“I’m going to knock on your door to come cuddle with you,” he keeps saying.

He's also said I'm set in my ways? Well, I guess I am showed him. (Not that he ever really cared what if I showed him.)

You might be wondering: Who am I showing? Who said I was set in my ways? Chad and Heather's friend, Ike said it.

When did Ike say this? Why did he say this? You can't guess why? First off, and sad off, what he should have said was that I’ve been "stuck" in my ways. Capital letters STUCK.

Backing up...

A couple of weeks ago, maybe it was a more than a month ago, a new neighbor moved in near Chad and Heather and I. This all went down at the old place, as I am now in my new place.

Oh, and I also think that somewhere along the way I said I had some posts to catch up on. I’m now catching up.

Going back to backing up… I should also mention that time is starting to blur. I’m exhausted. The bags under my eyes have their own bags. All I know about time right now is not weeks, days, or months, but just pre-move and post-move. In other words, what you are about to read happened pre-move and right before my: I'm moving! That's it! epiphany.

Anyway, the new neighbor who moved in, she's a singer. There’s another story there, about the neighbor’s singing, and the first night Heather, Chad and I met her because of her singing. (Yet another post in the blog queue). Regardless, her singing is why, here on out, we're calling her Singer.

It’s also important to note that Singer is this total olive-skinned, So-Cal cutie type: dyed blonde hair, petite, great high-arched eyebrows, high cheek bones (the works), mixed with a bit of exotic, bad-girl edge. She's like a blonde Kim Kardashian—great stomach and tooshy and all. Not long after meeting Singer, Chad and Heather decide they want to fix Singer up with their friend Ike.

Ike and Singer? My first impression of them as a match? It's an explosive match to be made. I thought, if it hits, if they get together, it’ll be like setting a match to a sparkler. There will be the hot of the strike when the physical stuff starts. The courage of liquid and/or drugs will likely be involved to get things going. (They’d taken longer than expected to lift off.) Then the real fire will start and things will ignite like a flash.

But, because the flicker will be brightest at the beginning, as that kind of intense blaze doesn’t usually have staying power, when it comes time to stop playing with fire, and the haze of the alcohol (and other such mind-numbing and/or enhancing substances) wears off, and life and reality set in, they’ll burn each other out.

Like with a sparkler, the fire will get too close to their edges. That’s when it’ll be time for them to let go of each other, to throw water on it all, to run, to yell. Then they’ll dig some drama up. Then they’ll end it. Then they’ll go back to it again, end it again, go back again, end it, go, end! GO! YES! NO! END!

Everything they loved (or infatuated) about each other will sting their eyes like smoldering smoke. That’s just how it can be with sparklers. They’re beautiful, brilliant even, for a second. That is, right before you almost loose/blaze a finger off or poke/sear someone’s eye out. When people are like sparklers, the same thing happens: fire, smoke and tears. The 4th of July is always over when someone gets burned or slips on all the water that’s splashed out of the pool.

Is that a strong opinion about how a romantic exchange will go between two people I have no business taking bets on? Yes. Do I think I am right? Got no clue on this one. This isn’t my feeling, or a knowing. I’m basing this off of experience. Not my experience, but the experience of watching how it goes when two people, who both perpetually play with fire in life, get together. An explosion, a combustion, an implosion, a something, usually goes off or in and things get all dramatic and volatile as shit starts to go up in flames.

Or, Singer and Ike could get married and last 50 years. What do I know?

From what I’ve seen so far, though, Singer is a handful. And Ike, he is a bad boy, for sure. Well, some would say Ike is a male slut. I’d say he’s actually a good guy (and a slut). Ike is like those girls who hate to be alone and who want someone in their life so much that they will go with whomever is cute enough now. But, because Ike is a guy, he’s willing, even more willing than “those” girls, to keep his bed warm with a gal that’ll “pass” before he finds the one he’s really looking for.

It’s like what Chad has been saying all along: Some guys are born ready. Some guys get ready…

Ike was born ready. Ike was ready before he was born. He came out of the womb looking for trouble and women. Sadly, in my opinion (which is worth less than two cents), if Ike keeps spending his time with women who aren’t ready, who aren’t what he’s looking for, he’s going to keep mowing his through women and getting chewed up by them and/or he’s going to keep spitting them out.

More sad? Ike probably doesn’t even know what he is looking for, which is half the problem with most people. But that is of no matter. Since most boys like Ike, who are cute enough to keep getting into the trouble they look for, are sluts, they are never bothered enough by their own patterns to make a change. Why would they be bothered? They’re getting laid. That’s a man’s primal urge. Urge taken care of. Done.

Ah, to be a man.

Why do I think singer a handful? (Which is another opinion worth even less, but I do have my opinions.) Well, the post I’ve not gotten to, about how Heather and Chad and I met singer, will add to this, the definition of Singer’s handful-ness, but for starters we’ll just say that in the time I’ve known her she appears to be a bit of a man eater. Not the traditional kind, where the chick tries to devour a man because she’s just a bad-ass, high-maintenance chick from hell who blows through men and through every possession they can give her like wind blows through trees.

No, Singer is the kind of man eater who doesn’t know she is one. By the default of the lifestyle Singer leads, and how cute she is, and how young she is, she’s a killer. She’s ready for reckless with her life and with her heart and with the hearts of others—same as we all are ready to rumble wrong in our early twenties. But, Singer, the way she’s kicking off her twenties, she could give Heather a run for her money any day of the week. I haven’t figured out who is gonna live faster and die prettier. They’re pretty much skid for life-style skid right now. That’s not an opinion; those are the facts before me.

I know, I know. It sounds bad for me to say Singer is reckless. I know I also have no business comparing how Singer is choosing to live her life next to how Heather is choosing to live hers, especially because Heather is not just a neighbor (well, was a neighbor) but is one of my closest friends (which will probably also change now that I’ve moved.) But, let’s not forget that Heather kicked this year off with a drug and alcohol withdrawal seizure. Next, let’s throw it out there that the sadness/depression Heather said she felt because I was moving quickly subsided once she and Singer started hanging out regularly. (Which was right after the first night we met Singer.)

Another note to drop: Heather has not answered even one of my phone calls or texts in the two years we’ve lived next door to each other. Yet, in the weeks (now more than a month) that have passed, Heather has been all over Singer’s calls, texts, and door knocks.

Please do not mistake what I’ve just written as jealousy. It isn’t. That Singer and Heather have become all chummy and that I became unnecessary is just a fact. Here again, I’m not a jealous person. I do, however, know how to recognize that, in general, Singer is more useful to Heather than I ever could be in this Now, in Heather’s Now.

In Heather’s Now, Singer is a partner in crime. I am the voice of reason. Reason worked for Heather for a while, for a couple of weeks after her seizure, but that seizure was over a half a year ago. It’s time to drink and such again, even if Heather has to take care of the DUI that caused her to stop drinking cold turkey. Hell, it was time for Heather to drink again four weeks after the seizure.

Come on! A. who doesn’t want to drink when they have to go to DUI classes? B. We don’t arrive at a change because it is a reasonable change or because it is time in our life for changes that are reasonable. Nor does change happen because there is someone reasonable in our life showing us how to take some steps toward positive change.

We arrive at change when we have no choice. We change when we have to. Adapt or die.

Look, I didn’t move until I almost went crazy from the noise and the bad energy from the buttheads. I chose to adapt. No one could make that choice for me.

BTW, I have never been to DUI classes. But, I did drive one of my cousins to their DUI classes years ago, and this cousin would pound a six pack before class, then another 6 pack right after class. The class made my cousin want to drink more. That much I never forgot, even if it was almost 20 years ago.

After knowing Singer for only two days I had also learned that she had one boyfriend she was in love with (who screwed her over after he got out of prison) and another she was keeping around. (Chad says every guy is “in love” with the girl, whoever she is, when he is in the joint. Once he’s out, well… The guy Singer is keeping around? The non-jail guy? I felt bad for him. (I don’t feel bad for him now. We’ll get to that.)

My first impression led me to believe that this guy, this just Keeping-Him-Around guy, was beyond shredded for Singer. I felt bad for him because one day, when the three of us were hanging out, Heather and Singer and me, I heard Singer say to Keeping-Him-Around guy (on the phone), and I am trying to quote verbatim from memory, “Look. I am just bored with you. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I need time. Maybe later I’ll come around, but I’m going through some stuff right now and I just don’t want to hear from you. You need to give me space. Got it?!”

Singer had other choice words for Keeping-Him-Around guy, but it doesn’t matter now because Singer had broken up with him 3 more times after that break up. The final time that she broke up with Keeping-Him-Around guy, was when she and Ike finally got it together. Oh, and I don’t feel sorry for Keeping-Him-Around guy anymore because apparently he’s a cocaine user. And, he cheated on Singer. (Hmm? Another match that was lit like a bomb?)

I have to say it. I am so glad, and have even more respect for Watt, that Watt respected me enough to just let me go. Again, I may not have been with him long, but he’s still in my top 5 of guys for how awesome of a man he is. He couldn’t give me what I deserved. We both knew it. So, he let me go. Good man. (Still miss the bastard, though.)

On the meet-cute night, the night Chad and Heather had set up for Ike and Singer to meet, Ike decided to do what he always does when he gets a bit drunk. Ike flirted with me. Good idea? Well, Singer was standing just inside Chad and Heather’s kitchen, within earshot of Ike and me sitting outside in the shared patio, and Ike is telling me he’s going to ring my door bell later and come crawl into my bed to cuddle with me. You decide.

“You better nip that flirting in the bud this time, sweets. Your chance at tapping that (I pointed to Singer) is about to go down the drain if she hears you,” I said to Ike.

I know, you’d think I’d have a little more class in my communication style, and wouldn’t act like I am 20 and a dock-working-mouthy-bitch, but when you are trying to reason with a drunk person, who is also a lot younger than you, you lay it out. You use language they’ll hear.

Ike said, “I don’t care. Me and you. That’s what I want, Levan. I don't want her. I want you. You are so set in your ways. You’d be something to conquer.”

Chad is sitting outside with Ike and me and starts laughing. “He's so right, Levan,” Chad said. “You are set in your ways. He hit the nail on the head.”

“Yeah, yeah. Ya think I don’t know that?” I said. “Come on, here, guys. Ike didn't just hit the nail on the head. He built a cement foundation for the wood to put the nail into it and then hit it on the head. And you can both go to hell. Why do you think this moving thing is so scary for me?”

Then, Ike starts back up. “Come on, Levan. I'll love you. I'll give you foot massages every night. I'll treat you like a princess, a queen—” I laughed and interrupted him. “You’re so full of shit, Ike.”

“Shhh, me and you, Levan. You are so much sexier than her.” “That is true,” I said. “But you might want to take her on at some point, so you are going to need to keep your voice down.” “F… that!” Ike stammered. “I don't want her. I want you. Me and you, Levan.”
“You know, Ike, every time you come over and get a little drink in you, you always flirt with me because you know nothing will come of it.” Ike stands up, puts his hand to his heart, almost tips over (because he is that lit), then he swore. “I’m going to come cuddle with you! I’m going to come get you and cuddle. Admit it, Levan. I’m just too much of a risk for you—too much man.” “That’s right, babe. You are too much man for me.”

“But I can take your risk, Leven.” “But I can't take yours, Ike. I can't handle you. Remember? I’m too set in my ways.” Ike won’t give up. “But I can handle you. Come on! You already had your young guy. Try me on. I’m older.”

Yeah, Ike is a whole two years older than Watt, 28. What an experienced dinosaur Ike is.

“Seriously, Ike. Keep it down. Singer is going to hear you.” “Why do I want the young girl when I can have someone experienced and sexy like you?”

Did my ego like Ike flirting with me? I won’t bother answering that. Did my ego like that one of Chad’s other friends also wanted a stab at me? Answer still not necessary. Did I adore getting together with the best out of Chad’s friends at his and Heather’s wedding? Still obvious.

So, I did the polite thing. I didn’t tell Ike the real truth. I’m not ready for you because I am ready for the man in my life who doesn’t know people who have pot dealers, pill dealers, or any dealers, on speed dial. It’s also not in my fiber to be with a man who had become the second person, in less than two weeks, to mention some aspect of smoking, dropping, or using oxy, when before that I’d never even heard about oxy. So what if it was not Ike doing the oxy, but was his tattoo artist who had wigged out on oxy. So what if Ike was just reiterating the situation. That’s not my world. It never was.

Okay, it’s true, when I was younger me and my friends could crash on anyone’s living room floor without a blanket and use our shoe as a pillow. We all also starting smoking cigarettes insanely young because we wanted to be cool (that, too, was an 80s thing). But we managed not to get into the cocaine scene of the 80s, or any other intense fast living life-style. That’s what I am getting at.

In case you don’t know what “oxy” is, because I didn’t either, it is also referred to as OxyContin. On the street it’s called 'Oxycotton' and is, apparently, the drug du jour. OxyContin, taken in pill form, which is how it was intended to be used, is prescribed for pain, like for folks with cancer, or for others who have severe nerve damage, or even for those with sickle cell disease (among other things pain medication is prescribed for). It is a slow-release narcotic. Since the active ingredient in the drug is a morphine derivative, it is pretty much in the neighborhood of what’s found in Percodan.

Now, keep in mind, I am not an expert on drugs, or their descriptions. Thus, all the aforementioned information I’ve just given is summarized and may not be precise, as it is an amalgamation of the info I found on the Internet. My thing is, when I read on one Internet site that oxycotton (another way I saw it spelled/referred to), when bought on the street, can be crushed and then snorted, delivering a faster and intense high that is supposed to be better than heroin, and that is something close to what I heard Singer say on the first night I met her, and Ike is okay with dating someone who also has the word “oxy” in their vocabulary, there again, Ike may not be my type.

Oh, one small clarification: Singer didn’t talk about snorting oxy. No. She explained that it could be burned. Then, when a piece of tin foil was produced, which looked like it had oven grease on it (I was guessing that soot trail was the oxy), I’m not going to say how it showed up. I’ll just say that I announced that I had to go to the bathroom and then I went home and didn’t come back that night.

It’s all so sad. Tattoo people, like Ike, and Chad and Heather, are my people. I am not one of them, not really, as I only have one tiny, spiritually based tattoo that I got when I was 22, and it is hidden, hidden, hidden, but I love the tatted up. They're edgy artists at heart. But whether it is Heather saying it, or Ike, or Chad, or Singer, or other friend’s of Chad and Heathers, I’m a little out of my comfort zone when people are having a conversation that refers to drug use or which involves taking turns and saying, “When I was in jail…”

Phrases like: “No way, man. You’re screwed if you have on gang colors” and, “Have you ever done…?” are just a totally different neighborhood than the one I want to drive down. Various colors of the drug rainbow references should also be left to celebrity rehab reality TV shows, not conversations outside my kitchen window. ‘Nuf said.

My conversations with my friends are so different. My friends say things like: Let’s do a girl’s night. We need to get together to catch up over a glass of wine. I’ve been so busy, but I’d really love to do happy hour or grab a bite if we can fit it in. And, the word “jail” is just not one of the four-letter words that have frequented our lips.

Simply put, I want the guy who is like my girl friends. He only drinks it up on a week night every once in a while. He’s got to get up for work in the morning; weekday partying just isn’t conducive to a calm life. He drinks on the weekends. That’s in order. Sure. But, he orders a cab when he goes out with the boys. He can also be a situational alcoholic like me. That’s fine. He can drink his way through a tough month, like if he’s just moved, started a new job, and his dog has died. (If he just broke up with his boyfriend, that’s not going to work). But past tough, occasional situation(s), and using a glass of wine or a beer to relax after a hard day, I draw the line for alcohol abuse. My line on drug abuse is about 100 feet wide and a ga-tril-zil-billion feet long. Can’t do a guy like that.

I guess you could say I was 40 by the time I was 18. My twenties, as I’ve mentioned a lot, were a bit wild, but when you move out of your parents home at 18 years old, two weeks after you’ve graduated high school, and you start taking care of your own business (paying bills on time, making rent, setting up your good credit) by the time you are 40 you really are ready for someone else who has put the hard and fast living behind them.

Shoot, even when I was 18-20 years old, living in Lake Tahoe, and sneaking into casinos under age, I was mostly sneaking into those clubs to dance (and to meet boys). But I really did just dance all night. By the time I was going to move from Tahoe, to move in with the man who later became my ex-fiancé, every bartender from ever club I went to said a variation of the same thing to me, that I was one of the few locals who they never saw leaving with a tourist to slut it out. (Little did they know Jen’s older sister and I left w/ plenty of tourist to keep partying.) Still, it was later, when I was almost 20, that ex-fiancé who I had met in Lake Tahoe who was was the first man I offered all of me to.

So, pitter-pat had gone my ego. Thanks, Ike. Thanks for the extra ego nudge later when you gave it one last shot. “Levan, come on. You know you want to cuddle. There are millions of guppies in the sea but you are my marlin, the big catch.” This last ditch happened much later that night when my urge for a fake grilled-cheese sandwich hit and Ike saw my kitchen light go on. Heather, Singer, Ike and Chad were all still up partying and while Singer and Heather were inside Chad and Ike were outside smoking.

(I say fake grilled-cheese because I make my grilled-cheese sandwiches with almond cheese and with olive oil on the bread instead of butter, and I use 100% stone-ground whole wheat bread. Not the fattening delight of a real grilled-cheese on enriched white bread, but not bad.)

Even if, as I’d told Ike earlier (trying to help him out with Singer), that the sure way to a woman’s heart, which is to compliment the hell out of her and make her feel wanted, would always fail on me where he was concerned (because he has always been full of shit where I am concerned and doesn’t care in that way in reality), I thanked him for the way he made my ego swoon.

Ike has been asking me to “cuddle” since the first night I met him, that’s worth the kiss I blew him threw the kitchen window, when I said, “Good night, guys. I’m going to bed.” Chad laughed and teased Ike and said something to the affect of: You’re never going to break her down.

It was already 11:40 p.m. at that point, when Ike still wanted to cuddle. Even if I didn't have to work the next day it was way past my bed time. Of course, I had to wait another 30 minutes to get to sleep because the buttheads had decided to cause a commotion for 30 more minutes, but I went to bed with a full belly and a full ego that night.

BTW, it should be noted that my new neighbors, both the upstairs neighbor and the gay couple next door, are noisy, too. Am I okay with that? For now. They haven’t called me any names and it has all been normal living noise. Well, the gay guys were throwing a Thursday night party, and the music was thumping, but I overheard a great recipe for red potato salad and all the noise stopped, completely, at 15 minutes past 10:00 pm. Ahhh, adulthood.

What I’ve come up with, is that Ike was right. He is right. I have been set, stuck, in my ways. I said it again to Ava the other day. I created such a safety net out of my last apartment, because of the great neighborhood, the great rent, the great security the apartment had given me during four work layoffs and during the end and beginning of three major love relationships. But, just like Ava says, the bigger the building the harder it falls. The more I turned that apartment into my sanctuary, into my husband, my parent, my security, my comfort, my EVERYTHING, the more other things got crowded out and the harder it was to see that. In a way, I allowed that apartment to become my albatross. That’s not good.

But the building has come down, and all the walls I’ve had around me, blocking out the light, they’re gone. Life isn’t about hanging on. It’s about letting go.

I don’t want to create any more false illusions of safety for myself. I want to stop allowing physical things, such as an apartment, a handed down piece of furniture, or even a favorite blanket, that are supposed to be things of comfort, to become wearisome burdens, encumbrances that bog me down because I can’t let go. I don’t want to be an Ancient Mariner anymore.

I guess I’ve given up my stuck-ness. The feeling I had walking to the car the other day, the feeling I posted about in the “Nothing matters” blog post, where I am now starting to feel liberated, free, tells me I am on the right path.

Being set in my ways isn’t going to work. Being like a zoo animal, with a regular feeding and sleeping schedule, that’s still fine. That’s just good health. But being too willing to hang onto something that isn’t good for me, not being open enough to change, that’s not workable anymore.

It feels fabulous to allow the liberation of my being.

Get liberated. Feel the fabulous!