musings on "musings..."

Dakota and I continued to talk for months after my second visit to Austin, but eventually our conversations became strained and just plain weird. She accused me of liking her much more than she ever liked me. It really was an accusation, too, as if my feelings were necessarily a bad thing. I didn't ever deny it but I know she was overstating things. I wasn't ever in love with her.

A few things I learned during our months of friendship: Dakota not only started dating Jeremiah again, but she ended up marrying him and moving to Scotland.

I actually met Jack "the human sex machine." He was friends with my roommate in Hollywood. He came to visit before I went to Austin and met Dakota, so the whole time she was telling me stories of a guy I already knew. He introduced me to the Mars Volta via their first EP and we went to a movie out here. In fact, he's friends with a bunch of people I know in Texas, so a girl that I'm close to in Houston knew all about Dakota. When I went to visit my friend one year she said something along the lines of "What's with guys and their attraction to little baby birds with broken wings?" That still makes me laugh.

Some thoughts on the title. I took it from a Bobby Bare Jr song called "Flat Chested Girl From Maynardville." The song is actually about a lonely wallflower, which she wasn't, but the kind of pain and frustration expressed by the character in the song summed up Dakota for me pretty well. And I think I just had to make a mention of her breasts since she was so rightfully proud of them. She told me she had lost some weight prior to us meeting and they weren't quite as spectacular as they once were. I still have a difficult time believing that.

Anyway, on the end. The real one.

One afternoon we were chatting on MSN messenger and got into a fight. I really can't remember how or why. I think she said something that offended me and I lashed out, but the details escape me. I just know that she told me to fuck off and I said the same. I tried to repair things at some later time but she was over it. Over me. Completely. I would write her emails and attempt to apologize and her one and only reply consisted of the lyrics to Elliott Smith's "Somebody That I Used To Know." That really pissed me off because I played Figure 8 for her and she said she didn't like it, that all the songs sounded the same. I thought, how dare she use that against me?

I can see now that she was really hurt by what I said but I really didn't think she would continue to stay mad at me. The lyrics say as much, but I just couldn't accept them as a accurate representation of her feelings. I thought maybe she was just giving me a hard time with "my" music and I thought that since I wouldn't (and don't) hold a grudge, she wouldn't either. I was obviously wrong.

I suppose there was a chance that her feelings would have softened over time if I hadn't started writing musings. There's no way to know that, of course. Even if that were true, I don't regret writing it. It's an interesting story and more importantly, it's my story. At some point, probably around the time I published part four, she sent me an email expressing her disapproval with "her life being spread out for whomever through another persons perspective" and how her husband was uncomfortable with another man "musing over a love affair, in detail, concerning his wife." I replied that it wasn't about her life or her husband's wife. It was about me and a friend I had once. I still maintain that I have the right to tell my story. She wasn't married at the time and I didn't say anything that I hadn't already told my friends. A personal blog isn't exactly the New York Times, after all. She was right that I did make one mistake in writing it, however, in that I initially used everyone's real names. First names only, but she was correct that it was disrespectful to her and those involved to do so. In my defense, I started the whole thing out of boredom and thought it was an interesting story to tell. That's all. All of us tell stories like these to our friends and we don't bother to change the names because a first name like "Bob" has no meaning if you have never- and will never- meet that person. As I delved into more detail and garnered more readers it would have been wise to realize that "Bob" would like to maintain some level of privacy, but I just never thought about it until she brought it to my attention. At any rate, I apologized and changed the names of everyone. To this day, no one outside of the people who were there at the time know who the real people are. I keep my pictures of her to myself and I have no desire to show them off and say, "Hey, look, this is the real 'Dakota!'" The point of writing it wasn't to embarrass anyone, just to write about an interesting chapter in my life in the best way I could. I'm proud of that time and despite how it ended, I still look back on it fondly. I surely won't have another moment like that again, especially one that I'll be able to write about years after it all ended. That said, I don't want another moment like that. As much fun as I had, it was a particularly dark period (which may be why the story is so good) but it's best that it remains right where it is, in the past. I know that when my life is all said and done, the time with Dakota will be one of the highlights, but it won't be the highlight. Hell, this past summer far surpassed anything that happened in Austin all those years ago. That is a story worth telling, but I know I never will. Who the hell wants to read about me being happy for 100 straight days?

P.S. When Dakota was still reading my blog, I had written a story about meeting a sweet Mexican girl. I made the whole thing up, but Dakota didn't realize that and sent me an email.

"At least you're sharing this girls life as it happens. Funny how it all seems so much nicer then. Good luck and don't fuck it up. My best advice to you, make sure you both think that you're in a relationship."

That's the last time I ever heard from her.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part sixteen

I returned to Los Angeles broke and alone, but ultimately happy. I had the trip of a lifetime and met someone wonderful by ridiculous luck. I took a temporary job at AT&T Wireless activating mobile telephones. Dakota and I kept in contact, talking on the phone every other week or so. When Southern California experienced an earthquake, Dakota would call to make sure I was all right. I told her about new girls I was dating, how they weren't quite as great as her, but she would encourage me to move forward and make the best of things.

After a couple of months rebuilding my life in L.A., I went back to Austin to visit. Dakota and I got along great as friends. She had graduated from college and moved in with Jeremiah and I was happy for her. One night we went to a bar with Garrick, Toby and Jeremiah where we used to spend some time together, sat outside next to each other on a picnic table, drank some beer and settled in to the kind of comfortable back and forth that we had at the beginning of our courtship. It was so comfortable, in fact, that it made me uncomfortable. When the guys went inside for another round she placed her hand on my back, running her slight fingers up and down my spine and whispered in my ear.

"I bet you still wish we were together, don't you?"

I confessed that I did, leaned back, sighed and looked up at the night sky while I waited for Jeremiah to return.

A couple of days later Dakota invited me to a party that was being thrown at Jeremiah's university commune. I accepted. I drank flat beer out a red cup, got into arguments with college students over their decision to support the presidential ambitions of Ralph Nader and generally had a good time with a bunch of kids who were at least six years younger and six times smarter than me. At one point during the party Dakota and I became locked in conversation. We were so engaged, in fact, that the noise from the party became muted, the lights dimmed and eventually the world around us ceased to exist. We were the only two actors on an empty stage, the spotlight shining on us and us alone. Jeremiah noticed.

"You two are pretty intense!"

Dakota smiled and laughed as she turned to her boyfriend.

"Yeah, I guess we are."

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part fifteen

After viewing The Kids Are Alright I felt re-inspired and renewed and I knew that it was time for me to leave Austin and return to Los Angeles for good. Dakota and I had a few phone conversations while I was staying with Toby and we decided to put our problems aside so I could leave town on a good note. I told Dakota about the movie that had such a profound impact on my attitude and she invited me over to her apartment so we could watch it together. I headed back to San Marcos.

I was excited about screening the film for Dakota since she didn't know much about the Who and they had been one of my favorite bands for years. When the movie started, instead of commenting on the music or the spectacle, Dakota made note of Roger Daltrey's beautiful blue eyes. She couldn't tell me enough about how she just adored blue eyes and how much they turned her on. I replied that Daltrey did indeed have pretty eyes, as it was true, and I couldn't think of much else to say since I knew the comment wasn't so much about the singer as it was about Jeremiah and his blue eyes. I sat there on the living room floor and tried to focus on the music rather than the fact that my hazel eyes and everything else about me would never live up to Jeremiah. He was Scottish, handsome, well endowed, in good shape with perfect hair and in love with her. I was none of those things. She mentioned that all of the guys she dated with the exception of Jeremiah were goofy looking guys with small dicks and that's how she liked it- as long as they were well groomed, that is, but it was of no comfort to me. She wasn't in love with any of us. She was in love with him. I decided it was a good time to confess my indiscretions with my foreign visitor and she volunteered that she had done the same with Jeremiah. He had been begging her to sleep with him for weeks and since she and I were through, she did. I didn't feel any animosity towards him or her. I had fooled around as well and they were truly meant for each other. As if to make me feel better, she told me that he didn't last long. That would have been a great thing to hear if my performance had been any better, but I hadn't done well at all since the first time we slept together. Hearing that the other guy is slightly worse in bed wasn't much of a consolation. He would sleep with her again and be better. I wouldn't.

We made plans to go out to a local bar one last time. We brought along my friend Garrick and her friend Tamara. We were all getting along, drinking cheap beers and exchanging interesting stories. Dakota managed to get some free drinks by flirting with the bartender and I was impressed even though that meant pretending she wasn't with me. Garrick got up to put some songs on the jukebox. One of the songs he chose was James Brown's "Sex Machine." He told the girls a story about a lackluster New Year's Eve party that I managed to bring to life when I put that song on the stereo. He was wrong about the song choice, but I didn't correct him, choosing instead to bask in the role of Party Saviour. The girls didn't pay much attention to the story. Instead they used the song as an excuse to talk about Dakota's ex-boyfriend Jack, the human orgasm apparatus. I had another drink.

Dakota and I headed back to her apartment later that night. Toby brought my Halliburton suitcase earlier in the day as Dakota agreed to take me to the airport in the morning. I took some pictures of Dakota with a disposable camera and she gave me a photo printout of some pictures of her as a keepsake. We talked some more about the trip, about meeting each other and how amazingly weird the whole time was and went to bed. Since it was my last night in town I wanted to have sex with her one last time. One last chance to prove my worth in bed. To prove my worth as a man. She wasn't up for it but I insisted. I begged and pleaded. I embarrassed myself on a level hereto unknown. She obliged. She wasn't into it and I felt terrible. It was over before I knew what happened so I sighed, crawled out of bed, left the bedroom and headed for her computer. I sat down to write her a letter. She wondered where I had gone and asked if anything was wrong. I said no, that I just needed to finish writing some things. I promised that she would like it. I sat in front of the screen smoking cigarette after cigarette, naked and in the dark, and typed out everything I could think of about how much she meant to me and how lucky I was to have met her during my stay. It was the only thing left I could do.

The next morning Dakota took me to the airport. The mood during the ride over was light with just a tinge of sadness, both of us thankful to have met each other while knowing the time was right to end it. When we got out of the car I gave her a hug and realized I had my sunglasses tucked in the front of my shirt so I wasn't able to give her the kind of embrace I wanted to, the one, last, real embrace we would ever have. I backed away, looked down at the mistake hanging from my shirt and we said our goodbyes.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part fourteen

Dakota and I returned to her apartment and went straight to bed without saying a word to one another. I was ready for a reconciliation but she was having none of it. It was time for me to go. I needed to visit my family in Houston and we decided it was best for me to leave as soon as possible, so I had Toby pick me up and drive me to his apartment where I would stay for the remainder of my time in Austin. After a day in Toby's place I called a friend who was on her way to Houston and I hitched a ride.

Upon arriving in Houston I met up with a friend who was visiting from out of the country. I made arrangements for the two of us to stay in my mother's house in the southwest part of town. There wasn't much to do during the day other than walk the two miles it took to get to a strip mall so we spent most of our time talking with my mom and my step father, while my friend bore the brunt of a slew of questions about her home country. At night we would go out for drinks with my friends and I was enjoying the vacation from my vacation, away from all the trouble I had recently caused in Austin. I spoke to Dakota on the phone sporadically and we both expressed a somber regret at the way things had recently transpired, but neither of us were willing to confront the real issues we had with each other head on. She didn't feel the need to since we weren't in any kind of real relationship and I thought if I ignored problems they would just go away on their own. My out of town friend and I were getting along spectacularly and one particular night our desires got the best of us. Feeling guilty about Dakota and whatever it was that we had going on, I didn't allow things to go too far but it was certainly enough to make me feel as if I had done something wrong, regardless of the reality.

I wasn't equipped to handle a relationship at that point and trying to handle a pseudo relationship was well beyond my abilities. I didn't understand what the etiquette should be, what would be considered cheating, and whether Dakota even cared enough to bother wrestling over a moral dilemma. She had made our status abundantly clear a few weeks prior when we were out shopping. A friend recognized her in the store and approached her to ask how she was doing. "And who's this? Your boyfriend?" She responded with a resounding no. I was taken aback and was hurt by the forceful, almost incredulous, reply. I thought I deserved more respect than that. I wasn't her boyfriend, true, but I wasn't just another random guy, either. My expectations got the best of me, but they weren't unfounded. A few weeks prior she ran into someone she knew on 6th Street and her friend commented on how we made such a cute couple. Dakota didn't have anything negative to say then. In just a few short weeks I had gone from potential partner to absurd idea. In Houston I was nothing. Just a guy on the other end of the phone with a sad tone of voice.

When I returned to Austin I went back to Toby's place and spent the next few says sulking and feeling sorry for myself. I reached the lowest point possible and I needed something to break me out of it, so I had Toby drive me to the local Best Buy and I purchased a copy of The Who film The Kids Are Alright on DVD. I assured him that it would make me feel better. It did. It was inspiring to see Keith Moon play and to hear songs like "A Quick One While He's Away" played at top volume. I was reinvigorated. I was ready to tell Dakota that we could be friends again. Not a couple, not lovers, just friends. That was good enough for me.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part thirteen

After Ben Kweller's disappointing set I started to spiral out of control. All alone, I wandered the grounds of Zilker Park feeling more and more like a total failure. I wasn't playing music, I wasn't getting along with Dakota, and I wasn't even sure of what I was doing in Austin any longer. I found myself in a haze. I would stare blankly at bands on stage hearing nothing but a faint buzz and think to myself.

I should be doing that. That should be me.

A few hours past with variations of self-entitled whining buzzing through my head as I walked through the park with no particular purpose or direction. Suddenly I remembered that I had friends other than Dakota who were there at the festival. I wasn't all alone, all I had to do was contact them and we would meet up and everything would be all right again. I reached into my pocket for a mobile phone only to retrieve week old receipts for cigarettes purchased at local gas stations. I walked past groups of enthusiastic, wide eyed, wide smiling kids throwing a Frisbee around. They noticed my scowl.

"Hey, smile, man!"

A rage swelled inside me, completely consuming my being. I was nothing but pure hatred. A walking, breathing, fuming mass of contempt and loathing, spitting out a verbal black death.

"FUCK YOU!"

Jack Johnson took the stage. The crowd was massive and I quickly realized that there would be no way of finding Dakota through the sea of people. I settled in a space near the back of the crowd while the bland, inoffensive surf rock dissipated from the speakers. Instead of soothing and swaying me, inspiring me to calm down and take part in the hippie love fest that surrounded me, my disdain for the music's repetitious rhythms and meaningless lyrics melded with my overall hostility, forming a symbiotic relationship bent on destruction. After he finished playing, I picked fights with people who chose to express their satisfaction with his performance out loud. "Are you kidding? That guy was terrible! What a snoozefest." No one appreciated my thoughts on the subject.

I stayed at the back of the crowd long after Mr. Johnson left the stage, standing in one spot in the hopes of Dakota finding me. She did. Running towards me with an excited yelp, she leaped into my arms. "Hi! I'm so glad I found you! I've been looking all over! Are you having a good time?" I grumbled something incoherent. As much as I wanted to let go of my animosity, I just couldn't. She ignored it for the moment and we moved on, walking side by side through the park as the sun went down.

The headlining band that night was R.E.M. I remained in a bad mood as they took the stage and couldn't bring myself to bother watching them. I was never much of a fan and I just didn't have it in me to give them a chance that night, no matter their status and never mind the company. I was lost. I wanted to go home. Not only back to Dakota's apartment, but to my real home in Los Angeles. I kept thinking of why I moved away from Austin in the first place and how everything that transpired that day was a perfect example of why I left Texas in the first place. Hippies, college students and no musical prospects. I thought back to the night of the party at Garrick and Toby's and how I said out loud to anyone who would listen that I would either have to get a gig or get laid while I was there. Dakota liked the joke and since I didn't really mean it, never expecting to get either of those things, I should have considered myself lucky. I didn't. There was no joy left in sex, not with Dakota, anyway, and I didn't even bother fantasizing about other women. All I wanted to do was play music. A few songs into R.E.M.'s set, I sat down on the grass and stared at a forest of ankles. Dakota found me after a few minutes and asked what was wrong, but I couldn't express anything. Nothing was wrong, really, I just needed to sit there and snap myself back into a good mood if I could. She didn't have the patience for my bullshit, pulled me up, and dragged me out of the festival.

During the drive back to her apartment she let me know how much she hated it when men pout and whine and how pathetic it was for me to do so on one of the last days that we could have had fun together. As she berated me I shrunk further and further into myself until I heard nothing but that faint buzz again, and my eyes focused on the endless repetition of billboards and gas station signs that adorned the highway along the way.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part twelve

Attention readers visiting from ROBOTANISTS.COM:

Sarah linked to my blog in the middle of this ridiculous story of a failed relationship, so if you want to read the other rambling nonsense (or at least find the beginning of this particular mess) please click the header or any of the links on the right. Also: hello.

Much like any relationship, the one I had with Dakota reached a low point. She seemed to be tired of having me around and I had grown wary of hearing about her problems. Neither of those issues were spoken aloud to one another in so many words, but we were both aware of the end of our infatuation with each other. Although we weren't dating and knew we never would, it was still time to do something together that would bring us back to normal, or, at least back to the state we were in when we first met each other. Which was, of course, only a few weeks prior.

We decided to pick one day out of the three day Austin City Limits Festival and go see some great live music. We settled on Sunday, which featured acts that both of us were excited to see. I thought this would be a good chance to share something we had in common, something that we could relate to, something that would allow us to forget about my homesickness, her mother, my jealousy, her root canal, and on and on and on.

Sunday morning started nicely enough. We took our time getting ready and headed towards Austin in a great mood. We kept telling each other how great a day it was going to be and how much fun we were going to have. When we arrived in Downtown Austin, I noticed that the sky was greying over and felt a slight tingle of rain. I didn't think much of it. I liked the rain and had missed it after living in Los Angeles for so long. On top of that, I was in such a good mood that nothing- absolutely nothing- could spoil the day. She parked her car and we hopped on a shuttle bus to Zilker Park where the festival was being held.

When we walked onto the grounds, a strange feeling came over me. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, really, just one of those things that seemed, well, off. I dwelled on it for a short time and quickly shoved it aside, immersing myself back into the moment. Dakota excused herself to find a restroom, and I decided it was a good idea for me to do the same. After I exited the free standing filth box I waited for Dakota and ended up talking to a guy who was also waiting for his date. We talked about music. He spouted off some names that I recognized and some that I didn't, but I treated all of them with the same nod and smile as if I was the prince of all indie rock nerds to his king. Dakota returned soon after he had finished with his "A.C. Newman is the greatest person on Earth even though he's a Canadian" rambles, and we took off into the crowd of hippies, hipsters, and fraternity and sorority whores.

The first band we saw play that afternoon was G. Love and Special Sauce. They weren't bad by any measure, but I can't say if they were really good or not, because I was distracted during the entire show. I tried, for once in my life, to be affectionate with a girl, hugging Dakota around the waist, but she was having none of it. She didn't shove me off so much, but it was clear that she could do without me touching her at all. After the set, instead of talking about the show or anything nice for that matter, she went off about her mother and her ex-boyfriend. While I didn't mind being "the good listener" or the "nice guy," I was sure as hell tired of hearing about her issues. Her mother was one thing, of course, but how many times did I, her current man for all intents and purposes, have to hear about the evil ex? How would she feel if the roles were reversed? Did she even entertain the idea about the roles being reversed? I had the feeling that she didn't even think about me as a man in her life but rather just another person to unload her problems on, albeit one that she slept with a few times. I couldn't take it anymore.

Due to our own individual interests in music, we decided to split up. I left for Ben Kweller and she for her own thing, and we agreed that we would meet during Jack Johnson's set. How we would actually meet up, what with me having no mobile phone, was never discussed. I suppose we just thought it would be easy enough to find each other. We never were very good at thinking.

While I was watching Ben Kweller, all I could think about was the fact that she had turned the otherwise nice day into a bitch fest with her personal issues. When I snapped out of my head to actually listen to Ben, I realized that he was just playing his entire first album from beginning to end, which was not such a bad idea, really. Of course, I thought he played it in such a lackluster, uninterested manner that I started to get even more pissed off. I was all alone, had no phone and a head full of regret for even coming to the event. Watching a bunch of kids play mediocre music for an adoring crowd was making my blood boil. What the hell was I doing there? I should be back in L.A. playing my own music, I thought, not listening to these hacks noodle around on stage for a bunch of stupid hippies.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part eleven

Much of my time in San Marcos with Dakota was actually spent alone in Dakota's second floor one bedroom apartment while she was at work during the day. Well, not alone exactly, as her two little kittens, Charles and Charge, were there to keep me company. I love cats, and they were a great comfort to me since all my friends were miles away in Austin and I was too damn broke to go bother them while they were at work. Not that they would want me hanging around bothering them at work anyway. She didn't have cable television, so I would flip through a few channels of bad daytime TV for a few minutes at a time, get bored, turn the set off, pace around the apartment, smoke her favorite brand of cigarettes which were now my favorite brand of cigarettes, flip through my book of compact discs, play one, pace around the apartment, play with the kittens, and smoke more cigarettes. Since television was a waste of time and Charles and Charge would rather tussle with each other than play with me most of the time, I would listen to more and more of my music. When I left Los Angeles, I left a fledgling band behind. The more I listened to other people play, the more I wanted to get back to it myself. I didn't give much thought to it when I flew out of LAX retreating to the comforts of my home state, but the moments of boredom and loneliness in her place made me realize how much I really enjoyed playing with my fledgling little band, and I started to actually look forward to returning home for the first time since I left. I didn't bother to call either of my band mates to tell them that I wanted to get back to playing soon though. I just sat there, convincing myself that everything would work out just because I thought it would.

I knew that Dakota was tired of me. She no longer greeted me with the same enthusiasm she once did when I picked her up from work, there was no joke funny enough to make her crack more than a faint smile, and my communication skills were not up to the task of comforting her or expressing my confusion as to what to say or do in that situation. We would get in to meaningless fights over stupid things like a New York Yankees t-shirt.

"You like the Yankees? Jesus. You're kidding me! And you're a Dallas Cowboys fan? You're from Houston? Are you sure?"

She would defend herself by stating that she had the Yankees shirt just because she loved New York City.

"In that case, what about the Mets? Why the Yankees? They're both from New York. What's the difference?"

She said the Yankees were just more New York like. I was at a loss for words. The fucking Yankees? Goddammit. I hated the fucking Yankees. And due to fact that I had never been, that I was jealous of Dakota and Jeremiah visiting, and that I spent my childhood listening to stories about my father's many catastrophic trips, I had an irrational hatred of New York. Fuck New York is all I could think. If we would talk about music, things would get even worse.

"John Mayer? You like that pansy-pretty boy-whispering-no talent-fuckstick? I hate that guy. You know what he would do in college? Smoke weed all day and listen to Dave Matthews. Fuck that douchebag."

She would attack me for being a pretentious music snob. Who cares if he listened to Dave Matthews? She liked his music. So what? I could never win the argument. She was right, she was entitled to her own opinion. I would try to make it up to her and play cutesy by putting on some good music, some that she might actually like as well. "Heavy Metal Drummer" by Wilco, which contains the line "she fell in love the drummer." I would smile, feeling oh, so charming, as she sat across from me shouting the unspoken words of I'm not in love with you. When we would go out to eat, I had next to nothing to talk about. The best I could ever come up with, no matter what was bothering her; her fragile relationship with her mother, the constant calls from her ex to come visit him, her upcoming root canal, was a statement I had no way of proving.

"Everything is gonna be okay. Trust me."

She would reply by telling another story of an ex-boyfriend and how they were such a major part of her life. I felt as if I still didn't know her well enough to be giving any advice, and aside from that, I was just plain intimidated by her. Scared of her, actually. I didn't want to end up being the guy who's every wrong move would be spit out with great vitriol towards the next guy to come along. One wrong word, anything confrontational or contradictory would make her resent me as much as she seemed to resent everyone else. So I thought. What I was missing was the fact that as frustrated she was with certain people, she still had love for them. Great love. I was so busy trying to play the nice guy, the better man, truth be told, that I forgot to be something other than a dispenser of worthless platitudes.

There were two major pains crashing into her life at that moment: her upcoming root canal and her mother. Both it seemed were going to cause her an immense amount of pain. She told me of her mother's scheduled visit, and that it would be best if I wasn't around since her mother didn't exactly approve of her lifestyle, or at least the lifestyle her mother imagined Dakota was having away from home. I agreed that I shouldn't be there when she arrived but we made the mistake of failing to plan as to when and where I would go. Naturally, the morning her mother arrived knocking on the apartment door, Dakota and I were still in bed together. She leaped out of bed to answer and I slowly rolled out trying to avoid detection the best I could. It was too late. Dakota's mother quickly took notice of me, chided Dakota for having a strange man in her bed, and while the questioning was understandable to me; "Who is this boy, what is he doing here?" it was terribly condescending and quickly became abusive.

"Do you just bring random guys home now?"

The air was hostile, Dakota was flustered, and I wanted to come out into the living room and somehow show her mother what a nice guy I was, that I wasn't some dude that was drunk at a bar, that I really did care for her daughter. That didn't happen. They left to talk outside, the tension remained. I wanted to scream out "what a bitch!" just to clear the air, but I didn't. I let my heart rate slow down, then I smoked a cigarette.

Dakota returned alone some time later. She told me that now I could understand why she felt the way she did about her mother. I did. For the very first time, I really understood what she was going through. All the same, I could only think of one thing to say.

"Everything is gonna be okay. Trust me."

We didn't dwell on the negative for very long. We had plans to attend the Austin City Limits Festival at Zilker Park on the coming Sunday, so we sat down on the living room floor next to each other, went over the schedule, and decided on what bands we wanted to see. We told each other over and over that we were going to have a great time. The best time. It was going to be just perfect.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part ten

My ego boost from being the only guy in Dakota's life that wasn't trying to fix her and the subsequent comfort level that we achieved based on our mutual neuroses didn't last long. Jeremiah was constantly pushing her to quit her childish behavior with regards to her relationship with me and to admit to herself that she loved him already so they could get on with their life. I found his efforts to be laughable. She couldn't tell me enough about his solipsism and how turned off she was by his "you-know-I'm-the-one-for-you" attitude. I would sit on her living room floor listening to her speak with disdain in her voice for him, all the while taking comfort in the fact that I wasn't like that at all. I would never tell her that I was perfect for her (even though I thought that I was) and I would never strut around with the kind of self-aggrandizement that comes with being in the company of a beautiful girl even though I did that every time we were out at that point.

The stories of Jeremiah's narcissism were doing nothing but fueling my own inflated sense of self-worth. We would go out to bars in San Marcos, she would see people she knew, and I would sit silently with the smug self-satisfaction of someone who really did think he was some cool guy from Hollywood, a guy who just swept into town and charmed the pants off the prettiest girl in the room, the one all the locals wanted but could never get. I was so confident in myself, in fact, that during one of the days I was stuck in her apartment while she was away at work, the toilet became clogged, and unable to find a plunger anywhere in her place, I made the decision to knock on the door of one of her neighbors instead of calling her. I don't know if I was afraid to call her and incur her wrath or if I really did think I could charm the neighbors with a little bit of the nonsense I had been feeding myself.

I'm from Los Angeles staying with Dakota and aren't you just so impressed with me and my uber-coolness that something this embarrassing doesn't bother me at all and don't you want to invite me in and know all about my great Hollywood life and how I came to be staying here in boring old San Marcos?

Of course, they were impressed, or at least that was my impression of what transpired, plunger notwithstanding. Regardless, the couple was polite and invited me into their place for a beer. We talked for a while I and regaled them with stories of the Hollywood life. I was so proud of myself when I told Dakota this "funny story" of "how I was able to meet new people" that I told it as if I had met her favorite band in the hallway and convinced them to play a private concert in her apartment that night. She wasn't impressed. She said I could have just called her since she had a plunger in a storage area outside and I could have saved myself the embarrassment. I paid no mind to that. I just thought about how cool I was and told her that they were still up there and had invited us both to pass around a joint with them. She said she was happy that I found someone to get high with as she no longer smoked but since I had been asking if there was anyone around who had weed all week, she'd be happy to oblige. I had been half-jokingly asking about a way to get some marijuana, but it wasn't anything that important to me and she was taking me at my word and had tired of hearing about it so she joined me with her neighbors. After the smoking session, she asked if I was happy now that I had gotten high and I said yes. I suppose I was just a bit too high to detect her frustration with me, frustration with the boy who was on a maturity level so much lower than hers. She had long since become bored with such things as getting high, having left those drug hazed days behind as part of her youth. As a late bloomer, I had a hard time processing the fact that she had long since left behind all the silly things I was taking joy in years and years ago, and she was only 22. How could she possibly be done with all the things you're supposed to enjoy at that point in your life? Here I was, a 28 year old guy looking like a stupid child to a 22 year old woman.

As I began to act more comfortably in her presence, she began to show more hostility towards me. If she was frustrated and I would attempt physical contact, she would brush me aside. If we both needed to shower, she would insist we did it at the same time only to express her disappointment with my grooming while she swept the floor of her bathtub with her feet.

"Boys... with their hair..."

If I would change clothes in her bedroom without shame, she would mention that she could see my bare backside, only in a manner to let me know that that was a bad thing. She didn't think much of seeing my skinny white ass in the light. If I would wear the ripped pair of jeans I had that were torn at the kneecaps, she would take note of the bruises just above my left knee and ask if they were the same as on my wrist. I would say yes, and she would ask me why I told her my wrist had become damaged because of drumming.

"That's what I tell everybody."

That was true, but only because I didn't know what to say. She told me that she "noticed everything" about me, and while I had become comfortable with her so as to not let my flaws bother me because I didn't think they bothered her, the more time we spent together the more I realized that she was growing tired of me and less tolerant of all those flaws. It came to a point where she would project her intolerance onto me. If she was upset with an aspect of herself that she didn't like, she would tell me that I couldn't handle it, that I was disgusted by her. Things were becoming tense. I didn't think too much of it. I was still confident in the fact that she liked me, and I liked her.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part nine

When I settled into Dakota's apartment, I was happy to find that I did indeed remember to bring my toothbrush. When I ran away from home during my teenage years, I didn't bring along my toothbrush and I remember that the very first thing I wanted to do when I got home was to brush my teeth. In fact, it was my one and only concern. I think my parents could have beaten the living hell out of me until my face turned a particular shade of purple if they promised to allow me to brush my teeth everyday. I had my two pair of Addidas sneakers, one black, one red. I had very few items of clothing with me. I didn't feel the need to pack very much due to Garrick and Toby having a washer and dryer in their apartment, but now that I was with Dakota, it would mean I had to use quarters in the community machines. I suddenly wished I had brought more socks. Since I had no laundry basket, the prospect of carrying a pile of clothes in front of me, underwear situated under my chin, wasn't appealing. I realized that my planning for the new living arrangements had been haphazard as best and non-existent at worst. Crashing with my friends hadn't presented any problems because we had already been roommates and were well aware of each other's eccentricities. Living with Dakota was going to be more difficult than I originally thought. After all, I wasn't just crashing at her apartment, I was was moving in with her. Moving in without contributing to the rent, groceries or bills, and without being in a solid relationship that would normally engender such a move, but moving in all the same. I ignored everything I should have been thinking about and instead focused on one of the more useful things I managed to pack: my case of Cd's. They would keep me company when Charles and Charge, the kittens, became tired of my string dangling skills during Dakota's time at work.

Dakota had to work since she wasn't being supported by her family during her time off from school. I had taken for granted all the time she had to spend with me while I was staying with Garrick and Toby since one or the other was always around due to their differing work schedules. Now that it was just me and Dakota, I realized that I would be left alone in her small one bedroom apartment in an unfamiliar town with no car and no knowledge of the bus schedule. Dakota was kind enough to allow me to drive her car, and she gave me directions to her workplace so I would be able to make use of the vehicle while she was there and then pick her up when her shift was over. Unfortunately, I didn't really have anywhere to go in San Marcos and I didn't have enough money to pay for the gas it would take to drive to Austin and back. It was string dangling time.

For the next few days, Dakota would go to work and I would hang around her apartment playing with Charles and Charge, listen to records, and stare at the walls. At night, we would go out to local bars or rent movies, depending on our mood. She and I were getting along just fine, but there certainly wasn't much in the way of excitement. Jeremiah would write her emails about how she was wasting her time with me, she would get upset and tell me she just wanted to do what she wanted to do and who was he to say she was "wasting her time"? I thought if I were a stronger, braver or more violent man, or at least strong and brave enough to back up my violent nature, I would punch that prick in his Dick Tracy jaw. "Wasting her time!" What an asshole. All that time alone in the apartment allowed me to think about her relationship problems but I managed to comfort myself.

"She's done with him."

Dakota maintained a LiveJournal account and wrote a blog one night about how all the recent men in her life had tried so hard to "fix" her, and here I was, someone who wasn't trying to do anything. I liked her the way she was, as wounded as I; beautiful, fragile, real. She wrote that maybe she didn't need fixing after all, maybe all she needed was for someone to understand and accept, and that's exactly what I did.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part eight

Before I left Los Angeles for Austin, I asked Garrick and Toby if it would be okay for me to stay with them for a yet-to-be determined amount of time. They said that would be fine but for me to keep in mind that their lease would be up during the time I planned to visit and the two of them were planning to part ways. I said that was okay as I was sure I'd figure something out. Perhaps because I don't really put much thought into any thing I do, or that I severely lack direction, purpose, or ambition in life, something as dire as not having a place to crash during an open-ended trip with no means to make money didn't affect me at all.

"Yeah, I'll figure something out."

As soon as that lowercase "t" fumbled out of my mouth I paid absolutely no mind to what that "something" would be. When I initially decided to return to Austin I flirted with the idea of getting a job so I could sustain myself there, but as soon as Dakota came into the picture that thought dissipated like the half and half in my morning coffee.

About three weeks into my trip, the time for Garrick and Toby to part ways had come. The fact that they would be vacating the apartment still hadn't sunk in for me, even as boxes were being packed and cleaning preparations had begun. I suppose I had been floating along for so long that I assumed I would just float on into another situation by some stroke of luck, divine hand, or happy accident. And so I did. Dakota became aware of the situation and offered to put me up in her place. She said she would be going away for a few days to visit family, and it would work out with me moving in as I would be able to look after her kittens while she was gone. Once again, the major implications of that arrangement didn't register with my brain at all. It was as if my thoughts were being processed by an Apple Newton. "Move in with someone I barely know?" became "Groove like a marshmallow!" Groove like a marshmallow? What's wrong with you, brain? I already apologized for the time I literally tried to smoke grass, okay? Get over it.

Over the next couple of days I helped Garrick and Toby move. Garrick moved in with a friend of his in San Marcos and Toby found his own one bedroom flat. After all was said and done, I packed up my 1970's aluminum Halliburton suitcase and Dakota drove me to her place. As we were walking towards her apartment, one of Dakota's neighbors commented on the stranger with the heavy suitcase. She asked if I was staying for while. Dakota said yes and that I would be taking care of the kittens while she was gone.

"This strange boy is gonna be looking after my place. What am I thinking?"

She said that facetiously, but it had a smattering of truth that should have served as a harbinger of things to come. I smiled and lugged the Halliburton up the staircase. There I was, a man who had never lived with a girl, a man who hadn't even been able to call someone a girlfriend in eight years, about to walk into the home of a woman I barely knew and into an uncharted living situation fraught with potential disaster at every turn. Did I remember my toothbrush?

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part seven

Now that I had returned to Garrick's apartment even more confused than I was before, I spent the next few days hanging out with my friends taking it easy, seeing Dakota whenever she could drive into Austin. We would spend the cool, breezy fall evenings dividing our time between a couple of local coffee houses just to talk and enjoy each other's company. The fact that Garrick and Toby were already friends with Dakota made this rather easy as everyone had something to talk about with one another, thus avoiding any long awkward moments of silence - or incessant blabbering, for that matter. During one of those nights, Dakota asked me about the black band I was wearing on my left wrist. She had never seen me without it and jokingly asked if I had a problem washing myself and wished to hide something. I told her that I cleaned up quite nicely, thank you, but yes, I did wish to hide something.

I have a physical anomaly that I keep from most people due to the fact that I've never been able to properly explain it. It appeared during my high school years, for what reason I don't know. When I went to the doctor he wasn't quite able to explain it to me either, and I never really pushed for an answer. I just added it to my long list of physical problems, things that have more or less molded me into the person I am today. Aside from obvious genetic issues such as my thinning hair and poor eyesight, I was also born with a concave chest, which has always made me self-conscious. Gym class during grade school was nothing short of a nightmare, with children being the cruelest of all creatures on this planet. I would hear all kinds of ridiculous questions, none of them asked to gain any insight, only to push me down even further than I already was as a skinny, shy, bespectacled boy. "Were you a woman in your former life?" Sure, sure, I was a woman. "Oh, so now you're a fag? Ha, ha, fag!" Charming, the lot of them.

It took me years to accept my freakish nature. No matter what I was told by my father, that there were many men with my unique appearance, many strong men, in fact, I couldn't get over how different I was. Not until the very fact that I was different was attractive to a certain type of woman. The kind of woman who was fascinated by the freakish or unique. I had the feeling that Dakota was this type of woman, that she accepted me for who I was and didn't care much about anything else. I felt very comfortable around her, as she made all the things I thought of as my flaws the very things that made me special. When I removed my black wristband and explained to her, to the best of my knowledge, what happened to me, she didn't say much. She asked if it hurt, I said only if someone hit me hard, and she looked me over with a kind curiosity. When she spoke, she only had one thing to say.

"I think it gives you character."

No shock, no judgement, only acceptance. I could feel myself falling for her more and more. It was out of my control.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part six

The next morning I awoke in Dakota's large, cozy bed and marveled at the fact that I was in the bedroom of such a beautiful, relative stranger. After a minute of experiencing the kind of zombified state that occurs from limited sleep, I realized that we had both into the afternoon and that I had promised Garrick to return his car to him. I leaped up in shock, screaming "What time is it?" Dakota was lethargic, wiping the sleep from her eyes, confused at my sudden excitement so early in our day. I desperately stressed my eyes searching for some way to find the time only to see a haze of brown dressers, blue picture frames, and the flash of red emanating from a clock radio. I had been used to sleeping with my contacts in as of late, and forgot that I had actually done the right thing for once and taken them out. I reached over and grabbed my glasses from the nightstand, looked at the clock, and was not so surprised to find out that I was running late regarding my promise to return the car at a certain time. I asked Dakota to borrow her mobile phone in order to call Garrick to let him know I had accidentally slept late. I called, he said it was no big deal and to go ahead and take my time. I was relieved that he wasn't mad, but I still wanted to get back since I had made him a promise. Garrick and I had been through many ups and downs as friends and became closer as a result, so I wanted to be true to my word. What I didn't think about was the fact that Garrick really didn't care all that much and the fact that Dakota was slightly perturbed with the idea that I'd rather keep my promise of returning a car than stay in bed with her. I never was very good at thinking.

I left Dakota's apartment, hopped back in the proverbial Oldsmobuick, pulled a filtered cigarette from a near-empty pack and drove out of the apartment complex. Halfway down the street I realized that I had no means to light the cigarette, so I stopped at a gas station in order to procure some matches. At that point I started thinking about how I even started smoking (for fun in Austin,) how I picked it back up again when I moved to L.A. (living with a smoker) and how I had long since passed the threshold of "I'm not really a smoker, I can quit any time I want!" since the desire to smoke was so overwhelming that I felt the need to interrupt the task of returning the car, the task that I felt was so important that I voluntarily left the comforting arms of a beautiful woman to pull over and find a way to light the damn smoke. I asked the gas station attendant for a pack of matches and he looked at me funny. I caught myself thinking. "Do people not use matches in this town?" I was probably mumbling or something. The clerk managed to decipher my marble mouth and gave me a pack. I got back in the white whale, slammed the accelerator onto the floorboard, and dodged the caissons that were decorating the side of the entrance ramp to the freeway.

When I arrived at Garrick's apartment, I apologized for running late and he said once again that it was no big deal. He just wanted to make sure that I had a good time and I related to him that I did. I was having the best time in the world. He told me that I really was having one of those "once in a lifetime moments," and I agreed. I couldn't believe that after coming to town with little-to-no-purpose, I met someone I liked, she liked me too, and things were progressing as fast as they were. I tried not to think about it too much, tried not to ascribe some kind of profound meaning to it all, tried to tell myself just to calm down and enjoy the whole situation for what it was. But what was it? Were we dating? Friends? What the hell was going on? I was thinking again. I never was very good at thinking.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part five

Since Garrick was nice enough to let me borrow his big white whale of a car, "The Oldsmobuick" as I had dubbed it, I set off for Dakota's apartment in San Marcos. She left only slightly before me, but she tended to drive as if her life depended on traveling at a speed normally reserved for cars on a circular track so I was on my own. I put together a case of my favorite Cd's but I only ended up needing one, Spoon's A Series of Sneaks. It was a fitting album to listen to; the rapid pace and driving rhythms of songs like "30 Gallon Tank" and "Car Radio" seemed to sync up with my pounding heart, which in turn was propelling me to drive faster and faster, or at least as fast as that big old white whale could handle. I didn't even notice the thirty minute drive time or the endless repetition of billboards and gas station signs that adorned the highway along the way.

Dakota's apartment complex was typical of most such places in Texas: Sprawling, bland and without character. Building 101 looks exactly like building 501, and it's virtually impossible to find the specific unit you're looking for if you've never been there before. I parked Garrick's car in a parking space that looked vaguely familiar, got out, and paced back and forth for a minute trying to figure out if I was in front of the right building. I was without a mobile phone so I just decided to head up the stairs in front of me hoping for the best. My choice of a parking space turned out to be fortuitous as I found her place on the first try. I knocked on the door anticipating another long wait while she put all of her things in place, but instead she immediately opened the door and invited me in. She said it was nice to see me again, I said the same. I looked around her apartment, taking notice of the Vonnegut on her bookshelf, the Cirque du Soleil posters on the wall, the bench press weights in the corner. I told her of our shared love for Vonnegut, of my mother's love for the French Canadian acrobats, and thought better of a joke about working out since she had already seen me naked. She had two kittens, Charles and Charge. I played with the cats while she put some things away in the kitchen and asked me questions about California. She had taken to calling me "Hollywood," which for her was a term of endearment. She had never been to L.A. and expressed how much she would like to visit despite what she had heard. I told her I heard all of the same things before I moved and that it wasn't all totally like that. Yes, it could be a lousy place to visit without a proper guide, but it was a great place to live. Unlike any other place I'd ever been, full of interesting, if sometimes pretentious, people. She said her ex-boyfriend Jack had been there recently and had a great time, but her previous man Jeremiah had gone and hated it. It was starting to make sense why he had such a profound hatred for me, aside from the fact that he still desperately wanted her, that is. As we talked, I looked around her apartment some more. I noticed a picture of her and Jeremiah from a trip they took to New York City, a sticker of the Scottish flag on her computer. She noticed my curiousness and volunteered some information. She and Jeremiah were previously engaged but she just wasn't ready to get married at that point. She needed some time to just have some fun being a college student. Fair enough, I thought. If I was part of "having fun" I couldn't much complain as I wasn't looking for any relationship and planned on returning to Hollywood anyway. I felt lucky that I met her in the first place and couldn't worry too much about what would take place in the future.

That evening we decided to rent a movie and stay in. We went to the local Blockbuster Video store and perused the selection of films they had for rental. We picked About Schmidt as we were both fans of Election and Jack Nicholson. After picking out the movie we went to the grocery store, bought some frozen pizzas and a case of cheap beer. A pretty girl who likes good movies, pizza and beer? I was in heaven. We returned to her place, put the pizza in the oven and twisted a couple of bottle caps. She had some chocolate Popsicles in the freezer and offered me one. I happily accepted. I told her I hadn't had any kind of Popsicle since I was in grade school. She didn't seemed surprised or interested or amused, so I dropped it. We drank beer as we waited for the pizza to cook, and when it was done she put the two kittens away in her room so we wouldn't be disturbed while we ate on the living room floor and watched the movie. When the movie was over we put away our plates in the kitchen sink, drank two more beers, and took the padding of a wicker chair she had in the corner of the room and placed it on the floor. We removed our clothes and began to explore each other's bodies with our lips, tongues and fingertips. All of a sudden I stopped and jumped up. She wasn't sure what to make of my behavior, but I reassured her:

"Don't worry, I just need to get something. Be right back."

I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a chocolate Popsicle, tore the wrapper off, and sat myself down in front of her slight, pale, naked body. She lay down on the floor and grabbed a pillow to muffle herself. All was right with the universe.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part four

The day after Dakota and I went out she had to drive back to San Marcos and go to work. She worked as a delivery girl for Papa John's Pizza. We talked a couple of times during the day, and when she would go out on deliveries, she would call me and put the phone in her pocket when she was at the door of a customer. I could practically hear the young college guys fawning over the hot delivery girl while I was on hold, but instead of inspiring jealousy in me it felt good to be a part of a little secret between us, the kind of thing that I imagined real couples shared.

After she got off work she drove back to Austin and Dakota, Garrick and I decided on settling in to watch a DVD, Igby Goes Down. Dakota and I were sitting next to each other on the couch, Garrick was in his reclining chair. Halfway through the movie, Dakota and I started making out. Garrick looked over and noticed.

"Here I am, enjoying this movie, and I look over to comment about it and these two are making out!"

He wasn't mad, though. He wasn't even annoyed in the slightest by something so disrespectful. It's one thing to make out in public, it's another thing to do so in front of your friend on his couch. So the movie continued along with the sporadic make out session. When the movie was over we all agreed that it was a great film and Garrick headed off to bed. Now it was just me and Dakota. Toby was at work, Garrick safely away in his own room. Dakota and I picked up where we left off during the movie and attempted to find a comfortable position on the couch. Clothes quickly ended up on the floor, although I kept my shirt on in order to feel less naked. I tried my best to think about baseball, which, from what I learned from movies and television was a good way to keep one from getting overly excited. However, all I actually found myself doing was thinking about the word "baseball," over and over again. It worked well enough as a distraction from what I was told of my performance. She confessed that I almost brought her to orgasm. I couldn't help but focus on the word "almost," so I blurted out that it was my first time. She stopped and said "What, what? Really?" I assured her that it was true. She replied that I was talented. The word "almost" ceased to exist in that moment. Given the circumstances and the fact that it all took place on a ripped up leather couch in the middle of a friend's apartment, I was beaming with pride. While the two of us put some clothes back on, she made note of my shirt remaining on the entire time, tugged at it and tauntingly said "shirt" under her breath. She got up to go to the bathroom wearing her Hello Kitty panties and asked me if I liked her ass. I said yes, of course, but she replied that I probably like it better with her underwear on. I wasn't sure that I could like a woman's ass "more" or "less" regardless of the adornment of clothing so I refrained from talking any more and just watched her walk. When she returned she joined me on the couch and we attempted to fall asleep, but due to the small space we shared and the fact that I was sharing that space with such a beautiful woman, I couldn't do anything but think about my incredibly dumb luck for the rest of the night.

Toby came home at some ungodly hour during the night and left early in the morning to return to work. Since his room was empty and he had a comfortable king sized bed, we moved in there. We laid down on his bed for a few minutes, and then went right back at it. I wasn't as lucky as I had been the night before, so things were over quickly. I restrained myself from apologizing and tried to enjoy the moment no matter how long the moment lasted. We walked out of Toby's room to find Garrick sitting in his chair watching football on TV. I couldn't help but give him a little smile, and he smiled back. I was happy that he didn't say anything that men have a tendency to say with regards to sex, something that I had heard from other roommates about their conquests, along the line of "fucking the shit out of" some girl. I confessed to him that we had had sex on his couch and I apologized. He didn't mind. He said he figured we did that anyway. And it's not like he hadn't had sex on that couch as well, which made me feel sorry for all the unsuspecting guests that had been sitting on it over the years.

Dakota and I went out to get some breakfast burritos for the three of us and returned to the apartment to chat with Garrick and watch a football game on TV. After a couple of hours Dakota had to go back to San Marcos and she asked me to go home with her. I asked Garrick if I could borrow his car and he said yes as long as I promised to return it by 1:00 pm the next day. I said, "No problem!" and hopped in Garrick's car to follow Dakota to her apartment.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part three

A couple of days of phone conversations followed the night out in San Marcos, and one afternoon Dakota came to pick me up from Garrick and Toby's place for a date. She told me she had planned to take me out to test drive cars, but she hadn't quite gotten her act together in time to do it so we'd just go downtown instead. Since I hadn't been there before, she took me to Barton Springs, a set of four natural water springs located in south Austin and then off to a few boutiques that were nearby. While we were mulling around looking at clothes, she confessed something to me:

"The other night, when you moved the hair from my face, you had me. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but..."

I didn't know what to say. She quickly dropped it and we decided to get something to eat. She took me to a hamburger joint she liked. I had pineapple on my burger. Shortly after that we went to play pool at one of my favorite bars on 6th Street, El Casino Camino. We drank a few Lone Stars, smoked a grip of cigarettes, and played a couple of games of pool. Some lyrics sprang to mind:

"She said she was the worst pool player under the sun
but the blokes always went easy on her so she always won."

I didn't go easy on her, but I told her that I had a habit of winning for the entire game only to blow it on the last shot. Lo and behold, that's exactly what I did. She laughed and we stepped back out onto 6th Street hand in hand.

We strolled into the next bar, already a bit intoxicated from the high number of cheap domestic beers consumed at Casino El Camino. We sat down at the bar and I thought I recognized the place as somewhere I had been before. I swore at the time that I knew they served the Best Bloody Mary in the World. I asked the bartender if he was the guy who made the Best Bloody Mary in the World and he gave me the look of someone who had already spent too much time that day dealing with assholes. I asked him to check with someone else to see if they made the Best Bloody Mary, and while I deserved a punch in the mouth for asking, he obliged me for a moment and talked to the other bartender. Shortly thereafter he came back wearing a wry smile and said he didn't know what I was talking about, but that he would try his best to make me an extra spicy, extra strong New Best Bloody Mary in the World. He probably spit in it. Dakota and I had a few more drinks and talked over a couple of hours. I burned through half a pack of cigarettes. After about my fifth bloody mary, I clumsily reached across her for a change of pace in the form of a cheap beer and we started kissing. When we stopped, she looked up at me with a wry grin.

"You were saying?"

We continued on undisturbed by any onlookers or any semblance of shame we might have possessed before ingesting so many alcoholic beverages. The display spilled out onto the street, into the next bar, back on the street and on and on. Things were looking up. My first week back in Austin and I had met this wonderful, kind girl. Or so it would seem. When it came time to go home, we had both forgotten where she parked her car. She thought it had been stolen, and started to become agitated. In a drunken stupor she approached a policeman to tell him her car had been stolen. Since she was visibly drunk, the cop asked her if she simply hadn't forgotten where she had parked it. She was fuming at this point. How dare the cop ask her something like that? She knew exactly where the car was supposed to be! She wasn't even drunk!

Okay, so she was drunk and we couldn't find the car. I tried to calm her down and we returned to looking for the car. After a couple of minutes we found it. Naturally, we had been looking on the wrong street all along. I remembered a line from Paul F. Tompkins about how drinking brings out the real asshole inside that's been dying to get out all along. Could that be right? No, no... she just became upset because of the missing car. Totally understandable. She loved that thing. Yeah, of course.

I drove her car back to Garrick and Toby's place and we laid down on their couch and made out until we both passed out in each other's arms. Only one hitch all night. Things were looking up in my life.

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl -- part two

I learned a lot about Dakota during several subsequent conversations. She had, in fact, gotten out of the hospital due to taking too many sleeping pills the day before I met her.  I guess I hadn't given it enough thought, or maybe I imagined that it had been a few days, and the knowledge that I met her the day after an ordeal like that startled me a little bit.  Her stated reasons for taking the pills, "just wanting to sleep for a while," should have startled me, but didn't.  I knew exactly what she meant.  Sometimes I just wanted to sleep, too.  The more we talked the more I liked her.  I thought we shared a similar brand of attention seeking depression. Two tragically flawed people hopelessly reaching out for something, anything, to grab on to that had some modicum of meaning. Something warm, loving, and comforting. I also learned that her ex-boyfriend Jack had blown her off during her darkest moment, and she was very much devastated by it. Okay, so she was hung up on a guy who dumped her at the precise moment she needed him to be there, and he just left. That's gonna mess with anyone's head, no matter what. None of that mattered to me. I found her sadness to be fascinating and beautiful. There was one more piece of information that would ultimately impact me: she was previously engaged to a man who was still around, helping her with her work. Of course, I didn't find that out until after I spent a night out in the company of both of them - the new girl I liked and her ex-fiance.

Garrick, Dakota, her ex Jeremiah and I were sitting in Dakota's apartment. Jeremiah was a web designer and aspiring stunt man with well styled blond hair and piercing blue eyes who was there helping Dakota complete a project. Naturally, he was still infatuated with her and he hated me right from the moment we met. Since I had gotten to know a couple of guys from Northern Ireland who were living across from me in L.A. and he happened to be Scottish, I asked him a question that I felt might be a way to start a conversation and maybe even make myself feel more comfortable.

"Do you call yourselves Scotch?"

I thought perhaps one of my Irish friends had said that, and maybe they did in some kind of drunken rage, making fun of the Scottish.  I guess it was a stupid question.  He didn't reply right away so I told him that information was straight from Belfast. "That's Northern Ireland," he said. "Yeah, I know where it is," I replied. Dakota could see the tension that was between us, and she asked me within earshot of Jeremiah, "Do you feel comfortable?" I said I did, as I spied Jeremiah fuming from behind his bright blue eyes, clenching his cartoonishly square jaw.

That same night we all went out to a bar in San Marcos. We saw a shitty band play, drank $2.00 beers, and had a good time despite the disparate personalities and the informal and blossoming competition Jeremiah and I had brewing. Dakota caught me looking a a girl's ass walking past our table. She made fun of me. I found her teasing to be cute and I liked that she called me on doing such a thing. It rained that night, and as one who hadn't seen a thunderstorm in a few months, I stood outside letting the rain soak into me. While standing outside the bar at the end of the night, Dakota was talking to some friends of hers. I was nothing short of piss drunk from all the drinks, and as she was talking I noticed that she had a strand of hair in her face. Without thinking, I reached up and gently moved it back behind her ear. She said thank you and continued talking. After the conversation was over we all went back to her place and said our goodbyes; Garrick and I heading back for Austin. During the car ride back to his place, Garrick told me that Jeremiah wasn't just the guy who was helping to design her website. He was, in fact, the man who had been engaged to her. She called it off as she just wasn't ready for him at the time. That's when she started seeing Jack, who (as she had told me during the party) was quite good in bed. Wonderful. She had great sex with the last guy, and the one before him, the blond hair blue eyed stuntman, who, according to what Dakota had told Garrick, had a huge dick just to top it all off. I didn't have a chance in hell. Or if I did, I would either be laughed out of the bedroom or be that mistake that makes a girl realize just how good she had it before. Oh, well. I wasn't going to be there for very long anyway. She was a nice girl, and I liked her, but all of the things my pop-culture addled brain told me could happen where you go away on a trip, meet a girl, fall for her and have a two month whirlwind romance only happen in the movies, right? Right?

musings on a (not so) flat chested girl - part one

A depressed man in his late twenties becomes discontent with his life in Los Angeles, California. He purchases a one-way plane ticket to his previous home of Austin, Texas and moves in with his former roommates for an undetermined duration of time. The following story is true, although the names have been changed in order to protect the innocent (and to keep the author from being harassed).

On one particularly balmy night in Hollywood, I stood out on my fourth floor apartment patio and stared blankly at the city lights feeling isolated and full of self pity, even though I was surrounded by friends and well wishers and I lived in a forth story apartment that overlooked the city. I wasn't quite ready to give up on whatever goals I had come to L.A. to achieve, but I was ready to get out of town and attempt to shed the presentiment of impending failure. By 10 pm, with too much gin in my system, I said goodbye to my friends and promised that would return shorty. I wasn't sure if I was telling the truth or not.

I arrived in Austin at 6:30 am. My old roommate Garrick reluctantly picked me up from the airport and took me to breakfast, putting up with an unusual amount of energy and excitement for someone who spent the entire night awake on an airplane. He arranged for me to stay with him and my other former roommate Toby. The two of them had a place on the north side of town. When I got to their apartment the previous night's gin consumption and the lack of sleep and the pancakes the size of Texas finally caught up with me. I slept for the rest of the day on a couch that seemed to have recently been set on fire.

The next day unfolded much like the first, with everyone sleeping off whatever it is extremely lazy people need to sleep off, but the night had potential. Garrick invited me to go and visit a friend of his, Dakota, a girl who had just gotten out of the hospital for taking too many sleeping pills. He wanted to check up on her and make sure she was okay, and he confessed that he had a bit of a crush on her. We drove out to San Marcos where she lived and picked up a sixer of Lone Star and some cigarettes. We arrived at her apartment around 9pm. We knocked on the door, but no one answered. I could see her moving around inside, putting things away and such. Her apartment looked plenty clean, and I thought it strange that she would just leave us standing outside without saying a word. Eventually she answered the door and invited us in. She explained that she was a bit compulsive and things had to be in order before she could let us in. Fair enough, I thought. As she had no couch, we all sat down on the floor and I settled in. She was a pretty girl, short, slight with dyed blond hair and somber blue eyes. Garrick told her I was from Los Angeles, and she took this to mean Hollywood. True enough, as that's where I was living at the time. She told me that she was a graphic design student, although for the moment she was taking a semester off from school. We all played a trivia game of some sort, and I was embarrassed when I couldn't answer a music question that related to Elvis Costello. She made fun of me in such a dry manner that I couldn't tell if she was being mean or flirtatious. After a time, we decided to watch one of the movies I had brought with me. It was The Limey, a revenge thriller starring Terrence Stamp. Garrick and I had become quite enamored with the film thanks to Luis Guzman and three comic relief throwaway lines that he had. The three of us sat around sort of watching the film. Mostly we just talked, drank beer and smoked cigarettes. After the movie had run it's course, Garrick and I excused ourselves, but not before asking her to come to a party that Garrick and Toby were throwing in honor of my return. She said she'd try to make it. I was convinced that she didn't like me at all.

A couple of days passed and it was time for the party. Early on in the going, nothing but guys showed up. This wasn't too surprising, as the boys in this particular crew weren't exactly ladies men at the time, what with spending most of their time at work or in the huge WalMartesque gated apartment community. As the night went on, a couple of my friends from town showed, and I was well on my was to drinking myself into a stupor. (I had made a custom mix tape for the evening, so I was as happy as I could be without any women around.) Just as I was going to give up all hope on a "party," ready to get used to the "gathering," the girls showed. Dakota said hello, and told me how she really didn't want to come, but she did anyway. Luckily, I was already too inebriated to take this any kind of way, and I was just happy that some pretty girls showed up. Everyone mingled, I continued to drink. At some point I found myself outside on the patio with Dakota and my friend Edison. Edison is the kind of guy who can talk a lot, and about pretty much anything. Edison and Dakota were talking Egyptian history and folklore, and being unable to speak intelligently on the subject myself, I just sat there and continued to drink. All of a sudden, I felt sick. I leaped up from the ground and flung my head over the fence and threw up. After it was over I felt much better, so I sat back down and kept drinking. Edison commented on the fact that I was the only person he knew that could puke and then go right back on drinking. Dakota said something to the effect of how silly I looked. I was now completely convinced that she didn't like me, and even if she did, I had just thrown up right in front of her so I'd blown whatever chance I might have had.

 A few minutes after that debacle someone mentioned swimming. "Swimming?" I said, "that sounds like a great idea!" And proceeded to jump over the patio fence and head to the pool. Once at the pool, I took off all my clothes and jumped in, with no regard to anyone else who may have been watching. I swam around for a bit, feeling refreshed and relaxed. When I got out and started to put my clothes back on, two girls and a guy appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Just at the moment when I was pulling my pants up, I noticed them and they said, "Don't mind us!" I told them no worries and set about putting the rest of my dry clothes over my cold, drenched body. I was sure they were laughing at my shriveled penis but I was too drunk to care. I headed back the party and everyone asked where I had been. I told them I went swimming, it was wonderful, and they should all try it. They looked at me like I was crazy and went back to playing a card game. I put on an Andrew W.K. song, cranked the volume on the stereo and began jumping on Toby's bed, doing the best version of a back flip that I could manage in my altered state. When I became tired of that, I went back into the living room and lay down on the floor next to the couch. I found some bottle caps within my reach so I picked them up and started to throw them at Dakota. She seemed mildly amused at my drunken version of flirting, but made it clear that I should stop and just lay down. A minute later I passed out.

The next morning I woke up feeling as if I had slept on a bed of porcupines under a chorus line of jackhammers. I lifted myself off the floor and looked out, only to notice that no one else was in the room. Garrick must have gone to his room, Toby to his. I waded through a maze of beer cans on the floor and went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of tap water, and went to the patio to recover in the mild sunlight. A few minutes later I heard some voices coming from inside. I recognized Dakota's voice. She must have slept in Toby's room. It crossed my mind that she might have slept with him, but that didn't make too much sense. I hadn't spied them getting on that well during the party, and Toby wasn't much of a seducer when it came to women. Dakota wondered aloud where I had gone, and I heard Garrick and Toby say I was probably out on the porch. She thought I was smoking, and came out to see if I was doing something so disgusting after my night behaving as a human chimney. I wasn't smoking and didn't care to, so she sat down and talked to me. We had a nice chat, I realized that she wasn't as cold as I thought she was, and that I fancied her quite a bit. After a short time, she asked Garrick to give her a ride home and she left. In the afternoon, Toby went to work, and I sat down on his computer and started tooling around. I noticed that his AOL instant messenger was on, and that Dakota had signed in. We chatted for a few moments and she proceeded to confess something to me: When I was throwing up right in front of her she thought, "Boy, here's this cute boy and he's throwing up right in front of me!" And before I passed out on the floor she was trying to get me to lay down on Toby's bed so she could sleep next to me, and that it was too bad that I was going to be in town for so long because she really liked me and if we spent time together it would be hard when I eventually had to return to Hollywood. She expressed that I couldn't possibly like her because I was so happy and excited about everything and she was depressed and confused. I told her we weren't as different as she thought and that we should spend some time together regardless. We set up a date for the next day.