I have a feeling they’re throwing parties when I’m not home. One vase looks like it’s been glued back together and the living room smells like Snausages and urine.

www.flickr.com

I say two degrees because well, it’s fucking two degrees here right now in South Dakota. Do I miss Phoenix? I’d be lying if I said no, but I would also be lying if I said yes. Who is is that said “Do I contradict myself. Very well then. I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.” Whitman? I am large. I’m 6′5″. And I do contain multitudes. Just two hours ago I ordered the appetizer sampler at Red Lobster.

Because that’s just how I roll In Sioux Falls.

You have questions. I understand. So do I. So let’s get to them.

So you’re in Sioux Falls?

Yes.

That’s in South Dakota?

Yes.

Seriously? You really moved there?

Yes. Fuck off.

For real though. Sioux Falls?

Alright, I’m going to punch you in the balls. Or the boobs.

OK, fine, You’re in Sioux Falls. What the hell are you doing?

I’m working for Red Bull. Now, there’s a craving to explain in what capacity I do so, but that will come. I will say this: working for Red Bull (at least for me) is like finding out there’s a company that someone started that reflects everything you believe in, and stand for, and desire, and think about when it’s Monday at 8:30 a.m. and you’re at work and you want to swallow your stapler and choke so you won’t have to work the next eight hours at a company that gives you shit because you need a half day because your kidneys are failing.

I mean, it’s ridiculous. Red Bull should be called Mr. Pinkerton, Inc. I wish I could say more. Maybe I can. I don’t know. Give me a back massage and we’ll see what happens.

Where are you living?

In the sticks. No, serious. I moved out into the country. I went from being able to spit on my neighbor in Phoenix to living in the middle of a bunch of corn fields. And you know what? It feels good. I bought a house with 1.5 acres in the middle of nowhere. Clementine and Simba the pups are smiling constantly, like Jack Nicholson when he did “Batman.” But they’re not as creepy. And Simba’s balls aren’t as old.

Let’s just move on.

What happened to the Horse Whisperer?

We got engaged, but she left me because I’m not communicative enough and I harbor resentement towards my parents, emotions which I unintentionally use to keep her at a distance. I’m kidding. Good times! 

The Horse Whisperer and I are together, albeit at a distance. She’s fucking awesome and well, if you’re a guy, you know how huge it is for a friend to tell you that a girl he’s dating can be described that way. If you’re a girl, and you think I’m describing her poorly, well, fair enough. Let’s say this: She’s intelligent, sophisticated, gorgeous, sexy, driven, passionate, a great dresser, an amazing kisser, unconditionally supportive, and altogether wonderful and amazingly ehchanted.

Happy now? Good.

She plans to move here in May. To Sioux Falls. For me. Wow is right.

Fucking start writing again.

That’s not a question.

Fine. Will you hurry up and fucking start writing again?

Honestly, I don’t know. I would say I’m busy, but that’s not an excuse. That just means I’m not making this blog a priority, and I think there’s a good reason for that.

Which is?

Mr. Pinkerton feels like another life to me. That’s the best way to explain it. Sure I could just pick up where I left off, plugging along here in Sioux Falls, but when I moved here, that seemed like a stopping point. At least as far as Mr. Pinkerton was concerned. Though it’s been just two months, Phoenix seems so far away. My broken engagement feels like it happened in 1986. That’s what started this blog - the fallout of a relationship and the desperate search for renewal.

The problem is that I’ve found that renewal. In me, and in the Horse Whisperer. So to keep writing here would be the same as putting on one of those pairs of jeans you keep but never wear. Sure, they fit, but you’ll never feel as comfortabe in them as you did when you bought them. Months have gone by, your hips or your waist had changed, and they no longer feel like they’re even your jeans. That’s almost how Pinkerton feels. There’s so much, shit, I don’t know, “stuff” here, that continuing on would almost continue a chapter that I would, quite frankly, like to close.

I hurt, I cried, I longed, I labored, I felt saddened, I contemplated, I felt remorse, I suffered. I wrote a book that was both painful and liberating. In the end, I learned that it’s about forgiving yourself, not those who seek forgiveness. I went backwards in order to go forwards, and now that I have the bike moving in right direction, and a girl who loves me so much as to push me, being constantly reminded of personal demons who no longer scare the bejesus out of you isn’t quite so appealing.

So you’re starting a new blog?

I don’t know. If I do, it’s largely because of the Horse Whisperer. She deserves to live alone in my thoughts, and not in tiny a studio apartment almongst all the messy roommates that dwelled in my head during 2006.

So this is goodbye?

God damnit, I thought we weren’t going to do this.

Can’t I just get one hug?

Fine.

OK, that was sort of awkward. It always feels weird to hug someone who you’re not going to make out with.

See what I’m talking about? We should have just shook hands and pounded fists.

Agreed. So hopefully I’ll hear from you soon?

You know I love you too much to stay away.

I am a creature of habit. I say habit because I like to order the same sandwich at Subway every single time I eat there. I say creature, because, well, I’m 6′5″. Being a creature of habit has a lot to do with why I moved. I noticed that in my last two years or so in Phoenix, everything became a habit.

I grew comfortable, but I don’t say that in a good way, as in, this couch is really comfortable. Or as in, “She’s just so comfortable to be around.” I mean it in a way that I grew complacent and weary of change.

I became Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day. Every day I saw the same friends, woke up to the same sun, did the same things at work, and fell into predictable patterens that began killing my spirit. I became a zombie. Friends were boring me. Work was boring me. I was bored of being bored.

When I told one casual friend in Phoenix that I was leaving, he said, “You’re fucking crazy.”

I remember laughing on the way home from meeting him because picking up and moving to Sioux Falls was, in fact, one of the most sane things I have done.

I’m looking for a different kind of comfort - an uncomfortable one. I could have stayed in Phoenix. It certainly was easy living there. My house there is nice. The weather is ridiculously beautiful. The women are hot. And you know what? That’s great and all, but after awhile, I felt like all that was turning me into a big fucking pussy. Things were too easy. I wasn’t being challenged. Not by friends. Not by work. Not by much of anything.

Quite honestly, I didn’t feel like I was moving anywhere. I felt like I was on the set of some movie, and I couldn’t get off it.

Somtimes it’s the struggle that keeps us alive. Somes it’s fear and uncertainty that cause us to move forward. That’s certainly the case for me. The truth is, it would have been much easier staying in Phoenix plugging along with what I was doing, not needing to look up to see where I was going because I knew the road so well.

But easy was making me scream.

I rolled into Sioux Falls Monday evening after driving 22 hours in two days. I passed cornfield after cornfield, until I came to a stop in my friend’s driveway. He wasn’t home, so I got out, led my two dogs into his fenced-in grass-filled backyard, and chased them around and around for maybe 10, 15 minutes. I didn’t stop until I ran out of breath.

Then, I collapsed in the grass, rolling onto my back and putting Clementine on my stomach, holding her close. I took a deep breath that started at my feet and exhaled. When I did, I could see my breath in the cold.

The thought of snow made my eyes race with wonder. “This,” I said, as I looked around and held my hands to the air, as if I was grabbing South Dakota by its sides, “might be hard at times.”

Exactly.

I moved to one of the coldest places in the States. I accepted a job with an enormous amount of responsibility with which I’ve never been comfortable. I left the Horse Whisperer 1,600 miles away.

And yet, I’m so fucking happy. Happy that I will teach my son to skate. Happy that I took a professional risk that scares the shit out of me, happy that I’m dating the most amazing girl in the world - one who I hope will move here in June.

Ice Cube once said “Today was a good day.” True, but tomorrow will be even better.

For Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

I’m answering a lot of questions from friends regarding this decision, especially those in Phoenix, so I decided I would address theirs (and yours) with a question and answer session.

Q: Are you fucking crazy?
A: I’m not sure. I’ve never been tested. 

Q: Sioux Falls?
A: Yes. Sioux Falls.

Q: Is that a typo? Did you mean “San Diego, California?”
A: No, it’s not a typo. I’m moving to Sioux Falls, SD.

Q: Are you fucking crazy?
A: You already asked me that.

Q: Are you drunk?
A: No, not yet. I will be in four hours though.

Q: Are you high?
A: Alright, stop.

Q: What’s in Sioux Falls?
A. Not much of anything. I think there’s a bar called Squeaky Pete’s, a VFW, and a barbershop with one of those poles that looks like a spinning candy cane. But, they are getting the Internet in February of 2007 so that’s exciting. 

Q: So why are you moving there?
A: I’ve accepted a job with Red Bull.

Q: What?
A: Huh?

Q: What will you be doing?
A: I am the Field Marketing Manager for the Dakotas.

Q: What will you be doing?
A: Promoting the brand by hanging out with people in sports and recreation and throwing parties.

Q: But aren’t you a writer?
A: Yes, but I’ve been looking at a computer for seven years. It’s time I get out and see the world. I heard it’s beautiful. I’ll still write, just not professionally. 

Q: Is this just a convenient way to get free Red Bull?
A: Absolutely.

Q: How did this come about?
A: A friend told me about the position about two months ago. A figured I wasn’t qualified but decided to apply anyway. Hearing that Red Bull is a non-conformist, progressive company that encourages creativity, I knew I needed to do something wild, but smart, to catch their attention.

So, I mailed them a letter and said they could stop advertising the position because I was biking from Phoenix, AZ to Denver, CO (corporate headquarters) to claim it.

I then developed www.biketothebull.com as a supplement to the mailing and made sure the Red Bull people found about it.

You probably have questions about this stunt. Well, that website will tell you everything you need to know. I was never asked to make the trek because they said the ideas itself told them all they needed to know about me.

So, I had a preliminary phone interview. Then I interviewed in Phoenix. Then I was flown to Denver for an interview with my future boss. Then I was flown to Chicago for an interview with my future boss’s boss.

A week later, they made me an offer.

Q: You’re ok with living in Sioux Falls?
A: Yes, it’s not my first choice, but I’ve wanted to get back to the Midwest for about a year now, and this is an opportunity to do just that and take an amazing job with a incredible company. I would be dumb not to take it, even if I were based in Moscow.

Q: What do you have against Moscow?
A: Nothing, I was just saying …

Q: Just saying what? I’m from Moscow.
A: Alright, this is embarrassing. I didn’t mean anything by it. Can we just drop it?

Q: Are you going to miss Arizona?
A: Of course, but in a way, living here has always felt like an extended vacation. At 25, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I had lots of close friends, little responsibility, and didn’t place an emphasis on advancing my career. I just wanted to know where the sun lotion was, and who spilled my drink.

I’m 30 now. One close friend, JT, moved away. A second, Philly, is moving to Chicago. And a third, the Baller, chose to alienate his friends to please his controlling wife. So, my circle of close friends has dwindled considerably.

And frankly, I feel like my time here is up. I feel like Phoenix has an expiration date, and that date has come. The city is a little like pizza. It’s good. So good, that you can eat too much of it and end up making yourself sick.

Sure, I could keep doing this forever - going out constantly, checking out the hottest new club, getting home at 3 a.m. Doing so at 60 years old in this town isn’t abnormal.

But I want to be somewhere where it is. I want normalcy, not guys who work at Kinko’s who drive Hummers, or teenagers who drive the S-Class. I want Christmas with snow, I want to teach my son to play hockey, I want to be around humble, unassuming people, I want good schooling for my daughter, I want to be able to jump in a pile of leaves come September. I want to be able to hug my father more often.

Q: OK, then what are you going to miss about Arizona?
A: My brother. Philly. Golden wings at Zipps. My pool. Suns games. Not having to mow grass. 80-degree nights in November. Walking dogs at the dog shelter. The Horse Whisperer.

Q: What’s going to happen to you and the Horse Whisperer?
A: We’re going to try the long distance thing. If it works out, she is considering transferring to a school in Sioux Falls in May, after the current school year is over.

Are you going to miss her?
A: Horribly.

Keith says:
is she moving in?

Shrek says:
not sure. we didn’t really talk about it.

Shrek says:
but she did bring a huge bag of clothes over. haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa does that mean she’s moved in?

Keith says:
she did?

Shrek says:
and toiletries.

Keith says:
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. she moved in without moving in?

Shrek says:
lol. totally. if it’s in a bag it doesn’t count.

Shrek says:
seriously, how does one know when one is officially moved in? what’s the criteria?

Keith says:
“can i store my funrniture at your place? “my couch would look good here. you know, just temporarily.”

Shrek says:
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. dude. dying.

Shrek says:
honestly..what’s the criteria? does she have to get mail there?

Keith says:
i think so.

Shrek says:
so, she’s slept here every night for the last 2 months. that doesn’t mean anything? and, she has her shampoo in my shower. 

Keith says:
nope

Shrek says:
k. that was close. i almost had a live-in girlfriend there for a minute. 

Keith says:
i guess if she has feminine products under the sink there, that could count

Shrek says:
she does.

Keith says:
well, there you go.

Shrek says:
i think i have 2 different brands of tampons under my sink. it’s like a fucking WalGreens down there. “Ultra-Glide? yeah…i got that…hang on.”

Keith says:
i think as soon as she starts just keeping them out in the open, that means she’s moved in. you know, not in a bag.

shrek says:
hmmmmmmmm. i’m not sure if they’re in a bag now.

Shrek says:
on the same note, is that when i know it’s officially over with a girl? when i throw her tampons out?

Keith says:
i think so.  

Shrek says:
“here’s your John Mayer CD back. oh, and here are your tampons.”

Here’s the advice a good father should dispense (to his son).

1) Date a Stripper

This gives you instant street cred. When your son asks you why you’re qualified to give advice on girls, you can tell him you used to date a girl who made out with, what else, other girls, after she got done listening to Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.”

Then, explain to him that dating a stripper is a lot like getting a hole in one. It makes you an instant celebrity around your buddies.

P.S. I said date her. I didn’t say screw her. If that happens, I can’t help you. And neither can Herpicide. 

2) Experiment with Drugs

The most messed up people I know are the ones whose parents pretended like drugs and alcohol don’t exist. They started drinking at 23, and by 30, they had tried every drug possible and were now reduced to injecting cold medicine to get high. And yes, by “they” I mean “me.”

So take time out. Extended yourself. Start your son off as early as possible on booze and pills. By the time he’s 20, he’ll either be done with it, or be a total coke head. So there’s a 50% chance he’ll turn out fine. I like those odds.

3)  Get Arrested

Girls like bad boys. Especially strippers. Plus, felonies are like facial hair – they give you character. And a sore butt, but that’s beside the point. Let’s not get preoccupied with minor details.

4) Steal Something

Trust me, when your sons grows up and he’s sitting around drinking beer and eating wings with the boys, he’s not going to be telling a story about the time he got a 3% raise that barely covered inflation. He’s going to talk about the time he walked out of Sears with a lawn mower when he was 12, let go of it at the top of a hill, and watched it crush Mr. Adderberry’s Cutlass Supreme.

5) Get in a Fight

Life is too short to act civilized. Teach your son that a swift punch to the middle of the temple is more efficient than long-winded rationalizations attempting to explain your position. America was founded on muscle, not Haiku.

Remember, the guy who said the pen is mightier than the sword got stabbed with it.

6) Refuse to Vote

Deciding not to decide is still a decision. Write that down.

Besides, whomever we put in office will fuck it up. Republicans? Democrats? They all suck. Teach your son that our founding fathers didn’t give up the freedom to vote for who we like, they gave us the freedom not to vote for who we dislike. And we dislike everyone, except for that one Obama guy, but that’s two years away.

So teach him to rage against the machine by writing in “Spongebob Squarepants.”

7) Get Fired

Nothing is al cool as walking out and asking “So who’s coming with me??!!” followed by your secretary grabbing her belongings. And you want your son to be cool, right?

Lie

A girlfriend once asked me if she looked fat in a particular tight pair of pants. I told her no, even though they made her thighs look a little big. Why? Because I’d rather have my pants be on fire than not have sex for the next two weeks.

Lying = Good. Telling the truth = a kick in the nuts. Do you want your son to get kicked in the nuts?
 
9) Eat a Shitload of Candy

No one ever goes to their grave saying “I wish I would have eaten more carrots.” Except bunny rabbits. And well, bunny rabbits are pussies. Big ones.

10) Don’t Challenge Yourself

Taking risks and putting yourself in uncomfortable positions in an effort to grow just makes you feel icky and stuff. There’s nothing wrong with complacency. Doing just enough to get by eliminates scary surprises that lead to hurt and disappointment.

It starts at the top, too. This is something you can teach. If the roof over his bed starts leaking, fix it – after the big football fame.

- Meatloaf

“I like you a lot, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you put your finger up my butt.”

- Mr. Pinkerton

Since we were mimicking the scene where Lloyd wakes her up by holding a boombox outside her window and playing Peter gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” she wore a blue nightie and carried around a window frame I made out of posterboard.

 

But halfway through it, I realized that wasn’t going to happen, nor did I want it to. I needed a blank slate. I couldn’t be with her, because every time I would look at her, all I would see was failure. All I would see were all the missteps I took, and I would be forever trying to find redemption in my words and in my acts. I would be forever living in the past.

I would be 78, reflecting upon my fuck up at 28.

When ending a book, it’s tempting to make some grandiose statement like “I found myself.” But this was never about finding myself. It was about finding other people. And to be honest, to find myself would mean I was once lost. 

But I’ve never been lost; just limited in my perception of what I am capable of offering the people I love.

Writing the book was more about piecing together what is and what is not important to me. I’ve examined why I wasn’t loved in ways I needed to be. Now that I’ve confronted both my mother and my father, looking back is no longer important or relevant to me. They did the best they could.

Now it’s time to take whatever they could offer me and mold into it something greater.

That’s the revelation in this book, if there has to be one: that I’m grown up now and it’s time to get on with my life. Everything that happens from here on out is my fault, not theirs. I can continue to short change people of affection, using my childhood as a scapegoat, or I can put on my big boy pants and start hugging people more often.

Except the little old lady that works at the convenience store on the corner. She always smells like cat pee and Cheez-Whiz.

Life has taught me that anything is possible. I don’t know that I necessarily like that. I like order, consistency and formulas. I like cause and effect. X should equal Y, not pancakes. But I’m learning to like pancakes, especially when I’m sitting around a table eating them with my family.

I loved myself at a two or three, meaning I loved J at a two or a three. I didn’t have the faith to go further than that. This inability to experience greater love made me feel defeated. I felt defeated for failing her, even though she was there encouraging me along the way. I felt defeated for letting down the very woman I pledged to marry.

But there’s insight here, and that insight is that I couldn’t have grown frustrated like I did unless deep down inside, I did want to love her like crazy. I had convinced myself that I just didn’t want to surrender to someone, but saying that was merely an easy rationalization for not surrendering. It was a cop out. I wanted her. I wanted us. I prayed that I would find the courage to take that leap and give myself to her. I did give myself to her, but only at a two or a three, which is why she ended up feeling alone.

I loved her, but most of the time I never let her feel this love, not because I didn’t want to, but because I was scared of giving myself to her for the fear that I would run out of love for myself. When you love yourself at a two or a three, you cling to your own love like a lifeboat on a sinking ship.

I wanted nothing more to lift her up, put her on my shoulders, and carry her around like a princess. I wanted nothing more then to give up everything for her and open myself up completely. But I was a coward not to truly believe in what I felt I knew was right, and a coward not to trust that my love would be returned. 

I couldn’t blame her for shutting down on me, after she went months without feeling a connection. In November of 2005, we had been fighting almost every day for a month. She was done. I was done. We were fed up with each other. We were fighting about money, the dogs, housework, you name it. We were even fighting about fighting.

Me: “Hey, you’re the one who started this fight. Don’t blame me.”

Her: “No I didn’t.”

Me: “Yes, you did.”

Her: “No, I didn’t.”

I should have seen the end coming. I came home one day and she was reading “Are Men Necessary?” Apparently a co-worker had given it to her, which was a telltale sign that a) she was complaining about me at work and b) she was thinking about leaving me. The title of the book might as well been “Is Keith Necessary?” but I paid little attention to it.

The writing was on the wall, and the wall was on fire, and I couldn’t figure out why it was warm in the room.

J was dealing with something larger than me. She was dealing with the psychological remains of my childhood. She used to ask me to clean to kitchen floor. I always objected, saying that this is why we had a cleaning lady. But it was so much deeper than that. To me, J wasn’t asking me to clean it. My mom was. And I didn’t want to be controlled by my mom. I had learned to do things my way.

Isolation and independence had taught me that the only person I needed in my life was me. To clean that floor would be to admit that I did want to share my life with someone, and that was scary. I had fought so hard to gain control in my childhood. I didn’t want J to take it away. 

She didn’t. I held onto it at the expense of my relationship. I grew so frustrated one night during a fight that I told her I wanted to move out. The next day, she took off her ring and encouraged me to. Two weeks later, I did.

The engagement was off.

Two nights ago, Clementine hurt her paw, so before I ran to the store to get saline spray, I wrapped it up in one of my socks in case it continued bleeding. She was pissed.

“Why are you unhappy?” she would ask me.

“I don’t know. I have you, a huge house, a good job and great friends. I have a great life. I just don’t know, and that’s what makes it worse.”

Many sufferers of depression also have obsessive compulsive disorder. I don’t, but I am drawn toward neatness and rationale. I like things categorized and filed away, either in a shelf or in a drawer, or in my own brain. The problem with depression is that it defies explanation. People in poverty get it, but so do billionaires. It hits janitors, housewives and NBA players. And when it does hit, and you’re left searching for solutions like a kid trying to catch a mosquito in the dark with a tweezers, it gets worse. Faced with the uncertainty and lack of explanation, depression can loom larger and larger.

How can I get happy if I don’t know why I’m unhappy?

If you break your leg, you could end up in bed for six weeks watching reruns of the Ricki Lake show, but at least there’s a recovery schedule. The food and programming may be bad, but you know you’re going to walk in a month and a half.

But depression is so arbitrary. Maybe it’s your job. Maybe you’re not with the right person. Maybe it’s merely genetics. Maybe your serotonin levels are low. Maybe you’re drinking too much alcohol, or not enough water. Maybe you drank milk from a cow with low self-esteem because it had big hips. Who knows?

In a world of millions of maybes, how can someone suffering from depression ever hope to happen upon the one maybe that’s troubling them? Even that thought alone is depressing.

I was taking medication at this point. It was helping, but to what extent I didn’t know. I felt like I had less bad days. But you always end up wanting to be happier, so you’re never really quite sure on what level it’s working. It’s a pill, so you want to believe it’s a quick fix. You want to believe you can take it for a week and turn into Bobo the clown.

Of course that’s not how anti-depressants work, but that doesn’t stop people who suffer from depression from dreaming. And maybe that’s the best part about taking the pill. The dream. The dream that one day, you’ll wake up with a joker-like grin.

The worst part of depression isn’t that it leaves you in bed, wearing the same stinky pajamas you’ve had on for three weeks, hoping you’ll at least whip off the covers to get the mail or at least shower. The worst part is what it does to people you love. Depression leaves you clinging to isolation. In survival mode, you stop caring about what those around you need or want. It takes all the energy in the world to find a smile, so actively involving people in your life seems like an impossible task. You shut down.

Which is what I did with J. I started pulling away from her. It wasn’t on purpose. The sad thing is I couldn’t stop it. Some days I felt like I was trying to halt a semi-truck with my hands. My depression was overpowering. It was numbing. I wasn’t stuck in bed, but I wasn’t being very loving to my fiancé, and that seemed much more disgraceful.

One night, we got ice cream at a local shop and sat in the car eating. I started crying.

“I don’t want you to leave me J,” I pleaded. “Please don’t leave me like my mother did. Don’t abandon me. Stick with me.”

“I won’t you leave you,” she promised. Months later, she would, but only after I left her with no choice.

I was supportive, but I didn’t make her feel supported. And there’s a difference. Boyfriends are supportive. Husbands make their wives feel supported. I was a great boyfriend, I just wasn’t very good at being a great fiancé at times. I looked out for myself too often. There were times I concerned myself with my own life when I should have been thinking about ours. I loved her immensely, but I didn’t make her feel loved and sheltered and protected and cherished the way she felt when she was with her dad or brothers.

But there was more to this than depression. Old demons were starting to visit me. 

J and I were attending church. We had been since she moved back to Phoenix. Years ago, I stumbled upon a great church with a sensational pastor. I stopped going, mostly because most Sundays I was too hungover to make it out of bed, let alone into a place of worship. But I reconnected with this pastor through sheer luck, and after J met him, she was convinced he would help us grow. I was too.

He did.

I grew up equating religion with condemnation. You know, I need to be saved. I need to repent. I need to abide by these rules. I need to pat my head and rub my stomach and the same time. If I don’t pull this all off, some church leaders would say, I’m going to spend eternity in a pit of fire. And that’s a long, long time to be uncomfortably warm.

But then I stumbled upon this church that J and I attended. It taught me to focus on my personal relationship with God, and not on my personal relationship with my pastor. Instead of living in fear of breaking some arbitrary rule that some priest liked the sound of, I started focusing on accepting God’s love and giving it away. I sought to live from His love, not for it.

Our pastor is also a board certified professional counselor, meaning he was well qualified to sit us down and find out what the hell as going on. What was going on, as least as far as my behavior was concerned, was that I was hanging onto the bitterness and anger from my youth and those emotions were stopping me from truly letting J into my life. These were the demons of which I spoke.  Factor in depression, and I was contending with three dark, dominating forces. Or as I liked to call them, the trio of sweetness.

Even those of you who just started reading in the last few months have picked up on events here and there. 

But regardless of when you entered the conversation, you don’t know the whole story. I’ve refrained from telling it in detail.

Until now.

When my father came out to visit Christmastime in 2004, I had been dating J two months. At the time, I couldn’t have known that we would love enormously, but hurt each other tremendously. I couldn’t have known we would become engaged, but call it all off in the end. And I couldn’t have known this would be a relationship that would change who I wanted to be. It was. Here’s our story.

J and I met in Scottsdale on Halloween night in 2004. She was dressed as a schoolgirl, which was just fine because I always preferred younger women. I went as a writer, which only required me to drink and act annoyed. She was living in San Francisco, working as a lawyer with a small firm, though she had lived in Phoenix years ago. At the time we met, she was in town for the weekend. We spoke for 10 minutes at a bar and that was it. I left, but not before she gave me her phone number, almost as an afterthought.

Curious and thinking “Why the heck not?”, I called her the next day. She was a few hours away from getting on a plane to head back to California, so she said she’s call me later. She did. We ended up speaking every single day for the next three weeks, after which she hopped back on a plane to come stay with me for the weekend.

We hit it off. J was unlike any girl I had dated. I was used to dating young blonde girls that were train wrecks. She was older, a brunette, and didn’t have any other baggage than the suitcase in her right hand. She was razor sharp, driven, sophisticated, sexy and confident.

Two weeks after her visit, she came back again. Then again. Then I flew to see San Francisco for the first time and stay with her. Then she visited Phoenix again. Three months later, we were on a run talking marriage. She knew she didn’t want to date any longer than a year without becoming married. I bristled at her deadline, but knew I wanted to be with her, so we kept up our torrid dating pace.

After four months, she quit her job, sold her condo, packed up and moved back to Phoenix. We lived together for a month in my home before buying a house together. After five months, I proposed to her just a week before we moved in. J and I loved running together so before one of our runs, I stashed her ring in a running pack that hung around my waist. I made a point to fake leg pain, which I actually do have when I run, but don’t typically complain about. At the tail end of the run, I told her I needed to stop, so I slowed to a walk and led her to a patch of grass in front of a church, where I got down on one knee to seemingly rest. She started petting one of the dogs we took with on the run, and that’s when I unzipped the pack and pulled out the ring. Before I could propose, J put it on her finger. I soon popped the question, and she said yes before we kissed. 

We then adopted a dog together. I already owned two, meaning we had three dogs under our roof.

If one could purchase stress at a store, we wouldn’t have chosen Target. We would’ve have gone with Costco, where it’s available in bulk.

So we started living together, but in a way, we were really only just starting to date since out of our five months together, three were over long distance. J studied for and passed the Arizona bar. We went to Belize. She landed a job at one of Phoenix’s biggest law firms. We started going to church together. We settled into a routine. We were building a life.

But the more we got to know each, the more we discovered just how different we were. J was an a-type, always going and going. I was more laid back. She was talkative, making it a point to chat up strangers. I was quiet, preferring to keep to myself. I came home at 5:30. She came home at 9, if she was lucky. Sometimes she came home at one or two a.m. When Friday came, I was ready to get out of the house. She was ready to get in it, having spent the entire week at work. We were spending little time together.

Though we started experiencing some growing pains, J was the most supportive partner I had had, and that made me want to continue to grow together. She learned about my depression and dealt with it attentively. Her concern was touching. She quizzed me on why I felt the way I did. She demanded I open up and explain why I thought I was unhappy.

On a particular bad day, I turned to J and said, “I always thought of myself as a tragic figure.” I didn’t entirely know what it meant but I felt it suited me.

I thought it was a fitting description, if for no other reason than this characterization provided c heap, quick explanation for my depression.

“Stop that. Don’t fucking say that,” she replied. “You’re not a tragic figure. This will get better. We’ll find a way to make you happy.”

But a few nights ago, I heard an ad for, well, I don’t fucking remember. Why don’t I remember? Because the ad used Kiefer Sutherland as its voiceover, and instead of focusing on the product, which again, escapes me, my mind cycled through all these thought processes attributed to his voice.

Something like this:

Is that Keifer Sutherland’s voice?

I think it is.

Why is he doing TV commercials?

Does he need the money?

There’s no way he needs the money.

He’s good in 24 but I thought he was great in Flatliners.

But not as good as Julia Roberts.

I remember when she used to be sexy.

Now people call her pretty.

I don’t think I’d do her now. She wears those button up sweater things that all women start wearing at some point. The ones that usually match their pants. That would be like doing a buddy’s mom.

But back when she made Pretty Woman, I would totally do her.

Not her character. I would never do a call girl.

A friend’s friend had sex with one once. He’s not a creep either. A very normal guy. It was in Amsterdam, so I’m not sure that counts.

The same thing they say about Vegas should apply to Amsterdam. Whatever happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam. Except crabs. Those come with you. 

Yuck.

I wonder if Keifer Sutherland has crabs.

Isn’t there some video on YouTube that catches him in a hotel lobby tackling a Christmas tree?

People that tackle Christmas trees are crazy enough to sleep around.

With people that have crabs.

Maybe not.

I wonder if it’s a letdown for him to live this action-filled life on screen, and then to have to go home and count his money and watch TV.

I wonder if he watched Lost. He’d be good on that show.

Acting seems weird. 

But not as weird as playing Sims.

I don’t get that. I have enough trouble creating my own life. Making sure a video game character lands a good job so he can afford a hot tub doesn’t sound very productive.

Either is drinking vodka Red Bulls at 2 a.m. on a Saturday.

We all have our vices.

I wish Miami Vice was on.

Don Johnson kicked ass. So did Philip Michael Thomas.

But I hate people that go by their middle name.

I don’t trust them. That’s just weird. Quit trying to be so important.

Or when people use a first initial and then their last name, like K. Sutherland.

I would never do that.

Unless I had crabs, because then I wouldn’t want people to know my full name.

What? Come on. You had to have known this was coming.

Telling German Girl about my depression was a big step, like going to your first AA meeting. I knew that I had suffered from this disorder, but deep down inside, I also knew that I would never really truly seek out help unless someone else knew. Keeping it a secret would just be giving it to the isolation that this disease left me craving.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “You’re about as happy as you make up your mind to be.” Some days I want to believe him. Other day I wish he were alive so I could take a poop in his top hat.

I have friends who are just naturally social. They always friendly and giddy. I want that more than I want a million dollars. I want to be happy go lucky. I want to smile often and laugh uproariously. But those emotions don’t come easily. So, I’m left to reconcile my vision of who I want to be with who I am. And well, that’s just really, really fucking hard.

I couldn’t figure out what my problem was. Was my depression hereditary? Did mom pass it down? Was I not spending enough time being social? Did I not have enough hobbies?

“Maybe I should spend more time outdoors,” I told myself. After all, Arizona is beautiful. What was I doing inside? Why wasn’t I hiking, or biking, or camping? Why wasn’t I being more adventurous and biking the Yucatan Peninsula, or kayaking down class five rapids on the Colorado River, or rock climbing the Andes Mountains, or I rappelling down the side of a volcano in Costa Rica?

The answer to the last question was easy. I didn’t have herpes. Because herpes sufferers get to enjoy the outdoors much more than I do. You’d think they’d all be at home in bed under a comforter, with boxes of Kleenex sprawled over the floor. Or locked in a closet. But they’re not. They’re on TV, smiling and laughing while they hike to Machu Picchu, not home alone, itchy and irritated.

The commercials always feature a cute couple too, which is weird, seeing as how one of the two must have gotten it by cheating. That means a conversation like this had to occur:

Gary: “Jess, I need to talk to you.”

Jess: “About what?”

Gary: “About us.”

Jess: “OK, you’re making me nervous. You never want to talk. What’s wrong?”

Gary: “See there you go again with using ‘never.’ Remember. Dr. what Dr. Griggs said? We’re not supposed to use words that ‘never’ or ‘always’ to describe behavior.”

Jess: “You’re right. I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

Gary: Well, You know that bachelor party I went to last month?”

Jess: “Yeah.”

Gary: Well, I … I … ”

Jess: “Gary, please tell me you didn’t do anything there.”

Gary: “Jess …”

Jess: “Gary! How could you! You have children. We have a family!”

Gary: “I know. I don’t know what happened. I … I drank too much and just … just forgot what I was doing. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” [Trying to hug her]

Jess: “Gary, don’t. [Pushing away] I said, don’t! Don’t touch me. [Crying] I can’t even stand to look at you.”

Gary: “Would a bike trek change anything?”

Jess: “What?”

Gary: A bike trek? Would that change anything?”

Jess: “Maybe. Where?”

Gary: “Anywhere you want sweetie. You choose.”

Jess: “What about Wyoming. Can we bike the Grand Teton National Park?”

Gary: “Of course, babe. Anything you want.”

Jess: “Gary?”

Gary: “What sweetie?”

Jess: “I love you.”

Gary: “I love you too.”

I didn’t have herpes. Yep, that was the problem. That’s why I had depression. I was busy reading self-help books when I should have been having unprotected sex with strippers.

I guess self-realization comes with maturity.

But I wouldn’t just drink the saltwater. I’d shotgun it.

German Girl and I were done after nine months but somehow that turned into two years. I was too much of a coward to say goodbye to her and live with my own love, because I didn’t have any. Here I was scared that I would spend the rest of my life alone, just as I had done as a child. I was having a mid-life crisis at 26.  

German Girl and I made tentative plans to move in together at the end of 2002. But I flaked and told her I didn’t think that was a good idea. We were having problems, neither one of us seemed happy, and to move in together seemed like the worst possible thing to do, aside from getting married, which we did.

I’m kidding. Relax.

We did move into the same apartment complex – just in different apartments. She moved in with her dog, and I moved in with mine, along with a friend I recruited from my apartment complex, JT. Johnny was four years younger, in his early-twenties, so he was still in the phase where he was drunk-dialing girlfriends, eating Taco Bell at 3 a.m. and feeding the dog beer. Actually, I was too so I’m not sure I have a point.

German Girl and I broke up. And got back together. And broke up. And got back together. And so on, never really committing to our decision for more than a few days or weeks. Until one day, she came over and told me she wasn’t attracted to me anymore, which is a little like telling a woman you don’t like her hair, her hips are big, and her boobs aren’t as large as your ex’s. She didn’t want to see me anymore.

Upon hearing the news, I hopped in the car and, looking for a distraction, went shopping at the local dollar store, because everyone knows nothing mends a heart better than $1 piñatas and boxes of Hamburger Helper. 

It was agonizing. I saw her car drive throughout the complex. I saw her at the dog park. I saw her walking toward the bar scene at night, wondering who she was meeting. I didn’t know if I was suffering because I wanted to be with her and just didn’t want to be without love, but I was. She would call me when she got lonely, and I would manage to ignore her for a few days until caving, finally picking up the phone. I let her use me because I liked the warmth of her touch when we would have sex, no matter how insincere it was. When I closed my eyes I couldn’t tell the difference. When I closed my eyes, we were still in love. When I closed my eyes, she was mine, not the guy she would be meeting for drinks tomorrow.

We did this for a few months before she got kicked out of the country. She was in the States on a work visa, which expired, leaving her waiting out long cold days in Mainz for her renewal.

When she finally made it back into the country in March of 2003, I had just moved. Leaving apartment life behind, I bought a house in North Phoenix and enlisted JT and my friend Philly as tenants to help pay the mortgage. Louie, a one-year-old mix I rescued from the pound a few months before we moved, and Simba, my chow mix, made it five.

No doubt our next door neighbor thought we were gay upon seeing three grown men frolicking in a pool, tanning, drinking, and playing with dogs. It probably didn’t help that we blasted Cher over the stereo and showed up on his doorstep on Halloween dressed as the Village People.

We start dating again when she returned. She bought a house less than a mile away from me, so sleepovers were convenient. But it quickly fizzled. I knew that she would forever work to get me back, only to push me away, and she knew that I would do the same. The things in her I hated were the same things I saw in myself. I was saying that I wasn’t comfortable being with her. But really, I was also saying that I wasn’t comfortable being with me.

I met German Girl out at a bar. She was the first girl I dated seriously after moving to Arizona. She was seeing someone at the time, which was why she turned me down for a date when I called her. Not once, but twice. A few nights later, she called me and we got together for a drink at a sports bar near our apartments. I thought she was disinterested. So did she. Not so much. We ended up spending the next 30 days together, every day. We didn’t miss a single one.

Ours was a typical romance story. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl both make mistakes and hurt each other. Boy and girl decide that they think there is something worth saving so they try and make it work.

German Girl and I would date for two years, off and on – mostly off. We had an “I love you, no wait, I hope you get run over by a bus and get eaten by squirrels” relationship. It didn’t work out, but you couldn’t blame us for not trying. We went back to each other more times than I can count.

Me: “You want to get back together?”

German Girl: “Sure.”

Me: “Today?”

German Girl: “No, today doesn’t work for me. It’s going to have to be Saturday, or Sunday.

Me: “I have plans Saturday night. So I can do Saturday day or anytime Sunday.”

German Girl: “Sunday is fine.”

Me: “Cool. I’ll call you.”

German Girl: “Sounds good.”

We had such a turbulent relationship that was so full of entertainment that I considered writing a book about us, perhaps titled Axis and Allies. These would be the chapters.

I: I Like You
II: I Love You
III: You’re on the Pill, Right?
IV: Let’s Move in Together
V: I Hate You
VI: Let’s Make Babies
VI: Why Do You Hate Me?
VII: Let’s Stay Together for the Dogs
VIII: I Miss You
VIII: I Hate You
X: I’d Move to Germany for You
XI: Kiss My American Ass
XII: Baby, We Can Make This Work
XIII: We Can Get Through This
XIII: OK, Let’s Stop Fucking Around and Make This Work
XV: Seriously, Though, We Can Do This
XVI: Fuck This

I cared about her deeply, but we were plagued by problems. There was definitely a high degree of lust in this relationship. Marriage was mentioned one or two times followed by laughter. You get the point.

German Girl is smart. Sophisticated. But stubborn. (She is German.) And she is tall, with legs that stretch from the ceiling to the floor. Quite gorgeous, too. She used to model. This was my Achilles heel. She wasn’t the best girlfriend, but I couldn’t pull myself away from her. It’s often said that every guy dates one obnoxiously hot girl that treats him poorly. German Girl was mine. I had a working theory that every time we got in a fight she turned her back to me so I was forced to look at her butt. Seconds later, I would be asking for forgiveness for something she did.

Me: “I just don’t understand why you would go and do something like that.”

German Girl: “Oh my goodness, whoops, I dropped something.”

Me: “Oh no, don’t do that. Please don’t do that.”

German Girl: “Shoot, now I’m going to have to bend over real far to pick it up. I hope I can reach it without bending my legs.”

Me: “Oh good Lord. I’m sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.”

A few months after we met, I took her back to Minnesota for Labor Day weekend, to my dad’s cabin in International Falls. It had been a year since I had seen my parents. My father had quit his executive job with an insurance company to escape the rat race. My mom was still dealing with depression, something she would battle as often as an alcoholic battles relapsing. Just as a recovering drinker was never truly sober, because disaster was one pint away, my mother was never truly happy. Oh, there were moments when I saw a smile on her face, but those were always fleeting.

I had long suspected I was suffering from my own depression, but always chalked up my sullenness and indifference to my personality. I was a quiet, introspective writer. I was supposed to brood, right? Didn’t the moodiness just sort of come with the territory? I thought back to college, when I first remember feeling down only once a week for no particular reason. But now those days were more frequent. They would come at me several times a week. Sometimes every day. I was beginning to know all too well what it felt like to step outside into the sunshine yet experience nothing but gray.

Blah.

As a sure sign of depression, I was getting migraines. And not migraines that would go away after popping a few Extra-Strength Tylenols. These were I-have-an-ice-pick-jammed-deep-inside-both-my-ears-migraines that left me bargaining with God. They were starting to get so bad that if I was at work, I had to run to the bathroom stall, sit on a toilet with my pants around my ankles, and jab a needle full of Imitrex into my ass. If I was at home, I would often run to the bar and pound several shots. People think being hung over is bad, but it’s like eating Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream while sitting in an outdoor hot tub in Palau naked compared to getting a migraine. And by naked I mean naked with four cute housekeepers, and not naked with the dude you just played racquetball with at the resort’s fitness club.

Now, during our stay at the cabin, I was joined by my friend MG, who spoke about his own depression, and how he had managed to tame it. I promised myself that when I got back to MN, I would deal with it. I promised I would get out of this funk. But in the true spirit of depression, which leaves you unmotivated, I would put it off.

At the same time, this trip did give me hope for the future because of what I saw in my father. Now semi-retired, he was more relaxed and less stressed. Life wasn’t coming at him with the same force that it once did, and it showed. He was smiling more, and with each hardy laugh, he seemed to be releasing pent up frustrations, fear and anger into the atmosphere to dissipate. The hugs between us came easier. I was learning how to love him, and he was learning how to love me. We still couldn’t stand face to face and say ‘I love you,” but that would come two tears later.

Change was in the air. At least I think it was change. It might have been the walleye. My father had just got back from fishing and was now gutting a four-pounder.

a) They made $1.65 billion by creating a service that distributes copyrighted works.

b) They both look like they would do gay porn if they got in a bind.

3) They’re apparently celebrating their success by dining at TGI Fridays.

I think I have to go with a. Although c is close, but so is b. Shit, I don’t know. I’ll stick with a.

I wanted to wait around this ride for the owner to see if he’d sell me his car for a few hundred bucks. Kick ass.

I have a confession to make: I am flawed. I know. I know. We’re supposed to hide that shit. But well, I was never that good at tag. I was more interested in where people hide than avoiding being discovered. The devil is in the details.

“You’re it.”

“OK, but I have no fucking idea how you fit in that armoire. Seriously, that’s amazing.”

Here I am, months later, falling asleep next to the girl I conned. I’m not a liar. And I don’t play one on TV. Yet every night the Horse Whisperer slips on a t-shirt of mine and throws her left arm around my waist, and I feel, I don’t now, “off.” I’m like George Washington - I cannot tell a lie. But I did. I told her I was going to Minnesota but for less than truthful circumstances.

So now what? Here we (the Horse Whisperer and I) are many months later, sailing along, in monogmous bliss. According to guy friends, I didn’t cheat on her. Our relationship was still new and there is a certain “sorting out” that needs to be accounted for (yes, I realize ‘for which needs to be accounted’ is grammatically correct but at some point you have to just go with what sound better.)

On the other hand, female friends tell me I owe her a complete synopsis of how we met; and this should include any extraordinary details factored into the first few months. (i.e. My second toe is longer than the first; I like girls that wear thongs; I like #3 at Taco Bell, I visited Minnesota because I was dumb enough to think there was more “to her.”)

Tell me what to do.

Evidently, there are a few people who read this blog and subsequently, are not entirely sure what Las Vegas is all about. Well, of the 74 photos I took, this one seemed to do the city justice.

Keith says:
oh boy. K?

Shrek says:
no. i talk to her all the time. the 2 a.m. turnaround/hang-up peel out chick.

Keith says:
no way! why?

Shrek says:
no clue. maybe she put a hex on me or something. like L. remember her?

Keith says:
sort of. explain again. L cursed you?

Shrek says:
i broke up with her and made sure she didn’t have my new number. i hadn’t heard from her in six months and then the day i blew my knee out, i get a call and she goes, “how are you feeling? i told you not to break up with me.” 

her point in calling was to tell me that i was going to be getting hurt if i hadn’t already because she had put a curse on me awhile back. but she didn’t know i had gotten hurt that day or anything.

Keith says:
“i told you not to break up with me.” she said that?

Shrek says:
yes. those were her first words. 

Keith says:
no she didn’t.

Shrek says:
i’m serious man. it was fucking weird. she was bragging about it. how would i make that up? i hung up the phone like sweating. i never did tell her that i had blown my knee out that day.

Keith says:
what she she say exactly?

Shrek says:
she goes, “hi. how are you feeling?”  i told her i was feeling fine, so then she responded by saying, “oh, well you won’t be feeling fine. i’ve made sure of that.  i put a hex on you.”

Keith says:
holy shit. haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Keith says:
did you ask her how? how does one do that? is there like a curses for dummies book?

Shrek says:
she always had these witchcraft books. i thought it was just a fun little hobby. so dude, my other ex C had this nutzo sister who, also was  interested in witchcraft. so we had this ceremony to remove the curse. i’m not even fucking around. i was scared.

Keith says:
i wish a girl cared enough about me to put a spell on me.

Shrek says:
no you don’t.

Keith Leinart says:
who participated in the ceremony?

Shrek says:
me, C and C’s sister. we had all these candles and shit. i carried around this mojo pouch for like a year.

Keith says:
pouch?

Shrek says:
yeah.

Keith says:
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. dude. stop it.

Shrek says:
i’m serious. i was scared man. that was freaky shit. i was willing to try anything.

Keith says:
what’a a mojo pouch? like a fanny pack? where you keep snacks?

Shrek says:
it’s this this little pouch that had these ingredients and stuff that we burned and chanted on and melted and stuff. it’s tiny. it could fit in my pocket.

Keith says:
wow. did it work?

Shrek says:
i think so. until i blew my knee again.

Keith says:
i want to have a witch as a friend.

Shrek says:
it came in handy.

Keith says:
“until i blew my knee again.” haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Keith says:
so C’s sister cancelled the curse?

Shrek says:
maybe.

Keith says:
i’m picturing you around a fire chanting “woooooooooooka chaka “woooooooooooka chaka “woooooooooooka chaka “woooooooooooka chaka “woooooooooooka chaka.”

Shrek says:
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. that was pretty much it. i remember laughing and not being able to take it serious. then C’s sister got fucking pissed and scared me.

I remember sorting through some boxes one night and I stumbled upon pictures of us when we were happy. Pictures of us in San Francisco. Pictures of us walking dogs. I saw the smiles on her face. I saw the excitement in her eyes. I heard her laughter pop out of picture after picture. Those memories of the past made me realize how much I was hurting J in the present.

I wrote “Some days, it all seems so simple: take better care of those you love.” 

And I have. In the months since that post, J and me have become great friends. I admit. I never thought we’d get there. I gave up on us. When you go to hell, coming back isn’t easy. But we did. We made it back. And our travels in and out of love are worth something. I couldn’t have scripted desperation and defeat any better. But I also couldn’t have scripted the closeness and friendship that we now enjoy. I was sad to see her move back to San Francisco.

Speaking of those who are important to me, the Horse Whisperer and I hit cruise control throughout this three month period, so much so that there was much less drama, and because of that, my love life became much less of a circus.

Because of her age, I never thought we’d make it this far, but we have, and the more time I spend with her, the more I realize just how wonderful she is. There are stories I could tell, but for now, I’m choosing to be more protective of her. She’s an amazing girl who’s more supportive than I thought anyone could ever be.

It is embarrassing when she orders a Happy Meal, but whatever. I’m immature, so it works.

I turned to storytelling more in July, August and September, and many of these stories were all about the girls. Who can forget the girl with circus boobs that left two squirrels in my toilet, or the girl who mistook my bed for a urinal? Still, I get the biggest kick out of the girl who told my father she wanted to be a rock star during Thanksgiving dinner.

Oh, and then there’s the time I ripped off Tom Petty lyrics to break up with a girl. What? Is that horrible? Fine. Whatever. It’s alright if you love me, it’s alright if you don’t.

My brother became a central figure in my life. I explained how that happened in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

I told the story of how my mom likely avoided being murdered at the hands of her stalker in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

More stories galore: there’s the time I went to bartending school to work at a strip club and the time I got my ass kicked for telling three girls off in a men’s bathroom.

For those of you that would like to know what’s it like to live in Arizona. I documented my time living in Scottsdale in Part 1 and Part 2. Of course, it is possible to live here without accidentally setting your foot in a pile full of cocaine. Hard, but possible.

There were lists. Ah, the lists. What would my blog be without them? If you missed them, I compiled the Top 10 People That Weird Me Out at Gas Stations, the Top 10 List of Things Women Don’t Know About Men, the Top 10 Reactions to Telling People My Girlfriend is in College, and the Top 10 People You’re Most Likely to Meet at the DMV.

Dogs was a hot topic as well. I explained why mutts mean so much to me in People Training Part 1 and People Training Part 2. This affinity might help explain why I hate the Fourth of July more than cute girls with long hair who chop it because their coworker Kate thought it would look cute. It also explained why, at some point or another, any girl I date is forced to pass a test called The Mutt Experience. Girls I date may wear Seven jeans, but they don’t mind getting them dirty.

Let’s not forget about my decision to give up running, the girl that gave my friend Shrek a Transformer as a gift (needless to say they’re not still dating), the conversation I imagined between Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson, and why I wish I was that high school kid who  smoked, wore Soul Asylum t-shirts and did a ZZ Top cover at the talent show.

Oh, and I decided to sell my Jeep. Big decision for me. But I’m 30, and as the philosopher Bentham once said, “There comes a time in every man’s life when he must let go of all that is big and yellow.” 

“Hi, I think you know who I am and it is crazy that I am doing this, but I can’t keep this to myself anymore. It is something about you that has been driving me crazy. I keep asking myself why I feel this way. But the funniest thing is that I don’t even know your name. All I ask is that you give me one day of your life. Even just as a friend. I just want to go out with you. Just even to talk or have a drink. Please, if you think this is stupid, don’t even come to the gym anymore, because I would feel embarassed to see your face. But if you think you can also be attracted to me, please text me. Remember, please do not go to the gym if you think I am stupid.”

- K

First, let me say that I like the move. Very few people put themselves out there in life, so when it actually does happen, we all act like we just saw an alien. In fact, if I were single, her stunt sounds exactly like something I might pullo, me being shy. But for heaven’s sake, banning me from the club?

What the hell am I supposed to do?  

Two things specifically make me bawl: stories involving abused pets and stories involving disadvantaged athletes persevering.

Which is why the following article made me bawl worse than watching a disadvantaged athlete rescue an abused golden retriever.

Strongest Dad in the World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and
pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

Dick has also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.”

But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”

“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate.

First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.”

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self- described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried.

“Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”

That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore !”

And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”

How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992–only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,” one doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.”

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”

Watch a video about this father and son

It was cowardly. But I spent so much time alone growing up that when I found someone and got acclimated to being hugged and kissed, I clung to that no matter how bad things got with someone, including Molly. I didn’t want to go back to being alone, not after getting a taste of real intimacy. Not after being loved. So I would hang on, long after hanging on was worthwhile. 

I even invited Molly to visit Arizona. Yup, I did. Instead of putting her behind me, we got drunk in the community whirlpool and put myself behind her. I got another piercing while she was there, my fifth – this time, my labret, which is the area between your bottom lip and your chin ( as a general rule, if you have to clarify the name of the area you’re getting pierced, you probably shouldn’t get it). I told people that I wore these piercings (the other four being in my ears) because I liked appearing quirky, but I think it was more than that. It was about drawing the attention away from who I truly was. It was about distracting people.

For the record, I did say no when one girl I dated in Arizona asked me to get my penis pierced, so that counts for something.

I almost felt like I was regressing. Instead of going out with my roommate Nick and meeting new people, most nights I stayed at home, even on weekends. I had this deep craving to be alone. That’s when I was most comfortable. It’s no accident that I didn’t date a single girl while I lived in that apartment for the first eight months I was in Phoenix. I guess I hoped I would meet a great girl in my own living room, but that never happened. Now that Molly and I weren’t together, I don’t even think I wanted to be with anyone. That would just mean spending more time away from me.

Not that I didn’t have fun when I went out. I did. Lots of it. With my aloof nature and the piercings, I came across as this mysterious, angst-ridden band member who was too busy putting together a new song in his head to chat up girls. If I did speak to them, it’s because they approached me. One night out, two girls wanted my phone number but didn’t have a pen or paper, so one of them wrote their own phone number on a tampon with lipstick. I never called her. How could I?

”Hi, It’s Keith. Keith. You wrote your number on one of those things you put in your vagina to catch your menstrual flow and gave it to me. Want to get Starbucks? Or a burger?”

I had been living in Arizona four months at the time I met Tampon Girl, but I was still getting acclimated to Arizona. It was nothing like Minnesota. For those of you that haven’t been to Phoenix, or more specifically, Scottsdale, it’s a quirky place. And I’m not talking about quirky in the sense that, “Wow, everyone here has such a unique sense of fashion.” I’m talking about quirky as in, “Did you hear Tony just bought a new H2? Yeah, the same JD that works at Kinko’s and bartends at Fridays.”

In Minnesota, people run ads like this:

FOR SALE: Used snowplow - $100, Homemade beef jerky - $15/pound, Moon boots - $20, Motley Crue CD - $5

In Arizona, people run ads like this:

“I have a long time friend who has agreed to let me assist him in finding the perfect mate. He is a man you’d want to meet even if he wasn’t wealthy. While building his business over the years his personal life took a backseat and he is now ready to settle down and enjoy life. He is in his 50s, never been married, 6′1″, 198 pounds and stays in shape. Cars, planes, homes mean nothing without the right person to be with him. He loves dining in or out, traveling or staying home. He loves children but has none. If you are between 30-42 or so, beautiful on the inside as well as out, have a sense of humor (that’s important to him) and look everything like a millionaire’s wife should look like, call or email Jill. This is for real and you should be too.”

One night out, Nick and I met Philly, a Philadelphia native our age who had moved to Tempe a few months before I did. We hated him. He was loud. Obnoxious. Opinionated. Rude. Of course, we became best friends, much in the same way female vegetarians usually end up marrying some guy named Wayne who bow-hunts bison and celebrates birthdays with pig-roasts.

Nick and I’s stay at our apartment was up, so toward the end of 2001, we, along with Philly, moved into a three-bedroom place in the heart of Scottsdale. Scottsdale is a little like a beer festival that’s permanently in town. You can’t walk twenty feet without stumbling upon a club or bar, and generally speaking, everyone is always drunk.

We were within walking distance of at least 20 of these bars, living in a place that was like a retirement community for 20-year-olds. In a way, it was like going back to college. In fact, some of the girls in the complex were still in college, which was fine with us. During the week, people with full-time jobs did their best to show up on time, and people with part time jobs did their best to show up at all. On the weekends, everyone flocked to the pool, which usually resembled a shoot for a rap video. Girls were so skinny it seemed as though they were living on cigarettes and Tic-Tacs, and the guys were so ripped it seemed as most of them were juicing. It was like a freak show lathered in SPF 15.

”We’re going to be dead in 20 years,” Nick said on day by the pool, after drinking a Corona. It was 11 a.m.

The apartment we lived at – San Marin, is one of those places you want to live in at least once, but ultimately have to leave after a year because you really could end up dead. There were lots of girls, lots of booze, and lots of drugs. Me? I didn’t even know what cocaine looked like until I moved to Scottsdale. I just remember being at a party one night, seeing it for the first time and, thinking it was flour, asked who made cookies. Understand that in Minnesota, if you wanted a rush you speed up your car when going over a hill.

I stayed clear of the drugs, for the most part. I did smoke pot for the first time at age 24. Not really a drug for quiet people, if you ask me. Sort of like slowing down someone with a broken leg by breaking the other one. And Ecstasy? That’s way too complicated. You mean to tell me that when considering the effect, I need to take into account what color a pill is? No thanks. I’d rather stick with Flintstone’s Chewables, save $28, and get my recommended dose of vitamin C.

So for a year, we drank way too much alcohol, got into way too much trouble and slept with way too many girls. Well, I didn’t. Friends did. I messed around with plenty but didn’t have sex after Molly until I met my next serious girlfriend. I was conservative in my partying; I only went out and got drunk Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday. I dogged happy hours to stay in and download music and passed up trips to strip clubs to play Playstation. I wasn’t a saint. Far from it. But it could have been much, much worse. Friends developed cocaine habits. I avoided it thinking I was already pretty messed up. I didn’t need to be sleepless too. 

Stories rolled in almost daily. In fact, it would have been handy to have a community newsletter that highlighted all the debauchery. There was the time Kevin got busted by management for being in the hot tub naked with a bunch of girls. There was the time another friend met a cute hot dog vendor at a car dealership and went back to her house. There was the time Nick shoved his girlfriend’s pictures under the bed before a girl came over, only the girlfriend dropped something, bent down to pick them up, and found them. Then there was the time I found myself digging through a garbage can at 3 a.m. trying to find the phone number to a girl I threw away because I promised myself  I wouldn’t call her again because I wasn’t into her.

I found it. She came over.

Then there’s the time I picked up the phone late one Saturday night after coming home from the bar to get people to come over and jump in the pool. Unfortunately, the name “Rachel” is right before “Roadside Assistance.” This is what transpired.

Female voice: “Hello. Farmer’s Insurance Roadside Assistance. How can I help you?”

(Silence because I’m thoroughly confused)

Female voice: “Hello–Farmer’s Insurance Roadside Assistance. How can I help you?”

Me: Rachel?

Female voice: “Sir, this is Farmer’s Insurance Roadside Assistance. Can I help you?”

Me: “Umm … Rachel?”

Female voice: “Sir, do you need some sort of help with your vehicle? Are you in a secure location?

Me: “Huh? What?”

Female voice: “Sir, Are you in a secure location?

Me: “Yeah, I’m in my living room watching TV.”

Female voice: “And what about your vehicle? Where is that?

Me: “It’s in my garage. Where else would it be?

(Click)

With the amount of girls that walked in and out of our apartment, you would have though we were having a red tag sale on Steve Madden shoes.

Lots of maturing going on. Yup, lots of maturing. By the end of our lease, I think I was back to age 22.

Thankfully, I met German Girl about eight months after we moved in, during the summer of 2002. Otherwise, I probably would have ended up with a cocaine habit, or at worst, a habit of building models just so I could get high off glue. 

”You sure have a lot of models, Keith. You must have at least 200 cars and airplanes in your room.”

”Yeah, I’m really into transportation.”`

What? OK, I made that last one up.

I pictured my brother and I rolling up to Nick’s (the friend I moved in with) apartment midday. We’d park my truck, walk out into the sun, and jump into the pool with our clothes on. We’d surface, wipe the water from our eyes, and see a bastion of bikini-clad college girls lounging on chairs, drinking margaritas. We’d give Nick a high-five, he’d toss us both a Corona, and then we’d do body shots off the chicks. Then someone would turn the rap music up.

Not so much.

We didn’t arrive until well after 10 p.m. – after being on the road for 15 hours for a second straight day – smelling like the inside of a schoolbus. Instead of grabbing girls’ asses, I was fumbling with my own, trying to remove a wedgie, that after 15 hours, had moved up inside my large intestine.

We walked inside and greeted Nick. Seconds later, his dad emerged from the bathroom. He was living there until I arrived, upon which time he would get his own place.

”Do not go in there,” he warned. “I’ve got the shits. Bad.”

Luke and I slept on couches. The next say, we woke up and strutted down to the pool, ready for a day of flirting and drinking. These girls would fall all over themselves for two tall, good-looking, potato-fed Midwestern boys like us.

Except that they weren’t girls. They were really, really old women in their 70’s and 80’s. As I opened the gate to the pool area, I knew something was wrong because all I saw were wrinkles. Dark, scaly skin that looked like it was mummified was everywhere. Sure, there was plenty of ass, but it was dragging on the ground. Instead of being smoking hot, they were merely smoking, with that “I’m going to die soon anyway” look upon their faces. They all spoke in voices deeper and more gravelly than a 300-pound trucker with laryngitis. 

I looked at my brother, horrified.

“Dude.”

”Dude.”

This wasn’t a party. Where were all the hot chicks in string bikinis tickling one another and playfully untying each other’s tops?

”Most of them live in Old Town,” said Nick.

”Old Town? What’s that?” I asked.

”Downtown Scottsdale. It’s the hip part of the city.”

”So the part we’re not in?”

”Right.”

But Old town was more expensive. Nick had moved here eight months before me and was just getting into the mortgage business. I had been here two days and only had $2,000 in savings and didn’t have a job. We needed some place cheap. He had found it, but it just so happened to double as the set of Cocoon.

”I don’t think we’re going to meet any girls here,” I said. “At least any who don’t wear diapers.”

”We can drive to parties,” Nick offered, sensing my disappointment. “C’mon man! You’re in Arizona. It’s probably snowing in Minnesota right now!” It was April. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding. He did have a point. 

My brother flew home a few days later, Nick’s dad moved out, and I settled in to my new state. One month later, I was still furiously searching for a job, waking up every day to a dwindling checking account balance. I couldn’t find a job to save my life, so naturally, I packed up a duffle bag and Nick and I headed to Las Vegas for the weekend to spend money I didn’t have. I got up the courage to hit on a girl at a casino, but Nick stole the show by having sex with her friend in our hotel bathroom. Nothing was going my way. I think I tried masturbating that night but turned myself down, saying I had a headache.

I ran out of money and was forced to freelance to pay rent, which is a little like blowing a homeless guy for a cheeseburger. Two days before my self-imposed deadline for getting a job or else relocating back to Minnesota, I got two offers, and accepted a gig that would have me writing copy for a vacation company’s website. I had to write reviews of faraway exotic locales like Greece, the French Riviera and the Samoan Islands, without actually going there. My inspiration was a six-foot-by-six foot cube and a an over-talkative secretary whose phone played “9 to 5” by Dolly Pardon every 10 minutes it went off.

“Workin’ 9 to 5 / What a way to make a livin’/ Barely gettin’ by / It’s all takin’ And no giv—“

“Hello? Hi. Yes, this is she. Yes, I’m his mother. He what? Can you put him on the phone. Thanks. Jacob. Hi honey. Say, I need you to start pooping in the toilet at school and not near the monkey bars. You know how. Can you do that for mommy? Thank you sweetie. Now out Mrs. Lowell back on the phone.”

“Workin’ 9 to 5 / What a way to make a livin’/ Barely get—“

“Hello? Daryl, you know I can’t talk at work. No, I can’t. We can talk when I get home. I said when I get home. No, I’m not leaving you. Yes, I still love you. Can we not do this now? I slept with him once. And I was drunk. You know what cheap pink wine does to me. Well, you’re the one that was working late hours. I’ll talk to you in a few hours. Daryl, stop it Daryl, I’m hanging up. Seriously, I’m hanging up. 1, 2, 3.” (click).

“Workin’ 9 to 5 / What a way to ma—“

”Hello? Hey Suzs. What are you up to girl? Get out! 35% off? How many pairs did you get? Three! For 65? That’s crazy! Yeah, I’m stuck here at work. Today is dragging and I’m in such a foul mood. No, my boobs are sore. Yeah, totally. I think I’m getting my period. Ugh, I know. Alright, yeah, I’ll call you tonight. Bye sweetie.”

I didn’t work 9 to 5. I was supposed to work 7-4, which I did when I started, but a light workload and a lenient boss meant that became 7-3:30, and eventually 7:45-3:15. Once I called in sick from Vegas. Then there all the times I called in to work to say I was going to work from home, then after hanging up, reached in the cupboard for the blender to make margaritas.

Boss: OK, I guess that’s fine if you work from home. Just today though.”

Me: “Sure, sure. Of course.”

Boss: “What’s that whirring sound?”

Me: “What whirring sound?”

Boss: “That sound. That loud whirring. I can barely hear you. It sounds like ice is being chopped up.”

Me: “Oh. Ah, that’s just the television.”

Boss: “What are you watching at 9 a.m.?

Me: “Some cooking show. I think they’re making margaritas.”

Boss: “Oh, yum. That sounds absolutely wonderful.”

Me: “Doesn’t it?”

I didn’t coast through this job so much as ride downhill sitting in a shopping cart holding a beer in each hand, yelling “faster, faster!”

With J, it involved a pit bull from the rescue organization that we took hiking. On the way back, it threw up all over my Wrangler. We brought it back to my house to let it play in the backyard for a bit. When I went inside to get cleaning supplies, she snuck off to a car wash and took care of the puke herself.

I was hers right then and there.

Yesterday, as I was driving home, I noticed three two dogs walking nonchalantly in the middle of the road. There were three lanes of traffic on this street, so three strings of cars followed them. The whole episode looked like some oddball parade.

I figured someone would stop, but I whipped a u-turn, parked my car in the nearest side street, and started walking back towards them. They would dart into the street, then onto the sidewalk, then back into the street. Some cars dodged them haphazardly like they were windblown boxes.

A hundred cars and no one fucking stopped.

“Shit,” I thought to myself as I picked up the pace to get them before they got crushed. “I’m not going to get to Lost Season 2 Disc 2 tonight, am I?”

I caught up to them, shooing them away from the street and into someone’s yard. And that’s when I took stock of them: they were two adult German Shepherds. No collars. No tags. They were gorgeous.

Every time I tried to creep up to them, they got spooked and walked away, so I gave up and sat down, grabbing some rocks and shaking them in my hand hoping they would confuse them with food, you know, because rocks so closely resemble dog biscuits.

They didn’t buy it, but one with more bravado walked up to me close enough that I grabbed his mange of fur around his neck. I thought he might bite me. He didn’t. He just looked at me like I was a goof and he had better things to do then be tackled by some guy wearing work pants and a button-up shirt.

I was lucky. They were both males, but I had grabbed the alpha one. Wherever mine went, the other one followed. Knowing that, I forgot about the other one and focused on steering mine over to the house across the street, where trucks sat in the garage. They must have rope.

I called J to see if she was home. She wasn’t, but she offered to keep them at her house for the time being if I could manage to get them into my car.

Then I called the Horse Whisperer, who was in town packing for Austin.

“I need your help,” I said. “I found two stray dogs and I’m trying to get them to my car.”

“I’ll be right there,” she replied.

To get to the house across the street, I settled into this routine where I would grab the German Shepherd by his shoulders and push him forward, and then avoid his protesting nip. Push forward, avoid nip. Push forward, avoid nip. This dog didn’t want to bite me so much as say, “Dude.” Still, I worried I would become dog meat. These were large dogs. A tall, skinny writer would probably make for a great appetizer.

I made it to the doorstep of the house and rang the doorbell. No answer. I rang again. After two minutes, I heard voices, and then the door opened halfway.

A woman emerged and looked at me weirdly like I had step ladders for arms

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I need some rope.”

She looked at me with caution, and then sort of made a motion with her arm to keep her daughter from joining her standing in the doorway. Then she looked me up and down, so much so that I purposely caught my reflection in a window.

“Shit,” I thought. “She probably thinks I’m a serial killer.” My work pants were dirtied, my button-up shirt was wrinkled and untucked, and my hair was a mess. And I was sweating profusely.

“You need rope?” she asked.

“Yes, I found these two stays dogs and I need some way to get them back to my car a few blocks away.”

She went back inside, shutting the door and bolting it. I guess I didn’t blame her. A minute later, she emerged with some rope and sort of half tossed it at me and disappeared inside.

“I’ll drop this off when I’m d—“ I said, but the sound of the door shutting droned out the last word.

The Horse Whisperer showed up a few minutes later, eager to help. We managed to get the two dogs into her small rental, where they proceeded to get hair and mud everywhere.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” I offered. ‘I’ll pay for any damages.”

“Don’t worry about,” she replied, smiling while touching my forearm.  “I’m just glad I could help.”

Considering that I had ruined our Wednesday date night – she drives from Tucson to Phoenix every Wednesday and leaves Thursday at 5 a.m. to go back to school just to see me – by scooping up two strays, I thought she handled things brilliantly.

Of course, now I owe her big time, which is why I’m taking her to Red Lobster. Nothing but the best for my baby.

She wasted a whole roll of film taking pictures of a squirrel she had found outside my apartment and brought in. She got drunk and walked several miles to her ex-boyfriend’s house. She drank my last protein shake, which I had reached for after a workout one day, because she liked chocolate. She drove like a race car driver on heroine.

But my Wintergreen moment came when the two of us were having Thanksgiving dinner with my father, my sister and my brother-in-law. What’s a Wintergreen moment? It’s when something occurs that signals the end of a relationship. Now, when this happens, the relationship may not end soon thereafter, but you at least know it’s going to end. Wintergreen moments are so upsetting, or annoying, or preposterous that you just know you can’t be with this person.

I coined this phrase when it happened with Monique. One night when we were dating I called her before coming over and asked her if she wanted or need anything.

“Wintergreen Certs,” she said. “But get the sugar-free ones.”

Easy enough I thought. It wasn’t. I stopped at three different gas stations looking for them. At the third, I bought regular Wintergreen Certs.

“Here you go,” I said when I got to her place. “I looked everywhere for the sugar-free ones but I couldn’t find them.”

”Oh. Um, thanks,” she replied, discouraged.

”Don’t even tell me you don’t want them. Is it really that big of a deal?”

It was. She wouldn’t eat them. She didn’t even pop one in her mouth and pretend to eat it before sneaking into the bathroom to spit it in the trash.

I went bonkers. Not in front of her. In my own head. I was annoyed. I walked out of the room and shook my head. It was over. Somehow, I just knew it. I would forever be irritated. It had just had my first Wintergren Certs moment. Or was that a Wintergreen sugar-free Certs moment? Just remembering this episode makes me want to pour bleach in my eyes and set myself on fire.

At this Thanksgiving dinner with my family, I was chit chatting about work, and then the following exchange took place.

“Molly, what do you want to do after college?” asked my dad.

“I want to b a rock star,” she replied.
 
My dad considered laughing before realizing she was serious. He then made eye with my sister and her husband, silently asking “Is she freaking serious?” with his eyes.” Then he looked at me, and furled his brow before looking down at his food, pushing it around like someone peed on it.

“Oh God,” I remember thinking, seconds after her response. Things will never be the same. This is going to be my Wintergreen Certs moment with Molly. I will never recover from this. Couldn’t she just have made up something? I knew she loved music and aspired to be in a band, but couldn’t she have lied just for the sake of the conversation? She should have told him she wanted to be a psychologist, or a interior decorator, or a veterinarian. Even a stripper. Even telling him she wanted to be a stripper would have been better. Anything but a rock star.   

I’m not sure what kept us together after that. Maybe the sex. Or maybe it was her need to be saved that kept us together. Or my need to save someone. Because saving her was easier than saving myself. I don’t know. I’m not ashamed to say I stayed with her because of the sex, because I know I did love her. I’m just not sure when I stopped.

Maybe it was the day after Valentine’s Day of that year - 2001. That’s the night I told her I was leaving her to move to Arizona. That had been the plan before I met her. Nick and I had talked about getting out of Minnesota, which had become nothing but cold and depressing, and escaping to the Southwest, possibly California or Arizona. This was the summer of 2000. Then I met Megan. I stayed and fell in love. He left and fell in love with Phoenix.

I had been stringing her along for months. I broke up with her a few times, only to win her back. I wanted to believe I wanted her. Several times I convinced myself that I really did. But I could only drown out reality so long before it became evident that I couldn’t stay with her only because I worried about what would happen to her if I left. I was the only sane influence in her life. I was stable. Loyal in that I never cheated on her.

I loved her for who she wasn’t as long as I could, and then that night, I told her I couldn’t be with her anymore. She was devastated. And I was devastated because I felt like I was giving up on her. She needed me in the same way that my mother needed my father. But I knew how those stories ended. They ended with siblings like me, repeating the cycle of self-inflicted hurt. We would love until she left me to get healthy on her own. And then by that time, my son would be waste-deep in emotional sewage.

I knew that if I left, she would find comfort in somebody abusive, because that’s what she felt she deserved. And she did. A year after I moved to Phoenix, she met a recovering alcoholic, who likedto relapse and throw her down flights of stairs or pull knives on her. Naturally, they married. Years later she would call me to tell me she had found the courage to divorce him.

I cried, because I now knew she would at least live past 30. She was going to be OK.

And maybe, so was I.

Girlfriend: “Oh my God! Janine, you are NOT going to believe this. Pete scaled Mount Kilimanjaro wearing a t-shirt with my picture on it. At the top, he pulled out his laptop and webcast his marriage proposal to me. Then he base jumped off the volcano, landing on the wing of a plane that flew him to my house. He parachuted out of the plane, landing on my rooftop. Then he climbed down the chimney and presented me with the ring.”

But this video is why getting down on one knee when she comes home from work and taking her to Olive Garden is always a better idea.

Count me among the unimpressed. Now, if it can be made possible for me to take digital photos with my balls, then call me.

Because that’s neat.  

She was actually attractive in college, but then she married Earl from AAA Auto Body, they started doing meth and now all she has to show for herself is a fluroscent pair of green jean shorts and a tattoo of a dolphin on her ankle. Oh, and killer bangs.

2) Jersey Guy

Jersey guy wears his favorite NFL team’s gear everywhere. He’s got the jersey (usually tucked into a pair of jean shorts), the matching logo hat, the newest, shiniest pair of cross-trainers you’ve ever seen, and white tube socks that are a little too high. He’s also THAT guy - the guy that puts his sunglasses around his neck when they’re not on. Probably drives a Camaro.

3) Chunky Teen With Low-Cut Top

She has a cute face but the rest of her body looks like a wet bag of laundry. And that’s fine. Hey, being fat isn’t a crime. But she violates the rules by wearing a low-cut top and letting the pancakes come out to play. True story: the CTWLCT I sat by today ended a conversation by saying, “Do not eat without me!” May or may not be daughter of Middle-aged Meth Chick.

4) Skinny Nascar Guy

Strung-out Nascar Guy is thinner than Nicole Ritchie, but he would still threaten to fuck you up. He wears a hat with his favorite racer’s car number emblazoned on it, sports sandals with white socks, and jeans that had to have been painted on. He wears a moustache. In fact, he’s THAT guy in junior high that had a moustache at 12. Is probably married to Middle-aged Meth Chick.

5) Outwardly Pissed-off Guy

He doesn’t care where he is, he’s pissed off at the person at the other end of the cell phone and he’s going to let him or her know about it. Tact may be a four-letter word, but so is fuck, shit and damn, all of which he prefer. Outwardly Pissed-off Guy often has a beard and a paunch, and wears a dirty t-shirt with stains and old work boots. Sometimes he has a young son or daughter that he drags around by the hand forcefully while everyone watches in uncomfortable silence.

6) Old Dude in the Cowboy Hat

You could be at the DMV in Anchorage Alaska, and he would still walk in the door. He’ll be damned if he’s going to wear anything but western shirts from Sears, and you could probably use his belt buckle as a paperweight for the U.S. Tax Code. Old Dude in the Cowboy Hat is almost always with an equally old wife who still wears mini-skirts (usually checkered) and dismisses his observations with “Oh, Russell, there you go again.” He drives a Buick.

7) Huge Ex-Jock

He was the center for the varsity football team in high school, but now he’s just fat. He thinks that correlates to being strong, so he walks around in mesh shorts that are too tight and a Nike related t-shirt that is too short, so that his love handles spill out when he sits down. His calves are the size of your couch. Usually wears a crew cut. Is probably sleeping with Chunky Teen With Low-Cut Top, and frequently compliments her on her nice ass.

Hot Chick that Looks Like She Shouldn’t Be There

She sticks out like a sore thumb because she’s cut, classy and professional looking, so much so that you feel bad that she has to even show her face in there. She’s reason enough for DMV’s to have roped off VIP sections, where people like her can get express service and sip Appletinis. Men, especially Outwardly Pissed-off Guy, spend their entire wait staring at her breasts.

9)  The Talker

The Talker is usually female. She’s overweight, short, has big hair, and never stops asking “can you believe this line.” Despite the fact that you give her both verbal (“Uh-huh.”) and non-verbal (not making eye contact) clue, she drops anecdotes incessantly, completely oblivious to the fact that you’re not listening. She’s not afraid to tell that you that she has a growth on her inner thigh, has a co-worker who is trying to destroy her, and thinks Kelly Ripa is too skinny. Her daughter “is perfect for you.” 

10) That Guy Who Sits and Watches People While Making Sarcastic Observations

Fucking asshole.

Simba enjoying a Carmel Macchiato.

- Rolling Stones

“Let’s have awkward foreplay on your couch, awkward sex on your bed, and then I’ll tell you I have to get going because I have a big meeting tomorrow morning even though I’m a bartender at TGI Fridays and my shift doesn’t start until 9 p.m.”

- Mr. Pinkerton

I joked with friends about how it would never last, how it was just a fling, how I couldn’t possibly have anything in common with someone who doesn’t know what parachute pants are, or who thinks Sting must have ripped off Diddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You” with “Every Breath You Take,” not the other way around.

And yes, we have turned this into a game. It can last for hours. 

“Have you heard of Nirvana?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course.”

“How about Doc Martens?”

“Yes.”

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?”

“Yes.”

“Ponch?”

“Ponch?”

“Yeah, Ponch from the TV show CHIPS.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Shit.”

But here we are, four days away from having dated for six months. And you know what? It’s been a smooth, smooth ride. Like rollerblading on one-week old pavement. When we started dating, I expected that our fling, or whatever we were calling it, would end up to be a 10-car pileup.

So far, there hasn’t even been a fender bender.

Sure, it could come. I’m not blind – I had lasik. Our age difference is bound to create problems bigger than what we experienced, but so far, my “Fuck it, let it ride” attitude has worked wonders.

Dating a 19-year-old wasn’t supposed to be this easy. People make fun of the situation, and with good reason, until they meet her. That leads to statements like these:

“She is the coolest fucking girl in this world.”

“It’s amazing that she’s acts so grown up.”

“She is so laid back.”

“Damn, she’s cool”

Of course, everyone makes it point to mix in comments like “Where did you find her? Homeroom?” just to keep me off balance. And don’t think they all don’t play the age game.

“Dude, when you were a freshman in high school, she w–”

“Fuck off. I know. I already did that one”

Why does it work? I don’t know. I haven’t figured out that. And I have no intention of doing so. She looks 23 and acts 30. I look 30 and act 23, so I guess it works out.

I don’t think a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask me if I’m in love with her. There’s a pressure to say yes when girls ask, because oh! the humanity if I waste her time if we don’t end up in wedded bliss. As if what we’re enjoying is just a means to an end. That end being marriage.

A more appropriate question is, “Are you happy?”

The answer is yes.

A more appropriate question is, “Do you do everything you can to make her happy?”

The answer is yes.

A more appropriate question is, “Do you do protect her?”

The answer is yes.

So go ahead, ask me if I’m in love with her. But I’ll leave the answer to the poets.

A few weeks later, I flew back to Minnesota to accompany him on the ride down, just as he had done for me three years earlier. We pushed off from Duluth early in the morning in his big black Chevy Tahoe, with a U-Haul in tow.

Two states into the trip, we noticed the U-Haul trailer was swaying substantially. When we left, we thought it was moving ever so slightly, but now it was really swinging, like a dog’s tail after the mutt was given a chicken-flavored rawhide. We slowed down enough to lessen the movement, but now we were making horrible time.

So we stopped at a hotel to stay the night and to rearrange his stuff in the U-Haul. That’s when it started pouring. Needing to distribute the weight better, we ended up taking everything out of the trailer and re-loading it. In a torrential downpour.

”This is going well,” I joked.

LJ lit up a cigarette and rolled his eyes.

We having to re-load the U-Haul was just the beginning of our trouble. The next day, we ran out of gas on the highway late at night, but managed to coast to an off-ramp. Remarkably, a gas station sat right around the corner. We walked to it, filled a two-gallon gas container we bought at the station with unleaded, and carried it back to the truck. That was enough to start the engine and get us the final two hundred yards to the station, where we filled the tank. We were good to go.

The truck wasn’t. 

I struggled to get it into gear. At first, when I put it in reverse and tapped on the accelerator, the trucked roared but didn’t reverse. After swearing at it several times, it did. But after crawling up the on ramp and making it two miles down the freeway, the truck slipped out of gear again – and it wouldn’t go back in. The truck’s transmission was shot. He we were, stranded with a broken down vehicle in the middle of nowhere at midnight, hours from Kansas City. We would likely see just as many serial killers drive by as squad cars.

“You ever seen Deliverance,” I asked Luke.

“Nope. What’s it about?”

“It’s this old movie from the 70’s starring Burt Reynolds about these four businessmen who go on this canoe adventure in the wilderness, but they run into these creepy rednecks who end up fucking with them.”

“How so?”

“Literally. One of the hicks ties one of the businessmen up to a tree and rapes while telling him to squeal like a pig. Do you think that could happen to us?”

“Why the hell would you say that?”

“I don’t know. Because we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. I just thought it was funny.”

“That is not fucking funny.”

“No, probably not.”

“What would happen if it did happen though?”

“What? If a bunch of hicks from the backwoods tried to rape us?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I don’t know, run?”

“You’re screwed. I’ve played sports for the last 15 years. You haven’t used your legs for anything other than walking to the refrigerator.”

“No, you’re screwed. I’m going to watch them run after you.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because you dress better.”

After a considerable amount of time waiting, we were able to get the truck towed by a guy who advertised his business by spray painting “Auto Repair” in big, bright fluorescent orange letters on a large sheet of plywood and setting in a field near the highway. Needless to say we didn’t need an appointment. He didn’t have the tools to fix the transmission, but he would be willing to tow the truck to another shop located in a city 30 miles away. Tomorrow. That meant we had to stay the night in the town motel, a dirty, grungy, run down series of rooms where no doubt, people took others to have sex or kill them.

There wasn’t a TV. Or a radio. And there were no magazines at the tiny convenience store adjacent to the motel. The only reading material we had was the nametag the disturbing, snaggletoothed nighttime desk clerk was wearing. 

“You boys aren’t from here,” ain’t ‘cha,” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he took a pencil that was behind his ear and scrawled something on a piece of scrap paper on his work desk. I imagine he wrote something like “Use the pick ax on the taller one.”

We had nothing to do but wish we were anywhere but here, so we retreated back to our room and plunked down in our beds, if you can call them that. They were twin beds. I’m 6’5”. My brother is 6’3”. Put either one of us in a bed this size and we end up looking like a cigar in a matchbox.

Unable to sleep, we talked. We didn’t get too deep, but that wasn’t what was important. What was important that we were lying here, spending time together, albeit in a place less that made the Bates Motel look like the Marriot.

I closed my eyes and wondered if there was a larger force at play here. Was it possible that the Big Guy in the Sky had something to do with this? I almost pictured him looking down at LJ and me all those years we stayed clear of each other and refused to get to know one another. Maybe eventually threw his hands in the air in frustration and intervened by breaking down our truck.

“Look, this is a chance for you two to do some bonding,” I could see him saying. “I want to hear dialogue, or I’m sending a tornado. Oh, and I’m sorry about the beds. That’s my bad. I requested them to be small but that is a little ridiculous. I mean, Jesus Christ.”

We would eventually make it out of the motel, out of the city to which we had the truck towed, and out of Missouri. A day later, we rolled into Phoenix, a lot weary and a little bit closer.

Maybe we were going to be alright after all.

After J and I split and I moved back into my house, LJ and me started hanging out together. He started driving up to spend the weekend with me twice a month. Overnight, it was no longer awkward with him. Our relationship shifted.

At first, all we talked about was our failed relationships. I talked about J, and he talked about his ex, the girl who he had moved down to Tucson. Then we started talking about traveling together, and each buying a motorcycle. Those informal talks turned into serious discussions about mom, about dad, about our family. We were digging into each other and unearthing years and years worth of sentiment. For the first time ever, I went out with him and had a beer. We picked up girls, danced and took pictures.

One afternoon, as we sat in my couch watching TV, Luke got up to leave to head back home. In the past, we would have said goodbye and went months without speaking. This time, we put our arms around each other and hugged.

When I watched him drive off, I said to myself,” God damn, I’ve got myself a brother.”

I called him the next day.

My sister eventually forgave my mother, but she hasn’t forgotten. Things like that stay with you forever, like an ink stain on a shirt.

The wedding went off without a hitch for my sister and her husband. I wasn’t as fortunate. Molly, who I took with me as my date because I’m a fatalist who doesn’t know any better, got drunk. At the reception, she accused one bridesmaid of flirting with me, and then later on in the evening, broke down in front of 50 or so people near the bar.

“Why don’t you love me?” she demanded, tears racing down her face. This was a few months before I would leave for Phoenix. 

“I do love you.”

“No you don’t! If you loved me, you wouldn’t leave me!”

“Molly, stop it. I do love you. I have to do this for myself. It’s for the best,” I replied, as I reached out to hold her. That made things worse. 

“The best? The best? This is for the worst!”

“Molly, I–“

“No, don’t! You don’t love me. You just want to fuck me!”

When she had started crying, a few people looked in our direction. Now, everyone was looking. Even the bartender stopped mid-pour to check out the commotion.

Molly ran off to the bathroom. I grabbed some peanuts out of a dish resting on the bar and said, “Vodka tonic. Double.”

Despite this incident, I had a wonderful time at the wedding. Something beautiful happened. And I’m not talking about the uniting of two beloved souls in an eternal bond of matrimony, although that sure was nifty.

A few years ago, a date asked me what the happiest moment of my life was, and for whatever reason, my thoughts turned to my sister’s wedding. It was there that, out of the corner of my eye, I caught my father dancing. I had never seen that before. But that’s not why I was so happy. I was happy because I saw a smile on his face I hadn’t seen before. It was a smile that, in the span of four seconds, wiped out every grimace I had seen on his face growing up. He was so overjoyed that I could have sworn that even his eyes were turned up in a grin. I just stood there, watching him step on years of hardship with each dance step. It was a beautiful moment. The kind they script in the movies.

And then Molly walked up and threw up all over me.

My brother and I didn’t get as close as I thought we might have during the rest of the drive to Arizona. We did litter our sleeping and staring into nothingness with conversation, but when we hit the Phoenix city limits, I wasn’t left with the sense that we had bonded. At least not a lot. I knew more about LJ, but I still couldn’t wrap my arms around my brother and hug him tightly. I couldn’t tell him I loved him. I had hoped this road trip would change everything. It didn’t. 

Still, we did talk, kind of in a first date sort of way.  

I am seven years older than LJ. This is important because he missed the downfall of our family. He was a mere five years old when my parents divorced, so there were very few years we all lived as a family that he wasn’t still shitting himself. While the bulk of my childhood was spent with both parents around, he grew up not knowing what family life was like at all. This means I had the pleasure of explaining it to him.

“Do you remember candy night?”

“Candy night?”

“Yeah, candy night. Maybe we stopped doing that years before you were even born.”

“You must have. I have no idea what that is.”

“Oh man, you missed out, it was bizarre, but fun. All week long, mom wouldn’t let either your sister or me eat sweets, like candy bars, chocolate, anything. Now, we could have sweetened cereal and Coke and stuff, but no candy. She was adamant.”

“I have friends whose parents were like that.”

“Right, but get this: on Friday night, mom would pull out this massive cooking pot, you know, one of those huge fuckers, the kind you use if you’re cooking spaghetti for the Mob. So anyway, she would pull out this pot and overflow it with candy. I’m talking every kind of candy bar imaginable, lollipops, gum, chocolates, everything.”

“And then what?”

“And then your sister and me would eat it.”

“The whole fucking thing?”

“Well, no, that was impossible, but we tried. We were so depraved of sugar that we would stuff our faces for hours. There would be wrappers everywhere. It looked like a fat person held up a gas station.”

“Didn’t you get sick?”

“Yeah, a few times. Once I thought I was going to throw up so I started to walk up the stairs to my bedroom. I got stomach pains so intense that I doubled over and fell ass over head a few steps back to the landing. I had to lay there for twenty minutes in the fetal position because my stomach hurt so badly.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I swear. I lay there until I could walk again.”

“What was everyone else doing?”

“Watching Falcon Crest.

“Falcon Crest?”

“Yeah, it was this weekly soap opera, except it was on prime time Fridays nights so we ate candy and huddled around the television watching it.”

“That doesn’t sound like a kid’s show.”

“It wasn’t. It was full of murder, betrayal, violence, love and sex. I thought it was great. Only Dallas was better.”

“Dallas?”

“Yeah, same type of show. A soap opera full of murder, murder, betrayal, violence, love and sex. Except this all took place on a ranch instead.”

“And mom and dad let you watch this?”

“Of course. It came on right after Falcon Crest.”

“How old were you then?”

“Seven or eight.”

“I bet you loved it.”

“I did. I had crushes on every girl on both shows. They all wore shoulders pads under their blouses. I thought that was hot, in a Joe Montana sort of way.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Either do I.”

It was nice sitting there with my brother in the truck and conversing. Anything but fighting was nice, really. We didn’t pound on each other growing up – I took a few swats at him here and there – no, we mostly just annoyed the living shit out of each other and prided ourselves in getting one another in trouble. My dad would always chide me saying, “Keith, you’re seven years older than him, be the bigger man.”

I thought, “I’m 6’1. He’s 4’2”. I am being the bigger man.” 

We got an especially bad fight one day. I can’t even remember what is was about, but those are usually the worst, especially in a relationship. You get in a fight over whether silverware should be placed in the dishwasher pointing up or down, and an hour later, she’s crying in the bathtub and you’re at the bar working on your sixth shot of Jagermeister.

That day, my brother waited until I left the house. That’s when he marched upstairs and into my bedroom with seven or eight miniature cologne bottles in hand. You know the kind. If you’re a guy, you’ve probably received a collection for Christmas. They seem like a good idea. They even look cute. But the problem is that each one smells like a cross between pine needles, rancid chicken and morning breath.

So my brother took these bottles into my bedroom, and, one by one, unscrewed their caps and dumped them onto my bed. Now, I didn’t particular care for the cologne, and I wasn’t in love with the comforter, but I was pissed. I was more upset at his audacity than his act. He has gotten me good. I had to come back strong.

I rolled up my sleeves and ran downstairs to his bedroom, and there, glistening in the afternoon sunshine, was his Lego, um, Society, for lack of a better word. My brother was a Lego freak at the time. He owned hundreds of different sets. When he was real little, he used to pack a portion of them in a carrying case that he would tote along with him to my hockey games. What he had set up in his room was nothing short of extraordinary. There were neighborhoods, vehicles, people, you name it. It was so complex that if everything had started moving and all the Legos came to life like a real city, I wouldn’t have been surprised. All he was missing was an ecosystem. And strippers. I didn’t see any strippers. 

So I did what any brother would do upon seeing this masterpiece. I smashed the hell out of it. I jumped up and down on it for a good five minute until his vast metropolis looked like one huge shantytown. After I was done, I watched a bum walk out of a Lego liquor store with a fifth of vodka and a group of teens mug a little old Lego lady. I had turned his Lego empire into the ghetto.

This was what our relationship was built upon. Payback. So this road trip was as much about us changing that as it was about me moving. We didn’t really break any new ground during the drive, but we did kick some dirt around with our shoes. LJ and I wouldn’t grow fully comfortable with each other for another five years, when he moved to Tucson – less than two hours away from me in Phoenix.

But at least we were starting to behave like the brothers we never were.

So I kissed her on the forehead and watched her bury her head in the pillow, knowing she loved and hated me with equally convincing passion.
 
I drove my 2001 black Dodge Dakota Sport, pulling a U-Haul trailer to my sister’s house in a Minneapolis suburb, a 30-minute drive from St. Paul. It was 6:30 a.m. I said goodbye to my sister and my brother-in-law. My brother LJ, now 17, was dressed and waiting for me. He had agreed to join me for the 2,746-mile drive.

“This will be good for you and your brother,” said my father, weeks leading up to the trip, when he told me he himself would not be going. That was initially the plan, but my father booked a flight for my brother instead. What he had wanted to say was, “For God’s sakes, talk to your brother.”

For all intents and purposes, I was getting into a truck with a complete stranger. I could have picked up a hitchhiker while leaving Minnesota and it would have been just as comfortable. Really, I knew nothing about my brother. Or at least very little. I knew he was going to be graduating from high school soon. And I knew he had a girlfriend. Sarah. Susan. No, Stacey. Yeah, that was it, Stacey. But any number of his friends or even his teachers knew just as much. There was blood between us. Wasn’t I supposed to know more? A lot more?

”So, um, yeah. How, ah, you know. How’s the girlfriend?” I asked. Why was this so damn awkward?

”Good, good,” he replied.

I looked at him and nodded my head, and then look back at the road. I reached my CD case, found good road tripping music, and popped it in. Oh boy. This was going to be a long, long drive. We couldn’t even communicate. This was awful.

My brother had a hard time growing up. My sister was daddy’s little princess as a child. She is very pretty. Pretty enough that she modeled in high school, and she had her pick from more than enough boys, though she was the quiet type and stayed well beyond reach of trouble. I think she may have tried some pot brownies once. And that might have been by accident. When she grew up, she did well in class and got into a top business school in Minnesota.

I excelled in school, but it was my love of sports that brought my father and me together. My very first hockey practice as a squirt at the age of 10, my dad volunteered to help coach the team. In practice, he used to line us up on the goal line, hide candy bars on the blue line under the snow, and watch us skate to grab them after blowing his whistle. He would tie my skates, drive to me weekend tournaments hours away, and spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on me for equipment.

He also coached me in baseball for several years, and in high school football. I always hoped that I would become good enough to play division I football somewhere, but I wasn’t. I did get recruited to play football at college, but after a year playing strong safety, I quit. The hardest part about walking away from sports was ending that connection with my father. Talking with him was easy when it centered on sports. When I quit, we were forced to have a real relationship – one that wasn’t based on the love of a common passion. And that was difficult.

Growing up, my brother didn’t feel as accepted. And that was difficult. He had trouble in school despite being very intelligent. He didn’t fail classes, but he didn’t focus easily and had trouble studying, spelling and taking tests.

Dad tried to involve him in sports so he would meet friends and develop some interests, but he hated sports. He lasted a season in hockey, and a year in football. While I grew up hanging out with the popular kids who aced their tests, LJ hung around kids who smoked really well. I had friends who graduated from Harvard and Notre Dame. He had friends who graduated and went to work at the car wash. A

As a youth, he grew frustrated, believing that things came easy for his other two siblings, and when they did, thought our parents lavished attention on us.

He found life in working alongside my dad in his garage. My father could build anything, like a children’s toy train set fashioned out of wood or an entire house. He could also fix anything. Anything. I think my brother eventually figured out that working with my hands was something at which I was absolutely atrocious, so he took to that with a fervid passion. He peeled apart his bikes and put them back together.  He started asking for tools for birthdays and Christmas. He was Bob Villa with braces.

“You couldn’t use a hammer if you life depended upon it,” he said, a few hours into our road trip, as we sat there, wasting away the hours by poking fun at each other.

”At least I can spell hammer,” I replied. We both laughed.

A slight smile crept across his face. Then one crept across mine. I covered up my mouth with my hand, afraid to show him this emotion. Afraid of connecting. We were spending time together for the first time in, well, ever.

We didn’t know how to talk to each other, so we started trying.

“So how’s mom?” I asked. I had heard he and she weren’t getting along.

”Fine, I guess. I don’t know. We’re not really talking right now.”

”Why not?”

“You didn’t hear?”

”No. What?”

”She loaned me money so I could buy a truck.”

”Yeah? So?”

”So she’s charging me interest.”

”What? Get the fuck out of here! Seriously?”

”Yeah, I swear to God.”

”That’s insane! Who does that?”

”Banks, I guess.”

”And our mother.”

”Yeah, her too.”

 “I can’t believe that! That’s ridiculous! And disturbing.”

“Yeah, we sort of had a falling out. I blew up at her, and now we’re not talking.”

”So have you paid her back?”

”I just started. I’m making monthly payments.”

”How much is the late fee?”

”That’s not funny.”

”Man, I’m sorry. Couldn’t dad help you out?”

”No, he helped me out with school tuition.”

”Mom didn’t help with that?”

”No, she refused.”

I sighed heavily out of my nose and shook my head She hadn’t helped me with my tuition either. Or my sister.

“You know, one day you’re going to have a showdown with mom too. It’s going to happen. You and she will have it out”

”I don’t know,” I replied. “I think I know her too well. I know what conversations to avoid. I know what sets her off.”

It doesn’t matter. You’re bound to clash. Your time will come.”

“My time will come? You make it sound like a promotion at work.”

“Whatever. All I’m saying is that each one of us has gone to war against mom except you.”

”Really? What about S (our sister) though?”

“Um, her wedding?”

”Holy shit. I forgot all about that! You’re right.”

”See what I mean?”

”Yeah. Jesus. I’m the only one who’s gone unscathed.”

During rehearsal for my sister’s wedding a few years back, my mother came unglued. She was upset that she would have to sit in close proximity to my father’s significant other C, upset that my sister had asked this woman to read a passage during the ceremony, and well, just upset in general. I think she yelled at someone because she noticed a light had a 90-watt bulb instead of a 60-watt one. Her lips might have been chapped too, so that didn’t help.

She left the rehearsal and then went home and called my father.

”I’m not going to the wedding.”

”What? What are you talking about?”

” I don’t want to go to the wedding.”

”K, it’s your daughter! You want to miss your daughter’s wedding?”

”I don’t want to go if things are going to be they way they are”

”K, this is ridiculous! We’re talking about our daughter, and her wedding ceremony. This is her day. And you want to ruin that?”

”I’m not ruining anything.”

“This isn’t about you. You’re going to regret this.”

“L, I’m not going.”

My sister, who was staying at my mother’s house for the weekend, packed up her belongings and checked into a hotel. I went out with my future brother-in-law and his friends while my sister sat at a Holiday Inn and cried.

”Welcome to the family,” I said to him. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m embarrassed for my mother,” I said.

”No, it’s alight,” he responded, in typical Minnesotan fashion. In Minnesota, when anything is wrong with your life, you’re required to say this. It’s the whole Minnesota Nice thing. Even if your face is on fire and you have herpes simplex 1 and 2, you must respond like this.

”No, it’s not alright,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to deal with shit like this. Not the night before your wedding.”

”It’s alright,” he replied again. “I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about your sister. She’s the one that shouldn’t have to put up with this. I’m just some guy. But this is your mom’s daughter. Her only daughter. How can she treat her daughter like this?”

”I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

He went to the hotel to console my sister. I swore at what was left of my beer.


Tatoo Remover - video powered by Metacafe

But today, the footsteps stop. Last night, I went for a run after work. It was almost 110 degrees, which sounds suicidal, but for me, running when it least makes sense has always been a pleasure. I like the extra work that the sun requires. And I like that I’m the only one out there. Sometimes people point. Maybe I’m mad. Maybe I like the pain.

After such runs, I’m usually left exhausted but fulfilled. Last night, I wasn’t. I was miserable. I was overheated despite showering and jumping in the fool, felt sick to my stomach, and familiar aches surfaced. The truth is, running has been getting more and more painful for a few years now.

Back in my early 20’s and even my mid 20’s, I ran despite reoccurring pains. I don’t think I developed them from running. I just don’t think I was ever built to be true runner, or one that can do it effortlessly. In those days, I fought off the pains. Healing was quick. Pains didn’t linger. And the promise of another marathon kept me going.

But it’s over. To continue on would be stupid. I should have stopped two years ago, but I didn’t. A disc bulge screamed for me to, but I didn’t. I ran on. And on. To compensate for the pain, I ran slower. And I lied to myself.

I have friends who have tried to quite smoking. Quitting running is as difficult. If you’re a runner, that will make sense to you. It’s an escape. Much like doing meth, it takes you away from your worries. Of course, there’s less scabbing and paranoia with running. That’s huge.

It’s the most physically discomforting, emotionally comforting activity that exists.
  
It was a good run, no pun intended. Though my goal was to run 50 – one in each state, I did crank out four. Running has brought me a lot of memorable experiences, which, as I wrote, is what life is all about.

There’s the Grandma’s Marathon I ran in 1997, my first, after which I immediately sat down for a drink in a bar. Thirty minutes later, I cramped up so badly I had to be carried out of the joint. Then I sat on the curb and puked like Gary in Team America.

Then there’s the San Diego Rock n’ Roll marathon I ran in 2003. When the gun went off, I was inside a Port-a-Potty peeing out enough Gatorade to fill a swimming pool.

In 2005, I proposed to J during a run – the same run I made last night.

But we move on from 95% of the things in our life – friends, lovers, jobs, activities, and running is no different. It’s time. I want to push on, I want to run one more race. My father ran over 30 marathons, and once attempted a 50-mile ultra-marathon. I envy him. I will not get there. But at 59, his body is battered and ragged. Maybe I shouldn’t try.

I could keep running. I could keep being stubborn. Or I could succumb to common sense and put the Nikes in the closet.

Naturally, I’ve chosen to register for the Phoenix Rock n’ Roll marathon in January.

I’m kidding. I’m going to look at bikes this weekend.

Louie itching himself with his back leg - I always get a laugh anytime a dog does this

Let me explain.

A few days before I was to walk for my graduation ceremony, I headed to my friend Selig’s rival college for some Thursday night fun. And fun it was, in sort of a “I can’t see out of my eye is it bleeding?” sort of way.

Selig, a bunch of his buddies and I headed out to a local watering hole a few miles away from college in an adjacent town. if you wanted to drink somewhere else other than under your sheets in your own dorm, this town was where you headed. The beers were cheap, the music was loud, and the girls were cute.

Two hours into the night, or six drinks later, depending on how you’re telling time, I went to the bathroom. I stood in line for five, ten minutes outside in the hallway before finally even getting inside. And there I saw part of the reason for the delay: three chicks were using the men’s restroom because the line for the women’s was too long. Most guys found it amusing that real live females were pulling down their pants just a few feet away in a stall. I didn’t.  
 
“This is bullshit,” I said.

”What?” replied one of the two girls standing outside the stall waiting for the lone friend in it. “What did you just say?”

”I said this is bullshit. I shouldn’t have to wait in line behind a bunch of chicks just to use the guys’ bathroom.”

”The women’s line is long. Just relax. We’re almost done.”

I wouldn’t let up. “Next time use your own bathroom,” I said.

An argument ensued. They mouthed off. So did I. A few guys chimed in, but most of the fellas who had managed to squeeze inside the men’s bathroom just watched with pleasure.

They got their two cents in, and then opened the door to leave. I finished my rant before they had the chance.

”Unless you have a cock and two balls, don’t be using this restroom,” I said, raising my voice on the word ‘don’t’ for added effect, you know, because contractions can be terrifying. They tossed dirty looks at my face, and then slipped back out into the smoke-filled crowd, bladders empty. A few guys looked like they were happy I had spoken up. A few looked annoyed. But everyone looked amused.

”Dude, some chicks were just in here peeing,” one meathead said to another.

”No way, dude.”

Yeah dude.”

”Dude.”

Moments later, I was back on the dance floor, sweating, emptying my drink and dancing to the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic.” I tend to dance with my head down, which is why I didn’t see them coming.

I saw a quick movement to my right, and then a faint brush of color to my left, but by then, it was too late. Someone’s fist connected squarely with my right eye. A split second later, another’s fist connected with the back of my skull. Then a third popped me in the right jaw. A tooth flew, and as I stepped back to support the weight of my fall, I sprained my ankle and fell even more awkwardly.

Whoever hit me took off. Or should I say they took off. Selig, who wasn’t a scrapper, stood there, stunned. His friends didn’t owe me any loyalty, so they did what they could. They scraped me off the floor like road kill off a highway, took me outside and plopped me up against a car to assess the damage.

My eye was already swollen shut. My ankle felt like a balloon that has been inflated with too much air and was seconds away from popping. I had received a total ass whooping.

”What the fuck!” Selig yelled at no one in particular. “I mean, what the fuck!”

Chris and his boys threw me in the back of a car and got me back to their house, where everyone took turns muttering “You alright, man?”

”Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I rationed. “No big deal. It’s alright.”

But I wasn’t alright. My right eye was black and blue. My right ankle was purple. My face was pale. I was more colorful than Kenneth Cole’s spring line.

I limped to my truck the next morning, slid into the seat and threw on my glasses.

”There. That’s not so bad,” I reasoned. “You can’t even tell I just got pummeled.”

Saturday afternoon, the day of graduation, I limped up the stairs to the studio apartment above me, where a fellow student named Kim lived. We were friends of a few months who had two advertising classes together.

”Holy shit, what the hell happened to you?” she asked. “You looked like you got your ass kicked!”

” I did. At our rival school.”

”Those fuckers.”

I told her the story while she applied make-up to my face, trying to conceal the blotches surrounding my eye with cover up. I was three hours away from graduation.

”This isn’t going to completely hide this, but it will blur it a bit.”

”Whatever you can do. Shit, I hope my parents don’t notice. I don’t want to have to explain why their son gets in fights.”

”But you didn’t get in a fight.”

”No, I got fought, but still, this isn’t good.”

”You think they sell “My son got his ass handed to him” bumper stickers at the bookstore?”   

“That’s not funny.”

”Yes it is, and you know it.”

”Ok, but still.”

”Stop moving your head. I was almost done but you made me smear it.”

My parents didn’t notice that day. Or at least they pretended not to. I think it was pretty obvious. In pictures taken prior to the ceremony, the bruise doesn’t pop out of you, but you barely have to squint to catch it. I’m sure it was much more apparent in person.

When my name was called, I looked out into the crowd at my parents, who were smiling and clapping. Then I looked over at my brother Luke, now 15, who mocked me by pretending to punch himself in the eye.

”I’m going to kick your ass,” I mouthed, before smiling back at my parents.

”Then we’ll both be pussies,” he mouthed back, laughing.

Naturally, I wanted in. If bartending school (sometimes called ‘academies’ - not to be confused with academies for the armed forces) was good enough for the woman wearing turquoise  pants and shoulder pads in the commercial, well then, it was good enough for me.

I was already serving at a restaurant. I had started out there as a bus boy, worked my way up to become a server, and then after seeing a slew of those commericals, thought it might help me move up to a bartending position.

Because you gotta have goals.

Don’t be mistaken. My stint at bartending school didn’t help me become a bartender. Quite the contrary, it almost convinced me not to become one. Sure, learning drinks is nice, but I did that pouring drinks in my basement during parties.

But what about job placement? Don’t most bartending schools offer that in their commercials? Isn’t that a great benefit?

You would think, but this is how that typically goes:

”So Keith, congratulations on graduating from our academy.”

“Thanks Dwyane.”

“Now, I know you mentioned you’d like to take advantage of our continuous lifetime placement service. I think I have some opportunities you may want to consider.”

“Really? Cool. Anything close to college? It would be kind of sweet to work at a bar right near the campus. Like the Thirsty Beaver.”

“Well, not quite. But there I know of a river boat that needs a bartender.”

“Hmm. In Minneapolis? Like, on the Mississippi? That would be kind of cool.”

”No. The Ohio River. In Kentucky.”

”Is that it?”

”No. Not at all. There’s also a circus coming to town in March that needs a beverage manager for 10 days. Oh, and there is a place downtown Minneapolis that needs a bartender.”

”Seriously?”

”Yeah, it’s called Rick’s Cabaret. You should check it out. The girls there are amazing.”
 
“The ones that work there? Pretty cute, huh?”

”Well, yeah. They’re strippers.”

”Oh. I think I’ll pass but thanks.”

”OK, man, your call. But if you change your mind, just stop in and fill out an app. I’ll be out of town the next few weeks taking care of some, ah, some business, so ask for Lester. He’ll help you out. Sometimes he ex-wife works shifts for him, so you may have to ask for Darlene.”

“Um sure thing. Thanks Dwyane.”

At least President Bush can beatbox.

As an aside, I can’t wait to see what Republicans come up with next.

Condoleezza: “Dick, I want to talk to you about this recipe for New Coke I came up with.”

Simba looking triumphant after mercilessly killing a stuffed alligator.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

“It is better to have not loved, then to now be listening to Counting Crows at 2 a.m., spooning your dog, and eating gas station burritos because that’s as far as you could make it outside the house because your slutty bitch for an ex-girlfriend Kate went down on a guy named Rock in a bar bathroom when you were on a break.”

- Mr. Pinkerton

The first she had a problem happened after a long night of drinking. Actually, the second did too. But at least in the first instance we were in my own bed.

We had been dating a few weeks. I woke up early one morning after a night of partying. M had stayed over. I couldn’t figure out why I had woken up, until I realized I was sopping wet, like you had dropped a sponge in a bath tub.  

“Shit,” I thought. “The waterbed is leaking.”

I jumped out the bed, and then pulled off some of the covers on my side hoping to find the source of the leak. I pulled off the sheet, then the comforter. I looked under the pillow. 

Nothing.

“Fuck, maybe the roof was leaking,” I considered. No, it hadn’t rained all week. 

Then I looked at the bed, then at M, then at the bed, then at her again.

Shit. 

Shit, shit, shit.

Waterbeds have what is called a bladder, which is basically a big sack that holds the water.

I thought it popped. It didn’t. M’s did. 

I tippy-toed over to her side of the bed and pulled up the covers just enough to let the light in and check my suspicions.

Sure enough, she was soaked. But it was worse then that. Her entire side of the bed was drenched. She hadn’t wet her pants. She had emptied Lake Superior. 

I walked back around to my side of the bed, the rickety wooden floor creaking with each step. I thought about sneaking down the steps and running out the front door.

“Wait a second, this is my house,” I thought. “Where am I going to go?”

I guess I could drive over to her house. I had a key. I could let myself into her bedroom and take a leak on her bed.

But that seemed mean. And more importantly, like a lot of work. 

Before I could hatch a plan, I heard M waking up. I glanced over to her as she brushed the hair out of her eyes and rolled onto her back to greet the morning.

“Good morning,” I said. 

“Good morning,” she replied.

“I’m thirsty,” said her bladder.

I stood there, rubbing the back of my head, searching for words. It didn’t her long to realize what she had done. 

“Oh, my, God,” she said. “I mean, oh my God. Oh my God. Keith, don’t even look at me. Oh my God.”

“M, it’s fi—”

“I said don’t look at me. I’m taking all your blankets home and washing them. If you don’t ever want to talk to me again, I would understand.”

“Please stay,” I said, but she was already down the stairs. 

“Whomp!” The front door slammed shut.

The second time it happened, we had been dating several months when my friend invited people up to his cabin just outside of Duluth, MN for the weekend. Again, we woke up in soaked sheets. Only this time, there was no confusion. Embarrassed, she ran to the bathroom. 

I waited until the coast was clear, and stripped the bed of the sheets and threw them in the closet under a bunch of other clean bedding. Then we took off. To this day, my friend whose parents owned the cabin has never called me out on it. I’m not sure he even knows.

“Any reason you took the sheets off the bed?” he asked as we left. It was still before noon. No one leaves a cabin before noon. He smelled something fishy. 

Or maybe it was just her pee. 

“No.”

“Um OK. Wait, why are your pants wet?”

“I’m not sure.” 

“Hm.”

“Wait, sorry. One more thing. Why are M’s pants wet?” 

“She pissed your bed. Ha-ha. Totally kidding.”

“Good one. Later.” 

“Later.”

Months after German Girl and I broke up in 2002 – I’m talking about the 13th time we broke up, not the 12th – I started dating a petite blonde (who we shall dub the Squirrel Girl) who approached me in a bar. She liked my hat, I liked her hair, so we agreed to get together.

The first time I met her out was at a club where the magazine for which I was writing was holding a launch party. I wish I could say this was something special. It wasn’t. Restaurants and magazines pop up and disappear overnight in Scottsdale. Friday, you could read a review in a hip magazine about a hip club and come Saturday, discover that neither existed.

In the first few minutes of conversation with the Squirrel Girl, I discovered something interesting.

“I just got my nose done,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t like it.”

It was a stupid answer to an idiotic question. Why else would someone get their nose done?

“Because I had two days off of work and I thought facial bruising would pass the time.”

An hour later, a friend a the club misinterpreted the news (it was loud) to mean that she was going to get her nose done.

“What don’t you like about it?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“I mean why are you getting your nose done?”

“I already got it done. What? Does it look bad?”

We then all took awkward sips from our drinks.

“No.”

“Not at all.”

“It looks great.”

The truth is, it didn’t look great. I didn’t care. But considering she just had it done, I was expecting, I don’t know, more, whatever that means. If it seemed big after surgery. I can’t imagine what it looked like before. Probably like two car tunnels sitting side by side.

Doctor: “Nurse, scapel! No wait, shovel!”

The two of us recovered from the uncomfortable conversation to have a great night, even good enough for her to want to come back to my apartment.

She asked to use the bathroom. I went in the kitchen poured us some drinks, and sat down to play with the dog. 

She emerged a few minutes later. But then she disappeared. A minute later, she called my name.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m in your bedroom,” she replied.

“Shit. I wonder if she wants to make out,” I thought. I don’t make out very well when I’m nervous, and I’m usually nervous until the fourth or fifth date.

I walked into my bedroom to find her standing next to my bed in black bra and a matching thong that was so small it looked like a headband for an ant.

Her boobs were enormous, especially on her small frame. But they looked more than big, they looked, I don’t know, strong, or something. Like they were going to crawl out of her bra and start doing pushups.

“They’re fake,” she explained, noticing that my jaw had hit the floor, gone through it, and landed on the coffee table of the renters below.

“Nice,” I offered, almost as if I was looking at a new car. What the hell was I supposed to say?

“Come here,” she insisted, pulled me by my shirt, popping two buttons in the process.

“One second,” I said. Whenever I get nervous, I have to pee, and I hate making out when I have to pee. The two sensations are so opposed. It’s like eating an ice cream cone and getting kicked in the balls.

“I’ll be right back,” I explained.

She licked her lips and laughed. “She’s either going to make out with me or kill me,” I thought to myself.

I walked into the bathroom to go pee. I noticed the toilet seat was up. Weird. Girls are usually good about that.

I unzipped my pants, leaned in, and that’s when I saw it: something that looked like a squirrel.

There were fucking turds in my toilet!

I didn’t know what to do. Did she forget to flush? Did the toilet not work? I pressed the handle and averted my eyes. Sure enough, it worked.

What the fuck? I was stunned. I could never look at her the same. Now every time I looked at her, I would see turds where her eyes were supposed to be. There was no getting over this.

If there’s such thing as a negative erection, I had one, so I made up an excuse to get her out.

I avoided her calls but ended up feeling guilty, so I agreed to meet up with her again three weeks later. Sure enough, we ended up back at my apartment.

“You want to go to your bedroom?” she asked.

“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll be right there.” Ten seconds ago I didn’t have to go to the bathroom but as soon as she got the word ‘bedroom’ out of her mouth, I had to pee.

I walked into the bathroom, and while searching for the lights, noticed the seat was up. I then remembered she had used the bathroom when we first got back to my place.

“Of fuck,” I thought. “What if … No, it couldn’t happen again. There’s just no way.”

It did.

I hit the lights and there in my precious toilet bowl was another squirrel. Another dump and run. Two for two.  

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening,” I thought, closing my eyes. I opened them. Yep, still there.

I laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Then I got pissed.

“What the fuck?” I said under my breath. “My buddies wouldn’t even do this as a joke.” I laughed again.

“Fuck,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

I flushed the toilet, walked out of the bathroom, and told her that I didn’t feel well. She said that was OK and we’d see each other again soon.

I never saw the Squirrel Girl again.

Um, the Cardinals turned it down.

For more on the Pink Taco franchise, check out the video.

But then I caught her spending $65 on make-up, $150 for a haircut, $30 for a manicure, $40 for a pedicure, $50 on vitamins and $300 on clothes. I asked her why she spent all this money on these things when we’re on a budget. She said she needed them to look pretty for me.

I told her that’s what the beer was for.

I don’t think she’s coming back.

When people find out, either through word of mouth or through me telling them, the responses are usually generic.

“That’s fucking young.”

“Dude.”

“Are you serious?”

“You’re kidding.”

Then there are those friends who are more creative with their responses:

1. “Who won in Chutes and Ladders last night?”

2. “What’s her favorite Pokemon?”

3. “When she’s 70, you’re going to be, um, let’s see .. dead.” 

4. “Do you, her, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have couples’ night?”

5. “When you two have children and need a babysitter you can hire her.”

6. “When her father dies, she’ll only be left with one.”

7. “Fuck off. Holy shit that’s awesome!”

8. “What are you wearing to prom?”

9. “You’re probably closer in age to her mom.”

10. “You should try and nail her mom.”

J’s pooch Mikey, who I’m watching for the next nine days

I feel that change. Change is something that’s hard to measure, unless you have a clear perspective on where you stand, and where you once stood. If this blog has any sort of value, it’s in that it allows me to do just this: measure change.

As recently as a few months ago, I was wanting to become a lawyer so I could pursue animal rights law. I took the LSAT and did well enough to be accepted by a local school. Going or not going has been a tough decision for me. Sure, I would make a lot more money, but I’ve never been concerned with that. Money doesn’t really matter to me. If I met a nice homeless girl and she asked me to move into her box, I probably would.

If she promised not to cut her hair.

One of my best friends makes a ton of money. A ton. He bought a house for $1.2 million before he hit 30.

He’s also the most miserable person I know. I think about this. I think about him when I wonder if I should be doing something more lucrative. The thing is, I’m comfortable with modest surroundings. People think perishable goods like cars and new couches make you happy, but they don’t.

Experiences do. In two months, the allure of my new vehicle will wear off and when I tell a person about it, it will be without excitement.

But to this day, when I talk about traveling throughout Europe in 1999 and sticking my tongue out at the Mona Lisa and lying on the floor of the Sistine Chapel, I still smile.

I don’t know why I’m so into animals, and not verse or bikes. But I am. But the most important decision I’ve recently made involves what I’m not into: law. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about the prestige. What I care about is dogs.

I also like to write so much so that I don’t want to give it up. Whether it’s for this blog, the book or www.sportsgoons.com, I like the feeling of filling up white space with me.

But if I became a lawyer, much of this would disappear. I’ve seen J work her tail off. I’ve waited for her for hours before nodding off to sleep, only to hear the garage door opening at 2 a.m. I’ve seen her get sick every two weeks.

I’ve seen J become everything that she isn’t. 

So what am I going to do instead? How am I going to supplant the $150,000 salary I likely would have earned after 6-8 years in the business?

By getting paid nothing of course. That’s right, last night, I went to my first meeting to become a member of the Sheriff’s Animal Cruelty Investigative Unit. It’s an incredibly serious volunteer job that requires admission and a wealth of training, including weapons.

I sat there for two hours, giddy as all hell. If accepted, I’ll get to chase animal abusers and help prosecute them.

Shouldn’t I get paid for all the help I’ll be offering? Something at least? 

Maybe, but personally, I think I should be paying them. Last night, in a stuffy room surrounded by fat sergeants, I smiled a smile that knocked two men off their feet and sent one lady home with a broken hip. That’s worth millions. That’s worth happiness.

“This is fucking it, I thought. This is my passion. I found my passion.”

I guess you could say it’s been a long route to get here; that it took me a long time to realize that it’s working with dogs as a volunteer and not for them as a lawyer that lights up my eyes.

But I got here.

Thanks, Vince.

Kate: “Chris, I just can’t take this anymore. I’ve been asking you to shave for months now. Your face scratches me.”

Chris: “Kate, I’m not shaving. This is who I am. I can’t just go changing my look. People wouldn’t recognize me as the lead signer for the Black Crowes if I shaved off my beard.”

Kate: “Oh, for crying out loud, Chris. You guys hardly play anymore. The last venue you played was a biker bar in Davenport, IA in front of six lesbians two years ago.”

Chris: “They weren’t lesbians, they were just beefy. And there were 10 of them, Kate. Fucking 10, alright?”

Kate: “I’m just saying …”

Chris: “You’re just saying what?”

Kate: “Nothing.”

Chris: “Oh, don’t do that. You always start a sentence and then stop.”

Kate: “Alright, fine you want me to say it? I think you’re washed up. Sure, you guys had a good run, but it’s time to cut your hair and start coming home before 3 a.m.”

Chris: “I’m Chris Robinson! You hear me? Chris fucking Robinson! I wrote ‘She Talks to Angels!’”

Kate: “Honey … “

Chris: “No, you know what? I’m so out of here. I can’t have you stifling my creativity. You’re repressing me.”

Kate: “I think you mean oppressing.”

Chris: “Whatever. I hate it when you correct me. I’m a songwriter. And a fucking good one. You think some slap dick like John Mayer could pull off ‘Remedy’?

Kate: “I don’t now … ”

Chris: “Of course he couldn’t. Because I’m awesome.”

Kate: “Baby, I know you’re awesome. I just think it might be time for a change.”

Chris: “A change? A change? You want change? I got an idea. How about you stop doing shitty-ass, unfunny chick flicks posing as comedies?

Kate: “I can’t believe you just said that!”

Chris: “Well, I did! ‘You, Me and Dupree’?” Come on Kate. I’ve seen traffic accidents that were funnier.”

Kate: “Well, well, well. I guess we’re just airing out all the dirty laundry aren’t we?”

Chris: “I guess so.”

Kate: “Fine. Your penis is small.”

Chris: “You have no boobs.”

Kate: “You smell like burnt tuna and fireworks.”

Chris: “You’re anorexic.”

Kate: “So are you.”

Chris: “I want a divorce.”

Kate: “Good, because I do too.”

Chris: “Fine.”

Kate: “Fine.”

She introduced me to the book series Conversations with God. She had me participate in a ceremony where the people she had gathered in her family room sat in a circle and smoked a pipe. I don’t remember why. I think her friend was trying to quit smoking.

Then there’s the ghost she had in her house. Yes, when I was a freshman in college, a ghost haunted her house. Apparently it was upset with her because she had a male renter downstairs, or so she told me. This was the tale she wove minute before I went to sleep in the guest bed one night when I was home and staying with her for the weekend. 

”You know, Keith, my friends Bonnie stayed here a few weeks ago and the ghost visited her in this very bedroom.”

I stared at the ceiling.

”Yeah, she woke up with the sensation of there being a presence in the room. And there, at the foot of the bed, was the ghost, just standing there, watching her. It stood there for a good 30 seconds before it just vanished. Bonnie was frozen scared. Even after it left, she couldn’t get out of bed to tell me. I didn’t find out about it until the morning.”

I stared at the foot of the bed.

”Anyway, sleep tight.”

I didn’t. I stared at the ceiling for the next three hours before giving in to sleep, although I fought it as hard as I could because I was convinced I was going to end up in the land of the dead, or wherever it is that ghosts take people they steal in the night. Maybe they just take them to Applebees for drinks. Not sure.

The next day, when I was walking around downstairs, I came out of one room and entered another only to find a rocking chair moving back and forth slightly. Like someone had just gotten up out of it 10 seconds earlier and it was still working on coming to a rest. I’m not making this up. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe it was all in my head. Or maybe I was a ghost and I just didn’t know it, kind of like Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense.” Wait! What if all the Petersons were ghosts! That would at least explain why no one talked.

Back to David. After hanging up with my dad, I called mom to get a first hand account of what happened.

“Hi Mom.”

”Well hi, honey, how are you?”

“I’m good. The question is, how are you?”

”Not so good. Did you hear about David?”

”Yeah, dad called and told me. he said you’re not happy with him.”

”Well, after I told him that David committed suicide, he said it was for the best and said he was glad he was dead.”

”Well yeah, mom, we’re all relieved.”

“Well, I’m not. I loved David. This is all my fault. It’s my fault he’s dead. He just needed help. He didn’t need to die.”

I said nothing. What could I say? I couldn’t possibly understand her trauma. But I could understand that it was certainly plausible that David would have eventually resorted to killing her. And if he had to die for her to live, well, to me, that’s just the way the universe works. 

Of course I didn’t say that.

My mom fell into deep depression. She mourned his loss. She made a shrine for him. She put up pictures. She even blamed the police for being too hard on him.

“It’s their fault David’s dead,” she would say. “It didn’t have to be like this. He wasn’t going to do anything to me. He just wanted to be loved.”

Was she right? Could he have been saved? Saved from killing her? Saved from killing himself?

Did it have to be one life or the other?

But the worst part of the stalking was when she didn’t know he was there; when she would wake up to footprints in the freshly fallen snow that led from the windows of her home to the woods back behind her property.

Things got so bad with my mother that I started coming home on weekends and staying at her house. Some nights I would sleep tucked in the corner of the dining room, a position that allowed me to look out upon the road that wound past her house. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I actually caught him snooping. I would confront him. But then what? What if he had a gun? Or a knife? Or both?

I didn’t have to get involved because my dad did. I’m not sure why. Maybe the thought of having the woman he once woke up next to living her life in fear was too much. Or maybe the thought that us kids’ lives were in danger tortured him. I’ve never asked.

One night, after obtaining David’s address, he parked outside his house and waited for him to come home. He never did, which is fortunate because my father might still be behind bars. I’m not sure what he intended to do to him, but I imagine it would have been substantially worse than the screaming I would have done. My father was an ex-Marine with a sturdy frame and a barrel-wide chest trained for combat. And this was combat. Just a different kind.

David’s car became too much of a dead giveaway so he resorted to parking a mile away and then walking to her house in the dark. But this was his biggest mistake. My father used this ploy against him by routinely surveying the neighborhood in his car, driving around looking for his ride.

Night after night, he came up empty. Nothing. But then, he got lucky. There, parked in the shadows of a mammoth evergreen tree was a car matching the description of David’s. My dad pulled his car closer. Damn! The license plate matched the set of numbers he had scrawled on a scrap of paper. It was him.

Or at least his car. He wasn’t inside. Thoughts raced through my father’s head and his pulse quickened. What should he do? Should he wait inside his own car, and then follow him back home? Should he drive back to my mother’s house in case he was there?

He decided on a third option. He disconnected the battery in his car and called the police, who showed up minutes later. It wasn’t long after this that David made his way back to his vehicle, where he was surprised to find a slew of police officers standing around it. They brought him in. He was arrested for violating the terms of the restraining order. It said he couldn’t be within 1,000 feet of her at any time. Certainly fogging up her bedroom window qualified.

The police had busted David before. He had a track record of which they were well aware. So when they hauled him in this time, he was in a heap of trouble. While harassing a woman may not draw a lot of attention, continuing to harass her will. And it did. He was now facing jail time. Significant jail time. Now all my mom had to do was wait for him to go and court and receive his sentencing.

He never made it.

“Hello”

”Hey Keith, it’s your dad.”

”Hey, what’s up?”

”Well, I’m calling because I have some news about David.”

”Oh yeah? Did they throw the book at him?”

”No, they never got the chance.”

”What do you mean?”

”He killed himself yesterday morning.”

”What!?”

”Yeah. He killed himself. The police found him in his car in his garage.”

”You’ve got to be kidding me! Are you serious?”

”Yes.”

”Wow, I can’t believe he committed suicide. I knew he was messed up, but I didn’t know he was that messed up.” 

”I don’t think anybody did.”

”Well I know this sounds horrible, but I think this is a good thing, right? I mean, I hate to say that, but now mom is safe.”

”I know. You don’t want to wish that upon anyone, but it is what it is, and now her life can go back to normal.”

”Speaking of mom, how is she doing? She must be so relieved.”

”She’s not talking to me.”

”What? What do you mean?”

”She’s upset with me.”

”Upset with you? But you helped the police nail this guy. I don’t understand. Why would she be upset with you.”

“I don’t understand either. Give her a call. I’m sure she’d like to hear from you. This has been traumatic for her.”

”I will.”

”Alright. How is everything?”

”Good, good.”

”Ok, well, take care then.”

”You too, dad. Bye.”

”Bye.”

Notice how short this conversation was if you eliminate the part about my mother? That’s basically how the phone calls went in college.

How is everything?”

”Good, good.”

”Ok, well, take care then.”

”You too, dad. Bye.”

”Bye.”

Or if he was feeling talkative:

How is everything?”

”Good, good.”

”How’s school?”

“Good. I’m getting a 3.83 this semester.”

”How’s the job?”

”Good, making pretty good money bartending.”

”You seeing anyone?”

”Nope. Not right now.”

”Ok, well, take care then.”

”You too, dad. Bye.”

”Bye.”
 
Contrast that with the conversations I have with my mom. When people get ready to tell you something exceptional, they ask, “Are you sitting down for this.” My mom might as well asked, “Are you lying down for this?” every time she called.

“Hello.”

”Hi Keith, it’s your mother.”

“Hi mom, what are you up to?”

“Well, I was just sitting here thinking. Have you ever thought about how our energy can coalesce with our thoughts to effect change within the soul?”

“Not today, no.”

(This followed by 30 minutes of conversation about how God is a woman, or how all women are Gods. Or both. I can’t quite remember.)

Clementine’s mug shot.

I did, however, have time to play lacrosse for my university’s club team, which I mention because that participation led to the consumption of my first beer. We were playing in a tournament in Mankato, MN. After our second game of the day, we headed out to a bar called the Albatross. Nine years later, I’m totally convinced everyone has his or her first drink at a bar named after a bird.

“Dude, I got wasted for the first time last night at the Happy Toucan.”

“Man, I don’t even remember being at the Thirsty Crow last night. I only had eight beers. Is that a lot?”

But on to more important things. 

Mom was dating a guy named David for several months now. I didn’t like or dislike him. He was cordial enough to me, but there was just always something that didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t even name it. Maybe it was his stoicism. Or his darting eyes. Or the way I also thought that he had the type of face that I could picture appearing on the evening news. I don’t know. Something just seemed … off.

It turned out he was off. Off his rocker. He started stalking my mom, which was par for the course as far as the normalcy of her boyfriends. One of the first guys she dated was a guy named Bill, who ended up slashing her tires, among many incidents in a long string of threatening acts meant to show her who was boss. Another guy that moved in with her collected unemployment and lived of her income, she now a registered nurse after going back to school following the divorce. These guys weren’t just losers. They were the last of the losers. Scum. The last few drops of warm beer. But she was attracted to them. She liked cleaning them.

David’s stalking started out small-time, if stalking can in fact be small-time. He followed her here and there. Made too many phone calls. Serious stuff, but no reason to call the cops yet.

But it intensified. His calls were up to 20, 30 times a day. He was showing up at the house. Sometimes he would stop. Other times she would see him drive by. It was the smiled I hated. That’s it. That’s what I didn’t like. That’s what was off. The slight, sardonic smile that was a twitch away from being a frown.

I told her to get a restraining order. Oddly enough, I had helped N, one of my best male friends, obtain one a few years earlier. He broke up with a girl he dated for eight months, who went, shall we say, a little crazy. No. A lot crazy. She followed him. She called him and told him that since he ruined her life, she was now going to ruin his. She told him she was pregnant, which she wasn’t. Nice girl.

Still, he wavered. She was crazy, no doubt. But weren’t restraining orders for gaining protection against psychotics? She was just borderline nuts, right?

Wrong. She was a raging, bonafide lunatic. The real deal. Definitely not a poser. Some people are good with numbers, or at writing, or with kids. She was good at impersonating Glenn Close.

The last straw, which she probably tainted with arsenic so that when N took a sip from his Coke he would die, occurred when he had an ex-girlfriend stay the night. They weren’t dating. They weren’t even messing around. But when she saw them together, all hell broke loose.

Psycho Steph (not to be confused with my sister Steph, who is exceptionally sane and all things wonderful and makes it a point not to feign pregnancies because she’s sweet like that) showed up the night N had his ex stay over. She didn’t know she was there, but she had to see him, so she parked her car out of sight, yanked a crow bar out of her car trunk, and approached his house.

He wouldn’t answer the doorbell. He knew better. And he wouldn’t answer the phone. So she jammed the crow bar under the garage door and pried it up just over a foot or so she could shimmy her way under it. Her anorexia was really paying off. 

When she barged in on N, she wasn’t expecting to see him spooning a girl. But not just any girl. This was Sarah, her nemesis. Sarah and Steph never liked each other, because they were females, and well, they were females. Steph resented Sarah for having perfectly curly blonde hair stolen from a L’Oreal commercial and big boobs, and Sarah resented Steph for being skinny even though she herself was a size four. Worse yet, they had both dates N – Sarah for a significantly longer period of time in high school.

One time at a party, they took to fighting, which was like a writer taking to writing. Steph said she was thinner than Sarah. Sarah said she was thinner then Steph. They needed a judge, but no one was dumb enough to step in and announce a winner, so they all stood back and watched the finger pointing like a tennis match.

So they rummaged through a closet and found a scale This would decide things. It did, sort of. Steph weighed 121 pounds. Sarah weighed 123. Of course, she might as well have weighed 314 pounds because she lost. Had Sarah not stopped at Burger Kind before the party, the results might have been different, but whatever. Steph had emerged from the Ultimate Weight Bitchoff as the winner. Pour her a Diet-Captain Coke (less calories).

You can imagine the venom that spewed from Steph’s mouth when she entered N’s bedroom. She cursed like a sailor who had a job as a trucker before becoming a construction worker. She didn’t drop f bombs so much as slap N and Sarah upside the head with them.

N interjected, saying “Nothing happened! Just hold on! We’re not doing anything. She’s just staying the night because it’s late.”

Of course, Steph wasn’t having it. She was out for blood, not understanding. She wanted to take names. And hair.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do with her anger, so she retreated to the garage. There, she found a three wood. She also found N’s Jeep Cherokee, or what she thought was N’s Jeep Cherokee. It was actually his brother Mark’s vehicle, but that wasn’t discernible in the dimly lit garage.

So she teed off on Mark’s vehicle, smashing both door panels, breaking several windows and sending paint flying like a splash coming off a puddle. Not exactly the ay to get the guy back. I, myself, would have gone with a well-written note professing my desire to work things out, but destroying a $30,000 piece of personal property works too. You know how that Biblical saying goes: 

“Love is patient, love is kind, love is noisy.”

The devastation ended only when the head of the three wood snapped off, leaving her with only slender rod of metal that was more suited for fencing then stalking. Knowing that nothing was to be gained by going back inside, she left.

The next day, I took N down to city hall to get a restraining order. We were expecting lengthy interviews followed by a complex approval process. It turns out it was easier than getting gas. We told a woman about Steph, filled out a form on which N detailed her behavior, and then left. A few days later, a police officer served her the restraining order at work.

She didn’t back down. She continued to harass him and filed a restraining order of her own. But since she didn’t show up for a court appointment, hers was never enacted. He eventually moved to Arizona, which really threw her stalking budget out of whack because gasoline costs skyrocketed. So, that was that.

My mother’s problems weren’t so amusing.

Self-help books can show us how to lead a better life. So can the staff secretary Luanne, who thinks she’s capable of offering dating advice even though she’s been divorced twice, has ‘Tommy’ tattooed on her left breast and has herpes.

But dogs can’t show us the way. They’ve got paws for crying out loud. And a tail! If I’m going to get myself together, by golly, it’s going to happen with a little help from a living, human being.

Because we always get it right. Right?

As humans, we have this horrible trend of asking for advice, not taking it, asking again for advice, and again not taking it, before finally making a choice of out necessity or desperation. And we call this learning.

That’s all fine and dandy. I’ve certainly learned that way. But I’m also learning through having dogs.

What am I learning? Well, that would require that I explain what my faults are. You really want to know? Fine. I’m a moody, sometimes greedy, sometimes standoffish person who has found himself incapable of having confidence in himself and fearful that his own family is going to be an 18-car pileup.

If that doesn’t get a girl into bed, I don’t know what does. Maybe, “I have gout, gonorrhea and the chicken pox.”

Or, “If we get pulled over, my name is Ronald. You got that? Ronald.”

Can having dogs run around the house help me sweep all these restrictive qualities under the rug in one swift move? Well, no. But it helps.

I’m no longer the first priority when I get home. My dogs are. And I think the attention I’m forced to give them is helping me give attention to other people in my life, especially those I love. You can be in a relationship with a person, and be an island, which I proved, but you can’t be in a relationship with a dog and be one. Well, OK, you can, but in a week or so you’d be calling waste management to come get its body.

I haven’t been transformed. I think serial killers need to be transformed. And child molesters. Actually maybe anyone that’s spent more than 10 days in prison. Tweaked maybe. And I’m a big fan of tweaking. I like to think that I’m taking small steps to become a better person, a more attentive partner and someday, a better father.

My dogs tweak me every day. They teach me patience. They cause me to be more affectionate. And not just with them. With people. With the Horse Whisperer.

Sure, I don’t think of my dogs and then go out and give the Horse Whisperer a kiss. I think it’s more subconscious then that. It’s just that somedays I’ll stop and catch myself doing something I wouldn’t have done before, like offering her the last sushi roll, or doing something I wouldn’t done with as much frequency, like wrapping my arms around her.

I think having dogs teaches me to think about myself less often. I still have those days where I want to be an island, but Simba and Clementine and the scores of mutts that have come in and out of my life have taught me that you’re better off being an archipelago.

Because there’s more of you to go around. 

But that’s just me. I can be particularly mean-spirited when it comes to protecting someone or something I love.

Dog people will tell you exactly what I’m going to tell you. That we get our first dog at some point in our lives and wonder what’s the best way to go about teaching it to do tricks; to listen; to behave.

Several months later, we realize we, the humans, are doing most of the learning. Most of us dog people change in some capacity. For some, the change might be slight. For others it may be severe. But taking a life in your hands and witnessing how your treat-giving or scolding can shape a dog’s day just as a promotion at work or a fight with your spouse can shape yours awakens things like sense of responsibility, diligence, affection, and love.

You think of full of bullshit? Fine. All I’m asking is that you visit a prison where they run a program that allows felons to care for county dogs that would otherwise be euthanized. Watch a man standing 6’6” weighing 300 pounds who was convicted of a brutal double homicide cry when he has to watch his dog go home to its adopted family and you might think differently.

You know, it’s funny sometimes. I have a female dog named Clementine who can be a pain in the ass, if only because she wants to be loved so fiercely. She eats my other dog’s food, licks people incessantly, and fights me for the pillow at night.

Yesterday, I came home and there she stood, with her tail between her legs, knowing she was in trouble.

“Clementine, why on earth would you chew on the rug? You know better than that!”

And then I thought back to the day last December when I moved back to my own house, after weeks of J and me asking each other, “Are you ready to give up on us?”

I had to make several trips to grab my belongings. I left Clementine for last. She rode shotgun.

It was a short ride home – maybe two miles. But it seemed like 50. At one light, I stopped for a red and chewed on my lip persistently. If the light hadn’t turned green, I would have been left with a pair of feet.

At one point, I could have sworn I felt a stare from Clementine.

I looked over, and maybe, just maybe, I could have sworn she said, “Keith, why on earth would you go and fuck up an engagement? You know better than that! I might jump up on people, but you need to be more affectionate.”

I started training the following Monday.

I thought I could do better. So here’s the Top 10 List of Things Women Dont Know About Men.

1) We are excellent listeners.

Don’t be fooled. I hate to blow our cover, but well, it’s an act. We’re exceptional listeners. How else would you explain a guy contradicting a buddy’s sports-related argument by reciting a statistic mentioned on SportCenter three weeks ago. You want to suck us in and have us kissing your feet for life? Speak using sports analogies.

“Oh, my God. You remember my co-worker Jill, right? No, that’s Carol. I’m talking about Jill, the skinny one with the perfect hair and perfect skin. Remember her now? Ok, well, anyway, two months ago, she was going on and on about how happy she was working for our company, but then the slut quit her position and went to work for a competitor. She’s like the Johnny Damon of corporate America.”

It’s really that easy.

2) We want to have sex with one of your friends.

We’re not going to have sex with her of course. We would never do that. We’re all gentlemanly and stuff. But you do have at least one friend who we massively check out every time you’re with her. And if you ever died in a tragic car accident, God forbid, we’d probably go to her for support. For support. 

3) Sometimes we use the bathroom to go #3 when you fall asleep.

What is #3? Masturbating. Maybe you went to bed early, or maybe you turned us down. But sometimes we use the bathroom to pull the goalie when we know we’re not getting any from you.

4) We pee in the shower.

Sometimes seconds before you step into it with us. I don’t do this, of course, but I heard other guys do. Gross, right?

5) We’ve looked at the tag on your bra to see what size you are.

If it’s an A, we’re probably ass men.

If it’s a B, we rationalize that it’s probably a full B, which is pretty close to a C, which is only one removed from a D.

If it’s a C, we rationalize that it’s probably a full C, which is only one removed from a D.

If it’s a D, we put one of the bra cups on our head and wear it around the house as a hat for a laugh. 

6) We don’t like your new haircut.

We like the way you presently look, not the way you’re going to look in the future. You’re a person, not a stock.

7) We think we’re smarter than you.

We may be as dumb as a rock, but that just means we think we’re experts in geology.

We’re a lot more handy then we let on.

Sure, we could probably fix that, but if we admit to knowing how, that’s going to lead to other projects. Plus Rescue Me will be long over by the time we’re done. But I tell you what we can do for you. We will replace the toilet paper roll. During a commercial.

9) We pull underwear out of the hamper and re-use them if we run out. 

Or at least the guys who pee in the shower do.

10) We frequently cry about how much we love you.

We really do. Oh, by the way, by “frequently” I mean “occasionaly” and by “about how much we love you,” I mean “while watching a particularly poignant sports clip.”

But really, that’s just semantics. We’re crossing hairs. Speaking of hair, you’re going to go back to growing it out, right?  

Louie polishing off a Rolling Rock.

This post elicited some emails from her, which prompted responses from me, which led me to reconsider how fairly I was treating her.

Humility is a tough act. You can’t be humble one minute and not the next. Just like standing on a phone book to reach a can of soup on the top shelf of your cupboard doesn’t make you tall, showing humility in one situation and not the next doesn’t make you a humble person.

A few weeks ago, the idea of J and I being friends was about as successful as communism, except well, I guess we have eggs and blue jeans to enjoy. I didn’t get her, she didn’t get me, and I felt like everything I did to bridge the gap between us just made everything a lot worse. No, we didn’t have to be friends, but I wanted things to be more cordial. I didn’t want the one girl to whom I once pledged my life to disappear like a receipt.

Some people have said that I write about her enough that it would appear as though I am not over her. I don’t feel I need to denounce that opinion particularly because there’s nothing to be gained by convincing all of you that I am. And it’s not particularly something to be proud of. It would just seem a bit odd to go out of my way to confirm that.

Me: “Dude, I’m over J. High five!”

All I will say is this: I am over her, but I still love her. I love her for who she is, what she meant to me, and the emotional risks she took when she was with me. She is an amazing woman with a heart larger than Duluth, a contagious laugh that starts in her chest, and a brazen spirit of which I am jealous. To say that I don’t love her for the purpose of minding my pride just isn’t important. I do. I love her immensely – with both the realization that our time has passed and the hopefulness that she meets a man who gives her what I could not.

I’ve been tough on J on my blog. It was never on purpose. My criticisms came from an honest place. Though some comments I made were harsh, I genuinely felt them to be true summations of events and they were made not for the desire to pick her apart, but out of frustration that we had sunk so low. To go from Romeo and Juliet to Biggie and Tupac made me sad.

I wanted more for us; not a relationship but an appreciation. At times, I know her and I both wonder how it all happened – falling in love, the house, the dogs – but it did. In hindsight, we may seem to be unlikely partners, but none-the-less, we were. Something pulled us close. Something brought us together. Something led me to get down on one knee on a patch of grass outside of a church and propose to her. And something led her to say “yes.”

I didn’t want to renew the romance; I wanted to renew the respect and admiration we once had for each other.

What I’m getting at is that I’ve taken some steps to remedy the hurt I’ve caused her through this blog. You know, you try and prove a point with someone. You try and make them understand. You try and make them see your side.

Then one day, you look up from your own thoughts and see someone hurting. And you think to yourself, “You know what, it’s not worth it.”

And it’s not. I might be right in one regard, and wrong in another. Who knows. But when she emailed me and told me I’ve hurt her, I believed her. And I felt disappointed in myself.

Our pastor has a saying, “Don’t make the issue more important than the person.” That’s precisely what I was doing. Sure, I had my humble moments with her, but for a long time, I was only concerned with being right.

And you can’t have it both ways.

So yes, J and I are talking. I might share what we talk about, I might not. I am going to be more discerning when it comes to writing about her here, though.

Yesterday I picked up the engagement ring I bought her so I could sell it privately. I anticipated feeling depressed afterwards. Having to drive out of the jewelry store lot with the same ring but for an entirely different purpose was a little weird, to say the least.

But when I did, I laughed. I fucking laughed. I laughed at me. At her. At us. At the failure of the engagement. I smiled the entire drive home, for no other reason than someone so wonderful was in my life again.

That drive felt good. So good that I called her. She returned the call last night and we had one of the best talks in ages.

Some days, it all seems so simple: take better care of those you love.

Theme Song

Title: C’mon C’mon
Artist: The Von Bondies
Album: Pawn Shoppe Heart

Season 1

Preview Trailer

Title: Under Pressure
Artist: Queen & David Bowie
Album: Classic Queen

Episode 1: “Guts”

Title: “Don’t Panic”
Artist: Coldplay
Album: Parachutes

Episode 2: “Gay”

Title: “Stronger Than Dirt”
Artist: Tom McRae
Album: Just Like Blood

Episode 3: “Kansas”

NO MUSIC FEATURED

Episode 4: “DNA”

Title: “When All Is Said and Done”
Artist: Tyrone Wells
Album: Snapshot

Episode 5: “Orphans”

Title: “Chasing Dreams”
Artist: Magnet
Album: On Your Side

Episode 6: “Revenge”

NO MUSIC FEATURED

Episode 7: “Butterfly”

Title: “Karaoke Soul”
Artist: Tom McRae
Album: Just Like Blood

Episode 8: “Inches”

Title:  “All I Can Do”
Artist: Tyrone Wells
Album: Snapshot

Episode 9: “Alarm”

Title: “I’ll Be Your Man”
Artist: The Black Keys
Album: The Big Come Up

Episode 10: “Immortal”

NO MUSIC FEATURED

Episode 11: “Mom”

NO MUSIC FEATURED

Episode 12: “Leaving”

Title: “Just a Dream”
Artist: Griffin House
Album: Lost & Found

Episode 13: “Sanctuary”

Title: “Fell On Bad Days”
Artist: Rubyhorse
Album: Goodbye to All That

Season 2

Preview Trailer

Title: “Into The Fire”
Artist: Thirteen Senses
Album: The Invitation

Episode 1: “Voicemail”

Title: “Burn”
Artist: Ray LaMontagne
Album: Trouble

Episode 2: “Harmony”

Title: “Trouble”
Artist: Ray LaMontagne
Album: Trouble

Episode 3: “Balls”

Title: “The Widow”
Artist: The Mars Volta
Album: Frances the Mute

Episode 4: “&#!&”

Title:  “I Want You”
Artist: Cobra Verde
Album: Copycat Killers

Title: “Rebirth of the Cool”
Artist: The Afghan Whigs
Album: Uptown Avondale

Episode 5: “Sensitivity”

Title: “Hallelujah”
Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Demolition

Title: “Let Forever Be”
Artist: The Chemical Brothers
Album: Surrender

Episode 6: “Reunion”

Title: “Broken”
Artist: Alaska
Album: Emotions

Episode 7: “Shame”

Title: “My Old Man”
Artist: The Walkmen
Album: Bows + Arrows

Episode 8: “Believe”

Title: “I Shall Believe”
Artist: Sheryl Crow
Album: Tuesday Night Music Club and The Very Best of

Episode 9: “Rebirth”

Title: “Pussywillow”
Artist: Greg Dulli
Album: Amber Headlights

Episode 10: “Brains”

Title: “Run”
Artist: Snow Patrol
Album: Final Straw (2004)

Episode 11: “Bitch”

Title: “Make It Up”
Artist: Ben Kweller
Album: Sha Sha Album

Episode 12: “Happy”

Title:  “All the Wild Horses”
Artist: Ray LaMontagne
Album: Trouble

Episode 13: “Justice”

Title:  “Get the Wheel”
Artist: Greg Dulli
Album: Amber Headlights

Season 3

Episode 1: “Devil”

Title: “Devil”
Artist: Stereophonics
Album: Language. Sex. Violence. Other?

Episode 2: “Discovery”

Title: “Bonnie Brae”
Artist: The Twilight Singers
Album: Powder Burns

Episode 3: “Torture”

NO MUSIC FEATURED

Episode 4: “Sparks”

Title: “Wild Blue Yonder”
Artist: Screaming Blue Messiahs
Album: Gun Shy

Episode 5:“Chlamydia”

Title: “Open Heart Surgery”
Artist: Brian Jonestown Massacre
Album: Bravery Repetition & Noise

Episode 6: “Zombies”

Title: “Numb”
Artist: Portishead
Album: Dummy

Me: “People are awesome.”

Female Teller: “Absolutely. He was a gem. What can I help you with?”

Me: “I need a lien release for my Jeep.”

Female Teller: “Sure. If you have some ID, I’ll print out the form you need and sign it for you.” 

Me: “I can’t believe he told you not to have a great weekend. I’ve never heard that one before.”

Female Teller:  “Either have I. But I’ve heard worse. One woman told me to fuck myself.”

Me: “Really? In front of everyone?”

Female Teller:  “Oh yeah. She was livid.”

Me: “See, I don’t think that’s’ nearly half as bad as ‘don’t have a great weekend.’”

Female Teller:  “No?”

Me: “Not even close. ‘Fuck you’ is powerful, but it’s sort of a blanket statement that’s not meant to convey any specific insult. And it’s overused. But ‘don’t have a great weekend?’ Damn. That’s just mean and personally insulting. Creative too. I think I’d much rather get “Fuck you.”

Female Teller: “I think I would to, now that you say it. Anyway, here’s that signed form you need.”

Me: “Thanks a lot. Have a great weekend.”

Female Teller:  “Fuck you.” (Smiling) 

Mayer is a nice act. I’ll enjoy seeing him but really, he’s most valuable when it’s 2 a.m., a girl is over and you’re trying to turn your bed into a wonderland. I can take him or leave him, unless a serious make-out session is on the line. Then I book him.

But Petty, damn. I mean, damn. THE Tom Petty. It’s going to be my first time seeing him perform, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve never met the man, but I’d like to think we have a storied history. 

My high school sweetheart and I broke up in April of my senior year of high school. I was only 18, but I thought I was going to die single and lonely. With the pit and height of my emotions, I should have been in theater. Instead, I spent my entire four years in a jock strap.

A month after we split, I fell smitten with a tall blonde named Sarah. She was just a sophomore, and I was leaving for college, so there was no reason for me to pursue her. So, of course, I wrote her a poem, not having ever met her, got her to read it and convinced her to fall in love with me in the span of a month. I can’t quite remember, but I think I ripped off some of U2’s lyrics. I might have told her that she moved in mysterious ways. I might have. I was in that two-to-three month stage that everyone goes through once in high school when you’re madly in love with quotes. I bought a book of quotes and then I scribbled quotes all over it. Half of what I said during that period referenced some sort of saying or lyric.

True story. Once, a week or so after we broke up, my ex-girlfriend Katie visited me at the grocery store where I cleaned the meat department. Yes, a book about that is coming. She didn’t ask for me back but she expressed an interest in hanging out. All my attention was on Sarah, so I didn’t want to be seeing Katie. So what did I do? I quoted Tom Petty of course!

Me: “Don’t come around here no more.”

Katie: “Huh?”

Me: “I said, don’t come around here no more.”

Katie: I heard you, but why did you just sing it.”

Me: “I didn’t sing it.”

Katie: “Yes you did. Not entirely, but there was almost a pace to it.”

Me: “No there wasn’t.”

Katie: “Isn’t that from something?”

Me: “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Katie: “Yeah, that is from something. Petty. That’s it! Did you just tell me you didn’t want to see me by quoting Tom Petty?”

Me: “No, I don’t even listen to Tom Petty.”

Katie: “What? Yes you do.”

Me: “No I don’t.”

Katie: “Then why is his greatest hits CD on the passenger seat of your car?” (pointing)

Me: “Um, I don’t know.”

Katie: “You know what, never mind.”

Me: “I don’t feel you anymore! You darken my door, whatever you’re looking for!”

Katie: “I have to go.”

So yeah, I wooed Sarah and we ended up dating. That’s the great thing about being young: you can get away with giving a girl you haven’t met a poem. Can you imagine what would happen if I tried that stunt at 30?

Me: “Excuse me.”

Woman: “Yes?”

Me: “I know we haven’t met but every day after work we take the same bus home. This is kind of embarrassing, but I think you’re beautiful, and well, I wrote you a poem. Here.”

(Sound of rape whistle)  

Rescue pup Hope, who’s blind in both eyes because of glaucoma.

You know, I always had this weird, sneaking suspicion that he was a homosexual ever since I met him backstage at a concert in Minneapolis in 1999 and he asked me to take my pants off.

“What for?” I asked.

“I want to suck your cock,” he replied.

Lance, we hardly knew ya.

Keith says:
oh boy

Shrek says:
the other night, S (the girl Shrek is seeing) goes “okay…close your eyes…or do you want me to wrap it?  i got you a present

Keith says:
a present? 

Shrek says:
i’m like….um no.  u don’t have to wrap it. so i close my eyes, and she puts this box in my hands. i open it to find…

Keith says:
oh boy

Shrek says:
a transformer

Keith says:
stop it

Shrek says:
i swear

Keith says:
she bought you a transforner?

Shrek says:
i had no clue how to react

Keith says:
what did you say? why did she give you a transformer?

Shrek says:
i was like, “ohhhhhh…wow…a transformer” not knowing if it was a joke, or if i was missing a joke, or what

Keith says:
so was it a joke?

Shrek says:
i don’t know!

Keith says:
what can you possibly say in that situation?

Shrek says:
“Oh!  I wanted this one!”

Keith says:
“nice. a transformer. more than meets the eye”

Shrek says:
i think i did say that actually

Keith says:
“i used to like these when i was six”

Shrek says:
that’s the thing…i was never into them

Keith says:
did you transform it? try it out? or leave it in the package because they’re worth more that way?

Shrek says:
i just put it down and picked up my drink

Keith says:
“i can probably get more for this if i don’t open it”

Keith says:
what a weirdo. now you have to get her something. like a barbie

Shrek says:
i don’t think i want to get S a barbie. i don’t want to encourage that type of behavior

Keith says:
no?

Shrek says:
not at all

Keith says:
she sounds like an interesting character

Shrek says:
a cartoon character. i’m dating Bugs Bunny

Keith says:
better than yosemite sam

Shrek says:
true

Shrek says:
he’d probably be feisty in bed though

Keith says:
his whiskers would totally scratch you

Shrek says:
no way dude…they’re long enough so they’re soft

Keith says:
alright, let’s stop

a) We’ve reconnected and are considering getting engaged again.

b) We’re taking a week of at our respective jobs to travel through Europe.

c) We’re starting a dog shelter on the side.

d) None of the above