Dispatches from the Island of Misfit Toys

Now that I’m 44, one thing has become abundantly clear: women my own age want nothing to do with me. I currently have an eclectic collection of girls in my life, the oldest of whom is 30.

Fucking 30.

I know the immediate reaction is midlife crisis, but the fact is, I’ve never hunted outside my own demographic before. Historically, I always preferred women my own age or older. But when I stumbled back into the world of single men after 8 1/2 years with K, I quickly discovered that my female peers wanted nothing to do with me. Too much baggage, too much bullshit.

Young girls, however, seem to find my damage fascinating. They’re still ingenuous enough to find my brokeness deep and edgy.

So here I am. I shouldn’t complain; the girls I’m surrounded with are all fantastic, but none of them are – or can ever really be – mine, and I’m starting to weary of being, for all intents and purposes, alone.

Here’s the field identification manual, with the players nicknamed to remain anonymous:

LL
We’ve known each other for years. She’s hot, smart, talented and very sexual. The attraction between us is distracting, and we get along so well it’s almost eerie. And yet this is the girl who recently told me she realized she was avoiding thinking about actually dating me because she was afraid a relationship would really work.

We live 2 hours apart, which is an issue. We’re also both busy as hell, and I worry that I’m just too twisted for her. But if we could figure it out I’d love to give it a shot.

BLUE
Ah, chemistry. We have that thing that makes us stare at each other for long periods until it just feels goofy. She’s brilliant, and a total mess. Which, being a mess myself, I completely appreciate. Hey, whaddaya want? I’m the Crazy Whisperer.

BUT. For one thing, she has a live-in boyfriend. For another, we’re both tops and kind of unsure of what to do with each other in bed.

D
Sexy, dirty, submissive, geeky. Loves it when I hurt her. Willing to take whatever I dish out. Gorgeous. Has magical skin I can touch forever.

Also has a boyfriend, who is perfect for her except that he can’t hurt her, which is where I come in.

RED
To be fair, this is strictly one-sided. I am fiendishly attracted to this girl, and we’ve had some fantastic liaisons. But there’s nothing there on her end. I’m a creepy old perv who serves as a friend, occasional rescuer and shoulder to cry on. There’s a very, very dirty girl in there, but she’s still convinced that the white picket fence is going to make her happy, so I’m little more than an aberrant afterthought. Seeing this one is incredibly bad for my self-esteem.

There are other occasional partners and possibles; there’s Crazy Girl, who is a great fuck, but so looney I finally had to cut her off completely. KC, the whitest black girl in the world, who is stunning but purely casual. JJ, JG, AC, and others whom I flirt with, but have never made the timing work.

Lastly, there’s AS, who is about the most amazing woman I know. So smart, so gorgeous, so dirty. But she just doesn’t know what to do with me. We’ve known each other for years, have shared a lot of great moments, and one fantastic kiss. But NY is a long way from LA, and until we can figure out if she’s even interested, it’s not a commute I’m willing to make.

Today was my 44th birthday. Having not written here for nearly a year, it seemed as likely an event to warrant climbing back into the blog saddle as any.

It wasn’t a splendid day. In fact, without sounding too emo, I considered suicide more seriously tonight than I have in decades. I won’t do it, of course. After a certain age, willfully kicking off while all your parts still work just seems foolish. But tonight, the concept held the kind of peaceful allure it hasn’t had since I was a teenager. Tonight, an end seems fantastically desirable.

I’m not sour because I’m a year older; big fucking deal. By the time my actual age catches up to how old I feel, It’ll be well past time for me to go. No, it’s simply life. I’m fantastically broke, and day after day, prospects vanish like dreams at dawn. Contingency plans give way to furtive hopes, and there never seems to be a break on the horizon.

Creatively, I’ve been working for the last several days on a great gig. I’m the DP of a mainstream thriller that has the potential to lead to more real-world work. It’s been refreshing to shoot for a director who appreciates my skill. But, without telling tales, today the entire job went very, very sour, and the director and I are now sitting in a bucket filled with broken glass unsure of how to climb out.

It’s on the personal level, though, that things really fall apart. I moved into a new loft which requires more work than I can possibly complete. I had to put my favorite cat, Basil, to sleep. And day after day I feel utterly alone. The women I want either don’t want me, are already taken, or are unavailable for some other reason. One really fantastic girl told me, “I figured out why I can’t date you. It’s because I’m afraid it might work.”

As the kids say, fuck my life.

I do have friends. Some good, some annoying, some great. One of my best friends is a girl hopelessly in love with me whom I keep at arm’s reach because I can’t reciprocate.

This, dear reader, was NOT the plan.

Okay, so it turns out the weekend was a good idea. I managed to quell any sense of impending disaster for most of the weekend, and headed off to work yesterday feeling – dare I say it – fairly positive and energetic. I’ll check in with ya’all after I’ve been back in the mill for a few days, but right now the odds of my survival seem high.

Mischief & I got up Saturday morning and headed out. We had the only truly disappointing meal I’ve ever experienced at Hugo’s (stick with the pancakes, I guess…?), and then cruised up the coast. Allison diverted us along the way to take me to an old, abandoned oil refinery which we wandered around for a good while.

I have a serious fetish for decay and dilapidation; the structure is stunning. I could have happily wandered that place for hours, and I desperately want to shoot something there, even if I have to steal it. Our explorations ended when we climbed through a broken window into a building filled with documents being stored and an alarm went off.

Mischief’s face as she came bolting back around the corner was priceless. She would make an abysmal thief.

We spent the evening at a show featuring Beware of Safety, one of her favorite bands. There were three other bands playing, the first of which – The Victor Ship – was really good. The show was a haphazard affair held at the utility room of a tiny church, and had the members of the other bands not hung around to watch, I think the audience would have totaled 9 people.

Which is a shame because the 5 guys who make up Beware of Safety are truly remarkable musicians. It’s a post-rock band, which, to me, is simply a modern rock-instrumental version of program music. This lengthy dissertation on the nature and origins of post-rock doesn’t draw that distinction, but I’m not bothered. The guys in BoS are able to produce live music that is every bit as structured, intricate and layered as a small-scale orchestra. It was amazing.

The next day we drove up to Cambria, prowled through town and stopped outside Nit Wit Ridge, an interesting house built entirely from found materials. Unfortunately, we were 15 minutes late for the tour, and the fascist hippie that runs the tours wouldn’t take us through.

We stopped to eat Italian food that was only matched in its blandness by its mediocrity. Then we drove up to take the tour of Hearst Castle, which I had been to, but never in. I hate to admit it, but it was fairly breathtaking. It’s only regrettable that Hearst’s mansion is in California, which is the world paragon of poor museum science, presentation & preservation. If it were in France or the UK, it would be a real experience.

As it is, if you can forget being herded like cattle and treated like children, it is a really remarkable collection of antiques and artwork.

As we rode down the hill, our discussion – Mischief & I talk all the time, about anything and everything – turned to the shape and nature of our relationship. As I’ve written about, she’s had a rough time with a few previous guys, particularly the last one. There are a lot of trust issues, and we’re both wrestling with her residual neediness and occasional paranoia.

More than anything, this girl just wants someone to put his initials on her and let it rest at that, but getting to that point for her both of us is a process not unlike threading the winding hilltop roads near the coast… sometimes there aren’t signs; you just have to follow your nose.

Obviously, things have not been sparkly of late. Friday just put a fine point on the feelings of utter defeat and despair I’ve been struggling with since the spring. Or perhaps I should say an even finer point. Every single man who is at or near my age will understand when I say there is a strong desire in me to sell everything I own (and perhaps a pile of stuff I don’t own), and vanish into the Great Unknown, never to be heard from again by a single human I currently know.

Of course, this is a purely romantic notion. Right? I still have five little furry monsters I have to feed. Six, if you count Mischief.

On the topic of the Goth Biscuit, last weekend, she fell while attending Anime Expo and jacked up her right arm pretty successfully. Emergency room and doctor visits ensued, and we’ve discovered it isn’t broken. Just a major contusion and probably some muscle and tendon damage.

Kids.

She’s been fairly gimpy as a result, and I’ve learned to do things I never imagined, like how to properly brush and wash hair. For the first half of the week, she was pretty dependent, and I felt like a responsible adult. It was creepy. But it did net a great doctor’s office story.

However, since I enjoy telling stories backwards, let me drop a few details about this most recent weekend first. Having spent most of Friday crying my eyes out and trying to function, I was looking forward to being über-geek on Saturday night, playing Magic (I know, I know) with my friends Jim, John and Brusta, decompressing, distracted.

I hadn’t seen Allison for a few days, so I was thrilled when she arrived at my loft on Saturday night, looking great and equally happy to see me. I was even happier when she proudly slid my hand down her ass to find the butt plug she’d been wearing for the last several hours. She takes her homework very seriously, this girl.

You can infer the rest from there. I mean, I have an issue with being completely rude, so I excused myself from the game for a few rounds to indulge in an office & closet quickie. In my world, you just don’t waste a soaking-wet 26-year-old with a butt plug in her ass. But, eventually, I did return to my “guests.”

On Sunday, we slept in, completely failed to get out of bed about three times by my count, and then finally hauled our asses up to start the day. Mischief made herself extremely cute, and I did my best with jeans that no longer fit (I’ve lost a lot of weight this year) and a shirt I know she likes.

We made our way down to Venice beach to wander and people-watch. Personally, unless I’m in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic or somewhere equally resort-ish, I’m not a really “beachy” guy. As an abstract concept I love the beach, but in L.A., the beaches are cold, dirty, bum-infested and crowded. As a result, I haven’t been to Venice in, oh, five years?

We had a great time. We looked at clothes, books, art both good and bad. I copy-edited shop signs (including the hand-carved wooden sign which advertises clothing imported from “Katmandu,” wherever that is). We ate, snarked each other and argued about precisely how crazy Allison is (I’m gonna vote for somewhere between “Special Olympics” and “Batshit Crazy,” but well shy of “Nurse Ratched Will See You Now.”)

We stood for a long while at the drum circle, both trying to “get it,” but failing on some mutual lack of chemical alteration and/or spiritual depth. We watched a rumored former Solid Gold dancer do some amazing moves on roller skates, which only made me more disdainful of the small flotilla of self-important punks on skateboards whom Mischief was quite enamored with.

Ah, youth. Sadly, none of them seriously injured himself while we watched. (Hey you kids! Off of my lawn! GET OFF OF MY LAWN!)

We ended the day with Allison buying us dinner at a terrific Lebanese place where only one of the women truly looked like Jamie Farr. Over dinner, we continued a discussion about my personal brand of applied psychology and social anthropology, and the way I “read” people from a distance. Mischief is fascinated by this, and we’d been discussing how she presents herself in different situations.

On Wednesday, with her right arm still more-or-less completely KIA, I picked Mischief up from work and took her to see her orthapædist. This doctor’s office is in a very conservative part of the very conservative Orange County.

Since I probably haven’t mentioned it, overt PDA is one of Mischief’s favorite pastimes. Inappropriate PDA, even moreso.

Sitting in the OC waiting room were a thin, young, gay Asian sales rep for a software firm, a 40-something blonde real estate agent trying too hard to hit that “vaguely sexy but completely bland” look right in the center of the bullseye, and a burly, red-faced mid-40s contractor waiting for his wife; a guy you just know was climbing into a white F-250 with a crew cab and a bedliner when they left.

The main receptionist was a surly, sour-faced, Christian, Republican, 43-year-old single mother of four who was every inch the female version of the contractor in the waiting room. She stood about 5’ 11’ and had to be three bills. If you picture the feminized John Lithgow in World According to Garp you’re right on target.

Just seeing a man her age (and aren’t all fucking men just the fucking same!) with a girl Mischief’s age turned her bitter blood to cold vitriol, and if looks were daggers I would have left in a basket. Naturally, Allison took this as the signal that she should climb all over me in the waiting room. At one point, she even decided to sit in my lap. If it wouldn’t have led to police involvement and defeating the purpose of the trip (by getting kicked out), I’m sure she would have tried to blow me.

The realtor was scandalized. The contractor tried not to be envious. The salesman was oblivious.

Ms. Lithgow seethed hatred from behind the counter.

In a quiet attempt to keep Allison from alienating her doctor (I was imaging some first-generation Indian immigrant who can’t look a white woman in a bikini in the eye), I stayed in the waiting room while she went inside. At one point I caught the realtor’s eye, and I realized she wasn’t seeing me; she was seeing her husband, who coaches the girls’ volleyball team, and her imagination was running rampant.

When Allison returned from the bowels of the building, I joined her at the counter for checkout. She spent a few moments harassing the desk flunkies about details, doctor’s notes and appointments, and then asked the nurse, standing next to Ms. Lithgow, to clarify what she could and couldn’t do.

“No typing, no writing, no repetitive arm movements.”

“Oh, good,” said Mischief. “So I can still use my mouth.”

They’ll be scrubbing Ms. Lithgow’s brains off that wall for a week.

Christ, I’m exhausted.

For the last several days, I’ve been watching eight years of life together disintegrate slowly into boxes and piles as The Ex-Box and the Souvenir get on with the process of packing to move out. No matter how stoic you are (and I’m pretty fucking  stoic, Sunny Jim), there’s a hollow, echoing noise that sounds in your chest when you go to reach for something and find it gone, only to realize it’s been packed in a box to move on as part of another life.

Thank Bob for Amazon. They should have a section designed specifically for men trying to reassemble their lives after a break-up. “All the niggling little shit you’ve forgotten about, but need anyway, in one place!  Oven mitts! Kitchen shears! Paper towel holders!”

 This is a whole specific circle of Hell Dante must have missed. “Here in circle 4.2 are people who need to replace their cutlery drawer organizers because they’ve been dumped.”

On Sunday, Mischief took me away from the chaos on a day trip to Lake Arrowhead. Apart from the fact that California really doesn’t want you anywhere near the actual lake unless you’re a home/boat owner or a member of the fucking yacht club, and our disagreement over the standup comedian she loves that I… didn’t…, it was really nice.

We prowled through the shops, snickered our way through several terrible art galleries (and one very good one), ate the world’s worst excuse for a Belgian waffle ever, and had a generally terrific time. As we drove through around the mountain looking at some of the great old A-frames, she tried to convince me she really did like Corruption.

I don’t buy it.

We stopped at Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse on the way home, and I discovered that the steakhouse of the same name I know from Arizona pre-dates the oldest California restaurant by a decade, and is apparently unaffiliated. I suspect it must have been at some point.

Today has been largely dedicated to chores, arranging the pickup of various pieces of furniture from myriad locations around the Valley, and going to pick up more furniture from CraigsList. After carrying a fullsize sofabed/couch solo on my back to get it to the truck, I’m a wee bit knackered.

Hopefully, tomorrow, I will be able to find a, eye of quiet in the ongoing hurricane to appease the monkey which clings eternally to my back and edit.

I think my body just told me to get off of its lawn.

As I mentioned, James Deen and Joanna Angel hired me to light and shoot their June feature, Doppelgänger (last I heard), a horror comedy in which Joanna’s fantastically un-lifelke blow-up doll comes to life and tries to kill her. It would be completely incorrect to say they shoot features like I do. Their approach is very different, but their passion and commitment are the same, a rare occurrence in porn, so I was happy to give it my all.

Any time you’re trying to make something good with the tiny amount of money the business affords to features, it means long, hard shoot days. It’s one of the reasons so few mainstream people can truly hack it in porn. This business is broke, and having a work ethic that means you start phoning it in at hour 13 unless someone is offering overtime just doesn’t cut it. Anyone in the business who does features will tell you that looking at the wrong side of an 18-hour day just ain’t that uncommon.

After we wrapped late last night, J&J bought us all dinner which was a great gesture. They really are good people, and I like them both a lot. We’re talking about how to make their July movie possible on the budget they have. I’m prefectly happy to take that ride with them again next month.

My body had other ideas, though. On Thursday, I shot Naughty America with Ben all day. Thursday night, Mischief & I went on an actual “date” in Hollywood; cruised Amoeba; saw Micmacs (I have a love/lethargy relationshipwith Jeunet — this one I loved); had Thai food; hit Borders; fucked like beasts. Really nice.

Friday was a 16-hour day for Burning Angel, and even though the Goth Biscuit was planning on sleeping at her place, we both decided is was a “wiser” idea for her to sleep at the Shelter so I could wake her up briefly when I got home. Yesterday was another long day of shooting, planning and humping gear. When I’m tired during a shoot, I tend to apply Newton’s laws of motion to myself: An object in motion tends to remain in motion, an object at rest tends to remain at rest.  I think during all of the production on Friday & Saturday I sat down maybe four times.

I walked in the door at around 1:30 a.m., talked to the Ex-Box, the Souvenir and the Photographer in the Attic who were all buzzing over some industry gossip in the kitchen, and then went upstairs. I sat down on the edge of the futon in my office to make some notes annnnnnd…

Yeah. Woke up five hours later, still in my clothes, a ferocious kink in my neck. Needless to say, Uncle Joe is movin’ mighty slow in the Junction today. I’m doing some organizing, maybe some editing, and then going to Allison’s place in Long Beach for the evening, where I will hopefully not be required to move anything heavy or blister my fingers. We’re still finding our way through the minefield of her past relationships, but it’s good. We click.

Tomorrow, I’m chained to the desk again, trying to make headway up the river of Kiss of the Strangler and possibly pulling an all-nighter if I can hack it. Hanging out with all these kids is great until you become an object at rest.

I have a girl sleeping in my bed.

Wait, I’m beginning at the end. Let me back up.

Thursday night, Mischief & I went to a gallery show at a club space downtown that featured art, photography, fashion. We were invited by my friend Ben Hoffman (The Photographer in the Attic) who truly is an Artist.

He is one of the more astonishing photographers I’ve ever seen. He’s currently living an art project of his own devising called Project One. The mission is to create one piece of real art every day for a year.

I’d strongly encourage you to check out his site HERE.

The show itself, with the exception of Ben’s work, was a sardonic joke. A hipster facsimile of style, taste and genuine skill. An accidental postmodern sendup of the L.A. art scene. If you could make an ironic T-shirt out of an art show and sell it at Brite Spot, this would be that shirt.

Friday night was supposed to be a solo dinner with my friends John & Brusta to catch up and discuss John’s current screenplay. With a warning that I was afraid she might be bored or feel left out when we came to the script notes, I invited the Girl to come along, and she accepted.

I needn’t have worried. John can be a lot to keep up with, and the two of us together have a hurricane-like effect, blowing over everything not oak tree-strong in the room. Mischief kept up just fine. She related the story of her ex, who had been posting shitty comments on her blog under various guises throughout the day.

When we got to the script discussions hours later, she curled up against the wall, draped a leg over me, and was perfectly happy just to be there, alone in her thoughts, but together as a unit.

Saturday, we took the Metro in to Olvera St. and wandered it thoroughly. Museums. Craft & Crap stores. A great lunch. Some illicit behavior on a hidden balcony overlooking downtown. A great afternoon.

We went home so I could load up for the Burning Angel shoot that I’ve been DPing/Gaffing. When the loadout was finally finished, we showered and I went with Mischief to one of her clubs so I could see her dance.

I’ve always liked going to clubs. I resolutely Do Not Dance. But. The people-watching is always first rate as humans are never more entertaining than when they are On Display for the benefit/antagonism/seduction of others. Peacocks preening and dancing for the other birds in the muster.

Because I cannot go anywhere in this town without bumping into someone I know, we found a hysterically tipsy Aiden Starr at the club. Talking to drunken blond munchkin women with perfect bodies makes me happy.

And then, when the drought of songs she liked finally broke, I got to see Allison dance. It was one of the more erotic experiences of my life.

It wasn’t just the intimate knowledge of being inside that gyrating body… because on that weekend, we finally fucked after weeks of abstinence for a variety of reasons.

The way she moves, the way she melds herself to each song as if it were a lover, the combination of steps and gestures built around a kind of subconscious “here I am/you can’t have me” dynamic… it made me hungry.

Sadly, I had to cut out early. I needed to get a few hours’ sleep before my call in Woodland Hills.

The Burning Angel shoot was grueling, especially on top of four hours’ sleep, but I’ve certainly done worse. Plus, James & Joanna are such great people that you just want to pull it off for them, so we all really tried to hustle.

The movie is about Joanna confronting her possessed blow-up doll from Topco, and it’s going to be really cute. Goth Biscuit & I texted each other back and forth all day like teenagers. Revolting.

Monday, the shoot continued at a loft downtown, and when we ran over and got gently bumped from our location, I offered up my place for the final sex scene. We did the company move, and Mischief got to watch the sex scene being shot, which she’d been curious about, and everyone got to meet her, which they’d been curious about.

The next oldest person on set was 13 years younger than me. When that realization hits you, especially when you’ve been up for 42 hours straight and are sleeping with a 26-year-old, it verges well into the realm of the surreal.

It is a strange, strange life, this thing I’m living.

So, I have a girl sleeping in my bed.

When I finish the things I have to do, that life and work and keeping body and soul together demand of me in the never-ending stretch of never-ending hours that seem to comprise a single, never-ending workday, I’ll slide in next to her. She’ll move to my side and curl up on top of me, like a cat, sleeping on my chest. Out cold. Safe.

We’ve known each other for less than a month – can that be right? – and since she showed up on my doorstep needing a shoulder, we’ve seen each other every day, save one.

And it feels right. It’s effortless and natural. We’re pretty confident we can work out the monogamy issue, and I’m not going to let myself be concerned about the age difference. I figure as long as we can joke about it, it’s not too creepy.

What I’m not going to do is get overwrought, or spend too much time analyzing, trying to convince myself that my own worthiness of a happy existence is constantly in doubt – the way I do – and so anything that contributes to happiness must be suspect. I’m not going to stress about how Allison will react when she finally hits the shoals of the various broken pieces of my psyche. I’m not going to presage doom.

The way I do.

Nope.

Instead, I’m going to go to bed and I’m going to let that smart, sexy, dynamic, dirty girl who seems to think the world of me curl up on my chest and sleep as my fingers trace the edges of the magnificent tattoo down her right ribcage while I drift.

And I’m not going to worry about it.

On Monday night (May 31), Mischief returned from San Francisco and had dinner with the Once and Future King. The purpose of dinner was negotiating the terms of the marriage. In my mind’s eye, I like to picture it as 17^th century Burghers negotiating a nuptial contract.

“Yes, zee bride vill perform oral sex upon rekvest. Her dowry, howefer, vill haf to be kompensated zignificantly!”

Allison would get marriage, but agreed to sacrifice the Mischiefettes. Metaphorically speaking, you understand. Unless you’re Abraham, there’s little point in having them just to sacrifice them. In exchange for little Zamboni and Peripatetica remaining theoretical ovum, Gríos would support Mischief (apparently, he has money… not, y’know, Money, but more than, say, any of us reading this) in a fairly lush style, send her back to school full-time to finish her Masters, and let her work on her book.

Gríos would agree to compromise on monogamy, working out a sort-of closed swinging contract that he and Mischief would only fool around together, and with both having veto authority over potential partners.

The first red flag went up for me when I learned that Gríos thought it would be a “great” idea for Mischief to keep me in her life, and even for us to continue exploring a D/s relationship (minus actual sex). I’ve encountered this kind of thing before, and it amounts to a man who isn’t interested in the work and effort needed to properly foster a BDSM dynamic farming it out to someone else. Like kinky globalization.

It’s one thing if you’re discussing a couple who’ve been together for ten years, and the wife just wants to eat at a fancy restaurant once in a while rather than cook at home. But making this play when you haven’t even, oh, say, figured out your vows? That’s pure disinterest.

Trying to convince herself that everything was working, Allison took Gríos to meet her parents, which threatened to be awkward since he was three when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and she was three when the Challenger exploded.

Everything went smoothly, and the first weekend (Mischief works a normal schedule, so weekends actually matter) as reunited soonlyweds loomed. Their first real time alone in months.

To mark the occasion, Gríos took her to a nice dinner, after which they spent the evening alone at home, getting reacquainted BDSM play party at a house in Hollywood. A really shitty party attended by drunken, unconcerned doms taking things too far with submissives too heavily altered or emotionally damaged to say “Red.” I’ve been to parties like this, and it’s bad juju. You feel like you need a shower afterwards.

Mischief started texting me, playfully at first, and then more distressed as the anxiety built. Finally she called, needing an ear to absorb her discomfort and growing frustration as she perceived that Gríos was testing her. Auditioning her to see how she would handle his fantasy world of the swing club he owns and the constant sport-fucking. Even if that were acceptable behavior, once you’ve signed the contract, you’ve agreed to the sale. What’s left to test?

They left the party, stopped at Mel’s Diner for food, and when dinner was over, so was the engagement. Mischief had once again stood her ground, which is how she ended up here. We stayed up into the wee small hours, just her, me and the left half of my face, and I did my best to give genuine, thoughtful responses rather than simple platitudes.

Mostly, I think she just needed someone to be a sounding board while she worked it out. And it was convenient to have a man who valued her and found her attractive doing it, even if that man was Quasimodo. It was still good for her ego.

Since then, she’s slept here every night except Tuesday. I think, in a way, the loft has come to represent a place of safety and security for her as it used to for me. A funhouse-mirror version of the life she’s walked away from, complete with the distorted reflection of a man.

Also, she’s poking and testing to see if it’s only her trust in Gríos that’s been shattered, or if it’s trust in general.  I have a slew of my own opinions about Gríos’ underlying motivations, but I wasn’t there and I don’t know the man, so I’ll leave my conjecture unspoken.

As for what we’re doing, we don’t know, and right now isn’t the time to try and work it out. She primarily needs someone to be constant, honest and capable of displaying affection. Whatever this is, though, it’s easy. Effortless, like we’ve known each other for years. If I were prone to rebounding, I’d think I were, but it isn’t that. I’ve already turned down advances from other girls I would have jumped at on the rebound.

It’s just… a really good synergy. Even with the offspring question kind of tabled, we’ve still got bridges to cross. And we will. But right now, we’re just kinda happy running around on this side of the river.

…

P.S. The face is now fine.

Saturday night. Technically Sunday morning. Mischief arrives around 1 a.m.

I know, you’re confused. Last week, my writers were a little vague with her backstory when it looked like she was being written out of the series. However, she just renegotiated her option, and it looks like she’s gotten bumped from “recurring” to “series regular,” so we’ve put together a special teaser prologue for this episode to bring everyone up to speed.

When we first met, it was with the clear and expressed understanding that we were just marking time.

• Allison – Mischief – has a biological imperative and wants spawn; I think kids are a virus you have to buy shoes for and have a 15-year-old vasectomy.
• She wants the ceremony; I think marriage is for suckers.
• She’s 26; I’m… old…
• She’s a serial monogamist; I’m a serial…

Um, let’s not put that in writing, shall we?

Serious dating was off the table as a complete non-starter. But we encountered a problem: we hit it off. We really get along, and very quickly, we found ourselves carefully talking around the obvious, significant connection we both felt. Because we can’t date. We’re both rational people, and I’m even a rational adult.

And yet. I mean, this is a girl who, when we were discussing sex, said to me “Basically, anything that might happen during your average violent rape is good.” Be still my beating heart.

Things like that are why I named her Mischief. Being a blogger and child of the internet, she has more pseudonyms than rednecks have teeth, but I needed an appellation of my own, and I realized that this smart, snarky, dirty 26-year-old was trouble. Would BE trouble.

Then we reached the end of the first act, where all of our conflict occurs.

Mischief writes an anonymous blog. I found it right after our first date (after 27 tedious seconds of searching), but I don’t read it out of respect. I’m chewing through the archives from before we met, but I don’t read the current posts so she can write with impunity. Which must be nice.

And the blog isn’t Goth-Biscuit.com so don’t bother. I digress.

A large part of her blog is devoted to her on-again, off-again relationship with (we’ll call him) Gríos, a balding, dominant douchebag man in his 40s with a shady past who has business in aspects of the sex industry.

Stop it. It’s not that funny.

All seriousness aside, the similarities between Gríos & I are purely superficial. The more I find out about him, the more certain I become that we are not of a kind. While we seem to know many of the same people (and, in fact, I’m sure looking at his photo that I know Gríos from somewhere, but cannot conjure it) he is not of my tribe.

For the better part of a year, through three break-ups, Allison was crazy about the guy. Obsessed. From early days, she was convinced that he was The One, her Personal Jesus. Except. Gríos has a vasectomy, refuses to get married, and won’t conscion monogamy.

No, really, knock it off. We don’t even look alike. You’re just embarrassing yourself, now.

Those sticking points turned into the eventual wedge that drove Mischief to break it off once and for all. If the relationship wasn’t going anywhere, she needed to move on.

That was a couple months ago. Since then she’s had virtually no contact with Gríos. Until the last week of May when he surfaced. Proposing marriage. In the comments section of her blog.

Let’s break this down. For a year, a man my age dicks around with a girl in her 20s who’s got scars all over her heart like seeds on a strawberry, in what sounds to me like a vastly one-sided relationship. When she gets fed up with the imbalance, he breaks it off, knowing she’ll come back, anxious to take whatever emotional table-scraps he’s willing to give.

A year later, she’s grown stronger. She’s had it, and she walks away. Instead of letting go, he tracks down her blog, and when it looks like she might be getting over it and moving on, he returns from the dead! Deus ex fucking machina! Behold! My name is Legion, look upon me and despair!

Okay, melodramatic, but Jesus. I spoke to Mischief a few times over that weekend as she was away in San Francisco. Gríos was pushing her hard. “Let’s do it right now. Meet me in Vegas tomorrow morning.” Left-field as it all was, part of me knew she was going to go for it.

I did my due diligence. Told her I thought it was nuts, and why. Why the rush? What’s changed? Why now? I told her there was no way a man Gríos’ age didn’t understand the emotional turmoil he was putting her through. I didn’t understand why a lover would do that.

I figured, assuming Gríos didn’t just discover something terminal, he was acting as a classic sociopath, making a movie in his head of how it “should be.” I told Allison I didn’t believe he saw her as a real person, just an abstract notion, an idealized “thing” to own, an objet d’vivre.

I recognize the sociopath in Gríos because I have a lot of sociopathic tendencies myself, and in most cases, it takes one to know one.

Okay, I’m really not going to tell you again. The smirk is unbecoming. Chill.

Naturally, Allison defended him. I didn’t understand his thinking, and it’s possible that I didn’t. But I’ve learned something in life: If you have a significant other you constantly have to defend to others using the “s/he’s not really like that” defense, guess what? The one who’s mistaken is almost always you.

The engagement lasted a week.

…to be continued

So where was I? Ah, yes. The face.

Antibiotics and hot soaks aside, the swelling continued. I woke Saturday morning with half of my face looking like Brando in The Godfather. If I’ve learned nothing else from this experience, it’s that I need to set aside money for a face-lift in my 60s because I do not look attractive with jowls. How Winston Churchill could muddle through all those bulldoggy mornings during the blitz I’ll never know.

My doctor had asked me to call him with a status report, and when I reached him his advice was “Probably going to have to be drained. Emergency Room.”

This kind of thing fills me with dread because, of course, I don’t have insurance.

“How can this be, Bryn? A professional man in his 40s, no insurance?”

Well, ya see, I’m hypothyroid. The $26-per-month prescription constitutes a pre-existing condition, so the only way I can get insurance is through Cal-COBRA, at the low, low cost of $1,471 a month. That’s with a 50% co-pay and $3,000 deductible.

So yeah, no.

I got to spend a few hours in the gentle embrace of St. Vincent’s ER. No draining, but IV antibiotics and two new prescriptions. If you’re ever in the same boat of paying cash price for meds, let me give you a hint; call around before you fill your script. Prices… uh… vary. For the more expensive of the two antibiotics, Horton & Converse had it for $84, Rite Aid for $49 and CVS for $305.

When I got home, I called my doctor again, trying to figure out if I should add these to the drug he gave me (more, more, more!) or supplant it. When I told him the hospital had given me x and y, he said, “Oh, good. Those are for that type of infection.”

That reaction you’re having? That one, right now… yeah, that was my reaction. But I resisted the urge to scream it into the phone. There was no point. I just said goodbye and hung up. Then I turned into Les Grossman.

“Then why didn’t you give me this shit in the first place, MOTHERFUCKER?!”

Cats scattered. I resisted the urge to fling my phone across the room.

The new antibiotics are strong. Kicked my ass for about three hours. As I flopped around on my office couch in a cold sweat, feeling like I’d taken a few too many sleeping pills, I was vaguely aware of cats coming and going. My phone ringing. The Ex-Box and The Souvenir making dinner below.

When I finally woke up, I was dreaming I had fallen out of a helicopter. Onto rocks.

I have felt at various times massively unattractive, but how I felt Saturday was pegged on the red side of grisly. I smelled bad from sweating, the drugs were making my face oily and my scalp dry, I hadn’t groomed my fuzz or fur in days… oh, and I had a giant, swollen, glowing, pus-filled radioactive blister where the left half of my face used to be.

Naturally, this was the night I would have a visitation from what Ray Stantz might have called “A full-body, free-roaming vapor.” In short, my phone rang at midnight-thirty, and one look told me it was an ROF – Randomly Occurring Female – calling for moral support, and most likely, an actual, physical shoulder to cry on.

Luckily, since I felt like Quasimodo, I had shoulder in ample supply.

…to be continued