She said, "I like it. I like it like that."
I thought to myself, "Yeah. You like it now. You're gonna learn to love it, later."
Futility in thoughts and misguided words. The norm. The human condition unclothed.
Don't let your troubles make you cry.
Don't waste a moment wondering why.
When everything goes wrong,
You have to go on
And do it or die.
I thought of one of John Barth's characters in Lost in the Funhouse speaking of seeing himself making love, once, in a mirror. He got so overwhelmed and amused by the absurdity of it all that he lost all interest then and forever thereafter.
She was an intern where I was working. She brought me a greeting card after the first time we slept together. There was a little green frog on the front and, inside, it said, "I'm ready to jump for you." She was way too old to think this was cute. But I was lost in the moment. It seemed real cute.
Do it or die now,
Stand your ground.
Don't let your bad breaks
Go gettin' you down.
Even when times get rough
And you've had enough,
You've still got to try.
You reach an age where lovemaking becomes an average adventure. It's like the guy who says, "Well, my feet are frozen solid in a block of ice and my hair is on fire, but my midsection is just about an average temperature."
Her name was Drew. She was thin and brunette and ready to do anything that the human anatomy could survive in order to strive for perfect love.
Have you ever wondered why seemingly happily married folks up and leave their long-time spouses for no rational reason? Nine times out of ten, there is only one so-called good reason. It involves a pathetic attempt to recapture an event that they've long since outgrown. It happens in
Hollywood all the time because they really can't separate
fiction from
reality out there. Most normal folks should be able to accomplish this.
We got in the car one afternoon and drove to a muddy river. Neither of us enjoyed this event. I can't remember if it was her idea or mine. I just remember a vast prolonged emptiness of afternoon sex afterwards.
Do it no matter what the people say.
(It don't matter.)
They don't even know you.
(They don't know you at all.)
Die before you let them stand in your way.
Don't you know that...
You should know that...
When you are young, you will discover and revel in that one romance you'll always remember for the innocent scary absurd wonderful newness of it all. They make movies about it every day out there. You and some member of the opposite sex will fall into the land of lust plus love and watch carelessly as your dreams are coming true in a head over heels rush. The bottom of the well you're falling into is beyond sight and well out of mind. This happens once. Once alone. Everyone gets one time. After that, you may well spend a lot of time and thought attempting to regain that one perfect moment.
If you were to decide to walk away from a perfectly happy marriage while attempting to reassemble this unreassembleamble Romantic's Cube, you would not be the first.
She got this otherworldly look in her eye during one of our trysts and began to smack me on the ass, hard. Was she trying to hurt me? Did she want me to hurt her? Her desperate attempt to achieve some sort of painful reality in this pathetic lovemaking made me want to cry. Obviously her first once alone time had involved some sort of brutality and she needed that to chart her pathetic voyage toward her own personal recapture.
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, you'll have to put that one perfect moment in your treasure bank of ideal moments and realize it'll never be recreated. Lovemaking can be just as wonderful again with your mate for life, but it's a different kind of wonderful.
Kids would call it boring.
Those who never find a mate would call it amazing.
Life is a gamble
All along.
Winners or losers;
We keep rolling on.
So go on and roll the dice.
You only live twice.
Do it or die.
Song by the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
Lyrics by Buddy Buie and James Cobb.
CST approved