The Stalker

 

Face blurred to protect the innocent

I was looking through some of my old photos and I came across this one from 1968. I was a senior in high school and that is a photo of my girlfriend. Why did I have a girlfriend? Did I mention that it was 1968? Sure I had a crush on a certain boy at school, but If I wanted a social life, I needed a girlfriend. So this poor girl was my beard, even if she didn't know it. She certainly didn't suspect that I was gay. Well, not at first. We would go to the Forest Preserve parking lot and neck (That means kissing and such, for you youngsters). I would take her out every weekend to a movie, and in the summer to the stock car races at Soldier Field (This was before the Bears played there, so they didn't give a damn that cars were racing around the field). Anyway, after a bit I think she caught on that she was not going to get what she wanted from me. Other than French kisses in the Forest Preserve, she got nothing. She even guided my hand to her bra clasp once and I freaked out, "Oops, I have to get the car home. My dad said I had to get back by eleven..." So my girlfriend dumped me for another guy. You would have thought I'd be relieved to be free of the burden of hetero, high school responsibilities. I wasn't, I was pissed. Nobody dumps Alan. I then teamed up with her new boyfriend's old girlfriend, and one evening we stalked them. It was sick, and very sad. We followed them all around Tinley Park in my dad's giant station wagon. That, of course, was stupid because no girl in their right mind would think, 'Oh, he's stalking me with my new boyfriend's old girlfriend. He must love me. I must go back to him'.  No, it was just stupid. What did happen, was that I realized what I really wanted, and it wasn't her. Later that year I stalked the boy I had a crush on in high school...

Feeling Blue

 

Having lost thirty pounds over the last year and a half, I've found that my waist size has diminished with the weight. When I started the change in eating habits, my thirty eight inch pants were getting very tight on me. Now I am down to thirty six inches and those are a bit loose. So this got me thinking, didn't I have a pair of blue jeans I bought about ten years ago that I never wore? I did. I had bought a nice pair of Levi jeans without actually trying them on. When I did try them on at home, I found them to be tighter than a camel's ass in a sand storm (I had a better saying, but it was way too rude). So I put them away, hoping that one day I would get my weight under control and be able to use them. Those jeans sat at the bottom of my drawer for years. They even moved to Chicago with me. They were always there. Finally, now that they might actually fit me, I can't find them. I looked all over yesterday afternoon. In all my drawers, all my closets, and then looked in the basement where I stored all of Mark's old clothes. There were plenty of jeans and pants down there. All with twenty eight inch waists. Damn, Mark never could gain weight. We ate the same food, yet while I blew up like a dirigible, Mark stayed thin. Anyway, I could not find that nice pair of blue jeans. I sat down and thought long about that, and I kind of remember now. When I was donating a whole lot of stuff to charities, I pulled those jeans out of the drawer. I do remember thinking to myself that I would never be that skinny again. I'm pretty sure that I donated them to the Brown Elephant resale shop up on Clark Street, in the middle of that very gay neighborhood, Andersonville. Probably some young stud is walking around in my pants right now. Yes.... some young stud in my pants. A man can dream.

The Plan

 

David-Peggy-Alan-Susan-Gary-Nancy...

When we were kids, my dad would take us on many family road trips. Some were very special and fun, while others were kind of creepy. The trip to Springfield, Illinois was a combination of both. The motel where my dad squeezed all of us into just two rooms was fun. But only because of the swimming pool. I remember that I had to sleep on two of those luggage racks pushed together at night. The lake trips were always fun. Either when we stayed in a cottage on a small lake, or when we would go to Indiana Dunes on Lake Michigan. I loved the water. Just the ride in the car through strange towns and countryside was fun. Sometimes Dad would lose his temper and start cursing and telling us that he would stop the car and smack us. I don't remember him ever actually stopping the car. He usually swung blindly over the back of the front seat while we scattered to the farthest reaches of the car. One day trip Dad took us on was to a place called Mooseheart. All I remember is that there were buildings, it was on a hill overlooking a river, and that if Mom and Dad died that is where we would be living. 'What, Mom and Dad might die?' It freaked me out and I couldn't stop thinking about that. Also that I would have to be living with a bunch of orphan kids who I did not know. For a few years afterwards the thought would pop into my head that if anything ever happened, I'd be living at Mooseheart. I didn't want to live at Mooseheart. Didn't we have grandparents? Wouldn't they just love to have a bunch of kids living with them? After awhile, when I reached my teen years, I stopped worrying about living in an orphanage. I was a teenager and I knew how to take care of myself. I could live on my own. In my head I had it all planned out. Mom and Dad would be dead, but I'd be living in the house we always lived in. I'd have a job at the Jewel store, and at sixteen I'd buy a car. Oh, and my brothers and sisters would all be living at Mooseheart. I didn't say it was a good plan, or even fair. Just a plan.

No Pie For Alan

Mark used to accuse me of doing it on purpose. It used to piss him off quite a bit, telling me I did it just to make him pay. He was wrong.

Wednesday is my usual grocery shopping day. Yesterday I decided to go to a different store for a change. It was the store that had the apple slice pie my mom and I loved/love. So when I entered the store I scooted right on over to the bakery and asked the lady for the nice slice. The piece from the middle with the extra frosting on it. As I wandered through the store filling up my shopping cart, all I could think of was how good that piece of pie would be. Damn the diet, I needed some sugar! Through the store I went. Meat department, dairy, frozen foods, I even picked up two bottles of wine that was on sale. Cupcake chardonnay wine to go with my apple slice pie. God, I was drooling for that pie. I picked up some breath sticks for the dogs because their mouths smell like a sewer. More and more things I dropped into that basket. Finally I was ready to check out. I put it all on the counter with the piece of pie last so it wouldn't be crushed. I then reached for my wallet as the lady quickly passed each item over the scanner. And then I realized, I didn't have my wallet. I forgot my fucking wallet. Just an empty pocket with a bit of lint at the bottom. Son of a goddamned bitch, I did it again. I had even moved the wallet when I was picking my keys up off of the dining room table. I had it lined up next to my phone, on top of the keys so that I wouldn't forget. But I fucking forgot it! So no, I never did do that on purpose when I went shopping with Mark. It's just my nature that I always forget something when I walk out of the house. Sometimes it's my damn wallet.

Sock It To Me

 

My mom was always cold. I remember when I was a kid, in the winter she would stand in the corner of the living room where the heat register was. There she would soak up the hot blast of air that came up from the fuel oil fired furnace in the basement. So it was no surprise that when I used to go visit her every Wednesday over the last few years, her thermostat would be set to eighty degrees. Over on the sofa, Mom would be sitting there covered in a blanket. Still cold, always cold. And god help you if you fiddled with that thermostat. Mom could detect a half degree drop in temperature almost immediately. Unfortunately, I have inherited that trait. I don't turn my heat up to eighty degrees, only because my whole building is on one thermostat. I would roast my tenant, Dennis, alive. So I dress in layers during the day and at night sleep with my socks on. My feet are always cold and sometimes my fingers feel like frozen fish sticks. For this I have been mocked. "You sleep with your socks on? My feet would suffocate." Is what my friend Dennis told me. Sorry, but I need the warmth. Not too much warmth. After all, I left Florida for Chicago. Florida has way too much warmth (Not to mention bugs, humidity, hurricanes, and DeSantis). Even my mom wanted nothing to do with living in Florida. Despite that, I did sleep with my socks on when I lived in Florida. That air conditioning was brutal.