2002-08-20 : The One That Got AWAY!
Ok..this is the one that got away (which I didn't realize..that he was "the one" until this year for some reason, though maybe I've had slight glimpses of this Truth over the years). He was my first long-term relationship. He was the one I lost my virginity to. I was 19 and he was 26. I remember the night I met him. I had "dressed to kill" that night as some of my friends put it. I wasn't trying to attract anyone, though. I went to a party at the Lost Cross House (all the punk rock houses in Carbondale in the late 80's had names: House of Voodoo, Lost Cross House, Club Romex)...I remember sitting on the floor, alone, whilst my friends were probably off getting drunk and flirting with boys and acting psycho (one friend always did that at every party...that is a whole 'nother story in itself)..I remember what I was wearing..a black sweater, black shirt, a royal blue tight skirt, black tights, black boots, and black hair, of course. I swear..what happened next seemed like magic. One minute I turn to my left to look at something/someone and the next minute I turn to the right and HE is sitting there, looking out of place. Like Clark Kent...glasses, jeans, running shoes and an old letterman's jacket. I thought "what is such a conservative guy doing at this shitty house, with these drunk, shitty, antisocial misfit people?" I also noted he was very traditionally handsome (ala: Clark Kent)...we started talking..I can't remember the conversation. I remember at one point I started to get freaked out in there because it was really crowded (I'd been kinda going through a mini drug psychosis since I'd just taken LSD about a month earlier and was still having these weird paranoid side-effects from that) so I explained this all to him and we went and sat on some grass across the street, watching the party shenanigans. He talked about travelling in Europe and he told me the secret to ward off the evil eye and to keep myself calm..I was like "Who the hell IS this freaky guy?" He told me to tuck my index finger under my thumb and then make it all into a fist..so we went back into the party and I kept my hand like that and WOW! I felt less paranoid. He also imitated some gypsy guy he had met and he told me this story that this gypsy had told him, which made no sense and I SWEAR TO GOD, suddenly it sounded like HE was talking in some made up foreign language, almost like speaking in tongues..but it wasn't cheesy or put on..it was like he was going into a trance..I was blown away..I said "Whoa..I couldn't understand you and that made me feel really strange..really really strange." and he told me that he had the same exact reaction when this gypsy told HIM the story. Anyways..I was hooked. I thought he was really strange..He gave me a tape and that was my first introduction to the band WIRE (It was "Chairs Missing")...then he took off on his bike. I didn't see him again for weeks but suddenly one day I am walking on campus and he appears I SWEAR outta thin air. I didn't see him ANYWHERE and then he is walking next to me. I was thinking "how does he do that?" I was convinced he was some kind of shapeshifter or "warlock" or something (my friends and I were far into this wiccan thing at this point and I was still having residual weirdness from LSD so I believed just about AnYTHING anyone told me back in those days!) THey said "He isn't mortal. He wants you to have a child with him, which will be half mortal and half inhuman"...I almost started to believe that. When I told him later, he laughed his ass off (though I think he's always preferred that people misunderstand him and think him eccentric)...one night I saw him at a party. It was Sept. 2nd, my birthday. I was 18. He was 26. He took me home and wouldn't kiss me or anything..he and I laid in his bed and I tryed to kiss him but he said "No, if you want to seduce me you'll have to do better than that." I being a virgin and very inexperienced was really flustered and I was even starting to feel rejected. Then he told me I would have to suck his toes, which I did. We ended up having a 2year relationship. It mostly consisted of painful sex (for me) I lost it in my dormroom...I bled all over lime green sheets and I still wasn't sure if I was fully a non-virgin or only halfway cuz I felt like my hymen hadn't been completely broken (graphic..sorry!)...Anyways...he played sitar, he taped me Beatles' bootlegs (that I got sick of hearing..who needs 8 versions of Strawbeery Fields Forever?) We ate pizza at Paggliai's (sp?) He made curry (which was really bad, now that I have had REAL indian food)..he turned me onto The Stranglers and Wire and Mission of Burma and he liked to smoke pot and drink a bottle of Tussin Dm (which I always refused to do) and I went to my first and last rainbow gathering with him (what a pathetic bunch of people those were..they were the rainbow gathering "rejects" I think..man named porkchop with some weird twisted, wasting away leg muscles..people doing crystal meth around a fire (How "natural" is that?) We slept on the ground under an awning..pooring rain. The big blue 64 Chrysler that he (R. S.) drove got stuck in the mud...he ws so pissed!! We ate at godfathers pizza..watched some black-n-white Mod british mid 60's movie where everynone has a Liverpuddlian accent and all girls are called "Luv"...and in the black-n-white static of the TV after the movie, he made the most gentle love to me..on the floor, looking into my eyes. No pain..just Perfection. I started developing a sex phobia shortly after that..god knows why..but probably cuz he never attempmted to get me off..didn't seem to know where my clit was (he probably did but didn't care)..it was all about his pleasure...plus he was large and it just didn't fit right with me...he never even wanted to kiss...we acted like we were just friends in public..never held hands or kissed (unless he was really fucked up on booze or drugs)...hence, to this day I can't stand public displays of affection and I won't do more than hold hands or a peck ont he mouth...He gave me Hermann Hesse to read and Ram Dass and I learned my love of traditional tabla and sitar music from him and he gave me incense from India and he went to a conference in S. Carolina and brought me back a wax candy bat with juice on the inside and a old, palm size softbound copy of "The Tempest"..I loved these things...I still have th book..the bat broke. My friends hated him...people at parties misunderstood him cuz he just made such weird, obscure references in normal conversations. He was too smart for his own good..it made him socially retarded..he thought we were soul mates (maybe we were..who knows..I thought so at the time)...he asked me to marry him when I was 20 and I accepted and was engaged for like 2 days until he seriously started asking what kind of ring I'd like and then I freaked. I was too young to be getting married. He moved to Southern Indiana to be a journalist for the Evansville Courier. I stayed behind and finished school..we saw each other less and less frequently. I broke up with him like 4 times to go out with 4 different guys (each of those flings lasted 2 weeks or less)...stupid! I was with R. S. for 2 years. He always took me back. I gave him nice Valentines day presents and the next day ove the phone I broke up with him again. He threw the heart-shaped wrought iron candlestick I had given him into the lake outside his apartment..cursing me and all women, I'm sure. THen we broke up for good and I have dreams about him still and he moved to Bulgaria to teach English in 1991 and I saw him in 1991 and haven't seen him since. We still correspond..I wish he still knew me the way he did..I bet we have both changed alot, though!! He is married to a beautiful French wife, livesin Prague, has a little son named Roman, writes for Radio Free Europe and was probably the one and only true love of my life...

I love Jay though and I will make it work out. Nostaliga is a waste of time..but I sure do love thinking back to those times!!