Celine Dion - That's the way it is

If I had to pick a favorite song from the late-90's pop explosion, it would almost certainly be Celine Dion's "That's the way it is." While I am the first to promote and defend talentless popstars' right to exist, it was nothing short of thrilling to hear someone with a truly awesome instrument attack the pop medium. Ms. Dion's vocal acrobatics aside...

Why, in the catalogue of American popular music, are there so many songs about lust, betrayal, money, drugs, heartache and the overall insecurity of the popular psyche, and seemingly so few about faith, redemption, and deliverance?

"I can read your mind, and I know your story, I see what you're going through..."

Yes, Celine, I know you do. We're in this together.

This is why popstars should be exist. They're the superheroes that society elects to champion the cause of love, when so many of us are too tired to fight. They bear the cross of relentless optimism on their well-muscled backs, and remind us to not give up on our faith

"Love comes to those who believe it, and that's the way it is."

Thank God for ITunes...

Oh, also, for those of you who are interested, a crazy Korean pharmicist told me that my hives (below) are chicken-pox. I, for one, am inclined to believe that she is just a crazy Korean pharmicist who doesn't know what she's doing, as they look absolutely NOTHING like chicken pox. I have an appointment with a REAL doctor tomorrow.

Not for the faint of heart!!!

So, I'd like to take a minute to tell everyone about my newest neurosis. I seem to have developed some sort of psycho-symatic hives/rash thingy. After weeks of stress about my dead-end job, emploding love life, and overall lack of purpose, I started to break out in what looked like tiny bug bites on my inner-thighs. Dismissing it as some sort of dry-skin thing, I simply upped the ante on my moisturization routine and went about my business, calmly waiting for it to subside.

Then, my quasi-relationship-guy forced me to pre-emptively break up with him in order to save myself the humiliation of getting dumped because he didn't like me as much as I liked him.

Suffice it to say, my little dry skin bumps have completely consumed my entire lower body. They extend from my knees up my inner thighs, over the grundle (yes, ladies and gentlemen, I now have an extra-itchy fleshy-fun-bridge) and back through the lower curve of my ass. They're big, red, and sometimes oozy. I itch like I have never itched before. Every minute that I'm not clawing at my delicate parts is fucking torture.

Now, I have to warn you, this is where it gets really weird...

I've been trying my darnedest not to scratch - this is especially hard in bed for some reason, and I haven't been able to get a solid nights sleep in days because I just lie there clutching the sheets and trying not to focus on my now semi-pornographic fantasies of scratch-tastic madness. But, my inner Libra knew that I needed the balance of occaisional release, and because of this, I granted myself a safe zone... the shower.

Yes, everytime I hit the shower now, I lather up my loofah (sp?) handle the cleaning process on my upper body, and then have the time of my life exfoliating the shit out of anything and everything below the beltline. My skin flushes - all I see is red - if I've had moments this erotic with another human being I certainly don't remember them. But tonight, I crossed a line...

Hopping into the shower after a long day's work, I had to congratulate myself on another scratch-free day, and even mused that I may be calming down a little, and my psycho-symatic stress hives might be on their way out the door. Regardless, my reward had been earned, and it was time to claim it. With my loofah fully lathered, I set about my task, beginning first with the knees and working slowly up my legs. The scratching increased it's speed and intensity, and before I knew it, I was rubbing my scrubby buddy (at this point, it might assist the reader to know that my loofah is no ordinary loofah - but is in fact a green stuffed frog sewn into the layers of a loofah - as if clothed in a magical lime-colored tu-tu) across the space between my legs. I start to lose control/consciousness just as I become aware of the feeling of my cheek pressed against the tile of my shower wall, and my hand cramping from the rampant scratch-fest.

When I regained control of myself, I was on my knees, looking down at my deflating penis, my battle-bruised inner-thighs, and a fistful of cum. Yes - I scratched myself to orgasm. I'm not even sure if I touched my dick. I looked up into the showerhead, and thought I saw God.

I've done a lot of queer things in my life, but this was enough to make even the wierdest of the wierd a little uncomfortably queasy...

Is this normal? Are there websites for this sort of thing? Is this like the stigmata for a blossoming saint of sado-masochism? Do I need to seek out some Obi-Wan Kenobe of psuedo-sexual scratching?

Maybe I just need to go see a dermatologist...

Break-up Hook-up #1

Date: DEC 5 2004
Song (for inspiration on the car-ride over): LL Cool J - "Rub My Back"
Conditions: Rainy, with a touch of self-mutilating retaliatory rage...
Name: Ray (?)

Ray and I met through a rather uninspired C-list add (placed by me) last night. All of my responses either had terrible pictures or were from people seeking a "possibly regular thing." Ray just wanted to jerk off - which, in my fragile emotional state, I found seemingly more appropriate. He also had a HOT (and totally inaccurate) body pic. After seeing "Closer," an inspiring flick about the attrocities that humans are capable of committing against each other, I felt I had my best armor on, and e-mailed Ray to make a quick appt.

I headed over to his hipster-friendly Silverlake rear house duds, and proceeded to have about 5 minutes of AMAZINGLY awkward conversation, because he turned on some of the worst porn I have ever seen. It was a series of solo flicks, each and every man dressed in a different kind of military garb. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to have much of a costume budget, so all of the uniforms ended up looking like over-sized halloween costumes, with the exception of the Navy outfit, which somehow just made the guy look really French.

We started the awful ritual, both of us clearly far too experienced at the forthcoming sequence of events - crotch grabbing, partial shirt removal, leering stares - culminated in a fast, interactionless, and terminally un-sexy orgasm that was about as pleasurable as dental floss.

Seriously, the LL song I bumped on the way over was so much sexier than the actual event that getting back into the car and hearing the song fade out was nothing short of humiliating.

Question - Why did I feel the need to do this? Loneliness? Nah - I've got friends... Boredom? Nah - I've got books, a flatscreen tv, and one of the most awesome music collections ever gathered on God's green earth. The real emotions behind it? Anger and betrayal - yes, merely a few days later, we're back to Josh (asshole). He (btw) is so over me by now it's ridiculous. I, however, remain hurt and fixated. Why can't I get off of this? Normally rejection is a fast (well-practiced) process for me... what makes this one different? My current hypothesis is the element of disception - I really BELIEVED he was into me. Also, in a town I despise with a career going nowhere and college loans that have left me seemingly permanently in the shackles of office-slave-hell, I don't have much else to do.

Oh God - is this my weird fucked up version of self-cutting?

Wow. I'm really embarassed. Yikes....

P.S. - I notably stepped in a monster pile of dog shit on the way out, tracked it into my house, and now everything I own smells like shit.

Surprisingly, my current outlook on life is strangely optimistic... hmmm....

Fucking Twat...

I want to fucking slash my fucking wrists. This isn't right. Someone you've only known for 2 months should NOT make you feel this way - and yet, someone has. It isn't right. It isn't fair. I don't even think it's legal!

You know, lonely wacky types, such as myself, should really be forced to walk around with some sort of Nazi-esque patch attached to all of our clothing, as a warning to others that we're fringe members of society, and fragile to the course handling of other humans. It would be great - legions of hyper-sensitive mama's boys living out their lonely years protected by society's pact not to fuck with (or date) them. I, for one, would have been perfectly happy to have extended my 14-month period of celibacy (which, for those of you who haven't heard me whine about this, encompassed my ENTIRE 21st year of life), rather than trade it in for 6 weeks of bliss followed by 2 weeks of confusion eclispsed by an unspecified period of complete fucking torture.

In case you haven't been around me to hear my constant spew of autobiography in a while, I recently started dating someone (Josh) and was WICKED excited about it. He seemed to really get me, and I (foolishly) thought I really got him. The sex was awesome. The cuddling was sublime. The PDA was not really my style, but he got into it, and I went with it as much as possible in hopes of accommodation his vision of coupled bliss. Furthermore, he pushed EVERYTHING - first kiss, first one to take a shirt off, first hand-holding, first (well, only) public piggy-back ride. For the first 6 weeks or so, I honestly thought I was LESS into it than he was!

And then, I committed a critical act. After weeks of attempted budget romance (I planned adorable afordable dates, met him at the airport with flowers, bought him a stuffed animal and generally doted whenever possible) I had the audacity to ask him (also adorably) if he wanted to be my boyfriend. His fear registered immediately, and in hopes of not actually having to watch him physically run away, I told him he could answer later...

AND THEN THE FUCKER TRIED TO PHASE ME OUT!!! FUCK!!!!

Phone calls went un-returned, text messages were ignored (yes, I know, I'm alarmingly gay...), and I just got a really strong vibe that if I suddenly stabbed myself in the chest while feeding the ducks at Griffith park and my bloody duck-covered corpse was all over the news, it wouldn't really be any major skin off his back...

I confronted him, and he proceeded to do what many tell me may be the lamest thing ever:

After saying "I don't know" to every honest question I could possibly ask him about our relationship, he suggested I talk the whole thing over with his roommate. Yes, his roommate. I actually walked over to his roommate's room, shut the door, and proceeded to have the only honest conversation about "us" in 7 weeks. Wow.

At the time, it didn't even phase me - now, I'm fucking floored.

The roommate, interestingly enough, was amazingly illuminating (Shout-outs to Spot!) - and my decision was made - leave, but let him know that he can call you if he ever wants to grow up and realize what he has fucking screaming on top of 16 elephants and an albino monkey right in front of him. I left, and immediately deleted all contact information on him from my computer and phone (unfortunately, I still have the e-mail memorized, but it was the ritual that I needed, I think...). Oh, and I took two vicoden chased by three beers and a slice of cheesecake. I really wanted to call him and beg him to take me back (note: George is actually a woman, and is approximately 13 years old...) - but I was too fucked up to move.

Again, I say, no one who's known you for two months should be allowed to do this to you. It just isn't right....

So, since then, for the last 4 days, I've been working, playing, hitting up lame office X-mas parties, all with one solitary hope: He's going to perform some AMAZINGLY romantic Hugh Grant in "Love Actually"-style stunt, and will easily win me back and we'll begin our steller (first!) adult relationship together.

Sounds pretty fuckin rad, right?

Well, there've been no major acts of romanticism so far - in fact, all I've gotten was a solitary text message to ask if I was alright - to which I replied - "Don't worry, I'm not going to send you a pipe bomb." I thought it was funny! I'm still waiting on a reply....

He's not gonna call, right? He's already lost my number, hasn't he? And I'm better off, right?

THEN WHY DO MY FUCKING FEELINGS HURT LIKE A GODDAMN TONI BRAXTON SONG???????

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!

This has straight-up ruined my for romance for a good 6 more months. When the whole world is dying of all sorts of STD's, I will be the sole survivor, based on my tendency to emotionally commit FAR too early alone. It's really quite sad. I can't bring myself to start masturbating again, and soon my balls are just going to explode.

Ok - I have to go to bed...

Real quick, for the reader, I realize this post is juvinile and melodramatic. I mean, people's 50-year marraiges break up, and they survive without so much as a quasi-suicidal blog post all the time! But I'm weak... really fucking weak... and I have absolutely no excuse, but regardless, I'm gonna keep on whining until I no longer feel like I did in third grade when I found out that EVERY boy in class had been invited to Mike Litzey's B-day party except for me, which may be a while...