Snowstorm Flashbacks
I spent a fair amount of time in late December just sitting at home. Unable to go anywhere due to weather conditions. For which I just sat there cursing the snow. And having flashbacks to earlier snowstorms.
There were a few years where I’d curse snowstorms. Oh, not weather patterns that would drop snow on my town (as those rarely ever happened). But the un-drivable-upon snow (and ice) that would accumulate on the hour (or so) drive between my town . . . and where CJ lived.
The first and third winter of our association, CJ and I would make plans for her to come over so we could fool around and such. Once these plans were made and schedules were arranged and everything, the sky would open up and evil little snowflake paratroopers would descend from above, their mission parameters being simply to wreak havoc with my (hee! hee! hee!) sex life.
Dirty little trysts ended up being postponed. Rescheduled. Canceled altogether.
The most annoying aspect of this? She’d oftentimes call and inform me that the roads were too treacherous to risk travel, what with all the snow and ice. I’d tell her I understood, and that I wanted her safe at home more than I wanted to risk her ending up in a ditch (or worse). We’d commiserate for awhile, then hang up. I would then go outside and stand in the middle of my street, which was completely dry. No snow, no ice. Nothing. Half the time the sun would be peeking out from behind a cloud. Oh, the weathermen confirmed the fact that everywhere else was a frozen slip-n-slide. But the streets of my town were as safe as they could be to drive around on. Just not safe to drive to.
She couldn’t come see me because of ice and snow – that wasn’t even here at her destination. It was like fate was sticking it’s tongue out at me.
I started to associate reports of snow with my continued not-gettin’-any. If my virginity ever manifests as an independent sentient form, it’ll be a snowman or something.
Anyway, that whole thing was on my mind in late December, because the snow kept me from posting on my blog, and since my blog is basically about me not-gettin’-any . . . it kind of all fit together for me like a loosely packed snowball.
These weren’t ‘Nam quality flashbacks or anything. But the snow-based hazardous roads just made me feel like I was missing an opportunity to grope and finger someone.
Johnny Dirtnap and My 25th Birthday Present
Shortly after I turned 23, Johnny Dirtnap told me that I was too old to still be a virgin.
I happened to agree with his assessment wholeheartedly, but I think my actual response was just something like, “So?”
He went on to tell me that I needed to put some effort into going out and getting laid.
Because while 23 – and even 24 – were ‘too old’ to still be a virgin, I simply couldn’t turn 25 without having ‘busted my cherry’.
I thought it was a kind of odd proclamation to make, but it was Johnny Dirtnap, so I just kind of ignored it. Until he brought the subject up again a few days later. “Okay,” he started one night. “You don’t ever get out. You don’t really know any girls (that aren’t crazy). You have no real prospects for sex. So here’s what’s going to happen . . . I’m going to allow for the unexpected to happen on it’s own between now and your 25th birthday, but the day you turn 25, if you haven’t had sex yet, I’m getting you a prostitute.”
Hmm. Johnny Dirtnap had – according to claim – experienced a grand total of ONE sexual encounter that wasn’t just him and a cheap hooker making his car rock back and forth. I had no intention of losing my virginity to a cheap hooker in the back of Johnny Dirtnap’s car. And I told him so.
So he puts on his best shocked and hurt expression, like I’ve offended him. Then tells me that he wouldn’t dream of having me lose my virginity in his car to a cheap hooker he picked up on a street corner somewhere. (Neither of us mentioned the fact that we both knew that was exactly how he’d lost his.) No, his plan was for a moderately priced prostitute in a cheap hotel room.
Still, methinks ‘no’. Do I want to have sex? Yes. Do I want to start my sex life with a working girl? No.
Over the next few months, he’d periodically mention that he was getting me a prostitute for my 25th birthday if I hadn’t lost my virginity by then. But he also started talking about fantasies more than usual. Sharing some of his with me. (Often a disturbing experience.) Prompting me to share some of mine with him.
Keep in mind, I saw Johnny Dirtnap all the time. And we talked about all sorts of crazy stuff. So delving deeper into sexual fantasies didn’t trigger any alarm bells in my head.
A month or so before my 24th birthday, he mentions that we’ve got just a little over a year to go until the big event. At this point, it’s becoming obvious to me that he’s actually hoping I don’t manage to find a sexual partner on my own before my 25th birthday. Again, I tell him no. No, he’s not renting me a girl for my birthday. And if he does, I’m not having sex with her. Because I’m not going to lose my virginity to a prostitute.
Then he asks me: “Why?” So, I give him reasons, all of which I know that he already knows. The desire for there to be an emotional connection as well as a physical one. The whole raised-Catholic thing still firmly being in place. Other reasons.
Then he gives me the counter-argument that he’s worked up. “Not all prostitutes are blonde, you know. They make redheaded ones. They even make them with cute toes. And they’ll dress up to suit their client’s needs . . . I wonder if that would include putting on clown make-up?”
All this time he’d been saying prostitute, I’d been thinking ‘hooker’. Never once had I stopped to think ‘potential fantasy girl’. A few days of thinking of a hot little barefoot redhead in clownface, and he’d got me. Dirty motherfucker had me.
Of course, I didn’t ever say, “Yes”. But I quit saying no. He’d mention the prostitute, and I’d give him a semi-exasperated look (for show) . . . but no actual refusal. And he’d give me this knowing smile.
Of course, a month after my 24th birthday (a month to the day), they found Johnny Dirtnap on the floor of his apartment with his gun in his mouth, an extra hole in his head, and his brain scattered all over the place.
Nobody got me a prostitute for my 25th birthday.
A week from today is the anniversary of them finding his body. (Possibly the anniversary of his death, depending on whether he pulled the trigger before or after midnight.) That’s part of why I felt the urge to tell this little story now.
The other reason was . . . well, at this point, it’s entirely possible that by time we’re nearing the end of the year, I may just break down, scrape together all my money, and rent myself a prostitute for my birthday as a means of losing my virginity. I’m going to say that I don’t think that it will happen. But it keeps popping into my mind as a viable possibility. So I don’t know.
I wanted this story firmly in place as a prologue in case I end up going down that road.
Bad Advice From Elvis
I’m not sure, but I think that Elvis Presley wants me to get a wooden sliver in my penis.
I walked into a room where the Elvis song “Jailhouse Rock” was playing the other day (a song I generally encounter far more often while watching the movie “The Blues Brothers” than I ever hear being belted out by the King, by the way), and once again thought to myself, “. . . but I don’t want a sliver in my dick!”
The lyric in question –
The sad sack was a sittin’ on a block of stone
Way over in the corner weepin’ all alone.
The warden said, hey, buddy, don’t you be no square.
If you can’t find a partner use a wooden chair.
Now, see, as you’re all aware, the whole point of this little blogging effort of mine is that I’m sitting in the corner all alone, crying over the fact that I can’t find a partner. 38 year old virgin, unable to find someone to ‘make him a man’. And just what is the King’s sage advice to me regarding this?
“If you can’t find a partner use a wooden chair.”
Uh, thanks, E. I appreciate the advice and everything, but I think I’m going to look for a flesh and blood woman (or even a man – heck, even a sheep) for a little while longer before moving on to wooden furniture. Bodily fluids are one thing. I don’t see a condom stopping a determined sharp and pointed fragment of wood from going where it wants to.
The Post Office Box
I had already decided that I wanted to get a post office box. I was just waiting until the first of the year rolled around.
I figured that I’d either use the remainder of whatever cash money I was given for Christmas, or take some out of the January check (or a little from Column A, and a little from Column B). I wanted the payment to go in after the first so that if it was still a year-long rental period, I wasn’t forced to come up with money at the ass-end of December, post-Christmas shopping to renew my box rental at the end of the year.
There are a variety of reasons why I want to get a post office box again. I won’t bore you with them right now, as I plan to bore you with them later on once I’ve actually secured said box. But when I returned from my forced winter storm/closed library ‘vacation’, I discovered a reply on my “December 23 – Happy Birthday to Me” post from a reader who said that she’d send me a birthday present . . . if only she knew where to send it.
[That. That right there is a good excuse to have a post office box. So that Camelia of Argentina can send me birthday presents.]
Anyway, having had a post office box before, I didn’t think that it would be much of a hassle to get one again. I neglected to consider the various changes made to reflect the new security conscious, post-9/11 America. Turns out, I didn’t have enough pieces of ID to suit them.
This is what is you currently need to do in order to rent a post office box –
You have to fill out a lengthy application form. You have to provide proof that you live at the address you’ve filled in on the form (Deed of Trust, Rental Agreement, Mortgage, or Insurance Policy), three pieces of ID from their list of acceptable sources (one of which must be picture ID, another of which must project a three-dimensional hologram of your head), blood and urine samples, a copy of your current DNA/personal genome work-up (which they need in Braille, for some odd reason), a 1200 word essay on your hopes, dreams and aspirations, a copy of your birth certificate, and finally, a photocopy of your obituary accompanied by Certificate of Authenticity from the Time Travel Administration.
In addition to the above you must also swear a loyalty oath to the federal government (while hooked up to a polygraph machine), complete a six-hour course on why chain letters are illegal, and then get RFID tagged. Six months box rental is just over $20. Processing fee is two live chickens and the gall bladder of a goat packed in ice. You must also provide the postmaster with a sack lunch which must include – but not be limited to – a turkey sandwich and a banana, with a toy surprise.
Okay, so, I may be exaggerating. A little. (The application form isn’t really all that lengthy.)
But seriously, folks . . . they do require more forms of ID than I actually have. I’ve got an Oregon ID card, issued through the DMV. That’s it for identification. (And just getting that last year entailed a whole lot of running around beforehand, because my parents never got a government issued birth certificate for me.)
And as for proving where I live . . . yikes! In reality, I’m currently half-living in two different houses. And of the two, my official residence is currently mired in legal nonsense, owing to the fact that it’s my grandmother’s house. Grandma died. Grandma’s will stated that Mom got the house. Mom died not real long afterwards. Mom’s will said that Dad got everything she owned. Then it was discovered that the lawyer handing Grandma’s ‘estate’(who has since gone to prison for what I understand were various illegal shenanigans in his legal practice) lost Grandma’s will before any property actually changed hands.
I can provide bills and other mail in my name that go to my official residence, but that’s apparently not good enough. It was all I needed for proof of residence back in the late 80s when I rented my first post office box, but that was long before 9/11 and the need for increased security. What the post office ideally wants is for me to go to the cemetery, dig Grandma up and have her write me up a renter’s agreement. Because, really, nobody else is qualified to serve as my landlord (or landlady) until we get ownership of the house (among the living) straightened out.
So, I’m now looking into easily obtainable sources of ID and proof of address and whatnot. I’m actually about to send in a request to the registrar of voters to change my party affiliation so that I can be issued a new voter registration, as that’s one of the easier pieces of ID to obtain on the list of acceptable forms of ID. And then I’m going to buy a standard rental agreement form and probably fill out what will end up being the weirdest looking document ever.
But eventually, I hope to come out of all this with a post office box. More to come.
Yet Another Form of Time Delay: The Long Read
When I started this blog back in August, I gave several examples of why this blog was called “Time Delay”. Since I had no internet, there was a delay between me writing a post and me getting up to the library to use their internet to post it. There would a longer delay than normal for me responding to comments my readers left on the blog. I was trying to lose my virginity at the age of (then) 37, instead of doing it 20 years earlier like a normal American, and so on. Time delays all around.
I recently discovered another time delay inherent in my blog.
I’ve been starting to pimp the blog a little, posting links to specific posts in related groups on FetLife.com. And in both discussion thread and private conversation, it’s been pointed out to me that my posts are long. Apparently, longer than those of the average blogger.
So there’s this time delay between when people start reading one of my blog entries, and when they would normally expect to be finished reading a post.
People come to the end of one of my posts, only to discover that they need to change the calendar page, and then get a shave and a haircut.
Whoops.
Sorry, new readers. (Sorry old readers, too, if that’s been a problem for the two of you. Note my hilarious self-deprecation there, would’ja?)
I’m not going to say that I’ll try to write shorter, because that would be a lie. I’m not trying to write long, as it is. These things just kinda end up their ridiculous lengths all on their own. I’m apparently just long-winded by nature.
I don’t think that I actually have a point here. It’s possible that my subconscious made me spend this time talking about how long my posts are just to boost the word count of this one. Weird.
No comments:
Post a Comment