Confessions of a Starving Artist

Living Life In Mono

I discovered that of my new group of peers, I am the only one who is single, without kids, without enlisted time in the military (prior to becomming commissioned); that I am the youngest, and that I have the least time in grade as a Captain.  If that does not qualify one as ‘the rookie’, then I do not know what does.  Further, I was given guidance from the senior Officer in the room that was to have a good ‘weekend story’ every Monday morning so that the group could live vicariously through me.  That being said, and today being what today is, it was my turn to poke fun.  As it was, many of the boys (I can them this in jest as all are all middle-aged fathers, and one is a grandfather!) had neglected their spouses in the gift-giving department of this lovers holiday.  I told them that they had all given their wives sons, and that should be enough… I was told that line of thought was why I was single.

Fair enough.  However, as I went out on my first coffee break of the day, I noticed that some of the wives had set up a sort of booth at the end of the hallway, and upon which they had assembled a small parade of candies (in heart-shaped boxes), balloons (again, heart-shaped), roses, and small teddy-bears clutching to their hearts, you guessed it, little stuffed hearts.  The wives, as I knew they all were by the massive diamonds (no doubt heart-shaped) that they all proudly displayed to the casual passer-by; looked at me with a look of, oh, look at what we have done; we have saved you, silly man, from forgetting to get your lover something special on this the most holiest of Saints’ days.  My first instinct was to immediately buy all the chocolate, rip it open, and eat it all myself right then and there, sharing none with anyone but my fellow single brethren… to include not sharing it with the little six year old kid that one of the wives had brought along like some sort of trophy-Jesus dressed in pink swaddling cordroy.  Rather, I forced a smile at that capitalist little group of fem-istapos.  Imagine: under the guise of helping us poor forgetful men, they turn a tidy profit, all the while aiding their fellow stay-at-home Army wives scoop up a little extra on this Hallmark Holiday.  …  In case your wondering my candy hearts all read, “Eat Me”.

So, faithful reader, I sit at home on this Valentine’s Day evening with a bag of gold fish snacks and the promise of a four-day weekend ahead, I think about how it is complete with a fresh paycheck to hand out to the only women in my life who really listen… the strippers.  I joke, I kid… but only so much.  You see, in an earlier post this week, I asked the question if anyone had anything, anything at all, that they would like me to write about, and I was a bit disappointed to see that only two of you, faithful readers, directly responded.  To those of you who feel that they poetically (or empathically) suggested topics in a manner that I may have over looked, I would like to remind you that whimsical inference is left solely for me on this site, thank you too much.  Alas, the time for recommendations is over, and the polls are closed.  Perhaps next time when opportunity knocks, some of you may answer the door in a more direct fashion… until next time.

I think today is especially appropriate for a brief discussion on monogamy.  EKM has asked my opinion on the matter, and it was seconded by ValerieWK, so here is my answer:  I’m for it.  No, really, I am for it.  What I am not for is societal / religious constraints on the matter.  I will attempt to elaborate.

A scenario.  Boy meets Girl.  Boy likes Girl, and Girl likes Boy.  Boy and Girl sleep together, and it is good.  Boy meets another Girl, Girl B.  Boy now has to make a decision based on facts that he knows, and herein is where the shit gets to a scientific theorem for us single men:  Does the potential damage to the current established relationship out-weigh the immediate gratification of Boy sleeping with Girl B.  More often than not, Boy will choose sleeping with Girl B, but the rational should be further explained.  Boy, first looks at the risks involved, that is, the potiental damage.  Boy then must define just what exactly “potental damage” means.  Further, Boy then defines “current established relationship” and applies definition of “potential damage” to it.  Based on (but not limited too) factors such as length of time he has been in said “current established relationship”, the original basis or establishment of said relationship to Girl A (ex. friendship first vs sex first), and how good the sex is with Girl A, the picture painted by the aforementioned definitions can be very different; thus the review of terms is necessary.  The next step Boy takes is he considers his ability to mitigate the risk of “potential damage”, both partially and altogether.  After submitting this risk assessment to both the brain and the penis, the results are then discussed and compared with the benifits of sleeping with Girl B.  The two are carefully weighed, measured, and the conclusion is acted upon.  Again, most often Boy sleeps with Girl B.

Here is why.  Most of the time, if Boy concludes (siding often with the penis) that if he is quiet about the event (ie risks are negated do to mitigations and planning; agreed on by the brain), then “potential damage” never becomes “actual damage”.  Second… well, there really is no ’second’.  That pretty much ends the meeting.  What you are probably asking yourself is, GS, this doesn’t seem to back up your support of monogamy.  To do so, let us go back to the point in our hypothetical where Boy defines “current established relationship” and “potential damage”.  First, the former.  Look at the wording please, as I will one-word-by-one.  Current implies to the ‘where’ that you are now in in the relationship, not the ‘where’ you’ve been or the ‘where’ you could be going.  We lie to each other enough already, let’s not start lying to ourselves when it comes to relationships, because that is just what we are doing when Boy has to start justifying why he is still with Girl A.  “Why?”, in my opinion, should never really be a question.  Boy’s friends should not be asking it of the two of them, and Boy certainly shouldn’t be asking it of himself… at least not consistently.  Moving on, established is very literal here on.  What precedence has been set by both Boy and Girl A.  Has Trust been established, or would Boy still not give Girl A his credit card to go to the store with?  Has Honesty been established, or does Girl A still not tell her mother that she is dating Boy?  Note, that I’m not saying that these qualities need to be established between them personally, simply noted.  If they have been, groovy, but if not, check they may want to check their surroundings.  Hell, if Boy met Girl A sloppy drunk and railed her on the first night, regardless of how great their last two weeks may have been, I might be inclined to rate their “current established relationship” somewhere between 0.04 and 10.0 on a nonsense scale.

Talking about potential damage, that’s pretty self-explanatory, I think, and really, that’s the crux of the matter.  Based on Girl A being a bit of a drunk and obviously easy in the above example, Boy may nonetheless think that sleeping with Girl B will not what he feels or enjoys about Girl A.  That, to me, is the basis for monogamy, and nothing else.

I had a friend recently say that women cheat on their men because their man doesn’t know how to “sling dick”.  Perhaps that’s overstating it a bit much, but in the case of men cheating on women, I think it’s the principal that holds true: you aren’t giving us what we need, or at the very least, that is our preception.  If you did (or we precevied you did… we are men, we can be tricked), we wouldn’t go looking elsewhere.  I can already hear some of you gaffawing and throwing your hands up; if she isn’t ”giving” it too you, then you should leave her!  Please.  Now you’re the one overstating matters.  We’re still ”slinging dick” here, right?

Also explain to me this.  If it even crosses Boy’s mind, then Girl A is already in trouble, true or false?  If Boy stays true to the relationship even if all the paperwork points to a recommendation from the penis to take the company in a different direction, then I have no problem with that decision.  One the one hand, good on Boy.  On the other hand, you may have just passed up the future Mrs. Boy.  It’s Boys call, because in the end it’s Boy’s life.  But if Girl A is supposed to be the future Mrs. Boy, the recommendation should read as such.  Every time.  Heck, about the time Girl D and Girl E show up, Boy should just tell the guys down at copy not to submit the paperwork.  That is the basis for monogamy.

All joking aside, it is about the definitions.  If your relationship is something that a your partner doesn’t want to jeopardize, then they won’t jeopardize it.  Period.  And that has everything to do on established patterns, kids.  If you want to ignore that last bit, you better hope your significant other is smitten hard with something about you that gives you the edge in the risk assessment, cause you’re at stake.  And true, some are harder to capture the heart of completely then others.  Some don’t require complete capture, smitten will work.  Some only require really really good sex.  Others still require establishment before the relationship.  There is no “Boy”, I’m afraid, nor am I giving up what makes me personally the most likely to be monogamous (though I think I do know…) and which is surely not likely to work on me (which I think I know as well…), but I will say that like all paperwork, it gets old quick; everything about “A Girl” is better when you are committed…  but that is as much on her as it is on you.

In closing, though, I will add that what I don’t understand is people who deny themselves the potential for something better when they are in a bad relationship or even a poorly established one.  Seems like wasted time and chance meetings that you will never experience again.  Yeah, its a gamble, but like I said above, if you find you’re willing to risk it and the odds are in your favor, let the dice roll, baby… and could you blow on it a bit, just for luck.

Last dance with Vicki Lynn

I know that I said that you, faithful reader, would get to be ones who dictated the next blog entry, but I, as the rest of you undoubted have, were struck by a wave of disheartening new today.  Anna Nicole Smith has left died at 39.  I was honestly a bit shocked, but hardly surprised.  When it came up on my internet headline news, I think I said, “huh, how about that?” internally; the thought was not even audible.  And that was were I left it. 

I realize that we are a celebrity crazed nation, and I am as guilty as the next.  However, this whole rigamarole that will undoubtedly follow this unfortunate woman’s death is completely unnecessary.  Why, you might ask?  Because this woman was hardly noteworthy.  She was not a movie star, she was not a singer, she was not even really on TV (unless you count that horrible reality show about nothing but her and her absurd behavior) - all this woman was was a platinum blonde with huge tits who got naked and or slept with lots of men for their money.  Ladies and gentlemen, Anna Nicole Smith was a Tier IA celebrity whore, and America, as a whole, is buzzing about everything and anything she does.  Does anyone else see the irony in that?

I’ll bet most really don’t, and that is probably because they are to busy flipping back and forth from FOXNews to American Idol to consider it.  That’s another thing: even the political and social pundits are getting in on this.  Yes, even Nancy Grace is giving her two cents on the whole matter discussing who will get her new young daughter, who’s the father, who gets the money, what caused the death, etc.  For the life of me, I don’t see what the discussion could possibly be about, save politeness.  Let me give you some of the highlights that I saw just in the time that it took me to get a smoothie from the smoothie bar at the gym:  There are more than five potential fathers for her daughter and only DNA testing will tell for sure; There was an ‘expert’ who honestly says that it could have been an ‘infection’ that killed her (to think penicillin could have cured that for her too); and Is her personal nurse responsible for the death as an overdose could possibly indicate (are you fucking serious?!) fowl play.  Save me Tom Cruise.

Lets’ take a hard look at this woman.  As a mother, she poses for Playboy Magazine, and shortly after marries a man who is more than four times her ages, but claims its for love and not his several million dollars of oil money.  During this time, she continues to maintain her primary source of income as modeling in suggestive and seductive pictures (hi mom!), as well as delving into a reality TV show that voids any personal time for her or her son.  When the old man dies, she drags her son along through a massive legal battle that ends up, laughably, in the Suprerme Court!  Later, her son and best friend dies at 20 from a serious drug overdoes.  Anna Nicole makes Courtney Love look like mom of the year.

I don’t understand why we are obsessing about her passing.  I mean maybe if she gave one idota to the arts in any form whatsoever, but she is nothing!  She was a tart, and what’s worse, she wasn’t even a smart one.  Heidi Fleiss at least at the integrity to go to jail before realising names of people she and other’s fucked; Anna just waved her arms and was all, “yeah, we had a fling…” (hi mom!)  Perhaps, I am just as guilty as the rest by writing this and adding to the frenzy, but after this, I’m done.  I’ll stick to returns of South Park.  I’d rather here Chef sing about his chocolate salty balls than deal with more of this drivel.  Though I guess it could be worse.  If all we have to talk about is Anna Nicole Smith’s faux existance then all must be well with the rest of the world, right?  Right?

You know what the really sad thing is?  I will bet that not one person has said anything about the funeral.  A bombshell without dignity to the end.

It’s naughty, very naughty necrophilia
Without a care I’m compassionate about killing her
I’d have my way with what’s left of the will in her
Cosmopolitans, and cocaine, and an occasional pill in her
When she spoke I saw a spark, but it was dark so
I drove her home when she died, sexy suicide
Sweet nothings for the numb, you feel where I’m coming from?
Have no fear, everything’s fine, my girl parties all the time
Did you hear what I said? With this ring I thee wed
A body in my bed, she was cool when I met her
But I think I like her better dead

- From Necromancing by Gnarls Barkley

“I was thinking about Alicia Keys / Couldn’t keep from crying / She was born in Devil’s Kitchen, I was living down the line / I’ve been wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be…”  - Thunder On The Mountian Bob Dylan

I do believe that I am having a falling out with myself, and that this is a good thing.  My Thunderbird’s CD changer has suddenly become filled with the emotionally driven and hope deprived punk / ska tunes that made me so melancholy and satisfied in those yesterdays of Xavier as I rolled around campus in my ‘86 AMC Eagle.  Yes, I am transported back to those times, those simpler times when my mind was bogged down with soul searching; nay, identity searching as one can only be as he fills himself with self-betterment on a daily (and nightly) basis.  I realize that I am in what one might refer to as the proverbial ‘freshman year’ of things once again, and I cannot help but think that a bit of a throw-back to the old days is worthwhile, if for nothing more than reflexive inspiration… if there is such a thing.  Nonetheless, there are other indicators to this mental state phoenixing as well.  I am flashing between reclusive and hyperly extroverted, so much so that I think that it is throwing my new classmates for a bit of a loop.  Also, I am drinking more, but not in a way that I am accustomed.  For those of you who may be concerned about that, rest easy; my meaning is a glass of wine or two at night before writing and studies to loosen the Hemmingway-isc verbiage and not heavy drinking at the bar by one’s self for in the company of tawdry hussies.  Sometimes, to be honest, that is to my dismay, but no matter.

Such is tonight.  I have just read an extensive amount of literature by TE Lawrence, and I feel that it is time to retire.  However, my mind is not in accord.  I feel as though something is at unrest, something external, and that this something is else roaming in the night, stalking, looking for me, and whether this entity be in experience or feminine form, I do not know nor care.  I get like this from time to time because of a level of imbalance that I currently feel in my social and daily life (more of a ‘flux’ than an ‘imbalance’ perhaps), and as such I stay within the confines of my castle, using my time in a more defensive and scholarly manner; something my mind can fully support as it rarely gets airplay, so to speak.  Concessions and educations, then, becomes the cornerstone of the first-year student.

Still, for all my deliberate focus to narrow my options from those that I am not, as of yet, suited to return to excelling in (tawdy hussies therefore beware…); I remain scatterbrained.  For this, I enlist your services, faithful reader:  I am opening the floor to questions, thoughts for extrapolation, and general suggestions for my next post.  I am entertaining any and all thoughts, so fire away - old stories you would like retold, questions you haven’t dared ask, inquiries that you would like to… well… inquire about.  By now, I’m sure that you’ve realized that nothing here is taboo, and based on my current state, I’d say that you’d have a decent shot at honesty in an answer to boot!

“Man needs more than a women.  A mission, a life purpose, and he needs to know his name.  Only then is he fit for a women, for only then does he have something to invite them into.”  -  John Eldridge Wild At Heart

I spent the day in futility.  I searched high and low in this sprawling military town looking for what is to be, perhaps, my holy grail: a wine refrigerator.  Not just any fridge, mind you; but one that fits to a reasonable degree the dimensions of a wine hutch that I am attempting to put into the initial phases of construction.  I, like my father, am not a huge white wine drinker, and what’s more, I am often the only one who drinks wine at my house.  This would make sense as I live alone.  So these facts would lead you to deduce that I only need merger accommodations when it comes to the chilling of one’s wine - an eight, maybe twelve, bottle fridge would make a perfect addition to this little wooden endeavor that I have embarked upon, but lo, there seems to be very few of those in creation.  I finally discovered what I was looking for, or at least the closest thing to what I’ve been looking for, online this evening, but only after wasting the entire day floating from wine shop to appliance store to department outlet and then all the way back to just south of nowhere.  The only discovery that I made is that attractive women who work at Lowes or Home Depot make me want to just hand over my paycheck, whereas attractive women who are simply shopping at Lowes or Home Depot make me want to chain my check book to my innermost pockets.

Now then, ye of faithful readership, those of you who know of the Guttersnake, perhaps in legend or maybe even have first hand account of exploits, are probably wondering what is wrong with our stalwart hero.  He does not seem to be much of himself as of late, and I concede, this is true.  Where are the tales of reckless evenings of abandon with a bonny lass or drunken wench?  Where are the crazy adventures that leave young GS wandering through a black neighborhood on Martin Luther King Day (happened) or have him sharing a hookah with three Lebanese men and their women / concubines in a hotel in the middle of Oklahoma (also happened).  Readers, I am with you; it is a shame that there is nothing to tell save boring recounts of measuring rooms for rug lengths and trying to match wood varnishes.  I have no excuse for myself.

But I do have an explanation.  The following post is more for myself, I think, than it is for anyone else.  Some who read further may find this surprising, and as such, may take stock of any previous relationship in these lights.  Also, I will go on to state that I am not 100% certain of the following meditation.  At least, no more certain than I normally am about anything that talk about, which is to say, as of now, I am convinced that I am as on-target as I can be.  I hope that it sheds some consideration on my seemingly dull, boring, and for lack of a better word, ”adult” behavior.

First, an admission of guilt.  The record clearly states that I have never directly broken up with a serious girlfriend.  Directly, please note.  There were those whom, I indirectly broke up with by some sort of faulty or misinterpreted actions on my part.  That is what I would have told you last week.  I am here to recant.  I am personally taking the blame for every relationship that has ever fallen apart with me at the helm.  Directly or Indirectly, that doesn’t matter.  More to the point, it is a matter of consciously verses subconsciously.    

You see, I honestly think that up until very recently Miss Right could have dropped from the sky into my lap with resume and a drawer full of thong panties, and I don’t think that it would have worked out, and here is why:  I would not have let it.  Without going into case studies of pervious girlfriends, I don’t think that I would have let Miss Right into my life because it would have interfered with my goals in the military and my life.  Plain and simple… and shallow and cold-heartedly ambitious, but the truth nonetheless.  I had, and still have, a plan, perhaps THE plan if I want to get over self-consumed.  If I had met someone that could have fit into my life for the long run, such a person would, more than likely, have cramped into that plan, or better put, they just weren’t in the plan in the first place.  Up until this point, Miss Right would have had to have been a nurse or a teacher or an artist of some kind that not only wouldn’t have minded uprooting every thing everytime I needed to whisk off to another country or state, but probably would have needed a decent income as well; the definition of chasing a White Stag.  The long and short of it was that I was looking at women with a very HR perspective.  But, whether I like it or not; no more.

I am here.  The point in my plan where another person will not hinder forward progression is now.  To note, I did not and have not placed a little tick or put in a pin on the timeline with a note that reads “time to get married” or something silly like that.  Rather, I just realized where I was myself the other day.  The last two relationships that I have been in have felt strangely uncomfortable once they started to boarder into that realm where one might begin to call the whole business ’serious’.  Before, I always liked that point in the relationship because it meant that she was more than likely hooked on me, which gave me free reign to be a complete dog in her absence.  The principal of having your cake and eating as much as you want.  However, in the last two instances, this didn’t feel comfortable doing that.  Further, I felt very unsettled even being in these relationships once I realized that there was better chance of me getting selected as the next leader of the Christian faith than there was the two of us getting together into a mutually beneficial geographic location.  Why is that, I wondered, why the unsettling feelings?  Because I am ready.

Ready to take things seriously because I can.  Some men might think that cutting up the ol’ Player Card would not be something that they would describe as fun or exciting, but I do.  I would love to meet Miss Right, and settle down away from these fruitless evenings and misadventures.  Since I’ve been back from Iraq, the best adventures have occurred when I’ve had a solid sidekick… Hell, probably since well before Iraq too.  The hysterical irony to the whole matter is that I have no idea how to meet women if I’m not sleeping with them on the first date!  I mean, no kidding, I’m useless.  Tough to date when your whole dating technique gets scrapped.  Sort of like telling a basketball star that now he has to shoot with his left hand.  All you can do is adapt, and go back to the lay-up… as ridiculous as it my look sometimes…

99% of women will tell you that they do not believe in this level of reform, and at the very least, they would be extremely dubious if their man were to tell them that, yes, he had cheated on girlfriends in the past, but that he no longer did that sort of thing.  In less words, there is a belief, a good and fair one, that once a player, always a player.  I would say this is an extremely accurate generalization, but that is all.  I might be putting myself at the center of examples on this one (my psych test said I do this too much), but I think it takes a major shift in a man’s life in order for him to turn in his aforementioned Player Card.  As the quote above reads, subconsciously our sex needs to be secure in our live before we become truly capable to trust and allow another to enter in.  In today’s commercialized America, our own media’s propaganda tells us to keep up this swinger lifestyle and often portrays all else as lame.  Judging from my weekend at Home Depot and Lowes, they might be right, but unfortunately, I didn’t get a say in things. 

I will reiterate; I am not looking for a wife.  I am simply stating that now it is a possibility.