Monday.

I'm missing an episode of my favorite TV show as I type this
Although I don't have access to public television
Or even to cable
I thought there was a vast government conspiracy behind the converter boxes
And for once I was going to take a stand
I'm missing an episode of my favorite TV show as I type this
Instead I just wait for some geekfuck to post it online for free
I sit around like a predator for cbs monday nights
I am a fucking rockstar

I got a new showerhead installed in my bathroom
It has quite a lengthy hose
Which made it all the more easier to get off on
And sometimes I think of you
Or him
I guess
Anyway detachable shower heads are wonderful
For those on a budget or a time-sensitive schedule
a few clicks to setting 6 and
I end up quite fine

Sometimes I lie down in the tub
But sometimes one doesn't want to deal with the inevitable suction that occurs
Between the bathtub
And your back
It fucking stings – and then you're lying like a dumbass in your bathtub
Wondering if you have a back hickey
And what would you say to your friends
Hey I was just jacking off in the shower
Hence this fucking back hickey
Somehow they would all be okay with it
But then again why would they be seeing it?

Sometimes you have to work your right foot to adjust the temperature
Your right foot is used to adjusting the temperature
I guess it has something to do with Monday
Or just being alone in general

No Subject.

I am trying to write a poem about you
Even though we don’t speak anymore
And I really haven’t thought about you lately
That clearly is a lie

I was depressed
And watching Wes Anderson dvds for the fifteenth time
My friend called and asked me to come meet her and her boyfriend for pupusas
I like pupusas
So I went

It was the first time I met your boyfriend
He reminded me a little bit of this one guy I used to screw
Of course I didn’t say that
He seemed nice enough
A writer I think you said
I sat across from the two of you in the booth
And you seemed happy
Because you laughed at his jokes
I laughed
Not because the jokes were particularly funny
But because you were buying lunch

You asked me what I’ve been up to
I said watching Wes Anderson movies
Your boyfriend asked which one
And I replied The Life Aquatic
And you both looked at each other and sighed
And told me this movie was orientalist
I could do so much better
I stopped laughing
And the pupusas were cold

I live alone and am not seeing anyone really
Every once in a while I end up fucking someone
These days it’s a lot better than it used to be
I used to want to hang out with that person afterwards
Cuddle and shit
Nowadays I have no problem leaving
Or not knowing when you will call

I started thinking about you again
We haven’t spoken since February
Our connection was not particularly deep
Thinking about you
For no particular reason
Except that it’s possible I might be lonely
Which is why I guess it was easy
I’d always knew I could depend on you
To be completely unreliable

This is a funny poem
And if you read it you would think it was about you
But it isn’t
And you wouldn’t know that
Because you never knew about the other person
The person I chose to replace you
While we were still together
We might as well not have been
But this other guy was interested
I was flattered so we ran around a bit
He ended up being a complete dick though
So at least the two of you have something in common

I am trying to write a poem about you
I snorted about a gram of coke last night
I should really be focused on other things
And I haven’t actually slept since Friday morning

I don’t write poems about anything anymore
I told myself that shit was for pussies
And I washed my hands of that entire scene
I said I was going to get serious
Once I started my blog

Keeps getting better.

So, the other day, I'm rocking this flower printed, coral as shit, 70s-ass dress I picked up at a friend's garage sale. It's 'completely "9 to 5", a handsomely poly-knit Banlon type of escapade. I'm at the Rainbow Acres health food store in the Marina, holding a fresh-squeezed, medium carrot-apple-ginger concoction and waiting patiently in line. When. All of a sudden.

This older woman standing in line behind me says. "I love that dress!"
I say Thank You.
She says, "It's wonderful. You look so...JUICY."

What who what when howwwwwwww....

What new development is this?
What does "JUICY" mean, when administered to individuals as what seems a compliment?
And by this I don't mean in a "keepin it rill" kind of way, I mean when someone who looks like my best friend's fucking great-aunt says it to me, squeezing her sprouted wheat bread with one hand and tucking her hair behind her ear with the other.

Wednesday afternoon.

I'm walking down Main, headed towards 4th Street so I can catch the 40 bus home.

My day had been pretty anti-climactic and relatively drama-free.
Not even one good shoot-em-up.
And I guess, accordingly, I was feeling pretty blah. I was mildly under-anxious with the sentiment of being neither extremely inconsequential or rife with purpose.

So I'm passing 6th and this older Rasta cat is walking down Main, in the other direction. He looks at me and says, in a very friendly, booming voice: "NICENESSSSSS...You are pure NICENESS."

Well, I'll be. No one's ever rolled out such a compliment that surprisingly, had the capacity to make a girl's day quite like that. I didn't even say anything, I just kept walking while this goofy ass grin slapped itself across my face. He smiled back, told me I was quite welcome, and proceeded to stroll on by and out into the ether.

And with that, my day completely did a 180.
Because that was the day I met. The King of Awesome.

The past couple days.

Day One.

You wake up with that shitty slow feeling - the one where all you know is that you are lying down. Perhaps in a gutter. Somewhere.

First thing you do is check to see if your pants are on.
Once that is established, you focus on trying to figure out exactly where you are.

And I. Was at home. Pants on. Whew. Eyes slightly glued shut with the residue of whatever the fuck happened last night. My cell phone was on the nightstand – I open one eye and see that it’s eight-thirty-eight. Then I check the phone to see if I drunk dialed anyone. Nope. Drunken text? Whew. As far as I can tell, the coast is clear. How exactly did I get home? A voice not unlike my own: J. Lee drove your happy ass. When exactly did I get home? Can’t really trust myself to say. What exactly happened last night? Ugh. Do you mean what happened between leaving Susan’s barbecue and getting home? I guess.

Somehow it involved a motley crew of whatnots, several of whom were last seen doing kegstands at a Sunday afternoon shindig…somehow making their way to the Miyako Inn’s second floor bar – which I vaguely recollect encompassed bottle service, soju and me doing karaoke to Laura Branigan songs. Slightly remembering the events, I start chuckling - through my bruiser of a headache.

Then it dawns on me that it. Is Monday. Monday and eight-thirty-eight am. Inevitably means that I. Will be. Late for work.

Fuck. Fuck Fuck. Triple Fuck. Dammit.

I try to get up quickly, but my nervous system clearly does not receive the memo - so I kind of lay there for a couple more minutes. I hear the tap of footsteps on the floor and rustling around. Mmm. I start to get back under the covers when I realize that I have… neither pets nor roommates.

I get up to see an unfamiliar man standing in my kitchen, moving furniture around.

Good morning.
Who are you?

I’m with the roofers. We’re just going to open up your ceiling here…
Like fun you are.

The roofers, they tell me, are here to deal with…well, the roof. But in terms of who called them over or let them into my flat, well. I found out later that Mike, the building manager, thought I had taken off and that it would be okay for him to let them into my place. Wrong.

I make it abundantly clear that I am not digging their Stranger than Fiction shit right now.

Then, I realize I am fully dressed from the night before. My wee brain is at full capacity. I just shrug and go to work.

Tuesday, Day Two.

I woke up with enough mosquito bites as if I had been spending months searching for treasure in the fucking Amazon rainforest. First off, I am horrifically allergic to bug bites – I get more annoyed than the average person, and it never fares well. I dunno what happened – I woke up this morning and counted 27 – yes! Fucking twenty-seven bug bites on my legs. I thought I was going to have to go to the emergency room for a fucking cortisone shot. It’s happened before.

Flashback.

It was spring break, my sophomore year of undergrad. My good friend Ruffin H. (yes, that truly was her name) had invited me to kick it with her and her father’s family at the Michigan Dunes for a week. Her father was a banker, and her stepmother and their kids...well…who cared what her stepmother did, I was just in it to kick it with my girl and some rich people for a week.

Our first night at the Dunes, we had rolled up to the coordinates Ruffin’s father had given, and found ourselves in the most deplorable conditions. Her father was a New York banker, and we had found ourselves in a nightmare of National Lampoon’s Vacation proportions. Who knew that they were cheap as fuck. Utterly bogus.

So, for our first night there, after the “family bonding” session, Ruffin and I took a walk down to the beach so we could drink some Budweiser (this is all her father brought to kick off a week's vacation) and smoke a bowl.

Little did I know that night, I would be preyed upon by “no-see-ums” and chiggers in the sand, evil, monstrous tiny things, in the dark.

The next morning, I woke up to an amazingly painful sense of this-isn’t-going-to-be-good. We surmised that I had about 30-35 bug bites, wrapped around my calves and upwards in this grotesque connect-the-dots kind of helix, and said legs had swelled up to the size of elephant trunks. It was time for my ass to go to the hospital. I went to the emergency room of some random level trauma spot, got a cortisone shot, and then made the decision to call my brother, who happened to be living in Michigan at the time.

Ruffin dropped me off at my brother’s apartment, which was a good hour or so away from where the hospital was, situated in Holland, Michigan. We decided she would pick me up at the end of the week.

I wasn't really put out by it. Dear brother, now, had a fantastic loft, situated above the one toy store in all of Holland. In 1995, Holland, Michigan, had the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country – 2% or some shit. So. Everyone there was all fucking Fantasy Island-“smiles, everyone, smiles!” – and 98% of everyone there also looked mighty Scandinavian. But I digress.

JP had to work during the week, so he wasn't really too keen on making sure I was set up with enough fun things to do during the day whilst he was gone-I was hopped up on painkillers, steroids and beer, after all-and left to my own devices for the week. The first morning I am there, I hear a knock on the door.

I open the door, and it’s my brother’s next door neighbor, Todd H.

Hey.
Hey.

He holds out a quarter of some amazingly green shit. It gleams. I am pulled like a tugboat to a fucking lighthouse.

I heard you smoke?
To this day, Todd is a close pal. The entire week is spent being happily stupid and consciously comatose.
Who knew Michigan was so fantastic?

A week passes. Ruffin picks me up and we proceed to swing by the South Haven Michigan Blueberry Festival. We were driving on the highway and passed by several cars with signs taped in their windows stating things like Honk for Jerry or Remember Jerry and not really thinking too much about it. The Fest was. Well. Full of blueberries. Lots of pie. Some folks without shoes. We really didn't think much about it.

It was when we stopped for gas that shit started to fall into place. This particular gasoline establishment would normally not be considered exceptional or noteworthy. Save for the swarm of over one-hundred neo-hippies that were swarming around it in a giant drum circle, like drones to a hive. I suppose some were finding their god-lights, some were straight out crying, some were in the throes of what seemed to be the bad dregs of a twelve binge, but whatever. Ruffin and I had pulled up to the station totally ripped after smoking a spliff ten minutes before getting there, so you can only imagine how the whole scene must have been a bit surreal.

It was only then that we realized Jerry Garcia was dead.

We got out of the van and surveyed the scene. It felt like we were in the eye of a storm that encompassed lost trustafarians a-plenty, most hanging out by the central pay station, like I said, and a few randoms idling about pumps 1 and 5. They swooped as soon as we got out of the van. I began to feel like I was in a very ill planned sequel to The Lost Boys.

“Do you know where the Blueberry Fest is?”
He was a young, Jim Morrison-type follower who might as well have given up way before he made his way to Michigan. Yeah, we actually just came from there. It's about. Well. Three minutes over that way. With the big signs that say 'Blueberry Fest' and all the arrows? Then.

“Do you have any drugs?”
He was a young, Frank Zappa-type follower who might as well have given up way before he made his way to anywhere else.

I told him no. We only had three joints to get us from there back to school - a good eight hours' drive. Morrison seemed to be okay with it. Zappa, however, didn’t quite take no for an answer. He came up to me as I was getting ready to pull from the curb.

“Do you have any drugs?”
Nah man, I just told you that.
“I don’t have any money, but I’ve got. These. Rocks.”
Zappy proceeds to hold up three pond pebbles from the gas station garden, gingerly, and with great reverence, as if he was revealing the most precious things in the universe.

Well, shit. Ruffin and I look at each other. I hand him the biggest spliff. Zappy's eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. He jumps through the car window and gives me a giant hug. We take the rocks and drive off. Zappy is last seen holding the herb high in the air, ready to call the rest of the Thundercats in.

Friday the 15th.

It was quarter past midnight when my phone started making noise.

It had been a surprisingly hot day in May, even for Los Angeles, and it was, at that time not surprisingly, still a good 70 degrees in my flat. I was sitting on the couch in some choneys, slurping Buchanan’s on the rocks, occasionally sucking on a one hitter, and heavily into watching Season Three of Columbo. Although it was the wee hours on a Friday night slash Saturday morning, I’d had all of two-and-a-half hours of sleep the night before, thereby making the trek to, ensuing six hours at, and drive home from the office -- all the more deplorable.

So here I was, maxing in a pair of underwear (Joy of Living Alone Rule #3), juggling several vices at once, and waiting for Peter Falk to let Donald Pleasance have it, when my phone buzzed. 818 number. No name. Screw that. I went back to watching my favorite frumpy, one-eyed detective kick some elitist, rich, Californian honky ass.

No message. I attribute it to someone drunk dialing. Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed again, this time with the name withheld. Screw that, again. This time, I spark a bowl.

Nine hundred seconds later, it rings a-fucking-gain. 818 was back. At this point, I am stoned and emboldened enough by 12-year old scotch into curiosity. I picked up. I did.

I picked up someone else’s booty call.

The fact that it was the wrong number? Even better. I don’t know what should have more emphasis – the fact that Terjon thought he was going to hook up some ass, the very smart girl who gave him the wrong number; or the fact that someone else’s midnight wish inadvertently called me as if it should signify something deep, reflective.

I was thinking out loud.

Nix that last option. No one should get emotionally scathed by a wrong number, and doubly that if the caller is named “Terjon”. It sounded like a brand of toilet. He was pretty upset when I told him he had the wrong number. Terrrrjeannnnn, he insisted, a few times over, in fact, as if chanting it three times would either break me out of, or place me into some magical late night quiet-storm-satin-sheets spell.

Terjon was at a bar, from what I could tell, a bar bumping some very, very bad neo-soul, soaring on what I can only surmise were several rum and cokes, an apparent lack of inhibitions and an exceptionally strong dose of Axe body spray.

I told him I was pretty sure he had the wrong number.
And that is when Toilet Man got all butt-hurt.

He didn’t believe me at first, then I got to aurally witness the 5 Stages in a total of six seconds: He was in disbelief that I wasn’t…whoever, then yelled that I must be lying, asked me what it would take for me to say I was…whoever, choked up on the fact I wasn’t…whoever; then hung up.

And that was my Friday. My advice to Terjon: wherever you are, darlin’, try not to be such a bitch.

My Little Yeti.

I am being stalked by someone who has no desire to ever actually see me.

He’s a painful disappearing act, an amazingly bad magician - although I wouldn’t compare him to David Copperfield, or even dare to insult Doug Henning – no. He was (is) the relationship equivalent of David Blaine, encased in that block of ice, suspended over Times Square for a month, or whatever the amount of time was that he chose to stick himself in there that didn’t really matter to the rest of us. He had become a bit repugnant due to his repetitive tricks, and, like watching David Blaine, I was annoyed yet at the same time just had to watch the train wreck that was inevitable.

[A friend of mine lived in Manhattan when he attempted said stunt, and told me that the cameras failed to show how Blaine actually pissed off a ton of New Yorkers. What the cameras failed to show were people continually lighting up hibachis underneath the block of ice, or that on more than one occasion someone snuck by security and cut Blaine’s catheter line.]

The kicker is that this Kid is such a Sasquatcheriffic-Chupacabtastic-McGuffin of a Kokopelli that I can't really describe him as your typical asshole or douchebag, as that would be too simplistic for the enigma that the Yeti has become --- although A1 has taken to describing him as "the heir to the Massengill fortune" as of late. (Friends are a beautiful thing.) Ironically enough, I can't really be mad at said abominable snowman, as this seemingly on-going non-relationship gives me both a serious case of angina as well as great fodder to get expository to, which is an amazingly fucked up kind of two-fer.

I am consciously weighing the options that he's either bat-shit crazy, or just plain mean; however, I'm sort of leaning towards a 60/40 split of both. These days, I'm beginning to think that he might just be one of those Time-Life Books Unexplained Mysteries, not unlike the phemonenae of Spontaneous Human Combustion, or Extra-Sensory Perception. And in that sense, this has become one hell of an experiment.

It's been two weeks since I last had a sighting. Stay posted.

Nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.

Right now, I’m listening to a lot…and I mean, a LOT…of Toto. Yes. Toto. It's totally Toto Appreciation Day. All day, every day, in fact. For some reason the sweet, sweet words that Paich and Porcaro skillfully blended into the megahit Africa fills the massive void that would otherwise be lining my stomach. That and whiskey.

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what’s right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure whats deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve become

It really is all about the fantastic rhyme scheme and word choice. Let's not kid ourselves. It was 1982, I was seven, and I didn't know what exactly Kilimanjaro, Olympus and the Serengeti actually referred to, but it didn't matter: The words were fucking fantastic. I remember asking my pops how to spell the words and then going to town with the corresponding volumes of our Encyclopaedia Brittanica. (Also of note is that, within the same year, I was also floored by the use of the word "Vegamite" in Men At Work's Down Under, and couldn't figure out what that shit was for the longest, as our Encyclopaedia set neglected to cover Australian foodstuffs at that time.)

For Rob because.

Okay! So, last night I was talking to my boy Rob and he's a bit under the weather since this one broad broke up with him, yet keeps on rearing her schizophrenic head(s) like goddamn Tiamat. Clearly, 'twould not be completely out of sorts for dearheart Rob to be twisted into an emotional funnel cake. Ever empathetic to the sorrow of the homies, and through the lens of several glasses of six-dollar chardonnay, I woke up this morning and realized I had emailed him an extremely impromptu (and slightly inebriated) take I apparently had on the whole situation. Get your black mock turtleneck, peg your pants and grab your Zodiacs, because it's time to get your high-school angst-ridden poetry on...

A later note: I edited it down to the best line from said bad poem, since in retrospect, no one really needs to read all that shit.

You can make bullshit sound like rimming an angel’s perineum
So fuck you, Primadonna

I hope Rob is feeling better these days.

What the shit.

Sugar.
Pop.
Funky.
Pops.

Coffee, tea or…me, baby? Touché…Olé.

My opening line might be a bit passé, but...don’t think that I don't know what I'm feeling for you. 'Cause I got a vibe on you the first time that I saw you. I need your love and I won't bring no pain, a little birdie told me that you feel the same? I'm for the real, and for you I'm true blue.

Let's make a deal: Sugar, all I want to do is be your one and only lover.
I just want…to be your lovergirl. I just want to rock your world.

Hey - hook, line and sinker baby, that's how you caught me.
My second verse might be a bit…old hat, but…don't think that I don't know what it's doing to me,
'cause I got a vibe on you the first time you saw through me.

Hey Baby, let me groove you. Let me groove into your love. I just want to be your lovergirl. Let me prove it to you, baby: let me rock your world. I just want to rock your world. Baby, let me soothe you – let me smooth into your love. I just want to be your lovergirl. Let me prove it to you.

Baby.

Let me rock your world. I just want…to rock your world. When the push comes to shove, and you need a little love, let me put some rock into your world. Call me up. Don't be shy, for my love will make you high.

I just want to be your lovergirl.

************************************

Epilogue. Shortly after posting this, one of my boys hits me up on chat and says:

So, yo - is [your post] about ------- ? The poem is sick, illmatic, ma. For real.

Two minutes of silence.

Dude. Those are the lyrics to Lovergirl. Teena Marie.

Five minutes of silence.

Ah. I'm now aware.

Blame it on the Rain.

He was a Drummer.

Somehow I ended up helping him with his gear, a half hour before his band's set was supposed to start. It was pouring, and I'd finagled a cart to help him, since, out of the trio, he seemed to have the most equipment that needed to be lugged around. I apologized for not having more help in such inclement weather.

He said not to worry, most of the time no one offers to help him, so he's figured out how to manage without a cart most of the time.

Pause. Yeah, midgets work really well for carrying shit around.
Who said that?

He blinked. Don’t say bad things about midgets.

Think fast. Seriously, it’s okay. My brother’s a midget – he tells me that he doesn’t mind.
That's all I got? I belong in a cave.

Pause. You don’t really have a brother, do you?

I do. But actually…he’s rather tall.

He. Laughed.
I. Was in love.

Here I was rationalizing what I believed was a definite connection via the initial ice-breaker-midget-joke-volley (successful) and accompanying light witty banter throughout the rest of the time Drummer was around. This was acceptable fodder for stoking the flames of flirtation. For several hours afterwards, I'd managed to convince myself that the entire 600 seconds (tops) we (probably) interacted was a complex courtship dance, a hint-studded verbal labyrinth, and somehow, all for my benefit.

I went home that night, proceeded to sip a bourbon, and did something I've never done before.
I looked up Drummer on MySpace.

I don’t have a MySpace account, nor do I ever desire to have one. For many, as well as specifically this reason - I'm a little too old and way too cynical to base my romantic theories on how someone posts their status d'amour in the virtual world. The same place where adults posing as tweens looking to bone set up cyberspace box traps with the intent to snag other adults looking for actual tweens to bone. Nah.

That said.
Drummer is a Leo, is apparently 78 years old, expressed his day with a "loved" emoticon, and.
Is.
Single.

Fuck MySpace.