Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Slap The Dog



I took my dog to puppy class the other morning. He’s a fast learner. I didn’t get much sleep that night, I was on the internet until four in the morning chatting with some guy who said he worked on Wall Street in New York, was 33 and wanted to trade pics. Pics to those not affiliated with the cyber world are short for pictures. The reason it’s called a “pic” and not picture is because people on the Internet don’t like to spell. It’s too hard for them. It doesn’t matter if they’re educated. These people just don’t think it’s important to spell and punctuate and capitalize. They have no interest in rising to the best our complex and gorgeous language has to offer. They don’t meet language in the eye and embrace it like they would a best friend. No, in cyber world, people don’t care about the language; only care about sharing naked pictures of each other and masturbating.

B-R-B is short for “be right back”. L-O-L is short for “laugh out loud”, the more advanced sometimes prefer the acronym, R-O-F-L which stands for, “rolling on the floor laughing”. Sometimes I close my eyes and visualize the people of this great nation, on their carpets, hardwood, tile, sisal and linoleum, rolling on the floor with laughter. What a wonderful world this would be.

I have my own acronyms, like STFC, “Shut the Fuck up”. Once I told some slime bag that I had a withered arm, was 4’3” with a distended hip and lived in a mental institution. He asked me if I liked to give oral. To that I replied and this is my favorite acronym, EYM, which stands for “Eat Your Mom.”

The guy from New York sent me a naked picture of himself… I’m sorry, “pic”.

He was hung like a donkey.

I did not invite him to send me a naked picture of himself all buffed out, trimmed underarm hair, burly muscles, no fat mass and a 9 ½ penis that was only over shadowed by the size of his balls which hung like breadfruit. I told him his picture looked gay. I told him that gay men would love it. He thought I meant he was gay and took offense to my statement like the fag that he probably was.

I don’t know if this was the guy’s picture. He could have been a woman with transgender issues or prisoner in lock up somewhere, or a greasy old Haitian guy living in Detroit who has dreams of becoming something else, someone else, somewhere else, and lives it all through the miracle of the World Wide Web.

I don’t know. I don’t care. When I get home and it’s late I just want someone to talk to. I sit in my bed, tea and cigarettes next to me, hop on my laptop, and explore the infinite world of bad grammar on the Internet.

My girlfriend and I have been Internet dating. I have met many men this way. One guy was named Jihad. What Jihad failed to mention in our few phone calls prior to the date was that he was married and had a little girl. Jihad, or Holy War as I like to call him was still living in the same apartment with his Salvadorian wife who had found religion and was more turned on by Jesus then Jihad. I also discovered that Jihad’s name was really Kevin, and he changed it while investigating the Nation of Islam. There wasn’t any chemistry between Holy War, and me but he did booty call me at two in the morning the next night. I was pretty clear with him that I was not a walking vagina and would not be ingesting his Holy War sperm in any orifice. And anyway, he couldn’t spell either.

Then there was Bruce. He could spell. Bruce and I had a phone relationship for a very long time. He sounded crazy but very smart, which I like. He had the voice of a DJ and the conspiracy theories of a paranoid Libertarian. His catch phrase was, when we get together we’re going to do boy-girl stuff. I can’t wait to do some boy-girl stuff with you. You’re going to like it when I kiss you neck and we do boy-girl stuff. Bruce said he was 44. He thought the boy-girl stuff was adorable. It bugged the shit out of me. I was willing to check him out regardless. Because there is always that maybe. Maybe he’ll be a good man. Maybe the boy-girl stuff is a playful way to talk about sex and I’m being too critical.

Being single scares couples. Couples people are afraid for you and of you. They don’t understand how you can sleep nights alone. How you can bear it. They don’t understand why you like in some cockeyed way your freedom that you don’t need to be accountable to anyone. That’s the good part of being single. On the other hand, it’s hard, for me at least not to have a partner to tell my day to. It’s the part I hate the most, not having someone to tell my day to. Being coupled is a grass is greener dream. And as well as I know this is as well as I have purchased and A ticket to that dream.

I met Bruce the Internet boy girl stuff guy. He was a freak. Of course the picture he sent me of himself was 20 years younger then the balding, chapped lipped man who cooed at me over tea about doing boy girl stuff. And he wouldn’t stop talking. I didn’t know what he was saying. It was like he was speaking in Yak. No one really walked on the moon – boy girl stuff – Black Ops – boy girl stuff - QVC selling Euro Dollars – boy girl stuff – cattle mutilations – boy-girl stuff – US shadow government – boy-girl stuff. The US government infected its population with AIDS boy-girl – what the hell? Are you kidding me? Is that the world you want to live in Bruce Boy-girl-stuff? Cause I’m having none of that. And I don’t walk the Art Bell road and you wanna know something else? I don’t do boy girl stuff because I was a woman. I am a woman and I want to do man-women stuff. When I told Bruce I didn’t think we had enough in common to hang out he said, but you like me, don’t you? Such a funny and frail question I thought. I was a stranger. What did it matter if I liked him? But it mattered to him. So I said yes. I said yes because he needed to hear yes and I knew it. I understood it, even if it was as delusional as wearing a wedding gown to a soccer match in Argentina.

Why was I meeting these Holy War, Boy-Girl stuff men on the internet? What was wrong with me? Did I do it because they couldn’t see me right away? Because I wouldn’t be judged for my size right away? Is my size an issue for them or for me? I hated how I looked. I hated my war with food and my body and that I binged and my body grew and shrunk and grew again. I hated that I didn’t look like Jennifer Anniston or have her hair. Or have the ability and patience to blow dry my own. I’d rather be constipated for a month than blow out my own hair. Once a really long time ago my friend Julie asked me why I walked around like I was apologizing for myself. I wasn’t like Julie who walked into a room with her beauty strong as a tsunami. I am a big girl. You can’t win when you are a big girl in this city unless you take the city out of the equation and believe you are lovable. Big isn’t lovable. Big is unacceptable. Or so I thought.

I took my dog walking one night. Across the street was this hip-hipster guy with two huge Alsatians. I stopped and stared at their beauty. I was jealous of the dogs. What had I come to? My dog, a Shepard lab mix named Harper had no interest in the super cute guy and his gorgeous dogs. Harper just wanted to smell the grass. Harper just wanted to feel the world around him, happily. Completely content. I balked at this show of unconditional love for himself and his world. And suddenly the cute guy with the beanie and the van duke and the gorgeous dogs looked tawdry to me. Like the dogs were his worth, his diamonds, and in their reflection he sparkled. Harper just sparkled. He likes the dog he is. I had an epiphany then. Harper loved me because I loved him. He loved the grass because it was grass. And he was happy being a mixed breed. I’ve read books, I’ve been in group therapy, regular therapy, ad naseum, but never have I seen so clearly what it is like to just be. Not care about the Jennifer Anniston dogs across the street. Just be.

Something in me opened. Shifted. I am good and sexy and viable. At least my dog thinks so.

I met someone not too long after that. He can’t spell but that’s okay because he’s from another country. I met someone who looks me in the eyes, is proud of me, patient, thinks my butt is sexy and calls me a tiger. He is someone I can tell my day to.

And I feel different. I get afraid that he will go away. But he stays. He is the gentle in the night. He is my internet substitution of all the pics, lols, rolfl’s and brbs. I changed. I let him in. I let a fine man in. The Internet chapter is closed. And when I walk my dog, I thank him. He is who he is and does not reach for chaos to make him feel calm. I’m a slow learner.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

When you're right, you're right. I had the same thing happened to me.

Joy Nash said...

you are wonderful

Joy Nash said...

you are wonderful

Shawn Christy said...

Joy -

I more than appreciate it. So much.

Shawn

Anonymous said...

really touching story, i can relate in some ways

Shawn Christy said...

Thanks Anonymous -

When we all have some of the same experiences, it makes things seem so much more human.

Shawn

C'est Moi said...

Beautiful essay! :)

Shawn Christy said...

I like the French person!

Shawn