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"Bukowski quote comes back and kicks man in the bum"

Here's a quote from my favourite Charles Bukowski poem:

"look, Mike, no man is
invincible.
some day
you'll be sent mad by
eyes like a child's crayon
drawing. you won't be
able to drink a glass of
water or walk across a
room. there will be the
walls and the sound of
the streets outside, and
you'll hear machineguns
and mortar shells. that'll
be when you want it and
can't have it."

And my god, did that ever happen to me this weekend. I met a girl a week or so ago, a friend of a friend of a friend. We went out as a group, but mostly I just talked, drank and danced with her. I don't know why I didn't pull her; I could have and should have, but I didn't. I went home thinking a cross between 'meh, always another night' and 'meh, plenty more where that came from'. But the next night I wrote about her in my not-quite-a-diary, not-quite-just-fiction notebook. The next night I wrote about her again. I could post the stuff I came up with here and you would all want to beat me to death with baseball bats; it was borderline love poetry - nothing wrong with that except that after a while it became more fluffy bullcrap than honest words.

This weekend we all went out together again. We were drinking in a mate's house beforehand, and she and I were talking, ignoring everyone else and saying silly, flirty things. We walked to the bus stop together, miles behind the others; her shoes didn't fit her properly so she had her arm in mine to stop herself falling over; and I had what can only be described as a semi. From walking along the freaking road. We got into the club and I waited with her in the queue for the cloakroom, and when she took off her jacket there were curves where I expected nothing, and I damn near fell over. We did clubby things. At some point I decided that my mate was trying to pull her, although he wasn't. I've never hit anybody in my life but I was ready to tear one of my best friends limb from limb. Long story short: I turned into a jealous, hormonal fifteen year old schoolboy. And then I tried to pull her, and it was the most excruciating and unmitigated disaster in the history of the world in space. She looked at me and stole everything: my charm, my words, my wit, my coordination, my ability to keep drool inside my mouth, my capacity for rational thought. I said stuff, each sentence more stupid than the last. At every opportunity I had to stop, I kept digging. By the end, my mouth was just opening and shutting stupidly, and she gave me a sad look and wandered off. By the end of the night she seemed to have forgiven me, but by then I was too bad-tempered to care.

'that'll be when you want it and can't have it', indeed.

I hate and love the way this girl has made me feel. I don't like the way I am consumed with violent jealousy towards my friends; but I do quite like sitting in the pub with a mate and knowing that, while he gormlessly sips his pint, I am planning his many dooms if he looks at her just one more time. I like waking up in the morning feeling sick; I don't like not being able to eat breakfast. I like smiling to myself a thousand times a day; I hate wincing at the memory of how comprehensively I dicked things up. I like having the thought of her distract me while I'm at work; but I wish she'd get out of my head and let me have lunch in peace.

Bah, stupid testosterone.

Congratulations unknown kernel! You've won 3 months of romantic glory and 9 months of torment.

Me, bitter and cynical. Never.

I pulled her last night. Just thought I should tell you since you were were all worrying about my close personal relationship with a packet of tissues. I think this makes me perfect and beyond any self doubt. 'N stuff: in a I'm dead cool sort of way.

I is perfict. Dults.

"nobody's perfect.... almost nobody"
-Lex Luthor, Superman The Movie

unknown kernel wrote:

> Fair enough. If I come across as a flawed idiot in this post then
> it's because I tried to write honestly about myself, and a big part
> of me is flawed idiot


I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone who isn't flawed. Only the truly stupid, insecure, and cowardly attempt to present themselves as perfect in any way.

The sagacious one wrote:
> He's going to make an origami women to love...

I tried, but the taxi driver said that I couldn't take a giant square of paper home with me.

Insane Bartender wrote:
> He tried to pull a bird. He failed. No sex, hence tissues. Not for
> life, just for now. And he got all angry and huffy about it. Yet says
> he's happy. See?

Fair enough. If I come across as a flawed idiot in this post then it's because I tried to write honestly about myself, and a big part of me is flawed idiot. I could have written it along the lines of "I met a fit bird, she totally fancies me, but I got totally drunk and she knocked me back", but I chose not to because it would have been rubbish; the truth of it is that I wasn't remotely drunk, I just panicked and made an almighty mess of it. And, yes, that made me angry and huffy, as it would do to most people.

As to why this should make me happy, well, for the past couple of years I've been not much more than indifferent to the girls I've gone out with, and yet now I meet one who can turn me into a gibbering train wreck with one look. Wanting and not having isn't always fun, and I'd much rather want AND have, but it's definitely made my life more interesting; and I'm happier living my life like this than as the emotionless man-machine that I have been lately.

Insane Bartender wrote:

> He tried to pull a bird. He failed. No sex, hence tissues.

I don't think it's worth crying about. Unless you mean he, no you can't be, surely not? He's going to make an origami women to love...

The sick puppy.

Validation?

hehe.

Why do I bother?
Because I'm bored at work and felt like it.
Same as everyone else, it's got nothing to do with wanting to appear clever or amusing - validation from internet strangers isn't something that figures high on my "Why I like me" list, strangely.