If this were some dramatic movie I'd take you by the arms and shake you, saying, "Dammit!  I didn't work on us for six years to be without you!"  And you'd come to your senses.  The shaking would help.

I would much rather be reading Kerouac to you in bed tonight than anything else.  Fake, ridiculous accent and all.

The old cycle begins again.

Starting into Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw I'm reminded of something: All this shit, this incredibly long, nitrogen-induced depression and horrible break up; it all came from somewhere.  Bourdain writes about a dinner he was invited to that, by all means, he shouldn't have been.  He's surrounded by chefs he looks up to, and feels he'll never touch culinarily.  This dinner causes him to reflect on the road up to that point.  Strife with trials, drug abuse and heartbreak, he knows that life can get better, and has.

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately.  Self-depricating reflection, and with the help of others (because I can't do it on my own), helpful introspection.  It took years, but I finally realize that Depression is my drug.  I lead a boring life. Sure, I try and dress it up every once in a while by taking a vacation or never stepping into the same restaurant twice.  I try anything I can.  Fencing and waltzing come to mind.  Look for me on any average Tuesday night, though, and you'll find me sitting on the couch watching recorded TV shows I didn't really need to record because I was home anyway.  It all feeds the Depression.  When I was nine or ten, I knew what suicide was.  At least, I had a vague idea, and Mom had an abusive boyfriend.  Not abusive towards her, you see, but I caught a lot of it.  He drug me around the house once by my hair because he felt I hadn't cleaned the shower well enough before Mom got home.  He just wanted to show me, and I wasn't walking fast enough, apparently.  There wasn't too much physical abuse.  A push and some yelling matches occasionally.  It was hard though, and I was seeing a counselor at the time because the problem was with me, I guess.  Right.  Eventually, the idea of suicide seemed like a release.  I went to the kitchen, opened the knife drawer and started running the knives along my wrist.  Even at that young age I knew to go down the arm instead of across.  Creepy how kids grow up so fast.  Mom walked up the stairs from the basement at that moment, and caught me.  There was some yelling, and a lot of crying and explaining, but she realized that I was sad.  Things turned around after that.  The boyfriend came around less and less, eventually disappearing.  Good riddance.

What did I learn from this?  Being sad and desperate for a way out can get you what you want.  That's one of the few lessons from this life that sticks in my head.  That, and tying the cords together between a power tool and an extension cord so you can't pull them apart accidentally.
I wasn't always sad.  I was a very happy kid.  People tell me stories about myself, and I see the possibility of that again.  Flash back five years and you'd find me back on top.  Senior year of college I was not someone you fucked with.  I was fast, hard and riding the crest of a wave so beautiful and round you could start at the Outer Banks and finish the day sipping mojitos in Hemingway's old stomping grounds in the Keys.  I was the Associate Editor of a nationally recognized literary magazine.  Yeah.  I was the asshole that you called and couldn't get ahold of, and I returned calls at ridiculous hours when you were sure to be out of the office.  Maybe telling your significant other in bed about how you needed to talk to me for approval on the proofs before the margins were set and printed.  You were lucky if I returned your calls.  Days and long nights spent in an office with more cobwebs than an Indiana Jones movie and haunted house combined.  I was working on a Mac that processed words a sentence slower than I typed.  Corralling the student interns and getting them to try and proof ten poems in a week, and then revising all their work was near impossible.  It was irritating, beyond difficult, and I was amazing at it.  You know those movies where the computer hacker guy flies around the room in a desk chair and always seems to be six steps ahead?  I was that guy.  I budgeted money; I signed time sheets; I was the face and the behind the curtain guy of one of the only undergraduate presses in the country.

Women?  I got the woman of my dreams back doing that job.  She'd sneak down from her work-study job to my private office and sit on the desk talking about our weekend plans with friends.  I'd visit her at her work-study job and we'd flirt over the mailing machine.  I had rug burns on my knees from that girl.  Granted, it was a bamboo rug, but I would have gotten them from any other softer rug too.  We went at it every day at one point.  This is a girl that has to be obsessively sure about a guy before she'll sleep with him, and we were doing all kinds of crazy shit and not even officially dating.  There are probably still handprints on the walls of our dorm rooms from some of the stuff we did.  I was sexy.  I was too busy for you and your problems.  I was very close to the peak of human existence.  I was the fucking Übermensch and you couldn't touch me.  I had a full-time student load, two majors and two theses to write.  There were three work-study jobs.  One for credit, and two for pay.  I was making my own hours, staying up late, partying, running myself ragged, dragging myself to class and stabbing my arm with a pencil to stay awake through it all.  This girl thought I was amazing, and all my friends looked up to me.  My professors were in awe, and knew I would succeed.

So, when I graduated I was going to lose it all.  My big plan A had fallen through, and there was no plan B.  I just figured those same professors would help a little more for someone that did so much for the college.  Guess not.  But, that's when I went back to the Depression.  For months after graduating, I sat in my room, doing what I wanted, watching movies and playing video games every day.  Eating shitty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  What made it worse?  They let me carry the school banner at the commencement ceremony, and they gave me an award for being selfless and community focused.  Just a knife in the gut saying I was good enough there, but the real world was going to swallow me whole.  The girl?  She was gone to Roanoke to be a zookeeper.  She had worked the summer before for nothing except to smell like animal refuse at the end of the day.  She had earned her place as a paid employee.  We began a long-distance relationship, and we were happy.  She would get upset that I wasn't looking hard enough for a job, and I would look for a few days and get bored.  Eventually, my back was against the wall.  I had to start paying back substantial student loans, so I had to start working.  A job came for the Christmas season with a retail bookseller, and three months later I was fired for not being able to learn the operations of the position I was promoted to after being a lowly cashier.  After taking every elitist customer's shit for the holiday season, and working Black Friday, I was gone with no appreciation.  Then I spent six months feeling sorry for myself and trying to find another job.  It got to us both a little more this time.  I was talking a lot about how I didn't matter anymore in the world and it would be better without me.  If I was able to be so successful in college why couldn't the real world see my potential?  The normal depressed shit.  She just couldn't listen anymore, and she left.  I don't blame her.  I would have left me too.

That's how it works, the Depression.  I use it for the maximum amount of attention I can get.  Telling myself I'm great and worthwhile doesn't matter as much as someone else telling me.  Being depressed gets people to come out and try to build me back up.  I'm a solitary person that doesn't like to go out in groups too much.  It's hard to put on a smile and fake having fun.  However, I can hit you up with a text message and tell you how sad I am hoping you'll write back to make me smile or make me feel a little more positive about myself.  But, friends can only do that for so long.  They have to work on themselves too.  I distanced myself from a lot of friends at that point.  Actual hard work and job hunting brought about a new job with a great company, and the girl and I started going on dates again.  Nights spent at restaurants and watching movies got longer and longer until I was sleeping over again.  At one point she came home a little tipsy and sad, and said something to the effect of, "Why fight it?"  Like Bourdain's story, she was my Zelda Fitzgerald.  A little crazy, and probably bad for me, but I love her and she lets me put my hand in her pants occasionally.

Getting older makes things a lot scarier.  Eventually, the great job and money wasn't enough for either of us.  Turning 25 hit me hard, and she saw that.  She got sad as I got sad.  She lost faith in me as I lost faith in myself.  Things got bleak, and with the fall, she left again.  Now, I spend my time thinking of every possible way to get her back.  I keep waiting for her to call and say, "why fight it?" again.  I wasted so much time thinking she would keep feeling sorry for me.  It wasn't going to work.  She fell in love with a totally different person.  A person that made decisions instead of waiting for them to come down from a higher authority.  A person with the confidence to know I was right and did what needed doing.  Now that she's gone, and I've spent weeks eating and sleeping like shit I can see that person starting to come back.  I see him every time I put up a little more weight at the gym.  I see him when my veins bulge.  When I forget to cry for a day because the pain never really goes away.  It just recedes.  When I want her to be happy no matter what she finds happiness doing.  When I realize she won't be happy with the next guy because I was the right one.  No one was as successful as I was when I was on top, and I'll be there again.  She couldn't even do it.  I'm getting there.  She'll see that.  When I get some really good lines written.

We woke up early and headed into Raleigh, and even though it wasn't on the way to the airport we went to Coquette for coffee and crepes.  I miss you every second.

The new Express commercial made me want to buy you a new dress and a reason to wear it.  A wedding would be an occasion.

Finishing Big Sur was going to be the end of all my problems and pain. That's how I built it up.  Finished it tonight.

I imagine us being done traveling for the day and getting drowsy on the way home.  Then we crash into bed in loose fitting pants and watch some Anthony Bourdain on Netflix as we kiss goodnight.

A bowl of pistachios looks so much better with a diamond engagement ring buried in it.  Love you quietly from afar.

When it was time to go around the table and say what we were thankful for I couldn't keep my voice about me.  It sputtered and cracked and I wiped my nose with the good cloth napkin and strained to say, "You."

I can't stop thinking of what I was going to say tomorrow to your Dad.  My hands are all nervous and fidgity.  He was going to shake that hand though, and smile.  The same way he would have next year as he passed you off.

Thanksgiving was better two years ago when I knew at the end of the day I was driving down to be with you for it.

While everyone else talked about spending the holidays with their significant other's families I held back the tears.  I truly made myself believe tonight would change things.  Flowers and all.

Really needed you in the backseat of the car today for knowing sideways glances and head shaking.  You know why.  We were never that bad.  I think you know that.

I know today is your Dad's birthday, so I'm probably not likely to see you today.  I wish we were driving down there to cook for him and celebrate.  I'll drive home while you sleep.

While I was showering you snuck in, pulled the curtain back letting the cold air in like you always do.  You made it up by kissing me under the water for 15 minutes.

It's truly ridiculous you weren't here tonight.  If you thought the Roaring 20's party you went to was awesome this was like being transported back to that time, hanging out with Gatsby and getting to spend the night in his mansion.  You could have worn your Flapper hat and we would have looked great together.  Pearls and all.  We wouldn't have stopped smiling since we got here.  I miss you so much.

Tired of being without you.  Please let me back in.  Honey?

I would give up every second of this trip for a call saying this was a horrible mistake and I should come home.  Nothing is the same.

It's cold today.  You're working and it's crappy, but those patients need you more than I do.  The house is toasty warm from all four burners, and it smells so good.  I'm going to start working on a good way to get the buddy to carry the ring out to you when you get home.  At the moment he's trying to tear it off his red collar.  Good thing he's cuddly in the cold, winter months.

I keep hoping the letter changed your mind and you're driving down here and you'll knock on the door, and we'll cry a little.  We'll kiss.  I'll probably cry some more, and you'll tell me to stop being ridiculous.  And I won't stop smiling ever again.  Atlanta isn't the same without you. Scott and Pat missed you tonight.  Athena's ring looks kind of like yours.  Not white gold, but I know what makes you happy.  We'd probably be kissing in bed now.  The heat works this time.  I miss you so much.  Please come back.  The bed still smells a little like us.

Standing here, in the sun and cool Fall wind, it would be so much better with you.  The promise of a weekend to ourselves.

haiku

Got home late tonight.
You uncovered, smiled, pulled back the sheet.
Dark hairs again on the sheets.

Too long.

"Do you think we can get through this?"

"I promise we will.  You'll never wait on me again."

"Can you come home?"

"I believe curiosity can be a virtue."

Tonight, in a pathetic attempt to move forward, I went to see Anthony Bourdain's lecture at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.  It struck some chords.  I don't even know that much about the guy, but his drive, knowledge and confidence make me want to be just like him.  Sort of like Henry Rollins or Chuck Palahniuk, some people just exude this extraordinary brilliance of truth and honesty with themselves.  And they're able to reflect that honesty back onto the world around them and say, "You're fucking idiots, and here's why."  And they tell them!  This is something, as of late, I have not been able to do.  My confidence has just been shattered and trampled by a slow and meandering break up.  The kind I thought would never happen again after the first one like that.  You know the one: the girl says everything is fine, and you know it's not, and you don't look at each other the same.  Suspicion and jealousy take over, and you'd have to have a serious case of autism to not read in their face that something is going on behind those eyes.  And it's all the time.  Like I said, it just drags itself out, leaving you questioning what kind of person you are more than what she did to you, or how she was wrong.  How could you be so stupid to not know what to change way back then?  You're left with a billion questions, and they're different for each individual.  That's just the one churning in my head, over and over, until you're too tired to keep your eyes open so you pass out, and get a few hours of peace until you wake and that empty feeling pulls everything from your guts that was keeping you whole.

But I digress.

So, Tony (yeah, we all called him Tony after the show) was talking about what it is to be civil and respectful and open when traveling.  Something I've always believed in, but some of my travel partners have been bad at.  He spoke on how the worst vacations always end up being so because you plan them out too much.  There's not enough time to truly explore your new environs because the time schedule won't allow it.  Every minute of every hour is nailed down with a place and activity you need to be doing, and that's no way to vacation.  You don't live that way (hopefully), so why would you vacation that way.  I can't pretend to be naive to the fact that making plans and following a schedule makes you feel like you can get more done in the short time you have between the days you spend at work in the real world.  I know the minute I leave work the day before a vacation, I'm already thinking of what time I need to go to bed that night so I can get up early and get in the car and on the road.  And that's not so bad.  Maybe.  At least it gets me to where I want to be more.

It's in how you dress, and how you carry yourself and what you eat and how you walk and where you walk.  It's that confidence that makes me admire Mr. Bourdain in the first place.  But it's also having the humility to admit you are a stranger in a land not your own.  To admit when you've screwed up some local custom and apologize.  To turn the wrong way down a one-way street and say, "I am not local, and I apologize for overlooking your signage and putting your community at risk."  And if that seems like a terrifically acute example, it's an inside joke.

My best vacations have been the one's where I admitted I was there to be curious and explore.  My worst vacations were the ones where I tried to be a local, and that gets you nowhere.  If you think you can blend in so well, go to a local attraction in your city and see if you can tell who the locals are and the tourists.  I guarantee you'll correctly pin them 98% of the time.

One vacation in particular that comes to mind was a business trip my Mom took one summer.  It was to Asheville, North Carolina, and her company was putting us up at the Grove Park Inn - a nationally recognized resort for the rich and jet set crowd.  Lots of golfing and spa treatments and history and all that.  For three days I got to hang out in this palace of a hotel with little shops, restaurants and endless hallways and hidden nooks to run around.  We had visited this place before to sit on the large sun deck they have in the rear of the main wing.  We would sip drinks and watch the sunset and have family time before leaving to come back to the capital city, back to the drudgery of our daily lives.  It was always great, and something I look forward to every time I'm in the mountains.

One night, my Mom and sister had gone to bed, and I couldn't sleep so I got up and went to walk around the hotel.  I wanted to see the place for what it was.  I had heard stories of all the famous people that had stayed in the original old wing of the resort; presidents, actors, F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed there!  He had a room named after him.  So, there are these old elevators built into the sides of a massive stone fireplace in the main hall.  They are still operated by lift attendants.  They go up two floors and down one from the main floor.  I had to ride in one.  Once I stepped inside I was instantly transported back to a time when Fitzgerald or Roosevelt could have been riding alongside me. The attendant was in a nicely pressed suit and tie with white gloves, and the elevator itself looked to be bronze.  It shone inside like the Statue of Liberty must have right after it was built.  The attendant and I were talking, and he got into the history of the old building.  I'm sure he did this with everyone that showed even the slightest interest, but I showed genuine curiosity, and it was rewarded.  I got the dirt on the old building.  I got the story of the haunted room, the Pink Lady, who will tear apart your suitcase while you're out of the room, and leave the bed in shambles after the housekeepers have made it up for the day.  She haunts one room, and he pointed it out, showing me where she fell from the inner balcony overlooking the common hall in the middle of the antique building.  Of course it sent shivers down my spine.  Then, we went back down and he showed me the lower floors where the laundry and other services take place.  He was able to do this because his shift was ending, so he stepped off the elevator and showed me around the basement where guests weren't allowed.  This may seem boring, but to someone who was into the history of this hotel, it was breathtaking.  He told me all kinds of things, and when he was ready to go, we rode the elevator back to the main floor and said good evening, and he went to his home and family.

If I wasn't tired before, then I was buzzing now.  I needed to calm down.  I had my bag with my writing notebook in it, and I walked out to the deck with a cranberry and seltzer cocktail and sat down to write a bit.  I was getting some good stuff down when a couple called me over to their table.  I forget why they called me over, but they wanted me to join them.  Probably wanted to know what I was writing.  We exchanged our stories.  I was a junior at St. Andrews Presbyterian College.  They were Canadians on a vacation to bury her father.  Turns out he had been the elevator attendant for some fifty years, and had just died a few days before, having spent the entirety of his working life with the hotel.  Carolyn and Dave Turpie were their names.  We talked about writing and life and watched the stars pass overhead for a good while.  They told me the hotel, for her father's years of service, had put them up in the presidential cabin for the week.  Actually, the hotel manager said they could stay as long as they wanted (or until a president showed, or Tom Hanks, who apparently stays there when in Asheville).  They said the place was littered with snack trays and drinks and I should come back with them and help them finish some food off, and get a night cap.  So, having had an advantageous night of curiosity, I strolled through the main hall, out the front doors and off into the wooded land beyond the front parking lot.  It was massive.  The size of a large home, and appointed in a style befitting Gatsby or Rockefeller.  Mission furniture and large Oriental and animal skin rugs. It was the typical hunting lodge from any period film.  And like they said, there were deli trays covering a giant table in the dining room.  We sat and ate rolled cold cuts on butter crackers.  We drank our drinks, cranberry juice for me, and they had beers.  We were cooling down.  Carolyn took my notebook and began reading through the few pages I had filled.  It was new at the time.  I still have it.  I was about five pages in at the time, and it was mostly angsty freshman-in-college crap.  I was still working through some things that had followed me from high school.  But she was moved by them.  She was a little tipsy at that point in the night, but she was really moved by my writing.  That was kind of the first time a stranger had really given me any notice just reading my work for the first time.  Without knowing anything about me.  It made me feel really good.  As I look back tonight, maybe not that good because I'm still working on filling up the same notebook, but at the time, I was flying.  Dave didn't read it.  He went on the review his wife gave, but we exchanged addresses, and talked late into the night.  When I left the night air was cold, and we smiled and waved, and they said I should stop by the next night, but we left the next day.

That night and the way everything fell into place, I'll always remember that.  Knowing that a smile and positive attitude towards the world can open so many doors.  Doors you would never be able to get through if you didn't have $10,000 a night to spend on a cabin on top of a hill.  I loved that night, and there have been a few more nights like that.  Things you can't capture in photos, and most of the time, you're the only one that is going to know they happened, and you can tell people the story repeatedly, but they'll never appreciate the gravity of that night, under those stars and pines, on top of a hill in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Thanks Tony.

At one point in my life there was a song written for me.

Lay your head on my shoulder

Come love and sit by me

And watch the stars fall by

on their respective galactic itineraries

Lay your head on my shoulder

And I will rock you to sleep

And the touch of your breath on my neck

Will make everything feel so temporary

If we don’t move, don’t speak, don’t breath

Maybe the universe will get bored with us both

And pack up and leave

So now we’re stuck out in orbit

You and me and my enemy

All these lessons I’ve learned

And these truths I’ve turned

Just won’t let me be

Don’t know where we’re headed

Don’t know where we’ll end up

But with you here tonight

and your hands around mine

is more than enough

But if we don’t stop, don’t land, don’t fall

I’ll still be here

at the end of it all

'Cause I am here with you, my love

I’m here with you