so great to the other folks at the Hampton Inn that weekend, but it was great for us. In short, I have absolutely no regrets about making the trip, even though just a few days ago I was in love with a different woman. I don't usually do New Year's resolutions, but this first one was easy to keep: Stop doing things to please other people, start doing things to please myself. And despite my efforts to make Torrie squirt all weekend, don't be fooled: I didn't go up there to make her happy. I went up there to make my cock happy. In fact, I had to buy a t-shirt that I saw up there that was so perfect in describing the attitude that I must have from now on if I want to protect my heart from being broken again. And the shirt was in my size, too. It simply said: "I have the dick, so I make the rules." When I let the woman in my life make the rules, I always got screwed. From now on, I'm doing the screwing.

Not that Torrie has any complaints about that.