Alan

heavy like a loaded gun

Dear Internet,
First, one of my pieces, “Devil’s Advocate: Just Because I Divorced Him Doesn’t Mean He’s Not My Best Friend”, was published today at A Practical Wedding. I’m proud of this piece and as an update, after reading this, TEH said, “When you get married again, let me know so I can send you a gift.”
We may not get along romantically, and we’ve made those lines very clear recently, but I don’t know what I would do without him.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged when I start dragging out Elbow, some emotional shit has gone down. I’m not sure how much I’m going to reveal at this juncture (you can wipe your computer screen now), but it has hit me to the core. Just — when I’m now at my lowest point, things never do change, do they? I guess I can believe what I want, as it was reiterated to me, to make myself feel better but when the same thing said now as in the past to erase one’s own pain, well, despite all of my faults, you can’t argue the same thing was not done thrice.

Star Wars: VII trailer dropped yesterday and in honor of that, I wrote up my first experience with Star Wars:
“Ex-Fiance #1 and I met in 1994, I was working at a video store. He later told me he hemmed and hawed for months before asking me out, which lead to one of first dates watching Star Wars on laser disc because I was 22 and never saw the damned thing. Yes, the first time I saw SW, I was an old lady and it was on laser.
Over the years, we went from being together to not being together for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into now. As the relationship petered out, as they always do, we remained just plain old fuck buddies. Somewhere in between, he found a woman we referred to as Lisa-lite. She could have been my twin, the resemblance was that uncanny, down to some of her interests. I met her when my then boyfriend and I double dated with them. My then boyfriend looked liked Ex-Fiance #1. AWKWARD.
The midnight romance ends at some point and a few years go by. I’m working at a bookstore, putting myself through my first Master’s degree. Who but shows up one day is ex-Fiance #1 with a big smile on his face. He and Lisa-lite had gotten engaged and he tracked me down to tell me that. I was selfish sleeping with him for a very long time, but this was downright cruel. Almost unbearably so.
He then suggested since he bought her a black diamond engagement ring, I should buy matching earrings. He then left while I ran to the break room and cried for a solid half an hour.
Every time I hear the opening music to SW or read the opening scenes to episode IV, I start crying like a maniac. It’s slowed down considerably over the years, and I’m no longer (as much) of a crying mess. Whoever I’m going to see VII with, I come with tissues.”

Please watch your step, naval gazing ahead:
As I was writing this, it got me thinking about how I handled my romantic relationships of yore. First Miguel, who I had a thing on and off with for years, when beginning when I was 19 and he 20. He is living in Guam due to family business. He calls me one night, drunk, to tell me he has been fucking someone twice his age. To gain experience, he said. I was still the love of his life, he said. I went back and forth with him in-between other exes — always him telling me I was the one for him, me falling for it, and then him doing something awful. And as time went on, he stopped calling and I stopped having to defend my no’s. He contacted me in 2012 and again last year, which lead to an interesting conversation. (If he’s anything, he’s at least predictable. I’ll probably hear from him next year, as he will then be due to profess his love.)
Next Alan, who dumped me for another woman but kept coming back for more until that faithful night when I, at a bar, she and I got into a fist fight and I had to be dragged off and out by bouncers. He’s living somewhere in Detroit, married, has kids. He once got in touch with me back in the early naughts, about a decade after we had last spoken, to see how I was. “I think about you a lot,” he says. “I miss you,” he says. But then I never heard from him again. Of course.
Then Danny a few years later. We date for six months, I have a massive panic attack about being stuck in suburbia so I cut and run. I come back. I cut again. I come back. At some point we went down to just fuck buddies (see above) and he marries Lisa-lite.
TheExHusband. We date for 18 months. I run. He tracks me down nearly a decade later. We get married. He stops treating me like a wife and more like a roommate. I threaten divorce. Nothing happens. I leave him after nearly seven years. After the divorce, he’s been contrite as to why he was hurting me. We’re slowly building our friendship back together. We’re not dating, just very close friends.
I split up with TheExHusband.
TheBassist tells me he’s got me.
TheBassist. Hoo boy. We date in 2005. He cuts and runs and goes back to his ex-wife. He contacts me six months later, they have separated again. He leaves me again. Flash forward to nearly a decade. He’s been leaving me love notes across the Internet during that entire time. Everyone in his circle knows about the Michigan Girl. Even his girlfriends know during that decade of silence. I am a force to be reckoned with, he says. No one has loved him like I loved him, he says. He was wrong, he says. He made a mistake, he says. I am the love of his life and if he can’t have me, he doesn’t want anyone else, he says.
“I know she doesn’t remember me, since it was about nine years ago now, but in Grand Rapids I made a very large mistake with someone else’s very important organ. I chose what was safe over what made me happy, and I proceeded to reprogram myself. Grand Rapids became my codeword for not choosing love over security, a monument to my own cowardice.”
My life is shit. I’m no mentally stable. I have no job. I’m essentially homeless. I never not believed in us, I just never believed in me. I cut and run. I come back. I cut and run. I come back. In between all of this, I run out of money. Then he cuts and runs with the same reasoning as 2005: He made a unilateral decision on what was best for me rather than letting me make that decision myself on what was best for me. (And trust me, I begged and pleaded for him to not do this again. “It’s like 2005 all over again,” I cried hysterically into the phone. “It is and it isn’t,” he says.)
“Are you going to love me always?” I ask later. “You’re a piece of my heart,” he responds.
(This time, unlike other times, all of this is verbatim from texts and comments spanning the Internet. Memories are rotten bastards but at least this time around I have primary sources to back me up.)
I’m as equal as anyone in what went down, but, when I’m at the lowest point of my life, to leave? Again? (To be brutally fair, despite my anger at him leaving, he couldn’t take the back and forth. “We’re always on pause,” he says. “I wait for you. It’s what I do,” he says. But it just hurts beyond human reasoning he leaves when I am at rock bottom. I am no angle in this world of ours, and I get that. But that doesn’t make it any less painful when he said goodbye on the phone.)
I’m a hot mess and also human. In the past I’ve bent the truth, I’ve blown things out of proportions, I’ve been a bitch. I’ve had my share of moments. Life is a fucking chaotic mess. Nothing is black and white. There are blurred lines everywhere. I’m constantly at war with my own self-esteem.
There is never someone who isn’t as in touch with their foils, foibles, and feelings like yours truly. Jesus fuck, I’ve been examining the human psyche via my own life for years.
It’s intoxicating being told you are the love of someone’s life and in the case of TheBassist, to reply that was true from me as well. But what does that mean in the long run? Do you cut your losses when shit hits the fan? Do you work through the shit? Why aren’t there any concrete answers?
I’m in love with love, and I freely admit it. Who doesn’t want that kind of intoxication? And I’m more in love with TheBassist than in love itself. Fucking bastard. He of the big words, lightening intelligence, and fabulous hair.
(I am not terribly surprised my comment from above, “I’m not sure how much I’m going to reveal at this juncture,” turned out not to be true.)
I want to take responsibility for my own actions. I want to see clear-eyed for the future to really think about what it means to be in love, whether TheBassist and I end up working shit out or not. Because if he asked me to, I would do it all over again.
I want to feel to be the center of someone’s world. I want them to be there when shit hits the fan and when I laugh as they drive around cloverleafs because that simple act makes me happy. I want my own life and be the part of someone’s life. And even when I am at my lowest, I won’t stop believing that such a love exists.
And if it’s not him, and someone else comes along (much) later on, I will still take that chance, foolish me, to give it 1000% and to love big. Love large. And when my heart gets broken, again, I’ll pick myself up and do it all over again.
Here are my mediations on love. Die trying.
I still believe in love, so fuck you.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2010, 2003, 2003, 2001, 1998

It’s all for you baby.

I’m done killing kethryvis I think, I’ve been serenading her with Tommy Page lyrics for a while now and she says she has to go brush her teeth from the sweetness. hah.
So, before I go to bed, I just wanted to jot this down.
I mentioned about finding someone recently and getting in touch with them. I’m good at that, you know, finding people. His name was Mike. (hence he started the trend where I state all men named michael have broken my heart — except dear humandays, cos I lurve him).
I’m very punch drunk.
As I was saying, I met Mike when I was 17. He’s like in the top three guys that have been hugely influenced on me. First off, he pursued me. LIke relentlessly. Like intensely. Our relationship spanned on and off for five years, I don’t think anyone has pursued me as much as he did, almost frighteningly and I was ms “Oh, no, I’m not getting involved” with him kind of thing. Which of course caused him to pursue me even harder. But he stuck by me for a lot of things and well, there were some times I treated him pretty badly. It was fucked all around.
Things were heavily complicated. Especially when you are 17, 18 and 19, ane especially 20, 21.
So the crux is:
Mike’s family was/is pretty influential in the area and he ended up leaving and going to Guam, and shit changed drastically between us. He wanted me to come out and we were going to get married and all these big huge dreams when you are 18, 19, 20 years old. Then one night he calls me and he tells me he had been with someone. An older woman. And he was drunk. I was floored. You know how it is when you finally work your trust down and you finally say “Okay, yah, I want to trust this person” and they hurt you and you kick yourself in the ass about it. Well it was like that. and he had the gall to say “I did it all for you baby.” Jesus, I can still see the image of the scene when he told me on the phone and my facial expression in the window pane.
Shortly after that, I ended up dating Alan, which lead to another interesting period in my life. which is neither here nor there. And Mike flew back from Guam and he walked into the store I was working at out of the blue, with two plane tickets to go back to Guam, and one of them was for me. And here I am 20 years old and what the fuck am I supposed to say that ? I said no. I was with Alan, he was THE ONE. hah. Boy was I wrong. But I was young and god, things were just intense. And the look in those big green eyes of his when I said no and when he left. I cried, convinced i had made the right decision.
My relationship with him was like that, on/off, for a long time. I guess in a way I’ve been disappointed that he’s never come looking for me? Maybe I fancied myself as being HIS ONE and therefore thought he would try to save me (from whatever — probably myself) Mike did a lot of actions that I always based future boyfriends on. You know, if XXX loved me he would pursue me the way Mike did. Whatever, the point being that there is a lot of unfinished business between us.
So I’m browsing around on classmates.com and I’m thinking “oh i wonder if xxx” is on there and I narrow the search to all students who are there from 1987-1992 or something silly and his name shows up on second or third page. I just kind of sat there and looked at it and looked at it again. I sorta half laughed, half cried. A few years ago when I was home when my mom was sick, Josh said he stopped by and asked about me. Wanted to get in touch with me. Josh hadn’t spoken to me since I had left for SF and no one knew how to get in touch with me.
So sent him, Mike, and email message, no word back.
I have not spoken to him since 1994? 1995? I still remember his smell, Joop! cologne for men. heh. He had the biggest green eyes. Great voice. Chubby in all the right places.
We were so fucking innocent, it’s almost painful to think about.
I do not romantically hold ideals he’ll come and rescue me, because i know that won’t happen, But I do know I’ll see him again and then we can finally get closure to this whole mess. I just hope he’s happy. I also know I’ll see him when I least expect it.
our song is below: shut up.
Get your lighters out and start swaying

when we were kids

he left me when we were kids.
i was 19 and he was 21 at the time when the affair had started. mere children. shortly after i had turned 20, the man who i had thought was the one i was going to marry me, was planning on marrying someone else.
for a decade he has haunted me.
i moved as far away as possible and yet i still see him nearly everywhere i go. one day i was having lunch with a friend and I had thought I had seen him and his wife walking by us, leaving the restaurant. i was three thousand miles from home and i think this is him.
it wasn’t, obviously, he.
it wasn’t me he had wanted, it was her. it wasn’t him at the restaurant, it was someone else. but seeing or thinking i saw him was enough, if even for that briefest of seconds.
when he and i lived in the same city, i used to see him occasionally around town. driving down the street, going into clubs, seeing him in stores. he was always alone and she was never around.
when he had broken up with me, i was devastated. with him, i was everything i thought i could be. i was loved and loving. old and young. pure and a whore. he made possible everything in my heart that had know even known existed or was too scared to show. my own sensual and sexual identities were pushed forward and ripped apart when he was around.
i thought he was the one. i thought we were going to get married.
this to me was love.
it was christmas 1992. I was wearing some paisley/floral type dress i had purchased for the informal christmas party that was being held at his brothers place. i remember watching his brother and his wife and thinking ‘this is what i want. i want to marry him and bear him children and we can have this fantastic life together’. i truly believed that. i envied his brother and adored his sister- in-law. his nephews were not that much younger than we were at the time. I remember us leaving and holding the jewelry box they had given me for christmas that year. his mother had given me a ring that belonged to her mother several months prior to all of this. i think they thought that i was the one, and i wasn’t. i do not know what happened to the jewelry box. the ring i kept and have lost it along the years.

I found him after nearly 10 years.
Actually, it was easier than I thought it would be — Shelly has been finding people left and right on classmates.com, and I hadn’t even ever thought to check that out to see if he was listed. Oh boy, today was my lucky day.
And yes I did email him.
backstory: when i was a young lass (now that I’m old and crotchety), i met this guy, named alan, who was the airborne express delivery guy at the place I worked at. Turns out, after I had been working there for about four or five months, alan had the biggest crush on me. Everyone knew it in the store — except yours truly.
We dated and it was — to put it mildly — really intense. It was for me anyways. Alan was the guy who brought the freak out in me — and it was because of him i went and got my nose pierced. Yes, it’s true. Lisa @ 20 wasn’t as bright as Lisa at 29.
Alan and I dated for about six or seven months, and he was — simply put, my life. I lived, breathed, fucked for that man. Everything in my little world was wrapped around his happiness. Then the day after Christmas, 1991, he broke up with me.
We continued seeing each other on the side — you see, he cheated on me with his now-wife, and cheated on his now-wife with me before he got married — our ‘affair’ lasted another 6 months which lead to a blow out of me getting into fisticuffs with her at a bar shortly after my 21st birthday.
I never saw him again.
Alan, heh, I’m laughing now when i think about it, was the end all be all of existence for quite a few years. Last time I saw him was in 1993, and I didn’t date anyone again until 1995. I cried, bled, screamed and tore up because of that man.
See, I don’t know if Alan’s recollection of me is the same of what I have of him. This didn’t actually dawn on me until tonight when I dropped the email to him — thinking maybe i didn’t make that big of impact on him as he did on me. I’m trying not to let wishful thinking get in the way of memory. I remember the really stupid shit — the times when I was strong and I told him to fuck off and he’d show up at my house and we’d fuck for hours. What was it about me that drove him to her? Why wasn’t I good enough for him? All these questions have been burned in my memory — hell, Danny and I talked about this when I was in Grand Rapids. We were discussing about Danny’s reunion and I said “I have no idea what I would do if I ran into Alan again” — and I didn’t. I still don’t. Why does it matter — now, after all these years?
It shouldn’t, right? I mean, my god, look at how my life has changed — look at how much I’ve changed, look at what I’ve accomplished and done with my life with very little to build on.
According to his bio, he’s in the naval reserve now. He’s clean cut and changed — just as I have changed.
Maybe it doesn’t matter if he does respond to me or not — maybe it just matters that I made the first step to getting closure — and maybe he never realized how much he is part of my commitment issues — if only he had been honest.
I’m throwing blame on him, and it’s true. I never could stand for lying cheating and being dishonorable — and he was all three — but that memory, that memory we all carry of our first big love that burns into our hearts and changes us. That memory which we think is buried deep inside us isn’t — it’s always on the surface waiting to get out.
x0x0x
lisa

memory lane

October was a freaky month.
>my mother was on suicide watch, i didn’t see the shrink, i got promoted, my brother racked up a few bills, paul started a new job at AOL, Wednesday got bigger, an uncle died, I went to a spa, kethcame to visit.
That is stuff I can remember.
i should have been recording this, i should have been writing this done, but i wasn’t and i didn’t. but it’s a free country and i was getting sick of people emailing me and calling me asking me if i were alive or not, and i am; so i finally sat down and finished this damn thing.
one note on the design, if it looks even vaguely familiar, it was one of the first “professional” designs i had done by a friend of mine nearly two years ago. i realized it looked much better than anything i had done recently and so i modified it and threw it up. tada. aren’t you glad you waited? i also gave up on blogger. it was pissing me off.
rituals
every Friday night, paul, moe and I head to Logan’s Steakhouse. It has become such a ritual, that we even have our regular waitress, whom knows all of our orders and doesn’t bother bringing us menus anymore. We adore her so much, for her birthday, we tipped her 150 bucks. This is how loyal we are to this joint.
Moe ditched us last night and went out to see Circque de Sole with another friend so we got a few other people to come hang out with us. We should have known it was bad when our waitress wasn’t working, the soccer moms had taken over and the wait was nearly 1.5 hours to grab a table. Since we were all planning on seeing Bedazzled after dinner, we decided to take a stroll over to Barnes and Noble to look around.
I knew Moe should have come with us.
As soon as we walked in, I did a double take to to my right and saw someone who looked suspiciously like my ex, Alan. If you would have told me that nearly 10 years after we had started dating I would be having panic attacks about seeing him still and convincing myself he was still the one, in every day reality i would be laughing in your face. When the truth hits the fan, I was hiding behind the audio books watching this guy like some stalker, peering over the racks looking to see if it was him or not.
What was it that caught me off guard? The way he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
I’m not kidding.
I wish it were something that would have been more pronounced, like actually looking like him or something else other than flipping this wallet out of his back pocket, but it wasn’t.
That disturbs me.
What is even more disturbing is that I’ve been having slideshows in my head of previous exes in the last decade since I met Alan before this encounter last night. I had a dream last weekend that one of my best friends Josh ended up with me and cheated on me with some girl I knew back from when I was working in San Fran. I’ve been having quick flashes at the weirdest times of guys I’ve dated seriously (and not so seriously) of smells, instances, little things that are reminders of my time with them.
You would think, wouldn’t you, that after all this time I would be over Alan? Why does he keep holding a strange hold over my life.
I’ve been down this route before. i talked about it a couple of years ago when I had thought i had seen Alan at a restaurant Michael and i had gone to.
so realistically, the chances of Alan moving from mi->ca->va the same times i have are very slim to none.
i know this.
but that doesn’t stop the heart beating wildly and the thoughts going crazy in my head when i thought i saw him.
I’m going home to Michigan in December to see my mom and touch base. paul thinks I’m crazy for feeling like i do because this is the here and now — but the really scary part is, i used to think the last 10 years of my life meant something — and i wonder if all this time if i kept myself in some sort of blanket and protection about Alan and i’s breakup — if it was all just one delusion set upon by me?
wouldn’t that be a fucking bitch.
x0x0x0x
lisa

oh L’amour

As I sit here and write this, our gateway has died. And it’s almost funny because last week the big mulit-billion dollar company forgot to pay their phone bill — so we were forced to use 1010321 to dial out to make calls. Which wasn’t that big deal for me — I don’t call anyone. 🙂
Anyway, I’m bored. I can’t being to tell you how bored I am. I’m sitting here drinking Diet Mt. Dew and eating Rolos — and writing a chronicle. Wishing I would have left early — which I did not. buh.
New Nine Inch Nails cd is out called “The Fragile.” I got the mp3s yesterday from mah crack dealer, and let me tell you, “Even Deeper” and “Starfuckers, Inc.” of course own. I do, do so highly recommend picking it up.
Ask Lisha! Someone had decided that it would be a good idea if i started doing an advice column mixed in with my regular column. Which we all know, based on my very strong opinions, can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what it is. heh. So, without further ado, here is the first question I got (and a pretty simple one if I may add):

Dear Lisha,
All right, here’s a question. Where the heck do you go to meet people (Read: Women, I suppose) if you don’t drink and you work in an all-male enrollment, where everyone’s a decade older OR (at least one) standard deviation stupider?
–SabbathRM

Funny that this is the first question, as I have been giving “advice” to several friends who have been bitching and moaning about the lack of a social life in their area. Are they listening to me? Probably not 🙂 But, since I am also moving to a brand new area within a month, this is a damned fine time to put my ideas into action!
You didn’t tell me how old you were or where you lived — which can either be plus or negative points depending on how you look at it. Do keep in mind that because of this, you have to adjust this to your flavor.
1. Are you happy with yourself? This may sound like a very trite question, but it’s a very simple one. See, all too often, we as humans, often think that finding the “right” mate will cure us of our ills — when they really won’t. The first important step is to make sure that you have /some/ sense of self. This makes for a better foundation of anything that you are doing.
2. Do for you. Again, sounds trite, but it is true. When in the process of going out into the evil world, do keep it in mind that you want to make yourself happy. IE: Don’t join a club of some sort just to meet women. You’ll end up regretting it later. Draw up a list of what your interested in. Name everything and anything possible. Also list stuff that you think you might be interested in: IE: you’ve always wanted to learn how to sky dive but never had the balls to do so. maybe now is the time for you to do that.
3. With that list in mind, start thinking of ways to get going on that list. Meaning? Very simply, start looking for clubs/mailing lists/places local to you that cater to that kind of activity. For instance, I’m moving 3000 miles into a new state I’ve never stepped foot into and have no idea what the social scene is like. While my perspective roommate is also one of my best friends, our choices in activities vary greatly. With that in mind, I started making a list of stuff i was interested in and have never had a chance to get involved with. Like linux. I would love to join a LUG. I searched and found two LUGs in my new area and got signed up on the mailing lists. I’m also into astronomy, poetry/book readings, and dancing. I’ve also wanted to front a band, play at being a domme, etc etc etc. One of my plans when I get into the area is to look for activities based around those interests. I’ve also been interested in volunteering at a rape crisis center for a few years now — and plan on giving some of my time to that. This listing of activities will help me get off my supple young ass and into the world, while meeting and greeting people. I know that I’m not going to like them all, but that isn’t the point. The point being I’m not sitting at home glued to my computer.
4. Maybe your shy. Yesh, I can understand that completely. When thrown in new situations, I tend to be more of an observer than a participant. This may seem contradictory to what many people know of me (mainly those who have meet me in social functions), but my own shyness has lead me to not take advantage of the things that were offered to me in the Bay Area. I’ve never been farther south than Santa Cruz and have never done a lot of things that I want/should have done while i lived here. In a lot of ways, I regret this but that little experience also spurned me to want to do better in a different local. With that being said, do realize that you are not on any time schedule of the sort. You have to do for you — in what makes you feel better. Don’t put a time limit on yourself.
5. Put up a personals ad. Okay, stop laughing now, but I’m not kidding. One of the many things I keep hearing from all my friends is how lonely they are. Many of the whine and bitch about how men/women suck ú and how they are tired of dating and etc. See, I’ve always been /alone/ but I’ve never been lonely per se. I’ve always known how to amuse myself (as it were). And I’m picky. Really picky. When I moved to SF and my boyfriend at the time and I had broken up a few short months later, I put a personals ad in to see what the local flavors were like. I met a few people, went out on a few dates. Okay, so they were pretentious yuppie fucks that I wanted to bitchslap, but I got /out/ and /about/ and really tired to get some sort of social scene started.
The big question is always, “but i want to fall in love” or “i know what i want, but she/he seemingly doesn’t exist”. I honestly believe that there is one right person for everyone. But people do change. I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago or even five years ago. When mah ex Alan and I had started dating, many of the core details in my life remain the same as they were then, but in many many ways, I’m a completely different person. So, what was right for me at 21 isn’t right for me at 27.
Age has never been a big factor in my life — at least when choosing someone I want to be with. As many people do know, there is a seven year age gap between Justin and I. This never bothered me so much as it did about his life experience vs mine. What did bother was that he was unwilling to /gain/ the life experience i thought was crucial. And then there is Paul, who is also younger than me but who has life experience to share. And Christian, who was older but had the mentality of a 2 year old (literally) and was boorish.
We all have a certain idea of what or who we want to be our life-mate with. My recommendation is get out in the social scene and date to see if what you think you want matches what you get. You may have a thing for snobby bitchy girls but find that when dating one, you can’t deal with them. It’s called trial and error. A lot of people don’t like this idea of casual dating, and I’m not saying be a slooty sloot and compromise. I am saying, do have a clear idea of what and who you want before you start looking.
I hope this helps you on your quest to find a girly girl.
If anyone has any other questions, feel free to email me with it. Next up will be “How to configure ipmasq and chains in redhat”.
C’mon, ask me anything, i dare ya 😉
x0x0x0x
Moi