Lovability and Gracelessness

Lovability and Gracelessness 

A former girlfriend of mine, very dead and deceased and diseased, kept complaining to me via email and about me with our mutual friends. She (her name is Crazy Suzie) said I was coarse, crude, and uncouth. She thought by saying so she would ignite my temper and rekindle my attention, but she was wrong. I wondered if I was that bad as she alleged. If I really was, then why she was attracted to me in the first place. Her words were redolent with nastiness. She said she was giving me the same medicine I had dispensed to her. What a cheap and stupid bitch! I didn't know what in the world and why I took an interest in her in that month of January. Maybe I was unbearably lonely and desperate. You know, desperate men do desperate things. Going out with her, in retrospect, was an act of desperation. 

Since I don't believe I am coarse, crude, and uncouth, I've hit on women of all ages trying to prove my irresistible charm and lovability. Boy, was I right and Crazy Suzie was just dead wrong. I've made women chuckle and laugh with my wit, and delirious and delighted with my slippery, silver Cicero tongue; I've dazzled, amazed, astounded them with my "intellect" and "erudition"; and I've made them swoon at the sight of my sculpted physique. I am 64, but easily pass for 54, a result of having been going to the gym religiously for almost three years running now. In the last three months, three women, all of them far more attractive and financially solid than Crazy Suzie, have wanted me to be more than just a ship passing through the night. I am holding out for a better prospect. I am on the lookout for a really "deep harbor". 

I post everything I write in my blog. Crazy Suzie promptly fired a salvo of emails denouncing me after reading the above. I told you, the woman is crazy and bitchy. She never realizes bitchiness is a sign of weakness and gracefulness is a sign of strength and nobility. Hemingway, the Ernest, not the Margaux one (they are related, however), once famously said, "a real man, a man with courage and heart, must maintain grace under pressure; he wouldn't blink; he wouldn't yield to panic and pettiness." Crazy Suzie's penchant for tit for tat is a big turnoff and an indication of pettiness. She never seems to understand that I am an aspiring fiction writer (at a late age of 64!). Most, if not all, I write is stylized fiction and tongue-in-cheek narration. They are all lies to convey some truth, my personal version of truth, a truth that guides me, that makes sense to me. Okay, I confess, I made up the Hemingway's quote, but he did say something about grace under pressure. The phrase holds a mysterious mystique, an alluring attraction, a charming captivation to me, and has been a guiding light for me to go through life. Of course, I fall short constantly. I am often graceless and prone to anger and moodiness and homicidal thoughts. Only occasionally do I exhibit mental strength and emotional fortitude. I'm telling you, what I really hope is that what I write would make you laugh at first, and then later, maybe late at night when things calm down a bit and a stillness begins to descend and wash over you, you go back and reread what you have read earlier in the day---in the haste and hassle and harried and harrowing moments of your daily life--- and finally my words begin to sink slowly to the bottom of your soul and you recognize them for what they are, and your heart would break into pieces like mine already did and tears would arrive. In my heart of hearts, I hold an undying view that I am a lovable, loving man even if my lugubrious though limpid and lambent prose sounds cute and pretty and manufactured. Actually my prose is unfinished, unprocessed, unadorned, and very unsettling, at least to a sensitive soul, leaving an unforgettable fragrance and sillage. I am not saying that after you really experience and savor my prose for what it actually is, you would rush over and knock on my door and ask me if I know what cataglottism means because it is what you would like to do to me. No, ma'am. Not what I mean nor imply nor hope. I am too jaded now to conjure up such a scenario. There are certain realities that have hardened in me. I can't free myself from the curses that various vicious souls placed on me in times not long ago. These individuals are masters of the black, dark arts whose own pain made them cruel and stupid. Having said that, I am not suggesting that I am worthless. As the drunk master of free verse Bukowski exhorted the self-doubters, "Nobody can save you but yourself, and you're worth saving." If I sound uninhibited and yet hesitant, if I sound self-conflicting, then that's it. That's the really me speaking. Truth is not always a big, bright, polished diamond glittering in the afternoon sunlight or sparkling under neon lights at night. Sometimes it is a lazy stream of smoke snaking from a drunk's cigarette in a poorly lighted, damp, smoky bar. 

Morning has broken. There are no blackbirds singing in my neighborhood. There is just a humming of early morning traffic echoing off the streets down below. I need to get some repose. See you.