The Story of Me and The Girl… Read at Your Own Risk.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I wrote this never intending to post it. It was meant to be something that I kept to myself. I've stared at this screen for a good 12 hours today and fought with the impulse to post this at least a dozen times.

My diary is my own as my thoughts, and my life, are my own. I realize that there are people that know me, and the Girl, that could be reading this, and that this information is private, between she and I, and it may be improper to share it with them. If you are one of these people, I kindly ask you to stop reading and go download some porn or something, as this is only my perspective, and I wouldn't want to jade your opinion of the Girl without you knowing her side of our story as well.

I worried, for a minute or two, that an entry like this is too unlike the others. It's too long, it's too real, it's too painful, and that it may serve to drive away those that come to my diary simply for a laugh, to be entertained.

Then I was reminded of something I'd forgotten.

This is MY diary, and Fuck You if you don't like what's in it.

Then I was reminded of something else, something very profound.

There are a lot of people that read this, and not all of them are just in it for the times when I burn off my eyebrows or bust someone jerking off in the corporate bathroom.

I've come in contact with some truly wonderful people through this diary and I post this knowing that those whose opinions truly matter to me, those that I honestly feel truly care about me, would never judge or condemn me for what I put in here regardless of what it may be. Anything short of eating kittens or molesting a dead horse would probably be acceptable.

To those of you, and I think you know who you are, I say, \"Thank you. Truly. Thank you.\"

There is something incredibly cathartic and freeing about being able to express oneself, with no fear of repercussion, to a group of people I have, for the most part, never met, nor ever will meet.

I realized that this, above all else, is why I am here.

The Girl and I are upon hard times.

This is our story.

I'm not sure where to start, so I'll start at my earliest \"good\" memory of me and the Girl. I had always had a fascination with my best friend's little sister. She was about 8th grade level when I started thinking that I'd really like to molest her. Once, I actually forced her to the floor, playful like, but with horny intent, and climbed on top of her, only to, at the exact instant I was trying to kiss her, have their mother come home and say, \"Get off my little girl, Judd.\" Needless to say, that was an awkward, but kind of cute, moment.

It also didn't stop me from being an asshole to her, much along the lines of the playground-game of \"pulling the hair of the girl you like most.\" Yeah, I know, not terribly mature, but I was a complete jackass and that's really the best I could come up with. Besides, her brother gave me beer to abuse her, as he was always getting in trouble for it.

By the time I was a Senior, I almost had her convinced that she should date me (we shared Band class together), as when I was a Freshman, all the chicks in our class were dating Seniors and I vowed to do the same, if only for revenge. Plus, I had a crush on her, but had never told anyone, including her.

I only found out a few years ago that she honestly would have gone out with me had I just gotten serious and asked. Funny, I really thought she thought I was the asshole that I was. She did, but thought I was cute too, and didn't exactly have guys beating down her door.

The summer after my Freshman year of college, I came home and saw that she'd grown into a fine, fine looking woman. She remembers fondly, sauntering by me, wearing pants that were just a bit too tight, then mounting the 4-wheeler and blasting off down their rural lane, with a complete awareness of the effect that would have on me.

Later that week, her brother and I promised to by her and their cousin beer if they would drive us around while we got drunk. We sat in my driveway, high up on the valley wall overlooking the town, and watched the sun set while we drank and smoked cigarettes. I remember thinking, \"what a cool-ass chick,\" as she and I talked about school, her parents, and partying. I was terribly jealous to learn that she had lost her virginity recently to a guy that I considered a complete goob. Of course, I probably would have been jealous of anyone that had done it instead of me. I figured that she still considered me the asshole that would beat her up because her brother told him to, so I never tried to tell her that I had always had a crush on her. Then, I got drunk and took her cousin's virginity that night.

Yeah, I know, only a fuckin' dickhead can tell a girl that he secretly wanted her, and pined for her, even while fucking her cousin. Fucked up, I know.

So, a year passes and I'm home again. I mostly hang out at her house because her brother and I are still inseparable, but I'm definitely getting a different vibe from her. It's like we're both growing up and figuring out our level of attraction to each other. Her brother and I came home one night from a night of drinking and I tell him I'm sneaking up to his sister's room.

\"My sister?!? What the fuck are you... my sister, seriously?!?\" he cried, incredulously. An expected reaction, I guess.

I snuck up the stairs and climbed into bed with her. She was understandably tentative and wary of my advances, but te talked, we groped, and we eventually started making out like the teenagers we were. I was incredibly excited and lost in the urgency of the moment, yet very time I tried to put it in, she stopped me. Probably because her parents were 10 feet across the hall, and I'd forgotten to shut and lock her door. Oops. I left reluctantly, only after I made her promise me that we would get together at the end of the week, when she got back from Volleyball camp. She agreed, I kissed her passionately, and left.

Her folks left for Billings early the next morning, leaving her and I alone in the house. I, once again, woke her up, and climbed into bed with her, only this time we took our clothes off and had sex. I didn't realize that the repeated grinding that I had done with her the night before had worn a rough patch on the most sensitive part of my penis, and, for the first and last time of my life, I lasted less than 5 minutes. She was mildly amused by this, and our first encounter had almost no trace of romance. I kissed her hurredly, threw the covers on her, and left like I'd committed a crime.

A week went by, her brother was gone and I had no reason to be over at her house, so I snuck in.

\"AAHHH!\" I almost shouted when I saw that she wasn't alone. Her cousin, whose virginity I claimed the previous summer, was there. We secretly made plans for her to sneak out though, and around 1 A.M. I took her to my empty house. We made love like champions. We kissed and tickled and moved and loved together for about 3 and a half hours. Then we cuddled and talked. Since she'd always been kind of hard-boiled, I felt kind of awkward discussing anything personal, but she listened to me and even encouraged it. We connected on a level I'd never known was possible.

To this day, it remains one of the most magical nights of my entire life.

I went back to school in Texas the next day, thinking about her constantly. When she wrote me, my heart soared, yet I never wrote her back, I never called her. I thought that I was a big important College guy now and couldn't be bothered with a silly High-School girl. I was defending myself against the possible pain of being separated by someone I cared about. I never even considered that she'd have feelings for me too. Like I said, she was hard-boiled and tough, and her letters only said things like I better write or at least that's what her shrink says, never alluding to the fact that she was hurt that I hadn't written her. Soon after, she started throwing attitude around her house and discovering drugs, and I can't help but feel like my ignoring her helped push her down a certain path. Possibly a misplaced guilt, but one I still feel nonetheless.

That Christmas, after not communicating with her at all for 6 months, I blew through town, found her, convinced her to meet me, and we spent about 2 hours arguing over having sex or not. Again, she was hesitant, even though I worked every angle I could think of, and she just didn't want to do it. That didn't matter to me, as all I cared about was getting laid. Her possible feeling of abandonment never occurred to me. Eventually we got naked, but she was so not into it that I could barely muster anything either, and we both left feeling unfulfilled.

6 months later, I almost went home with her brother to her graduation, but didn't. Still considering her a silly High-School girl, I did my best to ignore her and the feelings I once felt. Once again, defending myself against any pain that I may possibly feel.

The following Christmas comes and she's a College girl now. She and her brother are going to a community college in a small Nebraska town and partying it up. While on the phone with him discussing my trip and my detour through Corn-Land, I had him ask her if she'd like to see me. Her answer was a resounding, \"Hell, yes!\" I was elated.

We spent 4 days like we had always been together. I was still distracted by the other hot College girls, but I only wanted to be with her. Even when she was being kind of a fuck-up. I had a great time.

I'll never forget the moment my heart was lost to her forever. We were driving my old, piece-of-shit, ranch pickup down the Main street in that small Nebraska town, and the transmission started giving me shits. It wouldn't shift, then it wouldn't come out of gear, then it did nothing. After pulling over, I decided to just push it to a service station, opened the driver door, grabbed the wheel, and started pushing. I turned my head to tell her that she could steer while I pushed from the back and saw, much to my amazement, that she had hopped out and was behind the truck, pushing like a champ. I felt my heart melt.

A few days later, I continued on to Montana, where I spent my time, grudgingly, with my family, missing her terribly, and left two days later. I left my hometown, in the middle of a blizzard, in the middle of the night, on December 23, for a friend's wedding in Sheridan, Wyoming, and eventually, back to her in Nebraska. Somewhere in the middle of the Crow Indian Reservation, fate intervened, and my truck finally blew its transmission out. Me and my small, brown, dog, Asshead, hitched into the closest town with a nice Crow family, who offered us jerky and me a beer. I thought I may decline on the jerky for the dog, as it may have been cannibalism, but it made Asshead happy and the children giggled when they fed her and she licked their faces repeatedly.

I spent the next two nights on the mechanic's couch in that piece of shit town. I called the Girl from a pay phone at a gas station (dirty, mechanic, guy didn't have a phone) while the -4 degree wind chill, bitterly cold, winter night lashed at me and my small, brown Asshead. We talked for a while, about nothing, about everything, and both ended the call by saying, \"dream of me,\" at the exact same moment. I almost told her I loved her, but didn't. I wasn't able to admit it, but I was in love. I didn't know that I was, but I felt it. I ached for her like nothing else in this world, while I spent the night before Christmas eve with a dirty, nasty, drug-dealing, mechanic (white) and his girlfriend and 4 of her brothers (all Crow). The brothers stayed inside all day with the curtains drawn and looked nervously out the window every time a car drove by. They explained to me that there were 5 brothers, but one was in prison, and the others didn't care to join him.

It seems they had seen this trailer home, out on the flats of the rez, that hadn't had anyone living in it in awhile, and they had decided to help themselves to its contents. As 3 of the 4 brothers were under FBI surveillance, they were quickly caught while packing the Suburban (which they also helped themselves to) full of the contents of the trailer home. When the feds surrounded them, they did the only thing they could think of. They dumped 2 gallons of diesel on the Suburban and its contents, lit it, and fled. 4 men, on foot, in 4 separate directions, pursued by 4 cars, each with 2 FBI agents, in the middle of the prairie, and only one guy got caught.

Wow, great story fellas, Merry Fucking Christmas. Despite the warmth of the home and it's copious amounts of decorations and Christmas cheer, I barely slept that night. I missed her terribly and wanted nothing more than out of that fucking house.

I eventually made it back to Denver, on Christmas morning, through another blizzard, and the Girl agreed to drive to Denver and meet me at the Mom's. For the next two days, we had a great time. We went to a D.U. hockey game, drank beers, hung out with the Mom, and had great sex in the Mom's house. It was great and I felt the best that I'd ever felt in my life. For the first time, I wanted to be with someone and no one else. This picture is from that trip, and, to this day, it's the only picture that both of us truly like.

I had to go back to Texas though, and even though we agreed to be celibate and wait for our next time together, I couldn't bear to leave my heart with her. I hid it away and pretended she didn't have it, just to make my own life easier. We would write every week and, while our letters were sexy and sensual and funny, they never mentioned what both of us were feeling deep in our hearts. Pulling my defense mechanism again, I even told her that I didn't think of her that often, just because I knew I missed her and I didn't want her to feel that too. She took that to mean that I didn't care about her, and cheated on me. She then wrote me a letter admitting what she had done, telling me how she was feeling so guilty and wrong, but that she was desperately in love with me and how much it hurt that she thought that I wasn't thinking about her. She never tried to excuse her actions, but she never gave me a heartfelt apology, either.

In my pain, anger, confusion, I wrote her back telling her that, while her cheating on me hurt me deeply, I was in love with her as well and that the love I felt was worth a chance. The anger, pain, and mistrust lasted, but the love grew and when she asked her mother if she would buy her a plane ticket to come see me in Texas, her mother barely batted an eyelid. Despite her mother's wariness of me and my assholishness in my youth, she knew that I was better than most of the guys the Girl had brought home before and she supported our relationship.

She came to Texas and, while watching her get off the plane, I thought my heart would beat out of my chest. Our time was nice, but something was different. I was so incredibly happy that someone, Dog Forbid, would love me, and that I could love them, I figured that nothing could ever go wrong in the Universe again. I found out that this is precisely when the Universe chooses to kick me square in the balls. The Girl was acting squirrelly, so I poked and prodded and bugged her until she told me that she wanted to see other people. She loved me, yes, but didn't want a romantic relationship with me.

In the same week, my favorite professor at A&M miscarried her first child, the Brother revealed to his wife and 3-month-old little girl that he had been having an affair, and his mistress was having his son in a month, and the Mom's most favorite dog ever got hit by a car.

At this point, I figured that the Universe could kiss my fucking asspucker, and if it wanted me again, I'd be in the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam. I was managing a sub shop then, at the end of a strip mall, two doors down from a liquor store. I would trade LiquorStoreLady sandwiches for bottles and, as she was an alcoholic too, she understood when I came knocking on her door at 8 in the morning. Being drunk on whiskey when you open up for business at 10 A.M. would normally be something that could cause catastrophe. I never had any problems though. I smoked about two packs a day, and was funny and charming to the customers to the point where I was actually getting asked out. I never went, of course, but it was nice.

I'd also cemented my decision to leave Texas.

I'd started thinking about it when the Girl and I were together. She had the notion that I was talking about going to Colorado to be with her and that I'd be leaving a great life of parties, football, hockey and girls behind in Texas, but what she didn't know was, I was planning on going to Boulder about 6 fucking minutes after I first entered the state of Texas. It just took me 4 years to pull my head out of my ass and finally go.

So, I drank. And I smoked cigarettes. And I started failing at school. And I started failing at my job. And I lost my starting goaltending position on the A&M hockey team.

Life was not good.

I eventually managed to get some of my shit together, certainly nowhere near all of it, and life improved, at least externally. Then I moved to Denver. The plan was to stay in the Mom's basement for a month or two until school at C.U. started. A slight flaw in this logic was that they didn't accept me. The University of Denver (Hah-vahd of the West) said they'd love to have me. $13K a semester, please. That wasn't happening.

The University of Colorado at Denver said they'd take me, grudgingly, but it would be more like $1,300 a semester and I'd have to get perfect grades. Deal.

I saw the Girl again that summer, and she was cold-hearted and rude, acting as if she'd never loved me and that I was an annoyance to her. I didn't see her again until the following summer, when her brother, his new wife and I were up there for a weekend. We were all parked at a place called \"Lover's Lane,\" which I remembered more for it's great fishing than it's making out, but that's what her brother and his wife had come there to do. I briefly considered the situation, and I grabbed the Girl and started to kiss her, but my heart gave a searing, self-defensive SCREAM.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't share any part of myself with this heartless bitch. She'd shit all over me, so I rejected her, and it felt almost good. Yet, still shitty. Again with the self-defense mechanisms.

I didn't see her again until the next summer. She seemed to be doing well, and I was in a reasonably happy place in my life, meaning no one hated me and I didn't hate anyone... much. We got together and had fantastic meaningless sex for 2 days before then I left. It was almost like our past hadn't really happened the way I had perceived it.

A month later, I thought I was in love with a lesbian that eventually admitted that she was more-or-less \"trying me out\" as she had never been with men and thought she'd give me a go. While that hurt, it was nothing like what the Girl had done to me, yet I was still kind of reeling.

I was less than pleased when the Girl's mother told her that she needed to move to Denver and get me back as an active part of her life because of her increasing problems back in our hometown. I had no idea that she had immersed herself in a world of drugs and bad, bad people. I only knew she was pissing all over her mother's love and it was time that she moved on.

So, I took her in. I found her a job at a friend's bar, and let her stay with me, rent and bill free, for a couple months. For all of this I got decent sex about twice a week, screaming fights about 3 times a week, and not one, single goddam word of thanks. Eventually, she found an apartment, and our contact tapered off over the months into nothing. I was relieved as my life was complicated enough, and I couldn't handle her \"drama\" anymore. I had no idea that she was still a junkie and that she was immersed in her old life even more so than she was in Montana.

2 days after her birthday, April 5th, I get a phone call from her. She tells me that she's hit rough times and was wondering if I could possibly find it in my heart to help her. I always had, and I knew I always would. I knew that no matter the pain she'd caused me, she would always have a place in my heart and that I would do anything she asked. She said she appreciated that and asked if she could have a place to stay for a couple days while she went through the process of checking herself into rehab for the drugs that were ruining her life.

\"Of course,\" I said, \"Do you need a ride? Where are you?\"

\"I'm on your front lawn.\"

A tumultuous summer followed as she was on her own journey, dealing with her withdrawls, and examining a fitful life that had never been examined before. I stood by her though, regardless of how she treated me, because I believed that she was going to a better place and maybe, someday, she and I could try again.

At the end of the summer, the end of the rehab, she was in her own apartment, as part of the halfway house program. She was still being a shit, and I had to poke, prod, and pry until she finally told me that she wanted to see other people. I told her that was fine, but I no longer wanted any single remnant of her in my life. I wanted her out. I wanted nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with someone who could treat me like that after I had done so much for her, despite the fact that she had done nothing but hurt me. She didn't like the idea of me not in her life, but told me she would respect my wishes.

I found out later that she would occasionally cruise by my house, checking on me, had even seen my new truck, and had a tinge of jealousy when she saw me outside talking to a woman once (roommate's girlfriend).

A year later, her brother and I are attending college here in Denver together, and we would occasionally speak about her. I figured she was still a huge fuck-up, but he was finally realizing that she's a human being and was becoming very fond of her. \"You should call her,\" he says casually, one day outside of class while smoking a Newport, \"You two are good together. Better than you are apart, anyway.\"

I told him to fuck himself. That bitch had done nothing but hurt me while she fucked her life up and wasn't worth my time. I told him, quite self-righteously, that if she thought she had her shit together, she could try to make contact with me, but I wasn't going to be the one to do it.

A month later, and a mutual friend of me and the Girl's is getting married in Nebraska. The Girl's older brother does a little matchmaking and tries to get me to drive to there with her, and I almost do. But, I can't. The thought of spending 5 hours in the car with someone that only exists to hurt me, and never looked back, was not something I was willing to do. Besides, I had forsaken our friend because he owed me money.

I considered her though, thought I'd give her a chance, and invited her to come by my office, just so I could see her again. She looked great. She was off drugs, about to move in with a very nice co-worker, had a great job that she'd always wanted, and seemed to be what I wanted her to be when we were together. I was doing well too, though, with my new truck, new job, and my new degree. I felt like I was in a good place too. I regretted not going to Nebraska, but figured I'd see what may come of things when she got back.

A week later, we spoke briefly, but she was going out of the country on a dive trip, and promised she would call me when she got back. Later, I learned that she'd met someone at the wedding and was in the process of figuring out that, in the long line of men in her life, she'd picked another winner, as this psycho was living on her couch and wouldn't leave. It's only fair that I mention that I was sleeping with another girl at the time, but I knew it was just sex and wasn't going anywhere. I was willing to cut it off if the Girl came back into my life.

We eventually had a date. We went to a drive-in movie, then to my place and for sex in the hot tub. I admit that I really only wanted to get laid. I had no interest in having my heart stomped on again. I was wary, to say the least.

Things progressed over the next few months and we were seeing more and more of each other. She acted as if nothing had ever happened in our past, and that bothered me, but we were doing so well, I thought I should just enjoy it.

Then one day we were supposed to go to a Halloween party together and I never heard from her. I called and called, but never heard back. That night, I couldn't sleep and I was worried as hell about her. I had no idea where her new place was, but her brother had been there and knew the general intersection, so I went there and canvassed the surrounding blocks until I found her car. I knocked on the door, waited a few minutes and knocked some more. I finally called her name and she came and opened up the door. A look of guilt and quiet resignation filled her face and I knew something was wrong. I was anxious as hell that she would tell me that she had cheated on me again, but she hadn't. She had been doing drugs and couldn't cope with talking to, or even being around, me, so she just hid herself away and waited for things to pass. I was hurt and angry, but not like I'd been before, as I truthfully thought that I was a strong enough person to handle whatever she needed me for. She asked me, incredulously, why I would stay with her when she did drugs and acted that way. I told her I loved her and that there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for her. She told me that she was very much in love with me.

As much as I had avoided it, almost dreaded it, it seemed we were together for real this time.

She had some lapses over the next month or so, doing drugs again and acting like a complete shit. Over the next 6 months, we had some real blow-up fights, almost always precipitated by me telling her that I needed more from her in the relationship and her rebelling against that. Her argument was, and is, almost always that she was giving and I just wasn't seeing it and that she just felt \"defeated\" every time that I told her I wasn't getting enough from her. I had a terrible dream one night that she had another boyfriend and was completely unapologetic about it. It bothered me, and she knew this, so she wrote me a note that read, \"I'll never purposely hurt you again,\" and I kept it in my wallet, with me at all times.

We got better. We made it several months without a fight or a serious \"meltdown\" and decided to get a place together. Her mother, a wonderful, wonderful, human being, told us that we should just buy a place to avoid throwing money away on rent. When I told her we couldn't afford a down-payment, she wrote us a big, fat check and told me to pay her back, sans interest, when we sold the house, and that it was one of the best investments she could think of making. So together we bought a great house in a Denver suburb.

Things about her still bothered me though, and I soon grew restless with her fiercely independent nature and the incredible wall that she had built to guard herself. I would journal and journal (the old-time paper kind) and try to examine why she was the way she was and what I could do about it, how I could better myself and, therefore, the relationship. There were times that I just vented and vented about her selfish nature, her vast sexual history, or the lack of communication in our relationship. Mostly I just tried to understand why she acted the way she did and what I could change about me that would facilitate a better relationship. I poured our whole life into words in that journal.

Then one night I came home from a hockey game and she was gone. It got later and later and she wasn't home, so I called and left her a message, not seriously worried, but concerned. Night turned into early morning and I went through what parents must go through when a teenager is out for the night and has missed curfew. I was ready to call hospitals or the police, but I knew that there really wasn't anything I could do except wait for her and hope for the best.

I didn't sleep a minute all night. I was at work the next day, wracked with anxiety, but I figured I would wait until she had to be at work and call her there, as she still wasn't answering her phone. At 10 A.M., I called and got her on the line. She was quiet, offering no information at all. I asked if she knew that I was upset and why, and she said she did. I asked her why she took off without telling me and didn't answer her phone. She told me she didn't know. I muttered, \"Aw, fuck you,\" and hung up. She wrote me an email later telling me that she had totally betrayed and destroyed my trust by reading my journal.

I had a hockey game and didn't see her that night, but I left the note she had written me on the counter. The note she wrote, months before, promising me she would never purposely hurt me again. I got an email that afternoon from her saying that she had gone home for lunch, seen the note, and deserved that. I couldn't help but feel that she deserved a fuck of a lot more, but never said that to her.

When we finally talked she admitted that she had read the entire thing in the hope that she was making me deliriously happy and, when she found out otherwise, she just couldn't handle it, so she drove to Buena Vista (about 3 hours into the mountains) and stayed the night there with a friend from High School, ignoring my pleading phone calls. The following week was awful. She managed to mutter an apology, but nothing ever really touched me and my pain, and she never attempted to understand what she had put me through.

In my journal, I'd talked about the temptation to cheat on her with a married woman I worked with. I admitted to her things that weren't in my journal, like the fact that after months of mutual flirting, this woman grabbed me one day at an after-hours function, put her tongue in my mouth, and forced my hand onto her crotch, and I didn't do my absolute best to stop her. A part of me wanted it, and I had to summon all of my willpower to stop her. It went no further, but the Girl was consumed with the idea that this woman wanted me so badly and didn't attempt to hide it and that I would eventually leave the Girl for this sex-starved strumpet. The evening turned into me consoling her as she was acting like a real shit again and I felt like I did something wrong, yet it seemed like she forgot the fact that she was the one who shit on me. The entire time, she was certain that I would end up leaving her.

But, we managed our way through it, again.

That New Year's Eve, we went to the mountains and partied with a friend of mine, and a condo-full of his friends. I lost track of the Girl at about 11 and, once I found her sprawled on a bathroom floor, we celebrated the countdown with me holding her head as she purged the vodka that was evidence of her losing repeatedly at the card game, \"Asshole.\" When we got home the next day, and her parents were on their way for a visit, she got defensive after telling me that she had smoked pot that night and that was what made her sick, and that she knew I didn't \"approve of it.\" She then allowed that she felt like I really didn't love her, just the idea of who she was going to someday be. She didn't want to listen to what I had to say, so I stormed out. I didn't want to be around her, and we needed beer, so I went to the liquor store. While I was gone, her parents showed up and she sobbed into their arms, telling them that all she did was tell me how she felt and I left, and that I wasn't coming back. When I did get back, she took a quiet moment in the yard to tell me that she was sorry for her actions. Her parents acted like nothing had happened, and I only found out later that she had cried and told them I'd left her, even though I was back in 15 minutes with a 12-pack.

After that, we'd make it about a month or two before she'd get distant and defensive and we'd have to hammer out whatever was going on. Usually after a significant \"meltdown.\" That summer, as we were drinking beers and driving around our old haunts in Montana, we were feeling good and we'd talked about setting a date for our wedding. We'd always said that the next time we felt that all our friends should get together for a big party, we'd just make it a wedding. Later that night, after much more alcohol, she got very angry with me for telling her that I still needed more in the relationship. She used the same argument that she always did, she was giving me some, at least, and why couldn't I at least see that. Always with the black and white, always with the \"I feel like I'm giving, but since you said 'it's not enough,' it means you don't think you're getting anything at all.\" She told me to forget about setting a date and that we needed to seriously look into couple's counseling.

I'd suggested it before and had even gotten a phone number from a friend of the Mom's, but I'd been putting it off, hoping that we could work on having better communication on our own. That wasn't happening, so we discussed what we thought we'd like to get out of it, as it seemed like a good idea to have a \"plan of attack\" since it was going to cost so much, $120 an hour, and we really couldn't afford it. We eventually went, and there were tears in our very first session. There were always tears when we'd have a \"talk\" or a \"meltdown\" and the reason I always got for that was she was just \"sappy\" and \"emotional.\" I never knew that she carried so much pain around and never let it out. We continued going for a couple months, and were always given \"homework\" from our therapist, yet it rarely ever got done. I would make an attempt and, when it wasn't reciprocated, would let it go at that, figuring that the energy that she wasn't expending towards our \"homework\" was going somewhere else, yet still focused on the relationship. It turned out that I was wrong.

At this point in time, we were shooting pool in an in-house 9-ball league at one of our favorite bars. We would go and hang out with cool people that liked us immensely, drink beer, play pool, and enjoy ourselves. One woman, M, was particularly drawn to us and the \"strength\" that she saw in our relationship. She loved the Girl and would unload whatever problems she had in her life, all over her.

Then it happened again.

A night spent in worry and anxiety, calling her phone every hour, every half hour, every 15 minutes. Leaving almost frantic messages telling her that no matter what she was doing or where she was, I just wanted to know she was safe, and hearing nothing back.

Realizing I wasn't going to sleep, I drove to the bar to see if she'd left her car. Nope. As dawn broke, I decided to just go to work early and try and distract myself there. I remembered where M lived though, as I'd driven her daughter home one night, so, on a whim, I cruised the parking lot of the apartment complex. I found nothing. Too many cars were there and I was drawing nervous attention from the residents, so I went on to work. Mid-morning I received a text message that told me she was fine, but had to figure out why she felt the need to keep sabotaging our relationship. When I got home, I found out that she was indeed at M's, and she told me that she spent the night listening to M cry and being a friend to her. As angry as I was, this sounded noble, and I could hardly fault her for that. She said the batteries in her phone died and just lost track of time. She said she didn't call because she didn't want to wake me. She said she went to her early class and only thought to call me after she got out.

I found out later, almost all of this was bullshit. She was at M's, but she was there doing drugs. While wacked out, she couldn't deal with the thought of speaking to me, and silenced her ever-ringing phone. She hadn't gone to class, she'd waited until I'd left, and then went home, sleeping and crying and feeling incredibly guilty about what she had done.

When she got home from work, I confronted her and she admitted all of this. I was justifiably angry. Very angry. I said a lot of things that I don't recall, yet, at some point, she pleaded that we not discuss it in counseling, and I apparently agreed. When she's in pain, I always want to comfort her, yet I forget sometimes that she caused me greater pain and made no effort to comfort me.

At the next session, I couldn't contain my anger and pain when the therapist asked how things were going. I felt so wronged and I wanted someone else to understand what a horrible thing it was that she did to me, and to our relationship, so I told her what had happened. The Girl took this as a betrayal of her own, and resented the fuck out of me for airing our \"dirty laundry\" and making her feel like she was \"on the stand.\"

I apologized, but strove ever onward towards getting her to understand what she has put me through, repeatedly, while making almost no effort to apologize or ease any of my pain. I got very emotional when explaining that her mumbled apologies, typically consisting of two words, \"I'm sorry,\" were not enough to comfort me. They were a minimal effort at best and I needed more, far more, than she was giving.

There was a theme there that was growing increasingly apparent.

The Girl, the one who owns my heart, had spent our life together, steam-rolling over my thoughts and feelings, and never looking back. She's not a monster though, she felt incredible guilt and suffering of her own over what she had done, but would never share this with me. Her argument, yet again, was \"I'm trying, yet you can't see that so I feel defeated,\" even though I told her I could see that she was trying. It was almost as if she believed that if she couldn't win the race, she just wasn't going to run at all.

Another theme in our life together.

If I asked specifically for some gesture, I would get the bare minimum and nothing more. It felt like she would do exactly what I asked, and figure that would be good enough. She just wouldn't extend herself. She just didn't have it in her to go above and beyond what she felt it was that I needed.

She admitted later that she never really started exerting any effort towards our counseling until we were almost halfway through it. The costs of our counseling, both in time and money, were prohibitive, so, after the Girl told me we had the tools and we just needed more effort, we quit going. She told me she was going to apply herself to a self-examination regimen, where she would journal, think about stuff and examine her life, and then sit down and talk with me about whatever might be going on. She'd planned for every Sunday night. We made it two weeks and then it stopped. I didn't pester because of how incredibly defensive she got every time I drew attention to any possible hint of her short-comings, but I probably should have.

Another theme.

Things improved in the relationship, but the day to day suffered. The dogs, the housework, and any hint of sexual needs that I had, were all being attended to solely by me. I kept telling myself that it would get better when she got out of school for the semester, but that time was difficult to say the least.

I went through an incredible amount of self-examination of my own and came up with the idea that, while she wasn't perfect right now, neither was I, and I had total and complete faith that we would both improve to the point where we were the best thing in the Universe for the other.

The fact that this idea was folly at best, didn't stop me from succumbing to the pressure of our families and friends, and following my flawed idea, and buying an engagement ring. I asked her to marry me and, just like that, the wedding was set and everyone in our lives was planning. Things were looking up.

I was okay with the whole wedding idea, especially after school got over for the summer and she and I were spending our Friday nights on the back porch, grilling, drinking, and talking. She was privy to everything that was on my mind and I felt like her she was open in the same manner. We were connecting like we never had before. We were each other's best friend, and we were like that all the time. Shooting pool, hanging out with friends, hanging out alone, we were everything to each other.

We would talk about the problems in our lives, both past and present, and she eventually admitted that she felt terrible about \"steamrolling\" me repeatedly, and that, since she couldn't find a way to make it up to me that would feel like it would ever be enough, she tended to not do anything. She admitted that this was a shitty thing to do and that she was trying to make up to me, for all the pain she had caused me, by loving me as best as she could. I'll admit she was doing a wonderful job and I'd never felt so loved and appreciated. Even though she was still a shitty listener, cutting me off and jumping around on unrelated subjects, she asked me to call her on it, and she worked to get better. She was open to almost anything I suggested that I felt would make the relationship better and stronger.

She admitted that a lifetime of self-esteem battering from her father, Caveman, and her brother had left her feeling very poorly about herself, yet she felt good, genuinely good, about herself when she realized that I loved her, thought she was wonderful, and would do anything in the world for her.

I admitted that she was right to recoil from me, at times, because my own father had left the indelible mark of a judgmental asshole on me, yet I was working every day to clear myself of it.

We were doing great.

The relationship grew, and it became stronger and stronger.

It was the best thing that had ever happened in my life to that point.

Then it happened again.

She had stayed out until 2:30 A.M. on a Wednesday night and hadn't called. She came home, I eventually got some sleep, and asked her the next evening, very calmly, to please call me if it was midnight and she knew she wasn't coming home for a while. She apologized for her insensitivity and promised to do so.

Then, Monday the 19th, while she was up North shooting pool in her 8-ball league, she left a voice-mail that said she knew it was after midnight (~12:20) and she wasn't coming home for a bit, as she got her ass kicked in her league games and wanted to stay and play and work on some stuff. I slept for a while, then got up at 3 A.M. to check my phone. I saw a very cryptic and bizarre text message, some of it in Spanish, that said she was sorry she wasn't home yet, but was off the next day and was at some pool-teammate's house enjoying herself, that she hoped I was getting some sleep, and that she'd be home in a bit. I called her and left a message saying that I probably wasn't going to sleep until she got home, but to have a good time and simply call me and tell me a possible time for when she thought she'd be home so that I wouldn't worry.

She never called.

At 6 A.M. she rolled in and went straight to the bathroom, locking herself in. I laid in bed, hurt and angry, but concerned, and eventually got up and went to work, only after pressing my ear to the door to see if she was okay. I could hear her breathing, so I left.

The whole next day I heard nothing. I eventually sent her a text (as I was still very pissed and didn't trust myself in a phone conversation) asking her to wash the sheets in the guest bedroom as the Brother would be staying with us that night. She texted me back and said, very cavalierly, that this would be no problem.

She was in bed when I got home that night, and we didn't talk.

She went golfing with the Mom and the Brother the next day and, when I got home from work, was sleeping on the couch. I went to bed to try and catch up on some sleep before my ice hockey game. She woke me as she was leaving for yet another pool league and told me to call the Brother as he was hoping to come to my game.

I cornered her in the kitchen, on her way out, and asked her what the fuck happened Monday night. She told me that her friends had mixed her a monster drink that had her puking and passed out in the bathroom all night, similar to that New Year's, and that, when she came home, she was locked in the bathroom still puking.

It seemed plausible and, while I was still very angry, I wasn't going to leave her as she feared. I told her that I'd considered asking her to leave for a few days until I wasn't as angry, but didn't. She left to play pool and the following day I went fishing with the Mom and the Brother. We got off the river late, and I called her to make sure that our Thursday 9-ball team didn't need me as I wasn't going to make it on time. She defensively asked if I was just skipping out, and I simply told her I wasn't. I certainly didn't want to be around her and our friends while I was still so pissed at her, but I was also having a good time with my family and I sensed they needed me more than they were letting on.

The Mom drank too much wine and sobbed about the pain she felt when she lost custody of me and the Brother, as well as her short-comings as a mother. The Brother, having had too much wine as well, consoled her while I made dinner, drove them to the Mom's, gave them big hugs and support, and poured them into bed.

Friday night and I was still angry, but still willing to dissect the circumstances that caused the Girl to stay out all night, and not call the next day, or even the entire week, to apologize. She was defensive and bitter, allowing that she felt bad about what she did, but that I was being a martyr, telling her that I'm happy to feel self-pity while I'm home worrying while she was out with friends. It took a while for her to calm down and listen to me and the pain I was expressing.

Something about her story still didn't feel quite right, but I ignored my gut (always a mistake) and we vowed to talk and work through whatever was wrong in our relationship. It took an absolute act of Congress to get her to apologize, really apologize and I felt better having her sob onto my shoulder, somehow feeling that she was starting to understand the depths to which she tends to hurt me. We agreed that we both needed to think about what we needed from this relationship, really needed, and that we would talk again. Our following conversations weren't full of any sort of revelations, but they seemed productive enough.

Something still didn't feel quite right though.

I went through the motions that week, showing her love and affection as always, while there was still something gnawing at my gut. Rather, my gut was gnawing at my brain about something that didn't feel quite right.

Last night, after she got home in a decent mood, seemingly unaware of what I was still going through, I confronted her. Actually, I told her that I was having some irrational feeling fears and that I was hoping she could lay them to rest. I told her that I was afraid that she wasn't really laid low by some magical elixir, but that she was out that night doing drugs again. I told her that was what my gut was telling me, anyway, and I hoped that she would tell me I was wrong. She had an incredibly sullen look on her face as she told me my gut wasn't wrong. She was out doing drugs and had lied to me, had made the whole story up, when she feared that I would leave her if she told me the truth.

I am still reeling in disbelief and disillusionment as I drink cheap wine and type this.

I hadn't slept well, hadn't eaten, and was drinking beer after beer as I told her that what she did was absolutely unacceptable to me. I fear I may have sounded too authoritarian in condemning her actions, and I worried that I sounded too much like a disappointed parent, rather than her life-partner, her lover, her best friend in the world, but I told her everything I was thinking and feeling.

The pain, the hurt, the absolute betrayal that I felt led me to express all of my feelings. I told her that I've always felt that she's been a \"good-enougher\" and not a \"don't-rest-until-you're-sure-you've-done-enougher.\" I told her that her lack of self-esteem and self-confidence is the only thing that I can see that is prohibiting her from extending herself to me. I told her that it bothered the hell out of me that I was always willing to ask her what it was she heard me saying, that I was always checking and verifying that I was communicating effectively with her, that I always felt like I was trying my best to check and verify that I was absolutely meeting her needs, and that it never felt like she even attempted to do the same.

I told her that she was a selfish, inconsiderate, addict and that she consistently, consciously, puts drugs and partying before me, the person she supposedly cares for the most in this life.

She didn't disagree. She barely spoke.

I told her that there was no way that I would marry the person that she is, and that I realized my mistake in asking her to marry me when I was only hoping for the best from her and never really receiving it. I told her that I preach to others to live in the NOW, not the past, not for the future, but for what you have right at this precise moment, and that I needed to live that way as well. I told her that what I thought I had may not have been enough, but that what I KNOW I have right now doesn't come even close to cutting it. I told her that the person she is, is someone who consistently hurts me and tries to cover it up, forget it, hide until it blows over, and that there was no way I was going to settle for that in my life.

I allowed as to the fact that I was drunk, tired, and pissed and was going to bed. Whether or not she would stick around was up to her, even though I needed space. She eventually came to bed, I don't know when.

I've only recently learned to take care of myself in this life. I've spent too many years worrying about what others needed from me and striving to provide it, despite the toll it would take on my self and my life.

I tried, with every fiber of my being, to be the kind of person that thought of others and their needs first, but didn't completely ignore my own needs. I've struggled, repeatedly, with situations where I felt like my needs were going to be completely sacrificed for someone else's, yet I would make a decision and follow it, believing that even if I did sacrifice my own needs, it was for the greater good of the relationship. Any relationship, be it a good friend, or the Mom, or the Brother, or the Girl, I proceeded in what I thought was the best direction for both of us and it had rewarded me with more love and understanding, and better relationships with everyone involved.

Last night, all that was balled up and propelled at slapshot-speed directly into the very core of my being, and it hurt.

It hurts more than I can describe.

She came home tonight expecting the house to be full of the friends that we'd invited over for a barbecue, not knowing that I spent the morning calling and canceling. Some accepted it blindly, not asking what was up, and some, that know me well, knew something was wrong asked what it was. I told them, and a couple even stopped by during the day to make sure I was alright. That felt good, but, while I am operating normally, inside I am most assuredly, NOT alright. Those breaks during today are the only I've taken from writing this.

She just sat down, while I was typing this, and asked how I was doing. I told her I'd been better and asked how she was doing. She told me that she was not doing good. I told her that I wasn't going to be her mother, or her shrink and tell her what I thought was causing her to act this way, but that there is something she needs to figure out for herself and that I would give her anything she asked while she did this.

I also told her that we probably both needed some time apart.

She quietly packed a bag, ignored a phone call from a mutual friend that loves us both very much, and told me she was going away for a couple days.

Then she sat out here with me, smoked a cigarette, and cried.

I told her that my instinct is to comfort her when she is in pain. She told me that I didn't cause the pain, she did, and that I should do what I felt was best for me right now, then she left.

Sadly, I don't know what's best for me.

I know it hurt watching her go, but I feel better knowing that she is gone.

It hurts that I've lost any faith that I had in her to be self-analytical, and to try her absolute damnedest, with every possible ounce of energy, to figure out what needs to change with her and this relationship.

The shittiest part is that I know that with the way things are, with her being who she is, and me being who I am, things may never work. I know that I told her that I am ever-available to compromise on anything, and that that is what I believe a good, strong relationship to be based on, but I've lost any shred of faith that she is able to be an equal part of this relationship.

I only feel like she is an immature, selfish person, and that she is incapable of living her life with an ever-present consideration of someone else. The sad truth is that nothing she's shown me speaks otherwise.

I know that she loves me with her whole heart. I know that I am, far and away, the best thing to ever happen to her. Since we've been together this time, I've never not felt loved.

A part of me feels like that scared, tentative, little boy, trying to just be, yet always worrying and waiting for someone to fuck with me. My childhood and part of my adulthood was spent just trying to live my life without others imposing their will on me, or even openly attacking me and who I am, with seemingly no provocation.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time holding grudges, castigating those that hurt me before, simply because I only dwelt on the fact that they hurt me without cause. I've only recently begun to attempt to understand what those people were going through when they did this to me and what may have caused them to act that way. This line of thinking in no way excuses their actions, but it has lent a measure of forgiveness that I wasn't capable of before.

I learned to forgive my father, for being a self-righteous prick and ignoring my needs for the better part of my life.

I learned to forgive my mother, for her perceived, repeated, abandonment of me, as well as her perceived feeble attempts at motherhood so late in my life.

I learned to forgive my brother, for his aggression-turned-apathy towards me in our youth, and for his affair and subsequent betrayal of his family, and for his lack of contact with me in our adult years.

I learned to forgive my friends, for their lack of effort in staying in-touch with me over the years, and for their perceived apathy towards me when we were together.

I learned to forgive the Girl, for steamrolling over me without a backward glance multiple times in my life.

Most of all, I learned to forgive myself, for the years I spent resenting all of these people for what I had perceived that they had done to me.

I grew strong.

I believe I am strong.

I've dealt with the fallacy of me being a SuperMan and I have spent an inordinate amount of time examining, identifying, embracing, and loving my weaknesses, learning to love myself.

I truly believe this has only served to make me stronger.

This entire time, it feels like the Girl has been hiding and ignoring her weaknesses as well as her strengths. I'm positive that it's in her nature to run from anything that causes her pain, to hide from it, to ignore it, and hope and pray that it just goes away.

Her addiction, her inconsiderateness, her selfishness, and her weaknesses aren't going away, and they aren't ever going to unless they're dealt with.

Despite my ever-vigilant support, despite the understanding and love that I have tried to show her in every single thing that I do, despite my openness to her weaknesses, her shortcomings, as well as my all of my own, this shit isn't going away.

And now our relationship is on it's death-bed.

I am fed up.

I am absolutely done living my life, feeling like I'm waiting for her to hurt me again.

I am done waiting for her to grow up.

I am done waiting for her to change so significantly that there will be no way that I can't be happy and content with who she is.

I am done hoping that she will do this and, to some extent, expecting her to.

I wish, more than anything, that I could just give her a laundry-list of things that could be different, that she could work on, that I could help her with, that I could work on, that she could help me with, and she could just work hard and check things off of it, but she's never demonstrated that she could, or would, ever pour all of her effort into such a thing.

I've always known, as she has, that I wasn't completely happy in this relationship, yet I knew that I could be if she had just put forth the effort that I did, if she centered her attention to the relationship like I did, if she cared about me like I cared about her.

But, she hasn't.

She never has.

She admits that she hasn't and that not only rends asunder everything that I had hoped would come from her, but it kicks me in the balls and tells me that what I thought I was giving, what I thought I was capable of giving her, who I thought I was to her, was wrong.

The void in my life, that the loss of our relationship would surely create, would send me to a very, very, dark place, and I am terrified that I will stay with her, with who she is now, simply to avoid that loss.

As bad as my life is right now, the loss of our relationship would be a thousand, thousand times worse, and I hate the thought that I will stay with her just to avoid it.

The problem is, I am too strong now. I am too confident in myself, as a man, as a person, to live my life that way.

The examination that I've done of myself, of her, of the relationship, tells me that there is no possible way that I will be completely happy, completely content, with things as they are now, or with the thought that they maybe, possibly, could be someday.

Too much needs to change.

I don't feel like I'm asking for so much that I need to change what I want, what I need, from this relationship, from my life. I don't think that I need to totally and completely compromise the fact that I need her to stop doing drugs, stop lying, and start putting in an effort in this relationship similar to what I have been putting in.

I've worked too hard to get where I'm at to back-track into the person I was, striving to convince myself that I should just be happy with what I've got and shut up, and secretly hoping and expecting her to change, with or without any help from me.

I've worked too fucking hard in this relationship to not have my needs met.

I see now that this isn't going to happen unless she does it herself, with, or without, help, or advice, or support, or love from me.

I can only do what I've spent the last few years of my life doing. Try to be the best person that I can be.

Now, it's her turn.

And I have lost faith that she can do it.

Nothing she's ever done has convinced me that she's capable of changing who she is, but this doesn't mean that she isn't capable of it. I have seen enough potential in her to stay with her this long, through this much shit.

I just want to tell her, as I did 4 years ago, to get the fuck out of my life and, if she happens to get her shit together some day, to give me a call.

I love her with all my heart, and I care about her enough to want to always, always, be there for her and not just throw her out of my life. I realize as well that my doing that would be exactly what she's always done, running from a problem, hiding from it, ignoring it, and hoping it gets better.

I just know that I am done waiting for something that hasn't ever happened, and that a monumental effort is required of her to show me something, anything, that will convince me that she is worth me spending my life with.

I told her that if she came to me and told me that our relationship could be saved if we only we would wear purple tu-tus and eat bananas every single day, I would do it. I may question it, but if that was what she could confidently say was what we needed, then I would do it, and embrace doing it, wholeheartedly, for the sake of our relationship. For the sake of the love that we share.

She hasn't, or can't, quit doing drugs, though, for the sake of the relationship, for the sake of the life that we've built together, for the sake of the love we share.

She hasn't, or can't, quit lying to me and not trusting me, for the sake of the relationship, for the sake of the life that we've built together, for the sake of the love we share.

She hasn't, or can't, expended all of her energy towards the relationship, towards the life that we've built together, towards the love that we share.

Just 'cause I'm paranoid doesn't mean my back isn't out to get me.

I've never considered myself a hypochondriac, but having a bad back is really starting to wear on me. Any mysterious sign or symptom that could possibly occur to me in a day is always attributed to the idea that I've caused my spine irreparable damage and am soon going to be paralyzed, wheeling myself around in my electric wheelchair using one of those mouth-steering thingies.

Tuesday, during my roller-hockey game, my back started to tighten up again. It's done this during slow games before, but the first time I injured myself was directly after my back started being a whiny bitch during a game.

During every stoppage of play, I was doing my best to stretch it and wring it out by twisting and bracing on my net. My teammates, the other team, and especially the refs were all wondering why the faceoffs kept being delayed by the oafish, Fonda-esque, moves I was doing.

Ref, to The Captain: Hey man, I think there's something wrong with your goalie.

The Captain: Yeah, no shit. You oughta go out drinkin' with him sometime.

Ref: No, I mean, he keeps doing weird shit back there. Is he hurt or is he on something?

The Captain: Naw, he's always like that. Wait 'til he starts whispering and kissing his goalposts. Heh. Freak.

Despite the obvious lack of support, I made it through the game, but was experiencing some odd kinds of pain in an area previously unrelated to my injury. The anxiety this caused made me go straight home without staying for even ONE beer. THAT's how freaked out I was.

The entire drive home I was nervous and sweating as each time I shifted in my seat I could feel that new and different pain in the middle of my back. It felt better to lean forward, but then that hurt the previous injured spot, so I sort of moved back and forth. I imagine now that I must've looked like a little kid who is about to shit his pants the entire drive home, but I was seriously worried.

I got home and gingerly unloaded my equipment and joined the Girl on the back patio. When she asked how the game went, I told her about how my back was hurting and that I was certain that the muscles I've abused in the past were now reaping their vengeance upon me and my hapless spine.

She remained calm as I continued to sweat.

For Shit's sake, woman! Can't you see I'm one step away from Christopher-Reeving right here in front of you?!?

She asked me what didn't make it hurt.

I had to think, but I decided that it didn't hurt when nothing was touching that spot on my back.

She asked me to describe the pain.

\"Well,\" I whimpered, \"when I touch it, it's a sharp pain, and, when I stop touching it, it's kind of a dull throbbing. It's very sensitive.\"

\"So, it feels almost external?\" says the Girl, all medical-like.

\"Yeah, yeah,\" I agree excitedly, thinking she's finally understanding that she may have to change my poopy diapers someday soon, \"It's almost like when you have a really big ziiiiihhh-aaawwww, SHIT.\"

The Girl, grinning now but still calm, had me lift up my shirt so she could inspect me.

Sure as shitpickles, I've got a gimongous freakin' zit, right on my spine.

Relieved that I wasn't going to be shitting through my belly into a bag anytime soon, I proceeded to feel like a big goddam baby.

The Girl, still with her wonderful bedside manner, refrained from calling me a ridiculous jackass, and asked if she could \"ease my terrible suffering.\"

At first, I thought this meant \"Blow Job\" but, when she started pinching the cause of my distress, I realized my mistake and nodded sheepishly.

\"Ewww,\" she said, making a face (I'm sure) and wiping her fingers on my shirt, \"that's fuckin' love, honey.\"

Ah, love indeed.

---

While the Girl was off shooting pool the other night, I decided to make dinner a la homage to Dr. Plopp. I hate going to the fucking grocery store, though, so I thought I'd just scavenge in our cupboards for the necessary outlandish, seemingly unrelated, ingredients for the night's feast.

The only things in the cupboard that weren't canned chili, pancake mix, Hamburger Helper, or large bottles of liquor, were some cans that had Oriental-style writing on them and some rice. The Mom, in her infinite cooking wisdom, decided last Christmas that our cupboard needed some spicing up (\"spice\" get it? You know, like, seasons and... fuck, nevermind), and coincidentally, her cupboards needed cleaning out, so I'm pretty sure she dumped everything she thought she could never possibly use into a box and presented it to me and the Girl. At the time, I was thinking, \"when the hell am I EVER going to need to use coconut milk and bamboo shoots? I can barely use the fucking grill.\"

I've been getting better in the kitchen though, and lately I've been dying to try out the Wok that we got for our housewarming (about 3 years ago, so obviously not \"dying\" I guess), and this was surely a sign that I needed to try some stir-fry action.

I boiled up the rice, started opening all the cans of Oriental goodness, and dumping their sweet and spicy selves into the Wok. Bolstered by the courage of other bored kitchen-idiots I haphazardly started dumping the cans' contents into the Wok.

Water Chestnuts? Super, I've seen those in Chinese food. Sounds good.

Shrimp? Cool, gonna have me a \"seafood\" theme.

Coconut milk? They've got coconuts in the Orient, don't they? In it goes.

Baby Clams? Aweso... what? Sweet Cheezus, what the hell are they thinking selling Baby Clams in a can?

Despite the overwhelming guilt I felt at the idea that these vital young clams were cut down in the primes of their lives, I forged on, stirring them in.

I was feeling quite adventurous... until the smell hit me.

Oof. No matter, I'll just dump in enough Soy and Teriyaki to kill a Bengal Tiger.

And have a beer.

No good, still stinks like nasty clam. No doubt those little bastards released every ounce of juice in their stink-JuddHole-out-of-the-kitchen glands while nearing their untimely deaths.

More beer then. If that won't solve my life's problems, then nothing will. Except maybe more beer.

The food seems to be hot enough to kill any remnant of possible Clam's Infant Self-Defense Poison and I'm almost out of beer, so I sit down to eat.

Woof. Then the smell hits me again.

Honestly, for all the guys out there that have made jokes about a certain female body part and experiencing its odiferous similarities to clams, I have great sympathy for you.

I can safely say that had I ever, EVER, encountered a womanly part that smelled even remotely close to the pungent foulness that absorbed my dinner, I would've gotten outta there so fast I'd have left a vapor-trail.

I was able to eat the serving that I took, it just took a splash of Teriyaki with EVERY FUCKING BITE.

My upbringing almost forbids me to throw away food, though, so I threw the rest of my vile, slaughtered-clam muck in some Tupperware and stowed it in the fridge.

I know I'd have to be extremely desperate to actually eat that shit again, but I thought that I may, some day, need to fertilize the Girl's garden (provided that she eventually decides to plant one), or play a practical joke on someone involving the faux regurgitation of a pound and a half of decomposing-juvenile-invertebrate-sea-life (everyone knows that's pure comedy right there), or perhaps I've finally found a way to get the neighbor dogs to stop climbing on, and digging around, our back fence (this shit would kill a Rottweiller).

Oh, the possibilities.

There may be room for practical jocularity yet, though.

The Mom is going out of town tomorrow, so she gave me a truckload of the leftovers in her fridge. Before you wrinkle your nose at the idea of \"leftovers,\" you should know the Mom is nothing short of a gourmet in the kitchen and her old food kicks the shit out of anything I can create (obviously).

The Girl, knowing of the existence of the Mom's leftovers, will usually grab a bagged and/or Tupperwared item from our fridge on her way to work without even checking its contents first.

If I can blend the container full of nasty-veal-style-crustacean goop in with the Mom's delectable leftovers, I may be able to trick the Girl into taking it with her to work, microwaving it, and assaulting the olfactory senses of all of her co-workers.

If I don't giggle too much, I think I'll be able to feign innocence as the Girl will undoubtedly ask the Mom what the hell that stinky shit was.

Hmm. Probably not.

The chances are slim that I'll fool her as the Girl will know there's no way that anything resembling the effects of a night of Vodka and jumbalaya, and smells like a fish market in Bangladesh could ever have possibly come from the Mom's kitchen.

It'd sure be fun to see her head snap back when she catches a whiff of it though.

The Mom: More of a Man than I am.

It's been great having the Brother here, even if he does routinely whip my ass at any competition as well as open a beer and belch in a way that I could never pull off because of its sheer coolness.

He also belches better than the Girl (like no one I know can) and tickles her mercilessly, which keeps her on her toes.

The best part about hanging out with him, the Girl, and the Mom is reminiscing about the days when the Mom didn't have money to feed us and he and I fought constantly.

Ahh... good times.

He admits now that it was less \"fighting\" than it was \"he would tease quiet, demure, li'l ol' me until I would whine and cry, thereby bothering the Mom into a screaming fury.\"

There are some good stories that come out though and I thought I'd share one that speaks volumes about the kind of person the Mom is.

The Mom didn't necessarily try her absolute best to be the cutesy li'l Doctor's wifey in TinyTown, Montana. My 5'4\", 110-lb, shy, unassuming, then-closeted-lesbian mother from the 'burbs of Santa Clara, would go out and do anything that she thought sounded cool and rarely turned down an opportunity to enjoy any of her new home state's array of outdoor activities.

The grizzled, old men in town took this as a challenge, apparently, as they took her out hunting, fishing, and backpacking as often as they could. I'm still not convinced that this wasn't a subversive attempt to \"take 'er down a peg or two,\" but she held her own. Shit, she did better than hold her own, she fuckin' rocked.

4-day elk-hunting pack trip in 10-degree weather while 8.5 months preggers with Yours Truly?

No problem. She just needed a little help getting on and off her horse. And she shot a 5-point.

14 straight hours of calf wrangling, branding, and bourbon?

Hell, slap iron to that hairy buggers ass and hand her the bottle. After a calf kicked the fella that was cutting their nuts off (I would've done the same), and his knife sliced a 4-inch groove in his hand, she even stiched him up with dental floss and a sewing needle. After sterilizing it with the bourbon, of course.

She was all those ol' boys, as well as me and my brother, could handle.

When an old, rough-and-tumble, ranch boss, who bore a striking resemblance to Lee Marvin in the Big Red One, asked her to go antelope hunting, she agreed, of course, having never hunted antelope before, and still unwilling to turn anything down.

The fact that it wasn't antelope season (see: poaching) and that she'd never shot a rifle bigger than a \"rodent gun\" didn't deter her in the least.

Lee loads her up in his truck with his two teenage boys, my older brother (about 6 or 7 at the time) and some very big guns.

They drove out onto Lee's land, spotted a fair-sized herd of antelope, and proceeded to shatter the brisk, post-dawn air with the enthusiastic gunning of the truck's engine.

You see, in rural Montana, when hunting antelope out of season, you don't sneak up on them being all quiet and stealth-like. You take your truck and go bombing straight at them. Antelope won't jump fences and are, justifiably, terrified of being run down by a giant machine, so they run. They run and run and run and run. Until they get to a fence. Then... they turn... and run and run and run and run and run.

Pretty soon they'll slow down enough for you to stop the truck, jump out, take aim, and blast one of them straight into your meat locker. Not very sporting, sure, but meat is meat, and good meat for free is not much more than any rancher will ask for.

Lee is driving the truck like a freakin' madman (antelope are quite swift when terrified) and is intermittently reaching over the cab, opening the glove box, pulling out a bottle of Black Velvet, taking a large swallow, and throwing the bottle back in the glove box.

The whisky has Mom still undeterred as her excitement at shooting an antelope is at a fever-pitch.

Twice Lee has stomped on the brakes, and barked at one of his sons to \"get the hell out and shoot that fucker,\" and twice they have done so, unleashing enough lead from their hand-held cannons to decimate the entire herd. Each boy has now \"bagged\" an antelope and their speed and skill at gutting, skinning and loading these animals is boggling to the Mom. Until she remembers that what they're doing is very illegal, that is.

Now, Lee is zigging and zagging in the truck, bouncing across the landscape, and is reaching for his bottle with blood-smeared hands. The bottle, having started the day clean and full, is now half-empty and coated in dark blood and hair. This is when he finally offers her a sip.

The Mom, being THE MOM, takes a drink, winces, coughs, and hands the bottle back to a now-smiling Lee. He then informs her that the \"next fucker\" is hers to shoot and instructs one of his boys to hand her is shoulder-mounted howitzer.

This is when the realization that she's only handled \"small\" rifles before fully hits her. The only rifle she's shot probably wouldn't kill an antelope unless one had the barrel directly behind the antelope's ear and was firing straight into its brain. The rifle in her hands now has a muzzle so big she can fit her pinkie inside it (she's taken \"Hunter's Safety,\" so naturally she doesn't try this).

After a few more minutes of the monstrous truck violently descending upon them, the herd slows again. Lee tells Mom to ready herself, so she checks the rifle's safety, grips the stock, and pops the door handle, expecting Lee to simply lock up the brakes as he's done twice before.

This turns out to be a mistake as Lee, ever the gentleman, decides, at the last second, to skid the vehicle into place, at an angle, in order to give Mom a better shot.

He guns the truck and cranks the wheel sharply, sending the truck into a sideways skid.

And sending the Mom directly out the door straight into some cactus.

She gets up, believing herself to be unhurt, wipes her hand off on her jeans (I say \"hand\" because the other hand still has the rifle in it as she never let go of it), crouches and gets her antelope in her sights.

The Brother loves this part as he distinctly remembers the Mom slowly crouching onto one knee before jerking upwards and saying a quiet, \"OW... not going to do that again.\"

Apparently, when she knelt down, the heel of her boot hit some of the cactus needles that were firmly embedded in her ASS.

She re-situated herself, without shoving the little prickers further in (THAT ought to net me some googlings), took aim, and squeezed the trigger.

After she got up from being knocked flat on her back, she found, much to her delight, that Lee and his boys were excitedly carving up her first antelope.

She'd shot it right through the heart.

When she was done helping the boys dress her first kill, one of them was kind enough to take the pliers out of his belt holster and yank the mass of cactus needles, one by one, out of her butt.

This, very deservedly, merited another long pull from the bottle and Lee's undying respect for the Mom.

Years after the Mom had left my father, the high-and-mighty town Doctor, for another woman, immersing the family in scandal, good ol' Lee (I knew him as the asshole at the diner that never liked the way I made eggs) still asked about her. He died while I was still in High School, from liver failure (too much Black Velvet, maybe), but rarely missed an opportunity to, very sincerely, wish the Mom his best.

She no longer swigs cheap whisky while slaughtering petrified wildlife, but she still has her fans back in that rinky-dink town.

Indeed, she's quite a woman.

Made from freshly squeezed Pimps.

It's been nice having the Brother here, but I'm remembering why I hate him sometimes. He, the Mom, and the Girl all went golfing Wednesday while I was at work (my back is still pissed about last week and says that I'm not allowed to golf for a while. Controlling bitch.) and he proceeded to kick their asses.

I can't beat them on my best day, and I certainly can't beat them with a hurt back, how does this jackass come up here, not having played in over a year, playing on a course unfamiliar to him yet known to both of them, and beat them so handily?

Tired of his boasting, I thought I'd check the score card to at least see if they beat him on a few holes.

Hmm. Interesting.

I would've thought it would've made all the papers and been on the news if someone had gotten two double-eagles in a row.

Sound impossible?

Nope, it's right here. The scorecard says that the Brother got a \"2\" on 16 and 17, both of which are par 5's, while the Girl and the Mom both got 8's.

Damn. It appears I had forgotten that this was the man that told me, when I was still in High School, an adage that is an absolute classic.

I was a mediocre offensive lineman for our State-Champion football team and was having a hard time with blocking some of the bigger guys on the other teams. I had figured out that, if I just got my hands under their arms and held them, I could manage. This is illegal, however, and every flag I drew got me 5 laps at practice and got me punched in the head a few times during the game, but it was working.

The Brother had come home during the football season and we spoke about my penalty issues. He proceeded to take all of me and my friends' money at poker for a couple hours and then shared with me his credo:

Win, if you can.

Lose, if you must.

But always. Always.

CHEAT.

Great words from a great golfer.

Seriously, how many people do you know that can get two double-eagles in a row?

---

The Brother, the Texan, knows how to fly-fish. He grew up fly-fishing, as did I. He hasn't fly-fished mountain-river style in some years. He still knows how, but this is not to say that he hasn't incorporated some of the Texan Fishin' Style* into our Rocky Mountain adventures.

When we take off on the river, we would normally each have in our fishing vests a sandwich, a beer, a bottle of water, and about $112 worth of tackle.

Texas-style-fishing boy loads his vest with his sandwich, dumps out all of the fly fishing tackle (line, leader, flies, floatant, etc.) and replaces it with about 7 beers, then grabs his spinning reel and some lures.

His. Fucking. Spinning. Reel.

*Texas Style Fishing consists of a fair amount of inactivity combined with a huge amount of beer consumption. The actual casting for and catching of the fish is a by-product of the incredible amount of alcohol that is to be imbibed and the redneck fun that ensues. It's like toobing with a pole in your hand (\"fishing\" pole, smartass) and calling it \"fishing.\" It really isn't \"fishing,\" its getting drunk while maybe, possibly, if good fortune is with us, catching a fish.

That may come off as sounding like I'm a fly-fishing snob but, well, good. I am.

Spin-fishing is for white-trash-mullet-wearing-5-teeth-in-their-mouth halfwits who can't outsmart a goddam trout that possesses a brain the size of a fingernail clipping and who only \"go fishing\" so that they can sit somewhere, get shitfaced, and still come home to the missus with something that proves that they weren't out somewhere just sitting and getting shitfaced.

Fly-fishing is much more than that. It's about the water. And the fish. And the bugs. Oh, how I love looking for the bugs. You get to peek under rocks and put your face down in the water before you even string up your line. You have to check the bugs, you see, to see what the fish are eating that day. That hour.

What's in the water? Are they green? Grey? Black? Winged? Still in their pupal stage? Yes, I said, \"pupal.\" Heh.

What's in my flybox that looks like these bugs? There's one. Same size, same color. I shall use that one.

Then you tie the fly on. This takes a minute but, if your choice is a good one, it's worth it. You then ninja (I stole this word from Dusty Where's-my-credit-bitch-Tsunami) up to the hole, sometimes literally on your belly. You hold your breath and you flick your line out there, arcing it soundlessly through the air.

Once. Twice. Cast.

Your fly alights on the water and you watch it like a fucking hawk, stripping line away as the current carries it down over the hole, keeping the line taught, playing the fly in the current, drifting it naturally... waiting... waiting... NOW! You see the top of him flash across the surface first, like Shamu showing off for tourists but Shamu is a Rainbow Trout and the fly is an unfortunate tourist and it takes only a millisecond, and you lift your pole as fast as you can set that frickin' hook, because while Trout are stupid enough to get something that's sharp and metallic into their mouth, they aren't stupid enough to swallow it. Not the big ones. They're smart, for a fish, and they're that big for a reason.

You hold the line and raise the rod tip up as far as you can, and you know you've got him because the rod bends and bows as the Trout heads for the river bottom.

You can't just heave on it, though, you'll snap that line in a second. You have to let him run, you have to let him pull just for a little while. Then you can pull back.

You wait until he slows and thinks he's safe and you give a good, smooth, hard tug.

SPLASH, that fucker shoots about two feet in the air, flipping and wiggling and shaking and doing his absolute damnedest to get that annoying piece of metal out of his mouth. You pull even harder on the line, because if you don't keep it taught, he'll spit that little barbless bitch out in a heartbeat.

You are frozen in that brief, mid-air, water-churning second with the absolute beauty of the pink stripe down his side, the long, streamline, thick, greenish, grayish, 18-inch body, his white underbelly. The gaping maw with your tiny, little fly dangling at its edge. The clarity and purity of the water he leapt from, and a wave of it and its droplets hanging in the air. Water so clear you can see 6 feet down as clearly as you can an inch.

You are frozen in the power the river holds that can move so smoothly around you and this creature, yet can turn granite to powder and carve canyons from plains. The smell of the tall pines that surround the shore, some of them even growing directly from a crack in the giant boulders. The massive, towering, Rocky Mountains that look down on you unless you are on top of them and have a thin layer of whitish blue snow on them even on a hot, July day. The cloud directly overhead that actually hit the side of the mountain, worked its way around it, and then blocked out the sun dropping the 75 degree air to 65 degrees in under 5 minutes.

You are frozen in the raw, untouched, amazingly, beautiful, moment of it all.

Whoof! That bastard's heading down again and your reels complains loudly as the line disappears from it. The Rainbow is fighting with every ounce of his being, and you have to give and give and give or he will break you. You will never break him. You can only coax and cajole and work him and play him until he's had just about enough. You work slowly to get him up to the surface closer and closer. Finally. You've won.

You pull him up to you across the surface of the water, preventing him any sort of platform for him to kick free from and escape. You reach for your ketchum tool so that you don't have to net him or touch him and wipe any of the life-giving slime-coating from his body, you can just slide it down your line and \"pop\" the hook free from his mouth.

While you're reaching for your release tool and he's sitting on the surface, with his head along the outside of your left thigh and his tail wrapped around your right, you stare at him in awe. You stare in wonderment at the beauty and power of this creature and you are humbled that you were able to conquer him.

You are proud.

*Kick*

*Snap*

You stared too fuckin' long, dumbass. That friggin' hog, with but a flick of his tail, just took your favorite fly and 3 feet of line.

Good job, genius.

Oh, well. You've got more line and more flies. The hook'll fall out of his mouth in a matter of days. He will live to be caught again with no harm done.

But, he's going to be that much smarter next time. Maybe you will be too.

Just make sure you're still able to cast with that arm you just injured patting yourself on the fucking back, stupid.

---

The Day of the Fishing, at an hour that I haven't seen since my cattle-herding days, we departed the Mom's house. We stopped for gas and, while the Mom and the Brother got coffee, I was entranced by a poster on the gas-station door.

It read: Try NEW PimpJuice

A beige placard with a tattooed, black dude, wearing a bandana on his head and the gradient-colored, 70's-porn-star sunglasses is telling me that I should try something called, \"PimpJuice.\"

So I did. It's apparently one of those energy-drinks like Blue Flame or Fast Guy or some shit, it's just a dollar more per can than the others.

I had to do it though. I knew that I needed that special something to put me over the edge that day as I was about to go fishing with the two people that taught me to fish, starting at the age of 2, the two best fishers that I knew in the world, the Mom and the Brother.

I sauntered up the white sidewalk, in the white neighborhood, down the white street from the whitest private school (U. of Denver) in the white Rocky's, into the gas-station and asked the white attendant where I could find me somma dat' PimpJuice.

He smirked and pointed to the cooler. I grabbed a can, leaned across the counter and asked conspiratorially, \"No shit, is this here PimpJuice shit any good?\"

He laughs and says, \"Yeah, it's kind of an apple flavor. And it's Nelly's own product.\"

I say, \"Right, and she sure knows her energy drinks, doesn't she?\"

He looks at me amusedly and says, \"'Nelly' is the rapper on the poster you were looking at.\"

\"RIGHT, right, I knew that, I was just seein' if you knew that. Everybody knows 'Nelly' is a tattooed, bandana-wearing black dude, pimpin' energy drinks and bustin' rhymes,\" I say, not knowing any of that shit at all.

I got out to the car and the Mom and the Brother were duly unimpressed when I told them about the legend of PimpJuice, especially after I told them that it was sure to help me \"make 'dem fishes mah bitches, yo. Me an' mah niggah, Nelly, was sho' to git' all up in 'dat shit. \"

Sadly, they were still not impressed when I told them that I was sure to \"get mah fly ass swerve inna somma 'dat 'fly' ass fishin' 'n' shit,\" and that, \"'doze muthafuckahs ain' seen nuthin' like a pimpass muthfuckah like me swillin' mah juice in the muthafuckin' hizzy.\"

Word.

Since the Mom and the Brother hadn't seen each other in a while, they spent a good part of our fishing time sitting in the car, drinking, and visiting.

Being respectful of their time together, and the fact that, after a couple hours on the river, there was a total downpour and they are obviously pussies who don't want to get wet, I left them to their own and headed off up the river.

And proceeded to have my best fucking day fishing EVER.

It figures too, that I would have no witnesses, as the lightning scared the rest of the fishermen off the water too. I know I said that I shake like an old-dog-shittin'-peach-pits at the sound of thunder, but I was catching some serious fucking fish, and only a lightning bolt from God herself could've knocked me off that river, for I was full-on harnessing the power of the Pimp.

I drank the nectar of those pearl-handled-cane-totin-purple-velvet-clad-platform-shoe-feathered-hat-wearing Gods and I became as one of them.

Nothing could stop me that day.

That afternoon and into that evening, I caught over 80 inches worth of Rainbow Trout.

I AM a Pimp.

And nonna' you bitches bettah fo'git that shit, yo.

Yet another reason Texas sucks.

I just received my first stern \"talking-to\" at work. I can hardly believe it took almost 5 months, but these folks are pretty laid back and forgiving.

I guess it's hard to consider it a \"stern talking-to,\" as it was from the CEO and he's a little fucked uhh... I mean, eccentric.

To borrow a line from a movie that I only admit to watching for Sandy Bullock (her bestest friends and stalkers call her \"Sandy\"), Dennis Hopper (while holding satchel of $3 million) says, \"Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric.\"

CEO guy is the millionaire playboy that you read about, building a multi-million dollar company with his bare hands, living in a loft downtown, throwin-the-bone to Broncos cheerleaders and coming to work in a Harrier Jump Jet.

Okay, he didn't do that. But, that's what I would do if I was so rich that I literally SHIT money.

Feeling crappy and sleepy, as well as slappy and creepy (what I originally typed), I was getting coffee this morning and saw our Senior Executive V.P. King of I.T. getting coffee too. He asked how the company golf tournament went.

Me: It was cool, I didn't hit anyone with the cart... 'cept Kathy and it was just her knee. Only a bruise, she's a champ, she'll play through it.

VP: Yeah, I wish I could've been there to defend my title.

Me: Waittaminute, you weren't there? You live for freakin' golf, where could you have possibly been?

VP: I... uh... had another engagement.

Me: Dirty Whore... you were playing in another tournament weren't you?

VP: Well yeah, but it was scheduled waaaay in advance, and I couldn't get out of it.

Me: Bullshit. Admit it, you're just a Dirty Golf Whore.

VP: Hey, I'll be at next year's...

Me: BAH! Golf Whore!

This is when Eccentric-CEO-guy comes in.

CEO: What's going on in here?

VP: Oh, nothing. JuddHole's just expressing his disappointment that I missed the company golf outing.

CEO: Oh, you mean the tournament I won. Heh. (pause, shakes head) But, I heard shouting. What was the shouting about?

Me: I shared with the VP what he REALLY is...

CEO (confused look): ...well, WHAT is he?

Me (glaring at VP, in a low gravelly voice): 'E knows wha' 'e is...

CEO dismisses VP and pulls me aside to tell me that, in a company this size, it's not cool for me, LowlyDeveloperBoy, to go around calling our high ranking V.P. a \"Golf Whore.\" Or an \"Anything-Whore\", for that matter.

I asked if he was just sticking up for the VP because that's his little brother.

I was told that respectable companies, like ours, don't conduct themselves this way and that I need to show more respect, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Me (nodding whipped-dog-like): Sorry... I'm the new guy and I was out of line. On on unrelated note, who won last year's golf tourney?

CEO (hesitating): Um... well... VP did.

Me: Unh hunh, and if he were at ours and not out being a Golf Wh... uh... PLAYING at another tourney, what are the chances that he'd win it again... instead of YOU winning?

CEO (quickly shaking head): That's not what's important. What's important is... um... no yelling, \"Whore\" and stuff.

CEO then scurried off dejectedly.

Poor bastard. Bested by the younger sibling.

I'd be cranky too if my younger, lower-executive-ranking brother regularly smoked my ass at golf.

Thus far today I've called several higher-ups, \"Burrito Whore,\" \"Gumball Whore,\" and \"HomeEquityLoan Whore,\" just to see if I could.

No one seemed to care.

Not even CEO guy.

Although he probably already forgot reprimanding me.

He's eccentric like that.

---

Speaking of sibling rivalry, my big brother is coming into town tonight from Houston.

My older, wiser, much better looking, TEXAN of a big brother is coming, sans wife and kids, to hang with me and the Mom, flyfish, golf, and drink copious amounts of beer with his larger, far-bigger-of-a-pussy, sibling.

Yeah, you read it right...

He's a fucking Texan.

The guy was born and raised Montana stock, just like myself and the Girl, yet the exact second he landed in that accursed state (hours after his H.S. graduation), he became one of THEM.

The last time I saw him he was professionally groomed, professionally tanned, wearing a shirt that cost more than all of my clothes combined, had a Gold Rolex on, a diamond mounted in his already-gawdy Gold Texas A&M class ring, and had $200 shoes on.

While he was sitting behind the counter of the SALVAGE YARD he manages.

He hollered, \"Whull, hey-a liddle bruh-ther!\"

I simply stared for a moment, thinking, \"WE'RE from the same womb? No. Fucking. Way.\"

We proceeded to drink massive amounts of beer while he got all misty-eyed about his beloved Number 3's death.

\"Christ,\" I remember thinking, \"NASCAR too? What's next? Shewtin' shawtguns off at a weddin'? Porkin' farm animals? A 23-gallon hat? The PRESIDENCY?!? WHAT?!?\"

The predominant reason I use, \"Texan\" like it's a dirty word?

That goddamed state took the guy who taught me how to catch fish by hand, swim in 56-degree water, track mountain lions, and rock climb and turned him into a drawling, cheap-beer-swilling, shiny-Gold-wearing... *shudder* Texan.

Pity that I've only got a week to de-Texify him.

I've already planned on how to \"lose\" his bags and force him to wear the Carhartt's we grew up in. Mine are going to be a little... a LOT baggy, but that's even better. One $30 pair of workboots, a stained Montana Grizzlies hat, and a shirt that says, \"Moose Drool Brown Ale\" later, he may be well on his way back to his roots.

If all else fails, I'm smearing him in raw meat and dropping him off in Mountain Lion country. He'll get his hunting/evading skills back at least.

Or die, I guess.

Either way, he won't be a TEXAN anymore.