![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scat revisited and two stones
Aug. 4th, 2005 06:23 pmWarning: shit ahead. Hang up now if you don't wanna know.
Let's talk about the inevitable commingling of shit and relationships. If you ever have a relationship of any duration, and if you crap on a regular basis, then these two pieces of your life — your relationship and your need to take a crap — are going to overlap. How you and your sweetie-pie deal with this collision is a valid predictor of the success of your relationship.
I visited my friend EC in Albany last New Years. I flew up there and she met me at the airport and did not greet me but — and this is strange to me still — met me in the parking lot, smiled at me sardonically and wordlessly, and turned around and walked to her car, still unspeaking, expecting me to follow, which willy-nilly I did. She was trying to be silent and mysterious (really). She took me straight from the airport to a restaurant that was, at the time, priced beyond my means, and entertained two other friends there while mostly disregarding me. Then she took me to her home and I went straight to the bathroom since I had not relieved myself since leaving DC. Here the weirdness devolved to discomfort. Within two minutes EC began banging on the door. Hey I need in there she hollered at me. (I was thinking: I liked the silent and mysterious EC better.) I shifted very uncomfortably and said something to the effect of goddamn it please let me crap in peace.
A couple of days later near the end of my visit a similar episode transpired and this time she actually opened the bathroom door and yelled in at me to hurry up. When I came out she smiled mockingly. You spend a lot of time in the bathroom she said. You're like a girl.
I did what had to be done I said. It took the time it took. I looked at her matter of factly and she giggled.
HS, a former sweetie, used to complain about my bathroom habits too. The relationship did not last — if you can't shit, you can't carry on anything, not a relationship, not anything. It's easy to draw comparisons between the temperaments of EC and HS and now in my late thirties I think I am competent to avoid this kind of woman who would abrogate my quality shitting time. If a woman does not let you shit, she's not the woman for you, is what I have to say about the matter.
Day after New Years morning, before I left Albany, EC and I were outside smoking and she took out the remnants of a cigarette we had shared earlier. If you were more masculine you would have made me finish this before, she told me, holding up the cigarette. It was a funny thing to say. But I understood. She was angry at me. All of her strange behaviors meant she was angry at me for not being the ideal man whom she wanted.
One good buddy of mine, my pal Ed, used to become highly agitated every time I crapped near his vicinity. At his house or in mine, if I had to crap, he would exclaim with immense sarcasm how much I stank, and what an offense and an intrusion I had committed. He would groan and glance around him as if his world had come undone. No wonder you never get laid, Bourland, he said. You go over to some chick's house and take a SHIT! (Not true, any of that, but by then I had stopped sharing with Ed any matters of my romance life and most other details.) Even when Ed was a guest in my home and I went to some lengths to ensure his comfort, he complained loudly if I went to the bogs and crapped.
I don't know what else to say about pristine Ed who, I am guessing, shits marble. I haven't seen Ed in years.
To sum up: let a fellow crap in peace esp when he's a guest in your home, or if you're a guest in his, or if he has traveled far to visit you. It's just good manners.
Only EC, HS, and Ed have ever complained about my craps. I'm not on regular speaking terms with any of them anymore. I've known them since Syracuse, grad school, 1991. These were longterm and lifeshaping friendships but I think their dissolutions, while painful, were necessary.
**********
Some time back a woman gave me two stones. One she painted pink with a red heart, the other pale blue with a cicada on it and the number 2004 since that was the year the cicadas came and filled the air with their noise while we rode our bikes through Rock Creek. Our relationship ended and then our friendship ended, and maybe that was my fault. Make it all my fault if you want. I felt pretty bad about it at the time, and if I think about it too long then I get down on myself. So I don't think about it. But there were these two stones. One day in late summer I took the stones down into Klingle Valley and stood on the bridge over Rock Creek and held the stones in my hand and thought about her and the things we had talked about and done together. I am not exactly a praying man but I said a prayer then. I said I was sorry. Specifically I told her I was sorry. Maybe someone heard me but I don't think anyone was there to hear. I did not ask for forgiveness or for anything. I just said this stupid, little prayer and said my apology and I threw the stones off the bridge into the summer creek and the water covered them and they were gone.
Let's talk about the inevitable commingling of shit and relationships. If you ever have a relationship of any duration, and if you crap on a regular basis, then these two pieces of your life — your relationship and your need to take a crap — are going to overlap. How you and your sweetie-pie deal with this collision is a valid predictor of the success of your relationship.
I visited my friend EC in Albany last New Years. I flew up there and she met me at the airport and did not greet me but — and this is strange to me still — met me in the parking lot, smiled at me sardonically and wordlessly, and turned around and walked to her car, still unspeaking, expecting me to follow, which willy-nilly I did. She was trying to be silent and mysterious (really). She took me straight from the airport to a restaurant that was, at the time, priced beyond my means, and entertained two other friends there while mostly disregarding me. Then she took me to her home and I went straight to the bathroom since I had not relieved myself since leaving DC. Here the weirdness devolved to discomfort. Within two minutes EC began banging on the door. Hey I need in there she hollered at me. (I was thinking: I liked the silent and mysterious EC better.) I shifted very uncomfortably and said something to the effect of goddamn it please let me crap in peace.
A couple of days later near the end of my visit a similar episode transpired and this time she actually opened the bathroom door and yelled in at me to hurry up. When I came out she smiled mockingly. You spend a lot of time in the bathroom she said. You're like a girl.
I did what had to be done I said. It took the time it took. I looked at her matter of factly and she giggled.
HS, a former sweetie, used to complain about my bathroom habits too. The relationship did not last — if you can't shit, you can't carry on anything, not a relationship, not anything. It's easy to draw comparisons between the temperaments of EC and HS and now in my late thirties I think I am competent to avoid this kind of woman who would abrogate my quality shitting time. If a woman does not let you shit, she's not the woman for you, is what I have to say about the matter.
Day after New Years morning, before I left Albany, EC and I were outside smoking and she took out the remnants of a cigarette we had shared earlier. If you were more masculine you would have made me finish this before, she told me, holding up the cigarette. It was a funny thing to say. But I understood. She was angry at me. All of her strange behaviors meant she was angry at me for not being the ideal man whom she wanted.
One good buddy of mine, my pal Ed, used to become highly agitated every time I crapped near his vicinity. At his house or in mine, if I had to crap, he would exclaim with immense sarcasm how much I stank, and what an offense and an intrusion I had committed. He would groan and glance around him as if his world had come undone. No wonder you never get laid, Bourland, he said. You go over to some chick's house and take a SHIT! (Not true, any of that, but by then I had stopped sharing with Ed any matters of my romance life and most other details.) Even when Ed was a guest in my home and I went to some lengths to ensure his comfort, he complained loudly if I went to the bogs and crapped.
I don't know what else to say about pristine Ed who, I am guessing, shits marble. I haven't seen Ed in years.
To sum up: let a fellow crap in peace esp when he's a guest in your home, or if you're a guest in his, or if he has traveled far to visit you. It's just good manners.
Only EC, HS, and Ed have ever complained about my craps. I'm not on regular speaking terms with any of them anymore. I've known them since Syracuse, grad school, 1991. These were longterm and lifeshaping friendships but I think their dissolutions, while painful, were necessary.
**********
Some time back a woman gave me two stones. One she painted pink with a red heart, the other pale blue with a cicada on it and the number 2004 since that was the year the cicadas came and filled the air with their noise while we rode our bikes through Rock Creek. Our relationship ended and then our friendship ended, and maybe that was my fault. Make it all my fault if you want. I felt pretty bad about it at the time, and if I think about it too long then I get down on myself. So I don't think about it. But there were these two stones. One day in late summer I took the stones down into Klingle Valley and stood on the bridge over Rock Creek and held the stones in my hand and thought about her and the things we had talked about and done together. I am not exactly a praying man but I said a prayer then. I said I was sorry. Specifically I told her I was sorry. Maybe someone heard me but I don't think anyone was there to hear. I did not ask for forgiveness or for anything. I just said this stupid, little prayer and said my apology and I threw the stones off the bridge into the summer creek and the water covered them and they were gone.
