My mom was my dad’s second wife. I met the daughter my dad disowned (because he told his third wife she “wasn’t his” when there’s obvious proof she is), the one from his first marriage, when she found me on the internet after ten+ years of looking for me. She told me some horrible stories like that he told Mary, her mom, that he was going to medical school, had a pager and scrubs, and went to class every day, but had been lying and never enrolled at the school.
My dad and my mom both did horrible things to me as a child. Never sexual abuse, but they had their own issues and paid very little attention to me, even when I acted out to specifically get it. My mom was on drugs. My dad was a workaholic. When they got divorced (I was 9 and my younger sister was 7) my dad fought a custody battle to get my sister and me, won, and then moved us away from my mom and blatantly ignored us.
Years later, my mom cried and apologized to me for not being able to be there for me; my dad’s response to me has always been one of “I never did anything wrong, why are you so fucked up?” I moved away in 2001, when I turned 18.
In 2006, his third wife’s parents went on a Caribbean cruise. They invited every child and grandchild (my stepmother has 4 and my dad has my sister and I) and their significant others except for me. I found out through facebook. My stepmom felt so much “guilt” at me not going that she and my dad paid for my trip, barely talked to me the whole week, and though she hugged me tight and promised she wouldn’t “forget” to call me the next time one of my grandparents died like she had earlier that year, we haven’t spoken. Her father died a few weeks after we got back.
Seven years ago, when I was about 19 years old, I started dating someone who was not only 33, but also my boss. He was also my boss at a retail establishment. I pursued him because I thought he was really cool and interesting, but things seemed off from the start. He, at first, would say that we weren’t really able to date but then he “gave into me” or something equally as awkward.
One of the first weird things happened when we were at the store waiting for a meeting to start. I was telling him about the one tattoo I had at the time, and he showed me the one on his arm. He talked about it a little and then started to tell me he had a tattoo on his ass. He described it in great detail, about how it was from a dare, etc, and I kept asking him if he was being serious. He continued to respond that he was, that he definitely had a tattoo on his ass but obviously couldn’t show it to me because we were at work.
But weeks later, when we were both naked together for the first time, I found he had no tattoo. He didn’t even bring it up, kind of pretended I was crazy when I said we had that conversation.
He spent most of our relationship telling me he did all these cool things like parties and late night poker games with his friends, but I know he was just playing Morrowind to the point where he could jump over buildings — we never actually went out anywhere and he would have had to have 36 hours in a day to accomplish everything he said he did. When we finally broke up, it happened in a fucked up way too: we were at his apartment and he asked me one morning if I still loved him. I said no, so he packed up everything I had at his place into a garbage bag, with no expression on his face. We got back to my place and he pulled my stuff out of the trunk and started crying like a petulant child.
“I hate you! No, please don’t leave me,” he said on the sidewalk, but I was so glad to be rid of him that I just went inside with my stuff. I changed his name in my address book to “DON’T PICK THIS UP” and tried to move on.
The next few months after that were pretty bad: he called me at all hours of the night; he showed up to my job (he was transferred to another store when they found out about him dating me) in a suit and tie at 9am and proceeded to tell me about how he was at an all night poker game with celebrities and that he was going fishing with his dad now; he sent my mom roses when he found out she was sick just to get contact with me again. There’s a lot more, but this is already so long. It was just a fuck ton of pathological lying and he would get mad when I called him out on it. But we did stop talking in October of that year.
On New Years Eve, he called and I didn’t pick up, but the message he left said pretty much that he wanted to apologize for everything he did to me. I never responded because that would have just started it all up again.
tl:dr: Seven years ago, I dated my boss who was 13 years older than me and a pathological liar.
Last year I didn’t do anything for Halloween, to be honest. I had to work and I dressed up in 80’s clothes and mouse ears (I was a mouse in 2006). It was a boring Halloween.
But this year I was determined to do something. And then I found out I had to work. Dan told me about some parties and I had a few friends who told me about some stuff that was going on late, but all of these ventures were pretty damn far away.
On the way to work, I noticed that people on the train were trying to guess the costume of a guy behind me. One kid said, “Are you a werewolf?” Someone asked if he was a cat, and when I turned around, it was someone dressed like Inuyasha. I told him I knew what he was, and he seemed sheepish. It was a great costume though!
I wore a long flowing skirt with a crazy pattern on it and a few sequins and a big scarf and red lipstick and said I was a gypsy. It cost me no money and it was pretty cute, so I felt good about that. Eric (Dr. Acula), my boss/friend/whatever you wanna call him at this point cuz either label isn’t quite right, was mentioning that he wasn’t doing anything so I was like, “Let’s go get a burger!” Dustin came up and met us at this really nice burger joint by work and we ate our fill and had a drink. Then a friend of ours named Danny showed up in his Peter Pan outfit and on rollerblades (like he always is). I said that we needed dessert so we rolled the fuck out of there.
There’s a CUPCAKE STORE by my work — I had no idea until yesterday — and get this, they’re open until midnight! After a short walk we made it there. We went in and it took us almost ten minutes to choose. They had like 20 kinds of cupcakes, no exaggeration, and a “build your own cupcake” option. I wanted to try the tiramisu cupcake, but Dustin doesn’t like it so I just got a pumpkin spice one and he got a peanut butter nutella cupcake. We split them. Eric got a crazy chocolate one and Danny got a chocolate chip cupcake with COOKIE DOUGH inside. It looked amazing.
And then we walked the streets for a bit, checking out the costumes. There were seriously more people dressed like Mario than anyone else. I guess it’s cool to be a geek this year. There were also a TON of people dressed as….bananas. I have no idea why. I saw a Raggedy Andy and Carmen Sandiego. Someone yelled “Jesus!” out of their car at Dustin but Dustin wasn’t in a costume. He just has really long hair.
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About As a poet, I feel like any photography I do will always be a reflection of the words I use. When I think, I think in words, not images, unlike visual artists. This site houses a minimalist dream log, my poetry including poems from You May Waltz To Your Doom In Sanguine Stained Shoes, my photography, and a blog with Let's Play related entries.
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