unfinished biz

The political posts never get ANY comments.

And I've just read online that more Americans know The Simpsons and American Idol than they do the Bill of Rights and the Five Freedoms.

There's nothing wrong with knowing TV trivia-- hell, I don't even WATCH American Idol and I know who the fucking judges are... and of course, I know more about The Simpsons than I should.

But I also know the Bill of Rights and the Five Freedoms, as well as tons of other seemingly useless bits of information. I must confess, though, that I don't know the ENTIRE Constitution... just the parts that protect me as an individual.

Oh well... I guess I'll just start blogging about my lovelife again. That always gets comments and reactions.


*/*


Earlier this month, I went in to my insurance agent to pay my monthly balance. Alec, the son of the man who started this particular agency, greeted me with a smile.

"Hey, man. I heard from Monique."

"You did? How is she?"

"She's doing good. She's seeing some guy, working at the perfume place still."

"Oh, well... that's good." Alec and I had both thought she was doing badly, which we used to explain why she hadn't called or written either of us in months.

Alec was hoping she'd be back in Los Angeles to resume her duties with the insurance company. Alec's dad taught Monique everything she knew about insurance. I was hoping she'd come back in October of last year so that we could resume what we had started way back in May.

Along the way, a bunch of things happened: Eve and I started seeing each other again as more than friends, I broke off relations with some of my summer flings, others became platonic friends... and Monique stopped communicating to me from 3,000 miles away. The last I'd heard from her was on her birthday in September. I wrote her an e-mail telling her that she should not come back out here unless she was 100% sure of it.

I never knew until talking to Alec if she'd been dating, but just because she has a dude right now doesn't mean that she was seeing people the whole time she was back home. I'd talked to her on the phone in August, and she said that her younger brother (WAY younger-- he's barely five) was becoming attached to her. When she had come out to visit in May, he was terribly depressed, and it didn't stop until she returned.

Also, she expressed her disdain for Alec, who inherited the business from his father after the old man passed away. Monique loved working for his father but can barely tolerate Alec. Unless she could find a better-paying insurance gig out here, it wasn't worth it for her to come back.

So when I wrote her an e-mail telling her not to come back unless she was 100% sure, I pretty much knew that she wasn't coming back.

But I wondered if she knew that I was seeing other people while she was gone. I wondered if she had been seeing other people as well.

I also wondered what I would have done if she had returned after all.

I would've had to make a choice, I suppose. What would I have chosen?

It's easy to say "Oh, I would've gone with Eve" or "I definitely would've picked Monique" but the truth of the matter is that I don't know what I would've done.

In all probability, I would've left town and hid for a spell.


*/*


I am very happy with the way things are going with Eve. She is my best friend, and I care about her deeply. And I know she cares for me.

When I fell in with Monique, it was when Eve and I were trying to be friends, keeping our distance from each other. Monique caused me to re-examine everything, but eventually it all comes back to one thing: who knows me the best?

The answer: Eve knows me the best.

The night that I told Eve about Monique and my other summer dalliances, Monique was writing me an e-mail for the first time in months. I saw it the next day, which was the day after my birthday.

Monique's e-mail was simple:


What's new? Late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I haven't checked emails in forever. Going to see the movie Hostel tonight. I will give a jingle sometime soon...

M


That was it. No way of knowing if she was seeing anyone, no way of knowing ANYTHING really.

I sent her a reply that said a whole lot of nothing, and after I sent it I suddenly had a sharp realization. To be sure of it, I went into my e-mail account's history and found an e-mail exchange between us in July:


I read a few of your entries in your blog before I started for the archives to see if anything was mentioned about me. Just wanted to hear what you thought. No such luck though, you've deleted them. Guess I'll never know. I now have something that interests me to keep me busy in my spare time -reading your blogs. Ha! Hope this doesn't disturb you since I am a loser probing into the mind of James.


And I thought, Oh fuck! You idiot! She's read the blog...


*/*


It's hard for me to keep up with who has read my blog. I tell everybody about it, and then I forget about who is reading it. And somewhere down the line, I make a reference to someone or something that is familiar to many, and I offend someone.

What concerns me about Monique reading my blog is not that she may have "caught" me confessing my sins, but that she had to find out this way.

I wrote about what I could write about, and knew very well that any number of people could become upset if they ever found this blog. I don't regret or apologize for anything I write here. That's why I deleted my old Archives-- there was a lot of stuff there that I didn't want to own anymore.

But everything here is owned by me (unless it's some quiz or a quote from elsewhere) and I will not shirk from the responsibility that comes with writing these things.

My defense is not an artistic one. I think it's a cop-out to say, "Hey, they're just words" or "It was meant to be fiction"... No, instead I defend my blog based upon my emotions when I am writing them out.

These are the things that are on my mind, and at the time I think each and every one of them is worthy to be published.

You don't know how many posts I haven't published. Some of them went too far, or regressed back to my primitive blogging days.

Am I holding back when I refrain from publishing a post, or if I change names or distort events for narrative effect? No, I am simply trying to master this form of writing. For so many years I wrote only for myself, and yet I always wrote as if someone was going to read my works.

Well, maybe I'm not an established author read worldwide, but if blogging has taught me anything in the past four years, it's that I was mistaken about writing as if someone was going to read me-- you only really start writing for other eyes when you get it out there somehow. Pretending to write for audience while you are safe at home with no intentions of publishing it is not the same as clicking that "publish" icon and waiting to see who says what.

Over the summer, I made an effort to not detail every little bit of information about my life, mostly because I didn't want my own words to hang me later on. But after a while, I started to like the decrease in personal investment. There was no pressure to write something introspective.

Before the blog, I would sometimes force myself to be reflective and it came out like a bunch of pretentious hooey. Then, when the blog came about, I thought I was going to be the most open writer ever, airing out my dirty laundry for all to see.

Now, there's a balance. This post is a bit of a tightrope walk, but it's not too much information either.


*/*


On Monday, I called Monique at her work-- I found the number online, despite the fact that it is in West Virginia. And I got her on the phone too. She sounded shocked to hear from me, and she didn't sound like she didn't want to hear from me. But there was also a distance in her voice.

I told her to call me on the weekend, when she wasn't working. She didn't call.

I think now that maybe she hasn't read this thing after all, and that maybe she is afraid to talk to me because she found someone else and doesn't want to hurt my feelings. But little does she know that finding out she has moved on is a great relief to me.

Whatever. I just didn't want to hurt her. And if she ever asks me if I intended to tell her about the other girls, I will be honest and say, "Yes-- but I was hoping you would've asked me about it instead of volunteering it."

All of this potential drama makes me wonder if I should just start another blog elsewhere, one that has no readers. But upon further thought, I realize that the whole point of blogging is to let people into your world somehow. A lot of bloggers are real good at keeping their private and blog lives separate, but not me. I take my inspiration from real life, and even though it is distorted on this blog it is still the main well from which I draw my ideas for posts.

If I wanted privacy, I'd go back to keeping a notebook again. But the exhibitionist in me wants to keep on blogging.

Therefore, I blog at my own risk. But it keeps things interesting.