Crush

Around 1980 I was a wild party girl punker just living a wild and reckless life while keeping it together enough to stay in college. I dumped my high school boyfriend as soon as we got settled into the dorms and knew I wanted to be wild and free. And I wanted them all...some were one year boyfriends, most were flings with passion, some one-nighters, but I was so in love with my dream to moving to NYC upon graduation that that was the north star that steered me...that and my new affectionate relationship with my long lost father (who lived in NYC). But one night, Greg, the sweet guy I had dumped freshman year took me on a scooter to a party near downtown. Greg was big enough to still be my friend though I had hurt him badly, and we are still friends today. So I remember being drunk from being out at Raul's and Greg wanted to go to this party and it didn't sound cool to me but I went anyway and it felt too ritzy and buttoned up for me. I was used to skinheads and drunks in a dusty old wooden floored house with no furniture (we didn't sleep in those days) and a keg in the middle of the living room. I have snapshots of horrific things going on in these rooms sometimes - just real low brow for an uptight suburban girl like me (who liquor transformed into I'll do anything sort of girl). I remember an old mansion, dimly lit rooms, and then sitting down and seeing some lines being chopped on a plate. Yea, my kind of party. The person doing the chopping had very thick blond hair and even thicker coke bottle glasses. We partied, talked a little bit, and something happened to me: I become obsessed with him. I still have the diaries I wrote about him. I talked to everyone I knew to see if they knew him. I had someone bring me a giant San Antonio phone book so I could look him up. He has a common name so there were several M.S. to choose from. But somehow I found out the right one and sent him a dozen roses around Christmas time. Where I got the money for that I do not know. I didn't hear from him. Then one day a few months later I ran into him in a line at a bank. It was awkward and I felt strange, and we made a date - I'd probably had several boy toys by then but the hook was back in...M was here and was going to come pick me up for  a date. I was so terrified as I waited for him. I wouldn't drink because I was too nervous and when he knocked on the door and sat down on my couch he slapped his hand on my knee in an affectionate way and I about jumped of the couch. I was so nervous...I only got this way around guys I was obsessed with: mute, frozen, not knowing how to act. Completely the opposite of how I acted any other time I was around I guy I was hooking up with. We went someone on a date and he was driving terribly...it seemed like something was wrong with him and he said he was his glasses, but I finally figured out he was messed up! And it didn't seem like just alcohol he was on. So we had out date, he stayed over, I don't remember much else but he started hanging out with us in our punk rock squad of really rotten acting characters. We did some shitty things, stole stuff, threw molotov cocktails (I don't remember where) and just general trashing of people's apts. and yards. We were just into using the one car between us all a late nite weapon. I wasn't crushing on M anymore and was probably hooked up wth someone else but he liked the drugs so hung out with us but was older than us. My best friend always messed with my boyfriends so she knotted his shoelaces together when he was nodding out one night and when stood up they all got a big laugh out of it. No one from our group was spared practical jokes. Almost 30 years later I ran into M outside a SXSW film premier. I was in line and saw him and thought who...is...that...guy...and looked down at his badge and it was him and it all came rushing back. We caught up and he took me around on his Harley to shows and we ended up having a sweet sweet beautiful romantic hookup for a few months before I went back to the Ice. Yeah...some connections never die...

...and only come around a handful of times (or less) in a lifetime. So here I am pretty much single for a decade, with a few bits and bobs of dating thrown in, a month or two hangout with a guy here and there but basically BUPKUS for the 4 years I've been back in Austin. I actually had more of a dating life on hillbilly mountain in Oregon that I have here in this town where I know so many people...mostly old fucks. So I started working with someone and it happened again...the work ended and I went though withdrawal and was fine and now work started up and he's back. All I know is that I am thrilled to know that this giddy, sweet, über romantic and squishy side of me can still be awakened. I never meet a guy that I really like. And I met one that I really really like. But I can't have him, and that may make it even more interesting for me psychologically...but damn I want him.