KEEP ALL HANDS AND FEET AWAY FROM THE GOOSE'S MOUTH

Email

Sit down. Hang out. This one's gonna be a doozy.

Ah. Ha ha. My life. I think I may have alluded to this fact in previous posts, but let's go ahead and spell it out in plain English: the last, mmmmmm...3.5 months have been the most trying of my entire life. I'm not in pain. I'm not in anguish. I'm not sick, for about the first time ever. My life certainly doesn't suck. But it's been more than stressful. There are things going on around me that I haven't talked about to anyone - not even my beloved roommates or family members - and I'm pretty excited for the day when they either don't exist or cease to weigh on me like I do now.

But here's the thing - I haven't dealt with any of these things very well within myself. I haven't processed my emotions. I haven't made an outlet. I haven't made "me" time. I've tried to ignore them or, worse yet, pretend that they don't exist and that the world is an eternally sunny place. It's not. That's not a bad thing; in fact, it's quite a good thing, because without the sour, the sweet just ain't as sweet, right? I'm a big believer in that. What has happened, though, is that I've gone back to being someone I really, really hate. Someone that I tried to leave behind when I left home for college. Someone I literally despise with every fiber of my being.

I have re-become The Great Accomodater (TM).

Who is TGA? Oh, you know this guy pretty well. Always smiling, even when he has damn good reason not to. Always offering his services, not only when people don't need them but when he doesn't have them to offer. Always the gentleman, even when he should be telling people to fuck the fuck off. I loathe this guy, and you do too. But mostly I loathe him because he gets walked all over. Why would I become this guy? Maybe it's a subconscious belief in karma, that if I just try to be Mother Theresa and make everyone happy that some metaphysical power source will come and make the Bad Men stop dancing. And what does an attitude like that lead to? Oh...yeah, I already said that up there...it leads to me getting walked all over.

It would literally take me several hands on which to count the number of people I've let saunter, sashay and jig over my pathetic little carcass the last few moons. I've acquiesced. I've bequeathed. I've done other giving words that involve the usage of the letter "Q" to the point where I've become the Nice Guy That Finishes Last. And Sweet Holy Jesus Christ in Heaven, am I tired of that. Not only am I tired of that, I'm too fucking good to be that guy. And I owe it to myself to walk the hell away from him.

Here's a perfect example of what a pussy I've become. Now on a Problem Scale of 1-10, "1" being a non-factor in my daily life and "10" being soul-shattering to the point it nearly makes me weep at the thought (and trust me, my Issues run all numerals right now), this Issue is about a "5", so it's a perfect reference point. Backstory: I'm going to be vague on purpose, as I'm not trying to embarrass anyone or get sued for libel, but suffice to say this person was someone I cared about enough to want to protect/appease/make happy. In a situation that was not only foreign to me but unfair and eventually a burden, I bent over backwards to accomodate their...well, let's call them "erratic"...wishes. As time went on I didn't get any of the relatively meager things I was asking for (which was not without a lack of trying, I must admit) but I without fail continued to support these wishes. At the time of my most recent idiocy, I had not spoken to this person in about three weeks.

So I see this person out one night, and at first everything seemed cool. No bad blood (as there was no reason for such), no animosity, no apparent friction. Splendid. Sensing the mood was...human...I attempted to engage in normal conversation a few times. Nothing deep, nothing graphic - some what have you been up to's, how have you been's, the whole nine. The conversation sucked, but me, being The Great Accomodator, figured the distance was because of something I said or did. Was I holding my fork wrong? Was the song in the background bringing up bad vibes? When I thought about it later that night I was worried, feeling that perhaps I wasn't nice enough or that I didn't show enough enthusiasm for the subject matter or, worse yet, that I showed too much. So what should I do? What did I do?

Heyo, that's right - I called to apologize.

I. Called. To apologize.

Fast forward to the next morning. As I begin to recall the night previous's events, I started to notice a trend. I was civil, collected, and normal. I asked questions because I legitimately wanted to know the answers to them. I was, in a word, genuine. The problem was not on my end. Where I was genuine, this other person was fake. When they answered my question it was in something of a halting manner, a tone that one usually reserves for a hyperactive five year-old that won't stop asking questions during a movie. Where I just wanted to make a mends and keep a touchy situation at a decidedly non-awkward level (a situation which, I must admit, I didn't fuck up in the first place), this person wanted to get away from me like I had leprosy or The Herpes (TM). But the kicker - and holy shit, the three of you who read this blog will love this - was when, not once but TWICE, this person looked at someone else in the room, referencing me, with a motherfucking eye roll. A roll of the eyes. Twice. And, as The Great Accomodator, do you know what I thought at the time?

"What did I do wrong?"

No no no, you can stop laughing...I'm dead to the bone serious. This is the fool that I have become. The guy that, in order to try to keep his guard up, lets it down completely. In that, I have contributed to a situation where, over the course of a few weeks, my private life has been turned into little less than a gossip column, speculation has been made to my sanity, I've been lied to, had lies told about me, and have, as I have detailed, been walked over like a rug. Sometimes perhaps with good friends involved. It's amazing, to think about people you don't know (and maybe a few that you do) talking about how pathetic you are.

But it's devastating to realize that they're right. That you have become pathetic. That you're the World's Last Bastion of Jackassery.

That ends now.

If there's one thing I've learned the hard way - a few times, I'm a little embarrassed to admit - it's that you ain't getting anywhere on the road of life just by trying to make other people happy. Sometimes it's not your goddamn job. Sometimes it's out of your goddamn control. And a lot of times the person just isn't goddamn worth it, if only because they'll let you squirm knowing that they owe you only a modicum of opportunity - a minute of thier time to get shit straight.

Fuck these people, that's what I say. Fuck 'em all. Life's too short to sit around worrying about everyone else's feelings all the time. I'm not saying this and other events have soured me on people; quite the contrary, in fact - they make you appreciate the people in your life who would never do such a thing that much more. I'm not saying I'll be less compassioante, less caring, or less willing to help someone out; I'm gonna just be more careful deciding who those people are. I'm going to be cutting out some people who drag me down or make things more difficult for me. I'm gonna make November/December '05 official Geoff Be Gettin' Introspective and Deconstructive Time (TM).

I hope I never have to say anything like this for the rest of my life, really, but for the next couple weeks, whoever you might be...be careful about the way you approach me. I'm not a violent person, I don't hold grudges, and I don't stay mad long. But I can be rather blunt and forthright and, frankly, there's not gonna be much of a honeymoon period where I'll be worried about outing or embarrassing someone. Don't be the one that ends up on the short end of that stick, because everyone's got their little locked-away secrets, and it's bad, bad news to go up against someone who just doesn't care and doesn't have anything to lose.

You all know the Don Henley song...

>>What did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go -
But...<< href="http://www.nowheresville.us/">here, so go figure.

--Remember a few months ago when I laid into PETA for being a terrorist organization? First of all, I'm pissed to have received not a SINGLE piece of hate mail for that - you people are g*ddamned lazy. But here's a great website that tracks nefarious organizations like PETA and tells you what they're really up to. Great read, great information, and they can back it up.

--Why are people so excited to see KING KONG? All the requisite film d*cuhes are freaking out in droves, thinking this is going to be the greatest thing ever. I'm not gonna see it, so I'm not gonna specualte as to whether or not it's going to be a good movie or not, but I think it says a lot about American film culture when so many losers (who think they know all there is to know about films but really know nothing) are so collectively agog over something so trivial.

Other movies I could care less about seeing this Holiday Season:

HARRY POTTER AND THE (INSERT THIRD INSTALLMENT SUBTITLE HERE BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL DON'T KNOW IT)
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
RENT (I hope the people who made this movie and the musical that spawned it choke to death, excluding Rosario Dawson, who is invited to marry me instead)
MATCH POINT (Woody Allen sucks)

And I'm sure a few others. JARHEAD was great, by the way.

--On the heels of movies, please please please go to CannedJam and read James's treatise on Serial Killer Movies - it's one of the funniest, most spot-on pieces I've ever read. Well done, Matarese.

--OK, so I'm a huge LAGUNA BEACH fan and I'm not afraid to admit it (and before you ask, I'm for LC, and Kristen sucks). That said...I have to talk about the episode where this Deiter kid had the benefit for the families whose houses got destroyed by the mudslide.

First of all, I don't want to make it seem like I'm coming down on the kids who did this fashion show/concert to raise money - it was a damn nice thing to do and, frankly, I'm not a good enough person to have even thought of comprehending doing something like that, much less in possession of the not-lazy gene required to actually put it into action. So Kudos on that end. However...I mean, ya'll realize it's f*cking Laguna Beach, right? That if you have a house there, it's not only for damn sure insured but you're not going to be begging in the street if something happens to it because you have enough money to live there in the first place, right? Wasn't there...I mean, c'mon, there's gotta be SOMETHING else...like, I don't know...anything else...that you can direct your enthusiasm towards?

"We're having a benefit for the Laguna Beach victims."

Just read that sentence a few times, and if you're not laughing your ass off by the third go-round, you're either dead or without a very basic sense of humor.

But then there's the Highest of the High Unintentional Comedy that is Talan singing. Wow. Wowee wow wow. This kid is currently persuing a music career in LA.

If you've seen it, you know what I mean, and if you haven't you need to see it. I suggest setting the volume very low, and you might want to, additionally, hide in a bunker in case of stray, shrapnel-like flat notes.

--I got to thinking the other day about how long it's been since I've been so excited about a girl that I assigned a song to her. Actually, it never happens like that - you get to that certain point with someone where you're all soupy about them or whatever and then BAM!, one day you hear a song and for the rest of your life you associate it with that Special Lady Friend (TM). Sometimes that song then becomes "Your Song" - actually, probably, most of the time. But isn't it weird what triggers such a thing?

The thought occured to me when I heard, randomly the other day, the first ever song that I associated with a girl I had a crush on - for whatever reason (I wracked my brain trying to think WHY this particular song made that particular impression but I couldn't) it happend to be "London" by Third Eye Blind.

(NOTE: I will NEVER apologize to anyone for liking Third Eye Blind. Apparently, in most social circles, being a guy and admitting to a fondness for this band is akin to admitting, "Yes, I like to watch male kiddie porn while reading Mein Kampf,", which is something I'll never understand and don't care to. Think I'm a p*ssy? F*ck you, I don't care.)

Anyway, after that I went back and plucked from my memory the songs I had applied to a few select females over the years, and here's what I came up with:

--"London", Third Eye Blind (I didn't even really like this girl that much, so I have no idea where this came from, but she was the first person to ever move me to orgasm without taking off a single piece of my clothing. It's a great story, and if you ever get to hear it that means I really, really like you. I think the fact that I can't remember the association is that I heard the song two years after the event happ...NO! Wait, I've got it! She was born in London! God, what a fantastic epiphone! That's never happened before in the middle of a post...)

--"Talk Tonight", Oasis (One of those that became "Our Song". It's amazing to think about how little I like her now and how much I complained about her at the time and then to consider that the good memories outweigh the bad like 75/25.)

--"Slide Away", Oasis (Another "Our Song". This one built up very slowly over a semester, then hit hard and was over in less than two months. But holy sh*t was it good while it lasted. Best nude body I have ever seen ever. Hands down. God college was great. And if you think you're noticing an Oasis pattern...well, there sort of was one, but it's over.)

--"She Will Be Loved", Maroon 5 (Hardcore heartbreak here, easily the worst I've experienced. Isn't it odd how fondly you look back on some of that stuff? If you had told me at the time that not only would I get over it within an acceptible amount of time but that I'd find myself better off for having gone through it, I would have punched you in the mouth and then cried while slightly drooling. You know when you do that, like you cry but your mouth hangs open and a little drool comes out? You know this thing?

Wow. No one can ruin a moment like I can.)

--"Cold Hard Bitch", Jet (Now this looks pretty bad, but trust me, there's a very positive connotation here. Aside from other qualities that I really dug, this girl had/has an amazing set of hips, so when we were kinda working through our thing that line "She was shakin' her hips/And that was all that I need" really stuck with me. That sound entirely superficial, and yeah, OK, it is, but I liked her well beyond that so just leave me to my memories.)

That last one was the most recent, and that was nearly two years ago. I've met girls that I've got on with since then, and quite well, but I guess not to a point where it was either emotionally impactful enough or during a point where I was listening to a lot of music. After a great mix CD the other night I'm in a pretty black and white Punk phase, so there's a chance that my next lucky infatuation gets associated with an All-American Classic like "C*nt-Kick My Crippled Mother and Sh*t On My Testes". Which is nice for everyone.

I'm curious to know what songs you've associated with certain girls in your lives, and beyond that I'm hypercurious to know what songs girls tag to guys. I'll leave you with that homework assignment - either leave a comment or email me. Until next time, I should just let it go -

But...