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.