the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
3.28.2005
A Quick Commentary and an Airing Out of Dirty Laundry.
Ever since my mom bought one of those front-loading washing machines with the little glass window on front, and a team of pint-sized burly Mexican men lovingly rolled it into our home, I've taken to sitting on a pile of dirty clothes, listening to the soothing wet cyclical nose of "swobb-swobb-swobb," and watching the sudsy mess of colors fly around and around inside.
Yesterday, I was at my parents' house doing just that very thing. I was perched atop a pile of dirty whites, watching my favorite red t-shirt struggle to reach the front of the window, finally make it, only to get sucked right back into the dark recesses of the swirling Kenmore vortex.
And as I sat there, amidst dirty socks and towels and underwear, with hot tears running down my face and my stomach tied into knots, I realized that going through a particularly painful breakup is much like getting thrown into the wash. As much as we'd like to emerge clean, fresh, and static cling-free, ready for the next element coming our way, the reality of the situation is that, in essence, we're really just literally getting the fucking shit beaten out of us -- thrown about a dizzying spin while drowning in harsh bubbles that promise to make us springtime fresh. The more we enter this vicious, violent cycle, the more often we emerge beaten, worn, and weary -- sometimes faded to the point of non-recognition.
Yes, washing clothes gets rid of the evidence of past human contact: the stains, the sweat, the tears, albeit temporarily -- but maybe it's those very things that should be held closest as they hold the memories of what could have been the best times of our lives. At the same time, however, I don't want to submit to meticulously packing these things away in a box in the attic like an old, dirty, worn wedding dress, to be happened upon years later, only to find that moths have eaten away at the pretty lace and that a nest of mice had torn into the creamy white bodice, leaving it decayed, destroyed.
So yeah. I was having these awfully metaphorical and sentimental thoughts while crying silently on a pile of dirty clothes in front of the washing machine, when my mom walks in, looks at my now-startled, tear-streaked face, and shrieks at me, "Yaejina, what you doing? ::points to washing machine:: What, you watching sad movie now? Get out and watch Incredibles with Umma."
And so I got up and crawled onto the sofa with my mom to watch The Incredibles. And yes, it was incredible.
Just about everyone knows about Craigslist online classifieds, and we all take a peek at the personals sometimes. Maybe we even send a good-natured response from one of email addresses we don't use so much anymore. But seldom do we ever, ever, ever actually meet anyone.
Well, slap me around and call me Susan; in a particularly poor call of judgement, I responded to a post made by a "tall, wealthy executive" offering to "spoil a young white/asian woman under 30." I admonished him and also asked him if he were completely retarded; when you offer young Asian women a rich white man with loads of cash, you're going to be swamped with emails from awful, soulless bitches.
He sent me back a good-natured email that seemed harmless enough. He thanked me for my concern and told me that I seemed sweet.
Now, in a quick aside, I suppose I should explain something about my nature to all of you; I tend to have this embedded urge to help people who are kind of "lost." I was always friends with the freaks, losers, and cheerfully fat kids in high school, and initially pursued my high school boyfriend of two years largely because my heart melted for him. I had two or three classes with T., and in every single one, he put his big ol' chubby cute head down on the desk and didn't talk to anyone, ever. He never even moved, I don't think. I heard from one of my friends that he had a habit of sitting in his basement alone and watching excessive amounts of porn, and from that moment on, I was hooked on trying to make him my boyfriend. He later told me something to the effect that until he met me, he used to go home from school everyday, watch TV with his mom, then go into his basement and listen to Weezer and eat an entire large pepperoni pizza alone for the rest of the night. I fell in love.
Getting back to the story -- I told the guy, let's call him "Mike," that I enjoy good company and that I didn't need someone to buy me shit for me to have a good time. I saw this as an opportunity to help this poor sucker have a nice social experience with a relatively nice girl who wasn't just going to use him for his deep pockets. So it was just in my "giving nature" (yes, there is an element of sarcasm going on here, I'm not always all about self-glorification, you know) to agree to meet with him and have a drink. Plus, what if he were ACTUALLY HOT???
Let me just interject here with the fact that I think it is my inherent right as a 20 year old in New York to go on all sorts of "crazy adventures" while I still can, because, well, why not? What else am I going to do with my fucking life? (Wow. That was a beautiful statement, wasn't it? I want that statement engraved on my tombstone and on the obituaries, by the way. Right under "She was brutally killed by a sex offender when he inserted a whole corn cob in its entirety forcefully into her rectum until she blacked out and died from loss of blood.")
So anyway, after another email or two, we found out that he lives only one more stop on the subway away from where I work, so we decided to hang out for a bit before I had to be in at 5:30 tonight. Before I left my dorm, I asked him to meet me at the Starbucks next door to where I work. He had been really polite and respectful before, so I was surprised when he brusquely said, "NO. Get off at 72nd on the red line. I live at ..." and he proceeded to tell me his address. I told him he was a creep, but I figured that we'd get coffee by where he was and I'd then be off on my merry way.
I called when I got out of the subway and he told me to come over. I said, "No! Are you out of your mind? This is no way to pick up ladies, by the way, you fucking creep. What the fuck?" He said, "Shut up and just get over here, will you?" So I lowered my eyes in shame, covered my small pink Asian mouth with my hand and giggled in embarrassment as oriental music just happened to stream in the background somewhere.
After wandering around for 15 minutes looking for the place (I was on the wrong street), I got there and told him to meet me outside. He said, "Will you just fucking get over here? Jesus Christ!" So I thought to myself, Oh what the fuck, fine. I briefly considered calling a friend to let her know where I was just in case I was never heard from again (so she could seek vengeance upon his firstborn, of course), but wondered how the fuck I was going to explain my situation to anyone? So I cast my fears to the wind and went up the stairs to this fancy little apartment, telling myself that worst comes to worst, my life is shit, my ex and I are probably not getting back together, and furthermore I had lived a rather full life and I could die without too many regrets.
The apartment door opened slowly and there he was. He was indeed a "tall executive." He was around 6 feet tall and wore a fancy sweater with a collared shirt underneath, with neatly kempt hair and nice slacks.
And oh yeah, HE WAS ALSO ABOUT 300 POUNDS.
We exchanged pleasantries in his foyer and he immediately asked me to take off my shoes. I gave him a fearful look and asked, "Why?" expecting him to answer with "So you can't run very far when you try to escape!!!" but he instead responded with "I just don't like shoes in my apartment. I'm that type of guy." And I looked down to see that he indeed was wearing only socks on his feet.
So I sat on his couch and unstrapped my high heels. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he was sitting next to me, his arms folded over his vast belly. As my feet slid out of my shoes, I noticed that his eyes grew wide with lustful excitement. He was practically rubbing his hands together, chest heaving, with his tongue lolling out and drool collecting on his merino wool sweater. My stomach got a bad, bad feeling about the whole situation.
Nevertheless, I accepted his offer of wine, and trying to seem like a cultured New Yorker, said red, and strategically asked, "What kind?" "Uh, let's see.. Merlot." "Mer-LOT?!?! Okay, white." "Hey just because the guy in Sideways doesn't like Merlot, it doesn't mean it's bad."
That was totally a legitimate dig, because that damn movie made me (and everyone else who saw it) feel as though I was a fucking connoisseur. I quickly said, "Oh no seriously it's just too heavy and overpowering for me." Lame.
So we sat down and talked about work, New York, harmless talk. His eyes were in that half-closed, trying-to-look-sexy, intensely fixated stare -- which made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I kept accidentally calling him "creepy," and ended up unconsciously covering myself with his sofa cushions. After about 10 minutes, I realized that I was sitting with my legs tucked under me, and had three cushions and his crocheted afghan throw wrapped around my entire body. No exaggeration. Seriously. He was literally talking to a head poking out from a mountain of upholstery. He had his wine glass resting on his enormous stomach and I couldn't stop watching it move up and down as he talked.
I started to mildly admonish him for seeking young women to pay for their company, and he got really mad and said, "Are you just going to sit here under those pillows and judge me?" I got even more heated and said, "I don't mean to judge, but is that seriously what you're looking for? Wouldn't you rather just have fun and enjoy someone's company?"
This is when things got bad.
He thrust his arms into the pile of cushions I was buried under (::HULKSMASH!!::) and grabbed me by the wrists. He snarled, "Are you being a bad girl? Do you want to get fucking spanked? That's what you want, isn't it?" and as I tried to wriggled out of his grip in utter shock, he pulled me over his knee with amazing fat-man brute force, pulled up my skirt, and spanked me on my ass five times before I yelled at him to STOP YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!!
He let me go and said in a really condescending voice, "Now don't tell me that didn't make you a little bit wet." I stared at him in disgust, as he continued to tell me that he would never do anything if he really thought I didn't want it. I said, "Thank you, I'm leaving now." Then he grabbed me by the wrists and I saw his huge, wet, fat lips coming at me, and I turned my face just in time so his bulbous manlips only touched my cheek. I brusquely wiped it off with the back of my hand and put my shoes on and got up to walk to the door. He said, "Honey, this is New York. It's filled with fucking weirdos. ...I'd like to see you tonight." "Are you fucking out of your mind? What the fuck do you think we'd do tonight? I'm not coming back here."
He looked at me with that disgusting, creepy glare and said, "I'd like to get you over here, sit you on the couch, have some more wine with you, then throw you in there (points into the bedroom) on my bed, eat you out, make you come, turn you over and FUCK THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF YOU. That's what I'd like to do."
Without another word, I opened the door, ran down the steps, out the building, ran all the way to the subway station, and never looked back.
I'm giving up on the idea of Steve Burns and I starting a little electronic rock band, so I'm putting that on hold for the moment and will be initiating a little duo of me on my guitar and my friend Adam on the harmonica. We haven't practiced yet, but it's going to be awesome.
[Peek-a-Foo]