Confessions of a Starving Artist

So I got home from my little holiday just shy of two weeks ago.  When I first got back to my cozy little abode, I found that it was a tad less-than-cozy.  As I went to adjust the thermostat to bring the temperature up a few degrees (the North Carolina climate had stiffed a bit between October and November) I realized, nay, remembered that I had run out of oil in my furnace just as last spring was drawing to a close.  Not being an problem I was in desperate need of solving at the time, I put the matter on the back-burner (no pun intended).  As an issue of Maine-Pride, I will not say that it was cold in the house, but I will say that after the sun went down, I was not hesitant to add a few layers to my current adornment of outer-garments or a few blankets to my evening repose. 

With the next morning literally nipping frost-like on my exposed nose and my bladder nearly exploding from the large amount of green tea that I had sipped on before going to bed the night prior, I made a fool-proof plan to leap from my blankets, race to the coldest room in the house (my bathroom), start the shower, and then run back to the blankets before they had a chance to cool.  Once back, I would wait several minutes until the water was steaming (not that hard to do in a room that was about 40 degrees), then once again dash for the bathroom, strip naked, and jump the shower where I could then begin to warm-up as well as relieve myself.  To be fair, the plan went off without a hitch…. up to this point. 

It was as my body first began to stop feeling the urge to do what my father-friends at work so sincerely call “the pee-pee dance” that I noticed him.  Apparently my shower was not as cold as I had suspected during the past weeks nor was it wet enough to seem like a poor place to reside for a considerable brown recluse spider whom at this exact moment chose to rear up on his hind six legs and rush me from the corner of the shower like a minature Dwight Freeney.

For the sake of the story, I will not cover up any of the facts… which are that I first screamed, threw myself back against the freezing cold tiles of the shower, and then in a mad-panic, dove out the shower door into the icy and steam-filled air of my bathroom.  I was instantly shivering, a bit startled, and was, unbeknownst to myself, beginning to resume the pee-pee dance.  I utilized the toilet this time, stilted on shivering wet legs, as I tried to formulate a counter-attack.  In my frozen sleep-genius, I figured that using toilet paper to smoosh ol’ Peter Parker would not be the brightest idea for two reasons:  first, I thought (stupidly) that I would have to use damn-near an entire roll of toilet paper in order for the wad to survive the deluge of precious hot water that was raining from my shower-head and still be able to get at the bastard safely; and second, because I had already seen the speed six legs possessed, and I didn’t want to see eight.  So I decided upon a sneak attack.  I extended myself (yes, I’m still naked…) through the open door, extended my hand through the stream of water, and then, using my fingers as crude targeting mechanisms, began to walk streams of water onto my little arachnid friend.  For the most part, Operation: Itsy Bitsy Spider went just fine, though for the life of me, I could wash the spider out.  Rather, he got smacked with water so much that he looked like nothing more than a fuzzy ball of public hair near the drain.  When I figured there was no way that he could have survived such a dosing, I confidently moved back into my shower. 

It took a few minutes to stop shaking.  Whether that was from the cold or the scare, I’ll decline to comment.  And I never took my eyes off of that little fur-ball the whole time I was reacclimatizing.  However, there comes a time in all luxury showering when one feels that they must actually wash something to feel productive or at least environmentally conscious.  It was about the time when I was fully lathered up, when that sneaky shit decided that the time was right to make a break for it once and for all.

My reaction to Lazarus was similar to my first one; I first screamed, threw myself back against the freezing cold tiles of the shower, and then in a mad-panic, dove out the shower door, this time covered in soapy-suds from head to foot.  Through burning eyes, I could see him struggling to get up the small step out of the shower, and then dart for the heating vent nearby on the floor below.  I had no time for strategic plans or toilet paper.  I had only time for instinct.  I reached for the first thing that my hands came in contact with: the toilet bowl cleaning rod.  It was a climaxed fight to the finish, but in the end, the spiders battered body lay smote on the ground after several vicious swings from my poopy-stick. 

Work is my comfort zone.  As I was speaking to a gentleman who worked in a drug rehab clinic in Chicago the other day in the Atlanta Airport, he said to me, “take a man from his comfort zone, and you have a dangerous man.”  Interesting observation, I quietly thought, in light of my last few days in my old comfort zone, Cincinnati.  As some of you may have known, I contracted food poisoning on my last day there and was forced to spend an extra day in close proximity of a bathroom, writhing in pain, wondering why-oh-why did Satan choose to punch me in the gut when I was sleeping.  While that day in-and-of itself would make a fine blog, relations of my bowels and the activities that I had to contend with while juggling that physical crutch are probably not the most savory for this audience.  Rather, I’ll tell a different tale, one more akin to early posts on reaching my mid-late-twenties and the troublesome nature of finding where one fits.  It’s like middle school with taxes.

So Cincinnati, on this outing, was rather unplanned.  So much so that as of a day prior to me arriving, I didn’t have a ride from the airport, a place to stay, or really any plans in the city itself.  One might ask, why spend money on a plane ticket, and my response would be a throw back to college macro-economics class - I dunno.  Still, the spirit moves us from time to time, leaving cities unseen worth seeing.  At anyrate, I landed, rented an automobile that looked as though it might have been manufactured for use in the Soviet Union should it have persisted to present day.  Never again with an “economy” rental.  And as a corollary to my leveled lack of communication with those native to the Queen City, before I had reacted the Hamilton County line, I had two places to stay for the night.

Ironically, the two groups that I divided my time with during my stay was not unlike two of the three groups with who I most closely aligned myself with during my tenure at Xavier University - the English Majors and the Volleyball Players (the third being ROTC, of course).  In those days both were the stark stereotypes of each; the English Majors’ were hippies, liberals, and living the typical starving artist lifestyle (to note: not all the people whom I lump into this group actually were English Majors; it’s just easier for me and my story at this point…) and the Volleyball players were all very tall, sexy, quasi-conservative, fun and popular party girls.  The two never really hung out together, but then again, I ran in a lot of different circles… I was a go-between between the various tribes of the university… ironic today that I still work with tribes… hmmm.

The parable starts here.  Friday night I go out with the Volleyball players to a restaurant/ micro-brewery in the center of downtown Cincinnati, Fountain Square, where we had a wonderful dinner and locally brewed beer.  Everyone is dressed well, and mind you, these ladies, while perhaps not interested in the greater plight of world politics or philosophers or even deep conversation most of the time, are still what I’ll call young-republicans.  They go to work in suits, drive company cars, own their own homes; all before they’re thirty.  In this respect, I can relate.  At the table are significant others, husbands, newborns; the take-away from this setting is there is no drama, really, to speak of.  It’s actually pretty gray.  Doctors, lawyers, and fellow-sales reps stop by the table because, why else, they were in the restaurant.  Like I said, the talk was causal; everyone spoke about or inquired of what they or others were doing, had done, planned to do, with whom, etc. 

Afterwards, we made our way up to Mount Adams, a square seated on one of the hills overlooking the skyline of the city where we then went to a moderately upscale night club, drank expensive mixed drinks, flirted shamelessly with those five and six years younger than us, and then, at around one o’clock in the morning, we responsibly made our way home, found our respective sleeping quarters, and to my surprise, the only sex that was had by these one-time party girls was between those whom were married… at least, I think they may have had sex.  The rest of us went off to sleep. 

Contrast that with my Saturday night with my other friends.  After pre-gaming with a bottle of wine, some Natty-Ice, and what was left of some Captain Morgan’s in the freezer and a half-stale half-filled 2-liter bottle of coke in the fridge, we began to piece-meal our way to Northside, the trendy, slightly-ghetto area of the city, a place that most Cincinnatians don’t even know exists.  Our bellies were full of our each individual accords; mine was digesting a chicken and velveeta cheese wrap made with ranch dressing and left-overs from the fridge as that was what was on the menu for the few of us that had decided to play Scrabble while everyone got off their various jobs that don’t always keep that routine nine-to-five.  Our destination was a place called The Gypsy Hut, a dingy dive of neo-hipsters, trendy hippies, and new new-wavers.  When I walked in I felt as though 1983 had thrown-up.  Epaulets were on all the male jackets, and many of them sported hair-cuts straight out of a Depche Mode concert.  Everyone was wearing those be-damned tight-fitting jeans that hug the leg right down to the ankle, finishing off the extremity usually with a pair of well-worn chucks.  Hunter may have said that we had found the main nerve…

There were no beautiful people here.  None.  But, in that respect, no one was concerned with themselves either.  Conversations ranged the gamut from what someone should do about a person that they may want to sleep with / fall in love with but are generally clueless from that point on to ideas on global issues, music, and arts.  If you were gallish enough to order a mixed drink, it came in plastic; only beer came in glass and even that was unceremoniously procured in a standard pint glass, often the same one that you handed empty back to across the bar.  Amid all this, I think it was close to one o’clock in the morning when I figured out that due to day-light savings, I would have an extra hour of drinking… and that over fifty-percent of the bar was gay.

Not sure how that one escaped me.  Sure, my gay-dar was going off like Syria during an Israeli air-strike, but I guess I just missed it amongst the DJ playing The Cure, Toto, and The Eurhythmics, the lesbians who wouldn’t leave the pool table, and the two gay couples whom my friends had already introduced me to that were now making out shamelessly in cold on the outdoor patio.  I guess I was just having fun.  But that stopped when I couldn’t go two steps without being hit on by a gay man.  Now, in my own defense, I’m completely secure with my sexuality, and I have nothing against the gay community.  Heck, I’ve even been to gay bars before (with girls) and had an alright time.  But this place started to get to me.  These dudes were just, well, creepy.  I’ll put it to you this way: have you ever had a girl tell you (or been a girl) that she was hit on by a guy who was just creepy and you’ve asked innocently for her to tell you why the dude was creepy and that maybe she just wasn’t giving him a chance.  Fuck that.  Some dudes are just fucking creepy. 

So after leaving the bar at what should have been three-thirty a.m. playing the role of every gay man’s fantasy in that place, I topped my evening off by being cat-called by a group of gay men from across the parking lot.  You know how guys tell girls that being cat-called is a form of flattery?  Fuck that.  I will never cat-call a female again.  Anyway, we got home.  Irresponsibly.  And there was a lot of sex between friends.

So why do I bring all this up?  Well, with the exception of the whole “gay” bit, there is a point that I will drive at.  Like I said before, I’m in my mid-late twenties, and the divide between those of us who were there when the proverbial start-gun went off is ever greatening.  Further, the distance between individuals in this rat race is growing as well.  It is interesting that many of those treading the path have flocked together into packs, like runners.  Considerably fewer who swore they would actually took the road less traveled, and more than expected simply dropped out of the running altogether.  The sad thing about being a single runner is that you don’t see anything but the countryside as you pass.  There may be someone up ahead or far behind running alone as well, but you’ll never seem them; in the here-and-now it’s just you and your momentum.

That’s kind of what those two nights left me with.  One group of friends are well on their way to becoming young successful upper-middle class females, probably setting themselves up to marry the next batch of upper-class elites.  The others are making their ways in more traditional manners.  Neither is right and neither is wrong.  We all go at our own paces; this much I know.  But I felt akin to neither, and that was disheartening.  I enjoyed the professional outing of Friday, but I felt like if on the off chance there was another mind as fervorably working at that table or night club that they were desperately hiding, hoping that no one would discover them lest they be ousted from the scene for being some sort square peg amongst the perfectly rounded.  How alone one must feel here, I thought, and perhaps that was why there was such a strong need for a mate… but I digress.

The other side was those who felt no problems expounding on things that were far-flung from the mundane and more-over unashamedly expressing themselves in both dress and actions as being such.  The reason being is obvious to me; to turn inwards and actually consider talking about oneself leaves the consideration that whatever potential may have once existed within is either gone or fleeting away.  This world too causes me distress and fear… but rather due to a lack of self rather than an abundance.  Though, I suppose, that last sentence could be said of either party.  As I said before, the two never really hung out together.