viragette

I’d like the internet to know that last night I dropped my new video iPod, port end first, into a glass of milk. I tried to keep it awake all night, the way you would someone with a concussion, because I was afraid it might slip into a little iPod coma. Look for future posts entitled “Me an my ‘what’s that smell?’ iPod”.

Meanwhile, it’s a lovely morning - again. I keep thinking the same two thoughts - “it looks like a Bruegel painting”, and “damn this inappropriate crush”.

Maybe this is a sign of me getting older. Not the Bruegel comment, the other one. I used to have more stamina, which I used to keep that stick firmly in place.

I hold to a genuine fondness for the uptight girl that I once was. She kept me out of trouble - and got me into all sorts of trouble of another kind. The thing is that she did manage to climb out of the places where her particular orientation to the world seemed not only sane but the single uphill path. She seems a bit out of place up here. She was the type of person who earnestly felt that she could really, really relate to Bob Dylan singing “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”, at the age of 22. God she was a pain in the ass. She needed to get a life and relax a little.

I’ve been trying to take good care of that girl lately, but can she ever be a nag! The thing is, she’s so often right. And when I screw up she doesn’t exactly let me forget it. Take the example of “the singer in that one band”, for instance. How was I to know? How was I to know that in the State of Wisconsin you can go to a bar to see a band (and maybe kiss a girl) if you are under the age of 21 if YOUR MOM COMES WITH YOU.

I finally broke down and told a couple of friends that, a few weeks before my 30th birthday, I went out to a show and when I had long-since exceeded my beer limit (which is approximately the neck of one beer), I kissed a very beautiful 20-year old boy when his MOTHER was somewhere in the same room.

“How was I to know!? He was so tall - and he had a face like an angel. How was I to know he could SING LIKE ONE?”

“You’ve told this story before.”

“No, but I’ve certainly given it alot of thought.”

I could not get away from the self-recriminations after that debacle. There was not enough slack in the world for that mess-up. After she got through with me, I not only felt like a damn pedophile, but worse than that I felt I had mortally wounded some vulnerable, defense-less boy-child for life. I guess I’ve stopped feeling profoundly guilty and - more appropriately - like a garden-variety, non-sociopathic idiot. But, it still makes me cringe.

I was talking to a girlfriend a couple of weeks ago about this incident and she told me she didn’t think it was such a bad idea. She said she’d kiss a 20-year old if given the chance.

This is why talking to other people, or indeed having any idea what they might or might not do, is a bad idea. Because, as my inner-nag will point out, other people are crazy.  What am I to think? Other people do all sorts of stuff that I just won’t do. The big one for me is that other people cheat. That’s the exception that proves the rule, as far as trusting what other people might do. I’ve never cheated on anyone (even in those cases when it was probably richly deserved) and, as I’ve gotten this far, I intend to take it to the grave. For novelty if nothing else. Like being able to tell St. Peter that you’ve never eaten a doughnut.

St. Peter: “Whatever. Maybe you should relax a little. Here, have Krispy Creme. And some milk. …. What’s that smell?”

So, anyway, I have this new crush and it is inappropriate. My inner-nag doesn’t even really need to involve herself there - it’s a no-brainer. We are in complete agreement, me and my little shoulder-angel.

So why is the crush still here? Clearly, one of us is a masochist, and I don’t think it’s me.

The persistence of this crush - going on a couple of weeks now - is a serious problem when your best friend in town is a GUY, with whom you can NOT talk about such things. With whom you sometimes go have a beer and then have to bite your tongue every time you think of the inappropriate crush - because God Forbid that that cat gets out of it’s bag. This is a serious problem when you have two dates this weekend and neither one is with the inappropriate crush. Thank goodness. But, I mean - not fun to try to think of something to say when all you can think is “damn this inappropriate crush!”.

Oh the angst. I feel like a kid again.

But, I have to admit, the fact that she is letting me keep any crush at all - well, maybe we’re moving in the right direction. If I had to guess, she’s loosening up a bit. Maybe, if I’m very very good - next time - she’ll let me have a crush that I can keep. And - I think I have the upper hand. She knows that we need to reach a compromise before Mr. Inappropriate asks me out again.