finished

I’m so drunk. I remember walking back with her. It was early, still a couple hours to bar close, so I don’t know exactly why we were back. She was pretty drunk and on top of me, rocking her hips. What the hell? What had she said about her boyfriend? Studying or something? Didn’t she mention he might meet up later? How did I get it up?

It’s not like we haven’t done it before. For the last three years we’ve taken turns cheating on our significant others with each other. Two potentially good relationships have ended because of her. I just ended a very long one before coming into town for the weekend of her birthday. There’s always talk of the love and how everything will work out and other things that young, idiotic, people tell each other. Did I bring the rubber? How did I lose my pants? I wasn’t going to get into it with her again.

On and off, over and over, we’d been with each other and away from each other so often I’ve lost count. The feelings for her are stronger than with anyone else. Or is it because you’re able to still get in her pants after so long? I’m pretty sure I love her. Or maybe I just like having the option of loving her. How did I get her pants off? She said we wouldn’t do this because of the boyfriend. She said feels bad.

I’m barely paying attention. I’m into it, but I can barely see straight. I don’t think I have enough sober left in me to finish. She feels good. Not as good as my ex though. Why did I leave her? Why can’t I figure out what I want out of anything? It’s hard to say how long we’ve been at it. I feel like this is our second position, but I don’t remember moving. Things are sort of clearing up, but slowly. Like a windshield defrosting in pitch blackness.

Wait. I don’t have to be here. Part of me wants to be here. I’m glad I am here. But why am I here? I don’t even like chilling with her anymore. Everyone says she’s too self-involved. That I’m just caught up in it and don’t see it. They’re probably right. I reach my hands out, grab her hips, and lift her up and left while shifting to my right. I sit up and she gives me a look that screams, “what the hell are you doing?” Her eyes are glossy. Glazed by the drink.

“I have to piss,” I murmur, while tossing the rubber in the trash and grabbing my shorts from the floor. I step into them as I make my way to the door. I snap my eyes shut in a wince. Someone left the hall light on. In a couple steps I’m in the bathroom, my shorts barely on. I brace myself and then turn on the light. My eyes adjust. I stare at myself in the mirror. I’m ragged. My eyes are bloodshot and my face is flush. I don’t need this shit. I’m wasting my time here. Why did I come down here for the weekend anyway? Am I that pathetic? The one I left was a much better lay and I never felt like shit after or had to stop in the middle. Idiot.

I reach out, flush the toilet to keep up appearances, and can hear her on the phone. I splash some cold water against my face. Did she just say, “see you in a bit?” She’s laying on the bed, under the covers now, and I can see her looking up at me in the small rectangle of light from the hall. I step over to the bed and lay for a second. She rests her head on my shoulder. I turn slightly and say, in a raspy voice that’s not my own from hours of drinking and yelling, I’m all out for the night and that I’m going to crash downstairs. Should I tell her I’m over her. That whatever love I once had for her is in short supply?

“There are blankets on the loveseat under the table. I’ll be down in a few minutes. [Boyfriend]’s coming by in a little while.” I throw a t-shirt over my head and walk into the hall. That dick’s actually doing to sleep in the bed I was just fucking her in. She won’t tell him. He probably knows. I don’t feel bad about it. Is she already over me? Am I just an easy fuck on occasion? I’m too drunk to know if the couch is comfortable. I grab a pillow from the chair and lay my head down.

I must have fallen asleep. She’s started up the stairs and he’s just behind her. She must have spread the blanket over me. My eyes are half shut. I hear them talking to one another. Their feet are heavy walking into her room. They’re probably sitting on the bed now. Maybe he’ll see the rubber before she has a chance to hide it. I smile a little bit.

All the curiosities of her affection for me. Thoughts of how I could make a relationship work. Justifications for her egotism and naivety. Feeling the heat of her jealousy in her voice over the phone. Helplessly listening to her describe her loneliness. At least that’s over. A formidable weight has been lifted. Even fall-down drunk, I feel sober, completely sober, for the first time in months. My eyes fall close and there's darkness.

wrist

It doesn’t hurt. I’m surprised. The puncture, filling with blood, makes me think I should be feeling pain. Maybe there aren’t any nerves there. A cut this size on my hand would cause a burning hot pain through my entire right side. Instead, I only feel a dull throbbing. A pressure like someone’s wrapped their hands around my arm, with their fingers against the inside of my forearm, and is squeezing.

The window, just a moment ago, was stuck in place by a small, but formidable chunk of ice. The frost on it had melted and then pooled along the guide—freezing it in position about half an inch from closed. It remains in the same position, but the glass is shattered. Shards of it lay between the window and its screen. I feel only the rush of air, not the temperature, but I know it’s a cold draft against my skin.

My water bottle lays on the couch under my lofted bed. I threw it there in order to concentrate on trying to get the window open. It’s filled with water, about room temperature, that I was going to cool in the window. We have no refrigerator and the icy air cooled it faster than the appliance would. I glance down at it, then back at the window, and back down at my right wrist.

The blood is pooling. I rush over to the sink before the first drop hits the porcelain. Unsure what to do, I turn on the water. I watch the blood flow down my hand as I adjust the temperature. It’s such a deep red. I’ve never seen such a red. Or maybe I have and I’m too stunned to remember. I push my hand under the faucet and all the red dissipates and rinses down the drain.

I can see into the hole, about an inch and a half wide by an inch long. It looks deep and dark, like tiny fleshy cave. I don’t know what to look for, but I see no pieces of glass. I push against the outside of the wound. I don’t feel any stabs or extra pressure—nothing sharp.

My face in the mirror is pale. My expression is somewhere between astonished and confused. I turn my head left and look back at the window that was. The handle runs vertical along the right side. It sticks out about three-quarters of an inch, with a small lip. I was bumping the heel of my hand against it on the right, trying to slide the window left. After a couple tries with no success, I hit it harder once. Then I pulled my hand back so I could generate more force. An instant later my hand stopped just short of the screen. I had held it straight out like that, surrounded by a ring of broken, jagged glass, for what seemed like moments.

The throbbing was getting worse. I turned my eyes back to the hole, now flushed out, exposing the fleshy red walls, and tried to think of what to do. I couldn’t hold it under the water much longer. I yelled for help, but there was no response. No one was around. If they were, they’d be listening to music or busy. My door was closed. I couldn’t yell loud enough for anyone to hear. My roommate was working and wouldn’t likely be back for more than thirty minutes.

I had to stop the bleeding. It wouldn’t be long before I’d start shaking and only a bit longer before I passed out. I already felt like the blood was draining from my face. I couldn’t reach my phone. I reached out for the first thing I could find, a light blue cotton wash cloth. I folded it, but I did it so quickly that it was more wadded than anything. It would have to do. I pressed it firmly against the wound, wrapping my fingers around my wrist to hold it in place. I had nothing to tie it with.

I took my left hand away just long enough to open my door, and then put it back with as much pressure. It felt good. If only because I felt like I was doing something. I used my foot to open the door the rest of the way and stepped out.

The hall was vacant, and I couldn’t see any open doors on my end of the hallway. None of the rooms I knew had anyone in them. Timing probably couldn’t have been worse. I knocked on the door of the C.A., with no response. I walked down the hall, toward the stairs, at a quick pace. None of the doors were open until I was only two from the end of the hall. I knocked on the open door to get their attention.

“I think I’ll need to get to a hospital, can you help me out?”

Leah spoke before she looked up from her project. “What? Why would you...” And then she saw me in the doorway. “What happened?”

Her expression changed to astonished, with a hint of worry, when she saw my wrist and how pale I was. “Maybe they can help downstairs. Call someone or something.”

I started to feel lightheaded as her and Briana, her roommate, led me down the stairs. I walked with them to the front desk, but when the girl there had to make phone calls and sort out how to handle things, I sat on the bench against the wall. The dizziness was getting thicker and, even seated, was feeling uneasy.

- - - - -

I don’t know how long I waited there, but more people came by and others stopped to ask what was going on. There was a small huddle of five or ten people when the EMTs came through the door. The first man sat next to me, peeled away the soiled wash cloth, and placed a large pad over the hole. He wrapped it quickly in a thin cloth, or gauze, or something, so that it would stay against my wrist.

He was talking to me, and I was responding, but I wasn’t listening. He asked someone for something and a moment later I had a glass of water in my hand. I didn’t think it would do much good, but I felt better after half the glass was gone. Not well, but not as dizzy as before. He helped me to my feet and I walked with him out to the ambulance. It was parked about fifty feet to the right in one of the smaller lots.

A second man followed us out. He must have been talking to some of the other people, but I hadn’t noticed him. When I’m about half way to the flashing lights I look back and Leah yells that she’s got directions and will meet there. It’s good that she’ll be there, because I have no idea where I’m going.

The cot isn’t as comfortable as I would have thought. The two guys sit opposite me and try to keep up conversation. Or, at least First Guy is. Second is using a flashlight in my eyes, checking my pulse, and sitting there watching me. For half the trip First is reminiscing about his college days and how he missed out on so much. Apparently the fact that my dorm is coed means I’m living better than he had. I’m mildly annoyed, but I don’t really have a choice. I make light of things and joke a bit.

- - - - -

At the hospital, First leads me to a couple nurses, Second goes to the counter and starts talking to the woman behind a computer there. Nurse One asks what had happened, I answer. Nurse Two asks if it was an accident and I laugh a little. Maybe being pale and shaky made the laugh unconvincing. She asks again. I firmly say no, but add that I would have waited until after Dawson’s to try something like that. She’s not amused.

Nurse One takes me to an all-white room. She pulls the curtain out and around, shielding my bed from the one next to it. A black man lay there with his eyes closed and headphones on. She sets me up on the bed and asks me some questions. Again, whether it’s an accident is asked. Again I answer that it was. The standard questions come out then: are you allergic to medications, no; do you have any preexisting conditions, no; etc.

She leaves and a few moments later, Two comes in to ask if the people waiting outside can come in. Leah’s the first to sit bedside and we talk about what happened, some things about class, how it felt, and some other idle talk. We joke when the man next to me starts singing along to Nelly. She leaves, saying Briana’s waiting out there alone and they should take turns.

Just a few minutes after Briana takes a seat, a doctor comes in to check out the wound. He’s an older man. He lifts the bandage off and looks closely at it. He asks a bunch of questions regarding the pain and how it happened. He says he’s going to test for nerve function and that I can’t have pain killers until after he’s finished. He pulls out what look like a pair of tweezers and moves the small flap of skin to the side.

An icy hot bolt of pain shoots directly to the back of my eyes as he pokes into the hole. It feels like he’s digging in my wrist with an iced knife. I look down to see him leaning in again. My entire body tenses and my left hand goes white gripping the bar at the side of the bed. I think I’m yelping expletives, but things are getting foggy. He digs again and then says something. I don’t hear him.

- - - - -

I don’t really know what transpired after he left. I must have gotten groggy because I have no idea how long I was actual in that room. I remember Leah and Briana switching places so that both were in the room twice. I don’t remember an I.V., but I think I was being dosed with pain medication through one. There was another nurse, but she may have been one of the first two.

Someone hands one of the girls a slip of paper, explaining that the pharmacy somewhere would be open. A doctor mentioned a surgery in a few days to repair something. Another doctor came in to sew up my wrist, wrapped it in gauze, and then wrapped it with a large splint with an ace bandage.

Leah and Briana and I went to a Walgreen’s, but I don’t know where it was. Leah helped me get a prescription filled. I felt loopy and completely out of it. I didn’t even what hospital I had gone to until my mother called later.

I had to answer some questions from friends when I got back to the room, but I don’t remember any of them. There was a piece of plywood in the place of my window by the time I was back. Some people were around for awhile, discussing what had happened. I was telling them about the hospital and then they started to file out.

And now I’m staring at the television, dosed on generic Vicodin, drifting off to sleep on my couch with my wrist confined to a slightly bent position. The television is on, but I’m not watching. The drugs are making my head fuzzy and I’m exhausted.

contempt

As tribes, we fought with as many dirty tactics as could be implemented. Civilization grew and warfare became regimented. Warriors were respected for their power and skill. Each side respected the other. There were times allotted for the battle of the day. Lines were formed, broken, and reformed, but kept a predictable rhythm. Onlookers packed picnic baskets and were entertained by the gunfire and death. That has all changed.

The Americans defeated the British with primitive guerrilla warfare. It was learned from routine battles with disobedient Native tribes. They hid as the British marched in strict lines. They fired at their target with the benefit of stealth. The British looked upon this as uncivilized, but had to admit to its effectiveness. Even then, each nation had respect for the other.

World War II brought American forces into a dual war. The fighting against Germany was European, while the fighting against the Japanese took on a life of its own. America was fighting an unseen enemy in terrain they hadn’t yet encountered. Jungles, volcanoes, and beaches, were all difficult battlefields. But the worst part of the war with Japan was not their tactics, it was the disappearance of their identity.

The Japanese were seen as a faceless, unified enemy. The evidence of this was in our propaganda and confining them to concentration camps across the nation. Even decades after the war was ended, we have a social divide. Our relationship, unlike in wars previous, did not rebound. It was one of the victors and the defeated. Our history skims past the hardships of the Japanese and our delayed involvement, but emphasizes and exaggerates our heroism.

In all the wars since, at least from an American perspective, the enemy has been demonized. The common ground has been shifted. It may have once been level, but that is no longer the case. Now we can torture our captives, vandalize the dead, and reduce civilians to numbers on a chart without remorse.

America doesn’t take the time to understand the enemy. Their culture is misunderstood and mocked. In Vietnam, the first Iraq War, and the current one, the civilians are terrorized. Soldiers are told that the enemy can be among the masses. They are taught to fear anyone and everyone while being ridiculed for showing fear. They don’t see their enemy as having a purpose. The enemy is merely dirt between the tread of their boots.

I don’t know how we lost respect for our enemies. We haven’t fought a war on our soil in over one hundred forty years. Does that add to our detachment? The threat of our nation being attacked was very real in WWII. Today, it is a grossly exaggerated micro-possibility. Do we see our enemies today as faceless evil simply because we don’t understand them?

This has happened before. There were barbarians described by the Romans. They were without faces. Just a mass of unwashed, uncivilized filth to be looked on with disdain. They infiltrated and destroyed the world’s most powerful empire by exploiting its many flaws. Then they themselves went on to develop the most powerful empires the world has ever seen.

The tactic of defacing the enemy didn’t work for the Romans. Their torture and ruthless destruction of civilians only provided fodder for their defeat. The barbarians recruited easily those that were affected by Roman occupation. They used tribal tactics of dirty war to eat at the Roman’s decaying power. The Romans refused to negotiate or even consider the viewpoint of the barbarians because they lacked the respect to do so.

There can be no resolution without respect. Dehumanizing the enemy only serves selfish purposes. The fact that the enemy is fighting for their lives, their homes, and their families is completely lost. Our forces are already exhausted and stretched beyond their limits. Our economy is faltering on the backs of the ignored poor. The world turned their back on our foolish abstract war. Now that we have lost respect for our enemy, dehumanized them, and misunderstood them, history will repeat itself.

caveman

I haven’t had a lot of time to read into the news (read: RSS feed articles) or keep up with current commentary (read: blogs) much lately. I don’t know why really, but it’s coming up on movie season and I’ve been going out a lot. (Well, guess I just solved that one.) But I found an article in the reader from back on August 16th. It’s interesting.

I don’t think I can follow a diet like this one, but I’ve thought of similar things before. It’s interesting to me how modern tribal instincts have adapted to the rise of civilization. We were around for a few dozen millions of years before we started planting half the seeds we were snacking on to have more snack next year. It’s only logical that the instincts and biological make-up would be slower to shift.

Men are more athletic than women because they have the capacity for more strength. They compete against one another for societal standing in order to win the favor of the most prized females to ensure the strongest offspring. Women have a higher fat content and their bodies circulate heat differently in order to bear children. Women are more apt to group-building activities. With a larger group of women there is more guidance for those offspring.

Today things are oriented more financially. Being physically fit is more about attraction than providing, but still important. Men compete more frequently in organized sports, but women develop complex social networks much faster.

Men use maps and guides and tend to have a better conceptual sense of direction. They are sometimes better at determining north, south, east, and west. Men had to travel large distances for food before farming.

Women use landmarks and experience to find their way. Women gathered closer, relatively, and their targets rarely moved. Recently, they’ve been shown to more accurately remember where certain foods were located in a grocery after visiting only once.

Over the millennia, we developed conservation systems in our bodies. There are certain points to which we gain weight and then rest at that weight for the rest of our lives. It developed to store fat reserves in time of famine. Today we have food in abundance. Walking to and from lunch, I typically see at least fifteen overweight people and at least five obese or morbidly obese people.

For millions of years we ate berries, nuts, and whatever we could kill. For a few hundred years we consumed vegetables and grains with some dairy. For the last seventy years we’ve consumed complex sugars, simple sugars, corn syrup, and liquid calories. It makes sense that our bodies can’t adjust quickly enough to avoid the decaying that comes along with such an abrupt change.

engagement

I work within a department where I am the sole male. I have more female friends than male. I find them easier to deal with. Their cattiness doesn’t typically involve me and I don’t have to arm wrestle for the final slice of Lorenzo’s pizza. It works out for the most part, but there is one area that will forever baffle me.

The story telling that surrounds the proposal. How he “popped the question.” Where he went down on one knee. The symbolism behind his words. The lineage of the ring. The spontaneity or thoughtfulness. It’s all repeated for everyone to hear, over and over, to whoever happens to be around to listen. Why is this done?

I know it’s an important moment. In theory, because averages speak otherwise, it is the only time in someone’s entire life that such a question is posed. It is dreamed about and talked about and hoped for by billions of little girls. It’s possibly the second most important day in any relationship. It should be memorable, thoughtful, and romantic.

But shouldn’t it also be personal? Do your friends, coworkers, and passing acquaintances need to be privy to how you were proposed to? Does the story need to be repeated incessantly? Is it the inflation of romanticism that sparks the “awww” response?

Recently, about a week ago, one of the woman at the office was proposed to. She recounted the story early in the week in a meeting with all of the department. She undoubtedly told the tale numerous times over the weekend. I have since heard of the engagement and the subsequent planning on at least four different occasions. What’s the reason for this?

The preeminent writer of romance novels has been married five times. Most of the men and women writing romantic films have had similar luck. Girls are raised in the belief they will be whisked away by a prince charming. That never happens. Most settle for the first guy that they think they can change. Then they settle for him when they can’t change him because they feel as though they’ve wasted their time.

Romance is being able to tell someone they’re being an ass with the confidence that things will be back to normal in a few hours. Romance is letting her know you care through actions and words. Romance is knowing you’ll have at least one person laughing at your jokes. Romance is listening. Romance is respect. Romance is sitting silently watching a movie and knowing there’s nowhere else she wants to be. Love is all these things with the additional emotional connection that doesn’t fade with looks or mood. A connection that ebbs, but endures.

That connection is what’s important, and what should be valued. The sentiment behind a proposal becomes shallow upon repetition and meaningless to minor acquaintances. It is understandable to be excited and want to spread the news. But, to recount the story to anyone who listens tarnishes its true impact. I offer sincere congratulations, but don’t necessarily need to hear the transpired events repeatedly to do so.