Ray Out & About

      So after a few people expressed interest in this (in blogs and PMs), I decided I’d try to write a blog about how I met my fiance with what wasn’t really so much a pick-up line, as it was a fumbling, first-thing-that-came-into-my-mind outburst. It’s a little lengthly and I tried to keep a lot of the details out of it to keep it concise, but I hope it’s still coherent. I also wrote a lot of it in stints over the past couple weeks (while my fiance was visiting) and finally got around to posting it today.

      It was late February in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and I was there as a result of being stationed in Great Lakes (commonly referred to as “Great Mistakes”), Illinois, a naval training station for new sailors. A friend and I were at a pool hall we frequented, not because either of us could really play pool, but because it was smoky and a little seedy and seemed to us like the kind of place “cool” people hung out.

      I first noticed her outside, amidst a gaggle of friends, as we approached the place. I couldn’t tell right away if she was good-looking or not, only that she was laughing - it was a giggle really - and I loved the way it sounded. Like she was really having fun, like she enjoyed being herself.

      When I finally got her attention in the pool hall, it was the same way. She gave me the impression that she was really happy, that she was comfortable in her own skin; she had good reason to be, I think. She was beautiful in a way that made you think of nature, whereas I was gaudy and still “trying to find myself” in a way that made you think of too much MTV. Later, she would confess to me that she was so interested in me because I was “different,” a comment which I never knew quite how to take. In retrospect, those were very avant-garde (see: pathetic) years for me, fashionably-speaking.

      I almost left the pool hall that night without saying a word to her, despite our mutual oogling. Outside, in what was a veritable blizzard (or seemed so to me as a native Californian), my friend chastised me from behind the doors of his locked sedan: “If you don’t go back in there and talk to her I’m not letting you in. She was eye-fucking you all night you idiot.”

      "Come on dude, let me in. It’s fucking cold."
      "Go back in there you pussy. What do you have to lose?"

      I was cold and wet and the “blizzard” was picking up in a way that made me think of the Abominable Snowman so I relented. I mean, what did I have to lose? (Aside from my balls, if I kept standing there in the freezing cold all night).

      When I walked back into the pool hall she and her friends regarded me and there was a moment where - full of utter, dear-in-the-headlights terror - I was prepared to bolt again, but I took a deep breath. One of her friends (who would later be known as “Charlotte,” a fat, loud-mouthed Danish girl of emphatic anti-American sentiment) whispered into her ear as I approached. I cleared my throat and spoke the words that will quite possibly go down in history as the worst pick-up line ever:

      “Hi. Do you speak English?”

She chuckled a little bit and it was the start of something great.

       -

      We exchanged numbers and it took nearly five weeks for us to finally go on a date. It was 2003, the day the United States invaded Iraq. We sat in an Applebee’s and watched in disbelief as the country carried out what President Bush called the “disarming of weapons of mass destruction” a topic which, despite its talking points, would’ve made for disastrous first-date dinner talk, especially with a German. I was actually in the military, after all.

      When it came time for dinner I ordered a coke and a big steak dinner, while she only had a small milkshake. It made me feel terribly American and it was the first sign that we were about to cross a huge cultural divide, my country with its gluttony and capitalism, hers with, well, the bratwurst and beer? God, I was clueless then.

      After dinner we hugged and what followed was a series of dates in Kenosha, Wisconsin in coffee shops and restaurant-chain eateries where we started to realize that despite our cultural differences, we agreed on a lot of things in life. I still remember our first kiss. We were sitting in her house mom’s Tahoe, looking out at the lake and staring at each other in oblique moonlight.

      “Can I ask you something and you won’t laugh?” I asked.
      “Ja. I promise.”
      “Is it okay to kiss you yet, on this date? I mean, in your country?”
      She laughed, but there was no meanness in it.
      “I was thinking: when is he gonna do it!?”

      So we kissed. It was the best kiss I’ve ever had. She did this thing with her eyes where the lashes fluttered. At first I thought it was something she learned from watching too many old romance movies, the way she kissed, but it was natural. She kissed me in a way that made me feel like she should’ve been the one in Casblanca. We got to know that Tahoe intimately during that summer. Once, after sex, with her cheeks ruddy and her eyes fluttering at me, she said, “It’s just like in your American movies.”
      “What is?”
      “Us. In the backseat with the windows fogged up. I always wanted to do this.”

       -

      What followed was the best seven months of my life. That summer in Wisconsin and Chicago was the last summer of my real youth. We went skinny dipping in the lake, in another au pair’s pool. We went to concerts in downtown Chicago and stayed at boutique hotels and went thrift store shopping. We were young and in love and when things got lost in translation, when she couldn’t figure out how to explain something in English, we’d shrug it off and be content with the fact that we loved one another and that was enough.

      
      September 2003, in Venice Beach, CA

       -

      Like all good things, it came to an end. By the end of the summer I had new orders to proceed to Ft. Gordon, Georgia for training. She had to return to Germany. We spent our last two weeks in September at my home in California, with my family and friends. At the airport in Chicago, where we said good-bye, we made love in a cheap hotel room. It was the only time I’ve ever made love to someone and it was a sad kind of lovemaking. In the morning I was so sad that I couldn’t cry. It didn’t hit me until I was in Georgia in my shitty barracks room, alone with old polaroids and a mix CD she’d made me for my birthday. I cried so hard.

      We had agreed that carrying on the relationship was not really possible. We were both pragmatists and mature enough to realize this, even then.

       -
We talked now and then on the telephone. Little by little we drifted apart. She had kissed a guy on New Year’s eve. I immersed myself in the Internet and became antisocial. At some point it broke down and we stopped talking altogether; I think she had moved to France by then. Sometime in April 2004 I started having sex with an older woman and that took my mind off of her for awhile. In May I moved to Sicily, Italy and began another sexual relationship with a young girl. Then one day, after listening to the mix CD, I decided to e-mail her. I never thought she’d respond.

      But she did. And she had left France and was going to school in Denmark. We talked on the phone and eventually she visited me; I even paid for the ticket, despite my philandering with several girls. We had a great time together, even after a year apart. She wouldn’t say “I love you” though, even when we were at the airport saying good-bye again. I’d told her I’d come to Germany for Christmas and visit her and meet her family. I didn’t. She didn’t talk to me for years.

       -

      So I moved on. I was in a relationship for a year and a half, but it was just terrible. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’d lie in bed wondering what she was doing at that exact moment in time. I tortured myself over what could’ve been if I had went to Germany. If I hadn’t been so immature, what could’ve been. I e-mailed her and waited. Sometimes I’d get a half-assed response. A few lines that let me know she was alive. Mostly I never got anything. I’d try to call her and I’d get a “THIS NUMBER HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED” message, only in Danish and making no fucking sense. That’s when I really stopped trying. There is nothing more soul-crushing than when you hear that mechanical bitch on the other end of the line telling you that you fucked up so bad that not even the number’s there anymore. And in a fucking language you don’t understand. It’s really just the worst.

       -

      Over the years I’d still get the mass e-mails though. I was there at the end of her e-mail list, maybe by accident, maybe not. They were perfunctory e-mails that everyone got, so it wasn’t anything for me to open the champagne over. It was still slightly reassuring. I latched onto hope where I could find it.

      It was 2006 when I spent a summer of total debauchery in Virginia Beach having what I will refer to as a “sexual awakening” (read: sex, nightclubs, alcoholic haze, sex, sex, sex). Somewhere at the end of that journey I picked up the phone and decided to call her because I thought it’d been long enough, hadn’t it? And wasn’t I over her by now? I had tried to prove that to myself in a lot of ways.

      She was shocked that it was me. It was a strange conversation, one that left me feeling slightly giddy. She still had the uncanny ability to give me butterflies. She was living in Bremen, Germany now, but moving to Montepellier, France for the ERASMUS programme. She was going on a date, just as I was calling, too. We had a conversation like this, exchanging tidbits about our lives over the last two years. We didn’t talk about our relationship or “love” or anything. I hung up feeling empty, but a week later I sent her a long, I-still-care-about-you e-mail. Her response went something like, “I care about you too, but I’m not waiting for you,” and “It took a long time to get over you and now I am and I’m happy.”

       -

      The following year I went on deployment for six months. There is a quote, by e.e. cummings - “for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)/ it’s always ourselves we find in the sea” - that best describes that time in my life. When you’re out at sea there is nothing but you and your thoughts chasing you around in your head. You have a lot of time to think about your life. You realize what is important. You regret. You dream. You yearn. You really find yourself and it’s not sappy or anything. It just is.

      She was the only person who kept in contact with me that year while I was out at sea. When you’re alone like that you really need a strong support base and she was it. She didn’t even realize it. We exchanged over a hundred e-mails during that time and sometimes she’d write me something romantic after one-too-many glasses of wine; I’d come back from a port city drunk out of my mind and do likewise. People are most honest when they are drunk. I know this.

      I started to teach myself German. As it neared the end of my deployment (October 2007) I started to get a little forward. I had the opportunity to take some vacation and I kept thinking about who I wanted to spend that time with. I had my family, but there was a chance that I could spend it with her. And well why not go there, without any presumption or expectation, as a friend? So I told her I wanted to see her and I told her that I’d been teaching myself German because, as I wrote, “it’s a sign of respect for one person to speak in another’s native language. I want to do that with you and your friends and your family. I think it’s important.”

      She nearly cried on the phone.

       -

      It was the first time I had ever been to Germany. I was the last one to get my luggage because I spent something like twenty minutes in the bathroom grooming myself after a grueling fourteen-hour flight. I hadn’t seen her in over three years. I had to try my best to look at least presentable.

      She shared a tiny three-bedroom flat with a girl and a guy. We ate fresh fruit at her small table and I took a shower and went to take a nap while she went to run errands. Halfway through my nap I woke up to the sensation of her body next to mine. I turned over and looked at her sleepily.

      “I was on my bicycle and I was halfway to the post office and then I realized: he is here. He is finally here. What am I doing?”
      She put her arms around me and we held each other hard and close for a long moment.
      “I came back as fast as I could to be with you.”

      We kissed and later we made love and everything between us was just beautiful. Everything finally felt right in my life.

       -

      
      us in 2008 August, in Pacific Beach, CA
      As I write this, Stefanie is tanning on the balcony. We are staying in a penthouse in Pacific Beach, California overlooking the ocean and everything does finally feel right in my life. She just received her bachelor’s and I just completed six years of service in the Armed Forces. She’s been visiting for three weeks and I begin classes in the fall. We have visited each other three different times since last October and every time was just wonderful. My family - but more particularly, my father - was ecstatic to know that she was back in my life again. When I first let my Dad know I was going to visit her that October, rather than my family, he reacted not with hurt, but with joy: “I’m so glad for you. You should definitely go and have a great time with her.”
      “Really? You’re not mad that I’m not coming home?”
      “We can see you in December. What’s important is that you see her again.”
      “Yeah, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up about anything. I just want to go there and have a good time and see her again.”
      “Then go. I always thought she was the one for you. Just so you know.”
      “You did?”
      “Ever since I met her. She’s a great girl, Raymond. Don’t screw this up.”
      “I know. She’s the only real lady I’ve ever met.”
      Later, when we went to visit my family in December Stefanie got more presents than I did. That was such bull! But at least it was a great sign that my family still loved her.

      When we originally split up, due to the distance, we always told one another that when we were both done with our mutual obligations - mine in the service, hers in university - that we’d try to reconnect and see if the pieces still fit. And despite all the years apart, like an old jigsaw puzzle, we still remember how to put the pieces back together. We fit now better than we ever have. We’re wiser, more mature, financially stable, and ready to take on life together.

      I sometimes look back and I am amazed that, after all these years, we managed to find each other again. It was frightening when I first decided to go to Germany to visit her after three years of minimal contact aside from that during my deployment. I had a lot of doubts in that period, even after I finally bought the plane ticket. I think I was most afraid that I’d get there and she’d be a completely different person than the one I had known and loved. And she was. And I would’ve never imagined that a person, as great as she was then, could become as great as she is now.

       -

      Next year she will move here and we will start a life together and, for the second time, I will know what it’s like to be young and in love. I used to think that I’d never find someone like her again or - what was worse - that I’d never find her again. When I’d go to bed at night, if I was feeling uneasy or restless, I would close my eyes and remember that summer we shared together: the smell of Wisconsin grass, the blue sky, and her eyes, green-and-blue like something underwater. I thought I’d never have that again.

      I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong.

       -

      Today we said good-bye to one another for what will hopefully be one of the last times. It was a good kind of good-bye, without sadness or doubt. It was the first good-bye that I’ve ever had with someone that I genuinely enjoyed, because it was the kind of thing that gave evidence to the certainty of our relationship. I am sad, sure, but my sadness is overwhelmed by my belief - and I’ve never been a romantic, even now, in spite of everything - that we will be together in the future.

      If you’ve read this far, I’d like to say thank you for taking your time to do so and I hope you enjoyed the story. I don’t think everyone believes in romances. In fact, it is my belief that a great deal of us do not, and maybe this is one of the reasons (coupled with today’s mores) so many relationships and marriages fail, but I hope that, after reading this, you will feel just a little bit more optimistic about the prospects of love. Thanks again.

So this blog is a little late, as I've known my girlfriend's birthday was coming up for some time.

Basically she MADE me the raddest birthday present ever, which was a book, entitled, "The Story of Raymond and Stefanie," which was a book/compilation of all our photos from 6 years ago (we have a very "fairytale" story, in terms of our relationship) and all the mail/e-mail coorespondence we've had, even in the time when we were not dating. It's a beautiful book and by the far the best present I've ever received.

HOWEVER! How can I top it?! - well, I want to make a stop-motion photography video, which is quite easy, but I've only got until Saturday (her birth day) to do it! I need IDEAS or PLOT on what exactly to do for the video. I was thinking maybe Lego Man & Woman fall in love sort of thing, or something like that, but I can't think!

Tl.NET, please help! - I was thinking at least a minute-long video, which will be about 600 photos, but I'm willing to do more if the idea is rad. Help!

returned a couple days ago from Germany where I spent an amazing two weeks with my girlfriend & had the opportunity to do some cool stuff. here are a few photos from our little frolic on the island Juist, in the North Sea. It's about 17 kilometers long and you can only get around by foot, bicycle, or horse-drawn carriage. enjoy. . .


strandkorbs by the sea
Flickr


more strandkorbs!
Flickr


sand dunes
Flickr


girlfriend in the wind
Flickr


north sea shrimp (nordsee-krab!)
Flickr

Dear Ray,
(and parenthetically - but not insignificantly! - "Happy End" tissue paper)

Oh, it's just an honor, is what it is. You cannot begin to imagine what kind of pessimism filled me right before you sat down. That dirty toilet seat! That stained porcelain! All that dirty, foreign pubic hair! I suppose that, after gorging on all that airline food and the free cocktails, it was fitting for you to have found that tissue, in the midst of mud-butt. It must have seemed, even, apropos to have found a thing as moist and soft and sweet as it.

You cannot begin to imagine what kind of dread filled me as we deplaned and your guts began to bubble in that familiar "bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbblurrrrrrg" manner they sometimes do after a Spicy Crunchwrap Supreme. But I knew that this would not be as simple as disposing of some fickle late-night snack. The shitty airline food and cheap liquor - coupled with your scorn for using airplane latrines - had given your lower intestines ample time to stew and made for a frightening combination. This was not just going to be some sputtering Mount St. Helen's - this was a veritable apocalypse, the runny, explosive equivalent of a Mount Vesuvius. (Need I really continue with the metaphor to illustrate just what was going to happen to yours truly, Your Ass?)

What a beautiful surprise it was then, as you pressed me against the "toilette" (as it is called in this country) and, as I began my long, helpless blubbering of shit, you noticed the strange-looking package at the edge of the shelf, wobbling there at the edge like an ungainly, out-crowd fat girl. You looked at it curiously, trying to decipher the strange writing, and groaned - between a gasp of breath and shit - "toiletten-papier?" You reached into it and withdrew a couple of moist sheets and the smell that accompanied their arrival took me back, way back, to the days when I was cared for properly: rinsed, patted, and powdered. Then you brought that "Happy End" tissue to me and it was all aloe Vera-scented heaven.

I had never been so clean before - not even when I was rinsed, patted, and powdered; not even when that red-haired fiend you call your Mother would kiss my cheeks gleefully and exclaim, "Isn't that the cutest tush eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevaaaaaaaaar?!" (Which was really quite humiliating for me, if you must know, which is why I would often retort with a "blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggb" and fart into her ugly face, or sometimes, when feeling especially devilish, I'd shit all over again). But I digress! This was not intended to be a letter of rebuke or nostalgia, but rather, a letter of gratitude - not, not to you, you mud-butting nitwit - to "Happy End" tissue paper.

Whoever you are, "Happy End" tissue paper, whoever brought you into this world, I thank you. I thank you for making my job - and life - cleaner, because let's be honest, between you and I, whenever I hear people say that they have "a lot of shit to deal with" at work, we both know they have no idea.

Rough translation is: "Happy End toilettenpapier: cause you never know when you'll be getting a rim-job."

I don't know why, but I feel so worried that when I get out of the navy in five months, I won't be able to find a job. I don't know why I feel this kind of terrible, gut-wrenching fear; what is there to be afraid of? why shouldn't I succeed? I have always succeeded when I really cared.

I've spent the last six years in a career for which I have no passion, but an intuitive and profound understanding of. Sometimes I dream about transistors, an army of them, standing on three legs and peering up at me from the carpet.

Why can I solve the most complex electronic problems, but when it comes to my life I am emasculated by. . by what?

I'm trying to build a portfolio as part of my application to the Berlin University of Arts and I really hope I can get in. Sometimes I see other people's work and I get to thinking that I'm really not that good, so then I get to thinking I should just give up. There is nothing so frighteningly monotonous as a life without passion.

Last night at the Atlantic I ran into a girl I used to fuck. I told her I had a serious girlfriend now, but we still flirted and danced together and she kept rubbing her pussy (which, parenthetically, is a very beautiful pussy) onto me the way girls do when they are either very drunk or horny or a combination of both.

I wanted to go back to her apartment and flop around inside of her like old times, but I kept reminding myself how much I loved my girlfriend so instead I just came back home with an imprint of her wet pussy on the crotch of my jeans.

And I can admit this without a single caveat: I tried to smell it, the moist stain of this girl I used to fuck.

You, my dear friend, are out of line.

I came home yesterday to find the apartment in a state of what can only be described as complete and utter shit. There was your laundry, empty bottles of beer, half-eaten chicken wings (go figure), two empty bottles of Crown Royal, two broken plates, dirty dishes and other miscellaneous crap, all of which gave me the distinct impression that, in my week-long absence, you had clearly decided to rent the living room out to the group of beach bums who inhabit 3rd Street.

To add insult to injury, when I entered my room and began unpacking I slowly realized that things seemed out of order. Really out of order. In fact, it appeared that you - or perhaps one of the bums? - had rifled through my dresser, both of my closets and my bathroom, only to discover that I didn't own any gaudy jewelery, wear Rockawear, and that no, there wasn't any Dax Wave & Groom in the medicine cabinet either. Why then, my African-American brother, did you feel compelled to ransack my things ala Hurricane-Katrina-looters style?

Then things got very confusing, because clearly someone had been in my living space, but everything - as far as I could tell - was still there.

But I was wrong.

It wasn't until later that I discovered just what you were looking for. It wasn't until after I had drank a twelve pack of Bud Light and ate two order of Domino's chicken kickers with extra spicy sauce and found myself on the toilet with the squirts and when I used the last two bits of toilet paper there was an instant of panic (had I run out?! no! there's another roll, my last, under the sink!), so I went to grab the last roll and - lo and behold! - it was not to be found.

You had robbed me! Of my last roll of toilet paper! At that instant I pitied you, to be imprisoned by your inherent blackness, your inescapable impoverishment, your need to steal and rob. So with my pants around my ankles, with my ass still wet and shitty, I got up and waddled to your bathroom to retrieve what was rightfully mine and -- there was my roll of toilet paper on the holder, in all its cardboard glory, barren and naked and raped! Whatever pity I had instantly vanished!

Now I am angry. Despite my obvious fear of you (you are big and black and there is a gun in your glovebox with a knack for coercion), I am infuriated. I am enraged. But I also realize that I am no match for you. I have seen your puissance - when those little Call of Duty 4 kids pique you, how you wave your gun at the television screen and inform them that you fucked their mothers last night, "little niggas." Yes, your young angry black male attitude unnerves me.

But man, this was my last roll of toilet paper. And I had the shits. Was it always like this? Were my rolls of toilet paper slowly, but surely, vanishing from under my sink and into your bathroom? How long has this been going on? I pay too much goddamn money for these rolls of toilet paper - they have ponies and butterflies on them for God's sake! Look, what I'm trying to say is, no more. No longer! Your toilet-paper-thieving days are over! Finito.

Sincerely,

Your Incensed Roommate



p.s. Did you really think I'd let you get away with this? I mean, I had to wipe my ass with something, didn't I? You can find your Kobe Bryant jersey in the garage, but I wouldn't recommend wearing it or putting it through the washer. On second thought, you should go ahead and wear it as-is you vile, inconsiderate fuck.

p.s.s. Don't forget who pays most of the rent asshole. READ: I MAKE MORE MONEY THAN YOU. A LOT MORE.

I recently had the opportunity (thanks to the U.S. Navy) to spend the 1st - 5th in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and at first I wanted to write about my experiences there (total intoxication and debauchery), but instead I've decided to post a few photos.

They aren't the usual tit-action photos (not that I didn't take tons of those, because believe me, when you have a telephoto lens, you're in big business), but rather, a compilation of interesting people and scenes I shot. I think that cities and experiences are best conveyed by the people in them, or by the vignettes that occur there, so I'm sorry in advance if you don't find them that interesting. Cheers nevertheless!


Where it all begins.

The Louisiana State Law.

What it's all about.

Bourbon Street at it's best.

Wish I was this guy.

I loved shooting the pimps.

Oh you middle-aged hens.

Love the Jesus-freaks.

Yes, it's a dude.

Robot men everywhere.

I was on the future scene in an upcoming documentary, "Mardi Gras."

He was holy.

I loved her "wings."

The city street.

The city street again!

The Governor Nichols Pier.

Our ship.

New Orleans at night.

From the ship's mast, a foggy night.

I went to the bar last night with a friend and my room mate.

A man works there who is the embodiment of an entire generation, restless with contempt because of these twenty-something socialites. I used to like going to the bar, all the social interaction, the conquest, but now it only depresses me.

I met a girl who looked as though she had been pretty once, but was now just fat and wore too much makeup. She told me she worked at this place where they make chocolate and there was that look on her face that priests get when they talk about sin.

I tried not to think of the correlation. I tried not to picture her doughy face smeared with chocolate, her fingers, like tiny Vienna sausages, clutching melted Heath bars, viscous and sweet and slowly killing her.

This same girl and her hot friend (why do they always do this?) tried to talk to us about God and existence and life-after-death.

It gave me an idea to write a story whose plot is driven by deathbed visions.

My friend drunk-drove us back to my apartment and then he and my room mate talked about women and knowing "the number" and I went to bed thinking about my girlfriend.

How she is beautiful and intelligent and speaks three different languages and we're going to move in together soon, so I should be happy, but I want to tell her I'm worried because although I really think she's the one for me, I can't stop thinking about fucking other women - about what their pussies look and taste like, about how they look spread-eagle or ass-up.

The brain prescribed to a twenty-something male is an endless series of porno clips.

I WAS JUST OC SPRAYED IN THE FACE ABOUT THREE HOURS AGO AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN SO MUCH PAIN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. THIS SHIT IS FUCKING INDESCRIBABLE.

IT WAS LIKE GETTING A HUGE MONEY-SHOT FROM SATAN.

SYRSLY.

FUCK THE MILITARY.