Brian Meets John

I first met John in 2006, I want to say I was in Boston at first. I am a member of a chat site that I use almost exclusively for keeping in touch with friends. I spent time in California, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts again. Phone numbers change, addresses change, but profiles on this site seem to stay, and if you're looking for someone to send a message, it's pretty much guaranteed that eventually they'll get it and return it, unlike email. The website shows people who are in your state depending on what you put as your address, and you can have a friend list to keep in touch with people everywhere. Once you have looked at everyone in your state, the profiles jumble, different locations, different people. This is how I met John, or should I say I found John? I don't have a type per se, but when I saw his face, I knew I had to look at the rest of the pictures. This being a gay site, standard protocol dictates that you say something along the lines of a pickup. You can choose standard greetings such as 'you're hot', 'woof', 'you're sexy', 'nice honker', but immediately I wanted to separate myself from the rest of the pack. I usually do this by sending something nonsexual, and wait for either question marks or 'whatever' or a pat on the head and a 'thank you'. He was Australian, he was polite, and he had a very handsome face, one that made me stop, pause, and pursue.

We started chatting in full sentences right away, and it was very comfortable to meet someone who was married but wanted to talk to someone from overseas. We had similar tastes and backgrounds, and John even showed my picture to his husband out of respect. We weren't  doing anything but chatting, just like the site said it was good for. Since the time difference was over twelve hours, it turned into weird hours for both of us when we saw each other. I looked forward to our chats, we even got clever and would have wine or drinks while we talked. It was always weird hours for one of us, the other would be drinking during regular business hours. We carried on like this for years, we were miles and miles apart, but friends. It was unlikely we'd ever meet in person, but we could talk like good friends about anything, offer objective opinions when we were having problems, and I have to admit it was nice to have someone who I could anticipate seeing online.

We were both experiencing problems that we didn't address. John's partner was sick but they'd been together for over twenty years, and believe it or not, I was homeless for a good portion of our getting to know you banter. If either had talked about these issues, we would have known exactly where we stood, but fear of the unknown made us keep our peace. Rather to have what we had than rock the boat with hardcore life issues. We both say now that it was odd that we didn't discuss these things.  I don't know about John's problems, but I can tell you the least attractive thing you can probably disclose to someone it that you're homeless and live in a shelter. Who needs or wants elaboration on that? Let's face it, it's ugly.

After John's partner passed on, he developed a traveling bone, and visited different continents, countries, and locations. It was only a matter of time before he came to the States from Australia. Unfortunately, I was also unsettled, and moved around from state to state, working, not working. We nearly missed each other one year when he visited Las Vegas, I was in Wisconsin. We laughed about that. He said he was visiting New York City, in nearly ten months, and we planned for a maybe meeting. I counted the days, really hoping that I wouldn't have to leave, and believed him when he said he'd travel the additional four hours to meet in Boston. I showed his picture off, I talked to my friends about him. I purposely didn't meet anyone close and neither did he. We had friends that couldn't believe we were planning something ten months in advance. It seemed  as though something would  screw us up. It didn't, we made our plans online to kiss as soon as we saw each other on the train platform. The Amtrack came and through the glass, facing the opposite way I knew it was John. He grabbed his bag and came through the door and indeed two bearded guys shared a kiss in South Station. John will tell you he fell in love with me on the train to my house, and I'm telling you when I saw his hat, and how tall he was, with the face I'd imagined animated and not a snapshot I knew I loved him before he came into the station.We were only supposed to be together two days, but that turned into five chaotic, spontaneous, dreadfully romantic days. The powers to be were working hard to dissuade us, we were oblivious. Once he'd left and returned to NYC, we chatted and it was different. It didn't take long for both of us to know that something wonderful had happened.

We had a real connection. He asked me to visit him for a month, I accepted. Before I left, we decided we couldn't be apart that long and he came to the States to stay with me. September sixth he came and within a few weeks we planned our wedding. We postponed the date til Halloween and each would ask "Are we really going to do this?" We were married in my sister's living room before the eyes of God October 28th. It wasn't a hasty decision if you consider how many years we'd been talking back and forth and imagining that we knew each other. Unbelievable is the fact that our imaginations were accurate. The man of my dreams and the sweetest human I know wasn't a myth at all, he was even better in person. As an added bonus, he seemed to have the same inclination towards me. How I could be so blessed I'll never know, but it must be because here we are.

Zombies Vs. the iPhone

People all over the world think Florida is a synonymous for both life and death. It's the retirement location that most of the United States citizens dream about, and nowhere else do you think of when someone says 'Neon Graveyard'. I find it funny that the fashion population of South Beach, Miami hasn't made this connection, since the disco queens  have invented, upgraded, and financed the ability to stay looking as young as possible under an unforgiving fluorescent light that is the sun. Vampires do exist, and they come out of the closet once but by their fifties only at night, sunlight is the enemy. This tends to hide the scars, wrinkles, and flaws of what once was a picture of youth. Anyone who looks past the surface can see a look of history past in someone's eyes, and convincing someone you're younger than you actually are is supposed to be the goal of both middle aged men and women. I know this isn't exclusive to Florida, but it's more obvious than even in Las Vegas where a fifty year old 'dancer' will compulsively tell you she's 29 because she's convinced herself that the reason she's stopped menstruating was due to her eating disorder rather than menopause. Age is something we all have to deal with, whether we do it in gradual steps or fight it every inch of the way til the steps become a cliff that you fall off of one night and wake up appearing 70 as if it had occurred overnight. I quote Andy Warhol's Bad - "Look's aren't everything."

I can't even begin to recreate the events that led up to quite unsavory fodder for tabloids this week. A man who's been called everything from a sweetheart to a person with real anger issues eating someone's face? I've been around for nearly 45 years and I don't think I've heard anything quite like it. Who knows what goes through someone's head that would deem this action worthy or thought in the first place. Turning the thought into action is a real stretch of what has to be psychosis, and to hear this escalation could be caused by bubble bath, or 'bath salts' is an indicator that the world has taken a most radical turn. It pains me to think that a Mother drowning all her children in a bathtub can be one upped so easily these days, and that the tabloids raced to one up the zombie apocalypse in Florida. Someone pulled their intestines out and threw them at the police? Really?

When the fear of death starts to dissolve in the heart, when someone's life has reached either it's zenith or nadir and your conscious thought has you convinced that you've seen and done all there is to do, the rational person sits and weighs his options and will generally find any direction to make forward progress in this spiritual realm, maybe by learning a musical instrument or making a career change. These can be seen as erratic or eccentric changes but who's to judge how one gets from point a to point b in their path to a complete person.

A zombie story has the ability to make the common man prefer death to a front row seat in an altercation like this and it's this trait that makes it such a dangerous event. It's one more image added to the unwritten list in people's minds in a subconscious game of "I'd rather die than..." that we play around the campfire, laying awake at night before sleep overcomes us, or while we're walking back to our cars from horror movies that have evolved from a man stitched together from spare parts of the dead.

Is it the public media that has us convinced that we should be trying to look far younger than we should lest we be unhappy or is it our decision? Is it the movies that make us think that our death has to to be a historically grotesque event lest it be remembered or are we simply bored with common passing? I like to think the world isn't that much different than when I first came into it. The desire for things I didn't need flashing on television, at the movies, and in the music I listened to didn't overcome my common sense to possess them. What more can we be convinced we need whether invented or discovered to make life worth living? 

I just want to wake up and live and laugh, know that I love and am loved by someone, and when I feel full and tired? I want a goodnight kiss before I doze off to sleep and dream of doing it again.... and maybe again and again.

"Haven't you ever lost anything Bronx? your wallet? your car keys? - Medicine Man

John and I were drinking wine on the veranda <porch> yesterday, when we decided to take a break and go to the shops to pick up lunch, essentials and what nots when he looked on our dining room table and didn't see his wallet. Of course our cocktail function quickly turned to a search party, one that ended quite dismally when it was called off until the following day. At dinner last night, we both had our theories which we could not back up with any solid proof. There was no accusation in either of our voices when we ultimately surrendered any and all hope that it would be discovered, and it was suggested that we just considered it gone. Gone, gone, and gone. To do otherwise would have been the futile, spastic, somewhat psychotic overturning of every object in our home, whether it be likely it could hide a wallet <the couch> or a bit less likely <under the soap in the shower>. Ce la vie, indeed. It's best to relinquish pride to retain whatever you have left of your sanity.

The natural thing to do is to find the optimistic side, for me anyway. I'd had absolutely no money before, it's got to somehow be better to have money that you can't possibly access for a day than to be down and out with no prospects of a better future, and then I remembered what I wanted to talk about over the wine.

I had a dream. No, not an awe inspiring dream such as those of Dr. King but a dream none the less. I was working at an old location of a printing company in downtown Boston, more or less a sale satellite. There were no presses, minimal machinery, but we were in a large pair of office buildings, and our customers were somewhere in the 44 stories of each tower, where we would smile, offer excellent customer service, then jump through hoops to ensure the promises we made in the morning were upheld by closing time. In my dream, I broke my thigh, not easy to do, and had to walk around with my femur in my hand until I had my surgery the following day. I know. Believable so far, right? I had a clear and lucid conversation with my boss as well that stood out in my mind, a boss I learned a lot from in many different ways, and I woke up happily discovering that both my legs were in tact. They were larger than I'd like them to be, but hell, I guess that's another dream entirely.

Being the kind of guy who normally wakes up and reads and writes, I decided to do a bit of sleuthing. After all, Lisbeth Salander isn't the only dragon tattooed person who knows how to do a bit of  'hacking', be it on social sites or Google. It didn't take me long to find an obituary of my old boss. Damn, I have such poor writing skills. He was three years my senior and at 45 I'm reluctant to call anyone old....  my past boss. I was depressed we hadn't kept in contact as we said we would, I was sorry that he'd passed away, and in a fit of selfishness I had to acknowledge that death at 47 of natural causes was possible... ack! As one of the extraordinary people who've entered and now left my life, I could take this information and proceed two ways. Appreciate the people who are in my life and make an attempt to contact them more or I could get bitter, health conscious, and grow wary of people whom I may become attached? I'm a glutton for punishment, and my boss was a perfect example of someone who could give me constructive criticism, let me call him a dick, and not fire me. Good people have a way of turning you into a better person. Hold these people dear.

Any Given Saturday, Military Style.

It's Cinco de Mayo and I'm half reminded of every drinking event that I may or may not half remember in the first place. When reality makes a hasty retreat if you're a lucky soul the imagination takes over and sometimes lends itself to a much better version of events, if only for story telling purposes. If you're willing to totally commit you can spin a yarn that may ultimately have you committed but the only story worth telling is one that is probably a mixture of fantasy with a smidgen of truth to keep it grounded.

It was 1992 in Northern California and it was any Saturday. Vallejo was a Navy town and if you didn't have to serve extra duty on the weekend you were allowed out in public to mingle where the Zodiac killer  had historically found victims roaming the semi quiet streets, ones that were frequently punctuated with biker bars and fast food restaurants, but had really not other ambition other than to eventually put you in the wrong place at the wrong time while being under the influence of the wrong beer and in the wrong state of mind.

As an elder <over 21 years of age> in our military school, I was more prone to hang out with the dorky teachers than the students; these people were more my age and intellect in a world where half the students were too young to drink and the latter half were too busy getting drunk in groups.... in a virtual reality card game called Dungeon's and Dragon's. How's that for a social order? Sad, more sad, and most sad...

I could fall asleep standing up, I could stay awake until four in the morning knowing that our muster was at quarter past five, and I had a whole slew of home remedies and superstitions to keep me out of the barracks petty officers view and more importantly, off their report rosters. I had toothpaste in my pocket for breath, quick responses that were nearly reflexive, and more importantly, I was a funny drunk guy so most of my defense team was comprised on the guys in my room, in my classes, and more importantly on the staff that had been out the night before with me. While standing at attention in line, it's got to be difficult to report someone who you were pouring a beer for the night before, even more difficult when you were pouring the beer into an imaginary glass in your mind, while you were dumping a pitcher of beer all over the pool table in reality. It was a reality you didn't want anyone to bring up during work hours or even in the bar the next night. A gentleman never throws past events in your face, and a drunken gentleman never remembers them in the correct order of events anyway. We were under a lot of stress and we had our method of decompressing; it didn't need any modifying. It was the alcoholic version of 'Don't ask, Don't tell'. No one asked, we weren't telling.

There was a student in our class I'll call Louis, and from every perspective you looked he was an inadequate person who was not fit for military life. While out with my teaching compadres I had been warned that he would come to ill fate if he ever made it onto a ship in active duty, and that they had devised a plan to ensure that he would never reach graduation and deployment. In their scheme I was supposed to put a trash barrel over his head and push him out a window. I'm not sure if it was because they thought I was easily suggestible while drunk but I'm certain it's because they knew I was physically adapted, I went to the gym every day for two hours and ran five miles four days a week, feats that will never occur in my life again or that you wouldn't expect that I'd ever been capable of judging by my appearance now. Schemes like these were a near nightly event; they would dilute and the act of returning to the barracks in one piece would become the common goal by closing time.

I was returning back to our barracks with my drinking buddy, a great big tall Polish guy who was also a Marine. Marine's and Navy guys had an unspoken 'no fraternizing' rule that neither of us paid much attention to; he was old enough to drink, I was old enough to drink and we had a great vibe out at bars, if that vibe was that neither of us knew how to keep our mouths shut but at the same time we were both too large and ominous to be told to shut up... or be shut off. We stumbled into the barracks and we headed to the vending machines, we'd returned too late for the McDonald's to serve us food on the command, and we had to rely on the machines for a crappier alternative than fast food; we also had to rely on what change we had in our pockets. Zoom pulled out a ten dollar bill and found the change machine broken, our class leader came out to survey the damage we'd caused ourselves and was snickering standing next to us. Zoom turned to him and asked if he had change for a ten, and he said yes, took his ten dollars and put it in his pocket, gave him nothing in return. Zoom thanked him, then the unbalanced exchange registered in his mind and he fumbled with the nothing in his hands. He looked over to me for backup, and I'd put a dollar in the vending machine that was not being accepted, instead it was entering and exiting the bill slot while I was trying to no avail to grasp it. Times like these were not times for defense, instead we'd be in tears of laughter trying to decide who'd had too much to drink and who's fault it was. These were fun nights, soon replaced by less fun nights, but who wants to talk about those???

You tube?.... I don't. Guitar snobs be wary.

This was supposed to be a 'Yay' commentary about me purchasing some amplification equipment and a microphone/stand to start writing music once again. In researching amps, I did decide to go with a Fender amp, I read review after review about it's 'reliable, louder than it should be' reputation, and many messages from experienced to inexperienced musicians praising the clean channel as well as the distortion. I mean, in this day and age, what musician wouldn't consider distorting the sound of their acoustic guitar if their artistic integrity was on the line? 

Imagine my surprise that even now at 45 in 2012  it's a popularity contest. For some people it's appearance; No one wants to be seen in a Toyota when they could drive a Mustang. For others they've gone all psuedo technical with their own jargon and specifications and whatever the hell tubes are. Who'd know in the high school that is music and my life, my equipment is still the 'Irkel', the 'Skippy', the 'Horshack', the 'Screech'.... in other words? I purchased and now own outright 'dorky' equipment.

I was a bassist for years <gay, 80's style, you dig?>... years ago now, and picked up an acoustic guitar in 2006 for the simple reason that no one ever says to a bassist; "hey, crack that bad boy out and play us a song....". If that ever occurred, I'd be certain I had crossed over to bizzarro world, the notes are too low to stand alone, and they're empty to sing to without percussion, and while you're at it... 'Where's the freaking guitar?!?' Bass guitars fame alone belongs to five second snippets during Seinfeld, which were fresh twenty years ago and still sometimes if you happen to be caught during a rerun. But alas, the bass player in most bands is the unsung geek who is only doing his job properly when he perfectly blends into most of the song, sings backing vocals only, and in my case was originally hired not because of ability but because my hair was longer than anyone else's in the factory we were working at. Did I mention it was also dyed blue? No, I tend not to mention that, but in my defense, it was 1986. I played the part well; I had some talent, but not enough that I couldn't completely screw up the second set depending on how much I was drinking that night, but really who cares? It was a time when people really weren't listening too much to our playing, other than a steady drum beat, and the guitar solo in the middle, and it sounds just like.... well, it sounded like something we've heard before. Heavy metal, simply so simple that the louder you play it, the more talented you sound. Amen.

Flash forward to when I gave up my dreams, enlisted in the service, got <thrown> out and moved to Boston and took a job in an.... gulp!, accounting office, where I languished until 2002 and found other priorities, which we hopefully all do by about thirty, right? Wrong, I guess. In searching for equipment, I've found that people who've not won a Grammy, released an album they haven't had to give away, or have hardly dusted equipment to open the basement vault and expose it to the fresh air and sun are 'professional musician status'. They alone know what is boss and what to avoid at all costs. I think the status is attained when you can finally afford those high priced ticket item toys you read in the guitar mag's when you were fourteen and indeed purchase them, then play with them and adjust your sound to perfectly imitate Yngwie J. Malmsteen, and only you <and whomever's basement you're inhabiting> ever hear the 'soft fuzzy feeling of the tubes., and the 'secret dragon oil subtleties' of... or whatever the hell you believe. 

Standing in  the music shop, I actually heard someone say they wanted a particular amp because it was orange, and that made it sound better. It was an adult which makes it that much sadder. What made it tragic is that the employee agreed that the orange one was way better for it's orange-ness. The amps were virtually identical in a different color cabinet, but of course employee's pander to someone who's spending over a thousand dollars on mindless crap. I didn't want anyone in the store to ask if I needed anything, I was quick, had a list, and bought every generic cord, strings, stands and made a hasty get away, to be greeted by a friendly redhead at the register who was laughing at pretty much the same things I was, including the worst version of Eruption by Van Halen I've heard played by a rather ambitious teenager. I'm not sure it was a teenager, but I was afraid to look over and find out it wasn't. If it was someone my age playing that sloppily in public <at home is different> I'd have cast my equipment down and run out in front of a moving car. 

The musician's prayer?

 "God, I know I may not be the most talented person in the world, but please tell me I'm better than THAT schmuck. Amen."

I went to another store directly after that I'd researched on the web. I'd seen the amp I was looking for for two hundred dollars less than the store in Sydney, and the price was only thirty dollars more than a used amp <same model> had sold on e-bay only days before. Although it was a piano shop, they said they specialized in guitars and violins. It wasn't easy to find the location but the service was impeccable even when they had no idea if we were there for picks only, and when we weren't it was an easy purchase anyway. I told them what I wanted, they agreed it was a great amp for it's price, and didn't try to upsell, downplay the solid state circuitry, or casually lure my view to the 'orange' one. They saw my purchases from the other shop, and apologized for the horrible customer service they assumed I'd received there. When asked who helped me I said 'noone, I had a list and moved with stealth, the only person who talked to me was a sarcastic redhead and we laughed at stuff. Wouldn't you know it? The redhead was his girlfriend, and you could immediately agree with the connection. Quiet guitarist meets quirky redhead, happiness ensues, at least til the end of University. I feel the same way about my equipment, although I did see a canary yellow Ibanez guitar that I hope makes it around my neck. What can I say? I want to play my three power chords and have someone look at me and say 'see that guitar? that guy must be awesome.'

Perkiness: A Survival Tactic

Anyone who knows me outside of Facebook, my notoriously bad first impressions, or instinctively defending a friend without knowing all the details knows that once you break through the deliberately placed initial sour taste you get in your mouth, I ain't such a bad guy. In spite of me, it must be true. I still have friends or so they tell me.

Free loving, tree hugging, nauseatingly tolerant expectations I may drudge up in your imaginary flower child scenario's be damned. I have few shades of gray when it comes to belief's I hold dear so far as morality, manners, and loyalty. I see things in black and white, right and wrong, and yes and no. No gray, no ties, no maybe's. I can be a rigid son of a bitch <what did you call my Mom?>.

I'm not a saint by a long shot, and I also make mistakes on a regular basis, so much so that it'd be easier to say 'wow, I really Brian-ed that up, huh?' but in the moment, and when it comes time to act, I'll grant as much time to logic as I can possibly muster, try to be more like 'Touched By an Angel' than 'Judge Judy', and will react in appropriate time with an apology or justification of sorts.

I have to confess that I've felt the sting of being judged wrongly without prudence, been excluded based on appearance <which always amazes me, considering how highly I regard myself>, and feel like from initial introduction, which is the easy part, that it's an uphill climb for me to overcome whatever subconscious message that's harbored in your hippie fantasy. Yes, I have tattoos, No, I haven't been to prison, capisce?

Let's face it, when someone says 'My gay friend is coming over, and he's smart, funny, and cute' {assuming that's what people say, it tends to be what I hear in my head, ha ha} I'm pretty sure the last person anyone expects to walk through the door would be a guy who represents as a tattooed, long haired, fat guy. I'm hardly your conventional looking person and I make no apologies for this. As a gay guy, I right off the bat offend many a straight friend or stranger in a party environment, and have learned to counter every request right out of the gate- such as <"Don't be starin' at my ass, dude, I'm not a homo'> with a quick retort. 'You don't have to worry, I'm only interested in men' is one of my favorites. 

What you may not know, unless you're a gay guy, is that gay men turn selective thought and stereotyping people into an art form. There's no winning a room over when the wheels of a witch coven starts churning the pot. What's worse is you can't beat those people up; mentally you're too buzzed or caught off guard to be quick with words, and fisticuffs is not an option; These people have been tortured in gym class for years and know how to dramatize and over dramatize for drama's sake. My nightmare is having to defend my sexuality on a stand in court, trying to convince a jury that I'm 'gay enough' to not be eligible for conviction of a hate crime, and 'THAT queen deserved a smack and noone who was there would deny it' is kind of a weak argument unless you're lucky enough to have a gay jury. If I could dream a dream, my jury would be in complete drag, comprised of Tanya Tucker's, but that's a story for another time.

Having confidence in the face of adversity takes many years of overcoming having no confidence in the past, and I'm lucky enough to know a handful or so of people who remember me as the quiet guy who just wanted to be left alone throughout my scholastic career who can appreciate my evolution to sarcastic smart ass that defends not only himself, but causes of a personal nature. I tell John all the time that I'm not right about a lot of things. We can agree on that, and I don't need to close my eyes to see John's head nodding with that expression that says 'if you only knew how often and how wrong you can be'.

I've also told him that when in a crowd, I may tell everyone the sky is green, and that regardless of it being correct, it's his duty to concur. I have agreed to reciprocate. There's plenty of time to be wrong, like when we're at home and he can explain to me why I'm mistaken, preferably over white wine. 

What's your perception? We could be seen as the 'distorted facts couple' but I like to think of us as 'blissfully and idiotically united'. The way I see the world because it always makes sense to me and no one gets hurt. As soon as John surrender's to my logic, it will be utter harmony.

Free Bird is no longer my signature song.

In the last twenty years or so of my life, I've noticed a pattern of leaving both common and proper nouns in my wake as I've hightailed it into the sunset. The Schoolhouse Rock definition of 'noun' must be sung, and I indeed do 'find it interesting, a noun's a person, place, or thing.' That chuckle aside, and after some forethought or hindsight <whichever makes me sound more inflective>, I can say for the most part, I may not miss the places, I may not miss the people, but damnit, I miss the stuff!

I've left entire apartments full of furniture, clothes, and electronics, CD and book collections, movies in so many formats I couldn't play them if we were ever reunited, and a myriad of other possessions in a mad dash to liberate myself from drama or situations I was partially or totally responsible for  in one way or another, and let's face it, if you don't have a beast of burden or at least an F150, these are things you can't pack in your bag and hit the road with and make a clean getaway.

By the time I reached Wisconsin, and got a new job and apartment there, I wouldn't be able to physically or mentally make a purchase of more than tv, laptop, stereo, and futon for months in fear that I wasn't going to commit to living there much longer and  my mood changed from day to day. It was a great job with lot's of potential, downtown Sheboygan may seem like a tiny town, even to the locals who called it 'Sheer Boredom', but it had everything you would look for in a small city; the pubs all had happy hours that lasted four hours, cigarettes were under four dollars a pack, and it was on Lake Michigan. If you can imagine a salt smell it's as close as you can get to being on the ocean without being anywhere near one.

When I would shop for anything other than food, the internal argument would start with the 'do i want this?' phase of the purchase, which is pretty much self explanatory. I'd then graduate to the 'do i need this?' phase of the purchase, and I'd imagine the many uses and benefits of purchasing a  <let's say> couch for my living room in the event I decided to have people over and not have to pretend to notice the expression of awe on their faces when they walked into my two bedroom apartment that with the exception of a 'nerd nook' was completely barren. The last and most crucial phase of the purchasing procedure was the 'can i leave this?' phase. It entails not spending so much money or getting emotionally attached to anything that you couldn't easily leave behind if you couldn't take it with you. It would be a real strain to pull out my checkbook and fork over an entire paycheck for something that was ultimately going to make my neighbors dream come true once it was fished out of the dumpster area. I had to make sure I was willing to make the temporary commitment while also reminding the couch at least weekly that 'this is only a temporary thing' and when it got too comfortable or I sensed it was too needy, I was quick to give it the 'you knew what this was about when we got together' speech.

I really like to think I'm over this phase of my life now. Married to a better guy than I probably deserve, I've managed to become an international traveler, and have relocated hopefully for the last time <and yes, I pretty much left all my stuff to donations when I broke my lease and said I wouldn't be coming back to the States as early as I had originally intended> and am settled in our new home situation in Australia which is also subject to it's own fair share of idiosyncrasies as far as permanence. We lie in bed, and chat about where we could go, where we could live, and when we'll be able to afford to travel back to the States, a formidable expense in any budget of any size income. I'm making my first major purchase this week, I'm buying a new guitar amp so I can practice guitar, plug in a mic, and hopefully get comfortable enough to either recruit a band or put cymbals between my knees and be a model 'geek'. It weighs over 50 pounds. Even if I could get it back to the States I wouldn't be able to plug it in due to European socket configurations. It wouldn't fit into my bag if it had to. It's taking a lot of thought to relax and say to myself 'if i buy this amp, I'll never need another.' I can't quit smoking, I still drink. I still believe, however, that this is one habit that it's definitely time to break..... maybe.