Consolation Prize

Somewhere between the retching and the biting cold my innate instinct for shelter is still intact. I am out in the suburbs of Chicago, out in some little street where I know is a warm couch waiting for me nearby, but this horrid red bile keeps spewing from my mouth, a mixture of smoked ribs and vodka tonic, both of which will be quite distasteful to my palette for the next few weeks.

And only upon waking will it dawn on me what has transgressed in the previous nights blunder, with a mixture of both shame and reverie. Sometimes I think I might just be a tad to old for all this mess, but that's rather debatable. Dreams and realities have become so intermingled that it has been a little difficult to find out exactly where this little transition will take me, often referred to as the quarter-life crisis.

During recent talks with my parents, they have started to give me flack about my seemingly interminable single status. I can understand my mother's probable desire for some nice, fat grandkids that she can coo over. I really doubt that that would really be the solution to any of my problems.

I don't want a consolation prize life. I want it all. But that's only the ego talking. Not all people were meant to do anything outside of the herd. I don't know how willing I am to accept that just quite yet.

New Job

I started my first actual coaching job today, meaning that the kids jumped into the pool and got their swim on. It was a peculiar feeling, having control, the kids asking how many laps when I said we're doing sprints. When I asked if they needed a break, they shook their heads panting and eyed the far length of the pull poised for more. One kid told me he needed to sit out after he puked in the toilet while another shook my hand after practice and told me that he couldn't take the training and left the team. I was only doing what I had been taught myself, but it was odd to watch these kids work, trying to do the best that they could.

It was fun, a lot more fun than I've had in any job that I could remember, besides the first few months of being a maintenance guy for a country club back in Davis. I would rather be outside, than stuck in a cubicle any day. To get to the coaching gig, I had get certified and tested for a bunch of shit, but at least I'll know what to do in case I ever see a fat dude choking in a restaurant.

They told me that they went for a perfect losing season last year and hated their last coach so I really don't have anywhere to go but up unless I really fuck things up. It's hard trying to be the responsible adult who is to model behavior for teenagers. I know the job isn't all just about winning, but goddamn if it wouldn't be nice to have a few W's on the board. I asked the athletic director if it would be possible to have Saturday practices and he snickered and told me that even mandated Friday practices are lacking in participation. We'll really have to see how that works out.

I suppose as long as I'm still enjoying everything, things will be okay.

I talked to a high school friend today who was in the area and we got onto the topic of careers. He's going to med school soon and told me of the rigors of the next decade of his life. It was said with a touch of melancholy as we recounted friends who were doing well now, but in the end it was agreed that chasing after the dream was very much more worth it. There's only a few times in life you can play the "what if" game until finally realizing that you've never even taken a chance in your life.

My friend came up for the weekend. Nothing really planned, but since summer school has ended I really haven't been doing much work besides illustrations in prep for an upcoming show in september so it was a good respite. It was one of those weekends where events and faces are blurred, an endless stream of drinking and dining out with old acquaintances and new friends, clubs, bars, restaurants, parks, and lazy days on the couch. The weather was perfect and it was a good time for the most part. We talked about our lives since we had last seen each other, our new goals, girls we've hooked up with or are seeing, planned extravagant trips to places we had never been, talked about old conquests and I suppose that's how you know that you are still good friends because things don't really change despite lack of communications through periods of life.

He is the only friend I have left that still keeps in contact with my college girlfriend. He went to go visit her before he came up to see me and like every time we see each other, he'll update me on her life despite them being unwarranted. When he pulled up I was sitting outside with Emma, having a cigarette and on the phone with my new boss for a job i'm starting in the fall. He parks and steps out all smiles. I get off the phone and we hug. He then gives me the finger. 

"That's from Terri" he says with a grin.

"She's a thoughtful girl" I reply.

We had gotten dogs while we were dating and split custody, I got Emma.

"I told her that Emma was better behaved than her dog. She said that she doesn't believe and that it was probably because you beat your dog."

Spite isn't exactly the right word, but it is the first word that comes to mind.

"She said that there was no way that Emma was better than Toby because she was an awful dog when you guys picked her up from the pound."

I didn't really know what to say so I didn't say anything. He then goes on to tell me how she's about to have her second kid and that she's just bought a house with her husband. I don't tell him that I really could've done without all the information. I dunno, what was I suppose to say? I don't know how quite I feel about it, but I am definitely glad that I don't have two kids and a mortgage. It would not bode well with my current lifestyle, but who the hell really knows about these things.

Commitment scares the hell out of me, but I'm sure that will change someday. I just hate to imagine waking up married to someone when i'm 35 and realizing that maybe that I will never be happy again.

I have a few art shows coming up. I've been cutting down on my participation to art shows lately because of a self-regarded period of sucking with the larger scale pieces.

Current Devil's Hair Salon 3386 18th St SF

8/31 Dermafilia 3382 18th street sf http://www.dermafiliasf.com/events.html

9/9 Languages of Anxiety 446 Valencia street sf 

9/20 El Pancho Villa 598 Valencia St SF

10/20 El Cafe Tazo 3087 16th St SF

November The Artist Exchange 3169 16th St

I've been doing a lot of smaller illustrations and paintings. I probably won't be going big with the pieces for a little while, at least til october or november I imagine. All the shows are in the Mission District of San Francisco. Go check it out, get excited, buy some shit, say hello.

On a bright note, I will be the new head coach for boys varsity water polo at my old high school and am planning a trip out to thailand, vietnam, (cambodia?) and taiwan during the winter. Change could not come any sooner.

She was wearing her boys shorts and one of my older skate shirts, no bra.  She sat on the bed painting her nails and the scent of the nitrocellulose was whirled around the room by spinning of the overhead fan. We had sublet a room in Davis for the summer in a quaint little neighborhood in the south side of town. The heat was overbearing for most of the day and we would sit in our room content with each other's company while the day drifted by. 

I was writing a paper for Shakespeare's middle works and she was just sitting on the bed with a bunch of textbooks strewn about, painting her nails. it was the first time I had ever lived with a girl and we shared everything in that little room. She caught me staring at her and grew self-conscious. 

"Don't look at me, I can't concentrate while you stare at me while I do this" she said with a smile.

"I can't help it, I think you're beautiful."

She blushed and didn't answer, but continued painting. The fan whirling. The heat settling outside. The computer humming as I watched her in silent observation. She was meticulous about the task, her fingers deft in their movements, dip, stroke, stroke, dip, even and smooth. Her hair was tied in a loose ponytail and I can still see it clear today, her form bathed in the soft afternoon glow.

It wasn't all good times, there were the fights and arguments, but it still makes me smile when I think about that afternoon and subsequent moments during that summer. Watching movies late into the night, lazy weekends with breakfast in bed, the smell of her hair on the pillow, truly learning to know and love someone.

Like many other boys, my first natural reaction after a breakup was to go on a tear. I hooked up with a bunch of girls, cast aside any emotional development, and tried to forget everything by drowning out the pain. And besides being able to high five all the homies after every notch in the belt, a long stretch of my life was absolutely meaningless. I was too childish to live anyway else.

And sometimes I just wish that this all had never happened, but these feelings always subside.

And I continue to watch her sitting on the bed. These are the things I miss most after all this time. Sometimes beautiful things get broken, but I suppose that it isn't any reason to forget that they ever happened.