100 words a day

I knew an over-the-phone breakup wouldn’t do, so we agreed to meet at my place after he got off work.

“I have some things to say, and besides there’s something I’ve wanted to do with you for some time,” he said.

He arrived amid rain showers and strong winds with an improvised plan; laid out blankets in my living room and set up flashlights inside a box pricked with holes.  We communicated with words and with silence under the ersatz stars.

He vented and asked questions. I tried to answer them.

I fought urges to hold him.

I fought tears.

I did not wake up this morning planning to break up with my boyfriend, but I suppose I knew it was coming.

Chris and I have been together 6 months.  He has been the most mature, communicative, easygoing boyfriend.  I recently got back from an enchanting week in Hawaii, and when I returned home found myself in a weird place. 

I didn’t miss him.

Not like a boyfriend should miss his boyfriend, but like a friend would miss a friend.

22 minutes and 29 seconds on the phone solidified the transition.

Why do I feel like I’ve made a mistake?

I never thought this would be the case.  

I’ve played with thoughts of how intimacy with another man would be.  I’ve seen tenderness and passion.  I’ve seen the kinky and the taboo, as well as the connection and the closeness.  

In my imagination, there have been costumes and roles to play.  There have been screams of ecstatsy and guttural grunting.  Up against a wall, in a shower, on the floor and in the bed.  Even…outdoors.

Now that it’s happening, I’m disappointed.  I couldn’t figure out why I’ve been “failing” in the bedroom.

I can’t live up to my own expectations.

I’m sitting here staring at the screen, trying to dust off my thinker.  I feel that this should be easier.  I pull various slides from drawers in my mind; peering at them closely, squinting while holding them up to the light.

I want to write about something positive, but I just can’t seem to find anything in that department.  All I see right now is joblessness, pain in my body, anger, frustration, unfulfillment, a foreboding sense of fear about my future…

Who is this person?  Where did I go?  Why does the trophy of writing look so tarnished and lackluster?

My cat cozied up against my chest as I lay on my bed in the dim of my bedroom.  I surveyed the room, imagining its habitants in another room.  A room 40 miles north.

Would the dresser still be to the right of my bed?  Would I pack away the stuffed giraffes finally?  Will the ceiling be higher as I gaze sleeplessly up at it?  Would the sounds of the Emerald City reach through the panes of glass?  Would it feel like I belonged in it?

I stroked her dense fur, her head lifting slightly to my touch.

It would.

It taunts me.  It mocks me, this blank page.  It dares me to fill it with worth, but it jabs at me with its vast possibilities, its limitlessness. 

There are times where I easily plunder it; I tromp through its snowy canvas with my ink-covered boots with a swiftness and an eagerness that thrills me to near orgasmic heights.

Yet there are other times, darker times, where its face could not be brighter.  I scribble nonsense just to see the contrast. No more white!  God, let there be no more white!

 Tonight, one more victory for me. Tonight, it loses.

“We’re being kicked out of our house”, the text reads.

I call my mom immediately. She cries into the phone, “I’m just so angry!”

The nutshell:  My dad has run my grandfather’s contracting business for 20+ years - and very successfully, at that.

My grandfather explodes into the office one day and announces to his son that he hates him, he’s fired and that he’s out of the house (which he owns) in two months - for no apparent reason!

I knew my grandfather was an asshole, but to throw his own son and grandchildren out into the street?

Pure evil.

This feeling is all too familiar.

It’s as if I’m standing at a great crossroads.  I’m at the crux of a grapevine of opportunity, of possibility.  There are many dark and gleaming roads laid out before me.

Yet I do not move.  I pull uncertainty and analysis from my satchel.  I rest upon rote and reasoning.  I pick apart the pros and cons of each path, ascertaining which will lead to destruction and which to contentment.

And yet here I stay, unmoving; stagnant with my scales in hand. 

“Adventure lies in the uncertain,” something whispers.

I wait, but for what?

“An ultrasound is the first step. If it doesn’t show us anything - which it most likely will not - then we’ll do an MRI.”

Ultrasound? Isn’t that where the nurse squirts the jelly on the pregnant woman’s belly and rubs that microphone-thing into it?

Yep, that’s exactly what it was.

I hastened into the hospital “robe” and positioned myself onto the bed with most of my glory exposed. I had a lot of questions as I watched the pixelated, colored blips pulse on the screen.

One thing is definitely for certain: I’m growing accustomed to exposing myself to strangers.

The following are the last few status updates on my Facebook profile.

Mike Renz:

• has tuna breath, is covered in cat hair and is playing Monopoly online. Just livin’ the dream, people.
• thinks cooking show judges are SO annoying.
• is in bed with some major tooth pain.
• is feeling fat in everything he wears. He must be menstruating.
• is playin’ cards and buzzin’.
• is in Seattle with Chris pissin’ the night away!
• doesn’t know what to say.
• just hates biting into a bad piece of fruit. Y’know what doesn’t go bad? Twinkies.

I have fallen back into old patterns.

Before I had the Postal job from Hell I was unemployed. Many of you can remember my posts as an unemployed man, I’m sure.  Considering I’ve been off work for over a month now, those old habits have begun to surface again.

Two nights ago, I stayed up until 5:00 am playing Monopoly online.  I no longer wake up naturally at 8:00 am.  I make daily To-Do lists to keep me sane. They include items like “buy lotto ticket” and “vacuum”.

Snap out of it, Mike! Your destiny awaits.

As do the bills.

I think the last place you’d ever expect to be reminded of your calling is at a house party with bongs and pot-laced penis cookies.

The host of the house-warming party (who I don’t know very well at all) pulls out his laptop to show me a project in which he took his favorite selections of my 100wordsaday posts and created Photoshop artwork of them. 

There were my words.  On someone else’s computer.  My words had touched someone.  So much so that artwork was created from them.

I was flattered, humbled, inspired.  Yet another reminder of who I should be. 

I’ve been off work due to my on-the-job injury for almost a month.  Even though I haven’t been traversing the streets of
Tacoma, I’ve STILL been dealing with the endless parade of managerial bullshit.  I’ve been going to see US Healthworks doctors every week.  Each time, something goes wrong.

“The form wasn’t filled out correctly. You need to have the doctor fix it.”

“There’s a discrepancy on the form.  It needs to be fixed.”

“The form is old. They need to re-write it on the new form.”

I have an idea. WHY DON’T YOU GO F**K YOURSELF TWENTY TIMES OVER!

It has been one month and eighteen days since my last post; by far my longest stretch since I began my 100wordsaday journey.

Too much has happened in the lapse between.  A Vegas trip, a friendship ended, a new boyfriend, I told my mom I’m gay (in an email), A Harry Potter Premiere, an Oregon trip, far more work drama, lots of soul searching and a possible new direction for my life.

I regret my hiatus for the simple fact of letting my readers down, however few you may be. 

This is a re-beginning. And, oh, does it feel good.

The weather has been sublime the last few weeks in The Great Northwest.  We pasty Seattlites emerge from our dank dens and remember why we live here in the first place.

Around this time of year - along with the blossoming buds and the bombinating bees - comes another fact of nature:  the tree sperm.

The Cottonwood trees release their soldiers into the wind, resulting in a snowy effect.  The air is thick with them.  The curbs spill over with them.  No one and no nose is safe.

Spring is meaning to outdo Winter.

I’m going to need more Kleenex.

My birthday sometimes falls on Memorial Day.

As a kid/teen, that brought mixed emotions.  Sometimes I had my birthday off school, but that also meant that everyone was on vacation, so a birthday party was out.

My birthday was on Memorial Day this year and I decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese and then out to a club to ring it in.

I didn’t mind it when people informed me they couldn’t make it when I invited them. I DID mind when half of those that SAID they would be there, just didn’t come and didn’t text or call.

I am now one of the desperate who have joined Match.com.  Yes, I’m now PAYING MONEY to find love.  How pathetic.

And yet my reasoning is sound.  Because I’m living in an area where the gay to straight ratio is like 1 to 1000, I can’t exactly openly flirt with my bank teller without the repercussions, can I?  He’ll most likely be straight or married or closeted.

So, that leaves me with sites like Craigslist or Gay.com where a drive-by f**k is what’s on the main agenda.  Yeah, I’ve tried conversing with those guys and “hot pix, boi” gets old.

Six days a week.  7-9 hours a day.  10-15 miles a day.

That has been my life for the last year or so.  I’m overworked and often overwrought.  I’m physically and mentally exhausted.  My emotions have taken a turn for the bipolar.

I’ve been pleading for some sort of vacation so that I could just get a breather, but what I’ve been told over and over again is, “a TE is low on the totem pole and therefore is going to be denied vacation requests more than the regulars.”

Enter pulled groin muscle.

Enter possible one month off.

Enter breather.

I thought it was going to be a routine kind of thing.  I was wrong.

After feeling a tight pain in my inner-thigh yesterday, I was advised to see one of the Postal-appointed doctors.

I arrived and after some paperwork was finally let into the exam room.

The Joan Cusack look-alike doctor went through the motions, scribbled things down and professionally complimented me on how fit I am, then asked me to “lower [my] pants”.

“Oh, uh…I’m not wearing underwear.”

“That’s alright. They would’ve had to come off anyway.”

I inwardly clench up and unzip, thinking, “Thank God I manscaped!”

When I returned back to the house, there it all was.

The overturned coffee table next to the trashcan, the decorative stones flung all over like confetti, the candle next to my shoes – now with a few dents in it; the books out of order, the bookmarks no longer holding their places.

I set to work.

I righted the table, ordered and fanned the books, set the candle in its stand, gathered the stones and swept up the ones that didn’t survive.

Anger had dimmed, rage had subsided. What was left was the wreckage that only I could clean up.

I haven’t posted in two weeks.  TWO WEEKS!  Which means I haven’t written in two weeks.  It’s already starting to happen.  I did it with fine arts, I did it with photography and now I’m letting it happen to writing (which I told myself was The One).

I love it still, but I’m starting to slink it down my priority list; y’know, below watching TV or eating out.

Last week I said to myself, “Mike, you’re gonna post every day for a week.” I didn’t even set fingers to keys once.

I know myself too well.  This isn’t gonna last.

Today was the day that my worst Postal fear came true.

Walking West on E. 55^th St., I came to the trashy 800 block.  I saw 808 and the Pit Bull harbored within a rickety fence.  The Dog Warning Card stated, “Use caution/sometimes gets loose.”

Moments passed and the Pit broke through the dilapidated pickets and came snarling right for me, broken rope around his neck.  I fought the instinct to run and turned to face him, screamed “NO!” and pepper-sprayed it dead in the face.

He walked back to his yard sneezing.  I walked back to the truck shaking.

I’ve always been an even-keeled kind of guy.  I’m the one who keeps it cool under pressure.  I’ve always been the mediator and I’ve never been in a fist fight.

But I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, as of late.  My middle ground has begun to crumble.  My highs are in the stars and my lows are in the grave.

I know it was a combination of influences that caused me to emotionally disassemble in the middle of the station; the pressure to see my ex, the April snow, the 8 hours of mail.

Regardless, unemployment has never looked so good.

Whenever I sit down to do anything on the computer – it doesn’t really matter what it is, either – it seems that an unseen force takes over me and automatically leads me to Facebook.

“Man, I’ve got to post” or “I need to Google that” or “Let’s check the movie times for Monsters VS Aliens” turns into me suddenly updating my status to “Mike is eating a delicious cupcake!” or leads me to perusing a friend of a friend’s engagement photos or accepting a Snowball Fight app.

Like I don’t get in enough Facebook time with it uploaded onto my Blackberry?

Today was the last straw.

The rain, the amount of mail I was given in the morning, the surprise extra TWO HOURS of mail I was given at almost 6:00, the way I’m treated by Supervisors…it’s just the last freakin’ straw.

I have to start actively looking for another job.  I don’t like what this job has turned me into.  I cuss more than I ever have, I scowl more than I ever have, the thoughts that occupy the space between my ears are darker than they ever have been.

I’m angry, bitter, sick and exhausted.

Oh, but the money.

Have you ever tried walking with your eyes closed?  I used to do it a lot when I was a kid.  While walking home from school, backpack thumping at my back, I would close my eyes and count the steps I took before fear overtook me.

It was both terrible and thrilling.  At any moment some uneven pavement or low tree branch could jolt me back into reality.

My life, as of late, feels a bit like walking with my eyes closed.  I’m in the dark and unsure of where to go, but at least I’m moving in a direction.

He left me no choice.  What else was I supposed to do?  He WOULD NOT return my phone calls or my texts.

I had thoughts of him being in traumatic accidents, unable to respond to me.  But seeing as how he could text my best friend and ask about who she voted for on American Idol, I realized he’s just a big, wet flapping douche bag.

Via text, I told him he broke my heart, that I never expected behavior like this from HIM and to send my things to my address.

That’s when the pain unleashed and I ruptured.

190 hours, 35 minutes and 43 seconds.  That’s the amount of time that has passed since I last heard from my boyfriend.

My experiment: stop all contact with him to see if he contacts me, in order to prove whether he gives a shit.

When three days transpired, I was distraught.  When five days transpired, I was angry.  When it hit the week mark, I called him and left him a simple, “we need to talk, call me” message.  He ignored it.

Tonight I sent him a text: “It’s really important that you call me immediately.”

I’m preparing for heartbreak.

I’m the one who initiates most of our time spent together.  I’m the one who invites him out.  I’m the one who asks to see him.  I’m the one, I’m the one, I’m the one.

I told him I loved him.  Three times.  He didn’t say it back.  Later, he said he wasn’t ready.  I really understood.  And yet here I am, in this unstable place of waiting.  When will he be ready to feel it, let alone say it to me?

I’m running an experiment.  How long until he contacts me without me prompting it first?

46:17:00 and counting…

I frequently check the weather forecast.  Sometimes multiple times in a day.  I like to be in the know, know what’s coming up.

Last night, the Weather Channel said “Rain/Snow tapering off into light rain by noon.”

What actually happened:  snowflake clusters the size of silver dollars dumped on Tacoma until 3:30 leaving two inches of snow on the ground and one angry mailman.  Red-faced and pummeling the steering wheel, I shrieked at the sky and the rotten, bloody meteorologists from Hell who deserve every imagining of unhappiness for the lies they have fashioned and pushed upon their hapless victims!

It’s the thought that plagues me most.  Whether I’m tucking myself in or pressing my snooze button for the third time, it’s there like a fat, pungent elephant lumbering around my small living space.  He never trumpets, just looks; looks at me with those wet, lashed eyes of his.

“I know, I know.  I need to write.”

But more often than not I don’t.  Why?  What’s holding me back?  My physically and mentally taxing job?  My friends?  My boyfriend?  Sure they all demand time, but all of them inspire me to do just what that stinking elephant urges:  to write.

The first time I said it, we were pressed against my car in the frigid night.  I was slightly inebriated, but not so much so that I didn’t know what I was doing.  He didn’t say it back.

The second and third time I said it, it was via text.  Both incurred only Smiley responses.  No “I love you” or “Love ya 2” back.  Just “: 3”

I never thought I would become “that guy”.  The guy who said the L-word even though his partner has expressed he’s not ready to say it.

It is entirely my fault I’m hurting.

I take his hand and lead him to my bedroom.  He gets on my bed first, lies on his back and tucks his hands under his head.  I turn on my iHome, letting David Archuletta set the tone.

Surprisingly, I have no butterflies.  Though we have not planned anything, I know what is going to transpire.  We’ve kissed oodles of times standing up, but it’s different when entwined on our sides and in the intimate darkness of my bedroom.

The Black-Eyed Peas usher us into the next phase.  We communicate as we round second.  He’s beyond beautiful.

And I’m flying.

The 80-degree sunshine poured through the stretching windows of the front room of the house of my childhood.  I donned a towel and a change of clothes as I headed into what used to be Michelle and Heather’s bathroom, but now belongs to the twins.

As I soak in the teal tub, I roam to the past.  Jon in diapers, now taller than me and reeking of pubescence; Marky perched in front of The Little Mermaid, now dating and graduating; Michelle acne-ridden and awkward, now troubled and in a state facility.

The water drains.  The mirror reflects a different me.

Visiting home always brings forth a melting pot of emotion.  There’s the feeling of completion from reuniting with family; estrangement for being so far removed of recent events; shock at how fast my younger sibs are growing; nostalgia from staring up at the same bedroom ceiling I did when I was 13.

Then there’s the gamut of emotion my mother extracts from me:  love, anger, bewilderment, frustration, pity, appreciation, guilt and above all the feeling of relational isolation.

I planned to tell her that I’m gay this trip down.  It didn’t happen…again.  That quintessential moment evaded my grasp once more.

“Welcome to the USPS Employee Service Line.  To request unscheduled leave, press or say 1.”

1.

“This call may be recorded for quality control purposes.  To start, please enter or say your 8-digit Employee Identification Number.”

0******4

“What’s the reason for your absence? You can say ‘illness’, ‘personal emergency’ or ‘community disaster’.”

“Community disaster.”

———————————

Never thought I’d use THAT option.  But, here I am removing important things off the floor and packing a getaway bag…just in case.  The rain is relentless; the wind its accomplice.  Now the Puyallup River threatens to surge its boundaries and push me toward mine.

I’ll never be the gay guy who wears a rainbow shirt.  Nor will you find me in heels or any form of women’s clothing.  And “fabulous” won’t ever be a part of my vocabulary.

Those things aren’t me.

Though, I may not be an “obvious gay”, I’d still like to live without being put on mute.  I want to play The Game of Life and be able to pick a blue figure when I land on the Get Married spot.  I don’t want to have to hold my boyfriend’s hand under a pillow.

I’m gonna up the volume in ’09.

I knew I should’ve done something the day previous when I noticed that my headlights were dimmer and my power windows were sluggish.  Alas, I pulled a “Mike” and put it off.

My car died at one of the busiest intersections in South Tacoma.  Cars sighed and parted around me like water around rock .  Almost immediately two unrelated people were knocking on my window, ready to push me curbside.  Dale directed traffic.  Octavio propelled me forward with his van.

I gushed at these Good Samaritans, shaking their hands.  Octavio left, but Dale remained to discuss my walk with Christ.

I awake in the same manner as usual:  an abrasive P!nk anthem.  I loll out of bed and start my routine.  Shower.  Shave.  I don’t wax my hair up today.  There’s no point really.

I shrug into my postal uniform.  I blend up my protein shake.  Ugh, I’m out of banana.  It’s a day like any other.  Work beckons; the sky threatens.  My feet ache and my heart’s close behind.

There are no plums dancing, no reindeer prancing.  No carols singing, no bells ringing.  Just a family far away and another wage to gain.

Just a day like any other.

As an artist, I see its aesthetics.  But as a postal carrier I see it only as a big pain in my ass.

Witness my day:

It was 32 degrees and overcast.  There were 8-12 inches of snow on the ground and I got a mostly-walking route.  I slipped countless times but actually fell thrice, soaked through four pairs of socks, got the mail truck stuck in snow/ice five times, helplessly witnessed the chains on one of my tires fly off while going up a hill and was hit in the face by a snowball thrown by a reveling teenager.

She only meows when I unwrap a Subway tuna sandwich.  And you can hardly call it a meow.  It’s more like the noise made when a needle scratches a record.

She gets into these crazy fits sometimes, like she’s finding pure joy in going 0 – 60 in 2 seconds flat.  She flicks her tail as if to say, “I’m old, but I’m fast.”

Because her face is actually concave, her whiskers jut out in all directions, a mess of frayed wires.  And her head is only fur and eyes with a small mention of ears.

I love that damn cat.

The time I first remember seeing him was at the supervisor’s desk at work.  He was unabashedly yelling at one of the supervisors.

I’ve recently had too many encounters with him.  The first was on the street.  He was bringing me an extra 30 minutes of mail.  He lectured me for five minutes when I didn’t run to his truck to grab it from him.

He lectured me again a few days later on not delivering 30 minutes of junk mail at the end of his route.  And again the next day.

I’ve got the union president on speed dial.

• That my cat joined me in bed.
• That my cereal tasted so damn good.
• That I have wonderful friends in my life who love and support me
• That I even have a job to go to – and a well-paying one at that.
• That it’s partly sunny outside right now.
• That I get to eat yams and stuffing today.
• That I’m going to drink a little bit too much wine with dinner.
• That my house is clean right now.
• That I live in America.
• That I won’t be spending Thanksgiving alone.

• My retarded pelvis; for hurting…again.
• My stupid face for allowing zits to grow on Thanksgiving.
• That attempting to pop said zits only made them angrier.
• Thanksgiving.
• My stupid, ugly hairy body.
• The distance separating me from my family.
• The fact that we’re eating “dinner” at 2:00. That’s LUNCH!
• That I’m not even a little hungry yet.
• The thought that I have to work tomorrow.
• The thought that I have to work on Christmas Eve AND the day after Christmas.
• The fact that I’m letting this attitude ruin my holiday.

I unwrap the book from the towel and attempt to read, leaning back in the hot bath.  The suds have popped themselves out leaving me exposed through murky, liquid glass.

I’ve attempted to read in the bathtub before and never made it through a chapter.  Don’t know how the bestie does it, consuming halves of whole novels in one sitting while bathing. I flip a couple leaves and rewrap it.

I’ve called-in to work way too many times in the past few months.  But, when you’re sick, you’re sick, I tell myself.

I should stick to crossword puzzles when wet.

What could possibly go wrong with Drunken Board Game Night?

You’ve got good friends, way too much booze for seven people, the iPod blarin’ the “P-to-the-Arty” mix I concocted and Cranium!  It’s a recipe for memory-makin’ fun.

Ahem.  Until my friend drinks almost a full bottle of rum, drunk-dials the guy she was with for two weeks to profess her love for him, breaks down into emotional hysteria because we won’t let her drive home…oh, and reveals that her dad supposedly beats her.

She wouldn’t sleep over and she wouldn’t let us drive her home.

Who’s up for some Scattergories!

When he awoke, the grayness greeted him.  He squelched to his car protecting his electronics from the sodden onslaught.  He sprayed his way toward the station where the glistening, white boxes stood awaiting their coachmen and women.

He splashed through Hilltop, cursing the constant drip-drip from the silver slate above him.  It relented not as he wiped his glasses free yet again.

He slid on muddy slopes, penetrated standing pools, shielded himself from vomiting eaves.  The rain persevered as the sun died away leaving the sopping courier in a dank and fungal darkness…

…only to do it all again tomorrow.

When imagining my first relationship with a guy, I never imagined it like this.  Justin’s so easy.

In my mind’s eye, my future guy would’ve required too much attention; there would’ve been struggling of time with friends and time with him.  There would’ve been pressure for sex considering my martini shaker of stalwartly old-fashioned beliefs and fear of intimacy.  I imagined him a tad egocentric and maybe a bit too into his looks like a lot of gay guys.  And he would probably be a renegade Catholic.

Justin is nothing on that list.  He’s a catch.

So, where’s the catch?

There are things that make me quote, unquote gay.  For example, my hair has to be near-perfect when I leave the house, I like to shop and I won’t immediately skip Cher when her music comes on my Ipod.  Okay, I put her on playlists!

But there are other things that fight that stereotype.  As I stood before my shower today with Kaboom and sponge in hand, I saw it rear its ugly face.  There it was:  the black mold, the reddish mold that looked like part of the tile pattern and yes, a small shroom behind my conditioner bottle.

• You have a door slot the size of one letter.  Where else should I to put your 500-page fashion magazines but right in front of your door?
• Those of you who leave bottles of water and cookies in your mailbox, the love that I possess for you runs deep.
• Why do you leave your dogs in your yard when you KNOW I’m coming today?  WHY?!
• If I pass your house because you parked in front of your mailbox, DO NOT run after my truck yelling at me.  I may brake suddenly.

Thank you for your time