Off the record...

Why do I seem to attract the damaged boys? In particular, I'm talking about the liars and freaks... especially the freaks who lie to get a girl to like them, but the truth always surfaces.

The good news is that I think I'm getting better and better at being a human lie detector.

The bad news is I'm still a great big freak magnet.

My biggest problem still stems from when I get a gut feeling about a guy, then I second-guess that feeling and think I'm just being paranoid or overly nitpicky... 9 times out of 10, I eventually discover that if I'd just listened to that gut feeling in the first place, I would have saved myself a lot of time, drama and/or grief.

Here's a very recent (as in: not quite dumped as yet) situation...

I met someone and he seemed very nice: lots in common, a little far away with a few too many health issues, but I can overlook those things when I really like someone, especially if they're a genuinely good soul.

The problem is that on our first date, I think I stumbled upon the discovery that he has a Sex, Lies, and Videotape fetish, of a sort... only rather than interviewing girls about their sexual experience, he secretly videotapes the girls he likes when he's making out with them (or more).

Here's how it went down and why it's been eating away at my gut ever since:

We were hanging out on the couch at his place for a couple of hours, watching a dvd, talking, a little bit of making out (nothing too serious), and more talking. In the middle of a sentence of I don't know what at this point, I paused as something shocking in the corner caught my eye... it was a small video camera sitting on a table, angled directly at me, and the record light was on!

I blurted out, "Holy... Is that camera on?!"

He quickly jumped up and stammered something about, "Oh, wow. I guess it is. Maybe the button accidentally got pressed when I set it here or when it was in my backpack earlier?" He turned it off and then walked it over to another part of his living room, where I don't really know if it remained off or not.

At that time, I felt weird about getting mad at him, not wanting to seem like I was jumping to conclusions, so I good-naturedly continued with, "Don't tell me you're one of those videotape fetishists. I have a friend who is into that..." and I wound up telling him about that person and how everyone had seen one of his "sex tapes" and how boring it was. But after I replayed some things in my head, it doesn't seem to bode well.

For instance:

1) He didn't deny that he might be one of those fetishists. As a matter of fact, he didn't say anything at all... he just stayed quiet, until I mentioned the boringness of the other guy's tape and his only comment at that point was, "Boring? Oh, that's the worst."

2) The camera uses miniDV tapes, which only hold an hour's worth of footage... after that, it would turn itself off, and the light on the front of the camera would also shut off as well. As I previously said, we'd been sitting there for a couple of hours at that point. That says to me that he probably turned it on when I'd last gotten up to use the bathroom.

3) He didn't let me see what was on the tape. I suggested we rewind it and look at what it "accidentally" captured, but he'd already put it away at that point.

4) A week earlier, he'd posted a blog about some new photos that he'd put up on his professional site for people to see of some bands. At the end of those photos were about 5 pictures of girls backsides, like they were taken on the sly (see below).

all rights reserved to the anonymous voyeur in question

When I commented to him that I thought the "stealth" photos were the funniest, he commented rather defensively:

Just for the record, those pictures that you speak of can stand on their own artistic merits:) In other words, the backsides are not necessarily the point of the photo. Sometimes, it's a good picture even if the subject seems predictable or trite. Of course, I could be wrong; after all, it's just my opinion.

In trying to sort this out, I recalled two things that this guy said previously... one in email to me and another in an old blog entry of his.

First, he'd asked me about developing 8MM movies at home. I told him that would be a real headache and why would anyone want to do that when labs will do it for you. (Why, indeed? Hmm.) To which he responded that he had just developed an interest in moving pictures (he's an amateur still photographer), but mostly of the "security cam, surveylance video varieties thus far." For some reason, that didn't send up any immediate red flags... but I can't shake that answer of his now.

The other thing he said that gives me pause comes from a blog entry he wrote last fall, entitled "TELLER OF USELESS, INSIGNIFICANT LIES":

I think it started when I was a small kid. The only one in the family with a calm, quiet demeanor. The completely quiet wheel that never squeaked. The middle child, lost in the mad scramble of being poor. Why not lie to the point of hyperbole, so everyone can tell? The small things leave people with a feeling that something is wrong, but nothing concrete... Why would he lie about *that*? What would there be to gain from it? The answer is attention. It's a now-unnecessary vestige from my past that has remained nonetheless. I haven't lied for gain. Mostly just for attention. Just like cutting, and cigarette burns, and all the rest of the manifestations. I'm going to go and try to NOT be full of shit from now on.

He posted that just a few weeks before a girl he was dating for some months broke things off with him. According to him, she'd made him give up all forms of his photography little by little during the course of their relationship. When I asked how that could happen, he claimed to be baffled by her control issues, and yet he tacitly agreed to them. To me, people who claim to be clueless about these things often tend to be in denial of (or consciously hiding) something much deeper to their own core. Perhaps the girl picked up on this sexual fetish of his, was frightened by it on some level, and wanted to keep it under control? Whatever the real reason, it is odd... and his lack of insight into it is even odder to me.

My other issue regarding the video camera incident is boundaries... he didn't ask if he could videotape me and then lied about it to cover his butt when I discovered it. That tells me that he doesn't respect anything but his own urges. Not cool.

As you can tell, I've pretty much made up my mind about this one... just too many peculiar and unsettling things for this girl. I'm sure there's an exhibitionist out there somewhere who'd be the right match for him, but I'm definitely not her (not counting those things I did on webcam once upon a time!).

For the record, I'll state that "odd" and "peculiar" are not in and of themselves such bad things in my book. I just know what my limits are. I respect boundaries ...*sigh*... if only everyone else did, too.

**********

ADDENDUM: As an example that my sense of humor remains firmly in tact, I'd like to add these links to two classic stories from THE ONION:

Harsh Light of Day Falls On One-Night Stand's DVD Collection
- and -
Voyeur Concerned About Lack Of Sex In Neighbors' Marriage

Come down from where?

Yesterday I traveled to Athens and, on my journey there, a large falcon flew across my path, directly in front of my windshield and narrowly missing my vehicle. As it passed, it turned its head to keep its eyes directly on me. It was so close that I could see its individual feathers and hear the beat of its wings.

While in Athens, I met several kindered spirits and felt as though I had the easiest time just being me... easier than I've possibly ever felt around other living souls... all of it natural, comfortable, beautiful. A dozen hours spent in places I'd never been before and every last second of it was just so... easy.



On my way home less than an hour ago, I had been driving along a darkened highway for quite some time when I suddenly spotted a deer standing by the side of the highway, alone in the darkness. I have no idea how it caught my eye, as it blended in so well that it appeared as a ghostly contrast of its outline and the glisten of its eyes and nose. I was traveling at 65 mph and had no chance to think, but instinctively I veered slightly to give it some space and attempted to slow down as I passed. Rather than being startled, the deer made eye contact with me and held it in the serenest of ways.

A minute or so later along that same highway, I spotted a billboard... although out of the corner of my eye it only appeared as white letters floating against a black sky. And in that same instant, I laughed aloud.



And to think, some people keep going to church every week in hopes of feeling this way.

Be afraid... be VERY afraid...

By now, everyone knows of my tales of woe over living without air conditioning for several days, followed by no water for another couple of days.

The part that I left out was that in that time, I really didn't do any dishes. First of all, it was too fucking hot to stand up and wash anything. Then I just didn't have any water, so it's not really my fault that ants streamed in through the kitchen window to get at the various things fermenting in the sink.

What probably is my fault, however, is the baking pan that I left sit in the oven since... well... probably since the kids left for the summer... 6 or 7 weeks earlier.

Let me just back up a moment and tell you all that I fully admit my lack of domestic abilities. And when the kids are gone, it's true, I live like a bachelor... a retarded bachelor in serious need of a helper monkey, that is.

This summer, as I'd done the summer previous, I tried to subsist for as long as possible on just whatever was in my fridge and cabinets. I like a challenge, and making things like "un-hummus" or "umm-tuna?-surprise!" is what makes my life interesting... or makes for many trips to the bathroom.

Let me show you some examples from last year's 5-week kid hiatus...


At first glance, my fridge makes me appear as a doting mom...



...until you notice that: (a) the calendar is 7 months out of date, (b) magnets are messed up from when the kids did that 4 months earlier, (c) emergency phone number list is about 3 years out of date, (d) mom keeps photo of herself with gay high school sweetheart in prominent view, (e) complex calculations on dry erase board are for tipping pizza guy, (f) cabinet next to fridge still not attached to wall and raised up on visible shim, among other things.


Inside isn't much better...



...on the door, we see: (a) expired and nearly empty milk container, (b) an embarrassingly huge array of condiments, (c) far too many pickled things (all of which are still there a year later, mostly untouched), (d) and a soy milk container that's just there to fool any lookeeloos into thinking I'm actually healthy.


Yes, it's clean... but only just before the photo was taken (wiped about 7 years worth of build up out of there) to make it slightly less embarrassing for me.



Notice all the empty space. Wanna know what's in the meat drawer? I bet you don't!




Last summer, I lived off of weird things, like: Diet Coke, a large supply of Buffalo Summer Sausage (mmm), and more eggs than have ever been thrown at the Bush motorcade. Those last 2 sausages were gone that same evening, most likely.


Do cheeses go bad?



FYI, the date these photos were taken was July 2, 2005.



Amazingly, a year later and that parmesian block on the right is still in there right where I left it. Yeah, I suck. I know.


Anyway, that was last year. This year, the fridge isn't much different, so I didn't bother documenting it. However, there was a whole different kind of surprise awaiting me in the oven.

Now it's true that once during final exam week, while cramming for several tests along with writing 4 different research papers, I left a pot sitting in the sink for about a week before I noticed the foul odor and investigated, only to find that it contained fuzzy, gray circular shaped objects... which upon scanning my memory banks, I realized had once been steamed carrots. It was the frightening alien color along with the gut-wrenching scent that threw me off track at first. Who knew such tiny, harmless veggies could end up smelling like rotting cadavers?

Last night's find was just as terrifying.

I knew it would be bad news when I pulled the pan out of the oven, covered by a baking sheet, with me unable to remember what I last may have cooked in such a pan... and lifting the cover didn't help me to remember.

Instead, what I found was a new world forming and life of about a dozen different varieties teeming inside.



Welcome to New Gondwanaland



view facing East




view facing West




directly overhead


details of the future continents (and a Tribble or three)











I'm guessing that hair will form future Yetis.


Removal of the science experiment required an assistant.



Honora fetched the masks...


...while I averted my eyes...



...in an attempt not to provoke it.


As suspected, its underbelly was far scarier...



...like brains growing in cat puke.




I'm not as disgusting as it would seem by these photos. The only difference between me and the rest of you is that I embrace my embarrassing moments and share them for your amusement, so that you may feel better about your own lives... and possibly make some queasy someone out there vomit a little.

A girl can dream, can't she?

...And into the other frying pan.

This is just a quick blog to say to everyone: if you're trying to reach me, you'll have to use my cellular digits rather than my cyber home for the next couple of days. Lightning struck my house on Saturday and totally knocked out my phone and fried my dsl modem.

So to catch everyone up:

(1) First, my air conditioner died and I was living in sweltering heat for 5 days and almost died of heat stroke.

(2) Then the day after the ac was fixed, my water heater gave up the ghost and flooded my laundry room... luckily not spreading all the way into my office where my computers would have been totalled. I had to go not only without hot water, but also without ANY water to my house for about 4 days, because for some reason the heater kept filling up through its output pipe (no shut off valve on that one) and pouring more and more water into my poor laundry room, which now smells like a swamp. No water to the house means no showers, no toilets, no nothing.

(3) That's all fixed now (fingers crossed), but on Saturday late-afternoon that thunderstorm rolled in and... well... I've already covered that.

If anyone is wondering what I've done to prevent further disasters from happening at home, I'll tell you what I did... and I don't care if you give me shit about me being "superstitious" or whatever: I smudged the house with burning sage... a whole freakin' bundle of sage, actually. Although I'd been thinking about it for some time, I hadn't actually smudged in 3 years and I started thinking, "Maybe it's like spraying for bugs and you're supposed to do it once a year? Or like oil changes every 3 months?" Anyway, I did. It was good enough for my Chippewa ancestors, so it's good enough for me. If you want to make fun of me, feel free! I've been wanting to try my hand at some voodoo dolls next.

So anyhow, until I'm back up to full throttle again, if you've got my cell number, please feel free to use it. My phone hardly ever rings anyway, so I've got plenty of free minutes. I can only check my email briefly from my mother's computer for now, until the phone company comes out to fix the lines... then I'll be relegated to dial-up for a bit, until the replacement dsl modem arrives some time next week.

What a fun couple of weeks! It's been kinda like camping... only suckier.

Out of the frying pan...

So I almost died of heat stroke on Tuesday afternoon.

After going for 5 days without air conditioning in this house, and not being able to sleep a wink because of the crushing heat, my body finally started to shut down on me when the house temperature got around 98 degrees.

First thing I noticed was that I wasn't breathing right and getting very dizzy. All of a sudden, I got tunnel vision, which quickly turned to total blackout and I passed out on the couch. I don't know how long I was out, but I remember realizing that I wasn't breathing and I forced myself awake somehow by sitting up... but as soon as I did that, the tunnel vision zoomed me out and I blacked out again.

I came to quicker the second time and crawled upstairs, thinking that a cold shower might lower my body temperature faster, since drinking water was no longer helping. I wasn't thinking that the temp in my windowless bathroom would be about 10 degrees hotter than it was downstairs, so despite the cold water pouring on me, my lungs just couldn't seem to get enough oxygen, my heart was struggling, my arms were going numb, and the tunnel vision was getting worse.

I got out before I blacked out again and went downstairs to the freezer, looking for an icepack to put on the back of my neck, to cool the blood flow to my brain. As I stood there confused and out of it with the freezer door open, I began to realize that breathing the frosty air was helping. So I stood like that with as much of my upper body in the freezer as possible for about 5 or 10 minutes.

While in there, I spotted a 6 year old box of frozen Pedialyte pops. Knowing that I needed electrolytes badly, I cut one of them open and sucked it down while keeping a freezer pack on my neck. That did the trick at last... the tunnel vision went away and my body and brain seemed to be returning to normal... well, as normal as I can get.

That was, to say the least, a very frightening experience. I have a mild heart condition and I guess it was tested to the limits and the ticker was giving up on me. I didn't see any dead relatives while I was passed out... just a voice in the blackness that screamed, "WAKE UP AND BREATHE!" If that hadn't happened, I'm not sure if I'd be here now. Seriously.

In the time going from the shower to the freezer, I managed to call my father. He later told me that he was the one who directed me to the freezer (which explained why I found my cell phone in there that evening). He also told me to put something cold on the carotid arteries in my neck and to look for Gatorade or anything to replenish my electrolytes. I don't remember the conversation at all... he says that I was almost completely incoherent... barely stringing 2 or 3 words together and hardly able to speak above a whisper. If I hadn't been compelled to call him (and I almost never call him, that's the odd part), I'm not sure that I would have made it after the shower either.

The good news is that while I was going through all that, there was a guy under my house installing the new compressor and coil... so by later that night, I had a cool house again. Of course, it's not working correctly now and I have to have them come out to take a look at it in a few hours.

The other semi-shitty news is that I found my water heater leaking a steady stream into my laundry room and had created quite a decent sized and quickly expanding puddle at 4 AM this morning. I guess the good thing about my insomnia is that I am guaranteed to be up at that time and thus I caught this leak before it spread through the whole laundry room and into my office, where thousands of dollars in computer equipment might have been damaged. I turned off the water going into the tank and the leak stopped for now... but it means I need to get yet another repair guy out here to fix this latest disaster.

This "good catch" has left me rethinking my set up here and making me wonder if there's a way for me to reconfigure my office so that the equipment is up off the floor, what with this being the lowest level of the house and all.

Man, am I exhausted right now and feel like I could go right to sleep. I wonder if my pilot light got washed out? Crap. I have no idea how to check that, but I better go look into that before I'm blacking out again from a gas leak.