Rebound Girl

She asks me if we can go to Times Square and see the ball drop. I tell her in another life, when we're tourists.

She then sets the mood, the fun it'd be, the crowds, the spectacle and excitement. All I can envision is the insufferable train ride back, drunken teenagers, nowhere to pee. 

"All to see a ball drop" I say. "I'd much rather stay home and watch your ass... drop. Baby, you're my rebound girl... gotta make that ass bounce!" Of course, we're more than sexually acquainted. Our affinities lie in that opposites attract. See, people miss so much by being themselves and only wanting to date mind-like individuals, I guess that's the tragedy of having our heads so far up our narcissistic asses.

We're different. She just turned 22; I'll be forty 41 in two months. Of course, I look nothing like a forty-year old, in fact I don't feel a day older than 27. We're similar, too. She's from the Caribbean; I am too. The places each one of us respectively come from were always sunny, full of folklore and upbeat rhythm, drums, endless sunsets, seafood, beach days, happy people everywhere. 

"Baby, are people happy in Haiti?" 

"Just like with everything else, honey. Misery doesn't have a nationality."

Clever girl. 

Sexually, I'd use as an analogy those deep rollers that the actor Anthony Hopkins, playing his famous movie character Hannibal, warns about not breeding two of the same kind (deep rollers) because their young will dive too deep and die: we're sexually deep rollers, if ever we have siblings, these will fuck till death.

"Only if they're incestuous" she argues.

"Or if they find another fuck roller" I counter.

She's the religious kind, a baptist of all kinds, goes to church on Sundays, preaches the word every chance she gets. She says, I should repent.

"You should go to church, baby" she tells me.

"It's not gonna fly, sweetie" I warn her.

I try to get her to meditate but she says meditation is a pagan ritual. She's not a Buddhist, she says. Therefore, she won't.

"You know, that's what I like about Buddhism. The Buddha does not claim a divine providence. He's not a supernatural being. Buddhists are free to celebrate with others their holiday and it'd not piss off Buddha. In Christianity, you have to believe in Jesus as the son of God and humankind's sole savior. Buddhism leaves it up to its followers finding their own path in life. "If you find the Buddha, kill him" says a Buddhist quote, no space for resurrection, no damnation, no salvation, no one to look after you. You're your own boss in your personal quest, you're not subjugated to the celestial whims of an uptight, capricious deity bent on retribution. 

"That's right, baby. God is gangsta!" 

"Babe, leave God alone" she says. 

"Him first" I say. 

New Year's Eve found me doing the laundry after working a full shift, apparently I have to pay for other people's superstitions. Granted, we've been laying on those sheets for the last two weeks, and not just sleeping, sweat, tears, bodily fluids, dust, food residues, alcohol and fruity drink mixed stains, all form a collage of whatnot. 

"If we don't have clean clothes on the first day of the year, we will be with dirty clothes throughout the whole year!" she claims.

"The way I see it, if I spend the last day of the year washing clothes, that's what I'll be doing the rest of the upcoming year." 

She gets the joke but reserves the laugh.  

Beautiful Rain

The moral of the story, of course, is not in going back. We move forward. It's always the same story. Of course, we like happy endings, but in reality there's no such a thing. We will perhaps one day arrive there, with someone else, but not here, not now. Not anymore, anyway. 

I knew the end from the beginning. It's of no use to regret what takes place; it's a useless exercise. The important thing is to recognize where we can improve, and invest our energy on that front. There's no use in moping around, feeling sad, angry, confused, disillusioned; in healthy doses, and for sometime, it may be the norm. People exist in our minds, and we fall in love with the idea of a person, sometimes taking for granted the actual person. Love is not about setting limits to others, we should encourage our loved ones to be happy, to express themselves, to grow and prosper. There are three ways of loving:

• Dependency, or the love a child feels for his mother: you can be the egotistical child who wants "mommy" only for yourself, not really caring for her needs and feelings but throwing tantrums and mirroring her moves, so as to get her attention. You cause mayhem and you know mommy can never stop loving you, which emboldens you, making you feel enabled. And, of course, later in life you don't take rejection kindly. It is only natural that if you spend enough time with someone you share and live with, feelings of kindness and warmth toward that person will only grow, making cute episodes of jealousy, so long as these are manifestations of love, not based on anger; because love can be childish so long as you don't suck the air out of the relationship by turning too clingy, becoming a blood-sucking leech. 

• Unconditional Love, the kind only a mother can genuinely feel but we should all try to emulate: A mother has no choice but to love her child. Nature did not leave to chance such decision. It is not up to her. A good mother's love is full of patience, kindness, discipline, acceptance, and it is not always "unconditional" as there are certain behaviors and rituals expected of us all since the day we're born. A mother can love more than one child; a child has nothing more than one mother. Mother's love is dedicated, too. It is consuming, and easily the most rewarding. We should all aspire to the idealized love of a mother. Of course, it is only true metaphorically speaking, not all mothers are good and no two mothers are alike. But more or less, women generally are better suited for love. It just fits them so well. 

Take things with a light heart next time around. Do the same with the past: say goodbye without the slightest shred of regret, with a grateful and humble heart. Others may not see eye to eye, so let them be blind to their hatred and discontent; as for those who hesitate to or do not share your enthusiasm, do not mind them. The hard thing is not changing other people's mind, but that of our own. We forgive and let go so that we can lay down the burden carried atop our shoulders, set it aside and move on. It's a selfish act to forgive, a favor you're doing to yourself. Peace of mind is in how I choose to believe things. There's no point in blame, guilt, rancor, in farther escalation. We do have our antics in place, but I've become a ghost before and I can do it again. Why share your life, in any way, with someone from your past? I went and found someone else, met a beautiful girl with whom I get to play the new role. 

Here's the thing. These aren't just words and in finding out about anger, I read different religious texts. Look, I'm not trying to be less angry to make someone in my life happier. It's because it makes me happy to know that I am capable of changing for the better.

No one wakes up and says, "Today is a good day to get angry." Even though, on a daily basis, that's just what we do. And the worst part is, we dump the biggest load on our loved ones. Sometimes we give strangers the discretion and courtesy that we lack in dealing with loved ones. 

All of this may seem a bit too precipitated. People under certain psychological conditions take longer to bounce back from things, so I put in place the positive steps that will accelerate the process but, most importantly, the things that hold you back. 

First off, denial. We can hide behind a false sense of safety and contentment, if we don't suffer things well. Look, it hurts, you can't sleep, you lose weight. Big deal. You're a big boy and you know the drill, if you can't stomach it, then you shouldn't have eaten it. You know how to deal with pain, how you either change the things you can and accept the ones you cannot fix. We can't go back in time and get back what we've lost. 

Other triggers you can avoid or lessen or manage until you tip the balance in your favor. But you'll never get to rip the benefits of tomorrow's harvest, we can only plant our seed, it grows daily but never at a speed that is noticeable to the naked eye. We've known this ailment throughout our lives and it's been mostly fun. But if you go out, and drink too much, you'll get a hangover. Feeling bad is how the body and the mind purge the bad out. You get in proportion the same withdrawal effects and depending on the high, then the longest and more intense the low.The solution isn't simple. It's called time. It's what we feel we don't have. But there are things you can do with your time that will make the time more bearable, even productive. First, something happens to pain when you simply acknowledge it as such: "It hurts." You do not fight it. You don't dwell in it. You simply accept it. You breath deeply, hold your breath and exhale slowly. You exercise. You stop going out, and you read tons of articles. If, like me, you have a hobby, or an artistic inclination, indulge. You no longer have to take your shoes off. Instead of going out and meeting people, I can do without the social element. Sure, I consume social media, but I'm often offline, not really connected all day long. I post baby pics mostly on Instagram and then, all of a sudden, one day I opened the door to this roommate of mine who happened to have fifty thousand followers on Instagram. With her, I get to practice this new me. It makes total sense, I give more and I get a whole lot more in return. I get the complete opposite of what I had: a girl who is social and on demand. She's rather sedentary when in love and texts me all day long and says she misses me and becomes jealous. I love it. But she doesn't overdo it, either.

The answer is space, too. I do make space with my girl, I don't text her as often, I don't get weird if she decides to go out with her friends and I don't try to go out in retaliation. I get to have the place to myself, we already live together so a little time apart won't hurt, she can text and be on the phone all day long cultivating her fans online. She has more than a quarter of a million followers on Facebook. I'm not one of them. Her pictures are public, so I liked them, and since she gets so many Likes, she didn't even notice.
Choose happiness: Usually, people will judge you if you move on too fast, criticize if your progress is slow; no matter what, making others happy with your decisions shouldn't be among your list of priorities. You should only have into consideration yourself, so long as your choices do not cause others misery, forget others. People who love you will love you regardless, and if they don't like you, no matter how much you try to impress them, it's not going to work. It is not in their disposition to give what they don't have or feel for you. This is a time to be selfish, go ahead, indulge. And if you do it right, if you exercise, put the work in, tend to your affairs, meditate and practice kindness of heart, you can find joy within. There's time for adventure virtually anywhere; you'll find a girl and you will fall in love again. We all do. But first, let's work on building our foundation. Love is accidental. And since it dulls the pain, we all crave it like a palliative, but it's best to confront our pain, to evolve... and sometimes, when you look back, it seems light-years away the distant memory of the past.
Choose to remember the good, don't be so hard on yourself. Surrender to whatever it is you're feeling; don't fight it, just immerse yourself in and be one with it. It sucks when it rains but it can't pour forever, and if it does, well then it's time to get your shoes wet, go dancing in the rain. It's been raining for days. Rain is beautiful. 

Days go by

"If silence is golden, how wasteful of this treasure fools can be" -Boris Amar (a paraphrased quote from the Talmud.)

Literature inspired in Buddhism, from the German Arthur  Schopenhauer to all the pseudo-scientific, esoteric works of so-called spiritual gurus, has led me to this path of self-realization, seeing every inherent detail filled with abundant beauty and poise, the trees disposed of their green foliage, its leaves tattered with pale tones heralding the long winter ahead, the Long Island railroad train oozes through the misty tracks under the bridge on my way to work. Manhattan greets me with its multicultural undertones and colors, stunning women everywhere, no matter the hour of the day there are always crowds, night-owls, early-birds, and all that falls in between. If it rains, there's always people out there, infusing the economy with their last minute Christmas shopping; sunny days have longer waiting lines, and everywhere you go there's a ceiling, so if you come from one of those cultures that actually celebrate the rain as nature's A.C., then you pay little, if any mind, that it's raining. And when it rains, the best kind of people, those who do not let something as trivial as the weather get in their way, are all out there. Instead of packing yourself like a sardine on a nightclub, go to a coffee shop, take a stroll in the park, do the laundry or make for friends/relatives, read a good book or article online, see my boys through Skype or travel and see them in person (I don't pay to fly). Last night I had a few drinks with a friend of mine, had in mind to go to my cousin's birthday party but changed my mind, and spent the night home as usual. I don't feel like sacrificing sleep to go out and venture into the night with people I only see whenever there's a birthday or a particular holiday, but I ought to change that, break out of that comfort zone that keeps me shut-in, domesticated, blindfolded and confined to these four walls. I like it fine, here I cook, I fuck, I drink, I smoke; this apartment is my small piece of residential heaven. Here, my second son was born, and here I fell in love countless times with just a handful of people. 

I have witnessed but refused to believe in a world beyond my eyes. The unseen world is for my eyes to discover once my mind is open; there's no way of seeing what we have yet to experience. This possibility is within anyone's grasp, that this fleeting moment is all we really got and that choice by choice, brick by brick, we build the world of our vision. The universe and all the stars, are just add-on bonuses. In Buddhism, we uncover the hidden minute truths that this existential riddle called life bestows upon us, as if the limiting blindfold of our conditioning -or limiting beliefs- had suddenly fallen off our eyes. We need not go searching for new horizons out there when there's just so much uncharted territory within.

With God in mind

It's the first time I open this word document on Wordpad since the last time when  the battery came off and I lost a few good pages of literature to oblivion. She accidentally dropped it on the floor and I hadn't saved my work. It was my fault; I didn't know how to handle her high energy.

Endings are usually pretty messy, it's when both parties resolve to put it all out in the line one last more time, bitterly fight the one we once loved, throw it all to the fire and let it come up in flames. Emotions run high and you lose your cool. The most important thing to do is keep your composure, your aplomb, be receptive and open to the possibilities life affords us. This moment, I find myself picking up pieces and patching things up with my girlfriend. She feels neglected, that's what I get for dealing with children. I call it "the terrible double 2", an allusion to that toddler's two years of age madness, "the terrible 2".

She said, I needed to find an apartment before I get kicked out. I've kept my apartment, had to fight for it. She said I'd never find another beautiful young girl who'd want to be with me, just like Connie had once said. And I did, one month ago. Will it last? Who knows? All that matters is the kindness and the patience, the space and sometimes silence, the ear you lend to listen to her nonsense, poke fun at her, take things lightly. She's a bit lazy, doesn't do much around the house, lays there quietly using her phone from sunrise to sundown. She rarely goes out with her friends, it's kind of heavy that we already live together. Making time apart and she going out there and having fun, is good for the relationship. It brings a cool breeze, the trick is not in expecting others to make you happy; the trick is to enjoy making them happy. I love cooking for my lover, giving her massages, squeeze, spank, bite, pinch, scratch, suck, lick, kiss, pull her panties and wedge them up their ass-crack.

There's a part angel and a part demon in every individual; it really depends on which of the two roles we play more often. The more we sing to the harmony that that divine nature of ours brings into play, the more we adopt more akin and peaceful ways of solving problems, tackling issues that are of the utmost importance without any more delays. The more immersed you are in this moment, the more alive you become. Make a list of things that need to be done with time enough to carry them out. Just follow through and then repeat.

She's sweet and quiet, a tempest and a dance, sex enthusiast, for lack of a better way of phrasing it. Instead of talking bad about religion, I use it on her to push her to find peace through God and she goes to church and doesn't drink alcohol and she doesn't smoke. Whenever things go sour, people talk and demand. It's hard to give, but whoever does manage to give, usually wins. And I've been poor for so long, I'm sick of it; enough grieving my failures as a father and taking my life on. I am eager to commence the classes for my license. I'm working out often. I keep actively, mostly. Oh, yeah, and we fuck like jack rabbits.

Of course, that's when the campaigns to slander one another begin; ironically, the more we love someone, the more likely we are to hate them one day. It's because we view others, strangers especially, as either allies or follies. We have to belong to something, and we find that we are actually at the mercy of a dual mind. We want more than we have, regardless of how grateful we are, more seems the way to go, but substance is of importance. We can accumulate possessions and miss out on family and friends, buy properties and live life counting every cent, consumed by good debt. That's it a plan worth pursing, and it's not like ambitious individuals do not have friends, they have allies; and if they want to, they can spend time with them and still have some time left for the best of relatives. Ambitious people aren't just greedy about money; a good dosis of greed is healthy in the times we live and success doesn't necessarily mean you have to sacrifice good relationships. It means you have less time but whatever time you spend with others (friends or family) is well spent and invested. There's no glory in spending all the time together doing nothing, and that I had done lately. We ought to go places, see new people, don't get entangled too soon, be selective since we have more than one choice and take things slow. The problem is when your life revolves around your relationship. Your life should gravitate toward the matters of inner joy and gradual improvements, maintaince. The driving force that propels some to go farther is an effort that accelerates the aging process. They live two lifetimes every few years, if their drive isn't solely for material posession, some experience more in a day that many will not experience in a lifetime. Spirituality isn't something that all men arrive to, either. There are more religious types than spiritual ones. It's never a clear-cut, self-evident truth and the line may turn blurry when closely analyzing people's hardcore beliefs, whether these have a basis on godly science or abject religion, because as an atheist I may see humor where others see sacrilege. Let's be honest, religion is funny. I understand it's serious business for the faithful but these pages are meant for those who find the light-hearted side of things. To me, religion is somewhat funny and mostly nonsense. Sure, it has its good lessons, thou shall not kill, etc., but do we really need to follow any of the other craziness religion proposes. Humor isn't evil but if people make fun of other people's beliefs, without prejudice and only for the sake of enlightment. I'm not into convincing others of my beliefs, and if people want to have an imaginary boss who follows their every move and judges all the fun out of life, so be it. The biblical god is a tyrant and if we are to observe Christ's life, then we'll have to be Jews. Of course, the roman emperor Constantine didn't want to hand power down to the Jews, so Catholicism was born. The Christian bible was rewrote, the old testament was crafted and adapted to reflect the newly adopted religion of the Roman Empire. There were many emperors who grew mad or tyrant in time, power tends to corrupt and all sorts of atrocities were commited.

But the most atrocious of them all was probably the introduction of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. It threw back herbal medicines, ancient cures and remedies to the ailments of the body. Christianity absurdly holds the anti-natural and demented notion that the flesh didn't matter and that all matters should be dealt with God in mind. Religion stunned scientific progress, killed or silence some of our greatest minds, eradicated virtually all indigenous tribes in the Americas, unforgivable shit like keeping Galileo in house-arrest for most of his life, a man as rich and influential as that, what was left for others? The newly adopted religion spread like wildfire throughout the empire and today we're true descendants of that hybrid between the remnants of Roman rituals prior to the introduction of Christianity.

You can see ambitious people age relatively faster, though they usually are in much better shape than their poorer counterparts. Ambition is a consuming force that demands a lot of your time, sleep, peace of mind. Nothing that the ambitious type cannot overcome; best to have a mature and 

Eventually, the smoke will clear. It is likely that I suffer from a mild case of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), anger is systematic, a survival mode. We all play our little games to get us through the day. Most importantly, getting a good night sleep. Which what I'll do right now.

To be continued

All day long I've been meaning to write, but the right theme didn't come up. Even now, it's a daunting task to summon the right words. 

Revising recent posts, I encountered many grammatical errors, some of which I correct and some of which I let be. I find that, sometimes, in the effort of correcting a sentence, a brand new paragraph emerges. It is as if, at least when it comes to literature, it pays to mend and fix past mistakes.

All of a sudden, I resolved to write, no matter if the theme or subject eluded me. But the words wouldn't commit to paper; I wouldn't where to start and I'm kind of sick playing to the tune of my failed relations as interesting and alluring as they may seem. If I were home, I'd be more in sync with the ghosts and exorcise them deliberately, but I couldn't. I'd find that, oftentimes, a change of scenery or a shift in routine usually do the trick. A subject presents itself worth writing about and then I focus solely on that most unexpected, wondrous and enigmatic muse that the writing process can be. In it, I can be lost and regained, I find a maddening reason or an evil good to explore. By meditating or smoking a cigarette, I could enlighten somehow the dark passages of unforeseen events that prompted me to sit down and write, write, write. And since I can't reason with enough leisure, tediousness sets in. And since the usual mild narcotics that would facilitate this process are nay, then I have to resort to random acts of improvisation in order to get the creative juices flowing.
And it happened then. I jumped from my blog window screen and opened Facebook on another, and then it hit me: a picture of my first love emerged, a distant cousin of mine, now married with children... how distant a creature now from the frail and innocent child with plumb cheeks, curly black hair and milky white skin, diamond green eyes. She's aged well, like many in our family, but it's a far-away memory now. Luckily, life doesn't play out in the way that our raging hormones want it.

How, at one point, it all seemed as a matter of life-and-death, now is barely a "What the fuck did I see in this girl?" How is it that I awaited her arrival every two years, when her family brought her home to spend the festivities with her mother's family in the torrid and desolate Caribbean coast of Colombia, the land from which I stem? 

See, her family used to split Christmas' time and celebration between her father and her mother's respective families: one year, they'd spend Christmas with her mother's (my father's half sister) and the next year they'd spend it with her father's (no relation to me). Therefore, I only got to see her once every two years, the year alloted to celebrate with her maternal family. And the sad part about it is, the madness lasted me four years. She said she preferred to spend the festivities with us, her mom's family.
Since the very beginning, it seems obvious now, I was in love with impossibilities. First, we were first cousins. We were not raised together and only saw one another when we were in our early teens which made it easier for such feelings to manifest and proliferate, like wildfire but cousins we were nonetheless. Secondly, we were separated by two days travel in distance by car, or more than a thousand miles from each other. Heck, she was royalty, with a princess-like upbringing, private schools, parents perennially married and dandy, as if she were destined to walk along a path of roses in a garden -no matter how proverbial- that was denied to me. My father and my mother had long separated, I was living with my father's mother and was the errand boy of the house. She was even older than me a couple of years which in adolescent years could spell doom in your romantic aspirations. It was not meant to be. Out of shyness, I gave her the cold shoulder initially, she seemed so fanciful and classy, I kept my distance and my cool. But when I saw her washing her own clothes, a look of frustration I couldn't help but tease her, 

-Who would've thought little princess would have to resort to do the laundry by hand? -I teased her. She did not take it too well.

-Leave me alone -she warned, quietly firm and not in the least bit taken by my ball-busting her. We both repeated the same routine, same lines again, but her tone increased in bitterness.

I splashed the running water on her face and she put the same face in disbelief Olivia (who hadn't been born) would put when I jokingly slapped her. Not hard, not too soft either, but funny. 

You can't live life hypothetically. So I moved on. But nothing like being heartbroken when you're fifteen. It wasn't a problem waiting back then, I had all the time in the world; and I was only able to do so only when I fell in love with another. Hence the saying: "The best way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else as soon as possible." That isn't all true, and personally I think that people move from relationship to the same relationship, going from a parental dependency to a conyugal one. We live life according to what others expect of us.

Let Love Rule

I made mistakes, I'm not hiding behind a facade of sorrow though. There's no use in beating a dead horse. Truth is, I am well aware of my short comings. I screwed up my previous relationship not by just being angry. Anger is circumstantial. The reasons for it may not be as see-through and crystal clear as we'd like them to be, many are buried under layers upon layers of early psychosis, childhood trauma create adult drama, and no one is without a slice of sorrow.
Succinctly speaking, I failed to live up to the expectation and failed to keep my promise, and my failures in love made me less of a lover, a feeding nest for hatred.
It is easier to lie to yourself. Truth is, I saw the end coming and, honestly, I don't really know why it lasted as long as it did. She must've loved me somehow, I can't conceive of a better explanation. Only love would make you so blind as to not really see the deception, the shortcomings, the lie. Only love would make us so blind to think that we really had a chance to thrive. Only love dares to dream and materialize the absurd, make fairy tales come alive.

I should've been making more money or at least as much as I was making two years ago. I should've been divorced two relationships ago. I should've been nicer, not so much of a prick.
In blaming yourself, you get nowhere though. It takes two to tango and blame is a two-way street with all traffic going in the wrong direction. It's not like I did all wrong, no. I tried. I worked full-time to make sure it didn't last out but I also held a part-time job making sure it'll be forever. I not only hated her for having a foot out the door: I loved her for having the audacity and tenacity to remain mine somehow. She never ran away, she always answered and being the man, I did not mind in the least bit to be the one giving chase. She loved me in that role, I guess she too felt guilty over the course of her actions, she took more than pity, but also courage and resolve, to patch things up again and give it another go. We were not meant to last, but we did last long enough to give more than a shit. We kind of forgot along the way that our nuptial plans were trumped by the fact that I was still married; we forgot that I wasn't making enough. We fucked often but never out of pity and it was always on. We forgot I didn't take her to many fancy restaurants but I cooked for her daily. We didn't go on more than one minuscule vacation because our life was a perennial getaway. We forgot not to fall in love, and we forgot that it was too late.

Fuck-spree

Who the fuck has one third of a million followers on Facebook? More than forty thousand followers on Instagram? Who gets around sixteen thousand Likes on her pictures? My girl, that's who.

She's sort of a celebrity, complains about having lost 350 followers after uploading my picture, spends most of her time on the phone and takes more selfies on a day than any human being I've ever seen before. She's slender, has a generous behind and is loving, far more narcissistic and vain than her predecessors, younger too than most.
Youngest I've ever been with is 13 years of age, a girl in my childhood named Celina; I was just eleven years old then. I count that as my first experience, because mom would have me in-doors, never allowing me outside to play ball with the other kids in the neighborhood, frightful creature my mother was. She'd imagine the worse happening to me, God forbid I took the risk of playing ball with the other kids. Her fears extended beyond the domestic kind: Travelling on a plane, as we often did in order to go to the neighboring land Venezuela, she'd go through her usual routine of prayer, obsessive cross-signing, have a few cocktails before, during and throw up in bags after; sweat, become delirious. Suddenly, her eyes would roll back and she'd pant, her body would tense and rigid-up, she'd hold us tight against her chest and asked we pray with her. Her reasoning when she came to her senses, is that a plane flies so high above the sky, though it outweighs all things it still manages to glide through the heights of heaven, and God did not like men trying to play him, so she was afraid of God's wrath. She said we were all sinners and that, too, could tip the balance in favor of a midair plane catastrophe. She was kind of a dumb woman, but very resilient and cunning. In some other time, when she was young and beautiful, it might have looked cut. Men were willing to omit her lack in intellect as nature's way to compensate for what she had in abundance, beauty. One day her striking looks withered but by then she had already shipped her eldest son to the States and happily marry her two daughters to good, supportive, well-established men. Even at that, she did so much more for us than dad. There, holding us tight and praying out-loud for others not to doubt her consuming belief, I remember faking being afraid over and over again until I managed to convince myself of the impending, imminent trouble ahead, as my mind's fear so vividly portrayed and projected such ill-fed fallacy.
It's no wonder I am afraid of flying, and I must've been fearless until then because my dream had always been to become an astronaut one day. There, mother too instilled fear, said the day I climb on a spaceship, she'd take a step towards an early grave. She'd rather die than see me hop aboard my intergalactic spaceship, out on a interstellar mission to conquer the stars beyond. As a kid, I had been at the mercy of a woman who has pathologically overprotective, but she had been forced by her mother to drop out of school by the time she was nine years old and, therefore, she had no ideal role model to follow in motherhood.
Home was always packed with girls, my sister had many friends and we spent time in-doors playing mom and dad. Of course, I lost my virginity earlier than most men. Girl next door, two years older, and my smaller sister (whom by then was far wiser than me, and in such matters still is), both accepted me taking part in the kissing trials they had going on under the sheets. All I had to do was threaten I'd rat on them if they didn't let me in on their innocent little game. And so, one day the three of us, as innocently suggested by Celina, we shower at once. Celina said it'd save time and water, and from then on, we would all jump in the shower at once.
Since I became part of the games, Celina had grown closer to me than my sister, and my sister was fuming over it. Celina's plan wasn't to cozy up to me, no; her thoughts were aligned at a deceptive curve, reel me in and get me under her influence, then make her demands. I had been pushing the idea of sleeping together or, as we called it back then, play mom and dad.
Her proposition was, if I sleep with my own sister first, she'd sleep with me.
I was willing to sacrifice my own blood just to get a taste of her, but instead of following suit, I devised a covert operation: I faked having sex with my sister. Everything was going according to plan, my back was covering Celina's visual, and I was pretending to plow away at it. But then my sister interrupted the magical deception, screaming out loud:
"I don't feel anything!"
Celina interfered and said it wasn't necessary, that we'd do it first because she wanted to be my first. And once we did it, she did not want to be with my sister. We used to hide even from her, it wasn't easy, my sister had always been very intuitive and wise beyond her years. But we managed to be together as her parents and mine went off to work, our homes were interconnected since it was the same property and my mother had no moral dilemma on the deal. She actually was supposed to be taking care of us all, as she was paid for baby-sitting that "grown ass" girl, as she deemed Celina. Mom instead said she'd be back in a couple of hours and leave us home as she went out on a casual date.

I was eighteen years old when she was born. I could be her dad, she reasons. It's some dark fantasy of ours she brings under the sheets, as the other girl roommate comes to the kitchen and can sense the action going on behind the room dividers that separate the kitchen from the living room. Later the other girl texts me about having a smoke in the bathroom, and I jokingly pull her hair, she chokes, she laughs, she confesses out of nowhere she has three boyfriends. They have their own silly territorial thing going on: one day I find black strands of hair my girl left in the bathroom floor, for which I reprimand her, and the next day I find a swath of blond hair splashed across the bathroom wall that undoubtedly pertains to our roommate. The roommate is 32 years old and my girl, ten years her youngest, turns shy whenever she's around, says little as the older, more aggressive of the girls flirts with her, showers her with complements and my girl remains mum.
The roommate is more audacious, flashes an insinuating smile, instills a bit of discomfort, pushes the safe zone to the limit. But the roommate is very feminine and submissive towards me, as I am the most dominant figure of the three, make sure both get what they bargained for.
"I can tell you're a mother fucker of a man" she flatters me, as she asks for permission to bring one of her boyfriends in the room and quietly fuck him for an hour or so. Then they leave and she has that look of retribution on her face, as I lay on bed with my black beauty queen, tight ass, long, slender legs, thighs and hips, she's gaining weight since I overtook feeding her. We've been on a fuck spree for the past few weeks, everyday I make her mine, I own her and she gives herself to me completely. I think of ways to love her, not to answer fire with fire whenever she gets ignited over an issue, I bring peace and fuck her brains out.
"Did your boyfriend fuck you good?" I ask our roommate, as we go in the bathroom for a smoke.
"Did your girlfriend fuck you good?" she answers fire with fire.
"Men do most of the fucking, but yeah, she's good and spirited for her age" I answer her. "Are you any good of a fuck?" I ask her bluntly.
"I think so" she says, shying away. She knows she is in front of a self-assured male who would grab her by the neck and fuck her standing up against the wall in a moment's notice. She knows not what's stopping me, but she doesn't give any signs. Instead, she asks for my girl, is she home? What's she wearing? I think they like one another.
My girl playfully said, "Yeah, we already fucked. That bitch ate me out good." I laugh wholeheartedly. Who knows? Maybe the hair all over the apartment is because of sex-up matches they hold against one another in my absence.
Tension with other roommates is natural. It has happened in many instances before. The girl that lived her before spoke of her boyfriend and how frustrated she felt that he didn't seem resolved, almost unsure of himself, and he hadn't even wondered where she spent the extra three nights away from their place, a hundred miles from Jersey. She'd tell me this staring into my eyes, sipping Valerian tea, and dressed in a little girl sleep-over outfit. I'd tell her we'll have a sleep-over and watch movies together, cook for her and the other crazy Colombian flight attendant with whom she shared the room and had grown jealous of how close we had become.
"She looks older than you" Adriana had said, as she got dressed one night to go out. She was barely home and I told her so.
"Ah, you miss me, honey?"
I had seen her dress herself up to a decent fuck, she was chunky but shapely and knew how to play with her wild femmes, making use of the most attractive trail in her arsenal: her round and stout booty, heightened by wearing tights and fluffy furry shorts, as she readied to go out dressed as a cowgirl on a Halloween Friday night in New York, boots and hat, a red hair wig, heavy mascara and a zillion other details I bypassed to pay attentive discretion to her butt. Adriana was 22 years old, her parents had brought her from Colombia when she was still very little. She spoke fluently and had a sexy accent that stems from her native city, Cali.
"Is that what it is? You miss me?" she'd demand the truth with a toy pistol pointed out at me from her reflection in the mirror as she advertised herself by giving me her back. Less than beautiful girls master the game of subtle aggressiveness, where they momentarily adopt the role of the predator and go hunting for the man that they find more suitable. It's the reason why beautiful girls end up with males that are far less attractive than them and vice versa: you can see many divas everywhere with a guy that can easily have whomever he'd choose, but has been chosen and domesticated by a dominant woman figure. Women know what type of men they want, so if I ever come across a dominant woman, either she lowers her defenses for me and becomes docile or we just don't mesh. I like being the hunter and I love it when women give it a bit of a fight, when they play hardball and difficult, when they play hard to get. I like a challenge but I refrain from impossibilities. There has to be a sign of interest, or else I'll move on and come back at it some other time.
But girls who aren't necessarily beautiful sometimes make themselves indispensable, and this little girl from Cali just staring back at me from the mirror with a fake pistol in her hand, looked rather dashing.
"You're not gonna shoot me" I told her as I approached her from behind and held her up against the mirror, grabbed by the neck playfully.
"Let go, mother fucker!" she said. I pulled away and she came on swinging, disproportionately in strength as I had only teased her. She was passionate in her deliverance, so I had to hold her hands and push her over the sofa. She stood there, sitting still, defiant, put the TV on and assumed the position on all fours. I took her panties off as she looked for something to watch on the Roku channels.
"Unlike that old bitch you like so much, I do have a boyfriend who loves me, who's about to come pick me up" she said.
"And what's the problem?" I asked, as I caressed her inner thighs.
"He's so boring and predictable, and don't think you're nothing special, either. I already cheated on him every chance I got" she confessed.
I spanked her. A hard, sound smack on her butt cheeks.
"You've been giving me nothing but shit since you moved in" I tell her, sliding a finger down her rabbit hole.
She maintains her position on the sofa, in all fours, lifting her right arm to maneuver the channels. Her phone rings.
"That's him" she says, as she answered him: "Hi, babe."
The guy talks and she listens as she pays more attention now to me, how my fingers roll in and out of her, Adriana makes an effort not to gasp as she speaks.
"I'm almost done, honey" she says. "Give me ten more minutes and I'll be downstairs."
And then she hangs up and looks up to me:
"We got twenty minutes before he calls up on me again."
Of course, nothing happened, as I rushed her out the door before the second call came in. Later on that night, she walked in home, climbed on top of me, intoxicated, claiming her neck still ached from earlier on when I chocked her. Telling me her boyfriend saw the marks I left on her buttocks and wanted nothing to do with her. She said, she had told him the truth about us, what truth that was, specifically, I don't know. Her breath smelled of alcohol, her eyes are bloodshot, as I push her aside. She's now sitting in a neutral corner, crying inconsolably.
"I know he's cheating on me" she says.
Then I hug her and tell her to go to bed, she could sleep on it, tomorrow will be another day. And so, she does.

Murphy's Law

The money I got from my retirement account was enough to pay what I owe in rent and have some leftovers, but not having my license renewed left me with just enough to survive until I work myself back up to glory. I've enlisted myself in the Fire Safety Director course for the second week of January, 2015, and by February, when the income tax return money kicks in, I will have more than plenty to cover the rest of my debts and some of the plans envisioned. Every cent will be invested in such a way that it will return its value tenfold. 

When I first envisioned going for the FSD license, I was told it was silly of me to pay for my own course. But I did, and it worked as planned, the money I invested in it was reimbursed in dividends two weeks later, as my salary had increased by 30%. By the end of 2015, I want to be more professionally marketable than now, earning above $20 an hour, even if I have to find another job in my new position. Plans would've been sped up if I hadn't been out of work for almost two months due to my security license not being renewed on time before its expiration date. Of all the people I owe, my greatest debt is to my former lover, ironically, which adds to my shame! I bought food items on Amazon with the card she had on file in my account, out of sheer necessity, with the promise -as of yet unfulfilled- that I will pay her back. 

Before she left, she gave me $50 which I stretched for three weeks, buying the most absolutely essential items to survive: half a gallon of the cheapest Vodka, tuna and sausages, the cheapest possible meats, after having paid my $25 monthly Metropcs talk&text phone plan. I'd go to the Union Turnpike Starbucks to use the WiFi and try to find roommates on the Craigslist website. I found myself dumped, heart-broken and broke, a pending eviction case stemming back from April, roommates that would come and go unannounced and create more financial burden than economic relief. Some potential roommates like the girl who left her deposit $600 and some brand new broom, mop and detergents that she did not get to use in the cleaning of her room to be. She cried over the fact that her parents had not approved of her moving in. I gave her back her first month and kept the deposit and from thereon, I warned all my potential roommates to be that if they decided to move out before the end of the month, only half of their deposit will be returned. This particular girl even hooked me up with her own Time Warner account (which, as of today, two months since she left, I still enjoy!) and connected the HBO GO app on my Roku device: I was able to revisit and complete televised HBO programming such as Boardwalk Empire and started watching other famed series, like Game of Thrones. Oh, what a delight tour de force it is! 

A day before the retirement plan check for $5,876, the lights were turned off. I walked into my apartment and slept in darkness, just as I have lived for quite sometime. Like Murphy's Law stipulates, Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Every action taken to avoid being evicted from my place, priority number one in my list, had not gone as planned. It took longer than I had expected to receive the hardship loan requested, but I persevered in calling everyday and fight for it, making demands, pushing the issue over the phone with Mercer representatives, sending mail back and forth with the required info that would facilitate the transaction, until it finally happened. It was my doing and I was glad when I opened the mailbox and saw the check there. I looked at it from every angle, as if I had given birth to it by pushing and pushing with all my might and strength to see it come to light. 

And, of course, upon receiving my check, the first person I thought of was my former lover. She has given me more than all of the roommates I have had combined, as she paid for her deposit and had already paid her month when she left. Not to mention the fact that I destroyed her brand name sunglasses which she bought on Saks Fifth Avenue for almost $500. Or $350, or whatever other obscene amount of money. I, for one, used to buy me a pair of Aldo shoes every week I got paid, when I was still living with Beth and had only one son. I was assistant manager back then to a small security firm out of New Jersey. The company had even lent to me a car with the company signature and paid for my driving classes so I could get my driver's license. It was wrong of me to try and cage a rare and beautiful specimen, becoming overtly jealous and possessive. I've lived and if only I had been slightly more patient and less intense, things would've worked out differently. Of course, there's Murphy's Law to attest to it, that not all things that can go wrong will go wrong eventually, but the inevitability of it, the chaos that slowly fills its quota and breathes in and out of every organic fiber, tearing it apart bit by bit and inevitably ending is, of course, undeniable. We may say, If such law stands, how come a comet hasn't hit earth, for instance? Since everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, why is the world and the human race still standing? Give it time, all in time will vanish, to paraphrase the second law of thermodynamics that, in time, everything will turn to shit. The key word to the law is "Will", which doesn't mean it's happening anytime soon, but invariably, it will take place notwithstanding. 

Think of all the relationships you know. Either lovers achieve plateau (in psychology, a period of no improvement or learning in an individual's effort to move forward) and find some sort of contentment in the status quo (comfort in the way things are), or the relationship, more often than not, deteriorates and plummets. Ultimately, all things must come to an end. Life constitutes a phenomenon in the sense that it goes against such predicament. In other words, life goes against nature in that it grows and prospers up until certain point, before the body and mind begin their unavoidable decline into old age and eventually death, as the absolute finality. In some cases, though, the opposite is observed, you can almost say with a level of confidence that whatever can go right will go in the right direction and it happens, for some, at least. But these are rather the exceptions to the rule. Usually, beauty turns ugly, backstabbing people do their bidding, and we pay dearly for every pleasure life or the universe, or whatever divine entity of your choosing, has afforded you with. If we drink excessively, we get a hangover; and, if we overeat and do not exercise, we're bound to get fat. It takes a great deal of effort to counter the formidable forces of doom. It starts with being fully aware and passionately alive. Go and work out, live in peace, make good lifelong friends and become more a lover, less of a hater. Loving people ages gracefully, and hate has acidic properties, it will wrinkle your flawless skin (it will loosen the tightness of elasticity) and make it sag. 

In the end, gravity always wins. We live in a world that is part of a universe that is marked for extinction ever since it began. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will happen. The word universe is composed of two, "uni" meaning "one" and "verse" meaning various. Everything and everyone in it is part of this chaotic force that drives anything and everything there is, and no one is separate from the whole. The people we see and the things we love, the places we've visited and this very day that has come to an end, is part of an endless decaying entity that goes from a higher form of energy to a lower kind. Therefore, everywhere I find it fit, I always declare war on this unbreakable law. Through writings, such as in this blog, I survive the memory of my past as you cannot rely on memory to keep track of all that's experienced. People in my life who know me the least often wondered and even asked me personally how can I go from one relationship into another, and I often say: "Hey, I'm forty years old, I don't have the luxury of sitting around moping over what is left behind!" In essence, it's true: I used to wait for a period of forty days before I venture into another lover's arms. It doesn't take me long to find a suitable partner. I've been very fortunate with women in my life, starting with my mom and all the lovers I've had, four sisters, countless girl cousins, it is as if my whole life there were a predominantly higher amount of women. And if I think of the most important and crucial relationships, women have held the most key roles in it, even when it comes to influential teachers. Just like I have chronicled in my lover's blog, www.ritesofpassagesintomanhood.blogspot.com, women have been of essence. To them, I owe the gift of literature. But learning, I've mastered reading great men, dead and alive, and that I owe too. But that'd be subject for another day. 

Thanksgiving

"Just hope you're heaven-sent and you're hell-proof" -Drop the World by Lil Wayne.

We spent Thanksgiving home. My first turkey was a success; also, a spectacular potato salad to complement. It's a physical relationship; it's not of the head or the mind like my previous one, and it's not like I was looking for anything. In fact, she had plans to spend Thanksgiving with a girl friend, renting a luxurious suite in a Manhattan hotel with a kitchen, shedding half a grant on the sweet spot. She asked if I didn't mind.

"Go for it" I told her. And I meant it. 

In the end, she takes so long readying herself that the girlfriend who's expecting her calls the whole thing off. I could sympathize with her friend, after all I had been waiting for her to meet up at the train station with a 20-pound turkey under my arm, a bag full of doritos and other snacks, and no sign of her anywhere. Like all beautiful young things, she's utterly narcissistic and intolerable. But at the very least I did my best to wrap between my legs the hideous tail of my own narcissism and happily obliged to offer my undivided attention and servirude. She fumes about her friend and I point out that she isn't being fair in her judgment, teasingly of course and poignantly so, but to no avail. We rarely get a glimpse of the monster that lies in wait, once that beast is summoned upon out of the genie bottle, it is hard to see what has become of us. So I leave it alone before my very own ugly side surfaces. Glad I had the decency to go along with her plans but more glad to not having seen them come to fruition. 

We already live together. I will make the mistake of seeing someone far younger than me but not commit to the sin of depriving her in any way: no jealousy, no sexual possesiveness, no proverbial territorial pissing. It's not like we haven't been here before, but one thing is conducting drills to prepare in case of an emergency and another to face catastrophe. When you find yourself in the threshold of a heightened emotional state of affairs, reason usually goes down the drain, flushed away along with whatever's left of aplomb, serenity and patience. Thoughts race and crash unto actions without recourse, a momentary lapse of reason, shoot first and ask questions later. 

She just turned 22, and I'm going to be forty one years old in a few months. I've lived to be 22 years old many times over, right up to when I was 31 years old, I got to be 22. I had my fun, and so in my old age, I became sedentary. If I'm not working, I'm usually home, unless a son of mine happens to be around then I become more active. I take things slowly, never really feeling an urge to run do something, and I've fought against it because of it I've paid the price of carelessness. In love, it spells doom. We can never love enough to dismiss these inner voices, specters of a time long gone that we can't let go of, it is where doom nests and lays its ghostly eggs.

I'm a serial monogamist, married twice, engaged once. I've found I could rarely go beyond the threshold of six months, a little less, a little more, without unease settling in my relationship, as if it were time to move on and find another. Therefore, I love the midterm game, relationships that aren't short-term nor long-term. These types of relationships have the best of both worlds. Whenever things end (not without a fight), I may seem to move fast onto the very next thing but hey, I am forty years old and there's little room for grieving longer than necessary. Idealistic as only a borderline case can be, I usually await a period of forty days (quarantine), in which I meet no one, I see no one, just lay low; nowadays, forty days are a luxury I cannot afford. I didn't go out there running to meet someone else; things happened. And I moved on.

Look, I won't deny the suffering, but nothing casts the skulls of an old flame like burning with passion in the arms of another lover. A young, slender, tall, dark-skin girl with a glorious ass, raised and born in the Bahamas, fluent in French. We met as roommates, and as roommates, I kept my distance. She didn't say much and I only worried she felt comfortable, so I began to offer her some of the food I cooked and she gladly accepted. Until one afternoon when I didn't feel like cooking and asked her if she were hungry, we could go to the local bar and take advantage of the entries on sale for happy hour. This girl does not drink, does not smoke, is a God fearing young woman and that is about all I'm complaining about.

Of course, you still deal with regret. It's a healthy dose of regret, just a bitter drop, a pill hard to swallow. You get to be one with the pain and be thankful for the times you had, remain receptive to the unlimited options any given instance grants you, if you would only dare. 

It's what kept me young, always living life as if there were no tomorrow, looking late-twenties in my forties. It's also to do with always procrastinating, I guess I procrastinated on aging as well. 

Procrastination is one of my deadliest sins. It isn't really procrastination if you don't get to do the things that you should. That you eventually get things done, things you could've tackled before, it shows that you've been unconscionable in your approach, wasteful with your most treasured possession: your time.

It's okay if emotional paralysis has set in, you get to pay the price of your past actions and know that karma truly is a bitch. Hurting the one we love is like putting our own hand on a burning stove. It hurts like hell but the pain is heaven-sent and I am one willful mofo who's not in the least bit intimidated by feelings of discontent. Like the legendary song writer Andres Calamaro once said: "It's amoral to feel bad when you've loved so much."

Existential Bias

What you fear tends to materialize. When you project fear of abandonment, for instance, unto a loved one, through jealousy, you're pushing them away. Ironically, you're making them run away by being afraid of them leaving you. People who have been abandoned or suffered greatly at the hands of others tend to act in such a way that they mess up their chances of success in any relationship. They sometimes create drama where there is none, have difficulty owning their emotions and let these take over and run rampant. In doing so, we may push others away with our way of being. But it's not like other people involved in our lives didn't play a role, no one's innocent or at the mercy of someone else's actions or just passively there waiting to be either validated or denied. At times, we find ourselves in the futile effort of trying to persuade others of our convictions. 
Such picture our mind creates that we fail to understand there really isn't anything we can do to change other people's mind. In attempting to do so, we become exasperated and feel at a loss. Keep in mind just how difficult it is to change our own way of seeing things; reserve your energy to do this and forget about changing others. It's worthless.
It's not like they choose to be miserable; some of them actually enjoy being so. And so, we indulge in angry states of mind because that's how our mind has learnt to deal with suffering; it's how you've come to see those closest to you deal with it. Of course, we can do a better job, have more and fine-tuned tools at our disposal than our ancestors did. Our collective mind, the mind that we picked up piece by piece from our surroundings, during our upbringing, is a reflection of the world we were born into, the age we belong to, the stories we were told. Some call reality an illusion; everything we experience is an illusion. 
That it feels real, doesn't make it so. And so, we tend to associate with our own way of seeing things until there really isn't a divide between what we've become accustomed to (homeostasis, the status quo, things done out of habit, impulse, bias, what we've been conditioned to experience time and again) and the boundless opportunities this moment is full of. We can choose our masks and wear them. We can play the role that life really is a good thing and that we could, if we were so ever inclined to, shift the direction of things by a mere action not yet taken. Conceive of the journey ahead, have the courage to take charge, and lead the way. Experiences come in different shapes and forms, and these fit perfectly to the way we conceive them. Isn't that such a coincidence that whatever we tend to believe vehemently is often reflected in our lives? Beliefs drive our lives; it is only prudent to examine them. 
This life is a vivid dream. In a vivid dream, we are aware of being immersed in the dream. We adopt reality like we would a pet, dress in it like the outfit we picked from our wardrobe, but in essence, we're still naked. And even the concept of this whole universe being nothing more than a figment of our imagination, our experience nothing short of a vivid dreamlike state, in which we know we're in a dream but it doesn't make it any less real, is, quite frankly, mind-boggling. The problem is not so much that we can't conceive of a reality in which everything there is to it has been fabricated by our minds since it doesn't make it more real to say that our experience is an illusion; the problem is that it doesn't even register as fact in our tribal minds. It's as if whenever we were confronted by scientific evidence, we rarely wake up in the middle of the night and really ponder upon the question as to what all this means. And meaning is what you give, not something you take; you seek out there what is already inside you, but you also need the external world to make sense of what lies underneath. There's no in or outs in the realm of things, no separation between the physical world (the illusion) and the mind. 
Spiritual gurus speak evils of the ego. In healthy doses, the ego serves as the guardian to our domain. It may fend off potential rivals and frenemies. We were not meant for the masses; we belong to the few. 

You may think that your thoughts guide your way through the rough patch ahead, but in order to transcend our present reality, we must first abandon our way of seeing the world. The truest journey isn't covered by the terrain we set foot in; our truest journey lies within. 

It isn't as difficult as it sounds, and for us to achieve so, all we need to do is just observe ourselves and even others, without prejudice, without judgment, like you would a situation that doesn't pertain to you. 
Let's say you witnessed an accident; obviously, those involved are emotionally taken by the situation. Those involved, being affected by the ordeal, aren't as likely to come up with a course of action as someone from the outside, who can assist and take charge of the situation easily since he/she is not affected directly by it. It's sort of like the mediator in a debate; since you have no stakes in the matter, you can play the neutral party. Similarly, when we observe our minds and the thoughts it festers, we can have a a clearer perspective, more objective, than someone affected by their way of seeing things. We see things the way we do because it's who we are, and who we are is a choice that we make day in and out without even realizing it sometimes. 
By being afraid of losing someone, for instance, we may very well end up making such a predicament true. What we fear becomes real since our minds conceives it as possible; therefore, it is paramount to take notice of the thoughts coming in and out of our minds. There within lies the answers to all that unravels, cooked up by our subconscious and eaten in its entirety by our beliefs. It may not be a conscious choice, and you may not see it as such; we defend vehemently our way of being because our own survival is at stake. We are all in our own path, blinded by our own way of seeing things, and we can only suffer through attachment. Attachment to people as much as attachment to the way we experience them, the latter more so. Attachment to the way we think and believe things to be. In seeing people and the way they deal with us, we're only projecting our own way of experiencing them and the world at large. We can't escape our reality unless we become conscious of it being just a figment of our imagination.

The norm usually dictates that every moment is unique and irreplaceable, and we should enjoy each other as much as we can for as long as we can, make peace with each other; forgive and the sorrow of your rancor will turn into joy. Forgiveness serves a selfish purpose: it absolves the one who genuinely experiences. Forgiveness is classy, it shows aloofness, and you shouldn't brag about it, either. It's not an empirical "I forgive you!" No, no. Forgiveness takes acts of kindness, you can show that you really, really, really hold no grudge over what happened, provided it was nothing more than unnecessary drama and not with the intention of making others like you. If you can live with yourself, then you really don't need the approval or disapproval of others. You may listen to something someone of importance to you may say, but in the end it's your choice. 

Forgiveness puts you on a pedestal, from which you cast down your sentence: "I forgive you." Instead, make it more about "I tolerate you", "It's not a big deal", "Moving on." Melodramatic people find in honorable acts of forgiveness the opportunity to contaminate everything with their ego. We may think ourselves strong but we usually are just plain scared. It takes courage to confront our demons, and I try and do something I fear each passing day. Fear is not the end product; fear is nothing more than an invisible line that separates us from a world of pure bliss and pleasure. We will always do more out of fear than love in spite of it. We should love enough to dare do the things that we want for as long as they want us; if a job or a woman doesn't want it, then there'll be another. But don't leave without a fight and don't pride yourself of just being proud. Nothing is more ridiculous than thinking ourselves brave when we are just pathological or neurotic. We all see our actions as being the most noble, but if we feel wrong is because we're doing something wrong; therefore, either we change the way we perceive things or change things. I think a little bit of both: our focus is a little bit hypersensitive. We have a short fuse, and we pride ourselves of it. We all want to exert self-control. 

When anger takes over, it's over.

Personality types and how some people's reality is stronger than other's

Feeling Good

Now I stay in the living room, make space, go for a walk. I kiss her once or twice a day, but I sleep by myself after holding her until she falls asleep. I sometimes grab her as she passes by, spank her, put her against the wall. I had my way with her in the last three days, it feels great, reinvigorating, fresh. She's 22, and I'm forty years old. She says absolutely nothing, texts me even when we're home, spends her time on the phone or the Internet. It's neither a pleasant feeling nor a quiet burden, but a state of affairs in which I continuously do what comes naturally, make love, cook, drink, smoke, write. 

I spend all these days off work doing absolutely nothing but writing, exercising, meditating and watching TV. I even went to the bar a couple of nights ago. She enjoys being by herself, next to me. I like the Internet too, and it so happens that the more freedom you exude by following the right path (it feels just right, it's not an effort), the more back you get.

I like my small freedoms, going out. I've enjoyed being single. Man, it feels great. After a while, the sex is not as fun; as a guy, you want to take her on. But she could be very cold. Life sucks sometimes and it does but then you realize that you're above your mind. It's not what you keep telling yourself; it's what works. And what works is getting out there, working out and meditating, meeting new people... all of those times in which I got numbers and said, I will call this girl tomorrow if I'm single. I called them all. Even girls who I haven't spoken to. I went on a few dates, had tons of fun; not traditional dates. Some of these people are already taken, but those who gave of their time happened to be single and, like myself, not necessarily looking. It feels great to get home not have to take my shoes off immediately. Even physical scars have waned. This more mellow, less combative type has some recent studies about alpha males: one of their main traits, which most people regardless of sex find more alluring, is the self-control they exude in the way they deal with you and the world. Yeah, now that I'm single, I can whistle all I want, but I rarely do so now; I'm superstitious now. And I eat cucumber. And I've missed that girl terribly. She hasn't been outside my conscious mind much but I have only grown kinder in memory, not her but the thought of her. 

The ones we were, the fun, all the things that point out and remind you, will dim its light. What was once, is no more; that's the way of life and no reason to be a downer. If you can't sustain the fall, don't bother climbing all the way to the top. Of course, it isn't ideal but for now we have way more than most men will have in her life. We had a good time, too, we just chose to focus only on the bad ones in the end. That things end, there's no way around that.
I don't fight it. It becomes part of who I am, and I rather it'd be a blissful vibe, a candid narrative, a cherished moment. If we can't stop thinking about someone, have those thoughts be about the good, too. Have and show the courage of caring. Don't go punishing yourself; the people you love inhabit only your head, your imagination, and part of the reason we suffer is because we struggle between the ideal and the real. That extra unreal baggage, what some call drama, can be squashed. It's like extra weight: the more you move, the less you have of it. 

Just the other night the thought of having hugged someone so much and for so long, it made me happy. I see the sad version of this thought: I won't get to see this person again. Oh don't be so melodramatic; the nice thing, to contradict Mr. Tolle, is that it happened and it was good. You've become the person who has hugged her more since her parents. Hugging is essential to the survival of the species. Right now, she must be massaging her ego. 

We stop short of annihilation, only because we know that if we go any farther, we'll all be in a very bad place. We're all fighting to stay alive. This survival mechanism is often selfish, impulsive and has a mind of its own, hard to bend, does not listen and does not care only to procreate or recreate its former lives through ego-based manifestations. You've become agitated? Find a way back to the source of joy that life is. Reflect back up until this moment. You can never be present and be mad. You're mad when you're mad. Usually, when you think back, you cover your tracks with excuses. You simply accept anger as part of the healing process.
  

Do not listen to the Voices of Doom

Anger, it has stolen something far too precious. I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but it was right before my eyes the whole time and I'm not gonna let it out of my sight until I vanquish this vermin called anger.
This altered state of mind, anger, it has robbed me of my peace of mind, the most beautiful of all precious stones, and it took my lovely girl, although I suspect she, too, was one angry bird. There are parallels to this ailment, just like anger today, a long time ago I was pathologically shy. The day I decided to no longer be so, it was a good start, but it took years. In my relationships, I've always take away something that I think could benefit, what I did right I continue and what I did wrong is simply discontinued. Behavior is modifiable, luckily, and we get to be better versions of ourselves if we so decide it. Now, narrowing in on the enemy, I'd say... it kept hiding from me throughout the years. First, I wasn't even remotely angry. I was actually rather passive. This is why, when I decided to fight others for the useless throne of being right, I felt I was doing a good thing for myself. Up until that point in my personal evolution, I had grown accustomed to others running my life, having their say and I stayed mum on the sidelines. Therefore, lashing out angrily at others was my way of saying, "Hey, I won't stand for this anymore." Initially, finding the feisty warrior inside made me proud and it was just so addictive to finally put a stop to all the abuse suffered. 
If we get angry, in part, is because it works. But you're playing grateful forces: your using violence to get your way and not all people react the same to intimidation. 
When you think of a thief, an unwelcome intruder, who wanders throughout your most intimate rooms, breathing the air you breath. You can't think of a greater threat than some inner entity that becomes "you" and lashes out without your blessing, because when we become angry, we lose control, restrain, fairness. We can express our anger, but not let it unravel in unhealthy projections, do not engage anger and do not let others push you around using the A card. 
But, going back for a moment, a thief, or better yet an impostor, who with your slight consent has taken you hostage and turn you into the living dead: fear is magnified in our minds, we're rather very primitive creatures. Imagine if there was something as contagious and as hurtful as anger can be, how it can infect a whole crowd in seconds and have catastrophic consequences. If we viewed anger logically, it usually means we're no longer angry. Of course, we may say that we are not, feel as if we aren't, but no one is without anger. The trick here is not to rid of anger but rather not let anger get a hold of you. Anger was hiding under the pretense of someone tough, happy to have found its voice and not a damn shy bone to quiet it! Maybe in abolishing shyness, I was carried away. 
Anger has stolen from me as much as shyness, if not more. And when I decided not to be shy again, I knew it’d take more than just that decision along the way. The way is only hard and steep until you get used to the movement, once you form a habit out of not getting mad, if you must say something in a harsh tone, tone it down; keep your poise, swag and aloofness; it shouldn't even register. But it was a good start. Pealing out the outer layer, maybe doing away with shyness fueled my anger, or perhaps because of there being a lot of repressed anger, I was vocal. In intimacy, a menace of a lover, so anger also hid itself behind jealousy. If I chose not to be jealous, anymore, could I just be angry instead? See, jealousy in small doses is fine, but once anger sets in, any trivial thing turns into a big nothing. When I was shy, I saved a lot of time by not engaging and therefore enabling confrontational people, but I had saved the fight for the one I loved. I had no friends, no relatives whom I frequent, no active social life. I am sort of a loner, sedentary, introspective. And though I have fun, fun to me isn't being at a bar late at night, if anything have a couple of beers and leave. Yes, there's such a thing as having a drink and leaving. I don't know what genius thought of getting relatively young people hammered late at night and have them mingle. You get better chances at the coffee shop. Once I got over being shy, I had no need for bars. Of course, I'd go if invited, party like there's no tomorrow, but four out of five times, I'm writing, meditating, reading, working, doing stuff at home, going to coffee shops, malls, anywhere where there are lots of people, and going to see my sons more often than my parents did. 

The story about my personal onslaught against the tyranny of shyness, it is a painstaking one that took me years and, in any ways, it still is an undergoing battle. For who can claim to be without the slightest shred of shyness? Shyness took away from me the girl of my dreams back in high school. It wasn't there and then that I decided to do something about being shy. I’d just say that was who I was, to myself, and others could see it too, but no one encouraged me even though many took advantage of it. It also stole the girl I loved back then, a dear friend of mine today. 

Extraordinary things happened for me when I confronted my shyness, but the real rewards took years to rip. That's how severe shyness was, but maybe it also had something to do with the fact that I was much younger, therefore less experienced and not as up to the task. It didn't happen overnight, that much I can say. 
So, it's not like I expect anger to go away, after years and years of nurturing the beast. It will not die a quiet death, I thought. Then I read this book about how we are not our thoughts by Mr. Tolle, and suddenly the voices ceased to murmur, I became more silent. The Ego, has a lot to do with it, but all good things in time come for those who go for it, and I am going to rely, not on doing things differently, but rather in learning how to cope with them without getting angry. I won't just let people walk over me, either; there's a healthy amount of character and firmness you can show without the need to lose control, as is often the case with anger. My thing is, I've been far less angry than ever before and, unlike shyness, I have already seen miracles in my life. Nothing specific, just the way people responds to me and all the good things that this new journey in life has brought. 

In tearing down anger, I underwent dozens of hours of meditation. One particular book, The Power of Now, is worth mentioning. In it, the author, Eckhart Tolle, candidly speaks of his disregard for the voices that sum up our thoughts. This inner mental chattering, the interior monologue we all carry with us wherever we may find ourselves being, or instead of being, accordingly, is the source of all our misery. That we should stop listening to our thoughts, as we are not our thoughts, and focus on this very present moment which is the most precious thing we got. Mr. Tolle doesn't speak in scientific terms, the book is esoteric in nature, strictly spiritual if you will, and nothing you haven't already heard from Buddhism and any other guru advocating the colossal benefits of quieting our minds through meditation. It's the way in which Mr. Tolle projects this "stream of consciousness" that determine our fate. Interesting enough, he mentions as a point of reference the axiom by the famous French philosopher Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." And he condemns such reference by arguing that it is a mistake to think of thoughts are the source of us being. Being and thoughts, in Mr. Tolle's book, are actually separate entities. 
Interestingly, too, how he sort of sees these inner voices that roam around our head as not just the source of our misery, but almost like living entities that refuse to die and want to "animate" themselves through our actions. In a single slingshot, The Power of Now throws down the debacle that pleasure is the true purpose in life, as Hedonism proposes; instead, joy is pleasure we can give ourselves. Anything other than the source of happiness, as in joy, as in emanating from within, is not something that is in someone else's grasp. What took hold of me is how Mr. Tolle describes corrosive emotions in our mental processing, the way these thought patterns are elaborate and forgotten puzzles in psyche, remnants of a time long gone that does not want to expire and die. All of our personal demons rose up from conflicts in our personal lives, but they do not need to be reenacted through disturbed manifestations in our lives. Instead, the solution is simple: ignore your thoughts. See them as they are, manifestations of a moment long gone or not yet present, joy is in living this very moment fully and leave regrets and worries behind. There's no tomorrow, there's no past; yesterday was today a moment ago and tomorrow will be shortly today again. In other words, we never get to be in a future time and what's left, whatever is gone, should be left alone. 
What a marvelous book. 
My only complaint is that not all our thoughts are evil. Some of us actually enjoy spending time in our heads and while there really isn't a tomorrow or a yesterday that can match up this moment, yesterday (to my mind) isn't always a bad memory and I love looking forward tomorrow. I guess Mr. Tolle speaks of the "evils" of a tormented mind and, for that, we can all be thankful. What's more, it gives us the reassurance that we really don't have to entertain thought-processes with dire consequences. In essence, whatever we choose to believe ultimately is the result of our own ego incarnating itself as a self-evident truth. We can abolish a whole lot of psychosis, avoid true pain, if only we stop listening the voices of doom. Nothing that we ever feared came out exactly the way we feared. Our emotions are exaggerated, therefore our response may be somewhat tremendous as well. How easy it is to know that we can get along with the demons within if only we can keep them quiet until their influence become null. 
It's a very uplifting, poignant piece of literature, with a fresh look at ourselves, our very own thoughts, as the fabric of our misery. And yes, some people is actually so afflicted over ruminating thoughts in their mind. To those whose heads are held as heavy-burden trophies, it's time to put the load aside and go on walking cargo-free. And in not listening to the voices of doom, it is reminiscent of what Nietzsche said of his predecessor and early influential figure, Schopenhauer. 

Take time off to be happy

On my way back from the Bronx (don't ask), I sit next to a girl reading a book in her native language. "That's Russian, right?" I asked her. "Yeah, how you know?" I choke, "It's hard to miss." She laughs, and this is something you just read and may not have found funny. It's the way that the short sentence is delivered: you use your face, your hands, your tone of voice to convey humor. Your body may say more by how fit you look than by whatever posture you assume. 

Throughout the day and everywhere, I interact with people, the subway being rather an exception: I like to keep quiet when I'm riding. Actually, I mostly keep to myself; my roommate likes to say next to nothing, but it's warm enough, the do-not-speak- unless-spoken-to kind. She's even quieter than the other girl.
Don't get me wrong, they're great. I mean, beauty has to be part of the deal and when there is beauty in abundance, certain traits in personality, other than fine aesthetics, go awry. You can't have it all, but you can have plenty. And I've been very fortunate with women. Ashley had more than looks, she was generous and graceful. Too bad she nagged most of the time, and always said shit that was hurtful; she was violent, too. She once broke a broom on my forearm; it hurt for weeks. And the scars from scratching are fading, but they were bad. She was also very vain.  

From time to time, you go the chase, but only after you finish your work. You will need time off to go somewhere, in the desert or the jungle, be one with nature, run naked in a rainstorm. Sure, we speak little of the voices in our head. These talk more and more about the recent past and how I've taken over the present, how the ego evolved into a more constructive self-esteem, how we chop day in and out to carve out this body and mind. In the physical spectrum, it's different: the harder you try, the farther you get. In the spiritual/mind realm, it is the undoing and the not-doing, just being, you aim for. And it isn't as if you go searching, no. It comes when you least expect it and doesn't make any promises but it delivers. Mindfulness makes us clear, peaceful, and kindness isn't rare. Often we run into old friends, and yet it happens because I am on the move, everywhere, and so chances are I will bump into someone I know. It's called synchronicity.

It's happened to me with everyone I know, the ones I care. Alan, my cousin, I used to see him on my way back from work many times on the same crossroad. Ashley I met several times around, once when we had fought and we had just come back from the city, she was with her then roommates and I hadn't seen her in a week or so. Then there was the time she was coming from the city and I was coming back from work, and we took the same bus. Up until that night, she had gone a couple of months aloof, shoving off my advances, leaving me in limbo. I told her that night that if she wanted just a friend, well then no, sorry. That was it, and I meant it. Then we got to fight it off and there was this ritual where I rid her of her clothes, barely take mines off, and just ravished her over and over. It was so good we ended up having sex every night for the next five days in a row and ever since then, we spend most time with each other. Ah, what times.

Of course, if there's meditation for good, its bad counterpart is Vodka. Just as you sit comfy and watch TV, no one fights over what to watch. You may not realize it but relationships are hard work and sometimes it doesn't even pay off. You put yourself through so much rejection, sometimes you just want to just get the fuck out of there for good. And so, when you do, you forget just how bad you had it, whatever you do it works only if it finds you happy and for that, whether you are in a relationship or not, it doesn't really affect the outcome. 

Being happy begins with you. And you kind of lose yourself when you're in love. It feels like you can't take enough, it's almost like a high you can't contain. And once you come off it, then you experience withdrawal. It's normal. I call it quarantine.

It's a period of forty days and its nights without making contact with the infected. In this case, the one you love. Once things are done, of course, and no less than forty days. No emails, no texts, no contact. It's sobering, I know. But once you know how to denounce to that which you hold dearest then you know more than most. You chose to be alone, your actions and your behavior clearly point to that fact. You may have chosen poorly by acting out in anger, but it made you realize anger is no longer our way of doing things.

We've come a long way from those angry days. 

Of course, emotions do not rule our lives. But anger should be like salt for cooking, use in small amounts. It gives zest, flavor, character to your foods. But destroying her trademark sunglasses, that was not cool. Throwing down the window a VCR from a forth floor long ago, as I reminisced having done with Glenda. We now laugh at those things and really wonder just how madly in love you really were. Not that you no longer aren't, but once you make space, time apart, you begin to see shapes and forms, and kind of find the whole thing funny. Look, I chase around my friends, can't say I stalk them. But girls I've been involved with? Rarely. Of those that started as friends and then turned into something else, some reverted back to friendship. Since you already know what you're like when you've been friends, then it isn't as evil. But relationships that started off without friendship rarely turn into friendships. You'd like to hang out with girls who you were involved, and I have at one point or another, but girls tend to only have friends and keep their exes at a distance. I think that's the price of getting the girl, you gotta let her go when the time comes. Show your face around every few weeks, whatever you do take time off to be happy. 

Etcetera

"You don't break the ice; you melt it" -Boris Amar.

It's hard to get an erection if I don't share a deeply emotional connection with the girl I'm with. This wasn't a problem until I read that the vast majority of us men have sex with our ego. Thanks a lot, Carlos Xuma! No, really, thank you. At times, that connection is established within seconds of meeting someone; sometimes, more.
Most men are goal-driven, so happy that they're are having sex, that they may even forget their partner and rush towards the finish line in an empty field, no defenders in sight to fend off, tackling them away from glory. Us men, we're competitive by nature, that's why we love sports, fast cars, action-packed movies, and can swiftly move from point A to point Z uttering a sound only dogs can hear. And just like dogs, we're happy to oblige, wag our tail and put it in between our legs if the right bitch comes along. Women are more like cats, painfully narcissistic creatures, amused by a lingering thread but losing interest if it doesn't dangle before their eyes. On the surface, it's as if we were destined for failure, and more often than not such is the case; but in reality, opposites attract and we observe polarities, night and day, hot and cold... the colder you get, the hotter she gets.

As a man, if you fail to grasp the concept of polarity, you fail to claim the god-given gift of your masculine essence in turn; in layman's terms, your woman already has a pussy, she doesn't need another one. But many of us come from broken homes, raised by single mothers or had a spineless man for a father; others absorbed the empowering feminist movement through movies, books, it was a cultural phenomenon that took flight since the 60's and, luckily, has no signs of slowing down. Women nowadays have no need for a man to take care of her, she got. Thanks, in part, to its success, which brought about plenty of good: a woman now had the right to vote, could decide how many children she'd bear, enter the workforce and not have to depend solely on a man to provide for her. But it also meant broken homes, children born out of wedlock, an increase in divorce and less need of marriage. Societies, more or less, favored the institution of marriage, it meant a couple, population control; men in power always laid down laws that limited the amount of women a regular man could have in a lifetime, unless that man be of power and had at his disposition vast resources. But now, since the sexual revolution that began with Alfred Kinsey, and peaked in the 60's, things had changed for good.
We now, in turn, created the wuss epidemic we're faced with today: a man more in touch with his "feminine side", and women wearing the pants in a relationship, a travesty! Fathers who could freely just pick up and leave their women with their young, for the minimum penalty of child support. "No judge can force a father to see his son; that's a moral obligation" said a black woman judge to the mother of my older child in a child support hearing. Still I see my sons every chance I get, giving to them plenty of my resources and time; I am not here to condone the bad aspects of masculinity but to throw light on some of its best assets.
Good literature dazzles. So does a great lover. It's what differentiates a writer like García Márquez to a typist like Stephen King. Good lovers take their partner's satisfaction into account; great lovers make it their business to please their partner first. And so, my erections are forged like mountains that were once buried under deep blue oceans... I climb every inch of her wet forest, claiming each soiled layer of terrain as a conquered faraway land... I can smell the ancient scent of her thighs and trace it back to the proverbial waves of desire... the wind rushing in, crystallized in each breath of air, the indivisible landscapes echoed in her trembling voice... only then I make home a dampened wilderness inside and build my foundation atop the exuberant hills below.

I had postponed venturing out into the night. In order to appease the gods of mayhem that lurk within a man's darkest desires, I decided to go out for a beer at the local joint. Not a bad place, and as soon as I cross the intersection between Lefters and Metropolitan, I spot a couple of idyllic femmes outside, smoking cigarettes, chitchatting with abandonment. The night is young and there must be little competition inside when the best group of girls steps outside and stay linger. I size them up faster than they can spot me; one glance will do to see the fertility and ripeness in a bunch. That's how they do when it comes to us: one look is all it takes and you're either in or out of their minds. And if you're in, then a second look to see if something was amiss. Initially, they avoid giving off the idea that they're looking, as they have the mating game down tight and it's the man who has to make an approach. Otherwise, he's not man enough for her. However, if a subject sparks their curiosity and shows no sign of interest, they may decide to entice him a bit more, see if he's just acting aloof. To women, the mating ritual throughout most of the history of the species meant survival and if a male does not return her the favor of showing interest, that is literally a death sentence to her subconscious mind. For what is this man whom I fancy not to love about every inch of me, she'd reason. One is petite, curves in places, a bit shy; the other is a medium size brunette with a body sculpted like a rock, fashionable and in charge; the third one, a spectacular blonde, the kind that could turn a pride of lions into a pack of meowing pussycats on all fours at her command.
Little do they know that this here is a different kind of breed, a bio-engineered cave lion who is not in the least bit intimidated by a Pink Panther (a strikingly beautiful blonde who exhibits man-like attributes due to men constantly kissing her ass, remains silent and animated, often insecure, self-entitled and quite pretentious, sort of like the one I recently dated). As I slowly go in for the kill, fully camouflaged like lions do, I come to a full stop and turn my back on them against the small iron fence that separates us, smoking my cigarette, arms stretched out, unmoved. It is as if the world had come to a standstill, you can hear the stunned deafening hush among their ranks, mute bricks of tension build up a wall of silence. You don't break the tension right off, let it boil like a pot and only gradually let it blow some steam; you don't break the ice, you melt it.

They rile in disbelief, the blonde walks back and forth as in a catwalk behind the gate I'm leaning up against, so I turn around to take a closer, unabashed look. I throw a bone her way, see if it's picked up: "You're not really a model, are you?" And not in a threatening tone, sort of a sarcastic, humorous undertone that says, "You look good, but I'm not gonna kiss your ass." All at once, I praised her, teased her, dissed her, my tonality left no room for aloofness on her part and now she has that look on her face that just wants to jump my bones, rip my clothes and make me pay for the audacity.
"I'll have you know, I have modeled before!" she fires back.
Oh, a fighter. It's boring when girls don't fight back, love it when they get down and dirty in a classy way like this girl just did. She restored her image, but I'm about to unleash mayhem upon her: "Yeah, I can see modeling has done wonders for your appetite." The petite girl laughed, the brunette stood her ground but was visibly shaken by the comment; the blonde was now ready to escalate her rhetoric, anxious to restore her place among the tribe. But before she could retaliate, I reassure her: "Who wants to be a model anymore? I'll put dancers over models any day, gotta have something to grab on to, really." My eyes fixed on her figure as I delivered the words "grab on", then graphically gesturing with my hands, as if lost in thought ever so present, a comically arrogant stance of mine. And it was the closest to an actual apology, since guilt was filling up my guts, that I had perhaps been a bit harsh to her, given that she reminded me somewhat of my former lover (the Pink Panther). That may have instilled in me a touch of ruthlessness, which I countered:
"Do you..?" Unlike the mime I had for a lover, she wasn't a puny feline, I could tell she was a formidable opponent and didn't want to risk antagonizing the group by slaying the dragon. Not just yet, anyway... intrigued as she was. "Do I what?" she shot back, confidently, putting aside her battered ego, almost as if she had suddenly become complacent and willing to play along. There's a dance of the egos to be observed, a synergy that is not about the words being said, more how and in what tone are they said; nothing to do with chance but a cold-cut, calculated, preconceived routine, one that ups any antics she may exhibit. If you punish rude behavior, and act not just as if but as you really have the control, if you see them objectively, you pay attention to behavior. How they may subtly inflict pain with indifference, unload their crap, show the slight hint of rebelliousness, test your resolve. People tell you exactly how they want to be treated by way of their behavior.
Beautiful women aren't challenged often, men let them get away with everything; then they develop this bitchy layer of skin; if you scratch it, she'll make you sorry for it. Best to go all in about, skin deep, rally the troops, conquer her. Ultimately, she'll only resist you if you hold back somehow; show no timidity, and your boldness will be rewarded. She may forgive a mistake or two, if they come from the heart; the body falls by its own weight. The mind is on auto-pilot. Like biking, you don't sit back and analyze anything; you don't divulge much, she's not your psychiatrist, and she isn't your mommy either. Don't go from a smile to "Can I take you out sometime?" That's cutting corners, what's worse, you're still locked up inside your head, thinking of the outcome. You need to be present, eyes locked, listen, speak up. It's not a game; it's a world you enter, inhabit and all of your own: impeccability, aplomb, kindness and pride.
Back to the girl, now: it is as if she intuited that I wasn't out to get her this time around; women can be oh so lethally perceptive.
I had lifted the iron curtain that had for a moment befallen us, pull/push, hate/love: polarities were in observance. Former enemies can make the most formidable allies. Tread cautiously, though, since the opposite is true, too: a friend can become a nightmarish rival.

For weeks, I had struggled with my finances. Lacking resources is always a reflection of the inner chaos an individual may be undergoing. It happened all at once. With the exception of work, where I kept a good footing, I was losing ground, love and the confidence it brings were shattered, something needed to change. Finally, I decided there was no way around it, cut emotional ties with the past once and for all, and the chains that hold you back will be broken. I thought, if something is dead, there's no need to let it rot; just bury it. I began by making a list of things to do in order to keep things in place, I fought back my eviction notice, called my 401K and found a clause that, in the event of an eviction, I could borrow the amount owed so long as I provided evidence of such case. In the end, I moved so many pieces that it wasn't necessary; I worked more, got two roommates, send check after check after check and by the time I decided to meet with her to give her back some of the money I owed her, not a disproportionate amount, she wasn't settling for any less than the entire sum. The end was near. She had moved out two weeks prior to that and I hadn't seen much of her ever since, though she showed up every time we made plans. Nothing will ever be the same, nothing was, nothing is. If my focus was on keeping things patched up, better do so if I feel she's in on the ticket; not a good dynamic when the man is the one invested, so I had to let her go.
I wanted to do so cleanly, but things got ugly quickly, as she abruptly stormed into my place demanding redemption, monetary retribution, tongue like a razor, she laid her traps and I fell for it. You can't please a lion with bird seed, she was spiteful, resolved, and I held her against me, little if any resistance, I kissed her forcibly, asked her to stop this madness. She took my computer and threw it on the floor, the battery came off, then took my tablet and threw it on the floor, and then also my other computer. Nothing was severely damaged, and I took the pair of sunglasses she had bought at Saks Fifth Avenue, in order to make her retreat. My intention wasn't to destroy them, but when I realized I had unsaved writings in my computer and gone forever were the equivalent of this entry tenfold (as part of my plan, writing always uplifts my spirit and centers me, so I had written quite a lot in the past few days, so much so that I didn't even bothered saving it). She knew so, I told her so, before she decided to throw the computer on the floor and the battery came off. Her sunglasses was a small price consolation, you can always buy a new pair, but when I lose (and it has happened before, because of carelessness, too, on my behalf) writing material, it's devastating, to say the least. Her crushed sunglasses were also a very definitive sign that I did not want anything to do with her anymore. She should have known that was the case when I packed her stuff and told her to leave, even though I brought her flowers later and told her to stay. Oh, the humanity. She left.
It was beautiful. I drank and we cried listening to music, helped her with her stuff and decided not to call her in a while. She told me during the heat of the fight not to bother call her, and then she decided that I should give her sometime. Then text me later in the afternoon the next day, "Wanna go for sushi." She picked up the tab, her generosity has no boundaries. Relationships make you fat: two dates with her in a single week -after sushi came the superb steak salad at Five Burros -and I gained three pounds already.

My financial footing was afloat, had sent countless checks to the landlord fighting back an eviction notice that dates back to April, 2014. Got myself two girl roommates to share the large room I have, put in plenty of overtime, paid off some outstanding debts and made strides towards rent money. I felt the momentum tipping the balance in my favor, so it was time to get back out. I am grieving still, drink a little more than usual, but also manage to exercise and, physically, I'm a lot stronger than ever before. As soon as the break-up happened, and Connie got word of it, she flew here twice in two months which is more than she has in the past year. Days before that, luckily, Esteban was on vacation and I took him with me every chance I got. I slept like a baby those nights, and insomnia has receded. From time to time, I feel the edge this sword called absence, guilt sets in, angry feelings stem, it's a process that may sound more dramatic in this piece of writing than it actually is. There's a melancholic element to composition, it appeases deniability, gets me in touch with the inner wuss I keep locked in a dark basement, sometimes I go downstairs and in the dark I can hear him cry. "Had enough, loser?" I tell myself, and he gives me back a serene look, without putting up much of a fight, and say: "Bring her back to me, hasn't your ego already caused enough damage?" he says. "We tried it your way, now it's my way or the highway, see you in forty days, weirdo" I say, then climb up the steps and lock the door, without the slightest hint of regret. That'll show him.
Yeah, in spiritual circles we speak of the devil in disguise this Ego character can be. But if it were up to the Wuss, we'd be in the same place and still more alienated. You show me how ridiculously Pride has gotten a hold of every one of your moves, and I show you how much of a prick I can be. You post a picture on Facebook of a night out with an older girlfriend who wants to enable you and have a different say in your decisions kind of the like the ones she didn't have for herself, and I delete two out of the four friends we have in common, then I raise you by putting down the engagement status. You delete me from Facebook, and I block you, put "Single," as you put "Ask if you want to know my relationship status." Oh, they know. There's no such a thing, and you look foolish which is what you were trying so desperately to avoid by meeting me half way. I put an end to that, too. I won't unblock you either, and I won't kiss your ass like all of your exes. Once I'm through with you, you will really feel that this is an indifference of a whole new level. I won't call, won't text, won't even mention your name.
I decided it was time to fuck around, but since finances haven't been good enough to spend money on nights out. Well, it's not just my finances; the work there is an ongoing process, so I use it as an excuse and leave barely enough money to get me by throughout the week. Going out isn't on my plans anytime soon.
I don't date, haven't done so in ages, unless it's my girl whom I'm entertaining, I don't see the reason to; after all, whenever I venture into the night, there are a lot of girls already out there. Why invest on a nest when there are so many birds flying in the sky above? I told her, text her really, that as a man, I don't need to have cozy feelings for a girl in order to fuck her. I lied. There's that erectile dysfunction I talked about when it comes to having sex without any emotional connection in the very beginning of this dissertation. I have been postponing going out, because I know the minute I do, I will find someone extraordinary and I am just not ready yet. Pleasure right now is in taking care of business, getting my license back, build some foundation and then, maybe then, go all out.
This was my predicament, but in order to appease this inner beast, I decide to go to the bar one block away from where I live. I had bought a gallon of cheap vodka, Giorgi brand, for $15 and had put aside $20 for the magnanimous occasion. At the local bar, the Hanger, watery draft Coors Light costs $4 and after the third round, the bartender gives you a buy-back, plus $6 tip. Yeah, I'm on a budget, so my plan is to get a few drinks home and then have a few cheap draft pints at the bar provided that the female-to-male ratio did not look as somber as usual: ten guys for every girl, counting the bartender.
Done right, the ratio should only include how many semi-hot girls are there, not just any girl, and girls by themselves, or with gay friends (easy to spot them: one time, I overheard the gay guy whisper something in this trashy girl's ear and I distinctively heard her answer aloud "Oh, no honey, he's not." I had seen her outside smoking earlier, when I went out for a smoke, and she asked me for a light. I have a strict policy lending my lighter to a stranger, especially more so if it's a girl, I tell her, and then embrace her and light her cigarette with the one I'm holding in my mouth). As beat-up as this place still is, the new owner has made, who also owns Tu Casa, has made some improvements, introduced flat screen TV sets, made it less depressing; the regular crowd that gathered there when it was called The Kew Club has left ever since, looking for a gloomier spot, I guess. And even so, I've seen countless beauties there before, regardless of how many guys, I have an untarnished reputation of seeing a full half glass where others see the need for a another shot and call it quits. I have succeeded where others saw many obstacles. I've been surrounded by the only girls left there, as the shock and awe in all the men there. This creates jealousy.
I never give off the vibe of being so and girls naturally gravitate towards my enigmatic pull. Topple that with the fact that I am an interesting, intelligent humanoid, who despite having a well-versed arsenal of conversation topics at his disposal, rarely makes use of the windbag. Instead, I put little, if any effort, I never catcalled a girl in my life. Initially, because I was pathologically shy, and then because when I decided to build the courage to do so and find out what it was that kept them away from me (at least the ones I found most appealing), I found it wasn't necessary, in fact it was quite foolish.
I've seen the blonde again, and avoided walking up to her and saying some chummy shit like: "Hey, remember me?" That's just outlandishly stupid. Instead, I know she gets that and more from guys who once may have sparked her interest. She may or may not have followed suite, but in the end she couldn't help but feel betrayed. A guy once asked me, "How do you get to be so lucky with women?" Normally, I'd play aloof, avoid bragging about it and I find no pleasure in humoring a lesser man. It's because, I'm superstitious, and because those who brag don't really have it. Tell me what you brag about and I tell you what you lack, that sort of thing. Instead I keep away from company, especially men who ask such stupid blunders. But I felt like answering his question: "It's because I don't rely on luck."
There's no denying I've yet to master certain aspects of it. True players are always fine-tuning their game. The blond with which I danced and dismissed the other night because at the time I felt that I didn't want anything to do with another blonde in a while is nearby. I'm beginning to change my mind. She comes up to me this time around: "Are you hiding from me?" Clever girl.
Women will always be intriguing and far more interesting than men in this respect. Like I said earlier, to them it was a matter of survival, if she can't have the one she wants, she wants him ten times more. Of course, you can always make the case that women can be just as logical and adopt the same predatory skills that men have been handed down generation after generation. I've seen them, the ones who would walk up to me and initiate. But I'm a hunter, and I'm not into being handed my food. I am also not into wasting time. So, my thing is, those who show defiance to the established rules of this game, particularly the one that says it is up to the man to choose, I stay away from. They're bad news, I look for supremely feminine girls who dream of one day finding the right guy, I am a prince with a mercenary heart, I learnt the game the way they wanted to see play out because of love, not ego. I'm not out to prove anything and I sincerely think women are far better players than the best of us so-called players, but they are kind, too. And let you slide if you miss, and you're bound to miss, just like any skilled player in a any given sport. Michael Jordan missed more shots in his career than he ever put in the basket; in baseball, it's the pitcher who usually beats the hitter time and again. Therefore it's women who choose us, we just don't have the intuitive eye they have to see it.
All of these things pervade my mind, but I don't take a second to smile and implicitly answer: "Yes." She's not the predator, I was just bidding my time and she felt like calling my bluff. "Well, don't" she says. "Here, take this empty glass to the counter, since you're going in." Okay, now she's pushing her luck.
"You take your damn glass and put it back yourself. I'm not your errand boy!"
"Fine!" she says and walks into the bar. I stay outside, now I gotta stay out here for a bit longer, can't succumb to the temptation of running up to her, grabbing her by the hair and bringing her home with me. Not just yet.
It is my decision before hand that once I drink three beers and I get my buy-back, I will leave a four dollar tip and leave. No harm done, just a bit of fun in an otherwise dull night out at the local joint. Outside, as I defy the blond, I see a a girl, she looks a bit worn-out, well in her thirties (I find later, she's in her mid forties), fragile. She approaches me and asks if I have a cigarette. "Sorry, I only got one left" I tell her. It was the truth. "But maybe when I come outside again, we can share it." She walks into the bar a few seconds behind me, sits across me. From where I stand, I can see the blonde come alive with her friends, she's in the prime of her life. I can also see on the other side the small frame brunette that had asked me for a cigarette, still beautiful despite her years, lonely, with a look of despair, sipping a glass of water. We make eye-contact, she smiles and I smile right back. She comes and sits next to me. Suddenly, the blonde is not so pleased, I have caught her attention by having a girl sit next to me. I ask the brunette, "What's your story?" It turns out, she's just had a fight with her abusive husband and long story short we end up back at my place where I left her sleeping, because she had no place to go. That's the story I tell the blonde when I walk back into the bar forty minutes later, but I skip the part where we had sex. No penetration, just oral, and very carefully because her upper lip was still swollen from the beating her husband had put on her.
I never thought it'd take me only a drink and one thing I won't stand for is physical abuse. I know you need the right victim, she's not without blame, but since she was out on a vengeance, I felt we could kill two birds with one stone. It all took less than an hour, and since I didn't have a condom, I told her I could only get an erection in my old days, after drinking and smoking, if she went down on me. I explain this when she's already at it. I tell her how I want it done: "Slower. Look at me." Etc.