foodchained: Online dating.

foodchained: Online dating.: Never in my life have I ever desired kids.  It seems that walking around with a child in one arm, woman in the other would be openly identif...

First Nature.

I have tweezers in my house they say.  Just adding that last bit of personal responsibility to ease my discomfort.  Your home, in reality, is at risk. Daily, we lock our doors to keep people out but no one ever thinks about what good we could let in every day.  I thought of this carrying them one day.  Foolish as it may seem, I’m a woman of only twenty living in a big city and while the good could come inside the bad could too.  That hardly bothers me and I take that risk every day that I wake with the rising fog from the dingy underworld that supports my spoiled lifestyle.   I wish every day for that good to come and when I removed my deadbolt from my door now seven months ago I wonder if that my beckon will ever draw the hopeful good that I yearn for.  I wake to drone of city traffic and sleep to the coughing and mourning of our common people all too unlucky to box themselves in from the elements.  And with each day my door way un-breeched by a stranger my fridge calls to me in the worst way.  With an out of town number.  I hate this. Work never wants me to take out town calls and I know my bill is astronomical in comparison to the few months before he got my number.  But every day at the stroke of two as I begin my first descent in to my future fantasies daydreaming my post lunch break work stretch my phone rings.  I only answer half the time and when I do conversations consist of menial pondering and completely unoriginal ideas he wants to run by me.  Some part of me figures he just wants to see how much I’ll put up with.  I won’t come home tonight.  He thinks he’s got me but I’ll go to many lengths to distance myself.  As a result of this action my friend offers me their couch, comforting me with amenities like tweezers and roast beef.  A couch?  How shallow do I look?  A young beautiful woman like me can have more to them than interests in couches or tables.  I know I’ll have to face him sooner or later.  The boulevard I walk home on is lined with underside of my culture that I ignore while I rehearse what I’m going to say.  You think I don’t know their struggle? Offering your hands out like I don’t know society chooses to forget what it doesn’t want.  We think that people in mass quantities differ than people on a personal level.  A person is good and a mob is evil.  I would prefer a mob.   Impersonal and flightless. Fear and hatred.  Stupidity and filth.  We toil day in and day out to stave away the dirt of the world and when I finally open up to invite it in nothing comes in.  I stare deep in the vagabond’s begging eyes.  He knows what he’s doing.  The world is indifferent to you, man in torn clothes.  We’re not just walking past your pleading hands, we’re walking past our grime.  You’re just like me.  You just refuse hide it.  Opportunity awaits you six stories up.  I leave for I can no longer stand to be here, staring at myself.  Oh, how I long to be an appliance, to see wonder in the simplest things, to live at home, to never want more than I need.  But I’m stuck here in my selfish carapace. My groceries must go somewhere and so must I.

Online dating.

Never in my life have I ever desired kids.  It seems that walking around with a child in one arm, woman in the other would be openly identifying myself with intercourse.   I'd like to think of my life as a palindrome, ending with a orgasm, starting with one, having many, many in-between. My  ideal life would be more like a crossword puzzle than a palindrome.  As we could see how it really is in most bars the night before Thanksgiving. I hit the bar, ordering myself a shot of Italktoomuch with a beer back.  I see you. Right at the end of the restaurant, red lipstick, black and white, sipping a dry I'll call you . Priceless.
Normally a male in a pre-coital stupor will opt for unwavering pity hosting an entendre of personality mutilation humorous self deprecations and jokes with no punch lines. .  However, the man next to me is slurping down his "Snooty English" talking the ear off of the desk jockey thirty something.   She just needs one more exercise machine, one more fat free yogurt, one more program to tape when she's at work, one more perfect man.
7 Down.
  I've passed about seven tables. Still there.  She has a black skirt.
  3 across.
The guy at the last table is shorter than his date.  I laugh to myself knowing the impending dysfunction.  Face plant.
  5 across. 
What does it take?   That's answered by 4 down.
I take my seat.   She's ordered salad. - 4 down and across
Whoever said "The pen is mightier" has never courted a salad eater.  She's quick, guiltless, Vegetarian. While not a day has passed that I've shed more blood than I've consumed.
Nothing a drink couldn't fix.   Alcohol  11 across.
Its been only six drinks and I'm in the bathroom.  Pants are down.  Six drinks.  Right now.  I'm shorter than my date and my face plant is the toilet.   Where's my shoe? My keys lay in embedded in the corner, still shaking for dear life from the initial shock.  She hasn't moved.  Don't sit on that sink.  Don't make it easy for me to see your black roots in the mirror behind you.   Hangover.  1 Down. Don't stare at me.  Don't smoke that cigarette.  Don't make any effort not to look at my face.  Don't cross your legs over and over, don't fuck me in the bathroom, don't insist that you need this, don't tell me you want me, don't slip his ring into your purse, don't walk out that door.   She needed my time.  All that good willed vegetarianism and what she needed was sex.  I wonder if she'll tell our child how much alcohol it took to conceive him. We need a marriage counselor. Bad.
9 across.

Eminent Domain

Before it happened I did a lot of normal things.  My girlfriend and I would sit at the same café at the same time on the same days with the same people.  It was nice and when spring would come and we’d sit on the porch.  Sometimes I would go without her and see the prettiest girl working there.  Then she’s sit there by herself reading or looking at a notebook. She look at me when I was alone and smirk.  I’d smirk too sometimes making a remark that I would laugh at.  Don’t know if she heard that.  When she was there we were strangers and I would just stare at my table.  The porch had the most interesting people there.  The baker, the dancer, the writer, a furniture maker, a singer, and me. We’d spend hours talking about all sorts of great things.  But a new face emerged daily during our visits.  A tall, simple man, always grinning and always speaking in such short sentences when I was around.  Later on my girlfriend would tell me all about the wonderful tales he spoke of whenever they met.  The Amazon, his trip to the Yukon, the Everglades, the wines of Europe.  Tales I wanted to be able to tell and he never ran short of them.  Still while he beguiled the Baker and the writer and the singer, I’d stare off at the pair of eyes behind the book, behind the counter.  I felt safe but she’s the worst thing to happen to me.  But nothing was going on.  I yearned for another woman but it didn’t matter.  I loved my girlfriend.  I loved her so much it hurt.  So much so that I’d hate to be around her.  Hate to see the person she had become.  Hate to see other people seeing her.  In our years together I’d learned what I wanted about her and made her the person she was in my thoughts.  But around them she was another stranger at a café.  So I changed my routine and was never there when she was.  Our friends never saw us together and I was fine with that.  It happened though.  My usual Wednesdays I’d light a cigarette on my porch and while halfway finished stare at the books in the window, stroll past the hot foods in the windows and put it out on the doorstep while waving at my friends.  But my bed was empty this morning.  The streets had no sounds to them.  No smells from the food.  The café, wasn’t empty, it was full.  Full of strangers.  The Baker, the Writer, the Furniture maker, the Singer all gone.  All but her, I waved and she turned away.  The room apologized with their gaze.  It was so obvious what was going on.  Me, I just stood there, and I felt small.  So fucking small.

Food and Circus

This is man, He toils in the field

His skin cracks, his brow burns

He buries himself in his work

This is woman, she toils in the field

Her skin cracks, her brow burns

She buries herself in her work

Oh, to be an animal

To eat from your cradle

And sleep on your grave

But man marches on

He beats his weary drum against the current of his nature

He buries himself in his work

Not a very modest proposal.

It happened again last night.   I went home.  This mile was an obsession for me for years. Several chain business lined up and down filled with the elderly, post college consumers, high school drop outs and parked cars.  Each step in pavement serves up another memory of my youth.  Too many memories to know what I always thought of them but too old to be anything but fond.  In the years to follow my departure not a day has slipped by without me thinking back into my roots riding the empty road flying past blinking stop lights and singing loudly to the empty business parking lots.  But this time is different.  Much different.  In the old days minutes instead of hours would punctuate my time alone.  Today, I’ve scanned my old grounds in search of my old times and they aren’t where I left them.          Just now when my lonely day has peeked does a familiar face enter my peripheral. Here, the coffee shop that hosted scores of my friends daily, and all I have is Marty and he is not my friend.  His horrid complexion has never changed with his red speckled face, no hair and always concealing a slender body length tail behind a blue trench coat despite the arid Wednesday afternoon.      “May I have a seat?” He says. A seat? Years of bothering me, lying to me, stealing from me at any opportunity and now he wants my blessing concerning a seating arrangement?   Pathetic.  I nod.       “I have a business deal for you.   Interested?” True old friends always know your weaknesses best and with a bizarre tribute to our dark past he offers me the only thing I could never turn down.  Even from him.  Though I’m left with many opportunities to improve my day I pass to gather my wits for my deal tonight.  Sitting in my car alone I dress sharply and run a comb through my hair.  Rich people things.  The details of this engagement are limited but the deal is lucrative.  Very lucrative. So far and alone in my old home I replace my searching for familiarity with fantasies of tonight as the sun sets behind the grocery store where I purchased alcohol for the first time.   Now I’m in a lot in the cold weather and my mind is left to wander.  I remember the late nights on this road.  The diner friends.  The long talks about nothing.  My childishness.  So many things I could be doing to find them and yet I’m compelled to do no other than sit here with a package and await a stranger’s arrival.  There was a bar here once and I’ve been there but I can’t even remember the name.  I hear a laugh.  And it’s silent again.  May not have been a laugh. This old building had a convenience mart.  I shopped here for milk once and the clerk behind the counter spotted me a nickel to even out my change.  This must have happened a hundred times since and my mind leaves no room for any recollection except for that obscure happening. It’s been hours and I’m starting to regret this choice.  So alone.  So cold.  Spring time in that park across the street I kissed a girl for the first time.  So many years ago.  I still know it.  Marty once took me a day’s trip away on business.  Took my money and time.  Not one month later him and I were at it again.  Hour four passes and I fantasize about opening to box to alleviate the gnawing curiosity.  A person approaches.  A coat and hat blur their attributes so I can determine no recognizable features.  I nod at him but he passes me and continues down the abandoned avenue.  Hour seven is here with the hint of sunrise.  The recipient of said package is hours later than expected and most likely not going to show up.  This wouldn’t be a first so I take the plunge and pull open the cheap clear tape holding the box together.  Its condiments.   That bastard tricked me again.  Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, salt, some black pepper and relish.  All of a poorer quality than even Marty would stoop to.  No deal, no great reunion with my old friends.  No party.  No lucrative deal.  I should never have come here. I could fight the tears if I thought someone would see them.  Just me in my old town.  Alone.  Alone with condiments.

American Idle

There's a woman living in my TV.  She's not there during the daytime or peak watching hours. Just the late nights before sleep. Moments when I'm on the way out her sweet voice creaks from the living room past my kitchen and into my bed calling gently to the only man she's ever known.  She knows everything about me but nothing about the world.  So late nights we'd turn into info-sessions and she'd ask about music, politics, history and my shirts.  I could tell her about war, about theft, about working but I can't bring myself to spoil her clean slate.  Oh my shirts were so fascinating and in the months to follow my wardrobe would be a center for her to balance all she knew.   What could your tube say about you?  Would it complain about your snoring or co-dependency, would it say you're over sexed or boring, stupid or plain?  Maybe it just thinks you're clothing is nice and that your neighborhood is safe.  Maybe it only sleeps soundly when you're there and coos softly in the wake of the morning hours.
Has this taken its toll?  Yes.  Every year the birthday wishes gets shorter.  At twenty it was the childhood friends that left.  Then in the years to follow it was the old friends, then the recent ones, and now I can only expect a halfway interested chorus from co-workers who'll forget this in just a few short months.  We sort of ran off together and this year it was just us bringing in twenty five.  TV and me.   I don't want to get all sentimental on you but there comes a time in every person's life when they must make a name for themselves.  When twenty four years of anonymity is at least four too many, when nights are too simple and tired eyes are all that look back at me in her screen, something must change, some one must go.   
Lately I've been putting off telling her about the digital change-over.  So much so because I fear her reaction, more than I fear my lost programming.  She won't take this well and in evenings that advent the big day she questions what I have been doing instead of watching her during the day.  My only response is a dull retort or silence every time but this isn't a charade I can keep up forever. 
She didn't come home last night.  I want to call but what would I say?  Now five birthdays since my old friends cared about my life and I'm left alone.  Alone with TV.  Alone with words and complaints, pictures and short pleasures.  At least I was someone.  I was someone's friend and I thought I had it all figured out then. TV and I would  leave together, put all this change-over behind us.  How foolish I was and when gravity finally pulled my head to the ground no one was left to catch me.  To do it all over again I would have found a flighty dvd player or something.  Not this, not a Television who'll never forget my angry words or gives me the cold corner when I try to go out with my friends.  So alone, I go to bed hearing no words from the living room.  The silence keeps me awake and on my side I stare to my wall anticipating the arrival.
She's home.  I can hear it.  The door opens and I hear a second set of foot prints.  Not this. Please.  It is someone else?  A family member helping her move out?  I reach for my pliers and they're gone.  I remember now getting rid of them as part of a backup plan in case our spoiled relationship needed aborting.  If only I'd known how vulnerable this left me.  The scratching reaches closer to my door and I keep my eyes as close together as I can.  But we see eachother face to face.  Her screen says four a.m.  My face says ten.   We're alone in my house like many before, who was wrong? Me? My friends? Her?  No one can tell, she knows about the change-over, the wire cutters and my shirts.  She has me, no one else has.  Chained to my house I roll over to my side and let her on to the bed.  Not even sleep is mine anymore.