How to clean yourself

Among the many activities taken for granted, I can’t recall who it was that taught me how to clean my ass. This is not to be confused with covering your ass, which I mastered all on my own, almost innately. I guess that it was my mother who… although, it could have been my father. I don’t know and I don’t care much really. But when I think back, it might have been me who actually perfect it the whole ordeal. So, here’s my way of doing it, illustrated for the pure purpose of entertainment. This is not going to score me any pointers with the girls, of course; but it might be something worth reading whenever we run out of objects to lose ourselves in the abandonment of masturbation.
I think, before proceeding, that it might prove useful to google it. But if I’m not mistaken, there’re several ways of doing so, and being in the privileged position of living in the United States, I will never have to go back to the days in which out of scarcity people would use newspaper as toilet paper. Well, there’s even a more fancy way of anus sanitation, and it has to do with water propelled at high speeds directed straight up your ass. It is a method favored by many purists, but the whole notion of chilled water hitting my anus is somewhat unsettling. The cool, splashy feeling might become addictive overtime, and I wouldn’t want to venture in that scenario now, would I? Of course, I’m open –and not in the rectum way –to new horizons. Actually, now that I find myself comfortably discussing these issues it has dawned on me as a plausibility I may want to experience one day. But for now the closest thing to watering my ass I have come close to is partially wetting the tissue that I clean myself with so that the residues
Oh, yeah, I was about to depict my way of handling this. What I do is, grab the sheet off the roll of paper and pull it up to half an arm length, then, as I hold it steady by the edge, roll it back for another round. I repeat that procedure for three times fold. Now here’s the part all of us have been waiting for: once I have extracted the desired amount, I hold it on my right hand as I part the left cheek of my behind with my left, and slightly bending down, I wipe myself thoroughly once. Then I have the bad habit of glancing viscerally at it for a nano-second before I fold it unto itself, and repeat the operation once again until it’s wholly cleaned. So, there you have it.

The art of masturbation

As it turns out, I was a late-boomer in the art of masturbation. In other words, I learnt to masturbate well into my late teens, and already here in New York when the Holy Spirit descended upon me in that forsaken bathroom where I had met only failure in so many other sessions at it. I knew about that self-indulgent ritual for years because it was openly discussed among my peers. But somehow I didn’t quite grasp –yes, that’s it –the mechanics of it although I already had a idea of it. So, whenever the subject came up, I would make stories about my own experience on the matter just to fit in. This, however, could have proved devastating for me as the acquisition of sexual favors at such a tender age is out of our realm of possibilities. I remember vividly when I bought my first porno magazine, my trembling knees, the impugn smile of the vender as he handed over causing me a sensation of guilt and disgust with myself. But still a more powerful emotion compelled to acquire the poorly visual black-and-white text. In fact, I even remember the story undergone by the protagonists involved: an affair between a woman and her boss. I explicitly recall that their sexual encounter was disrupted by a third party and they had to wait until the next working day. When the final encounter ensues, the man tells her that he had stroked his penis all night long thinking of her. I was so horny then but since I couldn’t have the satisfaction of release due to my inadequacy on the matter, I decided to climb the wall that separated my back patio from the neighbor’s where a simpleton friendly girl lived to see if I spotted her. The intention was to have sex with her, of course. My method of persuasion was to plainly ask her if she wanted to play mom and daddy. Luckily, she was no where to be seen. I was around fourteen at the time.
I had two sisters and our apartment back in the main land was almost frequented daily by girls, my sister’s little friends. I must admit that not being able to masturbate afforded me the opportunity of engaging the opposite sex with virility quite usual for a kid of that age. Blissfully, girls were never the ogres of our fantasies as my friends would have me believed.
Since I started to enjoy the self-induced pleasure of masturbation so late in my life, I think I may have compensated for all of the time spent without it.

Sex slave

Recently, as I boasted to one of my coworkers whom I have established a level of comradeship that allows this sort of behavior to take place, about what’s exciting to us and how I will incorporate it into my upcoming book, I showed him an article in the New York Post about a documentary that will air tonight at ten on CBS television on Sex Slaves. I told him it was one of the most fascinating themes explored in my book, briefly, of course. Then our boss showed up and joined us in the conversation, which soon turned explicitly about sex but not in a vulgar context. Both men opened up to my argument that dominance and performance go hand in hand, that in bed perhaps it was in order to get rid of the very bed, and to follow your animal instinct balancing it out with a sense of mastery that only your intellect can give, and you will be just as fortunate as I am. I told him that my wife was my “slave” and that if I took her to the movies, she better pay the honor by blowing me off. Of course, it was pure entertainment. But they both enjoyed the conversation as I saw in their pupils the ever-so-repressed malice.
Tim went on to say that once he went out with a girl and had a blowjob in a parking lot while he was sitting in his car. I countered that I had had a similar situation many times. In fact, I told them, I once met a married woman online and when we finally decided to meet and have a few drinks, as I looked into her lusty eyes, I told her that, quite frankly, I didn’t like her enough to have sex with her but that if she wanted she could blow me in her husband’s car which she agreed to. The story is almost completely true, except for some of the chauvinistic elements added that were meant to entertain my audience.

What a drag

I hope today I write the letter to the landlord in which I claim to have gotten rid of our dog, Snoopy. That could buy me some time before we actually move; as of now, we’re waiting for Isabel’s work permit and the whole moving has been momentarily postponed. I have been working on other things; luckily, the antibiotics treatment has come to an end and I am feeling a lot better. Sad news is, the worst of all, in a day that I had marked as my worst even before these news too that my dear Chris has been laid-off, or, as her supervisor has called it, “her time is up”, and therefore won’t work anymore with us. What a pity! The inspiration is gone, and now I have one more thing to deal with. I, of course, asked her for her email and gave her mine and my cell number. I don’t doubt she will not call.
On the optimistic front, looking at things differently, she is no longer employed and therefore I am free to ask her out. Finally!

All the things life has in store for us

Before the dawn of a new millennium, there was a sign on an Episcopal church that read: “The end is near.” As soon as the brand new century, and it was obvious that such apocalyptic scenario would probably not take place, the sign was erased. It is clear, in many ways, that religion has fear as their most precious ally. If we don’t live our lives under certain strictly defined guidelines, once we perish we will go to hell, and we don’t want that, no. Obstacles may not always be as apparent as a sign, and even then many people will go along with it without ever questioning such assertion, but there, in fact, “signs” of a more elusive sort that have a deep impact into our way of dealing with things in life. Many are intuitively understood, like the sacred question of a “God”, the actual “Eye” that sees and hears all. Still perhaps a lot more mundane among us are feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure or rejection; in many situations, our imagination takes reality hostage, and we don’t even give it a try. So, the sign says that as long as I keep my mind busy with my own stuff and let the rest slide, I will be okay. In fact, nothing warrantees our protection and although it is advisible to play it safe most of the time, sometimes it is in order to shake the foundation of things just to see where this might lead us. Otherwise, not only will we be forever destined to live in a perpetual state of suspicion, but also we may never really get to know all the exciting things life had in store for us. If we respond to situations constantly in a similar way, aren’t we living the same thing over and over again?

At my most selfish

Okay, so there is an ambivalent aspect to this whole equation, and I am in the middle of two driving forces that will tear me apart if I don’t do anything soon. I speak, of course, of contradictions so palpable in my writings, as I constantly talk about staying but have my mind set on leaving. So, what is it then? Do I bail out or do I stay? The answer has to a lot to do with me not having entirely decided on one or the other in the first place. Secondly, it has to do with Isabel’s own growth and progress, which, honestly, has been steady for a very long time. Lastly, I can’t deny that whatever my decision is in the end, it will be based solely on what is best for me and Isabel, and whether she can stand my absence after being together for oh so very long. When we started, I was very much a kid, and as a result I was obliged to mature more rapidly. At least, that much I owe to her: the fact that because she was already a woman in many ways, and in need of a man, not a kid, forced me to go through the process of becoming that man for her. However, that process was already instilled in me, and it was only a matter of time before I ended up where I am: untangling a web of deceptions that has its roots buried deep in the lack of experience. How many times do we look at the past and the problems that we had back then seem so easy to solve. As a matter of fact, everyone else’s problems seem easier to solve than our very own. That is due to the fact that these problems outside ourselves don’t affect us in personal, that is, emotional way. If someone has been hit by a car, it is obvious that a passerby with a clearer perspective of the events and not directly affected by the events may have a better chance at making the decision to be implemented at that particular moment than the victim itself. This example serves us as a way of dealing with our problems in a manner that would not overwhelm us, as if we were impartial witnesses to the whole. Our emotions tend to paralyze us and often play tricks on us. I will not be part of this psycho-roller-coaster for very long, and I have come up with a childish and yet effective way to deal with the whole dilemma.
It is no surprise that I am, as most individuals may feel, stuck in a mess. I got myself here, and I certainly can take myself out just the same. What avoided me from taking action is not an issue anywhere: what type of action to take is. The reason at the core of it all is that Isabel has a child, a thirteen-year-old kid who is in a critical age as of now, and what part of a child’s life isn’t critical anyway? His history is very similar to mine, except that I recognized his void early into my relationship with Isabel and pushed her to bring him to her side. I thought back then that maybe being with her son will make her happier than she was. Her attitude towards life in general improved for a while, but then she went right back at being her very miserable self. It sounds cruel, but I am not making any of this up. Then it was all about her status in this society, being that she was illegal and how long had it been since she was so, and for how long could she stand being so. That problem was solved when I decided to marry her, and in the process improve her chances at a better tomorrow. It had happened not only because I wanted her to legalize her situation but also because it worried me she didn’t appear as pushy as she should have been in that particular aspect of her life, and that maybe she was depressed to be in that state that she had given up the fight. In other words, time was passing by and we were so much like a family, only I had not done enough for her and she had given me years of her life. This alone constitutes reason enough to give something back to someone who has given me so much. So, I acceded to marry her, eventually. What I had given so much thought came and seemed so natural, and, again, she seemed happier for a time. I had never seen her smile so and be as happy as she was on the day of our wedding. But the happiness turned a little bitter over time and she ended right back at the hands of misery. Now, what do I mean by that? She’s not happy, never has been and rarely seems so. Then it was time to complain about the things we didn’t have now. So, the two of us filled the apartment little by little and made plans to move by the end of summer from the Bronx, and still there is no happiness in sight.
Things need not be as drastic as they sound here. I am, in a way, a little frustrated with the whole situation. But I will amend things and heal her wings before I am done here. I know that the source of happiness has little to do with external conditions and more with our own way of dealing with life. But it may be a sad realization now to think that I have changed perhaps and that she hasn’t. That alone will suffice for our rupture. But what about the kid? Sadly, too, he is not my problem as he is not my kid it would be easy to argue. But I say again, what about the kid? Revolving the whole situation around him, I have decided that I will live with them and continue to support them as I have up to now until he turns fifteen, less than two years from now. That is how old I was when I came to this great nation. That is time enough to improve their way of life like they never experienced before, and by that, I mean, economically as well as emotionally. These are not crazy predicaments. This is a vision I have. Like I had, when I decided to quit smoking, or when I lost and kept my weight off, or when I said I’d get a job that same Monday almost a year ago and landed me this job. I will have plenty of time to be selfish later on. But for the time being, work and energy will be focused on the task at hand. That is, if Isabel allows me so. If I feel the need to be in her life, I will always be in her life one way or the other. Even when I am at my most selfish.

The thing about going out

Now having beers with my friend or going out are both out of my realm of possibilities for now. The reality is that I have been postponing my adventures, my fun, and putting home and personal goals first. I have been able to save some money, and for that, I am glad that I haven’t gone out. The thing about going out is, it had become a routine, and I was, quite frankly, sick of saying that I will not overspend and regardless of whatever I said, I’d end up spending more than I had planned. Another more substantial reason here would be that I am under a prescribed treatment with antibiotics, and drinking is out of the question. That could have been my argument, but I know only too well that mixing alcohol and antibiotics isn't life-threatening, and only with a few types of antibiotics is indicative to do so. So, even though I can sit down and sip a drink or two without as much as a worry in my mind, I won't be doing so. Why undergo a treatment that should have been taken a long time ago if I am incapable of remaining booze-free? While taking care of our health, we should take all of the precautions involved just to prove to ourselves that health is indeed so precious to us. By the way, partying without consuming alcoholic beverages is possible, if it would include some exciting new activity. But to go to the same old joint and connect with my former animal self, it would not serve its purpose. Fortunately, by the end of the week, and two weeks since I started the treatment, it will be over. Two weeks completely sober is not as difficult as it seems, since I first began drinking sporadically and unsatisfactorily in my late teens. In other words, the hard-core drinkers can’t conceive of a day or two without alcohol. Exercising moderation is fundamental for building character.

That idiot, Schopenhauer

Every great human being has said or done something really stupid. There’s Hannibal Lector, who says to agent Starling, “I traveled half the world just to see you jogging.” The character is fictional, I know. But who knows if the ones we only read of, like Socrates, Seneca, didn’t they acquire through the ages a level of mysticism and allegoric qualities to it? This guy eats people for fun and here he is like a cheerleader stalking a grown woman with a career set on pursuing him and bringing him to justice. Talk about a tragic choice! Traveling around the world just to see her jog, while I, on the contrary, would have said: “Look, bitch, meet me in front of Virgin Records on 14th street at six. If you’re not there in twenty minutes, I’m out!” Turn her into your slave as a deserved punishment for a woman who seeks to imprison me for the rest of my life, deprive me of my freedom. “Now, I will deprive you of yours in a much more comfortable way” he’d say. Enslave her for a few weeks, give her proper food, light, and clean water and pure air, restrained somehow. She’d love you in the end, and given your criminal standards this will only go down as rape and illegal imprisonment. Either way, even if you’re found innocent because some powerful jerks want that slut Starling tied upside down, blowing them off, and laid it easy on that charge, you’re still going to the gas chamber.
Conversations I had, people I often talk after months and even years I didn’t call, and tease just the same.
I remember once when I was with Elaine while she awaited the arrival of her roommate and lover, Axle. Thinking back now, I had arrived late for our encounter having decided to go to the movies with my ex. She had had the decency to accept my invitation for a walk when I showed up at the other side of the glass in her bedroom’s window two and a half hours late. “Sorry, princess” I said with a wicked gesture of cynicism.
-You’re out of yourself, again!” –she said, always coming up with her own metaphors. By being out of me, she meant that I was insane in a very healthy way. She’d blend in with any crowd, and go out of herself plenty of times. This time she walked with me and I had the first cigarette of that day, and we ended up both our road and our conversation. So I slowly tighten my hold around her with my hands drawing her nearer; she was breathing heavily. We breathed in, and exhaled almost the same air, and I kissed her goodbye.
I called her from a public phone in the train station. After the initial what’s up, I said, “No, I was just thinking…”
“Thinking, of what?”
I heard the approaching rumbling train in the distance.
“You’re going to sleep with him tonight, aren’t you?” I told her, with the last part of the sentence fractured, choked in pride, enraged. Always honest, she hesitated a second and then firmly admitted: “Well, yes, probably.” Then the train crossing the station on the express track didn’t allow me to hear what she said next but to me that was enough.
I calmly waited for the train to slow down, took out my token, and said to her, a little as if I were spelling the sentence to her, “Well, then. When he’s goes in you just bear in mind that I’d be deep inside someone else too.”
“You asshole,” she bitterly spitted back at me on the phone. I smiled and waited for her to hang up. Then I thought of the departing train: I could have been in it. “Oh, well,” I thought to myself, as if I were recounting the whole ordeal, “there will always be another train.” Nothing happens simultaneously, not the way I conceive this thought and the way in which I deliver it, through the rigid filter of reason. The time it takes to be read aloud or in a quiet room, if read at all. It is as probable to be read nowadays as to finding love and fortune; but it’s fortunate that at least these words aren’t kept in aspiring privacy. They are now like open windows to the landscapes that will unfold, the fog in fall covering the lake and the copious tentacles, sprouts of vegetable rupturing through the decayed statues carved in stone.

Conclusion to an unfinished business

The ideas I have about relationships now as living entities that are only bounded by our fears, but also by hope. All of that sort of crap, I used to swallow. The thing about having high standards is that these serve you well in any other human field of interaction. In your friendships, complex as they may be, high standards are not always mandatory but never go unnoticed. Standards can define an individual, I thought. I raise the masculinity bar and implement the old now habitual rituals of hygiene, style, and dominant character. Yes, if it is within our means we should celebrate the company of others by spending some of our money on them. Never more money than you can, and indulging and patronizing an encounter with an old friend or lover could enhance your attractiveness. But more importantly, it puts you in a position of power. The one who pays is the one who says where to go, suggests what movie to see, and takes charge. That is a masculine way to adopt and incorporate to your behavior. Don’t mingle too much, remain friendly and distant; not cold, of course, but just reserved in our way of dealing with others. Let’s laugh and joke on occasion, help others once, show up and help, and offer your assistance and mind our business most of the time. The thing is that anxiety makes of many males to be still under the spell of their mother’s domination. These individuals are taken by very dominant females who assume the control of the house and the rules, and still the man is the bigger provider. Some women have seen themselves forced to work and earn while her boyfriend or spouse was unemployed. This means that the one in control is the one on top of the situation. The more we do, and wish to see accomplished, the more we demand, the more we get out of life. By dealing with our own aspirations, pushing forward, saving and put maybe as a distant third in the list “relationships”. If we grow, in time things will be easily acquired. If we keep at certain task, we will master it. Money is not what matters; what really matters is the realization that wealth starts with a frugal mentality. The sense of confidence and optimism are closely related to lives of well-being and prosperity. For when the source of income vanishes, it is our resolution, our belief, our sense of worth that drives us to excel and find another, in essence, to strive. The moment we see ourselves without it, our impulse to come up with ways to prosper is what really matters. Survival and progress are deeply ingrained in our nature. Not only do we survive, we strive! The human species is characterized in my view as the impulse to evolve in the Darwinist sense, survival, and a thriving instinct. A desire to make things better, to balance themselves, to grow compels us. To know, and question our knowledge, to constantly make things better even when they end up being for the worse. More affairs were resolved with violence than any other mean. Crime, for instance, is an example where punishment is administered to a member of society that has violated the laws of such society. To always seek what is adventurous, paving the way for days to come, working hard and having fun. I work six days a week on average, I think I’m entitled to have some time alone once a month. It used to be every other day, but lately I find myself at home renting movies for the whole crew, popcorn, wine, order-outs, and to the movie and then a walk in Manhattan every once in a while. I am ambivalent for now but I know what to do. I will continue chopping, sculpting and cultivating my character. I will save and once in a while venture out alone. I need both the familiar life and a small shot of vanity every now and then. Of course, in theory, because in practice it has been months since I last went out on my own. I may have lost my social connections, my readers, involved as I am with my life. Well, I have been quite busy, indeed, immersed into writing. I have been pulling overtime at work. I have taken care of every single thing on my list and still pursuing other goals as well at the moment. Who knows, and by the actual time of reading it, I may have become a god. No, I am not being delirious; well, perhaps, maybe a little. I will practice a centered and harmonious life in which I will not deprive my animal nature of its occasional treats, claim my sovereignty and emancipate myself from any ties relationship wise. But that is still enshrouded in fog. It may not happen ultimately given that my relationship has grown stronger and more meaningful as things tend to do with habituation. I am more comfortable nowadays being indoors, sipping a glass of wine and watching a movie, yes, there is a certain something about this sedentary living that seduces me and frightens me at the same time. Well, I’ll be the first to admit that there are many people in our position willing to dance and have a little something once in a while, not always in a sexual nature because quite frankly all vanishes when the lights are put back on and it’s time to go home. I won’t derail from all the commodities of marriage to engage in a single’s lifestyle. The luxury of living on my own is a self-reward I must earn first. There’s a lot of pain and wounds in this house, and I am starting to come clean. I want to live as I want to, and if Isabel still wants to be part of it, which will mean of course that she will be in it. But also I have told her about our differences, which are by now means irreconcilable, and tell her that in five to ten years I am going still to look a lot younger than her. I have exposed all of the things I speak of here. In fact, she is one of my most assiduous readers. I don’t hide from her, and never touch her physically. I don’t insult her or abuse her in any form. Quite the opposite, I have said to her that my misbehavior is not due to my love for her. I don’t fall in love with anyone, she knows very well, and I haven’t met anyone in such a long, long time. But it is just a matter of time before the waters are unsettled, and the tempest starts. Surely, one just holds on tight to the ropes and takes the verbal onslaughts and manifestations of impotence. I am doing a disservice if I think of all this and not let her know how I feel. I keep certain accounts to myself. I have a sense of privacy but I don’t want her to suffer with my pleasure. She is, in fact, quite free to be with me, which comes with its advantages, and knows she is free to exercise the same liberty I enjoy. Together we will fight together, if she wants, and if she wants to be left alone, she is welcome to so at any moment. By now, we are married and not just because she needs to legalize herself but also because it was the thing I wanted to do but wasn’t so sure to do. Now I know that nothing well ever comes from salivating in anticipation; it’s all about keeping focus on our goals and keeping deadlines in check. To motivate ourselves daily and grow every single opportunity you have.

Our character is our destiny

I don’t know how all of this alchemy came to dawn on me. It didn’t just materialize in front of me one day. Now I can say that no girl is going to play with me anymore than I allow her to, and measure myself under the lion’s hunting probabilities. It dictates that for every five attempts, he succeeds once. I didn’t have a problem meeting new people and being stuck in a relationship all at once. Having at our disposition an arsenal of culture, signs and scars of strength, health, looks, dimensions (I am six feet tall). I dressed nicer nowadays, and I will continue to implement my clothes with a taste within my financial capabilities. Now I can play around with a definitive set of characteristics, accentuating perhaps on a calm vitality, unimpressed, with certain degree of seriousness and arrogance. Stand tall, and being noticed doesn’t bother me. To think that I used to listen to alternative rock, abstract and narcissistic with a well-documented history of failure in the love department; nowadays, I still sit in front of the computer and listen to a whole variety of songs from diverse musical genders. I put in the mix rap, reggeaton, and dark guitar ballads. But even my taste in music has shifted.

The Becoming

I haven’t called Caroline since Saturday when she agreed to see me on Thursday, which is tomorrow. I should have called her on Tuesday as latest. I will call her in a little while. That is what I like about a girl like her. She is so uncomplicated, and easy-going, none of the ego except when it comes to vanity. Everything she wears are brand-name clothes, and even if you offered to buy her a gum, she picks the most visually appealing to her (usually, the most expensive ones). If we go out, she doesn’t demand any special treatment, and if you go about naturally, and quietly but manly pursuit as a silent hunter, simultaneously teasing her, listening to her, positioning yourself in charge as you are the one spending and courting. See, before I didn’t know how to have fun with a girl like her. She isn’t as horrible as I used to conceive her when we were together. Our affair lasted for a few months before I called quits to a battle I was fighting all by my own. Ah, what a noble creature I was, and my whole rational way of seeing things through filter after filter of reality didn’t quite crack down on my failed relationships. One of the few relationships that seemed sane to me that didn’t include alcohol, infidelities, and quite the opposite stressed exercise, sex, walks, movies, good hygiene and an strict diet, water, lots of water… could have failed? In fact, while still with her, I met Claudia. Cheating is a sign of weakness for some and a sign of strength for others. But to me is a sign of personal deceit, and I decided that as a cheater I had not been happy. Cheaters cheat themselves. Now I won't be advocating for celebacy anytime soon and that doesn't necessarily translate going deep into long-term relationships either. I had gone through relationships hiding, looking for instant satisfaction and not being able to go the extra mile in that wilderness of misbehaving. No, I wasn’t naïve enough to know that we were attracted to one another. Our friends tell us much of ourselves, don’t they? I was going down the wrong path. Certainly, I needed help if I wanted to be successful with the opposite sex. That was when I started reading literature into the subject distributed through the Internet freely, advertising the better and more sophisticated types of advice. I became absorbed into the lectures, and I began to grow more aware than ever before of the need to adopt masculine traits and appropriate techniques than unraveled a universe I had to rediscover all over again. I embraced my masculinity, my semi-chauvinistic ways, and took charge of situations, granting myself space and time to constantly apply what I learnt. I lost weigh, I thought to myself and kept it off for almost three years, built muscle-mass, earn more than ever before and writing still more than that. I think that the turn-around came when I began to notice the attention received, as I implemented the way I looked, just as had done with the way that I felt, and followed with my appearance by buying wardrobes of new stylish cloths from retailers such as both H&M’s on 34th street and Century 21 downtown. Shoes from Aldo, yes, for I suffer an addiction to that store that dates as far back as when the sole notion of self-improvement had to deal with anxiety and overcoming shyness. That took years out of me, and landed me on several relationships that were not completely fulfilling. Passive individuals don’t get results. So I changed my name even, and went by the alias of Damian. I partied from my twentieth birthday to my late twenties, and led a meaningless existence. As such, my relationships were and still are a mess. This process of maturity propelled me to seek help with the ladies, I must admit, and found perhaps that what avoided me from doing so before was that I, like most men, found doing so a little too revealing. So, all of this time, I conducted myself like a jerk and had no structure just lots and lots of invertebrate links hanging loose, each on their own. No particular foundation until it gradually dawned on me. That’s it, I have almost most of the pieces necessaries to say that there are certain manners which define an individual’s character that were developed through the individual’s life and rarely challenged. These beliefs I had of self-efficiency and personal growth will bring about the girl of my dreams. It was just a matter of time. If I failed in any way, I had admitted, I will work on whatever I thought went wrong on my part. But I ended up failing, day in and out.

Quid pro quo

I might as well boast that a long shift awaits me tomorrow. But I won’t be doing that. Instead, I’ll focus on the prospect this very moment has in store for me (pause). I called my dear friend Caroline and asked her out for this Thursday. At first, I didn’t know what she was up to, so the first question out of my mouth is that if she were sleeping. Then I moved on to what she had been up to and if things go as they have been, we could see each other anytime after Tuesday. Needlessly, I explained to her that I was at work and that tomorrow I will be stuck working as well. “More money for you to spend on me” she said. In fact, that is perhaps the thing that drove us apart. But no worries on this side, however. I now know how to handle situations like these. She is not the ogre I once made her out to be. After all, all she demanded was what most beautiful girls do: to be fulfilled. But deep down, she’s still very much a kid. Like, for instance, when I said I was looking forward to seeing her anytime after Friday, she didn’t play her cards the way a really sleazy female might have: she didn’t play hard to get. Instead, she immediately informed me that she had Tuesday and Thursday off. This is a two-day availability, which leaves a lot of space for me to choose from. She works, and easily could have complicated things for the sake of doing so. That is one. Another thing is, I suggested we saw each other on Thursday, not Tuesday. She’s called me eagerly twice this week, and I only answered her calls. Now I am not playing her either. I could be more elusive than I’ve been, but given her child-like gorgeousness, I won’t need to. If you are facing an opponent that is not in the same league as yours, you shouldn’t take the fight for granted; but, like Confucius said: “Don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito.” Just have fun, and behave manly; don’t be too needy and enjoy her company as you spend some of your well-earned money on her, quid pro quo.

Androgyny and balance

Generally, male traits are composed of a whole variety of skills that may at times cover some of the qualities that belong to the feminine type. Among the most admired by women, however, are a display of confidence in our ability to handle anything that life confronts us with: endurance. Aggression could take the form of being poised on our projects, dealing with problems wholly and simply demand more out of life. Independence is the ability to choose what is best for ourselves in any given situation, and even though many of us think that being married might take away some of the fun out, is a false assessment. Our relationship with a significant other is a perfect opportunity to show our strength and power without the necessity to abuse it, and not to tolerate in our partner anything in her behavior that makes us feel weak and defenseless. We are man, and one way to show so is to gradually give signs of healthy independence, and demand to take no less than what you give in. It may seem a terrifying thing to do for the usual laid-back attitude, the individual who unquestionably gives in to pressure without putting much of a fight whether it comes from their social life, job, marriage, or in any situation that may manifest itself. Competition is an undeniable aspect of our nature, culturally ingrained since early on in life. But because some of us lack the proper guidance, we may suffer exercising the wrong role in our lives. Assistance is on the way, and it is never too late to claim back what is rightly yours. Others will admire you for it. After all, you’re not the lazy type that pretentiously asks for his share of respect and space but a hard working man who is entitled to his very own. This is healthy for you and your partner: as a matter of fact, females are more at ease with dominant and unemotional males who are all about business. This doesn’t mean that you should confront your significant others every time an issue manifests itself and it doesn’t mean either that you should take advantage of your position; it means that you better start claiming back the due respect and the amicable harmony that should reign between the two of you is a must. In other words, change is gradually attained, an acquired taste. If you are empowered, it is something your lover should appreciate if she really cares for you.



Feminine
tactful
quiet
aware of feelings of others
need for security
easily express tender feelings
contemplative
kind

Masculine

ambitious
aggressive
independent
dominant
competitive
makes decisions easily

Lost and founds..

I wrote to console my sister like I said I would. Then I called home and Isabel answered promptly. It’s funny how sinister she is read here and how gullible she really is in the world out there. When amateurs are asked to draw, their face drawings resemble their own likeness… something similar occurs when reading characters or situations illustrated on verbal form. We must be able to relate in someway to the words in front of us. Language guards a certain quality of echoing its epoch. Even science fiction (wrongly translated in Spanish as "Ciencia Ficcion", when it should be something more like "Ciencia Cientifica", as noted by Borges)has reality at its infrastructure. Things among themselves are more similar than they seemed. Morality and justice are sentiments born out of the necessity to live in peace as a society. So, in the end, while drawing the world around me I am really drawing a reflection so well known: my own.
Most of us meet alcohol around the same time as we start becoming aware of the opposite sex. Both used to only leave us hangovers. We’d go out and divorce in no time, respect our parents, and raise our children without murmuring a word. It seems that whether we go and destroy on the outdoors, or stay home and create within, we are somewhat disappointed at the inner outcome. How nice it would be to get home and sleep in between two gorgeous girls. As a matter of fact, in my life, I have done so. Once even I slept with three different girls on a same bed. This all seems so monotonous to me. Get up, eat, go to work, come home and sleep. I guess I’m pacing myself, since I’m not really in a rush to get anywhere by now. But there are nonetheless deadlines I must meet. I think it’s lucky of me being able to recover the writings I had lost. Didn’t I say anything about it before? It all happened so suddenly: one day, yesterday, I open my document files and find nothing more than the two conversations I had on the same morning of that particular day, and no sign of my writings. I went bizarre. I looked in the recycle bin, and nothing. Finally, I got help from Vangelis’ father, Winnie. Islanders tend to be so exotic with their names sometimes. The rarest name of all I ever heard in Spanish translates exactly into “welcome” (Bienvenido). Now that I remember that particular anecdote, I lost a writing that had a scene in which a guy by that name was being made fun of. I’ve lost so much time, and so many well written things, and ideas, that I think I might have never stopped to consider the possibility if everything that occurs to me, the way I see things and life, is ever out of date or boring. I have been boring and this is the worst I’ve ever been when it comes to words (these very words you are reading are boredom to me), but perfectionism could be more harmful than it seems. I am not implying that we should do away with our pursuit of excellence. But sometimes we should remember that no matter how well something is written or done, there’s always a way to better it or top it. So relax, have a smoke, and vegetate… now that the words are right where I left what else is left of me but to continue being wasteful and love it. In the moment we lose something, a desire to possess it overwhelms us. This experience I had with my writings seemed a little like the one experienced with girls in someway. You think you want something so bad but only until you have it.

In hiatus

I had said I’d go out tonight, and therefore having a few beers with my friend Jorge on Friday might be in hiatus. Well, it seems like we will have beers after all. Because I’m not venturing out tonight, since I spent a lot on prescription drugs. Not only did I spend more money than I had in mind but the medicine itself has made me a bit uneasy. Plus, I won’t be able to drink. So, for the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like is going to happen. Tonight has gone easily, and in a few hours I’ll be heading home. Have a great smoke and watch some basic cable like most married people do.
I called home recently and Isabel hasn’t gotten home. Her son told me she was over a friend’s house. I wasn’t told of this, and it certainly is good news that she is stepping out on her own, finally! Besides, it affords me the opportunity to do so myself without the drama. The more freedom you give, the more you should demand; if others don’t want it, then you should exercise this principle alone. That is, of course, if you feel like doing so. On the other side, I didn’t want to go out just for the sake of doing so. I am, if you still haven’t noticed by now, a bit more complex than that. I wanted to take care of a few great things and do some amazing other ones before I deserved my time alone. Ah, what great commodity solitude represents. Yes, I am marching forward to a new level in existence. In a few months from now, I will publish my manuscript. Two days ago, I received an honorary plaque congratulating me for the publication of another poem of mine with the good people at Famous Poets Society (not to be confused with the International Society of Poets, which is harassing me to attend their upcoming convention in Orlando, Florida.
Paola, my sister, called last night. I sensed a little stress in her voice, although she reassured me everything was okay; she said that she had lost her job but by now had another. I thought of asking her if she needed my help but it would have been slightly arrogant to do so. Since I am not in a position to assist her financially for now, it might have been prudent that I did so. I’ll instead write to her and offer whatever assistance I may be capable of, and talk of fortitude in difficult times relating to her of my own experience. Maybe it will ease her pain. We are all in pain, one way or the other.

Be selfish: why must the sound suffer the sick?

Being selfish must be somewhere in your highest priorities. I know it seems like a rule that you may think we follow anyway involuntarily. But you’d be surprise how often we fail to satisfy our most essential needs in order to either provide for others whether it is in a financial or emotional way. This society is structured around the idea of altruism, and it is good to see the great fruits that such a devotion and sacrifice might bring to the existential table. But in the same process, we fail to acknowledge our own desires, and we often incur into the habit of denying ourselves the pleasure that by nature we so desperately seek. Perhaps selfishness is seen in a very dim light here. It shouldn’t be the case. The idea that selfishness could destroy somehow the morality to which we are socially abound to is an exaggeration that will never take place. Of course, there are the horrific results of being in a state of constant indulgence, and extreme selfishness brings the most dire consequences to those who follow this vicious course. For one thing is to satiate your thirst with plenty of fresh water and another to be in a constant state of thirst as that caused by fever. Sickness is not my proposition. But once in a while the need to misbehave is in order. Why must the sound suffer the sick?

Going for the kill (or the continuation of my sordid affairs)

After Glenda, came Isabel. But not before I fooled around, enjoying Glenda’s permission (which ultimately made her grow bitter and bitter until the relationship abruptly ended on a heated altercation one day), with Elaine, Christine, to name a few memorable ones. Out of these two, of course, Christine was more of an actual relationship.
Chris lived in New Jersey and we met in the same place where I will meet my dear Isabel, the Blue Moose, or what is now the Culture Club, near Houston St. in Soho. I had gone to the Blue Moose as I had since we first stumbled upon it while taking a stroll downtown. We started going there other weekend, and since it was only a couple of stops away from the World Trade Center, where I worked, I ended up going every single weekend. It was either Friday or Saturday, and more times than usual it was both. I was a regular. One of the first to arrive and one of the last to leave.
I met Chris on a dare. I had a verbal fight with Glenda and ended going to the Blue Moose with the sole purpose of meeting someone. I saw her almost as soon as I went in. She was enshrouded by a whole crowd, which included a girl friend of hers and a whole bunch of desperate guys. She had a sense of humor that girl, and I remember our times together more than just a sordid affair. I actually had a lot of fun. She was into sports, the captain in her basketball team, and I was a good-looking loser. It was as if she was one of the guys; only that she was a girl in every sense of the word. No rude or masculine attitude whatsoever, and very warm and giving. We had found a harmony even in the schedule we had to see each other. We would see each other once a week on Friday mornings: one week I would go to New Jersey and the other she would come to New York. Twice a month for a couple of months we saw each other at night on Thursday in a dead end dive bar, afterwards had sex in a motel nearby and then the next day go back to our lives.

Isabel I met on the club after Chris. She was the coat check girl. I used to ignore her even though she was very attractive (she still is). Then one day I ended up talking to her, and we clicked. One week after we talked, I ended up going to her apartment and stayed over. Yes, we did it. Later, my problems with Glenda were escalating and once I had a huge fight. So, I asked Isabel if it was okay to move in with her as a roommate. Little did I know that I would be with her for the next eight years of my life. I’m going to give her a call right now (pause). No answer! And then she complains when I go online! Yes, she’s online and yes, she’s my wife now.

Have you read me lately?

Now that I helplessly bored, and that if I’m caught on such indulgence could be disciplinarily reprimanded, and since I have minutes like flies to kill, I will review the things that landed the girls that have been part of my life and my bed. Actually, I’d like to correct that last account: I have never needed a bed in my entire life. Everywhere I’d go, there was always a bed for me.
My pilgrimage started in the early nineties when the difficulties home with my aunt forced me to move out a couple of months after I finished high school. I ended up renting half of the bedroom in one of my coworkers’ apartments. In retrospect, that guy was severely depressed: he never left home; he would rather be reading in half-light until the sunlight vanished and only then turn on the light. But he tried as hard as anyone to be normal. Which it was probably why he used to hang out with Juan Jose, whom we called J.J., another coworker to whom I was closer a friend with, and a friend of his. We’d go to the mall and play who got more attention from the girls. J.J.’s friend, I forgot his name, always won since he was the best looking one of us. I was usually second because, even though JJ wasn’t bad looking, he was in his mid thirties and had gained the extra pounds someone who doesn’t exercise often gets around that age. So he came in a respectable third. But Jose, my roommate, never scored a single glance. It was, quite frankly put, his not so kind looks. He was a dark-skin Dominican with glasses that gave him a misleading sinister look to the already sad spectacle of his looks. Life had not been kind to him and it was a pity because after all he was a real pal in the whole sense of the word, whose only sin was his propensity to irritation and social retraction. Otherwise, he was okay, I guess. Now I don’t know how I ended up here. See, I guess somehow everything is tied to the other thing, and so on, as in an infinite regress. I will describe in full detail the varied perimeters of my existence, including once when Jose actually got a glance from a girl that did not look kind at us. It was a Dominican chick who found Jose to be the most attractive of us three, and we celebrated the magnanimous occasion with beer and laughs.

I don’t remember much in the girl department until I met Alexia. She worked in Staples, and the way things happened were: I have this policy which forbids me from dating any girl I work with, and I waited until the last day. I had missed an ocean of opportunities as my eye wasn’t as trained as it is today in respect to the opposite sex. But I wasn’t naïve, either. So, what I did was, find music in common and ask her for an album I didn’t have, Counting Crows’ debut. She lent it to me and when I returned it, I put my telephone number inside it. It is such a clumsy thing to do, and most real girls would not have been impressed with such a wussiness but Alexia fell deep for it. She had the credentials for it. She was living unhappily, like most of us honest people live. But at the time of her misery, she didn’t know it as being part of life. She perhaps thought then that I could nurture somehow her unfulfilled self. I had not yet mastered by then the ability to be a truly full and happy individual, so I was bound to make her miserable in the end. But not before I got mine. It happened gradually and I had help from her. I don’t think she was pleased with the results in any way. But it was my first time with a woman. I had been played and fooled around with girls but I was a baby and all of those encounters happened when I was younger. This time was for real, and as usual, I had help from the opposite sex. I thank Alexia for that. I remember we had sex in Port Jervis, a small town an hour away from New York. I was there working as a security guard along with a few coworkers, not at all related to the ones I wrote about before. Anyway, our company had us working seven days a week, twelve hours a day. They paid us well (given the standards back then) and daily gave us an amount for personal expenses such as food. But the motel in which they had us located gave us free breakfast and we pocketed the money instead. We had it good, and I messed it up. I had Alexia stay over with me for a night of sex and called in sick. Now that I think about it, maybe one of the idiots I was working with back then ratted me out and that is why the very next day I was sent to New York in the first train.

With Annabel was a different story altogether. I saw her with her sister on the spot where a street vendor used to make a living selling books (he still does, I think). I knew the particular vendor, who was going out with this particular girl’s sister. So, I asked him the next day I passed around there who was the girl that I had seen the day before and he said it was his girlfriend’s sister. I asked him if I could meet her, and he called his girlfriend on the spot, and I got an easy date with a perfect stranger. I picked her up in a cab and went to see Brad Pitt’s Seven. We got along from there, and she invited me to a pub. It was the first time I entered a bar in my life. I tipped the bartender when he brought the drinks and he said to leave it on the table. So, I did, embarrassingly enough. Now I think that was actually cute of me, not knowing. And little did I know many other sour things to come. But we fucked plenty and beyond any memory of Alexia. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember ever being in a same room alone and not having some. We even tried to do it in the pub’s bathroom. Luckily, her other sister stopped her. What crazy times those were! I will into full detail but the thing here is that you must speak up if you ever want to land the girl.

I met Sarah in a seven train to Queens. She was with a friend of hers and they both were competitively flirting with me. For the first dozen stations, I didn’t do much than just glance there way and glorify myself of the potential I had. Then I decided to talk to the one that left the train last. Yeah, we are that weird when it comes to the opposite sex at such tender age. It didn’t occur to me that they both could have gotten off in the same station. But that is what I decided. Luckily, one of the two left and I was forced to talk to the one left behind, Glenda. I remember asking her what part of South America she was from, and she answered me: “My parents are from Ecuador.” That’s how it all started. Our relationship was more steady than the previous one but bound to fail in the end. Lots of ass, though.

As a psycho

I committed the mistake of agreeing to stay over beyond my regular shift and I’m now paying dearly for it. I am not so much taken by sleep deprivation; after a while it kind of leaves you wandering a fascinating land full of abstract toys which I have so obsessively written about in these insipid monologues for quite sometime now. What does worries me is the tension that derives from it, the stress slowly mounting, crawling under your skin. Ah, what I wouldn’t give to have something worth writing about. I don’t think making sense will help in anyway, anyhow. Which is, sad to admit, a futile effort: to ruminate mentally, or thinking one thing after the other for no particular reason, is equivalent to that sort of madness I was talking about before. I will sleep someday not very far from here. Meanwhile, I wonder if my ear will withstand the amount of anxiety building every passing moment. I have to claim my destiny back, just what’s mine, I can’t continue in this vicious cycle, this depressing routine. Now I can’t be blamed for what I write under these circumstances. In fact, blame doesn’t worry me either. Quite honestly (in lack of a better way to phrase it), I don’t remember the last time that I felt guilty over anything. “That is such a Christian bullshit” I was once quoted as saying in reference to guilt by my dear Turkish friend, Eda. She didn’t tell me so at the exact moment I said it, but instead waited a few months to let me know how ingenious that had been for her to hear.
But going back to blame, no, I don’t feel guilty, which is, of course, what blame is for. The pressure put on an individual who doesn’t respond normally to the feelings that words such as worry, guilt, resentment, pity, or else, tends to be a heavier load than just saying you’re sorry when you really aren’t, and appearing so, when in reality it isn’t so.
Psychopaths have no remorse, I have read. Well, then, at least in trivial circumstances, wherever a feeling only serves the purpose of making you feel lousy, limited, restrained, or else, then, yes, by all means, count me in as a psycho.

How many words in a book?

A book of two to three hundred pages, generally, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000 words, more or less. Of course, a book could be measured in fewer pages if there’s no problem with the publisher chosen for this. In other words, a book may be composed of 10,000 words, or, like the case is with children's books, even a dozen of sentences would suffice. The more complex problem radicates perhaps in that there is no particular science in order to determine how a work is better than the other; we rely on critics for that sort of thing, and critics' formation plays a fundamental role on it. But whatever the case, critics, in general, are not known to be always kind to no-names works. Oh, well, we’ll see what transpires over time. Because I plan to polish and nurture the book I already wrote, and then when I’m done perfecting it, which by no means equates perfection, I will deliver not the very best I can but at least a good of high quality.
What about the complex of not being good enough? It’s relatively understandable that the writer who suffers from this malady often is a very demanding individual. I wrote on this particular subject before, and it is my belief that those who grow personally tend to write more maturely. But writing endlessly is of no use, and there are those who are not good enough for their own good, so let’s leave it at that.