Over The Cap

It’s very chilly out today, and gray, and has been raining on and off, adding to the dampness. Trees look like gaunt figures with pointy, rigor-mortised limbs. The last of the "pretty" foliage has fallen from all the branches, and most of it is now that yellowy jaundice color, or burnt flaky brown. And getting soggy.

(Refer back to my first blog post about the migratory patterns of these leaves at this time of year...)

Yes, November is definitely in the chair. I know it should be no surprise. The weather the past several days was warm even for October’s good taste, but if ever there was any doubt, just look outside. He has taken the spot; October has long abdicated and November is in the middle of his grim, sometimes misunderstood tale.

(And I want no ‘rubbing in’ from those San Diegans out there. We KNOW. It’s ALWAYS sunny in a whale’s vagina.)

At any rate, if I’m looking to scapegoat anyone for the gravity and tone of this post, it may as well be the month, the wet gray mare he rode in on, and his chilly tale... And the tomb-like dampness of his breath.

I read something yesterday in a local newspaper. I can’t adequately call it a column, but a Q&A section devoted to the seedier, more taboo issues in love and relationships. People write in anonymously under special acronyms and ask "The Expert" for advice on things. Some concerns have been:

A girl weighing the evidence and ruling that her boyfriend may be fooling around with his best (male) friend and what that ‘might mean’.

Another had to do with a young, straight man wondering if it’s normal that he can only ejaculate with the aid of rectal stimulation.

...

I swear to you all, up and down, that was NOT me.

I read these mostly for entertainment, though the columnist does offer pearls of real wisdom from time to time. Browsing through the latest issue, I stopped at a man whom, enduring almost 20 years of little to no sexual contact with his wife, asked if he, if everyone, was entitled to an active sex-life.

The reply he got was that no one is actually entitled to that, that we all have the "freedom of consensual sexual expression" and that we need to "find, marry or rent a willing sex partner."

He then stated that unfortunately many would not find it, that some people are just unlucky or, in his own words, unfuckable.

You take these things for what they are, but those words stopped me dead, and made the room a bit colder. A recurring anxiety cropped up then that’s become difficult to shake.

Is it possible that some people are just destined to live unsatisfied, and unfulfilled, despite their best efforts? Are there just some people that are cosmically earmarked to live in some kind of social caste system; a serfdom that life oppresses onto them wherein upward mobility is impossible?

The context spans far beyond sex. (For the record, I in fact deem myself quite "fuckable.") There seems to be restrictions on everything; a predisposed salary cap.

They lose so others can win; they live poor, so others can have everything; they have their hearts broken repeatedly, so others can find their soul-mates; they are told no, and are continuously made an example of so others know just how good they have it.

It’s not something I want to believe. I want to be wrong. For the first time I actually savor the thought of being proved wrong.

Pounding my fists with desperate fury like a man under a frozen lake, I am constantly trying to break through this barrier. I don’t walk around with a sense of entitlement, but I believe I’m worth the complete extent of my happiness.

Like a white-knight on a spiritual quest or pilgrimage, I use every opportunity I can to prove myself. I fight hard to make my life all I imagined. I arm myself with ideals like chasing dreams, and trusting what my heart tells me. I am, as Paulo Coelho calls it in The Alchemist, "Writing my own personal legend."

But maybe I’m delusional. Out of time, and out of place, like a modern Don Quixote in rusty, antique armor and a bent lance about to lose what little he has left of something, making a pathetic fool of himself in the process.

Or, maybe it was just Friday, The 13th and this is just a lingering tale of horror November is weaving from his seat. One so frightening I can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. Such suspension of disbelief is paramount for any potent scary story.

Maybe it's just Early winter doldrums. That must be it..