Dedicated to My One True Love: The Ladies

And what do girls like? Big tough men who still cry every once in a while. I'm not afraid to talk about it. My rule for quitting my desk job was that I would certainly quit before the job flustered me enough to make me cry. When I punched a hole in the wall I figured that was close enough and stopped going to work.

I have met a few girls that like to cry. They encourage crying for cleansing and recreation and say that at the very least any normal person should cry on a regular basis. I don't agree with that. It sounds annoying.

I will tell you about things that I like. One of my most favorite things in the world is to drive across the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I have done it quite a few times and every time it makes me want to win the lottery and become a professional ski bum, spending my life in exotic resort settings and letting it all sink in.

My mother went to college in Colorado and still has friends in the area and we visit them every few years or so. One Thanksgiving my mother, stepfather, brother and I drove out to Denver. My brother and I followed my mom's truck in her convertible Mustang. We drove through high mountain roads, the less traveled ones with hidden fields and apple orchards. It was sunny and we listened to one of my favorite CDs: The Meat Puppets, Too High Too Die. The only thing that was missing was some awesome girl to share the experience with. In that regard, I felt especially slighted, since my fiance had only recently dumped me.

It wasn't the worst but it definitely wasn't the best dumping. She said, "I can't marry you." I said, "We don't have to get married, we can keep dating." She said, "No. I can never be with you again." And she offered that alpha and omega of explanations, "I don't know why." Of course, it would have been nice if I didn't have to dwell on it and if the rejection wouldn't have burned in my chest for months and months, but that is what happened.

So we went to Denver for Thanksgiving and the drive was nice but not quite perfect. My mother's friend was divorced and had a daughter about six or seven years old. She had been married to a lawyer from a wealthy family and they had a lot of material things but they lived under the thumb of the in-laws. Nothing they had in their lives actually belonged to them. She didn't like living that way and divorced the man. But he always lived in close proximity so the daughter could have both of her parents and they still had a strong friendship.

During this Thanksgiving, other relatives and friends of the family were all gathering together. There was another small girl who was about twelve years old. I spent most of my time hanging around with the little girls, taking them to the park and stuff. It was evident that the twelve year old liked me. It was flattering, so much as you can be flattered by a prepubescent girl who knows nothing about you but likes you anyway. Maybe love is always like having your wishes granted by the devil, like that Simpson's episode where Homer wishes for a turkey sandwich but worries it will be made with zombie turkey meat (it turns out the turkey was dry).

I liked challenging that little girl though. I laughed at her description of school. How she was in A-club. Therefore, she could only date guys who were in A-club. To be in A-club you had to get straight-A's, you couldn't do drugs and you could NOT wear the same article of clothing twice in a two week period. When she told me that, I told her I did not get straight A's and I asked her what she thought about the way I only wore homemade t-shirts or just plain white t-shirts and shorts that were usually made from cutting off Dockers bought at a second-hand store. I think she fought for a way to continue thinking of me as A-club material.

This little girl had an awesome father. He was probably nearing 40. A single dad. He kind of reminds me of Ferris Bueller's best friend. He had a good sense of humor. When I ran out of clean clothes, he loaned me a t-shirt. He laughed about my noodle arms and we had a long conversation about making t-shirts. He was the one who suggested that I make a t-shirt that read "Body by Ramen." If I lived in Colorado today I would be friends with that guy.

Everyone wanted to drive into the mountains and visit that hotel where Stephen King wrote his book, "The Shining." I got to ride with the guys, including the dad, and we had a good time.

At one point on this trip to Denver, my mother mentioned to me, "You know... that twelve year old is pretty cute..." like I should totally bust a move. When she said it, I thought, please be kidding, please be kidding, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, mother, please be kidding. Oh, but mother wasn't kidding. It brought another aspect of loneliness to the trip.

We all went to the hotel and looked around for awhile and then we watched the small town holiday parade from the sidewalk of their modest Main Street. I was able to laugh whole-heartedly when the father of the twelve-year-old mentioned in casual conversation that he planned to indiscriminately shoot and kill the first boy his little girl ever brought home. The comment had nothing to do with mom's suggestion.

Given my emotional state, it was as good a Thanksgiving as could be hoped for.

Closer to Christmas and New Years, my father and stepmother asked if my brother and I would like to go to Denver for a ski weekend. They had a friend in Denver who was flying to the midwest for a rendezvous with some guy so the friend said we could use her house while she was away.

I still wasn't trying hard not to be in a rotten mood. I think my mother-in-law was trying to help me. When my dad went into a shop and we waited in the car she started some small talk. She noticed I was carrying around a book called "Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger and she told me how she had met the writer's grand-daughter a few times when she was in college (I should have held out to be a Bruin or a Hoya so I could meet interesting people like that). When my step-mother decided to confront the issue directly, she said, "You have to kiss a lot of frogettes before you find a princess." My stepmother is an accomplished doctor and holds a very high rank in the military but it is still little nuggets of wisdom about frogettes that impresses me the most about her. My parents remarried well.

Anyhow, we went and spent a day on the snowy slopes of Breckenridge. Then we were starving so we stopped at a Denny's for some food. Surprisingly, we bumped into the man that my stepmother's friend had just flown across the country to visit. I don't know anything else about that story. But we shrugged it off and returned to the lady's house to sleep. I can't recall why we were sleeping on the floor of the den instead of in the beds but it was still pleasant and their was a fireplace nearby when we laid out our sleeping bags. It was a nice day made horrible because I had to lay there and try to sleep a few feet away from my brother and his messed-up crazy girlfriend while they made out. I thought about what a wonderful day and wonderful experience and wonderful opportunity it was to be there and that it should be ME making out with my awesome girlfriend on that floor and that my brother's girlfriend didn't deserve to lick his spit off the sidewalk let alone get an all-expenses-paid vacation to one of my favorite places.

I tried to block it all out by lying face down with my hands over my head and that is when I heard drops of water spattering on my pillow. Really it just made me even angrier. Everything that's right was wrong again.

The last time I went to Denver was five years ago. When we showed up my mother's friend told me that her daughter was apprehensive about seeing me because she had always had a crush on me. She said that when I walked in, her daughter turned to her and said. "Do you see how good he looks?" I've known that little girl for her whole life and I do love her. When I showed up with my wife and one year old son it was not my intention to shake up her teenage world. She was hardly around so I didn't get to talk to her but it made me sad to see her hanging out with 14 year old retards and smell her reeking of cigarettes.

My wife and I had spent the day snowboarding at Breckenridge and when we came home I was getting shivery and lathergic and feverish. Slimysculpin and his family came over to see us, as he hails from that area, but I'm sure I wasn't good company that New Years night.

The last I heard, that girl was having problems. Her father (the lawyer) suddenly ran off with some stripper and everything started falling apart. I feel bad that I can't really play any part as a friend in what is probably the hardest time of her life. As always, I'm just some old married dude.

Now you know a little more about the women I love in my life and the places I like to go.