I remember that one time,

you cried in my arms. It was amazing, to hold you, so much more dear to me than I'd ever intended you to become, and to listen to you cry. You were always so strong, so ready for anything; your sobs rocked us both while I inhaled and kissed your hair. How did I deserve an experience so beautiful? Wherever I go, I have seen enough love to last me. I'm still hungry for more; no longer do I feel a pressing need, but a very patient desire. I'm am content to wait.

Enigmatic -- (Her post followed by E-Mails)

The Craigslist post:

I have been ready for you long enough. I'm waiting.

Come, come, come to me.

I will pull the blankets over your shoulders at night, wrap you in my arms, and see no one but you in all my dreams. I will listen to your pain and allow you to know mine.

I just want to feel that strength: the strength of a man standing behind me and beside me in all that I do, by every breathe I take, for the rest of my life. Where are you then? Follow me, stop me, make me see you, correct my mistakes. Hold me. Trap me. Don't let me run when I try to hide. Find me. Love me.

There I am....these eyes wait....I wait.

I'm not in London. I am either nowhere near you or right beside you. I wish I knew which honey, wish I knew where to look.

================================================================


And the ensuing:

And I will send this in spite of the doubt that persists, the bewildered hollow left by giving so much of myself, to the world or to another, and watching it wash away, neglected, rather than be cradled and cherished as I expected. I will write, even though I "should know better," that nothing lasting should come from it, because I am adamantly, steadfastly, unwaveringly hopeful. I refuse to be disheartened by the seemingly insurmountable, these illusions of obstacles - I have a boundless desire and all of time to find you again, and I will find you over and over again when we part. I have the rest of this life to gain your company; I intend to enjoy it once I have it, and to seek it while I don't. The demands of "life" fail to distract me from that which is drawing my heart - you, my balance, inevitable and ultimately necessary, worthiness transcending that of everything else. I will find you; I must; and my life after that point will be filled with the inverse of what came before.

I mean all that I wrote above, but I've just slipped back into the mental garb (armored as it is) of the more practical side of me; I expect that, for the rest of my response, I will be less bare.

I assume that every other person feels the same draw, the same need for a specific counterpart, and I refuse to pass a verdict based solely on that similarity. However this message strikes you, though, you seem to me the sort that I would enjoy speaking with. Even if intoxication contributed to the evolution of your post. Especially if it did not.

That picture sequence was intriguing; I saw you, life, the vortex life becomes, and its effect on your perception and the way you are perceived.


Much of what you said applies well enough to me:
"I have been ready for you long enough. I'm waiting."
I know that I have spent more time than this particular life has encompassed seeking her; nothing else explains the magnitude of what I feel.


and, if ye be she:
"I will pull the blankets over your shoulders at night, wrap you in my arms, and see no one but you in all my dreams. I will listen to your pain and allow you to know mine.
I just want to feel that strength: the strength of [my love] standing behind me and beside me in all that I do, by every breathe I take, for the rest of my life. Where are you then? Follow me, stop me, make me see you, correct my mistakes. Hold me. Trap me. Don't let me run when I try to hide. Find me. Love me."

It's true:
"I'm not in London. I am either nowhere near you or right beside you. I wish I knew which honey, wish I knew where to look."


I find that, recently, it has required more effort to sustain a specific hope. I've grown weary. I feel, though, that I am gathering myself up again, and for what feels like, this time, it will be lasting.

I feel equally compelled to say to her "Save me!" and "I am here with you; you are saved."

Maybe I don't know anything at all, but I choose to believe that I do. Maybe I'll never find you, but I will always know that I will.


================================================================

Hi Edward.

I don't expect to find him through a post. I was kinda talking to the universe, if you know what I mean.

Thanks for your beautiful email.

I am actually ignoring almost everything that comes in. I really don't think luck is going to send him over the moment I enlist CL to help.

I hope you are having a great week over there.

I'm incredibly guarded. I have to be honest, I'm almost certain I won't fall for someone over the internet, so please don't get your hopes up with me. I'm liable to be one big disappointment.

================================================================

I don't usually reply to e-mails in a line-by-line answer format. I also don't think I've ever communicated with strangers over the internet outside of a commercial or gaming interest. But I feel like doing it this way, so I'll just continue on until I see fit to change or quit (your disinterest or objection being ample reason for me to see it that way; I'm not the belligerent sort).

I sure hope not to fall for anyone through a situation as mundane as internet browsing; not that it'd bother me once I had her. I'd hope my first encounter with her is either entirely forgotten, or worthy of being filed under the "how we met" title. I don't mind grabbing at the straws that seem to indicate interesting people, though, and hoping to find one. I DO enjoy speaking to the universe. I've heard it speak back through other people a few times.

I'm glad the e-mail was appreciated. I'll eventually address this persistent desire of mine to produce something beautiful; I can't imagine a better occupation than manufacturing beauty.

I'm having a pretty bland week within a profound period in my life.

I'm honest, I'll stay that way, and I'm glad that you're guarded. If you weren't, I figure that you would be either too naive, or too advanced in realizing yourself for me to appreciate right away. I know I'm safe enough in my armor/fortress/interpretation/

perspective/whateveritis. I'm not looking to sell myself, and I've no expectations - either of a response to my e-mails, that the response I might get will be something that I want or enjoy, or that I'll even continue thinking that it was a good idea to browse the personals in the first place. Your original post and the response have already made this a positive experience for me..

I'm still silly enough to believe that it might, in the sappy-teen-movie style, be a better world if I expressed to you my doubt that you could be a disappointment. In the midst of that statement, like my hope in the midst of my chiding myself for having it, is what I meant to say. I've enjoyed it thus far, so you will never be a complete disappointment.



...hours later, after performing a service call that I didn't know I would have until early this afternoon - a job I was contacted for thanks to my Craigslist>Services>Computers post. Nice...

I always liked the sorts of conversations during which the use of the following statement was not obtuse, and I shall make use of it despite the fact that its inclusion in this simple context is somewhat obtuse, but significantly less obtuse, I daresay, than the statement for which it serves as the caboose, "I digress."

Anyway, my intended point was that it's been a while since I wrote all of the stuff preceding the preceding paragraph.

I find that I live, naturally, as Mr. Rik claimed to, with "high hopes and low expectations." I think it was a Colin Hay song, or maybe Ben Harper (notice that casual inclusion of the sort of music that I'm currently listening to... smooth, Ed, smooth) that I was listening to today, a song I enjoy greatly, and noticed a lyric, or maybe the refrain, where he sings "live without expectation, and without regret." No!.. it was the Heartless Bastards, "Came a Long Way."

I'm unusually playful right now.

So I'll do the smart thing, rather than continue rambling.

================================================================

I'm an obtuse caboose on the lose, too. In fact, my guarded nature is a whateveritis, and, I daresay, a digression of expression through which the experiences preceding the preceding experience were rambles as well.

:P

I fell in love with someone over the internet two years ago, and we still haven't managed to tear ourselves from one another.

We met. We fell harder. We ran like hell.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm My instincts are hasta la vista. He just came waltzing back in again. I think I should cut this short and bid you farewell. I don't respond to other responses, so here is my goodbye kiss, one for each cheek. And now, I awkwardly stumble ape-like in ballet shoes back to the creature that churns my butter like a honey bee makes sweetness from beauty.

Thanks for the lovely word acrobatics. You're mind does intriquing sommersaults to the benefit of mankind!

Take care,

[Her melodic name here]

================================================================

Any my deep nod of farewell - not a bow, for my knees are too weak to bear it. It had been so long since I sensed so pristine the bitter and the sweet where they meet, at the frontier between the two warring halves of me.

Thank you. Thank you.

You, milady, outdid what I expect myself capable of exceeding. I bow, I bow. I am humbled and enticed, and just as glad to bid you farewell. It never shall be a bitter thing to recall, this shining blister of too much of life in such a small space Let this be, and...

There. Something else that is beautiful.

Courting/Terrorizing Craigslist Personals Posters

not catty,
Your honesty is certainly the most appealing aspect of your post; it affects everything, rendering it so mischievously attractive. I'll borrow some words and describe myself, "I'd never cheat, I'm just... a little stubborn... I'm extremely independant and needy all at the same time... I'm a lot of fun and can be taken almost anywhere... I love a good whiskey." I am a recovering sarcastic son of a bitch; I've convinced myself that I am "past all of that" and am seeking some other habit to pick up to enrich my life and rid me of this dullness that's been here since. I'm seeking a more zen-oriented lifestyle; I'm not sure exactly what "Zen" means, but I think it means a balanced awareness of existence and purpose, and a constant awareness of a well of peace within the moment that we exist within. You'd be just the one to sabotage those efforts. I won't go on, other than to add why it is that I'm not going on - a couple of major potential-reducing (I think they call them "deal-breakers," though I would prefer that verb be replaced with "postponers" or "alterers") facts amongst the following:

I'm twenty-six years old (or will be as of the 28th of this month).
I am a divorced* father of two girls, ages two point five and four point five. <--(that's some of my sarcastic humor bleeding over there [the numbers, not the asterisk]) I am always, always honest. I would rather be injured than lied to. I'm a dreamer, and am just recently (maybe) becoming an achiever - not that I've been a loaf; I've just not accomplished anything near that something I know myself to be capable of. My thoughts frequently turn towards the "philosophical" and "deep." I will not be back in the Tacoma area until later this year, if at all. I am back in the city that I call home, #########, Louisiana, with my two daughters. My mind never stops running. I tend to overwhelm people upon meeting them. I see, very frequently (though I've only been looking at them for the last three days) in W4M Craigslist ads, the poster claiming that she is "very shy at first," then warms up later. I'm the opposite; people know who I am within five minutes of meeting me. Not that I'm not dynamic... I never stop changing, as far as I can tell, but the core of me remains the same. Psychedelic onion has a nice ring to it. Haha... I didn't intend that pun. Not often I have myself laughing out loud at something that I say (or anything at all), but that sort of humor is just my type; I'm a corny s.o.b. Yes, I have re-read what I've typed, and I've decided to leave it. Sure, I scared off the one responder to my first and only Craigslist M4W (I call these ads by a name that I didn't even know the meaning of last week) by hurling such a lengthy and me-like response at her... I'm overwhelmingly forthcoming. I'm quite verbose. Though this spills over to my conversational habits as well, I am aware of it and do my best to share, and to be a bearable windbag. Love is the greatest thing ever; I think everything is made from it - but it'd take a long time to explain the physics of it. Being aware of the existence of happiness is all that I need to feel happiness. I'm probably bi-polar, and have many traits attributed to a schizophrenic personality type. There. That's about the worst I can do. In the eighth grade or so, I discovered "Be" to be the shortest sentence, sharing the title with "Go," or any other two letter verb - the subject would be implied; "you," that rascal. I can't believe I'm not going to delete any of this crap. It's the only way to go. Leaping. Not looking. Every Wednesday night is two dollar Crown night at the ##### ####### here in #########. I spent my Wednesday nights there until I re-obtained my daughters during Christmas time. I'm sorry for this if you take it some way other than how I wrote it, just sincere and bare. I hope you get it, and me (a little). I'm not procrastinating, just entertaining doubts that I know I'll act in spite of, anyway. Oops. They're gaining, so I'm just going to send it, now. Whatever-the-Hell-I-Should-Put-Here,

Edward

p.s. I just began re-reading this, as I think I always do before sending any typed message, and the beginning was so cool that I decided to send it without fully re-reading it. It's awesome on its own, regardless of the result. I think it's awesome because there was no pretense there; I wasn't going for anything but me, and it wound up being something that I like. So, thank you.

p.p.s. Sometimes, I get very high on life; I mean it.

p.p.p.s. It's in the action, not result.

I'm an idiot.

there is no you

and my dying moment
lasts forever as well

it is my heaven
it is my hell


in realizing my-self
i came to know

that there was no more

for me to know

Waypoint

Roaming outdoors in the nude is an experience I'd suggest to everyone capable. Just existing, bare, in the midst of all of that space and my quiet neighbors and those beasts busy calling out to their kind, and some greater presence (the nature of which I cannot yet fathom, one that I believe is ever-present though, outside of exceptional experiences, rarely sensed) - just being there allowed me to experience time at a whole new pace, either identical to or, at least, less far removed from that which is natural, relaxing, reassuring.

Note to self: Don't neglect to drop a fantastic post about Mike (directly following the puppy and proposition post).

A Puppy and a Proposition.

Today, I was driving along highway 62N in Texas, and I saw a lady walking along it. I assumed she was a hitchhiker, as she was walking a major highway in between no apparent civilization. She introduced herself as Kay, and rode in silence for less than a minute and asked, "do you date?"

...Time passes. Things happen. Maybe I'll fill in this blank...

I held Kay's Boxer puppy - or her limp, expired shell - in my arms, feeling more than tasting the saliva between my lips, fluid which transferred there from her dead muzzle as I tried to breathe and massage life into her still-warm body (was it warmth of sunlight, or of her now-ebbed life?). I paused a second to wonder whether I'd think I was a bastard if I'd noticed myself caring rather than not about the soiling of my pleated trousers onto which feces had transferred from her now-non-governed bowels.

All of the preceding took place after having a great conversation with some guy whose office I stopped in to in order to update his virus definitions. I searched a bit for my purpose in this complex organism (yes, "organism") that we call "life."

I returned to my hotel directly after leaving the tragic scene of the dead puppy and her owner mourning her in the cluttered yard of her pitiful trailer. As I left my rental car and approached the building, I noticed a man hurriedly snuff his cigarette in order to match my arrival at the entrance. Upon arriving at the door after his brisk walk over, he feigned ignorance that it was unlocked, asking "Oh, is it open?" He followed me to the elevator and briefly affirmed that the third floor, the one I'd selected before his fully boarding the elevator, was his. He hesitated to exit the elevator, which I allowed him to do due to my suspicion of him, which was all thanks to my prior observations; he then faltered in the hallway, picked to go right rather than left, and paused to look back at me twice - the second time, he saw me as I entered my room, and his stride gained confidence. He cast no further glances back towards me. I received a call a few seconds later on my room phone; it all wound up with me being propositioned and questioned at length (and volunteering more information than I was asked for) about my sexuality, openness to a sexual encounter with the caller and her boyfriend (which I in no way accepted or lead the forward caller to believe I was interested in), having her deny that the man I'd observed was involved with the call at all (despite my accurate description of him), and hung up on me as I stated that I was open to having some coffee or a lunch somewhere, as I was free the next hour or so.

In both situations, I felt little more than amusement, but I continue to harbor hopes that something meaningful will, eventually, hit home.

And all of that occurred prior to a wonderful bonfire, smoke, and lounge out upon the roof of some pretty cool folks who I've only spent time with twice. The fire took place immediately after accompanying them to their orientation/introduction course to a major financial institution's "financial education" business - selling financial confidence like Kirby vacuums; sure, they're great vacuums, but some one's still got to sell them.

Introspectively-wrought revelations abounded.

Chose escape. Why?

The reason that I am so prone to 'zone' is this: as a child, I made a choice based on what I had come to know of the world, that nearly all of the positive experiences that moved me most, the meaningful and beautiful relationships and adventures - each of them took place in a book I was reading. I had a yearling, and a faithful dog, and black stallion; I lived on the ranch, or in the castle, and I was able to do right, and to have the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of my righteous labors.

In that common reality, though, I knew only loss. Everyone and everything in my life seemed to be a disappointment or, if anything else, a higher perch from which to fall from at the next one.
Which existence was I likely to choose as a child?

Well, I chose it, and I'm left as an adult to traverse the wilderness between this wonderful, carefree world which I made my home, and that one. I must resist the draw, the fear of leaving this safe place, only to climb towards a more painful existence - one that, when I am trapped within it, transforms me into a son, a brother, a cuckolded husband, a father, and a friend whom others rely on. I don't feel ready to be any of those things.