Of love and loss and losers

I am one of the models for an art-portfolio building school, and they send me to their different campus locations. I had never been to this one before, and when I looked it up, I still wasn't sure where it was. I followed the directions, and as I came near, I realized it was by my ex's house. When I got to the location itself, I saw I was less than a mile away from his house, just a few long blocks down the street from him. It was strange; I used to practically live at his house, sleeping over almost every night. I knew this area well, but when we broke up, I had no reason to ever come back, and as a result, hadn't been around for about two years. After my appointment, I made a small loop to drive by his house; it was so familiar, so strange.

I haven't had my heart broken too many times; it happens to everyone, sure, and considering how many relationships I have been in, I'd say I got off fairly easily. Don't get me wrong, I've been dumped plenty of times; in fact, I have only, to date, broken up with one person. The rest was me getting broken up with. However, of the many loves that I have lost, there is a handful that took a part of my heart with them, a few that I will never completely recover from, that I will remember for a long time.

This young man was a loser, and I loved him completely. He was in his early twenties and living in his parents' house, working in the family business, in a factory. He didn't attend school, and had no ambitions aside from sleeping with as many women as possible; when he and I met, he was almost at 150. I didn't mind; I was polyamorous by then, and saw nothing wrong with him sticking his dick anywhere he chose, so long as he was protected.

He bought me a Nintendo DS for Christmas, along with some games; the most expensive present I've ever gotten from anyone not related to me. We spent almost all of our time together, playing video games, reading comic books, having amazing, earth-shattering sex. His entire family could hear us, and bless their hearts, they let us be.

After almost an entire year of this bliss, I introduced him to a friend of mine from high school. She was an attractive gal, and he was a man-whore, so I figured they'd sleep together. In fact, I was hoping I could join in. He and I had already had one threesome, and it was amazing; I could only hope for another. They didn't hit it off, exactly; they each thought the other was hot, but their second time hanging out, she vomited on his bed; needless to say, he was less than thrilled. I was a bit relieved things didn't go too well; while I wanted everyone to just shag and have a good time, I loved him so much, and I couldn't stand the thought of losing him.

Things between them gradually improved. They started having sex, but he confided to me that he didn't find her to be that impressive. Yet, they continued to spend time together, go out together. I gave them their space; I knew that I was the Wife, and she was the Mistress. I knew better than to try to reign him in, stop him from having his fun. I asked not to be left out, though; they were welcome to their time together, but I'd like to see the two of them as well. I hoped for a triad to develop.

He became distant. It started subtly, but then grew. When we were together he was cold and distracted, when she was around he'd be downright verbally abusive. His family saw what was happening; we were at his house constantly, how could they not? His mother loved me, and she'd tell him off when he was a dick. I didn't make a fuss. I confronted him, of course, but I was the Good Wife in every way. I was patient and soft with him, explaining to him that I understood he was under stress but when he snapped at me it hurt my feelings and could he please not? Talk to me, tell me what's wrong. I love you.

It did nothing. I hoped that his moods would improve, but they only seemed to deteriorate, until one day, he dumped me like old rubbish. We stood outside his house and he told me that he was leaving me for her. He had hoped that his behavior would drive me away, spare him the chore of sending me away himself.

It felt like my world ended. I excused myself, and went to weep hysterically in my car. I felt like a piece of me was gone, a part of my heart torn out forever.

I have not been in touch with him; I see no reason to be. He betrayed me, acted like a complete bastard, and, needless to say, does not feel the least bit bad about it. I would not want him back, anyways, especially not as he is now. Last I heard, he is still living at the parents' house, still working at the factory, still not going to school, and on top of that has gotten fat. He was beneath me then, and the gap has only increased with time.

I suppose it is simply a matter of who hurts whom. I have fallen out of love with many, and probably would have, with time, fallen out of love with him, but did not get the chance to. He hurt me deeply, and today I felt a dull ache in my chest, a strange empty longing, as I slowly rolled past his house.

I left a piece of me with him, and he has not been the only one. I wonder, then, how many pieces I have left on me, and how many times can this happen before I'm all gone?

Of gay lords and things that go crash in the night.

I live at the Gaylord, in Koreatown. It's an ancient building, [by American standards, at least,] erected in 1908 to serve as a hotel, and later converted into an apartment complex. The lobby is filled with black & white photographs of its glory days, of balls and galas and an the Marx Bros shooting a film. It is also, near as my roommate and I can tell, literally filled with Gay Lords, fabulous middle-aged men with impeccable style.

Our apartment manager is such a Gay Lord, a tall man in his fifties, with close-cropped snow-white hair and many earrings. He wears fitted pants with collared, button-down shirts, with vests and a fob watch. He walks with his back straight and his chest out like a rooster, and is possibly the most charming and intimidating person in the building and a complete sweetheart. When we were late on rent one month, he was nothing if not accommodating and understanding. My roommate and I slunk into his office with our tails between our legs, whimpering softly, and, afraid to meet his eyes, stutteringly explained that we would be late on rent because of our respective job fiascos. He shrugged and told us to pay when we could; he didn't even ask how much we could pay immediately.

Our apartment is haunted as shit. This comes as no surprise to us; the building has over a hundred apartments, and is over a century old. When my roommate and I were first coming by to look at it, we would hear a different story about someone dying every time we'd come by.

The first apartment we looked at was offered to us at a discount because the previous occupant had passed away. We were let into the large studio, and we spun around in the well-lit room, giddy with excitement. We stepped into the closets and peeked into the bathroom and hopped up on the kitchen counter. We admired the view from the window.

"It's perfect!" we said to each other, and then, "wow, this is how all horror movies start out."

"I bet there's a dead body hidden in the wall behind the closet." "Someone probably got stabbed in the shower, Psycho style."

"Oooh, what's this small brass door on the kitchen counter?" "I dunno, it's stuck, won't open." "I bet on the full moon, at midnight, it'll pop open and smokey tendrils will come out and sneak into our rooms and possess us."

The apartment manager, at the time a kindly old witch, pretended not to hear us.

We went with a one-bedroom apartment, because we need our space, and I like to bring guests over to shag; a studio would not be an option. They were out of dead people's one-bedroomers, so we got a standard one, on the fifth floor, overlooking the pool. My roommate lives in the bedroom, as she is the more private one of the two of us, and I stay in the living room. We have no furniture save the bed I sleep in, and a cabinet in the bedroom. The roommate sleeps on a mattress on the floor, while my bed doubles as a couch and table.

Our haunting is strange; whatever lives here likes to break glass. The day we moved in, an entire box of glass shattered when we gently set it down, and since then, it has been breaking everything else as well. The other day, my roommate was standing the in the kitchen, cooking, and I was on the couch, typing, when we heard a crash. A bottle that had been standing on top of the refrigerator [in the center, too, not on the edge] had flown off and landed in the middle of the kitchen floor and shattered. We spoke out loud, asking it to please stop breaking our shit because we like it and it's dangerous to scatter broken glass all over the floor when we're barefoot almost all of the time.

It complied for some time, but by now it has broken every wineglass in the house, half of our bottles, and even a few ceramic dishes. Some of these things were done subtly, others with absolutely no discretion. Once, I had set a glass on the floor next to my bed. As I stood up and walked past it, my toe nudged it. My roommate was watching, and she saw it slide forward an inch before it exploded, shattering into a million little pieces. It was a thick-bottomed glass, and should not have shattered in such a way unless it was dropped from at least eye level. Two months later, we were still finding slivers of glass around that spot.

We don't know what it is or what it wants. It seems most likely that it simply wants attention; breaking things is a rather petty and childish thing to do, and we assume that as it hasn't actually tried to hurt us, it is either unwilling or unable to do so. We joke that it is an Ancient Family of Mice that has learned to project their spirits and wreak havoc that way.

The shenanigans must cease; we're tiered of drinking our boozahol out of coffee mugs, and we didn't have an abundance of dishes to begin with. We don't want to resort to an extermination of any sort, as they were here first and besides, it's not a nice thing to do, but we're running out of options. A seance seems to be a good idea, and has been suggested by more than one party. In the mean time, we cheerfully yell "Mazal tov!" at the crashes.

Another group that seems to inhabit our apartment is a lot more benign; it is a group of invisible snake people. They have possessed both me and my roommate, respectively. The experiences were not identical, but similar. In each case, one of us froze stock still, a hand on our stomach, and proceeded to hiss out words we could not understand. As we would hiss, we would feel, more than hear, a soothing murmur, "it's okay, everything is alright."

We laughed about the hand on the stomach; it felt like a mistake they had made, something that was lost in translation. "They like it when you rub their belly, it calms them down!" We still felt the soothing calmness, though; we'd call it maternal, if not for the implication that our friends are female. We're not sure what they want, either, but we're not in a rush to find out; they'll tell us when it is relevant.

We're thinking about getting a kitten. His name is Toby, and when you pick him up he wraps his paws around your neck and hangs on like he never wants you to let him go. We don't know if he'll affect the hypothetical Ancient Family of Mice that may or may not live under our oven.

All in all, it is a rather crowded one-bedroom apartment, and looks to be getting even more crowded in the future, though we enjoy the company. Of course, it is strange to masturbate with the distinctive feeling that one is being watched.

The world needs to hear my thoughts

... which is why I've decided to start my own blog. I rant a lot, I write a lot, and really, have you got better things to read than this? Didn't think so.

This blog is intended to focus primarily on auto-biographical vignettes, but will occasionally feature news items that I consider important, movie reviews, interesting historical or scientific woosits, fiction, and links to fun stuff. We'll see how this develops, because honestly, it's gonna be a bit directionless to start.

Without further ado, let the blog-a-palooza begin!