hello operator

We've all got wheels to take ourselves away / We've got telephones to say what we can't say / We all got higher and higher every day... A lyric from the Flying Burrito Bros., a hippie country group from the late nineteen sixties. It's a simple passage from the song "Wheels," that I'd love to hear on a vinyl twelve inch. Lyrics and poetry can say the things we're searching for, but are often confined by rhyme, meter, and metaphor. A song or poem is not always literal, or always good if it is. One may open their heart through letter writing, but nothing opens up the pipes like the dialogue over a telephone.

It would be easy to tell of the obvious changes in telephone communication over the last several years. Speaking to someone in a coma since the nineteen eighties, a picture phone might take a little explanation. As would, the man on hands-free spasmodically speaking to no one as if schizophrenic, in the check out line. Or, the woman in an altercation in rush hour causing a pileup when she chucks her expendable track phone out the window. "That phone's gotta cost as much as her car! Right?"

Great moments in telephone technology abound. The telephone itself is evidence to support that if it can be conceived, it can be done. Think of all that's been done around a telephone. The two speakers stand line to line, dressed in black. With no one to see the way they tremble, they bravely exchange first I love yous. With fists clenched far from one another, they brazenly tear new assholes. With no tears to kiss away, they sever a love they can no longer face. The telephone gives voice as much as it carries it.

It's the origin of crank calling. My upstanding boss once cranked our store on a Friday night to impress a female coworker he was out with. He asked just how black the third shift operator was, who I was training with that night. Though, I suppose some sauce had to do with his courage. I crank 911 call centers when I can't help it. It seems my calling card number begins with 911. So, if I forget to dial the 1-800 number first, I end up dialing 911 and hanging up. I'm told I should report no emergency, but I'm also told they don't always buy that. Furthermore, I'm told I should just get a cellphone and move up with the world. Having a land line, and being old school with my clunky answering machine, at least, puts me back in the time of early nineteen nineties situation comedies. At the moment I've got a greeting set about how I'm away from my desk or meeting with a client. This invites a slew of crank messages, but wards off spam messages from telemarketers.

New legislation is being established to impose restrictions on where phones can be used. The way these things interrupt and take precedence, I'd rally for them to be used only in homes and businesses. The intent is to make drivers more attentive to the half ton of steel they're managing toward obstacles in the roadways. At a time when I did have a cellphone, I began crossing an intersection too engrossed in conversation to notice the red light. The driver beeped at me, and made me wait. It seemed fair to impose equal rights for the driver, persecuted for the phone negligence of others; and the pedestrian here, me, presenting the same risks. Touché, even.

The telephone is a distraction, and also a diversion. Early in the infancy of the Internet, there were bulletin board systems, accessed by standard phone line. Stock in telephone dating services, not to mention 1-900 numbers and Playboy surely began to weaken. I'm not sure how well operators for the hot phone sex lines made the transition to being webcam models. It's a whole other set of credentials. I've wanted to call a 1-900 number, just to see how off course I could get the conversation. Not to be rude, maybe even make her day. You've got to figure these phone sex girls get a little itchy as they're working, though. As long as a catheter isn't an issue, it wouldn't surprise me if riding the waves of verbal eroticism takes some actual self operation. And I would hope it might, for I believe women should enjoy their places in the workplace.

I've said it a few too many times: Are you having text? Or, (when in Canada) Ooh, you two are texting, eh? Who knew those three letters beneath each number on the keypad would have such function beyond quick memorization of a toll free number on TV. I'm still not sure how much more appropriate having sex in front of someone is--than sending private text messages, excluding the schmuck in the room with the land line. For hours one weekend, I roughly calculated the altitude of the satellites off which my two friends were bouncing ASCII strings to one another. It was no less obvious than passing notes during the SAT. Yet, as covert as they teach for the ASVAB of SEALS. Made me as paranoid as does THC or LSD, I would imagine... I have a small recording setup in my apartment. I wished I had a omnidirectional microphone plugged in. I'd have sampled their ringtones and played them back on the quadraphonic at odd intervals 'til they tweaked. Instead, once I'd estimated the amount of time for text delivery, I'd gesture at the phone in front of one of them and say, "Abracadabra!"

Like magic, thought transcends an unwelcome party over a distance of twelve feet. Sure it's capable of much more, such as chipping away at a solipsist philosophy. The voice on the other end can surely report nothing of the likes of chaos and daemons beyond the scope of the sole being. The telephone receiver can be a deceiver, however. Dropped calls can simulate irritation with the conversation, even on either end simultaneously. And this: I knew a girl who carried around a lot of photography equipment, so she was always out of breath when walking. I believe my exact words were, "Who are you fucking?" Which, brings up the topic of the telephone as a sex toy. I believe it not to be a myth, the placing of a call during sex. Don't ask me for tales of experience in it. I've never known someone so naughty. Say, the party on the other line were her boyfriend; I'd feel nothing but post masturbatory-like shame for a crime against mankind. Though, to get personal here, I was once speaking with a giggly phone buddy, from across the state. She kept asking me to guess what she was doing. "I don't know, what are you doing?" Finally, she gave me a clue, "Starts with an 'M!'" -- "Math? what what...? Ooh! You silly girl you!" And she had a laughing fit, then swore to my disappointment that she'd never do it again. Perhaps I should have been proud of her resolution. I had a friend with a Volkswagen van during these college years. Where was Malcolm that weekend?

hair lip

Hair probably has its evolutionary roots in the cilia of single celled organisms. We begin life with but one hair, victoriously whipping around the ova in which it has embedded itself. Real hair, with follicles and a blood supply follow, but are a remnant of evolution, themselves. People are covered in thin silky sheets of soft, stunted hairs. Of course, the hair was once thick, and served as a natural clothing against the elements, the cold. Still, with so many other kinks straightened in our species' history, we remain with full heads of fur. There is no practical need for this headdress. Patterned hair loss amongst males does not cause terminal brain freeze. It is predicted future humans will be bald, but I don't buy it. Hair holds an animalistic allure, like the spread fan of a peacock. And we are inseparable from our history as animals.

Some German exchange students came through my town when I was about sixteen. My sister, who they had met when she was sixteen, promised them a place to stay if they ever toured America. My mother was out of town when their purchased '86 shit box station wagon pulled up in my driveway. I invited a friend over, and we got smashed on domestic. I remember them telling me one thing they took away from knowing my sister on her class trip to Germany in high school. That was, that there was a difference when speaking of 'hair' and 'hairs.' I remember my first party with German exchange students. I also remember my first hairs. It was a big event, I thought some had dislodged from the bar of soap with which I was fruitlessly trying to lather my delicates. But, no, they were firmly attached. What I didn't stop to ponder, was why. Of all the places to grow hairs, under two tight layers of cotton. I'm reminded of a friend who introduced me to the mind bender of, "Did the hand make the face, or did the face make the hand???!" He was a college friend. No, the human body is as radially symmetrical as it is reflective. Another way to describe it is the way an Earth Science teacher of mine did, in eighth grade. His true beliefs were kept from the classroom, if he was not a universal agnostic indeed. We studied the Flat Earth Society, and my mind wandered all over it. Quite a contrast from the seventh grade Life Science teacher I had, who took it upon himself to cut the chapter on evolution out of the curriculum. He mentioned that the chances of evolution occurring were that of a printing factory exploding, and all the letters landing in an unabridged dictionary. The Earth Science teacher explained that nature is lazy. Which, would explain why the utilitarian skull bone we know as the pelvis, also tends to grow hairs up on it. Take note of the mostly useless nipples men possess. When advocating for evolution in a locker room debate about this time in junior high, my adamantly religious friend snapped, "If there's no God... Why, then, do men and women fit together like puzzle pieces?!!!" I was a little shy about sex at the time, and didn't offer a rebuttal. I might have said, being a hobbyist at the time, 'Well, because He doesn't have the patience for model shipbuilding.'

Now, I'm coasting down the prime of my life, with a full head of hair and not two gray hairs. Many people comment on my hair. When it's long, they'll say; hair like that looks good short. Or; I really like your Afro puff. When it's being cut by a professional; you really have some hair. My sister mentioned it was like topiary to cut. It's been braided, shaved, matted, naturally dreaded, cut drastically, cut conservatively. Recently, I've discovered pomade, which is a biofusion cosmetic. The shit is like Vaseline's Italian cousin Vinny. Pomade is a commitment. It takes several batteries of liberal dish soap to strip the hair of it, and another week of allowing oils to replenish before you get that clean squeak back. While it's in, it's like trying not to pick at a scab, or you'll get your fingers gooey. You sleep with it, and it creates a shellac on your pillows. However, it straightens my curls for eighteen hours, and gives me a look like I maintain my aught-eight bedhead hairstyle.

It's punky, which sums me up, so I've been looking into coloring it. Back when I was twenty and attending technical college, I dyed it jet black and played around with some hair gel. I didn't know what I was doing when I dyed it, and ended up getting the dye all down the sides of my face. I figured the best way to clean up was to use Lava soap. This left abrasions, which I painted over with my mom's makeup. An ex-con at my school spotted me with the makeup and had a heyday. The last day of class, he brought it up again, "Remember when George came to school wearing makeup!!!?" I wished I'd researched his record on the Internet--"Remember when you broke down that girl's door, and...? Well, maybe I'm glad I didn't.

There's a girl in my life, I call her my girlfriend, and we're both cool with that. She has hair, and the like. While paging through some photo albums, I noticed a particularly good shot of her with cut bangs. So I opened my mouth and said, "You'd look really good with bangs." It really amazes me how that little tongue roll on the 'You'd,' the ''d' defines the meaning of the sentence. Where, if the ''d' was not present, she may not have decided to cut her bangs right then and there. I protested, that I didn't want to be the deciding factor for someone; not you; to cut her bangs. Well, she did it, and her hair is all around kind of short to begin with. The short bangs only took getting used to because I practically did the snipping. She assured me she was thinking of it, and I value from her that I clinched the decision. In her bathroom, I picked up a big curling iron type thing and asked if it were a hair straightener. She replied yes, and I mentioned I always wanted to play with one of those. Prior to all of this, while we were perusing the aisles of hair coloring in some Mart, she showed me a box of "Blue Black," that she'd like to apply to my hair. I cringed at the memory of the makeup I applied the last time I dyed my hair black. But I was also sent back in time in TV Land... There was this show called Love Line on MTV, and it was hosted by a comedian and a real doctor. I believe the show is still being aired as a radio show, perhaps on the Internet. The episode I saw on my television featured a young man, Asian, who had this question for the doctor: "My girlfriend wants me to dye my pubic hair blue. Is that safe? She wants blue pubes. My girlfriend wants blue pubes." He had blue hair, and it looked pretty fly. I couldn't help but envy this guy. One, he was Asian and had straight black hair without trying, and three, it sounded like he was just from and headed to a whole lot of cheeky sex. Not only that, but I thought I could learn from him. One, these are the sacrifices one makes for their other. And also, if she thinks it's cool and you don't know, you ask a doctor.

Whether I'll dye my hair is up in the air. It's not that I wouldn't. Though, I kind of told her I wasn't all about it, already, and I felt it become touchy. I'd scalp myself for this girl, but that's not the alternative I want to offer her. Nor is it how drastically I am opposed to dying my hair black again. I suppose I'm a little vain, I look in shop windows at my reflection so much every cashier and barista on my circuit probably thinks I'm creeping on them. There's a nice glass door in the control room of the television station where I work. My brown crown of thorns reflects nicely. I just don't know if the door is reflective enough for black hair to give me the same feedback. Then, if I can learn anything from working in television, it's let Makeup handle the makeup.

i'll be your cane

Early in the night, last night, I sat typing chat messages to a friend who'd recently returned from travels overseas. We didn't chat much about her travels. I laid on the charm, as I try to when seeing someone online who'd been missing so long her absence had become unnoticed. I've been with her once, I her first. I'd be a joke to talk of hard feelings or awkwardness. Her shyness doesn't render the scene uncomfortable. Just, with barriers to break down. She's real reserved, but I have no type. The alcohol didn't hurt my chances, but think some amount of exceptional tact must have been involved. Last night, about the time she'd told me her friends ditched her, and her parents were out for the night--and she had makings for rum and Coke, the telephone rang. The voice was totally through a track phone, female, and tired, or something. It was a another girl in my life, one I see about every day I'm not working. She requested I come hang out with her, in a tone of imitation mock sweetness, whose double negativity amplified the actual sweetness electrically. I said I'd call her back, but I didn't provide an explanation, but that I would. I was torn, I hadn't actually been invited to this past fling's for a rendezvous, but the door looked open. My last line of chat was "telephone." So, I typed, "I got an offer to hang out." If she was too shy to invite me before, too shy to try to get me to break plans, or if she'd hoped we'd chat it up all night at a safe distance of several hundred miles of Ethernet cables, I don't know--I was two beers into matching her rum limit. But we knew the right thing to do, we said goodnight. I called my other friend back, and we made plans. I took a shower, and drove the speed limit for thirteen miles.

The girl, who I'll say now prefers to be called a girl, citing "woman" as highfalutin in her self image; the girl was sleeping in fetal position when I was let in by her mother, who I love. Her mom was pretty half adamant that the girl be taken to the emergency room. She said she'd had a fall on the cement porch. Her mom said, "Okay, take her to the ER," then stood expectantly over me and the girl. I must have thought the word, "Uh," about ten times. It's like when someone tells you to take on a task with someone. I'd have had a better chance knowing what to do if I was told to milk a goat. The girl came around, and showed us that there was no evidence of head trauma, but stood up and swiftly hit the floor. She'd fallen asleep so tightly fetal, her right leg had lost sensation. Just then, a sheriff came to the door. If there's one thing 9/11 has taught me, it's the value of protecting oneself from information. Her mom didn't call him, and I have no idea why he showed up.

Meanwhile, the girl was slurring and speaking incoherently. One might have guessed she was hallucinating, but I recognized the off subject questions as the result of a rude awakening. This was the end of a two hour nap after being awake thirty-three hours, she said. The cop talked to her mom for awhile, then he'd like to talk to me. So we talked. He asked, "Is she like this a lot?" (I'd heard the cop mention to her mother about a suicide risk. I surmised the girl, and realized I needed to keep her out of the clutches of people who would see all this as that. Thank the cocktail party effect for one thing right in the world.) To get back to the the cop's burning question, "Is she like this a lot." Two things to take into account in this conversation. Two elements are subjective. Also, it is a catch twenty two. 'Is this out of the ordinary?' If yes, action should be taken. 'Is this happening all the time, is it a problem?' If yes, action should be taken. I spoke with the man. I told him I observed wit and humor in her, but that she was just tired. That, I take some of the same medications she does, and have been in her same state in varying severities. When we were through, he said, "I still don't know if she is like this a lot, and thanks for answering all my questions." I think he was sincere.

The cop asked to speak to the girl alone. The girl got up, and knocked several knickknacks off a table on her plummet to the floor. I don't know why we weren't asked to leave, or where the girl was going to. The bathroom, maybe. I'd been coming to her aide when she'd try maneuvering around the house on the sleeping leg, so I sprung and caught her before she added more bruises to her limbs. There was something of instinct, not to shy away, when she was in need. She's very affectionate with me. So I was used to the feel of her skin. And she always makes me feel very deft when she's around.

The cop left after urging us to go to the emergency room to get the leg checked out. Which, by now, I was beginning to think was a good idea. Her leg still hadn't woken up. She was resistant, but agreed to think it over after some food. Fast food was mostly closed at the hour it was getting to be. I carried her in my arms to my car in the driveway. We rolled up to an all night gas station, and I took her order. Since, there was no way I was letting her come in with me. But she insisted she'd like to browse. I figured her leg was reviving enough, so I came around and helped her out. It wasn't a little hobble to the door. It was a one legged pogo. I did my best to stabilize her, but we were learning a new demonstration toward one another. She slipped, and her ankle twisted sharply, she cried out, I'm sure. Though, I might have repressed the memory of the sound of the cry, itself. A voice came over the loudspeaker, "Are you alright out there?" I carried, in my arms, the girl back to the car and managed to unlock the passenger door, and help her in. I raced inside and told the cashier that there certainly was a need to panic, but not for her to panic. We drove to the ER.

It was a long wait. I abode by the non-smoking campus of the hospital, the sign stating, conspicuously crookedly placed on the foyer glass. To see her wheeled down the hall in a splint for the sprain, was so much sunshine. Her level of lucidity throughout the rest of the night and into the early morning, was like the phases of the moon. At times, she was vibrant and talky, but fell into mumbling random irrelevant questions. We found a Mexican place whose drive-thru was open, and returned to her home on the outskirts of town. We soon discovered in our journeys from then on, that there's more organization required to move objects as well as a person manually from cars to houses. I carried her in my arms, food bags and keys also dangling from my grasp. She felt like no more than a cinder block on my muscles. But, stepping up steps and holding doors with my shoulder blades, with that responsibility, it felt more like cupping a butterfly in my palms.

We slept much needed sleep. I'd been up comparable to thirty-three hours, myself. I have no idea the endurance residing in this girl. With a freshly-sprained ankle she had some errands to do in my town. There were wheelchairs at the stores, she insisted. Sure, I'd be up for that, maybe there would be a motorized one somewhere. You can't let an opportunity like driving a Rascal around Wal-mart pass you up just because you got a little scraped up. I had to talk her out of a couple of stops, or ask please for her to let me take on the business involved in them while she waited. And, I ensured her safety at every gas station stop. The asphalt has got to be on a grade, you'd think, for fuel runoff.

Just like the moon, she knew not whether it was night or day. It was eight o'clock PM, and shit, she just remembered that the mall doesn't open until ten. AM-PM mix up has never happened to me as abruptly as this, but I can totally understand. I keep odd hours, and it gets downright eerie. So, instead of drive-thru breakfast, we got some cheeseburgers. I didn't carry her into the hamburger franchise, and it's not that I would've liked to, other than it's the easier way to transport her, at the moment. She's a little proud for crutches, rascal enough to bash clothes racks over in Target with one of their go-carts, and not too shy to ask me out in a crowded fast food chain. Gratitude, maybe, if so, circumstance. Lucky, not yet, in the ultimate sense. To reveal a close moment so far, I said, "I want every kiss to show you how I've admired you for years." We've been friends awhile, and we've been waiting. Maybe waiting for two nights like this. I tell her she's my element, and the struggle of these nights couldn't have been swum in any other waters but hers.

letter to the editors

It's strange that I'm daunted by the task of writing this entry. Yesterday, I made the last sweep of edits to a seventy-seven page, single spaced, manuscript. And, I ceremoniously acknowledged its completion by having ten copies printed and bound at Kinko's Office and Print Center. The chapters, or sections, were much the same in length, structure, and style of a slashpound production like this one. The last entry to be stamped into this weblog was done on April, 19th. It is now June 24th, so apparently I've been hacking at the manuscript for two months. Though, it does not seem like it's taken that long to bring it to this stage.

A book, one that will potentially be more like 150 pages, if published, seems like something for which writing time takes months, and preparation takes even years. However, this book has taken four years since its conception to be where it is now. It was begun when I had left Milwaukee Behavioral Health for the last time. At least, the last time for a while. I returned to the system, and was faced with many more events in my life. A phenomenon I dubbed "transference" was a theme that was introduced and developed in the first manuscripts, and was also a prevalent thing in the later writing I did. Allusions are brought in from things that happened while I'd been out of the hospital: changes in my life, girlfriends, death, and pregnancy to name a few.

I have the jitters. The second and third drafts, which were attempts at continuation to the first series of chapters, failed to impress. Not at first, but I also had to concede that these drafts were either weak, esoteric, or both. I might have actually taken more time writing them, however. The first draft, which was begun as a weblog, was written quickly and got notice among my editors (friends and family) as having a cathartic quality. I find if I try to match my composition speed to my talking speed, I accomplish this quality. In any case, I believe I did a better job of matching the additional pages with the original pages, this time. Stylistically, that is.

I'll not critique myself further. This post will be transferred to a document and printed, for a briefing to those who will edit for grammar and spelling, primarily. I won't let them off the hook for their opinions, either, though. I'm asking not only for mechanical corrections, but also subjective criticism. On the book as a whole, yes, but also for changes they feel fit that are greater than a word substitution. This could be as small as removing punctuation, or as dramatic as removing a paragraph. I want dynamic criticism. Anything that would glare at a reader who is reading it from a paperback Bantam, I want changed before this thing is in the hands of those who would get put it there.

When I took the manuscript to Kinko's on my jump drive, I'd jumped the gun in one respect. I asked for five copies, and as I was passing time while they were printed and bound, I realized I'd forgotten to double space the thing. This was to be done so that there would be room for the red pen to make edits. I saved face and had five more copies printed, double spaced, without telling him my mistake. Just, that I'd come up with the idea over dinner. I could've asked for a reprieve on the price for the mistake. Worse yet, I could have demanded it was the worker's fault. But alas, I used to work at a Kinko's, and he knew I knew what that would do to his day.

Thank you, to all those who are editing this in lieu of a professional editor. I hate to think that these people won't read it when and if it becomes a published work. I might page through it, and they may actually, too. Just as I'd be admiring my work, they could say to themselves, "I corrected that use of the word 'too'!" A copy of your very own is implied, but also, I have included your very own high quality red pen for corrections. The pen is yours to keep, but I'll need the bound manuscript back to transfer corrections. Your help is sunshine on my back.

retrosexist

My first crush was intellectual, excluding the codependent crush I had on my mother five years beforehand. It was an interest peaked in Kindergarten, on a five year old girl named E. At this point in the recounting, it's perhaps unimportant to protect anonymity. However, as I go on, I'd rather keep some of my closer readers guessing. I'd earlier planned an entry on sexuality, but I hope to let this fall somewhere outside of a blog authored by Wilt Chamberlain or Charles Bukowski. (Take that, Google™.) A fair amount has happened since E did not show up for first grade. I'm not sure I even noticed her missing, but oh well, it was only intellectual. Kindergarten is foggy, but for E, and KW, whose insistence on reserving my chair for herself every morning leads me to believe there might have been something going on, there. E had all the answers, perhaps she has grown to be a real smartass by twenty-nine, now. She could name any basic shape, print her entire name in caps--and it was a long one. Playing house, I believe she sent me off to work and invited another boy over. Touché.

I'll carve the initials MA, here, as I carved them with pencil lead into everything throughout grade school. MA set my little heart ticking, and pituitary trickling. Our last names came adjacent alphabetically, so we found ourselves seated or standing beside one another often. In the lunch line, phys-ed, or a spelling bee I'd be able to enjoy her close presence. Though on the playground, or in the chaos of free time in the classroom, I had difficulty approaching her. I was without alibi, except that I liked her. Seemed a forbidden thing, to display these emotions I had. I was a young boy, and I often claimed to be a robot. All things with a squishy feel had to be destroyed by lasers and stuff. But, my friends and sister were on to me. My sis discovered some notes I'd written; none that I'd ever planned to send. Which, made them rather revealing. Recalling the notes, I used some strong words, even an expletive. My older sister was a bit shocked, but understood the depth of what I was going through. She suggested I call MA on the phone. This prospect horrified me, but a friend who was present took it upon himself to dial the number. I hid in shame and tore the bedroom to pieces proclaiming my disgust for the girl at the top of my lungs. I consider myself strange for this, yes. But I prided myself on being strange back then. I once explained to my sister's fifth grade teacher, who she had a bit of a crush on, for five minutes about how I'd heard rumors that he was an alien. So, my sis probably thought little of it. What I can't get over is how a classmate allegedly placed phone calls to MA while relieving his bowels. It like finding out your wife is secretly into S&M, just for tolerating that. Oh well, girls aren't just cuddly kittens, I suppose. My thing for MA persisted despite the contradictory episode. I'm sure she'd heard of its happening, but was much to demure to show she had. Wish she had come to me about it. I might have come clean. This was my first hetro-physical attraction, and it lingered for a good grade level and a half. But, then she got this perm, and it was like someone turned out the lights.

What man hasn't noticed Asian girls? Like, what is it? You find yourself enthralled with one, and suddenly you have blinders on. You could be talking to Christie Brinkley in the checkout line, and if you're in this mode, the mousy Asian cashier will abruptly be bashfully refusing you her telephone number. The appreciation caused by the discovery has lingered, no doubt. But, I've broadened the playing field since the sixth grade. I stuck my toe into the pool a bit with TP, a new student, not from Asia, but having roots there. I got a lot out of the way with TP. Envy; she went out with a lot of guys. There was a going-out system, with little consummation involved. Shy intent; I'd enlist a friend to ask her out for me... but don't tell her I asked you to. I'd stay after class and banter to the all too wise teacher about Macintosh-PC comparisons. He'd smirk when my friend returned from the cloakroom saying, "She said no, again." At least she and he and I rode different buses. Playing the friend card; my sixth grade teacher taught my class to play the game of chess in the third grade. On "chess days" it was enough of an alibi for me, making her my rival as often as I could. If I didn't have the wit to give her a line, we may as well match wits on the battlefield. I generally lost, but she knew I was playing with the handicap of all that girl right there in front of me. If only I'd realized the game was as much of a prop as an apple from the cafeteria. "I stole this apple. [I'm a badass.] What else you think I could steal?" Although not technically sick, I'll now cease plotting ways to pick up sixth grade girls.

Thus far, only failance has been covered. Though, for the sake of suitability, it's best I stayed in the dugout with the three sets of initials I've spoken about. Most of the guys at my grade school claimed their girlfriends were pious. Pious, meaning prudish, though pious is defined as religious. Along comes my Freshman year of high school, which was served in the upper notch of Jr. high school in my town, at the time. Students from religious, or pious, schools continued their education after the eighth grade in Jr. high. Catholic parochial does some fine work. I couldn't help wonder how it'd be to 'paroch that. And I was really stumped, well aware of my male hormones but still lacking an encounter. I became friends with JS, a formerly piously educated student. We hitched the same friend's car home from school, and her thigh was often scrunched against mine. She wore the peak of fashion: gangsta-grunge. Kind of a twist she dated jocks, though a girlfriend of mine in high school always complained skater boys dug preppy chicks. Tribal arrangements aside. I've never become too good of friends with someone to date them. I have become struck so awkward by someone's looks to bumble out nothing but friendliness to them 'til the mood is set for bible study. A friend, a girl, went to JS without consulting me on it first. How could you? However, her perception of the news might not have held the true weight of my desperation towards her. I shelter myself a bit from the hailstorm of flattery that is a crush admitted upon me. She and I had a few moments, right away. On a field trip to the woods, I carried her on my back down a hill, running out of control. Of course, I just had to roll with it, shouting for other students to get out of the way. Since, I couldn't rightly tell her she was too heavy a burden for my 120 pound frame. We shared a cigarette in the dark forest, with only two female art teachers and a camp supervisor not giving half a shit between them that we did. She married after high school and moved to a foreign country; we never went anywhere. Now, doesn't that smell just like a red herring.

If, by this time on the timeline, I didn't clarify, the reader might think I'd lived fifteen years nearly devoid of the bright beauty attraction brings. I've fancied all over the place and participated in junior dating by this time. There's no way to organize this in a list or a Venn diagram; give me a compass, or a heap of gold star stickers, I couldn't do it! A psychotherapist headed up a group session I attended, in which she made a daring comment. That, some loves... you just shouldn't "score," and made scratches on her notepad to demonstrate crossing off a human soul from it ever touching your own. I cannot begin to start disagreeing with this idea. Though, I have disagreed in song. Better said, in my mind: Just try not to think about all the crap at once. Some loves I just shouldn't write about--now. Give it time, I'm still recounting. Plus, I'm trying to keep this to the tight unit slashpound has become. I don't have a CD of stories relating to this topic, I have a DVD, but it's like it's sitting in one of those new realtime editing players set on G for general audience.

The most notable interest in my life was two people. They had the same first name, A. I never knew one, only viewed, and the other bore a child who later turned out not to be mine. I suffer from, or am perhaps blessed with, a condition in which I twist identities with two parts hope and one part shielding. Most of my doppelgangers are celebrities. When I break, I often believe I've entered heaven. Just look at all the rock stars. I attained fame in psychiatric wards of Milwaukee; one young man saying, "You're the guy who sees celebrities," though it's little like a hallucination. A has been the only non-celebrity I've conjured from another. Struck harder than ever before in my early college years, I was an absolute mess in her vicinity. These were grade school nerves. Though, it was hardly an episode of denial, when I got around to admittance. Earned me her complete and total disregard. There was a long transition, a breaking down of the mask I'd put on the other A, long after we'd both left the hospital. I've chosen to score these loves; pun intended, I put the story to rock music. Committed the lyrics to memory, tattooed my brain all the way. It's my way of sorting these A's ascending alphabetically.

In a similar story, earlier in life I went out with a twin for a short time. To this day, these twins are the only set between which I've ever been able to differentiate. We didn't last long, kind of a conflict of interests. But I remember the crisp winter night we met after her brother asked me out for her on the telephone. It was on the train tracks near my house in a small Midwestern town. On my way to meet her, her brother, and her twin, I recall praying I could still tell them apart--And that I wouldn't take the hand of the goofy one. It was night, as I said, and as we walked side by side back to my house, I was dying inside that I might be ignoring my girlfriend for her sister. Well, we met by chance at a festival shortly before I left for school. They were surprised by my appearance, slightly beefier than we had left off. I told them they looked about the same.

Love is a strong emotion, but it can make you weak. I should write ironic clichés for a living. (Or fortunes.) As the reader might have guessed by my residence in a psychiatric hospital, I take a cocktail before bed. Drugs are chemicals just like the ones that occur naturally in a human brain, and are released per stimuli. So, my naturally occurring chemicals don't exactly reflect what is natural. Hence, meds. If the reader hasn't gathered, when I am moved by love, I consequently take a bruising in the fall. I've mixed meds with relationships, and I've mixed au natural with the same. I understand the difference, and meds are important even if they squelch the buzz a bit. To sacrifice some of my initial appeal to the reader, I'll relate that I really let my apartment go the way of entropy because of this experiment. It's so true, in fact, that I left my clean apartment one night, leaving my pills on the kitchen table, ended up in a spoon... I returned to my apartment the next day to find apathy gnomes had jumped the gun by dirtying every dish in the house and scattering dirty laundry all over the floor.

And I won't go into the whole I don't understand women thing. In a number of ways it's a gated existential realm, to me. And besides, I've never misunderstood any more than one woman at a time, personally. I have undergone lucid déjà vu in the presence of a woman. (You know, the kind you joke about because something actually did happen just like what's happening now.) Apparently more than one girl isn't too afraid to ask for her hair to be played with, kind of out of nowhere. At the second request I began to think I was missing cues. I have a crush, at the moment. It's ever present, having one, in most lives, I believe. In the same way, we're always looking forward to something; often to seeing her or him. I rarely to never get the opportunity to live up to the ones I fear. But it's for them, out of a million strangers, you live in fear for their lives.

title

fiend for speed

I called my father's house at six thirty in the morning yesterday. He'd once told me he's awake by five thirty, but it was Sunday. I roused the man and his wife from bed, but they took no apologies. Could be because I'm a fountain of good news, lately. What with favorable paternity test results, and wakefulness before the afternoon. What I didn't tell them was that I'd been asleep since six o'clock A.M. the previous day. Which, is no fault of my own, being on heavy sedatives to control a mental disorder. Of course, I'd skipped my nightly meds of the day I'd slept through, and was thus feeling cocky enough to place the call so early in the morn. But, what matter is it to anyone? With a part time job and Social Security funds flowing from Washington, and now, no kid; I'm not exactly shouldering heaps of responsibility. I said I'd gotten to bed early the night before. A bit of an untruth, but really just truth lacking detail, you'd say? A close friend explained to me that, in his experience, if the truth is written, and written well, one can usually get a person to forgive you no questions asked. My father and step-mother will most probably only chuckle at my outrageous hibernation before depriving them of their final minutes of REM sleep, that Sunday.

However, I've been maintaining a half-truth as to a purchase I made some time ago. I knew visiting family members would take note of my large new wide screen monitor. What they don't, or didn't, know is that it's attached to the brand new computer tower, with which it came packaged. It was a hefty purchase, done entirely for entertainment purposes. It's got one trillion bytes of space for game files, and a video accelerator card that will knock your stockings off. The kinds of productivity I use a computer for were more than covered by my previous machine. Word processing, web applications such as Blogger, miscellaneous other Internet tasks, two-dimensional graphics editing, and web design are all done pretty easily on systems dated as far back as five years. The machine came with the very pretty, new operating system, Windows' Vista. The new monitor has a gloss coat to it, which compliments the system well, looking as if it were forged from polished glass. No, I couldn't hide the frivolousness of twenty-two inches of high definition. But, the computer tower is black, and fit nicely into the bottom right compartment of my desk, out of sight. So, yes, folks, I dropped a wad on an out-of-sight gaming machine. And, if I'm going to be so idle as to play computer games, I may as well use one tenth of my screen resolution to further my writing career on the subject.

When I called my father's, I asked just which art museum in my town was hosting a woven poncho that my step-mother made several years ago. He said he'd have breakfast, come down, and take me there. My step-mother planned to go cross country skiing with a friend, so it'd be just us. Which, is not necessarily preferable, but nice. We saw the museum, which had some very expensive pieces hanging, especially since the last exhibit I saw there. The poncho looked machine woven, very impressive. There was a small photography exhibit, and I queried my father on some of the techniques; he's a photographer by trade. One photo really bugged me, however. It was of a tree, a photo shopped tree. I looked at the light rainbow noise gauzed over the picture and realized, cripes! I could do that. Really, it's a matter of a few simple filters. In fact, I could dig on my hard drive for a picture with the same set of effects. So I bitched a little about my photographic purism... and realized I might have the skills to sell two hundred dollar prints just like it. I had a little change of heart. Ah, but my father is the right person to visit a museum with. With most family members, every particle of my soul is screaming to get the hell out of there and go to the mall. My dad's great, though. We did spend some time with the poncho, but we were out to lunch in twenty-five tops.

We had Mexican, and headed over to the big strip mall dominating a large stretch along the freeway. Sure, Best Buy is supposed to be your one stop electronics store, but Radioshack sits two storefronts down in the mall. Sure, Best Buy's got your Guitar Hero guitar control pads, but Radioshack carries a real guitar. Cheap and chintzy, but still the better alternative. I found that Radioshack also carried a sound card game port to universal serial bus adapter, for cheap! Where as none were to be found at Best Buy. I'm generally gravitated toward the aisles of games at Best Buy. So, although they didn't carry my adapter, I sniffed around by the car racing DVDs. My car racing games of choice are that of the future. No, not ones that have not yet been written. Ones with a setting in the future, or on other planets, or worlds in the universe. The original F-Zero for Super Nintendo will always be one of my favorites. It didn't appear as though the selection offered any futuristic games. Just, some Need For Speed games, with today-cars in cities of today. Then I realized, I am in a store, and this store is selling portable communication devices that take and send photos and movies, and there are video cameras__high quality__that you can hold with your thumb and forefinger... There are televisions with several millions of pixels on display__That kid's shoes are blinking! For cripes' sake! I am in the future! I grabbed the cheapest Need For Speed auto racer, and tracked down Dad, hanging out by the Blue Ray TVs.

As we approached the counter, my father offered to buy me the Need For Speed game, since he had been sick around my birthday, and claimed he didn't give me much. I said it was alright, but if he wanted to, that'd be great. Pretty swell. I'd been checked out by this saleslady before. Real cute one, also very young. She wears her hair parted to one side, one side hanging down over one eye. Ooh. We'd bantered a bit the last time I was in, also buying video games, then too. She asked my dad if he had a members' card. He didn't, but I did. I slid it out of my wallet, but a bit of paper was severely stuck to it. I said something extremely witty, but for the life of me, I can't recall what it was. I thanked her, and sort of felt her watch me as I turned toward the door. Girls have a real effect on me sometimes. Though the graphics by today's standards are terrible, I was mesmerized by all three installments of Tomb Raider, and swinging little Lara Croft around the mazes. In the new Half-Life series, you have a female sidekick, very realistically rendered. My last game purchase was Microsoft's Flight Simulator. I enjoyed very much flying a double prop through the great arch in St. Louis, and perhaps there's some subconscious symbology in that. Though, I might have made more of an effort to learn how to land if the player had a female co-pilot, or even flight attendant. I wasn't sure Need For Speed: Carbon Collector's Edition would have anything to satiate my need for graphical sex.

My dad was getting sleepy, so he dropped me off at my apartment with my new game and adapter for a vintage game controller with which I planned to drive my cars around. I got the controller set up, inserted the DVD, and got ready for the big install... (Smoking, nose picking, a few strums on the guitar.) We're ready. Well, what do you know, right out of the cage and we've got a female. I can't remember what she said her name was, but out of a sleek mobile came a girl with cleavage__and a public service message? She says, "The moves you make in this game are not real... obey the laws of the road... wear your seatbelt... blah, blah, blah..." Interesting how the anarchy-sim Bioshock didn't come with a disclaimer for players not to actually shoot people in the head with a revolver. Or, for Flight Simulator__don't climb into the cockpit of a jetliner with zero hours of flight time in your experience. The girl shows up again at race time, strutting around the cars as they rev up, and shouting "Go!" to start the race. Something was wrong though, she had the physical aspect of a really hot dwarf, kind of squashed. I checked the video options of the game. Humph, it was set to a square monitor resolution. I have a wide screen. No settings for wide screen. Humph. People write hacks to make this kind of thing not a problem, so I headed for Google. There were a few dead ends, since I have the Collector's Edition and not straight up NFS: Carbon. I uncovered something that looked the most promising of anything I'd seen so far. It was "Need-For-Speed-Carbon-CE-Widescreen-Patch.rar" So, I clicked it, and it gave me a few instructions on how to download and open the file, nothing I really needed help with. Then it told me I just installed something that would allow me to download sexy screen savers, which are the kind of screen savers I tend not to use, as to be polite to my guests. Not to mention, it wasn't what I clicked on. Then, without touching anything, it wanted to show me a sexy movie, "Brother rapes Sister." Also, not what I asked for, and very not sexy, to me. It took me three restarts to clear the installation from my computer, and was quite a setback. Anyway, I found a wide screen hack, and the wheels of the cars aren't at all egg shaped, anymore. Plus, Ms. Safety Sanchez looks a bit taller.

The game is fun, despite some scathing reviews I encountered on my way to the wide screen hack. And I suppose it should be. The game is two years old, and built for video accelerators that are much older than mine. Going as fast as you can is all fine and good for winning races, but there are other ways to enjoy the game. For one, you can keep it in second gear, and take in some of the stunning scenery. It's strangely futuristic. Your crew member will bitch at you over the CB if you do this, which is another reward. And, you can pull a U turn and run the race backwards. Your crew member really gets pissed if you do this. And, if you're anything like me, you can drive an automatic transmission, instead of manual, and actually place. The sports cars really are beautiful works of art, like the long stiletto heeled leg of an expensive hooker. The vehicles are futuristically indestructible, too. My foot is getting heavy just speaking of all this. I must have really been moved to put it down long enough to write this. But alas__I really do have a Need For Speed...

today's tom sawyer

Once, I believed I had the greatest responsibility in human nature to fulfill, that is, taking part in the raising of a child. With responsibility comes more responsibility, which is why I found myself making copies in the dead of night, during the pregnancy and first few months. I'd been out of work since I dropped my schooling. It's arguable that a full time third shift job will tear at one's health just as much as funded unemployment. Some known to me would attest, I was a mess before all of this. Kinko's office and print center eventually wore me down to a nub, too. Lucky for me, and my ex's daughter, humans regenerate. You'd think these monkeys were half phoenix; I rose to take on more late night employment at a local television station. I'd been cutting my meds in half with a razor blade each night when working for Kinko's, just to keep my head above the desk. Now, I cut them with a quart of coffee. Arguably, just as effective. As well as the money I'm bringing in, I've stabilized as a person. The electric shock of parenthood was like the zap they give the kind of mental patient I may have become had none of this occurred.

I started working at the local t.v. station early fall off this year. Upon hiring, I was asked to sign an agreement that included a promise not to share company secrets. I'm not sure what qualifies as a secret. After all, my family has been to tour the station, including the control room where I spend most of my time. A fax came through once, describing an auto accident, including names of victims. It stated in caps lock that the information was not to be released until the next morning. I did nothing with the fax, and even kept my fingerprints away from it entirely. Perhaps the reception of these kinds of faxes is a secret, but I'll risk it for journalism's sake. I read once of an Apple computer employee that got canned for blogging a new product prior to its debut. I had an electronics instructor in college who would punctuate each ramble with "...and stuff ...and things ...and that." No lie, twelve times a class period without a hint of salt. So, I have gotten the idea to divulge what I believe are the stations secrets, replacing all nouns with 'stuff,' 'things,' and 'that.'

My manager came in to talk to me yesterday. He said he wasn't directing this stuff at anyone in particular, but that the things weren't getting in the stuff, and that. We really need to get the stuff in the things, so be sure to do things so that they do. The night shift hasn't been getting the stuff in the things, and that, so the morning shift has too much stuff to get in the thing. "I need a refresher on how to get the things in the thing..." I said. His head kind of twitched to one side, realizing I was admitting guilt for ignorance of putting stuff in things, and holding up the morning shift. "Come in a half hour early and we'll get you trained on [and?] that." He comes off like he's gonna be all up in your stuff. But, my manager is pretty nice, and stuff, and things.

Underneath, it's a lot of techno babble, and really gains very little in translation. I probably needed not hide it, anyway. Here's a story from work of personal observation. Each taped show needs to be "timed" so that local commercials will air over the right portions of the tape when aired. It involves a television monitor and a console. I rewind the tape and stop the it each time the monitor goes blank. Then, I write down the displayed time on a small piece of paper to be entered into a computer, later. It was a tricky little task at first, for me, but I soon got the hang of it. See, when you're close to the blankness, you need to switch the console from "shuttle" to "jog." This allows you to fine tune your position on the tape, and get an accurate time reading. Of course, you often overshoot your mark on "shuttle," so you might be "jogging" for a number of seconds. I'm getting pretty good at jogging at a good speed, which involves spinning the dial on the console very quickly with your finger pressed into an inverted nub. One day while jogging, I couldn't help but notice how the tight circular finger motion was like the vigorous massaging of a clitoris. I think of this each time I am timing a tape now. I'm still not bad at it, but my finger slips from the nub when I start to believe, and I go for the labia.

No, my job is not without its rewards. The Coke machine nearest my house has raised its toll from seventy-five cents to one dollar. However, the Coke machine at work still requires only seventy-five. I know I'm admitting to an awful unhealth, but I'll down three Diet Cokes on a ten hour shift. (This is after my quart of coffee.) So, I slip three dollar bills into the reader, get three Diet Cokes, and it spits back three tokens I can redeem for a candy bar. Which, my body is quite craving after teasing my metabolism with chemical sweetener. There are often leftovers from parties or conventions hanging around the break room, too. And, I don't think it's any company secret that I ate the last two thirds of the apple cinnamon cheesecake from the Christmas party.

I work alone, and have in the majority of my jobs. I do get some interaction at the television station. I was nearly given a heart attack by a couple of Southeast Asian immigrants who only needed to clean the place. I heard talking, and a quick glimpse of who I thought were teenagers__they were the right height, anyway. I thought we were being robbed. I summoned my best "Who's there!" They knew some English, enough to say that they were from Service-Master. I'm thankful they didn't bust in while I was sub-directing the newscast. Which, is the other form of contact I have with others in my job. A friend was very impressed to hear that I give countdowns from commercial breaks during the nine o'clock news. I'm not in the studio at the time. I'm on the telephone, a headset. But, whatever gets her wet. The extent of communication we have, aside from coordinative, is saying hello and goodnight. Some nights I ask "What's up?" or "How's it going?" The news is always good, even if the news is not.

I was welcomed to the broadcasting network by a phone call from the news anchor. I thought of all the things I should have said, afterward. So, I suppose it was like any other time I've spoken with a girl, for the first time. It's no secret the anchor is a looker. Perhaps she's the network affiliate's secret weapon. She almost makes me wish I received the channel at home. I have this secret fantasy that I'll see her in public. I can meet the face behind the glass, and she can meet the man behind the curtain. I'd say that's pretty clean and innocent daydreaming. Keeping it professional. Strange... that in such an environment, eroticism at work rises in me only from an editing machine console.

Tonight, while tenderly jogging through segments of the latest Girls Gone Wild infomercial, I reflected. I'm a bit more reflective, of late. Retrospective, too. There's parenthood behind me, that could have stretched 'til my death. At times when parenting was too intense, I'd plan my reaction to a negative paternity result. I'd usually soon recall the physicality between myself and my ex, and move on to more productive synapses. Who knew? Contained in my fantasies were the telling-off of my ex's father, quitting my job, moving cross country; in order from most to least absurd. I have no business with that family anymore, I like my job__it's vitality beyond money. In a circle of cute Denny's waitresses, my job has earned me the nickname Mr. 44, for the UHF channel by which the broadcast is received. There's no reason to verbally put the finishing touches on the wreck of a relationship I had with my ex's father. How I'd like to have no weekly margins of time in which to pursue the hobby of binge drinking, but no. I've seen what I can become when unchecked. Without a child occupying the regions of concernedness in my brain, it's become clear to me that I am just as big a babe to be swaddled.

dead, baby

To justify the abrasive title above, I'll describe a conversation had between myself and a group of friends, the first night of my second year of engineering school. By the dim light of desk lamps, we drank Milwaukeean microbrew. The clock showed an early hour. The talk wasn't of death and dying, but of cutting enemies out of the picture of a life. I said, if someone doesn't ever want to see you again, they're dead. Their lifeline ends before you'll ever cross paths. I'd care to hypothesize that one could stand back to back in the supermarket, without even knowing the zombie lurked. As the night made the dorm guests tired little toddlers, an altercation ensued between a new student and my close friend since last year. Some harsh words were spoken. I am amazed at verbal friction and social death between lovers just weeks after meeting. This was the first time these two were in a room together, and I was baffled. They might have wished one another dead, in the real or virtual sense. Though, they were destined to spend at least a semester finding one another at an adjacent urinal, or next up for a shower, living on the same floor, just doors apart.

Alright, I'll attack this head on. In previous blogs I have made mention of a daughter living in the far reaches of the state. To paraphrase the story, the little girl had been abused by her young mother, and the court system had gotten involved. When questioned, the mother indicated that she, in fact, did not know who the father was. This was news to me. When I had brought up getting a paternity test, I was lucky if I made off with only one black eye. It was then recommended that a paternity test be done. I remember well the affection between myself and the mother. So, it was a bit of a mindfuck when the results of the test came back. Negative. I was not the father of who I thought was my daughter. I'd eaten yogurt, which is rich in bacterial cultures, for breakfast the day of the test, but I suppose this is probably not enough to sway the results. Otherwise, the father would be found to be a lowlife single celled organism. How true, but not literally. No mistake had been made. The accuracy, I was told is 99.9%. I have a sick little theory on the paternity of the kid, but it's something I should really keep to myself. The philosophy exists, love them like your own. Given the circumstances, I'll love my ex and her daughter as I love any of my exes, and a kid smiling at me in a grocery store, respectively. Given the circumstances, I may never see either of them again in my life. Though I do not wish death, in all practicality, it's occured. Conversely, I am also dead; to them. However, considering that I am no longer entangled in a situation of fatherhood out of wedlock with a girl seven years my junior, I smell less of dead meat.

I've taken some time to reflect, it's been two days since the news crackled over the telephone. My feelings are segmented, there's relief for all the times I wished for this, and a sense of irony in all I put into the upbringing in the two years of pregnancy and early childhood. There's little in the way of anger, or feeling betrayed. The girl and I have been apart so long, much has dwindled. I'd waited months to say this, and never would have guessed I'd have the opportunity. But, anything I contributed, I consider helping out a friend. This includes multi-hundred dollar shopping trips, dealings with nasty-ass diapers, and taking blow after verbal blow from the mother's father. His regard for me took a crude form, claiming once, you two made her, you two take care of her; and criticising my lack of presence in the delivery room. I thought I was just giving space to the girl, since she requested only doctors and nurses to be present at the time of birth. He's a clever fellow: shortly before Christmas, he ordered up some diapers and formula since Walgreens fell in my bus route... Said it was time to get my feet wet. Heh.

I still can't get off my mind that an error occurred in the test. A sheriff's deputy performed the swabbing, a quick swipe of the gums with a single-ended Q-Tip. He kept filling out the wrong blanks on the envelope, calling himself an "idiot" once during the packaging phase. I've said I remember well the affection the girl and I showed for one another, and I'm pretty sure that it was the way in which a baby is made. I came down with a horrible case of meningitis when I was sixteen, and it makes me wonder if I didn't get my functionality fried by it. Most of the girls I've dated have a high level of integrity, they're trustworthy, I believe it. Yet, pregnancy never occurred, which backs my theory. All in all, this marks the end of something really scary. Sure, babies are cute, and it's fun to watch them grow--like a Chia Pet. But really, I knew the little girl was someone through whom I would relive my fears of living. Yes, I would fear for her safety. I can recall the tight spots in which I've found myself. There are car accidents, fist fights, STDs, blah! I wish her the best, as I would anyone, but I do not play the role of rescuer anymore. The girl and the little girl have been on my mind as a worry for as long as I have lived a four hour drive from them. I don't know how this is going to change things. I never reflected and thought about how free and easy I was before this happened, I had my worries. I'm still in the mode to think, crap I have a kid. Then I think "crap!" I don't have a kid. Then I remember things weren't so stable before all of this either. I can't remember why, though. Things should have been pretty breezy. It's going to take some time. I've got a world ahead of me, and chicks sounding interested. My family sounds sympathetic, but i know they're overjoyed. I wonder if the little girl will ever know who her surrogate father was for her first year, and if she'll ever seek me out. The extent of her personality toward me was to pee a lot, in the time we had. I hear she's a riot, a real sweetheart. No thanks to me she'll probably be a real looker as time goes on. As for me, I'll pick up where I left off two years ago. A single bachelor with no ties, risking it all at every chance I get.